to lead into the depths of the forest. But we search in vain for any
traces of human footprints. Man did not make this path; the beasts
of the forest have cleared it. A herd of elephants tramped through
the matted thicket from the dry heights of the bank to the stream.
One after another in long procession the mighty beasts broke through
the undergrowth, intertwined a thousand-fold, letting nought save the
strongest trees divert them from their course. If branches or stems
as thick as a man’s leg stood in the way they were snapped across,
stripped of twigs and leaves, all that was eatable devoured, and
the remainder thrown aside, the bushes which covered the ground so
luxuriantly were torn up by the roots, and used or thrown aside in the
same manner, grass and plants were trodden under foot. What the first
comers left fell to those behind, and thus arose a passable road often
stretching deep into the heart of the forest. Other animals have taken
advantage of it, treading it down more thoroughly, and keeping it in
passable condition. By it the hippopotamus makes his way at night when
he tramps from the river to feed in the woods; the rhinoceros uses it
as he comes from the forest to drink; by it the raging buffalo descends
to the valley and returns to the heights; along it the lion strides
through his territory; and there one may meet the leopard, the hyæna,
and other wild beasts of the forest. We set foot on it, and press
forwards.
After a few steps the magnificent forest surrounds us on all sides.
But, here also, it seems in vain to attempt to unravel the confusion of
stems and branches, twigs and shoots, tendrils and leaves. The forest
hems in such a path on both sides like a wall. The ground is everywhere
covered with thickly-matted bushes, which one cannot even see through;
but, struggling through these, all sorts of grasses have sprung up,
forming a second undergrowth; just above that, tall-stemmed bushes and
low trees spread their branches on all sides; over these again rise
taller trees, and above them all tower the giants of the forest. By far
the greater number of bushes in the undergrowth are thickly covered
with thorns, while the mimosas towering above them are armed with long,
hard, sharp spines, and even the grasses have burr-like seed-capsules
covered with fine prickles, or ears set with sharp hooks, so that every
attempt to penetrate the forest from the path is foiled by a thousand
obstacles. The bird the huntsman’s gun has brought down is lost to him
because in falling it is caught in a bush which he cannot reach without
an amount of exertion quite out of proportion to the object; the game
which conceals itself in a shrub before our very eyes is saved because
we can no longer perceive it; a crocodile about three yards long,
which we startled in the wood, escapes us by withdrawing itself into
an isolated bush so completely that we cannot see a scale of it, and
accordingly cannot fire a shot to any purpose.
Still we continue striving vainly to master the wealth of impressions,
to separate one picture from another, to see any one tree from the
ground to its top, to distinguish the leaves of one from those of
another. From the stream it had been possible to distinguish some
of the fresh green tamarinds from the mimosas of various species
surrounding them, to recognize the magnificent kigelias, reminding
us slightly of our own elms, to delight in the palm-crowns towering
over the rest of the trees: here, in the depths of the forest, all the
individual parts are fused into an inseparable whole. All the senses
are claimed at once. From the leafy dome which the eye attempts to
penetrate is wafted the balsamic fragrance of some mimosas now in
bloom; and hence also there rings continually in the ear a medley
of the most varied sounds and notes, from the guttural cries of the
monkeys or the screeching of parrots, to the modulated songs of birds
and the buzzing of the insects flying about the blossoming trees. The
sense of touch is no less fully, if not quite agreeably stimulated by
the innumerable thorns, while that of taste may regale itself with the
few attainable, but more or less unpalatable fruits.
