They had scarcely gained the waggons before the thunder and lightning
became incessant, and so loud as to be deafening. It appeared as if
they were in the very centre of the contending elements, and the wind
rose and blew with terrific force, while the rain poured down as if the
flood-gates of heaven were indeed opened. The lightning was so vivid,
that for the second that it lasted you could see the country round to
the horizon almost as clear as day; the next moment all was terrific
gloom accompanied by the stunning reports of the thunder, which caused
every article in the waggons, and the waggons themselves, to vibrate
from the concussion. A large tree, not fifty yards from the caravan,
was struck by the lightning, and came down with an appalling crash. The
Caffres had all roused up, and had sheltered themselves under the
waggons.
The Hottentots had also begun to move, but had not yet recovered their
senses--indeed, they were again stupified by the clamour of the
elements. The storm lasted about an hour, and then as suddenly it
cleared up again; the stars again made their appearance in the sky
above, and the red tinge of the horizon announced the approach of
daylight. When the storm ceased, our travellers, who had not taken off
their clothes, came out from their shelter, and met each other by the
side of the extinguished fire.
"Well," said Alexander, "I have been made wise on two points this night;
I now know what an African storm is, and also the roar of an African
lion. Have you heard if there is any mischief done, Bremen?" continued
Alexander to the Hottentot, who stood by.
"No, sir; but I am afraid it will take us a long while to collect the
cattle; they will be dispersed in all directions, and we may have lost
some of them. It will soon be daylight, and then we must set off after
them."
"Are those fellows quite sober now?"
"Yes, sir," replied Bremen, laughing; "water has washed all the liquor
out of them."
"Well, you may tell them, as a punishment, I shall stop their tobacco
for a week."
"Better not now, sir," said Bremen, thoughtfully; "the men don't like to
go further up the country, and they may be troublesome."
"I think so too," said Swinton; "you must recollect that the cask was
running out, and the temptation was too strong. I should overlook it
this time. Give them a severe reprimand, and let them off."
"I believe it will be the best way," replied Alexander; "not that I fear
their refusing to go on, for if they do, I will dismiss them, and go on
with the Caffres; they dare not go back by themselves, that is certain."
"Sir," said Bremen, "that is very true; but must not trust the Caffres
too much--Caffres always try to get guns and ammunition: Caffre king,
Hinza, very glad to get the waggons and what is in them: make him rich
man, and powerful man, with so many guns. Caffre king will not rob in
his own country, because he is afraid of the English; but if the
waggon's robbed, and you all killed in this country, which is not his,
then he make excuses, and say, `I know nothing about it.' Say that
their people do it, not his people."
"Bremen talks very sensibly," said the Major; "we must keep the
Hottentots as a check to the Caffres, and the Caffres as a check to the
Hottentots."
"That is our policy, depend upon it," replied Swinton.
"You are right, and we will do so; but the day is breaking; so, Bremen,
collect the people together to search for the cattle; and, Omrah, tell
Mahomed to come here."
"By the bye, Swinton," said Major Henderson, "those elephants' tusks
lying by the waggon remind me of a question I want to put to you:--In
Ceylon, where I have often hunted the elephant, they have no tusks; and
in India the tusks are not common, and in general very small. How do
you account for this variety?"
"It has been observed before; and it is but a fair surmise, that
Providence, ever attentive to the wants of the meanest animals, has
furnished such large tusks to the African elephant for the necessity
which requires them. In Ceylon there is plenty of grass, and an
abundant supply of water all the year round; and further, in Ceylon, the
elephant has no enemy to defend himself against. Here, in Africa, the
rivers are periodical torrents, which dry up, and the only means which
all elephant has of obtaining water during the dry season is to dig with
his tusks into the bed of the river, till he finds the water, which he
draws up with his trunk. Moreover, he has to defend himself against the
rhinoceros, which is a formidable antagonist, and often victorious. He
requires tusks also for his food in this country, for the elephant digs
up the mimosa here with his tusks, that he may feed upon the succulent
roots of the tree. Indeed, an elephant in Africa without his tusks
could not well exist."
"Thank you for your explanation, which appears very satisfactory and
conclusive; and now let us go to breakfast, for Mahomed, I perceive, is
ready, and Omrah has displayed our teacups, and is very busy blowing
into the spout of the teapot, a Bushman way of ascertaining if it is
stopped up. However, we must not expect to make a London footman out of
a `Child of the Desert.'"
"Where is his adversary and antagonist, the valiant Big Adam?"
"He was among those who indulged in the liquor yesterday afternoon, and
I believe was worse than any one of them. The little Bushman did not
fail to take advantage of his defenceless state, and has been torturing
him in every way he could imagine during the whole night. I saw him
pouring water into the Hottentot's mouth as he lay on his back with his
mouth wide open, till he nearly choked him. To get it down faster,
Omrah had taken the big tin funnel, and had inserted one end into his
mouth, which he filled till the water ran out; after that, he was trying
what he could do with fire, for he began putting hot embers between Big
Adam's toes; I dare say the fellow cannot walk to-day."
