But Tom was wrong. Either the report had been false, or the lions had a
special intimation that certain destruction approached them; for our
hunters waited two nights at the native kraal without seeing one,
although the black king thereof stoutly affirmed that they had attacked
the cattle enclosures nearly every night for a week past, and committed
great havoc.
One piece of good fortune, however, attended them, which was that they
unexpectedly met with the large party which the major had expressed his
wish to join. It consisted of about thirty men, four of whom were
sportsmen, and the rest natives, with about twenty women and children,
twelve horses, seventy oxen, five wagons, and a few dogs; all under the
leadership of a trader named Hardy.
Numerous though the oxen were, there were not too many of them, as the
reader may easily believe when we tell him that the wagons were very
large, clumsy, and heavily laden,--one of them, besides other things,
carrying a small boat--and that it occasionally required the powers of
twenty oxen to drag one wagon up some of the bad hills they encountered
on the journey to the Zulu country.
The four sportsmen, who were named respectively Pearson, Ogilvie, Anson,
and Brand, were overjoyed at the addition to the party of Tom Brown and
his companions, the more so that Tom was a doctor, for the constitutions
of two of them, Ogilvie and Anson, had proved to be scarcely capable of
withstanding the evil effects of the climate. Tom prescribed for them
so successfully that they soon regained their strength; a result which
he believed, however, was fully as much due to the cheering effects of
the addition to their social circle as to medicine.
Having rested at the kraal a few days, partly to recruit the travellers,
and partly to give the lions an opportunity of returning and being shot,
the whole band set forth on their journey to the Umveloose river, having
previously rendered the king of the kraal and his subjects happy by a
liberal present of beads, brass wire, blue calico, and blankets.
At the kraal they had procured a large quantity of provisions for the
journey--amobella meal for porridge, mealies, rice, beans, potatoes, and
water-melons; and, while there, they had enjoyed the luxury of as much
milk as they could drink; so that all the party were in pretty good
condition and excellent spirits when they left. But this did not last
very long, for the weather suddenly changed, and rain fell in immense
quantities. The long rank grass of those regions became so saturated
that it was impossible to keep one's-self dry; and, to add to their
discomforts, mosquitoes increased in numbers to such an extent that some
of the European travellers could scarcely obtain a wink of sleep.
"Oh dear!" groaned poor Wilkins, one night as he lay between the major
and Tom Brown on the wet grass under the shelter of a bullock-wagon
covered with a wet blanket; "how I wish that the first mosquito had
never been born!"
"If the world could get on without rain," growled the major, "my
felicity would be complete. There is a particular stream which courses
down the underside of the right shaft of the wagon, and meets with some
obstruction just at the point which causes it to pour continuously down
my neck. I've shifted my position twice, but it appears to follow me,
and I have had sensations for the last quarter of an hour which induce
me to believe that a rivulet is bridged by the small of my back. Ha!
have you killed him this time?"
The latter remark was addressed to Tom Brown, who had for some time past
been vigorously engaged slapping his own face in the vain hope of
slaying his tormentors--vain, not only because they were too quick to be
caught in that way, but also, because, if slain by hundreds at every
blow, there would still have remained thousands more to come on!
"No," replied Tom, with a touch of bitterness in his tone; "he's not
dead yet."
"He?" exclaimed Wilkins; "do you mean to say that you are troubled by
only _one_ of the vile creatures?"
"Oh no!" said Tom; "there are millions of 'em humming viciously round my
head at this moment, but one of them is so big and assiduous that I have
come to recognise his voice--there! d'you hear it?"
"Hear it!" cried Wilkins; "how can you expect me to hear one of yours
when I am engaged with a host of my own? Ah! but I hear _that_," he
added, laughing, as another tremendous crack resounded from Tom Brown's
cheek; "what a tough skin you must have, to be sure, to stand such
treatment?"
"I am lost in admiration of the amiableness of your temper, Tom,"
remarked the major. "If I were to get such a slap in the face as that,
even from myself, I could not help flying in a passion. Hope the enemy
is defeated at last?"
"I--I--think so," said Tom, in that meditative tone which assures the
listener that the speaker is intensely on the _qui vive_; "yes, I
believe I _have_--eh--no--there he--oh!"
Another pistol-shot slap concluded the sentence, and poor Tom's
companions in sorrow burst into a fit of laughter.
"Let 'im bite, sir," growled the deep bass voice of Hardy, who lay under
a neighbouring wagon; "when he's got his beak well shoved into you, and
begins to suck, he can't get away so quick, 'cause of havin' to pull it
out again! hit out hard and quick then, an' you're sure of him. But the
best way's to let 'em bite, an' go to sleep."
"Good advice; I'll try to take it," said Tom, turning round with a sigh,
and burying his face in the blanket. His companions followed his
example, and in spite of rain and mosquitoes were soon fast asleep.
This wet weather had a very depressing effect on their spirits, and made
the region so unhealthy that it began ere long to tell on the weaker
members of the sporting party; as for the natives, they, being inured to
it, were proof against everything. Being all but naked, they did not
suffer from wet garments; and as they smeared their bodies over with
grease, the rain ran off them as it does off the ducks. However, it did
not last long at that time. In a few days the sky cleared, and the
spirits of the party revived with their health.
The amount of animal life seen on the journey was amazing. All
travellers in Africa have borne testimony to the fact that it teems with
animals. The descriptions which, not many years ago, were deemed
fabulous, have been repeated to us as sober truth by men of
unquestionable veracity. Indeed, no description, however vivid, can
convey to those whose personal experience has been limited to the fields
of Britain an adequate conception of the teeming millions of living
creatures, great and small, four-footed and winged, which swarm in the
dense forests and mighty plains of the African wilderness.
Of course the hunters of the party were constantly on the alert, and
great was the slaughter done; but great also was the capacity of the
natives for devouring animal food, so that very little of the sport
could be looked upon in the light of life taken in vain.