On the Victoria Nyanza
Tom’s First Crocodile--Night on the Nyanza--In German Africa--A Storm on
the Lake--A Short Way with Hippos--Danger Ahead
Long before eight next morning Tom was down at the quay examining the
launch in which he was to begin his pursuit of the expedition. His
inspection made him feel rather unhappy.
"Why, she’s nothing but a crazy old tub," he said to himself ruefully.
"Planks half-rotten, rudder stiff, and looks as though she hadn’t seen
paint for an age. Lucky this isn’t open sea, for anything like dirty
weather would just about finish her ramshackle engines. Well, let’s
hope for the best."
He returned to the bungalow, where with Mbutu’s assistance he made his
final preparations. These were not elaborate. The padre had advised
him to travel as light as possible, taking merely a few articles of
underclothing and other necessaries, with the addition of a couple of
hundred beads and some yards of calico, the common articles of barter
and sale in the interior, in case he had to purchase food from the
natives during the final stage of his journey. Luckily there was a fair
stock of these in the bungalow. Tom had of course discarded his straw
hat long before, and now wore a white solah helmet, which could be
relied on to protect him from the mid-day sun. He had found an old
rifle of his uncle’s, and a case of cartridges, which he thought it
advisable to take. He ate a light breakfast of fried fowl capitally
prepared by the Indian, gravely acknowledged his salaam, and then,
giving Mbutu the baggage to carry, started for the quay.
The missionary was already on board, and steam was up, but there was no
sign of Mr. Barkworth. Tom wondered whether he had forgotten his
promise to see him off. Just as he was about to go on board, his genial
friend appeared in the distance, hurrying at a great pace towards the
quay, flourishing a red bandana. Tom was surprised, and secretly not a
little pleased, to see that Lilian was with her father.
"Here we are," cried the old gentleman, puffing and gasping as he came
up. "All on board, h’m? Got everything you want? Now, whatever you
do, don’t get your feet wet! And look here, here’s something I warrant
you’ve forgotten. Writing-paper, eh? Ink too. Let us know how you get
on. Any black ’ll carry a letter for you for a few beads. My girl will
have dragged me off to the ends of the earth long before you get back,
but remember we’re always home for Christmas. Glad to see you at the
Orchard, Winterslow, any time. Now, then, good luck to you, and God
save the King!"
Mr. Barkworth shoved a folding writing-case into Tom’s left hand,
gripped his right heartily, and waggled it up and down till he was
tired.
"Good-bye, Mr. Burnaby!" said Lilian, "and I do hope you will succeed."
Tom shook hands, lifted his hat, and stepped on board. The crazy engine
made a great fluster as it sent the screw round; the launch sheered off,
and Tom stood side by side with the padre, watching Mr. Barkworth waving
his hat and Lilian her handkerchief until they were out of sight. After
seeing that Mbutu was safe in the company of the native stoker, who
formed the whole crew of the little vessel, Tom placed a camp-stool
under the awning by the side of the missionary’s deck-chair near the
steering-wheel, and looked about him.
The launch was cutting its way slowly through the brown sluggish waters
of Kavirondo Bay. The shore was flat and uninteresting, part bare rock,
part rank marsh, spotted here and there with sacred ibises in their
beautiful black-and-white plumage. At several points along the bank Tom
saw a huge plant like an overgrown cabbage run to stalk, or rather to
many stalks, sticking out of a short swollen stem, like the arms of a
candelabra. This, the padre told him, was the candelabra euphorbia, a
plant of which the natives stood very much in dread, because its juice
was highly poisonous, and because it was so top-heavy and so loosely
rooted that in a high wind it frequently toppled over, with damaging
effect to anything that might be within its shade.
As they emerged from the bay into the open lake, the water changed its
brown to a deep and beautiful blue, and the shore became more
interesting. The lake here was fringed with a thick growth of
rushes--long smooth green stems crowned by a mop-head of countless green
filaments becoming ever finer and more silky towards the end. Amid the
vegetation appeared the forms of whale-headed storks with yellow eyes,
and gold-brown otters with white bellies darted in and out among the
rushes. There was a light wind off-shore, and Tom had a distant view of
many wild denizens of the lake country, which would otherwise have been
alarmed by the throb of the engines. His companion lent him a
field-glass, and for hours he revelled in the panorama of tropical life
that passed before his eyes. At one point he saw an antelope come down
a wooded slope to the edge of the water. What seemed to be a green
moss-covered log of wood lay almost hidden from the animal by the
bulging bank. The antelope had just put his fore-feet into the water
when the log moved, one end of it parted into two yawning jaws, and for
the first time in his life Tom saw a crocodile in its native element.
