THE SEARCH FOR MEAT--DEATH OF THE ORYX--THE FLANK OF THE DUNE--
OUTWITTING A JACKAL--HENDRICK, MY GUARDIAN--THIRST--THE DISTANT RAIN--
TYPHON--THE SOUTHERN SIMOOM.
Daybreak found us sitting close to the candle-bush fire, for the air of
morning was chill. Soon the kettle boiled and coffee was prepared.
Meat was badly needed; we had eaten the last of the sand-grouse on the
previous day, and a diet of unrelieved rusks is apt to pall. So we
decided that I was to take my rifle and, accompanied by Hendrick, go
forth in search of something to shoot.
Hendrick and I shaped our course along the western flank of the
dune-tentacle close to which we were camped, meaning to cross it near
its point of emergence from the main dune. On reaching a suitable spot
we climbed to the top, a height of some twenty feet vertically, and
carefully scanned the plain on the eastern side. The light was yet
faint and, as we were facing the east, otherwise unfavourable. While we
lay prone a jackal shambled up the steep slope of loose sand and met us,
face to face. The creature regarded us with quaint bewilderment for a
second, and then scampered back with a yelp of dismay.
So far as we could ascertain the plain before us was empty of game.
Gloom, intensified by contrast with the developing pageant of morning,
still lurked among the shrubs and tussocks. In front, some six hundred
yards away, lay another dune-tentacle. This did not, however, extend in
quite the same direction as the one we occupied, its course being a few
degrees more to the southward for the greater length, while the
extremity curved slightly back towards us. The intervening space was
soon crossed. Once more we clambered up through loose sand that flowed
at a touch; then we lay prone on the flat top, searching with expectant
eyes the new expanse revealed.
The light had now improved; a limitless plain opened to south and east.
Northward, the wind-scourged side of the main dune extended like a
sea-worn cliff. The faint, diaphanous suspicion of haze incidental to
newborn day, which lay film-wise over the yet-unawakened desert, did not
interfere with our vision.
A twenty-foot elevation gives the eye an immense range. Game was now in
sight; five separate groups of ostriches could be located. These were
miles apart,--their units varying in number from five to twenty, or
thereabouts. Away in the dim distance southward some large animals were
visible; they moved slowly westward. These were almost certainly oryx.
About six hundred yards off, straight before us, was a small herd of
springbuck; they were busily grazing, moving to the right as they
grazed. This circumstance, combined with the fact that the oryx were
moving in the same direction, indicated that out on the plains there was
an air-current from westward; consequently there was some likelihood of
the day being fairly cool.
The springbuck were too far away to fire at; probabilities would have
been too much in favour of a miss. On foot in the desert, missing one's
shot meant that one's chances of obtaining meat were practically at an
end for the day. So there was nothing for it but to wait. Perhaps a
paauw (bustard) might feed up to within range. We had seen many paauws
on the wing the previous day.
What most surprised us was the number of jackals. Several of these
sneaking marauders were visible, loping here and there. One approached
the springbuck; a ram put down his head and charged straight at the
intruder. The latter fled, yelping dolorously. The buck, his head
still lowered, pursued, and gained easily upon the fugitive who, hard
pressed, doubled over and over again on his devious course. At length
the jackal took refuge in a burrow, and the buck trotted back to join
his mates, who had apparently taken no notice of the incident.
Hendrick touched me slightly on the shoulder, and uttered a slow
"s-s-t." I glanced to the left; my heart leaped almost to my throat.
There, pacing towards us at a leisurely stroll, was a lordly oryx bull.
He was about eight hundred yards off; evidently he had been lying down
with his horns concealed behind one or other of the bushes that here and
there studded the plain. Most likely he was a rogue; an old bull turned
out of the herd on account of his bad temper,--or possibly a leader
deposed by a rival. However that might have been, he represented meat--
a commodity we were badly in need of. Ever and anon the oryx halted and
gazed anxiously along the flank of the dune; then he resumed his
advance, pacing steadily on a course which should have brought him to
within about two hundred yards of our ambush.
Nearer and nearer the bull approached; he seemed to be suspicious, for
his muzzle was held high and his large ears moved backward and forward.
Probably our camp had tainted the air for miles in every direction.
"Tshok-tshok" uttered a paauw which we now noticed for the first time.
