One night, about five or six weeks after our resolution to go to Africa
on a hunting expedition was formed, I put to myself the question, "Can
it be possible that we are actually here, in the midst of it?"
"Certainly, my boy, in the very thick of it," answered Peterkin, in a
tone of voice which made Jack laugh, while I started and exclaimed--
"Why, Peterkin, how did you come to guess my thoughts?"
"Because, Ralph, you have got into a habit of thinking aloud, which may
do very well as long as you have no secrets to keep but it may prove
inconvenient some day, so I warn you in time."
Not feeling disposed at that time to enter into a bantering conversation
with my volatile companion, I made no reply, but abandoned myself again
to the pleasing fancies and feelings which were called up by the
singular scene in the midst of which I found myself.
It seemed as if it were but yesterday when we drove about the crowded
streets of London making the necessary purchases for our intended
journey, and now, as I gazed around, every object that met my eye seemed
strange, and wild, and foreign, and romantic. We three were reclining
round an enormous wood fire in the midst of a great forest, the trees
and plants of which were quite new to me, and totally unlike those of my
native land. Rich luxuriance of vegetation was the feature that filled
my mind most. Tall palms surrounded us, throwing their broad leaves
overhead and partially concealing the starlit sky. Thick tough limbs of
creeping plants and wild vines twisted and twined round everything and
over everything, giving to the woods an appearance of tangled
impenetrability; but the beautiful leaves of some, and the delicate
tendrils of others, half concealed the sturdy limbs of the trees, and
threw over the whole a certain air of wild grace, as might a
semi-transparent and beautiful robe if thrown around the form of a
savage.
The effect of a strong fire in the woods at night is to give to
surrounding space an appearance of ebony blackness, against which dark
ground the gnarled stems and branches and pendent foliage appear as if
traced out in light and lovely colours, which are suffused with a rich
warm tone from the blaze.
We were now in the wilds of Africa, although, as I have said, I found it
difficult to believe the fact. Jack and I wore loose brown shooting
coats and pantaloons; but we had made up our minds to give up waistcoats
and neckcloths, so that our scarlet flannel shirts with turned-down
collars gave to us quite a picturesque and brigand-like appearance as we
encircled the blaze--Peterkin smoking vigorously, for he had acquired
that bad and very absurd habit at sea. Jack smoked too, but he was not
so inveterate as Peterkin.
Jack was essentially moderate in his nature. He did nothing violently
or in a hurry; but this does not imply that he was slow or lazy. He was
leisurely in disposition, and circumstances seldom required him to be
otherwise. When Peterkin or I had to lift heavy weights, we were
obliged to exert our utmost strength and agitate our whole frames; but
Jack was so powerful that a comparatively slight effort was all that he
was usually obliged to make. Again, when we two were in a hurry we
walked quickly, but Jack's long limbs enabled him to keep up with us
without effort. Nevertheless there were times when he was called upon
to act quickly and with energy. On those occasions he was as active as
Peterkin himself, but his movements were tremendous. It was, I may
almost say, awful to behold Jack when acting under powerful excitement.
He was indeed a splendid fellow, and not by any means deserving of the
name of gorilla, which Peterkin had bestowed on him.
But to continue my description of our costume. We all wore homespun
grey trousers of strong material. Peterkin and Jack wore leggings in
addition, so that they seemed to have on what are now termed
knickerbockers. Peterkin, however, had no coat. He preferred a stout
grey flannel shirt hanging down to his knees and belted round his waist
in the form of a tunic. Our tastes in headdress were varied. Jack wore
a pork-pie cap; Peterkin and I had wide-awakes. My facetious little
companion said that I had selected this species of hat because I was
always more than half asleep! Being peculiar in everything, Peterkin
wore his wide-awake in an unusual manner--namely, turned up at the back,
down at the front, and curled very much up at the sides.
We were so filled with admiration of Jack's magnificent beard and
moustache, that Peterkin and I had resolved to cultivate ours while in
Africa; but I must say that, as I looked at Peterkin's face, the
additional hair was not at that time an improvement, and I believe that
much more could not have been said for myself. The effect on my little
comrade was to cause the lower part of his otherwise good-looking face
to appear extremely dirty.
"I wonder," said Peterkin, after a long silence, "if we shall reach the
niggers' village in time for the hunt to-morrow. I fear that we have
spent too much time in this wild-goose chase."
"Wild-goose chase, Peterkin!" I exclaimed. "Do you call hunting the
gorilla by such a term?"
"_Hunting_ the gorilla? no, certainly; but _looking_ for the gorilla in
a part of the woods where no such beast was ever heard of since Adam was
a schoolboy--"
"Nay, Peterkin," interrupted Jack; "we are getting very near to the
gorilla country, and you must make allowance for the enthusiasm of a
naturalist."