The trembling antelope started back, just escaped the snap of the huge
hungry jaws, and bounded back into the forest.
Tom could not resist the temptation to try a shot at the slimy reptile.
He took careful aim and fired. The crocodile slid off the
half-submerged sand-bank on which it was basking, and disappeared in the
water.
"Did I hit it, sir?" he asked eagerly.
"It is impossible to say. It may merely have been startled by the
report, and we could only make sure by waiting to see if its body
rises."
"And that, of course, we can’t do," said Tom with a sigh.
The launch sped on and on, steaming now her full seven knots. Tom
noticed that she was never very far from the land, and knowing, from his
look at the map overnight, that Bukumbi was almost in the centre of the
southern shore, he wondered why the padre did not steer a more westerly
course. He asked the question.
"Well," said the missionary, "it is partly custom and partly
superstition, I suspect. Everyone is shy of sailing directly across
from north to south or east to west. Many of our launches are hardly
tight craft, as you see, and a storm would be a very serious matter in
the open."
"But surely there are no storms on an inland lake?"
"There are indeed. The wind here sometimes lashes the water into waves
as high as any you can see on the English Channel. Gales have blown the
native dhows out into the open, and they have never returned. The
natives, too, will tell you that a huge monster inhabits the waters near
one of the many islands that stud the lake; there it lies in wait to
suck their craft down. I have never seen it myself," he added with a
smile, "but I once heard your Sir Harry Johnston say that he had looked
into the matter, and was rather inclined to believe that the monster was
a manatee."
Still they sailed on. After sixty miles or so they left British
territory and came into German East Africa, and soon the tropical forest
which had clothed the highlands sloping back from the shore, gave place
to more level grassland, some of which was evidently under cultivation.
The shore was indented in many narrow creeks, and in one of these Tom
saw a singular-looking canoe, at least fifty feet long, manned by a
dozen naked Baganda. The keel of this, the padre told him, was a single
tree-stem, the interior of which had been chipped out with axes and
burnt out with fire. When the keel was finished, holes were bored in it
at intervals with a red-hot iron spike; the planks for the sides were
similarly pierced; and then wattles made of the rind of the raphia palm
were passed through the holes, and planks and keel were literally sewn
together. All chinks and holes were then stopped with grease, and the
whole canoe, inside and out, was smeared with a coating of
vermilion-coloured clay. The prow projected some feet beyond the nose
of the boat, and sloped upwards from the water. The top of it, Tom
observed, was decorated with a pair of horns, and connected with the
beak by a rope from which hung a fringe of grass and filaments from the
banana-tree. When the occupants of the canoe caught sight of the White
Father, they struck their paddles into the water, and drove their
slender craft rapidly towards the launch. But the padre made signs that
he was in a great hurry and could not stop to speak to them, and after a
time they desisted and paddled back to the shore.
"Though I believe they could have overtaken us if they chose," said the
missionary. "I have known them propel their canoes at six or seven
miles an hour."
"Mr. Barkworth would call them fine fellows," remarked Tom with a smile.
"I always had an idea that the natives of these parts were a puny,
stunted set of people, but really those fellows in the canoe are
splendid specimens."
The sun set, and the moon rose, and still the launch panted along. At
last, when it was nearly ten o’clock, and the log showed close upon a
hundred miles, the padre ran the boat into a wide creek, where he
anchored for the night.
Tom looked weary and heavy-eyed when he greeted the missionary about six
o’clock next morning.
"Your wild neighbours are rather too much for me," he said. "I did not
sleep a wink till near daylight. Never in my life have I heard such
weird noises."
"And I slept like a top," said the padre, smiling. "What were the
noises that disturbed you?"
"Well, there was, for one thing, the squawk of the night-jar, which was
unmistakeable; then there was the croak of frogs, only this was louder
than our English frogs can manage, just like the sound of a gong beaten
slowly. But there was a curious chirping, like a lot of bells very much
out of tune jingling at a distance. What was that?"
