lasts but for a few days. It causes no withering nor gradual death of
leaves, no glow of red and gold such as we see at home, but exercises,
through its hot winds, such a destructive power that the leaves are
dried up like mown grass under the sun’s rays, and either fall to the
ground green, or crumble away on the stalk, so that the trees, with few
exceptions, assume their winter aspect with extreme suddenness. Over
the plains, on which, a few days before, the tall grass still waved
in the wind, dust clouds now whirl; in the partially or wholly dried
up water-courses and water-basins the ground gapes in deep cracks.
Everything that is pleasing vanishes; everything that is unpleasing
becomes painfully obtrusive: leaves and flowers, birds and butterflies
fade away, or migrate, or die; thorns, spines, and burs are left;
snakes, scorpions, and “tarantulas” have their heyday. Indescribable
heat by day and enervating sultriness by night make this season almost
unbearable, and against neither heat nor sultriness is there any
remedy. The torments are inconceivable to those who know nothing of
such weather, when the thermometer registers up to 122° Fahr. in the
shade;[38] when one is in a constant sweat, yet without being conscious
of it, so drying is the heat; when one cloud of dust after another
whirls up to heaven, or parching thirst weighs on one like lead. Nor
can anyone who has not groaned through these nights, when one tosses
on the couch, prevented by the sultriness from resting or sleeping,
adequately sympathize with the torments to which men and animals are
subjected at this season. Even the sky exchanges its hitherto but
rarely clouded blue for a dun colour, for the vapour often hides the
sun for half a day at a time, yet without diminishing the oppressive
heat; indeed the sultriness seems to increase when the horizon is
obscured by such mists. One day follows another without any refreshing
of body or soul. No cooling breeze from the north fans the forehead;
and the soul is not refreshed by any fragrance of flowers, or song of
birds, or enchanting pictures with bright colour and deep shade, such
as the flooding light of heaven elsewhere paints in the equatorial
regions. Everything living, everything coloured, everything poetical,
is gone, sunk into death-like sleep--too dismal to awaken any fancy.
Men and beasts seem to wither as the grass and leaves withered; and
like them many a man and many a beast sinks down for ever. In vain does
manly courage endeavour to bear up under the burden of these days: the
most resolute will give way to sighs and moans. Every piece of work
fatigues, even the lightest covering is too heavy, every movement is an
effort, every wound becomes a virulent sore.
But even this winter must at length yield to spring, yet the incoming
of this season also is terrible. For the same wind, which, in the
desert, becomes the simoom, raises its wings as herald of the spring.
It rages through the fissures in the ground, sweeps out more dust,
whirls it aloft in thick masses, and builds it into wall-like clouds,
which it drives roaring and howling through the land, and forces
through the latticed windows of the comfortable town-houses as well
as through the low doorways of the native huts, adding a new plague
to the existing torments. At last the wind gains complete mastery and
exerts its force without restraint, as though it would annihilate
everything that still resisted; but it is this same wind that, farther
south, piles up the clouds heavy with rain, and sweeps them towards
the scorched land. Soon it seems as if the sultriness began to grow
less oppressive as the wind gathered strength; it seems even as if
it sometimes blew no longer hotly but refreshingly. And this is no
deception; the spring is preparing for its coming, and on the wings of
the storm the rain-clouds are borne. In a short time, in the south,
they darken the dome of heaven; in a few days quivering flashes lighten
the dull cloud-banks; in a few weeks the distant thunder heralds the
life-giving rain.
Then all the streams from the south rise and surge and overflow. They
are scarcely yet turbid, but they have life now; they continue to rise,
and through all the deeper rents and fissures of their muddy banks the
life-giving moisture is diffused into the adjacent country. The birds
of passage begin to appear, and day by day their numbers increase. To
the lands of the Upper Nile the storks return to take possession of
their old nests on the conical straw huts of the natives, and with them
comes the sacred ibis to perform to-day the duty which has been his for
thousands of years,--to be the messenger and herald assuring all that
the old Nile-god will again open the fountain of his mercy, and pour
forth his horn of blessing on the lands which own his sway.