"Ah! we shall see where the naturalist's enthusiasm will fly to when we
actually do come face to face with the big puggy."
"Well," said I, apologetically, "I won't press you to go hunting again;
I'll be content to follow."
"Press me, my dear Ralph!" exclaimed Peterkin hastily, fearing that he
had hurt my feelings; "why, man, I do but jest with you--you are so
horridly literal. I'm overjoyed to be pressed to go on the maddest
wild-goose chase that ever was invented. My greatest delight would be
to go gorilla-hunting down Fleet Street, if you were so disposed.--But
to be serious, Jack, do you think we shall be in time for the
elephant-hunt to-morrow?"
"Ay, in capital time, if you don't knock up."
"What! _I_ knock up! I've a good mind to knock you down for suggesting
such an egregious impossibility."
"That's an impossibility anyhow, Peterkin, because I'm down already,"
said Jack, yawning lazily and stretching out his limbs in a more
comfortable and _degage_ manner.
Peterkin seemed to ponder as he smoked his pipe for some time in
silence.
"Ralph," said he, looking up suddenly, "I don't feel a bit sleepy, and
yet I'm tired enough."
"You are smoking too much, perhaps," I suggested.
"It's not that," cried Jack; "he has eaten too much supper."
"Base insinuation!" retorted Peterkin.
"Then it must be the monkey. That's it. Roast monkey does not agree
with you."
"Do you know, I shouldn't wonder if you were right; and it's a pity,
too, for we shall have to live a good deal on such fare, I believe.
However, I suppose we shall get used to it.--But I say, boys, isn't it
jolly to be out here living like savages? I declare it seems to me like
a dream or a romance.--Just look, Ralph, at the strange wild creepers
that are festooned overhead, and the great tropical leaves behind us,
and the clear sky above, with the moon--ah! the moon; yes, that's one
comfort--the moon is unchanged. The same moon that smiles down upon us
through a tangled mesh-work of palm-leaves and wild vines and monkeys'
tails, is peeping down the chimney-pots of London and Edinburgh and
Dublin!"
"Why, Peterkin, you must have studied hard in early life to be so good a
geographer."
"Rather," observed Peterkin.
"Yes; and look at the strange character of the tree-stems," said I,
unwilling to allow the subject to drop. "See those huge palmettoes
like--like--"
"Overgrown cabbages," suggested Peterkin; and he continued, "Observe the
quaint originality of form in the body and limbs of that bloated old
spider that is crawling up your leg, Ralph!"
I started involuntarily, for there is no creature of which I have a
greater abhorrence than a spider.
"Where is it? oh! I see," and the next moment I secured my prize and
placed it with loathing, but interest, in my entomological box.
At that moment a hideous roar rang through the woods, seemingly close
behind us. We all started to our feet, and seizing our rifles, which
lay beside us ready loaded, cocked them and drew close together round
the fire.
"This won't do, lads," said Jack, after a few minutes' breathless
suspense, during which the only sound we could hear was the beating of
our own hearts; "we have allowed the fire to get too low, and we've
forgotten to adopt our friend the trader's advice, and make two fires."
So saying, Jack laid down his rifle, and kicking the logs with his heavy
boot, sent up such a cloud of bright sparks as must certainly have
scared the wild animal, whatever it was, away; for we heard no more of
it that night.
"You're right, Jack," remarked Peterkin; "so let us get up a blaze as
fast as we can, and I'll take the first watch, not being sleepy. Come
along."
In a few minutes we cut down with our axes a sufficient quantity of dry
wood to keep two large fires going all night; we then kindled our second
fire at a few yards distant from the first, and made our camp between
them. This precaution we took in order to scare away the wild animals
whose cries we heard occasionally during the night. Peterkin, having
proposed to take the first watch--for we had to watch by turns all the
night through--lighted his pipe and sat down before the cheerful fire
with his back against the stem of a palm-tree, and his rifle lying close
to his hand, to be ready in case of a surprise. There were many natives
wandering about in that neighbourhood, some of whom might be ignorant of
our having arrived at their village on a peaceful errand. If these
should have chanced to come upon us suddenly, there was no saying what
they might do in their surprise and alarm, so it behoved us to be on our
guard.
Jack and I unrolled the light blankets that we carried strapped to our
shoulders through the day, and laying ourselves down side by side with
our feet to the fire and our heads pillowed on a soft pile of
sweet-scented grass, we addressed ourselves to sleep. But sleep did not
come so soon as we expected. I have often noted with some surprise and
much interest the curious phases of the phenomenon of sleep. When I
have gone to bed excessively fatigued and expecting to fall asleep
almost at once, I have been surprised and annoyed to find that the
longer I wooed the drowsy god the longer he refused to come to me; and
at last, when I have given up the attempt in despair, he has suddenly
laid his gentle hand upon my eyes and carried me into the land of Nod.