The bird was sauntering on a zig-zag course and occasionally pecking
among the shrubs just beneath us. Its approach was from the right; thus
it was advancing towards the oryx. The moment was a critical one;
should the paauw have taken alarm and flown, the oryx would undoubtedly
have galloped straight out towards the plains as fast as his strong legs
could carry him. If, on the other hand, the paauw passed and remained
unaware of our presence, the oryx would have inferred that the coast in
our direction was clear, and accordingly have come unsuspiciously within
easy range. So we lay as still as mummies, Hendrick and I,--almost
afraid to breathe.
The crisis passed. The paauw was soon well beyond us, and the bull,
accelerating his pace slightly, advanced to his doom. O! you of the
swift feet, the tireless thews and the long, sharp horns that even the
hungry lion dreaded,--you had run your last course, you had fought your
last fight; the sands of your lordly life were running low!
The great oryx bull was now only about two hundred and fifty yards off.
Something startled him; a whiff of tainted air stung his sensitive
nostrils. He stood half-facing us, his right shoulder exposed. My
rifle, a long Martini, had been trained on him for some seconds,
awaiting a favourable opportunity. "Crack"--and the bull fell huddled
on his left haunch. He sprang up, but floundered pitifully. Hendrick
and I were now over the dune and running towards him. As we approached,
his struggles ceased; he no longer attempted to escape. He was standing
on three legs, for his right shoulder had been smashed and the limb
dangled loosely.
The bull was an awe-inspiring sight. Every separate one of the
wire-like hairs on his neck, shoulders and hump stood erect and
quivering. His wide nostrils shewed blood-red in their depths; his eyes
blazed with agony and wrath; he swayed his forty-inch-long horns
menacingly from side to side, as though to test their poise.
The brave brute was evidently co-ordinating his maimed but still
formidable strength for a charge at his enemy. "Schiet, Baas--anders
kom hij" ("Shoot, Sir--or he will come") yelled Hendrick. I had the
bull carefully covered, and as he swayed forward in the first impulse of
attack, my bullet struck him in the middle of the neck and crashed
through the vertebral column. Then the strong, tense form collapsed and
sank impotently to earth.
He was a noble beast,--this creature whose life I had wasted. Why had I
done it? Because I wanted meat; because I followed the law of my being
in obeying the hunters' instinct,--almost the deepest and strongest in
man. The answer was, of course, not quite a good one; I felt it could
not be supported on ethical grounds. But conventional ethics belonged,
after all, to an environment I no longer inhabited. Where I then lived
and moved and had my being, the unmoral standards of primeval man
prevailed.
A shout from the top of the dune. It was from Andries and the others
who, on hearing the first shot, hurried over to see what my fortune had
been. We returned in triumph to the wagon, carrying the liver of the
slain oryx. This would be roasted on the embers for breakfast.
Hendrick and his assistants would see to it that the rest of the meat,
the head and the skin were removed and properly treated. Very soon the
carcase had been dismembered and carried piecemeal to the camp. After
the skin had been stretched out and spalked down to dry on the hot sand,
we cut up and slightly salted the meat, preparatory to its being packed
together and rolled in sacking. Next day it would be hung out on lines
to dry into "bultong." The head was a beauty; the horns measured 41.5
inches. That night the jackals from far and near would pick up the
scent and prowl, yonking and yowling, about the camp. The less cowardly
among them would steal up--almost to our very hearth. Consequently we
should have to avoid leaving unprotected anything capable of being
chewed. The jackal is the Autolycus of the desert.
In the afternoon I explored the south-western flank of the main dune.
So light was the sand that in parts I sank almost knee-deep. Jackals
were to be seen everywhere; one wondered how such a number could manage
to eke out a livelihood in so barren a locality. From one hollow,--a
cup-shaped depression scooped out by some recent wind-eddy, seventeen of
these animals emerged. They were too far away to fire at, for I had
left my rifle in camp and brought a shotgun. There was no other sign of
animal life.
Fold upon fold--utterly, unspeakably arid--the flank of the main dune
sinuated away towards the north-west. On turning towards the north the
abomination of desolation grew more abominable at every step, so I
altered my course to the left and descended the steep side of the
red-hot dust-heap. Soon I found myself on the edge of a plain lying
between two dune-tentacles which were about a mile apart. In more or
less the centre of this plain was a small patch of low scrub, and
towards the latter a single jackal was loping. He was of the "silver"
variety; consequently his pelt was of value. I felt I wanted that pelt.
The only good jackal is a dead jackal. I had no qualms of conscience
about taking this creature's life.
