IN WILDEST AFRICA
[Illustration:
_From a Photograph by Nicola Perscheid, Berlin._
_C. G. Schillings_]
IN WILDEST AFRICA
BY
C. G. SCHILLINGS
AUTHOR OF “WITH FLASHLIGHT AND RIFLE IN EQUATORIAL EAST AFRICA”
TRANSLATED BY
FREDERIC WHYTE
WITH OVER 300 PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIES DIRECT FROM THE AUTHOR’S
NEGATIVES, TAKEN BY DAY AND NIGHT; AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
VOL. I
LONDON
HUTCHINSON & CO.
PATERNOSTER ROW
1907
[Illustration: LION STUDY.]
Preface
I never dreamed that my book _With Flashlight and Rifle_--alike in its
German and its English and American editions--would receive everywhere
so kind a welcome, or that it would make for me so many new friends,
both at home and abroad.
I have been encouraged by this success to give a fresh series of my
studies of African wild life and of my “Nature Documents,” as Dr.
Ludwig Heck has designated my photographs, in the present work.
I should like to express my gratitude once again to all those who, in
one way or another, have furthered my labours in connection with these
two books, especially to Dr. Heck himself and the other men of eminence
and learning whose names I mentioned in my preface to _With Flashlight
and Rifle_. A complete list of all my kind helpers and well-wishers
would be too long to print here. I am deeply indebted, too, to the
many correspondents--men of note and young schoolboys alike--who
have written to me to express their appreciation of my achievements.
Their praises have gone to my heart. I owe a special word of thanks to
President Roosevelt, who smoothed the way for my book in the United
States by his reference to me in his own volume _Outdoor Pastimes of an
American Hunter_. I take the more pleasure in discharging this debt in
that I had long derived intense enjoyment from President Roosevelt’s
masterly descriptions of wild life and sport in America. President
Roosevelt has always been one of the foremost pioneers in the movement
for the preservation of nature in all its forms, and has made every
possible use of the resources placed at his disposal by his high
position to further this end.
This new book of mine is in form a series of impressions and sketches,
loosely strung together; but it will serve, I hope, indirectly to win
over my readers to the one underlying idea--the idea upon which I harp
so often--of the importance of taking active steps to prevent the
complete extermination of wild life.
Like _With Flashlight and Rifle_, this supplementary work can claim to
stand out from the ranks of all other volumes of the kind as regards
the character of its illustrations. All those photographs which I
have taken myself are reproduced from the original negatives without
retouching of any kind. Every single one, therefore, is an absolutely
trustworthy record of a scene visible at a given hour upon the African
velt by day or by night. I insist upon this point because herein lie
both the value and the fascination of my pictures.
In his introduction to the English edition of _With Flashlight and
Rifle_ Sir Harry Johnston declares that that work was “bound to produce
nostalgia in the lines of returned veterans”; I trust that _In Wildest
Africa_ will bring also to such readers a breath from the wilderness
awaking in them memories of exciting experiences on the velt. Above
all, I trust that its appeal will be not to grown readers alone, but
that it will have still stronger attractions for the coming generation.
A preface should not be too long. I shall conclude with the expression
of the hope that I may be able presently to secure a new collection of
“Nature Documents.”
C. G. SCHILLINGS.
[Illustration: YOUNG DWARF ANTELOPE.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._]
[Illustration: BLACK-HOOFED ANTELOPES.]
Contents of Vol. I
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE SPELL OF THE ELELESCHO 1
II. FROM THE CAVE-DWELLER’S SKETCH TO THE FLASHLIGHT PHOTOGRAPH 88
III. NEW LIGHT ON THE TRAGEDY OF CIVILISATION 107
IV. THE SURVIVORS 139
V. SPORT AND NATURE IN GERMANY 179
VI. THE LONELY WONDER-WORLD OF THE NYÍKA 204
VII. THE VOICES OF THE WILDERNESS 283
[Illustration: GULLS.]
List of Illustrations in Vol. I
PAGE
_Frontispiece_--Portrait of the Author.