But at last we do come upon a distinct and definite picture. A tree,
mighty in its whole structure, gigantic even in its minor branches,
rises above the innumerable plants surrounding its base; like a
giant it presses upwards and takes possession of space for its
trunk and crown. It is the elephant, the pachyderm among the trees,
the Adansonia, the _tabaldie_ of the natives, the baobab. We stand
in amazement to gaze on it; for the eye must become accustomed to
the sight before it can take in the details. Picture a tree, the
circumference of whose trunk, at a man’s height from the ground, may
measure a hundred and twenty feet, whose lower branches are thicker
than the trunks of our largest trees; whose twigs are like strong
branches, and whose youngest shoots are thicker than one’s thumb;
remember that this mighty giant of the plant-world rises to a height
of about one hundred and thirty feet, and that its lowest branches
spread out to almost sixty, and you will be able to form some idea
of the impression it makes on the beholder. Of all the trees of the
primeval forests in this region, the baobab is the first to lose its
leaves, and it remains longest in its winter repose; during this season
all its branches and twigs stretch out leafless into the air, while
from most of them there hang, by long flexible stalks, fruits about
the size of a melon, containing a mealy, slightly sour pulp between
the seeds--the whole a sight which stamps itself ineffaceably on the
memory. But, after the first rains of spring, great, five-lobed leaves
unfold, enhancing the charm of this wondrous tree, and when, between
the leaves, the long-stalked buds disclose white flowers as large as
roses, this incomparable giant is transformed, as if by magic, into an
enormous rose-bush of indescribable beauty, the sight of which stirs
the heart of even the most matter-of-fact of men with admiration.
No other tree in the forest can be compared with the baobab; even the
duleb-palm, which raises its head above all the surrounding trees,
cannot bear comparison with it in charm and impressiveness. Yet the
duleb-palm is one of the most splendid trees found in the interior of
Africa, and one of the finest palms in the world; its trunk is a pillar
which no artist could have surpassed; its crown a capital worthy of
such a pillar. The upright trunk thickens just above the ground, and
thins in a remarkable manner to about half its height, then begins
to bulge out, then again diminishes, and swells out once more just
under the crown. This consists of broad, fan-like leaves, hardly less
than a square yard in extent, whose stalks stand out straight on all
sides round a middle point, thus giving the tree a most impressive
individuality. The fruits attain to about the size of a child’s head,
and the clusters hanging among the leaves greatly enhance the beauty of
the crown, which is, indeed, an ornament to the whole forest.
[Illustration: Fig. 31.--The Baobab Tree--Central Africa.]
The legendary always clings about the gigantic; it lives on it, and
takes form and meaning from it. This thought occurs to one when one
sees, as frequently happens, the baobab overgrown with the tendrils
of one of the climbing plants which beautify these forests in rich
abundance. Climbing plants have always seemed to me a fitting emblem
of the Arabian fairy tales. For as they appear to require no soil,
although they have sprung from it, but to take their chief nourishment
from the air; as they wind their flexible stems from tree to tree,
attaching themselves firmly to each, yet struggling on, until, at
length, they unfold on some flowerless tree-top, covering it with
radiant, fragrant blossoms: so the fairy tale, though it may have
been firmly rooted in fact, is not sustained by any real connection
therewith, but reaches up to heaven for strength, and sends its poetry
over all the world until it finds a heart which beats responsive. When
I speak of climbing plants I do not mean any one species, but include
under the term all those plants which here thickly cover a trunk with
their tortuous coils, and there spread their tendrils over a bare
tree-top; which in one place link many trees together, and in another
cover a single tree with wreaths of green; which in one part of the
forest link branch to branch with bridges of naked tendrils, and in
another region combine to render the way impassable; occurring in a
hundred different forms, but always twining and climbing. Their beauty,
the charm they exercise on the northerner may be felt but cannot be
described, for words to begin or end a satisfactory description would
be as difficult to find as the beginnings and ends of the climbers
themselves. These climbing plants, though within reach of one’s hand,
yet do not allow of close observation; one follows the course of their
tendrils admiringly, but without being able to say whence they come and
whither they go; one revels in the sight of their flowers without being
able to reach them, or often do more than guess to what plants they
belong. These climbers, above all else, impress on the woodlands the
stamp and seal of the primitive forest.