"I fear that some day he will kill Omrah, or do him some serious injury;
the boy must be cautioned," said Alexander.
"I am afraid it will be of no use, and Omrah must take his chance: he is
aware of Big Adam's enmity as well as you are, and is always on his
guard; but as for persuading him to leave off his tricks, or to
reconcile them to each other, it is impossible," said Swinton--"you
don't know a Bushman."
"Then pray tell us something about them," said the Major, "as soon as
you have finished that elephant-steak, which you appear to approve of.
Of what race are the Bushmen?"
"I will tell you when I have finished my breakfast," replied Swinton,
"and not before: if I begin to talk, you will eat all the steak, and
that won't do."
"I suspect that we shall not leave this to-day," said Alexander. "If,
as Bremen says, the cattle have strayed very far, it will be too late to
go in the afternoon, and to-morrow you recollect is Sunday, and that, we
have agreed, shall be kept as it ought to be."
"Very true," said the Major; "then we must make Swinton entertain us by
telling us more about the lions, for he had not finished when the storm
came on."
"No," replied Swinton; "I had a great deal more to say, and I shall be
very happy at any seasonable time, Major, to tell you what I know--but
not just now."
"My dear fellow," said the Major, putting another piece of
elephant-steak upon Swinton's plate, "pray don't entertain the idea that
I want you to talk on purpose that I may eat your share and my own too;
only ascribe my impatience to the true cause--the delight I have in
receiving instruction and amusement from you."
"Well, Swinton, you have extorted a compliment from the Major."
"Yes, and an extra allowance of steak, which is a better thing," replied
Swinton, laughing. "Now I have finished my breakfast, I will tell what
I know about Omrah's people.
"The Bushmen are originally a Hottentot race--of that I think there is
little doubt; but I believe they are a race of people produced by
circumstances, if I may use the expression. The Hottentot on the plains
lives a nomad life, pasturing and living upon his herds. The Bushman
may be considered as the Hottentot driven out of his fertile plains,
deprived of his cattle, and compelled to resort to the hills for his
safety and subsistence--in short, a Hill Hottentot: impelled by hunger
and by injuries he has committed depredations upon the property of
others until he has had a mark set upon him; his hand has been against
every man, and he has been hunted like a wild beast, and compelled to
hide himself in the caves of almost inaccessible rocks and hills.
"Thus, generation after generation, he has suffered privation and
hunger, till the race has dwindled down to the small size which it is at
present. Unable to contend against force, his only weapons have been
his cunning and his poisoned arrows, and with them he has obtained his
livelihood--or rather, it may be said, has contrived to support life,
and no more. There are, however, many races mixed up with the Bushmen;
for run-away slaves, brought from Madagascar, Malaya, and even those of
the mixed white breed, when they have committed murder or other penal
crimes have added to the race and incorporated themselves with them;
they are called the Children of the Desert, and they are literally
such."
"Have you seen much of them?"
"Yes, when I was in the Namaqua-land and in the Bechuana territory I saw
a great deal of them. I do not think that they are insensible to
kindness, and moreover, I believe that they may often be trusted; but
you run a great risk."
"Have they ever shown any gratitude?"
"Yes; when I have killed game for them, they have followed me on purpose
to show me the pools of water, without which we should have suffered
severely, if we had not perished. We were talking about lions; it is an
old-received opinion, that the jackal is the lion's provider; it would
be a more correct one to say that the lion is the Bushman's provider."
"Indeed!"
"I once asked a Bushman, `How do you live?' His reply was, `I live by
the lions.' I asked him to explain to me. He said, `I will show what I
do: I let the lions follow the game and kill it and eat it till they
have their bellies full, then I go up to where the lion is sitting down
by the carcass, and I go pretty near to him; I cry out, "What have you
got there, cannot you spare me some of it? Go away and let me have some
meat, or I'll do you some harm." Then I dance and jump about and shake
my skin-dress, and the lion looks at me, and he turns round and walks
away; he growls very much, but he don't stay, and then I eat the rest.'"
"And is that true?"
"Yes, I believe it, as I have had it confessed by many others. The fact
is, the lion is only dangerous when he is hungry--that is, if he is not
attacked; and if, as the Bushman said, the lion has eaten sufficiently,
probably not wishing to be disturbed, after his repast, by the presence
and shouts of the Bushman, the animal retires to some other spot. I was
informed that a very short time afterwards, this Bushman, who told me
what I have detailed to you, was killed by a lioness, when attempting to
drive it away from its prey by shouting as he was used to do. The fact
was, that he perceived a lioness devouring a wild horse, and went up to
her as usual; but he did not observe that she had her whelps with her:
he shouted; she growled savagely, and before he had time to retreat, she
sprang upon him and tore him to pieces."
"The lion does not prey upon men, then, although he destroys them?"
"Not generally; but the Namaqua people told me that, if a lion once
takes a fancy to men's flesh--and they do, after they have in their
hunger devoured one or two--they become doubly dangerous, as they will
leave all other game and hunt man only; but this I cannot vouch for
being the truth, although it is very probable."