At length the first thunder-storm draws near. Sultriness more painful
than ever oppresses the dead, scorched land. An eerie stillness fills
man and beast with uneasiness. Every song, nay, almost every voice of
birds is hushed, and they hide themselves amid the thickest foliage of
the evergreens. In the camp of the nomad herdsmen, in the village,
in the town, all life seems as if under a spell. The dogs, usually
so lively, slink quietly away to some safe hiding-place; the other
domestic animals become uneasy or else wild, the horses have to be
hobbled, and the cattle are driven into the pen. In town, the merchant
closes his stall, the artisan his workshop, the officials their divan;
everyone takes refuge at home. And yet not a breeze stirs the air;
there is not a rustle among the leaves of the few trees which still
have foliage. But everyone knows that the storm is gathering and is
drawing near.
In the south is built up a great wall of cloud, dark and at the same
time lurid, like the fire-cloud over a burning town or over a forest in
flames. Fiery red, purple, dark red, and brown, dull yellow, deep blue,
and black seem to move in a dance of colour; they mingle and separate;
they fade into the darkness and appear again in vivid prominence. The
great cloud-bank rests upon the earth and reaches up to the heavens;
now it seems to stand still, and now it rushes on like a tempest;
from minute to minute it narrows the range of vision; more and more
completely it throws an impenetrable shroud over all. A whistling,
hissing sound issues from it, but around the observer all is still,
quiet, and noiseless.
Then suddenly a brief and violent blast of wind bursts forth. Strong
trees bend before it like weak reeds; the slender palms bow down their
crowns. With ever-increasing rapidity one blast follows another; the
wind becomes a tempest, and the tempest a hurricane, raging with
unexampled fury. Its noise is so terrible that the spoken word does
not reach the speaker’s ear; every other sound is drowned and lost.
It rages and roars, blusters and hisses, pipes and howls, rumbles and
rattles, in the air, along the ground, among the tops of the trees, as
if all the elements were in battle, as if the heavens were falling, as
if the very foundations of the earth itself were being shattered. The
irresistible storm dashes against the trees, and tears off half of the
leaves, if there are any left; while stems as thick as a man’s waist
are snapped like brittle glass. Breaking off the crowns, the hurricane
whirls them like light balls over the plain, and buries them head
downwards in the loose earth or sand, with the miserable fragment of
trunk sticking up, a prey to the destructive termites.[39] Hungrily
the wind rushes through the clefts and fissures of the earth, sweeps
out dust, sand, and gravel, hurls this even into the clouds, and bears
it onwards with such force that it recoils stinging and rattling from
hard surfaces. With this dust the tempest hides the heavens and covers
the earth, and turns the day into dread night, while the anxious
inhabitants in their dust-filled houses light lanterns to gain what
encouragement and consolation they may from the sight of living flame.
But even the roaring hurricane may be out-roared. The crashing,
rumbling thunder is yet more mighty; it drowns the howling and
bellowing of the wind. The clouds of dust are still too thick to allow
the lightning flashes to be seen; but soon to the confusion of sounds
and noises a hitherto unheard rattling is added, and the unnatural
night begins to be relieved by gleams of light. It seems as if heavy
hailstones were rattling down, but they are only rain-drops which bear
with them in falling the up-whirled dust and sand. Now the flashes are
seen. One follows so quickly upon another that we are forced to close
our dazzled, well-nigh blinded, eyes, and to follow the storm only
by listening to the uninterrupted roll of the thunder. The downpour
becomes a cloud-burst; from the hills the water rushes down everywhere
in streams; in the hollows it forms lakes; in the valleys there are
rivers in flood. For hours the downpour continues, but with the coming
of the rain the tempest abates, and a fresh cooling breeze refreshes
man and beast and plant. Gradually the flashes become fewer and the
peals of thunder less violent, the rain-spout becomes a shower, and
this ends in a gentle drizzle; the sky clears, the clouds scatter,
and the sun breaks forth in splendour. Mirthfully the brown children,
naked as they were born, run out from the houses and huts to bathe in
the pools which the spring rain has filled; and not less gladly do
the reptiles, amphibians, and fishes rise from their muddy beds. Even
the first night after the rain one hears everywhere the clear, loud
voice of a little frog, of whom one saw nothing before, for he, like
some of the crocodiles, many turtles, and all the fishes, had sought
winter-quarters deep in the mud bottom of the periodically dried-up
lakes, and had just been awakened by the first spring rain.[40]
Everywhere the newly-awakened life arises in strength. The thirsty
earth eagerly sucks in the moisture which has been bestowed upon her;
but after a few days the heavens again open their flood-gates and a
fresh supply of rain awakens any germs which are still slumbering. A
second thunder-storm causes the buds to burst on all the trees which
shed their leaves, and liberates the sprouting grasses from the ground.