Lion Study v
Young Dwarf Antelope vii
Armed Natives ix
Black-hoofed Antelopes xi
Gulls xiii
A Giraffe Photograph 1
My “Boys” organising a “Goma” 2
Bearers indulging in a Bath 3
A Masai _ol’ moruan_ (old man) 4
Group of Masai 5
A _memento mori_ of the Velt 9
Dwarf Gazelles on the Velt 11
Masai Herdsmen 13
Young Masai Dancing and Singing 17
Bearers on the March 21
Transport Bearers in Difficulties 21
The Author being Carried across a Swamp 23
How Mules and Asses are got across a River 24
Two of my Wandorobo Guides _facing_ 24
A Halt of my Caravan on the Velt 25
Masai Warriors 29
Group of Masai 33
A Party of my trusty Companions 37
Bearers making their way through high grass 41
The Caravan on the March 45
A Herd of Zebras taking Refuge from the Heat of the Midday
Sun _facing_ 48
Flamingoes on the margin of a Lake 49
Flamingoes flying down to the Lake margin 53
Alfred Kaiser in Arab costume 55
Group of Gnus 58
Nile Geese on the Natron Lake 58
A Herd of Grant’s Gazelles 59
Crested Cranes and Zebras 59
A Camp on the Velt 63
Native Settlement on the Pangani River 67
Group of Eland Antelopes 72
A Herd of White-bearded Gnus 73
A Masai Dance 77
A Herd of White-bearded Gnus
(i) at close quarters;
(ii) a more distant view;
(iii) they show their disquiet;
(iv) they decide to retreat _facing_ 80
Effects of Heat and Mirage 81
A Hot Day in the Great Rift Valley 85
Group of Masai 87
Prehistoric Sketch on a Fragment of Ivory 88
Old Picture of a female Hippopotamus 91
An old German Picture of the Giraffe 93
Hottentot Hunters: a sketch of two hundred years ago 95
Ancient Egyptian representations of Giraffes and other animals 97
Sketches of Animals made by the Bushmen 99
Black-tailed Antelopes running through high grass 101
Bearers on the March 103
A Rhinoceros moving through velt grass 107
Three large Gorillas shot by Captain Dominick 115
Troop of Lions in broad daylight 121
Herd of Elephants in South Africa, by Harris 127
Group of Wild Animals at Hagenbeck’s zoological gardens 133
Young Grant’s Gazelles 139
’Mbega Monkeys 140
A ’Mbega _facing_ 142
East African Wild Buffaloes 143
Modern Methods of Taxidermy: Setting up a Giraffe 146-149
Male Giraffe Gazelle 150
Dwarf Antelope 152
Giraffe Gazelles 152
Snow-white Black-hoofed Antelope 153
New Species of Hyena (_Hyena schillingsi_) 153
Dwarf Musk Deer 158
A Pair of Guerezas 159
Black-hoofed Antelope 164
Giraffe Gazelle and Dwarf Antelope 165
Head of an African Wart-hog 168
Nest of Ostrich’s Eggs 169
Drying Ornithological specimens 174
Group of Author’s Trophies 175
Women of the Rahe Oasis 177
Egyptian Geese in a Swamp 179
The Nyíka: a Bird’s-eye View _facing_ 200
Oryx Antelopes 204
A Velt Hillock 205
The Summit of Mount ’Ngaptuk 207
A Look-out Place 211
Black-hoofed Antelopes 216, 217
Black-tailed Antelopes 222, 223
Masai Hartebeests 230
Giraffe Gazelle 231
Grant’s Gazelles _facing_ 234
Grant’s Gazelles 237
White-bearded Gnus and Zebras taking Refuge
from the Midday Sun _facing_ 240
An old Acacia 244
A typical Landscape 245
Hungry Vultures 249
Flamingoes in Flight 252, 253
Storks on the Wing 258
Storks gathering for Migration 259
Remains of Rhinoceroses 261
Crested Cranes in Flight 264
Vultures and Marabous 265
Herd of Waterbuck 270
Oryx Antelopes 271
Grant’s Gazelles 276
Hartebeests near the Western ’Ndjiri Swamps 277
Map of a Day’s Movements and Observations 279
Flamingoes on the Margin of the Natron Lake 281
A Francolin perched on a Thorn-bush 283
Flight of Sandfowl 287
Zebras and Gnus _facing_ 292
An Alarum-turaco 295
Nest of Weaver-birds 301
A Shrike on the Look-out 309
Brook with an Underground Channel 315
[Illustration: A GIRAFFE PHOTOGRAPH, TAKEN IN THE SHIMMERING LIGHT OF
THE VELT.]