But they have other ornaments than the blossoms which they themselves
unfold. Their tendrils are the favourite perches of many of the most
beautiful birds of the forest, living flowers which far surpass those
of the plant in beauty and charm. Sometimes it happens that a sudden
flash, like a sun-ray reflected from a smooth, bright surface, catches
the eye and guides it to the spot from which it emanated. The shimmer
is indeed a sunbeam--a sunbeam reflected from the glossy plumage
of a metallic starling, now in one direction, now in another, with
every movement. Delighted by the wonderful beauty of this bird, one
would gladly observe it carefully, and learn something of its life
and habits; but one’s attention is continually being claimed by new
phenomena. For here, too, picture crowds upon picture. Where the
metallic starling sat a few moments before, there appears a no less
brilliant golden cuckoo, a sun-bird or honey-sucker rivalling the
humming-birds in beauty of plumage, a pair of charming bee-eaters,
a roller displaying his brilliant feathers, a halcyon no less
beautiful, a paradise fly-catcher, whose long, drooping, median
tail-feathers give the little creature such a surprising splendour, a
turaco unfolding his deep purple-red feathers at every stroke of his
wings, a shrike whose flaming red breast excels even these wings in
brightness, a quaintly-shaped hornbill, a golden weaver-bird, a vidua
or “widow-bird”, a wood-hoopoe with its metallic brilliance, a dainty
woodpecker, a leaf-green dove, a flight of similarly coloured parrots,
and many other feathered inhabitants of the forest. This is a specially
favoured home of birds, affording food and shelter to many hundreds
and thousands of different species, so that one sees them much sooner
and much more frequently than any of the other creatures which have
their home in the forest. Birds animate every part, from the ground
to the tops of the tallest trees, from the most impenetrable bushes
to the leafless branches of the baobab. Among the grasses and other
plants growing luxuriantly on the ground the well-trodden paths of
francolin and perhaps also guinea-fowl twine and intertwine in every
direction; the leafy spaces just above the root-stocks of the bushes
are occupied by little doves, the spreading portion of their tops
by various beautiful birds, especially sun-birds and finches, while
families of colies shoot down, like arrows from a bow, to where the
bush-tops are so thickly matted and thoroughly interwoven that they
seem quite impenetrable, and, by creeping and clinging, pushing through
every possible gap and opening, succeed in forcing their way into the
centre, there to seek for food; wood-hoopoes, titmice, and woodpeckers
hang or climb about, examining every crevice in the bark of the trunks
which rise just above the bushes; delightful bee-eaters or rollers,
paradise fly-catchers and drongos sit on the lower twigs of the second
layer of tree-tops awaiting their flying prey; on the stronger branches
of the third layer turacos hop about, small herons walk with dignity
backwards and forwards, horned and other owls cling closely to the
stems and sleep; parrots and barbets flit about among the thick foliage
of the tallest trees, while eagles, falcons, and vultures have settled
on their topmost boughs. Wherever one casts one’s eye there is a bird.
As might be expected from this universal distribution, or indeed
omnipresence, we hear continually the most varied bird-voices. They
coax and call, pipe and whistle, chirp and twitter, trill and warble,
coo and chatter, scream and crow, screech and cackle, cry and sing
on all sides of us, above and beneath, early and late, and all day
long. A hundred different voices sound together, now blending into a
wonderful harmony, now into a bewildering maze of sounds which one
seeks in vain to analyse, in which only long practice enables one
to differentiate individual voices. With the exception of thrushes,
bulbuls, several species of warblers, and drongos, there are no
true songsters, but there are many pleasing babblers and delightful
chatterers, and an endless number who scream, cackle, croak, and utter
various more or less shrill sounds. Taken collectively, therefore,
the bird-notes of the primitive forest cannot for a moment compare
in tunefulness and sweetness with the spring songs of our own woods,
but the individual voices are most remarkable. Wild doves coo, moan,
laugh, and call from the tree-tops and the thickest bushes, francolins
and guinea-fowl cackle loudly from their midst, parrots screech,
ravens croak, plantain-eaters succeed in most accurately mimicking
the strange guttural cries of a troop of long-tailed monkeys, while
the turacos utter sounds like those made by a ventriloquist; barbets
whistle loudly in slurred notes, their voices together making a
ringing song, so intricate, yet so full of expression that it must
be reckoned one of the most distinctive sounds of the forest; the
shimmering metallic starlings sing, and though they can only compass a
few rough sounds, now croaking, now screeching, now squeaking, these
are arranged, combined, blended, and allowed to die away in endless
repetition; the magnificent screaming sea-eagle, resident beside
all the water-courses and water-basins of the forest, justifies his
name. High on a tree-top sits the “abu tok” (producer of the sound
“tok”) of the natives, a small hornbill, calling his “tok” loudly and
accompanying each sound with a nod of his head, weighted with its
disproportionately large bill. Only this one sound does his unpliant
voice produce, yet with it he expresses his love to the mate he is
wooing, or has won, as intelligibly as the nightingale tells its tale
in its bewitching song. The emotion swelling in his breast struggles
for expression. The cries follow each other in more and more rapid
succession, the appropriate movements become more and more rapid, until
the heavy head is too tired to accompany any longer, and one phrase of
this singular love-song comes to an end, to be begun and sung through
again in precisely the same manner a few minutes later. From the
unapproachable thicket sounds the voice of the _hagedash_ or wood-ibis,
and a slight shudder seizes the listener. The song of this bird is a
lamentation of the most pitiful kind; it sounds as if a little child
were being painfully tortured, perhaps slowly roasted over a small
fire, and were crying out in its anguish; for long-drawn plaintive
sounds alternate with shrill cries, sudden shrieks with faint moanings.