"If we judge from analogy, it is," replied the Major. "The Bengal
tigers in India, it is well known, if they once taste human flesh,
prefer it to all other, and they are well known to the natives, who term
them men-eaters. Strange to say, it appears that human flesh is not
wholesome for them; for their skins become mangy after they have taken
to eating that alone. I have shot a `man-eater' from the back of an
elephant, and I found that the skin was not worth taking."
"The Namaquas," replied Swinton, "told me that a lion, once enamoured of
human flesh, would, in order to obtain it, so far overcome his caution,
that he would leap through a fire to seize a man. I once went to visit
a Namaqua chief, who had been severely wounded by a lion of this
description--a man-eater, as the Major terms them,--and he gave me the
following dreadful narrative, which certainly corroborates what they
assert of the lion who has once taken a fancy to human flesh.
"The chief told me that he had gone out with a party of his men to hunt:
they had guns, bow, and arrows, and assaguays. On the first day, as
they were pursuing an elephant, they came across some lions, who
attacked them, and they were obliged to save their lives by abandoning a
horse, which the lions devoured. They then made hiding places of thick
bushes by a pool, where they knew the elephant and rhinoceros would come
to drink.
"As they fired at a rhinoceros, a lion leaped into their enclosure, took
up one of the men in his mouth and carried him off, and all that they
afterwards could find of him the next day was one of the bones of his
leg. The next night, as they were sitting by a fire inside of their
enclosure of bushes, a lion came, seized one of the men, dragged him
through the fire, and tore out his back. One of the party fired, but
missed; upon which, the lion, dropping his dying victim, growled at the
men across the fire, and they durst not repeat the shot; the lion then
took up his prey in his mouth, and went off with it.
"Alarmed at such disasters, the Namaquas collected together in one
strong enclosure, and at night sent out one of the slaves for water. He
had no sooner reached the pool than he was seized by a lion; he called
in vain for help, but was dragged off through the woods, and the next
day his skull only was found, clean licked by the rough tongue of the
lion.
"Having now lost three men in three days, the chief and his whole party
turned out to hunt and destroy lions only. They followed the spoor or
track of the one which had taken the slave, and they soon found two
lions, one of which, the smallest, they shot; and then, having taken
their breakfast, they went after the other, and largest, which was
recognised as the one which had devoured the man.
"They followed the animal to a patch of reeds, where it had intrenched
itself; they set fire to the reeds and forced it out, and as it was
walking off it was severely wounded by one of the party, when it
immediately turned back, and, with a loud roar, charged right through
the smoke and the burning reeds. The monster dashed in among them and
seized the chief's brother by the back, tearing out his ribs and
exposing his lungs.
"The chief rushed to the assistance of his expiring brother; his gun
burnt priming. He dashed it down, and in his desperation seized the
lion by the tail. The lion let go the body, and turned upon the chief,
and with a stroke of his fore-paw tore a large piece of flesh off the
chief's arm; then struck him again and threw him on the ground. The
chief rose instantly, but the lion then seized him by the knee, threw
him down again, and there held him, mangling his left arm.
"Torn and bleeding, the chief in a feeble voice called to his men to
shoot the animal from behind, which was at last done with a ball which
passed through the lion's brain. After this destruction of four men in
four days, the hunting was given over; the body of the chief's brother
was buried, and the party went home, bearing with them their wounded
chief."
"Well, that is the most horrible lion-adventure I have yet heard," said
the Major. "Heaven preserve us from a man-eating lion!"
"It really has almost taken away my breath," said Alexander.
"Well, then, I will tell you one more amusing, and not so fatal in its
results; I was told it by a Bushman," said Swinton. "A Bushman was
following a herd of zebras, and had just succeeded in wounding one with
his arrow, when he discovered that he had been interfering with a lion,
who was also in chase of the same animals. As the lion appeared very
angry at this interference with his rights as lord of the manor, and
evidently inclined to punish the Bushman as a poacher upon his
preserves, the latter, perceiving a tree convenient, climbed up into it
as fast as he could. The lion allowed the herd of zebras to go away,
and turned his attention to the Bushman. He walked round and round the
tree, and every now and then he growled as he looked up at the Bushman.
"At last the lion lay down at the foot of the tree, and there he kept
watch all night. The Bushman kept watch also, but towards morning,
feeling very tired, he was overcome by sleep, and as he slept, he
dreamed, and what do you think that he dreamed?--he dreamed that he fell
from the tree into the jaws of the lion. Starting up in horror, from
the effects of his dream, he lost his hold, and falling from the branch,
down he came with all his weight right on the back of the lion. The
lion, so unexpectedly saluted, sprang up with a loud roar, tossing off
the Bushman, and running away as fast as he could; and the Bushman,
recovering his legs and his senses, also took to his heels in a
different direction; and thus were the `sleepers awakened,' and the
dream became true."
"Besiegers retreating and fort evacuated both at the same time," cried
the Major, laughing.
"Well, I think you have had enough of the lion now," said Swinton.
"No, we had quite enough of him last night, if you choose," replied
Alexander. "But your lions are not quite so near as he was."