I
The Spell of the Elelescho
On the afternoon of January 14, 1897, a small caravan of native
bearers, some fifty strong, was wearily making its way across the wide
plain towards its long-wished-for goal, Lake Nakuro, which was at last
coming, into sight in the far distance. The appearance of the bearers
and their worn-out clothing showed plainly that the caravan had made
a long journey. And so it was. Weakened by fever, I was coming from
the Victoria Nyanza in the hope of making a quicker recovery in this
more elevated district. As is the way when one is convalescent, life
seemed to me something doubly beautiful and desirable now that, after
lying seriously ill for weeks, I was recovering from the fever. I
had been all but despaired of by the English officers who had kindly
taken care of me, Mr. C. W. Hobley and Mr. Tompkins, to whom I owe
a debt of gratitude. I had caught the disease in the marshes of the
Nyanza and in my tramp through the wild Sotik and Nandi country, then
unexplored or very little known. During the last few days our march had
once more been imperilled by hostile tribes, the rebel Wakamassia, but
this danger was all but past now that we were entering the uninhabited
region of the Nakuro, Elmenteita and Naiwasha Lakes, in the district
known to the Masai as En’aiposha.
[Illustration: MY “BOYS”--BODY-SERVANTS AS DISTINGUISHED FROM
BEARERS--AMUSED THEMSELVES AT MOSCHI BY ORGANISING WHAT IS CALLED A
“GOMA.”]
Endless undulating, expanses of grassy country, unadorned by a single
tree, had made our last days of marching not too pleasant. Now there
was a marked downward incline of the grass-covered plateau; it
gradually changed to a barren plain of volcanic origin, and the view
extended over the wide glittering lake.
Filling a far-stretching hollow, and lost to view on the horizon, it
lay at our feet, a welcome sight.
[Illustration: MY BEARERS LOST NO OPPORTUNITY OF INDULGING IN THE
ENJOYMENT OF A BATH.]
The camp was pitched beside a parched-looking ’msuaki tree on the banks
of a brook which at this time of the year was a turbid torrent pouring
itself down towards the lake. Some time before, bush and grass fires
had raged in the neighbourhood and destroyed the old grass, and here,
it would seem, a heavy rainfall had conjured forth for us a new carpet
of grass that was fresh and luxuriant. The remarkable luxuriance of the
grass lands in the district had already been specially noticed, and
compared to the richest pastures of the Swiss Alps, by the discoverer
of, and first traveller in, this region, Dr. G. A. Fischer, an explorer
who, alas! so soon fell a victim to the climate.
Fischer--in 1883--was the first to visit the neighbouring Lake
Naiwasha. How the situation has changed since then! At that time, and
thus only twelve years before I first camped there, the warlike Masai
still held these wide uplands as absolute masters.
[Illustration: A MASAI _ol’ moruan_ (_i.e._ OLD MAN) ANSWERING MY
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ELELESCHO PLANT.]
Oscar Baumann, an explorer who did good service, was one of the first
to traverse their inhospitable dominions. It was some years after
Fischer’s journey that Baumann made his way into the region of the
Nile sources, during his famous expedition to legend-haunted Ruanda
(now better known to us through Dr. Richard Kandt’s researches). I
made his acquaintance at the Austrian Consulate at Zanzibar. He, also,
was snatched away in his early years by the Sphinx of Africa, the
treacherous climate.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
MASAI _ol’ morani_ AND TWO YOUNGER MASAI IN MY CAMP. THE
TYPICAL COSTUME OF THE WARRIOR DIFFERS CONSIDERABLY FROM THAT
SHOWN IN THE ILLUSTRATION AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER, WHICH
REPRESENTS A MASAI ALREADY INFLUENCED BY CIVILISATION.]
His journey, only a few years before my stay here, cost his numerous
and strongly armed caravan hard fighting with the natives. And now I am
camping here with a few men in an unfortified camp!
Fischer was quite convinced that he could not venture upon his
exploring journey without the support of the Mohammedan trading
caravans, but he had finally to start alone with 230 bearers. Yet,
notwithstanding all difficulties, he successfully accomplished his
task. But how different from those of to-day were the circumstances
under which a journey was made into unknown Masailand at that time!