From the high-lying parts of the forest, where there are small bare
patches, resound the far-reaching metallic trumpet-tones with which
the crested crane accompanies his graceful, lively dances in honour
of his mate, and these awaken an echo in the forest, as well as in
the throat of every bird possessed, like himself, of a ringing voice,
so that his cry is the signal for a simultaneous outburst of song
from a large number of other birds. Thus incited, every bird with any
voice at all gives utterance to it, and for a time a flood of varied
sounds drowns the individual voices. But it is not only the different
species of feathered inhabitants of the forest who thus take different
parts in the piece; sometimes even the two sexes of one species
each sing a different part. The babbling thrushes, plantain-eaters,
francolins, and guinea-fowl scream together like the barbets already
described, and thus evoke those strange complex phrases, which ring out
distinctly from the general confusion of voices. But in a few species,
particularly in the bush-shrikes, the male and female each sing a
distinct part. In one species which I observed--the scarlet shrike--the
male sings a short strophe, reminding one of the intricate whistle
of our golden oriole. In another--the flute-shrike--the male utters
three bell-like flute-notes, striking third, key-note, and octave.
Immediately following comes the answer of the female, in both cases a
disagreeable croaking not easily described, but as unfailingly correct
in time as if the birds had been instructed by a musician. Sometimes it
happens that the female begins, and croaks four or five times before
the answer comes; then the male strikes in again, and they alternate
with their usual regularity. I have convinced myself experimentally
as to this co-operation of the sexes, by shooting now the male and
now the female, and in every case only the notes of the surviving sex
could be heard. It must be allowed that these notes, enchanting as they
are at first, lack the richness and variety, as the collective voices
lack the tunefulness and harmony, of the bird songs in our woods at
home; nevertheless it is a grand and impressive melody which one hears
in the primitive forest in spring-time when hundreds and thousands of
voices mingle together, millions of insects swarm with loud bumming and
buzzing round the blossom-laden trees, countless lizards and snakes
rustle through the dry foliage, and every now and then the shrill yet
sonorous call of the eagle sounds down from above, the trumpet notes
of the crested crane or the guinea-fowl are heard for the time above
all other voices, immediately afterwards a warbler sings his charming
song quite close to the listener’s ear, and again, one of the screamers
gives the key-note, which awakes an echo from a thousand throats.
If the naturalist succeeds in becoming more at home in the forest than
he had at first ventured to hope, he gets many delightful glimpses
of the domestic life of animals, and more particularly of birds. It
is still spring-time, and love reigns in all hearts. The birds sing
and caress, build their nests, and brood. Even from the boat one can
observe the brooding colonies of some species.