My slinking friend whose opulent coat of silver-striped fur I coveted,
reached the little patch of scrub and crouched down in it. But the
bushes were so low and sparse that I could distinctly see his erect,
pointed ears. Now,--I meant to have some amusement out of that
marauder, that prowling scoundrel who butchered young fawns and
plundered the nests of birds. So I lit my pipe and strolled,--not
towards the patch of scrub; that would have been far too obvious a thing
to do,--but as though I meant to pass it by some distance to the right.
I did pass it, but immediately afterwards inclined my course slightly to
the left, proceeding in a curve. The curve became a spiral; I walked
round and round the patch of scrub, gradually edging nearer.
To look towards the jackal would have been to give myself away
absolutely. My game was to pretend to be unaware that such a thing as a
jackal existed in Bushmanland. However, out of the tail of my left eye
I could just see the pointed ears still erect; it was clear that the
owner of those ears was following my movements with careful but
perplexed attention. Was it possible that that villain, with all his
cunning, could have really believed that I was taking just an ordinary
stroll? The fact was,--he found himself face to face with a wholly
unprecedented situation.
Of course I recognised that all my trouble might be for nothing; that
the jackal perhaps was sitting at the side of a convenient burrow, ready
to drop out of sight at my first suspicious gesture. But, on the other
hand, were no burrow available, my cunning friend's moments were drawing
to a tragic close,--his last springbuck fawn had been devoured, his last
smashing of ostrich-eggs perpetrated.
I was now within sixty yards of the jackal; still there was no movement
on his part,--except that of the pointed ears which followed the
following eyes. The distance decreased as the spiral drew in; the
Lachesis-web was being spun fine; Atropos stood ready with her shears.
Fifty--forty yards--now he must be very uneasy indeed. There was
evidently no burrow available; otherwise he would long since have
disappeared into it. He had never seen anyone manoeuvre like this; how
he wished he had bolted when I first altered my course. Thirty--twenty
yards;--that was more than he could stand. He hurled himself forth--
only to fall, riddled by a charge of buck-shot.
Hendrick came running across the flat, his face beaming with delight.
There would be joy in the camp that night, for jackal-flesh is the
Hottentots' favourite delicacy.
Try as I might, I never--in the course of my various Bushmanland trips--
had been able to shake Hendrick off, for my friend Andries had issued
strict injunctions that he was never to lose my spoor. So whenever I
left camp, Hendrick made careful note of the direction I had taken and,
after an interval, followed me. No notice was taken of the protests I
made against this, as a rule, wholly unnecessary precaution, for Andries
had a strong arm and a sjambok for use when his servants disobeyed him.
Westward of Gamoep, Andries as a rule did what I told him to, but in the
desert he was an autocrat, and a severe one. I believe that in
Bushmanland he would have sjamboked me had there been no other way of
enforcing his will.
Andries distrusted my desert craft, making no allowance for that "sense
of direction" which strenuous wanderings of early years in waste places
had developed in me. However, hunting in the desert was undoubtedly
fraught with danger. Under certain atmospheric conditions, if one had
suddenly to put forth exertion sufficient to induce perspiration, the
pores refused to close, and moisture was drawn out of the system at such
a rate that to drink presently or die was the alternative.
The Bushmanland desert has taken a heavy toll of thirst-victims. Close
to Agenhuis I was shewn a little bush under which a strong young
fellow--the son of a man I knew well,--laid himself down and perished
miserably within a mile of his camp. The people at Agenhuis saw him
coming on, walking slowly. He turned out of the track and sank under a
bush; those who watched him thought he had paused to take a rest.
Wondering why he delayed so long, his friends strolled over to where he
lay. The man was dead. His tongue was blackened and shrunk; his lips
and eyelids cracked and caked with clotted blood. This is only one of
the many dismal instances of people perishing of thirst within short
distances of their camps.
The day died gloriously. Far away to eastward a thunderstorm trailed
down from the north, its bastions and buttresses snow-white or
ebon-black--according as to whether the sunlight touched them or not.
When the last level beams smote through the banked masses of vapour, a
glory of rose, purple and gold transfigured the soaring turrets. That
night the firmament was clearer than ever; the satellites of Jupiter
could actually be seen with the naked eye. The eastern horizon was lit
by Aurora-like lightning,--soft, lambent and incessant. Eastern
Bushmanland must have been drenched. Even as I watched, the springbuck,
scattered over the western desert, had no doubt read the signal aright
and begun their hundred-mile flitting towards the regions blest with
rain. Already the Trek-Boers at Namies and Naramoep would be busy
pulling down their mat-houses and packing their wagons for the trek
eastward. The barometer shewed a heavy fall; this indicated unsettled
weather,--probably a strong wind from the north.