The Masai warrior was then still sovereign master in his own land; he
was still “Ol open l en gob” (“Lord of the land”) in the full sense of
the word. And all the chivalrous poetry that has been so pathetically
brought home to us by the fate of the North American Indians, was also
not alien to his warlike character. Then came the moment when he had to
face the firearms of the Europeans. His fate was sealed, like that of
the lion and the leopard.
Then, too, tribute had to be arranged for on all sides. Not only some
of the petty chiefs in the neighbourhood of the coast, but the Masai
too, must receive costly payments. Thus, for example, Dr. Fischer had
to hand over to the chief Sedenga at ‘Mkaramo on the Pagani River, to
obtain permission for the passage of his caravan, 100 pieces of cloth,
each six yards long, an axe, 100 leaden bullets, one ten-pound keg of
gunpowder, two large coils of brass wire, and eight pounds’ weight of
artificial pearls!
Only two kinds of caravans were known to the Masai, slave caravans and
trading caravans, which busied themselves with collecting the coveted
ivory tusks. The Arab traders knew how to combine the two objects: the
slaves, the “black ivory” of the trade, were forced to carry the white
ivory down to the coast.
The strength of these trading caravans, well equipped with firearms,
always amounted to several hundred men; but under certain circumstances
these numbers were considerably increased, so that caravans of a
thousand men or even more were not rare. It took Fischer long months
to recruit his caravan. The bearers did not like to undertake the
dangerous journey with the first white man who started for that region.
The jealousy of the Arab traders was also at work. They feared that the
channels of the ivory traffic, which they carefully kept secret, might
be revealed.
The German explorer carried through his expedition under the greatest
difficulties. He returned home only to succumb soon after to the
extraordinary hardships he had endured.
Fischer’s researches were of special importance in connection with
the ornithology of Masailand.[1] His journey gave to science some
thirty-six hitherto unknown species of birds. Such a result must
indeed command our respect, when we consider the difficulties with
which the traveller had to contend, and especially when we remember
that his available resources were comparatively trifling, beside, for
instance, the abundant help that was at the disposal of the English
explorers of the same period. The Geographical Society of Hamburg
rendered him the service of making the execution of his plans possible,
and for the same object Fischer expended all the money he had earned
in the active practice of his profession as a doctor on the island
of Zanzibar. He saw the activity he had devoted to the service of
scientific ideals richly rewarded by the results he obtained. And then
he had soon to succumb to the treacherous climate. But if his life was
cut short, how quickly the power of the Masai warriors was broken, the
very power that had so harassed him, and made his journey so difficult
and dangerous. That terrible scourge, the cattle plague, probably
introduced from India, suddenly destroyed the greater part of the herds
of the Masai, and at the same time blotted out vast numbers of the
Masai themselves from the list of the living.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A _memento mori_ OF THE AFRICAN VELT.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: DWARF GAZELLES ON THE VELT. IN THE EDDYING WAVES OF
DAZZLING LIGHT ONE COULD NOT KEEP ONE’S EYES OPEN FOR MORE THAN A
SECOND AT A TIME.]
The fates of these pastoral people and of their property (the countless
herds of cattle) were so closely bound together, and these warlike
herdsmen had become so dependent on their droves of cattle, that once
these were ruined they could not survive, but died in a few days of
famine.
In the lapse of little more than a year the cattle plague and the
Black Death had swept over the Masai uplands. Hungry vultures hovered
over scenes of horror. The herds of cattle fell under the strange
pestilence. Agonised by slow starvation, the herdsmen followed them
to death. I have often found lying together, in one narrow space, the
countless white bleached bones of the cattle and the skull of their
former owner. It would be an old camping-ground, with its fence of
thorns (zereba) long rotted away, and it was now a strangely impressive
Golgotha. These heaps of bones, still to be seen in 1897, were soon
after dissolved in dust and scattered by the winds.
Where are the Masai of those days?
Suddenly they stand boldly before me, as if they had sprung up out of
the ground! It is no illusion. But why do my bearers show no fear?
Why does no uproar break out in the camp?
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
MASAI HERDSMEN.]