"That was made by hundreds of cicadas in the reeds."
"Then an owl hooted, and some old lion set up a roar, and then again
there came a strange bark I never heard before; it began with a snap,
and rose higher and higher in pitch, till it became a miserable howl
that gave me the shivers."
"That was the jackal."
"An eerie brute," rejoined Tom. "One answered another until there was a
whole chorus of them at it, all trying to howl each other down. But
worst of all was a dreadful squeal, just like a baby in mortal pain. I
was dozing when I heard that; I became wide-awake with a start, and
jumped up, and then remembered where I was. It couldn’t have been a
baby, could it, Padre?"
"No; it was no doubt a monkey which had climbed down from the branches
of some mimosa, and found itself in the coils of a snake. You will get
used to that sort of thing if you spend many nights in Uganda. But now,
steam is up, I see; we must be off."
"There is one thing that has been puzzling me," said Tom. "Last night
you told me we were now in German East Africa. But how is it that you
have a French mission in German territory?"
"The explanation is simple. We were here before the Germans. This
great lake was discovered by your Captain Speke in 1858, you remember,
but it was not until Stanley came here in 1875 that the attention of
Europe was really called to Uganda. You have heard, no doubt, of
Stanley’s famous letter to the _Daily Telegraph_, asking for
missionaries to be sent out here?"
"I can’t say I have."
"Well, when Stanley came, he found the king, Mtesa, much perplexed about
religious matters, and he wrote a letter asking that English
missionaries might be sent out to evangelize the people. A friend of
Gordon’s, a Belgian named Linant de Bellefonds, happened to be here at
the time, and he volunteered to take Stanley’s letter to Europe by way
of the Nile. On the way, poor fellow, he was murdered by the Bari, who
threw his corpse on to the bank, where it lay rotting in the sun. An
expedition sent to punish the Bari found poor Bellefonds’ body, and on
removing his long knee-boots they discovered the letter tucked in
between boot and leg. It was sent to Gordon at Khartum, and thence to
England, and thus it came about that your Church of England mission
began its work in Uganda in 1877."
"But how did you come here?"
"Oh, our mission, as I told you the other night, was started by Cardinal
Lavigerie at Tanganyika. He thought that France should not be behind
England in good works, so he sent some of his White Fathers northward to
Uganda, and that is how we came to have a station at Bukumbi."
"What about the Germans, then?"
"After the missionary comes the trader. Your Joseph Thomson was the
first to prove what splendid commercial prospects Uganda presented, and
then, of course, there was a scramble. It would be too long a story to
tell you of treaties and schemes; of the fickleness and treachery of the
vicious King Mwanga; of Lugard and Gerald Portal and Sir Harry Johnston.
But in 1890 Central Africa was parcelled out among Britain and Germany
and the King of the Belgians, and you British, with your genius for
colonization, have really done wonderful things. I admire your success;
and there is one thing at least in which you and we are quite agreed--we
both detest slavery, and the slave knows that whether he flies to the
British trader’s bungalow or the mission-house of the White Fathers, he
is sure of protection."
The day passed uneventfully. Tom went down once or twice to relieve the
native at the engine, and after what the missionary had told him of the
storms that sometimes arose on the lake, he hoped more than ever that
the crazy machinery would be equal to the strain put upon it.
About seven in the evening the launch came to the mouth of the Bay of
Bukumbi. There was a good deal of sea running, and it took the Father,
with Tom’s assistance, more than half an hour before they found, in the
darkness, among the tall swishing reeds, a place where they could land.
The task was at length accomplished; leaving Mbutu and the stoker on
board, the padre and Tom went ashore, and met with a warm welcome from
the fathers at the station. They dined and slept at the mission-house,
and left early next morning, taking some fresh food on board. Father
Chevasse wished to make direct for the Sese Islands at the north-west of
the Nyanza, where the White Fathers had another station, but he found it
necessary to put in for fuel at Muanza, some two hours’ sail from
Bukumbi. While he went to visit an acquaintance there, Tom strolled
about the station, wondering at the bare and desolate appearance of its
surroundings. He learned afterwards that the Germans had cut down the
trees and burnt the villages within five miles of their fort--an
infallible specific for keeping the country quiet. As he sauntered
along he was half-startled, half-amused, to hear a native servant
addressing a young subaltern, evidently fresh from the Fatherland, in a
queer jargon of broken German. The effect was even more ludicrous than
the broken English of Kisumu.