A third downpour of rain calls forth blossoms and flowers, and clothes
the whole land in luxuriant green. Magical as spring’s coming is the
subsequent rush of life. What with us requires a month here completes
its life-cycle in a week; what develops but slowly in temperate zones
here unfolds itself in days and hours.
But within a few weeks the spring is once more past; the hardly
distinguishable summer follows in the annual pageant; and is as
rapidly succeeded by the short autumn; so that, strictly speaking,
all three--spring, summer, and autumn--make but one season. Again
the destructive winter is at the doors, and prevents that continuous
germinating, growing, and flourishing which is possible in other
equatorial countries where the water-supply is more abundant. Here,
however, the rainfall is at least sufficient to keep the barren desert
from gaining the mastery, and to spread a more or less rich carpet of
vegetation over the ground--in other words, to produce steppe-land
instead of desert.
I use the word steppe to designate those lands peculiar to the interior
of Africa which the Arabs call “Chala”, which means “lands bearing
fresh green plants”. It is true that the chala is as little like the
steppes of South Russia and Central Asia as the prairies of North
America, or the pampas or llanos of South America, yet in certain
important respects it does resemble the first-named, so that I need
scarcely make any excuse for preferring a known to an unknown term.
The steppe extends over the whole interior of Africa, from the Sahara
to the Karroo,[41] from east coast to west, surrounding all the high
mountains and enclosing all the extensive virgin forests which stretch
on their slopes, or occupy in greater luxuriance the low grounds where
water is plentiful. In fact it includes all the lands in the heart of
Africa, beginning a few hundred paces beyond the last house of the
towns, and directly behind the last houses of the villages; it includes
the fields of the settlers, and supports the flocks of the nomads.
Where the desert ends to the south, where the forest ceases, where the
mountain flattens, there is steppe-land; where the forest is destroyed
by fire, the steppe first gains possession of the clearing; where men
abandon a village the steppe encroaches, and in a few years destroys
every trace of habitation; where the farmer relinquishes his fields the
steppe impresses its character upon them in the space of a year or two.
[Illustration: Fig. 25.--The Bed of an Intermittent River, Central
Africa.]
Inhospitable and monotonous the steppe seems to one who sees it for the
first time. A wide, often immeasurable plain stretches before his eye;
only exceptionally is this interrupted by isolated conical hills, yet
more rarely do these unite to form mountain ranges. More frequently,
low, undulating hills alternate with flat valleys; or sometimes they
combine in a strange mazy network of ranges which enclose deep-sunk
basins, where pools, ponds, and lakes are formed during the rainy
season, while during winter the clayey soil is rent with thousands of
fissures. In the deepest and longest depressions there is, instead
of standing water, a “Chôr” or rain-torrent, that is to say, a
water-course which even in the spring is only occasionally in flow, but
which, under specially favourable circumstances, may be flooded to the
brim in a few hours, and does not merely flow, but rushes--a moving
wall of water--hissing and thundering down the valley, often, however,
disappearing before it reaches a true river. Except where there are
these water-basins and water-courses, a relatively rich vegetation
covers the whole surface of the steppe. Grasses of various kinds,
from lowly plants which creep along the ground to great cereal-like
stems as tall as a man, form the basis of the vegetation. Trees and
shrubs, especially mimosas, baobabs, doum-palms, and christ-thorns,
combine here and there, especially near the water, to form thickets
or groves, but elsewhere they are but sparsely scattered amid the
grasses which so uniformly cover the flats, and it is only at a few
spots that they form even a thin wood. Never do the trees show vigour
of growth like that seen in the valleys with true river courses, where
the blessings of spring are always retained; on the contrary, they
are often stunted, usually low and with scraggy crowns with rarely
even a twiner struggling upwards. They all suffer from the severity of
the long torrid winter, which hardly allows them to gain subsistence,
and keeps off almost all parasitic plants. It is different with the
grasses which, in the short but abundantly moist spring, shoot up
luxuriantly, bloom, and ripen their seeds, and in fact attain to a
thoroughly vigorous life. To them the monotonous aspect of the steppe
is in great part due, for, humble as they are, they obliterate many of
the contrasts which would otherwise be apparent, and the uniformity of
their colouring becomes oppressively wearisome. Not even man succeeds
in introducing variety into this eternal sameness, for the fields
which he tills in the midst of the grass-land seem from a distance so
like their surroundings that one can scarce distinguish grain from
grass. Even the round huts made of slender stakes, with conical roofs
thatched with steppe-grass, are, in the dry season at least, so
closely congruent with the surrounding flats that one must come very
near before one sees that they are there. Only the seasons can change
the sameness of the picture, and even they do not remove much of its
monotony.