On a perpendicular part of the river bank, at a safe distance above
the high-water mark, the bee-eaters have hollowed out their deep
brooding burrows, narrow at the entrance, but widening out into
an oven-like form at the inner end. The whole colony only covers a
few square yards, though it consists of at least thirty, and more
frequently from eighty to a hundred pairs. The circular openings to
the various holes, measuring only from one and a half to two inches in
diameter, are not more than six inches distant from each other. It is
difficult to understand how each pair knows the entrance to its own
hole; yet even when they come from a distance the delicately-winged
active birds fly straight to the proper holes without hesitation or
apparent consideration; their incomparably sharp eyes, which can detect
a passing fly a hundred paces away, never mislead them. The bustling
life about the colony is a fascinating sight. Every tree or bush in the
neighbourhood is decorated with at least one pair of the beautiful,
sociable birds; on every branch which affords an outlook sits a pair,
and each mate takes a tender interest in all that concerns the other.
In front of the nest-holes the bustle is like that about a bee-hive;
some glide in, others glide out; some come, others go; many hover
continually around the entrance to their brooding-places. Only when
night draws on do they disappear into their holes; then all is quiet
and still.
At a different part of the bank, where tall trees droop over the
water, or are surrounded by it when it is very high, the golden
weaver-birds have established a colony. They, too, brood in companies,
but they build hanging nests cleverly plaited from stalks or fibres,
and attached to the points of the outermost branches of the trees. No
covetous monkey or other egg-robber, not even a snake, can approach
these nests without running a risk of falling into the water. At least
thirty, but more frequently forty to sixty, weaver-birds build on a
single tree, and their nests give it a most characteristic aspect;
indeed, they have a striking effect on the whole landscape. Unlike
other birds, it is in this case not the females but the males who build
the nest, and they do it with such unstinted eagerness that they make
work for themselves after they have finished what is really necessary.
Carrying in their bills a stalk newly bitten off, or a teased-out
fibre, they hang by their feet to a twig, or to the nest itself, keep
themselves in position by fluttering their wings, and work in their
material, singing all the while. When one nest is built and finished
inside, they proceed to make a second and a third; indeed, they may
even pull a finished work to pieces again to satisfy their love of
building. Thus they go on until the female, who has meanwhile been
brooding, claims their assistance in the rearing of the young ones.
This activity animates the whole colony, and the golden-yellow, mobile,
active birds sitting or hanging in the most varied positions, are an
ornament to the tree already decorated with their nests.
On the mimosas, which are leafless just at the general brooding time,
the cow-weaver birds have erected structures very large for the size
of the birds, which are scarcely so large as our starlings. Their
nests are placed among the thickest branches at the top of the thorny
mimosas, and as they are made entirely of thorny twigs on the outside,
they have much the appearance of a scrubbing-brush; they are often
more than a yard long, half as high and broad, and enclose roomy
brooding-chambers entered by winding tunnels corresponding to the size
of the birds, and impassable to other animals. On these trees, and
about these nests, too, there is much lively and noisy bustle.
In the heart of the forest itself an attentive observer finds nests
everywhere, though it is often difficult to recognize them. Little
finches, for instance, build nests which are deceptively like heaps
of dried grass blown together by the wind, but inside there is a
soft, warm brooding-chamber lined with feathers; other birds choose
building materials the colour of which is deceptively like that of
the surroundings, while others do not build at all, but lay their
earth-coloured eggs on the bare ground. Every cavity in the trees is
now inhabited, and woodpeckers, barbets, and parrots are constantly at
work making new chambers, or widening and adapting already existing
cavities into brooding-holes, while the hornbills, on the other hand,
busy themselves plastering up the too-wide entrances. The last-named
birds are specially distinctive in their brooding habits, and deserve
to be mentioned first.
When the hornbill by ardent wooing has won a mate, he helps her to
seek out a suitable hole to serve as a nest. This found, he labours
painfully with his clumsy bill to enlarge it to the required size.
Then the female prepares to lay her eggs, and both mates plaster up
the entrance, the female working from the inside, the male from the
outside, until all is closed up save an opening large enough for the
female to force her bill through. Shut off from the outer world in this
isolated brooding-chamber, the female sits on her eggs, and the male
has to feed not only his imprisoned mate, but later the quickly-growing
ever hungry young ones, which remain in captivity until they are fully
fledged. Then the mother breaks open the entrance from within, and the
whole family emerges to the world fat and in good feather, thereby
relieving from further toil the husband and father, who is reduced to a
skeleton with the labour and anxiety of filling so many mouths.[51]