Again, when I have been exceedingly anxious to keep awake, I have been
attacked by sleep with such irresistible energy that I have been utterly
unable to keep my eyelids open or my head erect, and have sat with my
eyes blinking like those of an owl in the sunshine, and my head nodding
like that of a Chinese mandarin.
On this our first night in the African bush, at least our first night on
a hunting expedition--we had been many nights in the woods on our
journey to that spot--on this night, I say, Jack and I could by no means
get to sleep for a very long time after we lay down, but continued to
gaze up through the leafy screen overhead at the stars, which seemed to
wink at us, I almost fancied, jocosely. We did not speak to each other,
but purposely kept silence. After a time, however, Jack groaned, and
said softly--
"Ralph, are you asleep?"
"No," said I, yawning.
"I'm quite sure that Peterkin is," added Jack, raising his head and
looking across the fire at the half-recumbent form of our companion.
"Is he?" said Peterkin in a low tone. "Just about as sound as a
weasel!"
"Jack," said I.
"Well?"
"I can't sleep a wink. Ye-a-ow! isn't it odd?"
"No more can I. Do you know, Ralph, I've been counting the red berries
in that tree above me for half an hour, in the hope that the monotony of
the thing would send me off; but I was interrupted by a small monkey who
has been sitting up among the branches and making faces at me for full
twenty minutes. There it is yet, I believe. Do you see it?"
"No; where?"
"Almost above your head."
I gazed upward intently for a few minutes, until I thought I saw the
monkey, but it was very indistinct. Gradually, however, it became more
defined; then to my surprise it turned out to be the head of an
elephant! I was not only amazed but startled at this.
"Get your rifle, Jack!" said I, in a low whisper.
Jack made some sort of reply, but his voice sounded hollow and
indistinct. Then I looked up again, and saw that it was the head of a
hippopotamus, not that of an elephant, which was looking down at me.
Curiously enough, I felt little or no surprise at this, and when in the
course of a few minutes I observed a pair of horns growing out of the
creature's eyes and a bushy tail standing erect on the apex of its head,
I ceased to be astonished at the sight altogether, and regarded it as
quite natural and commonplace. The object afterwards assumed the
appearance of a lion with a crocodile's bail, and a serpent with a
monkey's head, and lastly of a gorilla, without producing in me any
other feeling than that of profound indifference. Gradually the whole
scene vanished, and I became totally oblivious.
This state of happy unconsciousness had scarcely lasted--it seemed to
me--two minutes, when I was awakened by Peterkin laying his hand on my
shoulder and saying--
"Now then, Ralph, it's time to rouse up."
"O Peterkin," said I, in a tone of remonstrance, "how could you be so
unkind as to waken me when I had just got to sleep? Shabby fellow!"
"Just got to sleep, say you? You've been snoring like an apoplectic
alderman for exactly two hours."
"You don't say so!" I exclaimed, getting into a sitting posture.
"Indeed you have. I'm sorry to rouse you, but time's up, and I'm
sleepy; so rub your eyes, man, and try to look a little less like an
astonished owl if you can. I have just replenished both the fires, so
you can lean your back against that palm-tree and take it easy for
three-quarters of an hour or so. After that you'll have to heap on more
wood."
I looked at Jack, who was now lying quite unconscious, breathing with
the slow, deep regularity of profound slumber, and with his mouth wide
open.
"What a chance for some waggish baboon to drop a nut or a berry in!"
said Peterkin, winking at me with one eye as he lay down in the spot
from which I had just risen.
He was very sleepy, poor fellow, and could hardly smile at his own
absurd fancy. He was asleep almost instantly. In fact, I do not
believe that he again opened the eye with which he had winked at me, but
that he merely shut the other and began to slumber forthwith.
I now began to feel quite interested in my responsible position as
guardian of the camp. I examined my rifle to see that it was in order
and capped; then leaning against the palm-tree, which was, as it were,
my sentry-box, I stood erect and rubbed my hands and took off my cap, so
that the pleasant night air might play about my temples, and more
effectually banish drowsiness.
In order to accomplish this more thoroughly I walked round both fires
and readjusted the logs, sending up showers of sparks as I did so. Then
I went to the edge of the circle of light, in the centre of which our
camp lay, and peered into the gloom of the dark forest.
There was something inexpressibly delightful yet solemn in my feelings
as I gazed into that profound obscurity where the great tree-stems and
the wild gigantic foliage nearest to me appeared ghost-like and
indistinct, and the deep solitudes of which were peopled, not only with
the strange fantastic forms of my excited fancy, but, as I knew full
well, with real wild creatures, both huge and small, such as my
imagination at that time had not fully conceived. I felt awed, almost
oppressed, with the deep silence around, and, I must confess, looked
somewhat nervously over my shoulder as I returned to the fire and sat
down to keep watch at my post.