Inhospitable, too, is the reception which awaits the traveller in the
steppe. Perched on a camel he rides through the fields. Some game or
other invites him to the chase, and induces him to penetrate into the
grass-forest. Then he finds out that between the apparently smooth
grasses there grow plants much more formidable than the thorny mimosas.
On the ground flourishes the “tarba”, whose seed-capsules are so sharp
that they cut through the soles of light riding-boots; above it grows
the “essek”, whose burrs insinuate themselves almost inextricably into
all clothing; and somewhat higher the “askanit” rises, most formidable
of the three, for its fine prickles are loosened by the slightest
touch, and, penetrating one’s clothes, bore into the skin and cause
ulcerations small enough individually, but in their incomputable
numbers most oppressive. These three plants make any prolonged sojourn
or extensive exploration impossible, and are such a torture to man and
beast that one can readily understand why the natives always carry,
as an indispensable instrument, a fine pair of pincers. As among the
monkeys, the greatest kindness which one man can do his neighbour is to
pull out the fine, hardly-visible, needle-like spines from his skin.
Apart from the three formidable antagonists which we have mentioned,
most of the other steppe-plants, especially the trees and shrubs, are
covered with more or less repellent thorns and spines, as one soon
discovers if one tries to penetrate a thicket or even comes to close
quarters with a tree.
Other even more unpleasant characteristics of the steppes make
themselves felt at night. It is often necessary to ride for days
without reaching a village, and one must therefore camp out on the
plain. A suitable sandy place free from obnoxious plants is sought
out, the beasts are unloaded and hobbled, a bed is made by spreading a
mat on the ground, and a huge fire is lighted to scare off beasts of
prey. The sun goes down, and a few minutes later the night falls on
the steppes; only the fire lightens the camp. But by the fire and about
the couch things soon become lively. Attracted by the light, noxious
creatures come running and creeping, first one and then another, but
soon in tens and in hundreds. First appear gigantic spiders, which,
with their eight legs spread out, cover a surface as large as an
outstretched hand. After the spiders, or sometimes along with them,
the scorpions come hurrying. Both spiders and scorpions rush with
sinister rapidity to the fire, clambering over carpet and coverlet,
among the dishes of our simple supper, retreating when the radiating
heat becomes too strong for them, turning back again under its mesmeric
influence--in truth a fearsome invasion. For these spiders, with
their dangerous, or at least painful bites, are not less dreaded than
the scorpions, and they are as ready to bite as the scorpions are
to sting. Angrily we seize another instrument which an experienced
traveller had forewarned us was indispensable--a long-legged pair of
tongs, and with these we grip as many of the intruders as possible,
and throw them without mercy into the crackling fire. By the united
efforts of the party most of the hellish brood are soon in the flames;
their successors are similarly treated, until the invasion slackens,
and we begin to breathe--but it is too soon! For new and more uncanny
visitors draw near the fire--venomous snakes, apparently fascinated
like the spiders. Among them the naturalist recognizes as the most
abundant species an exceedingly interesting creature well deserving
his attention: it is the sandy-yellow horned viper, the famous or
infamous Cerastes of the ancients, the Fi engraved on so many Egyptian
monuments, the asp from whose fangs Cleopatra sought death.[42] It may
be interesting to the zoologist, but the wearied traveller consigns
it to the depths of hell. The whole company becomes lively when this
visitor is announced; everyone seizes his tongs with much greater
haste and anxiety than before. Whoever sees the snake approaches it
cautiously, grips it behind the neck, presses the tongs firmly lest
it escape, and throws it into the glowing fire. There its destruction
is watched with no small satisfaction. In many parts of the steppe
these vipers drive one almost to despair. Thanks to their scaly coat,
whose markings correspond to a jot with the sandy soil, thanks also
to their habit of burying themselves during the day, or during their
resting hours, with only their short tactile horns protruding from
the sand, one usually searches for them in vain during daylight. But
as soon as night comes, and the camp-fire burns brightly, they are
unmistakably on the spot, coiling and hissing all around. Sometimes
they appear in terrifying numbers and keep the tired traveller awake
till towards midnight, for all those which have been resting within
the range of the fire, or have been attracted to it on their nocturnal
rambles, come gliding towards the flames. At last, wearied out and
heavy with sleep, we throw down the tongs and betake ourselves to bed,
but we never know how many of the reptiles will come creeping over us
in the night, and we often discover evidence of their visits when the
carpet is lifted in the morning. For under its folds one or more may
be found lurking, or may be seen quickly disappearing into the sand.