Tom’s next impression was of a different kind. Turning into a narrow
thoroughfare off the main street, he came face to face with a German
captain in full uniform, swaggering along with elbows well stuck out,
and two inches of moustache stiffly perpendicular, militant and
aggressive. There was very little room to pass. The path was narrow;
on one side was a wall, on the other a muddy road very badly cut up by
cart-wheels. It was clearly an occasion for mutual concession. But the
German does not go to Africa to make concessions, Tom was obviously a
civilian, and, by all the rules of the German social system, beyond the
pale of military courtesy. To the German officer it was as if he were
not there. The captain came on with the rigid strut of an automaton,
taking it for granted that Tom would efface himself against the wall.
But he had failed to recognize that the civilian was not a German.
Seeing that a collision was inevitable, Tom conceded the utmost
consistent with self-respect, and stiffened his back for the rest.
There was a sharp jolt; the automaton, inflexibly rigid, swung round as
on a pivot, clutched vainly at Tom for support, and subsided into the
mud.
"Sorry, I’m sure," said Tom blandly. "Hope you’re not hurt. The path
is narrow."
White with anger, the German sprang to his feet, and, with the instinct
of one not long from Berlin, laid his hand on his sword. But the tall
figure walking unconcernedly on was unmistakeably that of an Englishman,
and the angry captain scowled ineffectually at Tom’s back, and made a
hasty toilet before starting to regain his bungalow by the
less-frequented thoroughfares.
The padre was vexed when Tom told him of the incident.
"It was Captain Stumpff," he said, "commandant of the German station at
Fort Bukoba near your frontier. He has no love for you English, and now
he will like you less than ever. Not that his friendship is worth much.
He is a boor, and a terror to the natives. The Germans are so much
hated that the natives about here call them Wa-daki, ’the men of wrath’,
and well they deserve the name. Even the Portuguese are mild by
comparison, and that is saying a good deal. Now as regards our journey,
as we have been delayed at Muanza longer than I anticipated, I propose
to steer straight across instead of hugging the shore. The weather is
fine, and we shall save time in that way."
The launch went ahead at full speed, passing within about half a mile of
the wooded island of Kome. Tom again found plenty of use for the
field-glass, watching the myriad water-fowl of all descriptions that
haunt the reedy shore of the lake. The air was beautifully clear, and if
his mission had been less urgent Tom would have dearly liked to explore
some of the creeks, fringed with tropical vegetation, that run up
seemingly for miles into the land.
Gradually, however, they left the shore behind, and in a few hours the
coast-line was but a hazy fringe on the horizon. They were by this time
well out on the Nyanza, and the padre noticed with concern that the sky
toward the north-east was assuming a leaden hue. The wind had freshened
from the same quarter; the surface of the lake was changing;
white-tipped waves came rolling up on the starboard side. In a few
minutes, as it seemed, the sky became black; and then, with a sudden
gust, a terrific storm of rain burst over the boat, drenching Tom and
the missionary to the skin. The wind blew with ever-increasing force,
sweeping the rain in sheets before it; the sea was being lashed to fury,
and big waves broke with a swish over the deck. It was all that the men
could do to keep their feet. Mbutu, perturbed both in body and mind,
clung desperately to the handrail of the companionway; the native stoker
was beside himself with terror, and in no condition to execute an order
even if he could hear it above the tumult of the gale. The padre,
wholly occupied with the wheel, shouted to Tom to keep an eye on the
engine. Creeping across the deck, Tom made the best of his way below,
with some difficulty closing the hatch above him. Just as he secured
the hatch, a huge sea broke over the vessel, carrying away deck-chair
and camp-stool, snapping the stanchions of the awning as though they
were match-wood, and sweeping the ruins into the sea, among them the
rifle which Tom had stood against the gunwale.
Having tumbled rather than run down the companion-way, Tom staggered to
the engine and examined the gauge. He thought it possible to crowd on a
little more steam, and as there was no chance of consulting the
missionary, on his own responsibility he flung more logs on the fire.