Mute, ominous and black loomed the dune-devil. Who and what was he,
that unspeakable entity? Was he not Typhon, Lord of Evil and Autocrat
of Desert Places--that monstrous deity who was cast forth from the
councils of the Egyptian gods on account of his unspeakable iniquities?
Yes,--it was Typhon and none other; he wandered south in search of a
kingdom to usurp, and found it there. But the rain-god, whose throne is
the distant Drakensberg, stretched forth his silver sword, the Gariep,
and ham-strung the intruder. Otherwise the Kalihari might now be
stretching forth a hand to grasp l'Agulhas, and all the African
southland be a waste.
That embodied malignity, crouched and huddled beneath the sumptuous
stars--what unspeakable outrage was his bestial and inchoate rudiment of
a mind devising? Perhaps that day he had sent a message bidding his
hag-handmaid, the north wind, come and help him to destroy us,
intruders. There was menace in the air. The temperature had hardly
fallen,--as it almost invariably did at night.
At daybreak the atmosphere was tense, oppressive and phenomenally lucid.
Often the desert dawn is followed by a faint semi-opacity; an opaline
suggestion of vapourised moisture,--the diaphanous veil of evaporated
dew. But on the previous night no dew had fallen. Heaven had withheld
that gracious, healing touch with which it sometimes assuaged the scorch
inflicted by the ruthless sun on the patient wilderness.
The plains lay hushed as though in anticipation of sinister happenings.
Soon the east grew suddenly splendid; shafts of faint gold and delicate
rose spread from the horizon half-way to the zenith. These were the
wheel-spokes of the still-hidden chariot of the sun-god. The flanks of
Typhon, the huddled shoulders between which his head was sunk, took on
the hue of glowing bronze. The Belted Mountain shone like a bale-fire.
The sun arose; his first beams smote like the lash of a whip. In the
twinkling of an eye the glamour of morning had shrunk and shrivelled,--
fallen to the dust and left no more trace than would a broken bubble.
The world was now a tortured plain on which the redoubled wrath of the
sky was poured forth. Typhon seemed to stir in his sleep,--to expand
and palpitate. The reason of his baleful and unbridled power was at
hand. That day he would be omnipotent and unquestioned Lord of the
Desert.
A faint, hushing breath, less felt than heard, touched us and passed on
over the shuddering plain. Its course was from the north; it left
increasing heat on its track. Another, not so faint, but definitely
audible,--tangible as flame. It was indeed the breath of Typhon,--the
suspiration of his awakening fury. A fringe as of erect russet hair
plumed his hunched shoulders. Here and there immense tufts, like those
of a waving, quivering mane, were hurled aloft; they fell back in the
form of cataracts. Then--like the sudden smoke of a volcano, his
loosened locks streamed forth on the tempest. Typhon was awake and had
arisen in his blighting wrath.
His breath had not yet reached us, but it was very near. His voice was
a penetrating, sibillant hiss, with a moaning undertone--the utterance
of fury rendered inarticulate by its own intensity. Now the sand-spouts
which had been flung upwards, rained on us in fine, almost impalpable
dust, that scorched where it fell. It filled the air we strove to
breathe; it blinded and baffled us as we vainly sought for shelter.
Then darkness settled down and the moaning undertone swelled to a roar.
We crouched within the wagon, the tilt of which rocked and strained.
The air we gaspingly breathed had a horrible, acrid taste.
Now and then a compensating current of air streamed back under the wing
of the tempest that overwhelmed us, and afforded relief for a space. It
was only during such intervals that we could venture to lift our eyes;
it was then we saw that the red-maned tentacles around us were alive and
writhing, and we knew that on the morrow their location and contours
would be different from what they were that morning.
It was late in the afternoon when Typhon's rage subsided and we emerged
from our ravaged wagon, which stood half-buried in sand. The tentacle
near us had stretched out a feeler and grasped it to the axles. It took
several hours of hard digging before we were able to liberate the wheels
enough to admit of the wagon being drawn out and taken to a spot which
was free from drifted sand.
Yes, the monster had moved; his shoulders were hunched at a different
curve; his long flank had taken on strange bends and bulges. But he was
once more prone after his terrific but impotent uprising. Typhon slept.