Little wonder that it was on this steppe-land that I first became
impressed with the fact, which no one had at that time stated, that,
with few exceptions, the venomous snakes, and certainly all the vipers
and crotaline snakes, are nocturnal in habit.
[Illustration: Fig. 26.--Hills of African Termites, or White Ants.]
But the above-mentioned animals do not by any means complete the list
of those which are troublesome in the steppe. There is one, among the
smallest of all, which, though giving no direct cause for anxiety as
far as life is concerned, is of immense importance in relation to
the property of these who live or travel in this region. I mean the
termite, a little insect not unlike an ant, which, in spite of its
minuteness, does more damage than the voracious locust (still able to
constitute a plague), and may work more destruction than a troop of
elephants devastating the fields. It is one of the most omnipresent
and persistent of injurious insects. Whatever the vigour of plant life
creates will fall before the sharp jaws of the termites, and they are
not less unsparing of the products of human art and industry. High
above the grass-forest of the steppe they rear their conical earthen
towers; on the ground and on the trees they make their tunnels and
passages. They begin and end their destructive work at night or in
darkness. First they cover the object of their attack with a crust of
earth which shuts out the light, and under this cover they go about
their work, whose end and object is always destruction. Things lying
on the ground or hung on mud walls are most likely to be attacked. The
careless traveller, oppressed by the overpowering sultriness, throws
one of his garments on the ground which forms his bed, and finds it in
the morning perforated like a sieve and rendered quite useless! The
naturalist who is unaware of the ways of the land shuts up his hard-won
spoils in a wooden box, and neglects to place this on stones or the
like so as to raise it off the ground; in a few days his treasures
are gone! The sportsman hangs his rifle on a clay wall, and discovers
to his disgust that the destructive insects have covered butt and
barrel with their tunnels, and have already gnawed deep channels in
the stock. The tree which they select is lost; the woodwork of houses
in which they effect a settlement is doomed. From the ground to the
highest branches they make their covered ways; they eat through stem,
branches, and twigs, and leave but a dead honey-combed skeleton,
which becomes the prey of the first storm, and is scattered abroad
in dust. On the earth-walls or on the supporting beams of the houses
the termites likewise ascend, riddling the woodwork, and in a short
time making a wreck of everything. Even under the firmly stamped
floors of the better-class houses they form a maze of branched burrows
whence they occasionally break forth in millions bent on destruction.
In these and many other ways they work ruin, and are among the most
troublesome plagues of the interior of Africa, and especially of the
steppe-land.[43]
Did this region offer nought else, were it not one of the most thickly
populated and most frequented of animal haunts, the naturalist would
perhaps avoid it as carefully as does the mercantile traveller, who
knows only its repellent aspects and none of its attractions.
But he who sojourns here for a time and really explores the region
is soon reconciled. For the steppe abounds in life; it is not poor
like the desert, but rather rich like the primitive forest. For it
too shelters a fauna abounding alike in species and in individuals,
and including many forms which are regarded as distinctive of this
geographical region. Of some of these we shall give rapid sketches.
Among the most remarkable steppe animals are those fishes found in the
water-courses and water-basins which are only periodically filled. Even
Aristotle speaks of fishes which burrow in the mud when the pools are
dried up, and though Seneca sought to throw ridicule on the statement
by suggesting scoffingly that one should henceforth go a-fishing not
with hook and line but with pick and shovel, Aristotle recorded a fact
which is beyond either doubt or ridicule.