Meanwhile the boat was rolling and pitching terribly; every moment a
heavy thud resounded as a wave broke on the deck; and Tom could hear the
straining of the rudder as the missionary strove to keep the vessel’s
head to the wind.
The fight had gone on for an hour or more, when all at once the screw
ceased to revolve; there was an escape of steam; and Tom knew that what
he had for some time been dreading had at last occurred. The engine had
broken down. Reversing the lever he clambered on deck, and saw by the
expression in the padre’s face that he knew what had happened. The
downpour had ceased, but the wind was still blowing a furious gale, and,
with no way on the boat, the rudder was useless.
"What is to be done?" shouted Tom in the padre’s ear.
"Nothing. We are bound to drift; we are already driving towards the
shore. Heaven send we miss the rocks!"
Both men clung to the wheel, and watched anxiously as the launch,
shuddering under the waves that struck her in close succession, drew
nearer and nearer to the shore. Tom could already see the foaming
breakers rolling wildly against a huge rock that loomed up a hundred
yards ahead. A few seconds more, and he expected the keel to strike.
The missionary was alive to their imminent peril. Cutting loose a light
mast, he hurried with it to the port side, and just as a wave smote the
vessel on the other quarter, lifting it almost on to the rock, he thrust
out the mast and pushed with all his might. Tom gave a gasp of relief.
The vessel shaved the rock by a hand’s-breadth, and sped past. A second
later it was brought up with a sudden jerk, plunged forward a few yards,
and then came finally to a stop.
"We are on a sand-bank," cried the padre. "If the storm continues we
shall be broken up in half an hour."
"Can’t we do anything, sir?" asked Tom.
"Nothing but trust to Providence."
Happily, not many minutes after the launch had grounded, the wind began
to lull, and by the time it was dark had entirely fallen. With the
suddenness characteristic of storms on the Nyanza, the force of the
breakers rapidly diminished, the sky cleared, and the stars came out.
"I’m going down to see what’s wrong with the engine," said Tom, dripping
wet as he was. Fortunately he found a candle and dry matches. He
struck a light and crept into the machinery. Ten minutes’ examination
showed him that the strain had loosened the valve connecting the
steam-pipe with the cylinder, so that the pressure was inadequate to
move the piston-rod. He had sufficient experience to know that he could
repair it well enough to stand for a day or two. Coming out again he
ordered Mbutu and the stoker, now recovered from their fright, to bale
out the water that had shipped below; then he stripped off his clothes
and wrung them out, dressed himself again, and set about his task.
By this time it was eight o’clock in the evening. The padre, having
dried his clothes as well as he could, went below to see if he could
lend Tom a hand; Tom thanked him, but said he thought he could manage by
himself, and suggested that the missionary might order Mbutu to prepare
some supper. In about three hours Tom came on deck tired and dirty.
"It’s done, Father," he said. "The old thing’s patched at last. It
will stand till you get back to Port Florence, I think."
"Well done, Mr. Burnaby!" returned the padre. "It is wonderful good
luck that I had such a skilful engineer on board."
"Well, you see, I had some experience in Glasgow," said Tom modestly.
"And then the chief engineer on the _Peninsular_ showed me all over his
engines, and taught me a lot. Shall we fire up to-night?"
"No, I think we’ll lay by till morning and get what sleep we can. Then
I hope with the dawn we shall be able to run off the sand-bank. I have
made some cocoa, and I am sure you must be hungry."
Tom was so fatigued that as soon as he laid his head down after a good
meal he fell asleep. Five hours slipped by like twenty minutes, and
then he was awakened soon after daybreak by a loud snorting bellow that
seemed to shake the vessel. Bounding on deck he found the padre already
there, looking with dismay at a crowd of hippopotamuses sporting in
their lumbering way among the rushes. The animals appeared to have just
discovered the launch, and to have decided that it was an intruder into
their domains, to be summarily ejected, for one great bull lifted his
thick snout and, furiously bellowing, charged. The impact stove in a
plank just above water-line, and lifted the vessel half out of the
water. The stoker yelled with terror. Mbutu snatched up the mast that
had proved of such good service the day before, while the padre looked
anxious. There were no arms on board, and Tom bitterly regretted that
he had not left his rifle below instead of keeping it with him on deck.
Suddenly an idea struck him. Placing his hand on the funnel he found,
as he had hoped, that the engine-fire was alight. He ran below, picked
up a length of hose he had noticed coiled near one of the bunkers, fixed
one end to the exhaust-pipe, and hurried back to the deck, carrying the
nozzle end with him. Instructing the stoker to turn on the cock at a
signal, he went into the bows and saw the hippo preparing for a second
charge. Shouting to the stoker, he pointed the hose full at the eyes of
the gigantic beast; a stream of boiling water issued from it, and the
hippo, bellowing with pain, plunged off the bank with a force that shook
the vessel, and lumbered away. His companions watched him for a few
seconds with a look of dull amazement, and then, taking in the
situation, stampeded after him.
"The enemy retires in confusion," said Tom, laughing.
"A capital idea of yours," said the missionary. "I confess I was really
somewhat alarmed. After all, I believe the brute has helped us. I
fancy he shifted us a little off the bank. Put on the steam, and let us
see if we can move."
Tom went below and pressed the throttle. The vessel did not stir.
There was not sufficient depth of water. Hurrying on deck again he
asked the padre to push from the stern with the serviceable mast; and
after a few minutes’ hard shoving at various places, he had the
satisfaction of feeling the launch move an inch or two forward.
Returning below he started the engine, and ten minutes later the boat
slid off the sandbank into deep water. Fortunately no harm had been
done to the bottom. The engine worked well, though Tom did not venture
to put it at full speed after the strain of the previous day. Skirting
the western shore, the vessel passed Bukoba in the afternoon, and about
five o’clock arrived at the mouth of a river emerging into the lake
through dense forest.
"This is the Ruezi," said the padre. "The expedition has gone up this
river. I am glad, my dear boy, that in God’s providence I have been
able to bring you safely to this point, and I don’t forget how much we
all owe to your skill and presence of mind. Now I must land you here.
I can take you in until the water is shallow enough for you to wade
ashore. You will find a village half a mile or so inland, and your
future course must depend on what information you there obtain. I am
not very clear about the nature of the country, but the expedition will
have left very distinct traces. I need not say I wish you every success,
and on your return I shall hope to see more of you."
"Many thanks for all your kindness, Father!" said Tom, shaking hands
warmly. "I’ll look you up, never fear."
"Take my field-glass; you may find it useful," said the padre. "I have
already packed up some tea and a few other things for you, and Mbutu has
a couple of rugs; you will find nights in the open rather cold.
Good-bye, good-bye!"
The boy slipped overboard with the baggage, Tom following immediately.
They reached the shore after some trouble with the rushes, and Tom there
waved a final farewell to the missionary, whom the launch was already
bearing away northwards towards the Sese Islands.
At the same moment, out of a clump of elephant-grass some three hundred
yards up the river, came a long vermilion canoe manned by eight negroes.
In the stern sat a European in a green coat. Catching sight of the two
figures by the riverside he sprang up, appeared to hesitate, then gave a
sudden order. The canoe swung round, and barely a minute after it had
emerged from the rushes it disappeared again, rapidly moving under the
strokes of eight red paddles.
Not, however, before Mbutu’s sharp eyes had flashed a glance at it. He
uttered a low cry, and turned to Tom.
"Dago man, sah!"
"Where?" said Tom, wheeling landwards with a start.
"Ober dar, sah. Long canoe, dago man in green coat. Sah knock him
down."
"Nonsense! You can’t see clearly all that way. It must have been
someone else."
"Dago, sure nuff," returned the boy positively. "Mbutu know eyes, nose,
coat, kiboko, all berrah much."
"Ho, ho! So the dago is here, is he? Now I wonder what he is after.
He couldn’t have known we were coming, that’s certain. He must have
started before us--perhaps on the track of the expedition. Well, Mbutu,
we must find out what his game is. Did he see you, d’you think?"
"See Mbutu? Yes. Sah too. Dago see all much. Sah knock him down!"
"Well, I hope I shall not have to knock him down again. We must keep our
eyes open, Mbutu; remember, my uncle’s life in all probability depends
on our running no risks."
"All right, sah! Big sah, little sah, all same for one."