It is plain enough that no one troubles himself about the appearance of
these figures, for they come, not threatening and demanding tribute,
but conscious of the overpowering might of the European. True, a few
months ago, not so far from my camp, their warriors surprised and
destroyed a caravan of nearly a thousand coast folk. But, generally
speaking, they do not care to have to reckon with the superior weapons
of Europe. They even accept some food from me. And in this matter
they are not so dainty as they used to be in former times, when the
warriors--obedient to strict dietary laws--lived only on the meat and
milk of their herds. Of course, here we have to deal with only a small
number of them. Yonder, on the wild uplands, there still live a not
inconsiderable number of Masai, who having saved their herds, or got
them together again, keep as far away as may be from the Europeans and
their uncanny weapons.
The Masai warriors, with their wives, children, and herds, seem to
me to be fit accessories for this desert landscape. In the evening,
dances amuse us till late in the night, and many a wordy skirmish
breaks out as some of my bearers who, thanks to former journeys,
have some knowledge of the Masai tongue, gossip with these nomads of
the wilderness. The coast folk think themselves high as the heavens
above the “savage” Masai. The Masai warriors, in return, despise the
burden-bearing coast folk, count them as “barbarians,” and scornfully
call them “il’meek.”
But the times have changed, and so it comes to pass that my people
too join in the dance, which lasts late into the night: that songs
of the warriors and the women--“‘Singolioitin loo-‘l-muran” and
“Loo-‘ngoroyok”--ring out through the darkness, the chorus finding a
manifold echo with its oft-repeated “Ho! He! Ho! Na! He! Hoo!” It is a
“Leather Stocking” kind of poetry, and indeed the redskins of the New
World and the Masai here in Dark Africa seem to me alike. The former
had to yield to civilisation, the same fate awaits the latter.
No one had the least anxiety about the night. We quietly allowed the
Moran[2] to bivouac near the camp. Our march through the wild highlands
of the Wasotiko and the Wanandi had deadened our sense of such dangers.
We could have no forebodings of the fierce struggle lasting for years
that was yet to come between the English troops and those peoples, or
imagine how warlike and skilled in self-defence they were. The presence
of hundreds of spear- and club-armed warriors in the camp had become
an almost daily experience, and great was the surprise of the English
officers, later on, when they heard that the great caravan, which I
had joined, had had the good fortune to pass through these districts
without any fighting.
For me my serious illness had all at once interrupted the austere and
wild delights of this life of the march and the caravan. But I had now
become doubly responsive to the joys of travel amid light and air,
freedom and endless space; doubly responsive also to the changing
impressions derived from my week of marching through lonely primeval
forests, bamboo thickets, and grassy plains--scenes in which, as my
friend Richard Kandt, the discoverer of the source of the Nile, so
strikingly remarks,[3] every plant, every stone, seems to cry out again
to one in the vast solitude but one word: “The desert! the desert!”
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
YOUNG MASAI DANCING AND SINGING NEAR MY CAMP.]
In the early morning hours of January 15 there was a light continuous
rainfall. A short march of only two hours brought us to our camping
place on the shore of Lake Nakuro.
Far away extended the panorama of the lake, which lay before us filling
its hollow bed, with its banks at this season of the year yielding
fresh pastures to numberless herds of wild animals, and its waters
affording rest and food to countless members of the feathered tribe.
I had hardly ever seen greater numbers of the pretty little dwarf
gazelles (_Gazella thomsoni_, Gthr.). Thousands and thousands more
of these graceful creatures showed themselves on the fresh, green,
grassy meadows of the lake margin, or scattered over its pebble beds of
obsidian, augite, and pumice-stone. Wherever one turned one’s gaze it
fell again and again upon these beautiful gazelles, which in many ways
reminded one of wild goats at pasture, and were so strangely trustful
that they often allowed the spectator to come quite close to them.
Marked as are the colours of its hairy covering, the dwarf gazelle
does not stand out boldly from the background, whether this be a plain
blackened by bush-fires, or the mere bare ground, dun-coloured and
brown, or land covered with soft green grass. But how clearly defined
are its brown, black, and white, when we look closely at the hide of a
specimen we have secured, or see it in a museum.
Darker spots in the distance far away from us we take to be larger wild
animals. The field-glass shows that they are hartebeests, and a great
number of waterbuck; and still farther off there is a moving mass that
shimmers and is half lost in the glare of the morning sun. There are
zebras, and yet more zebras, moving like living walls! Strange effects
of light actually give us the impression of something like a wall or
rampart, made up of the living forms of the zebras--the deep shadows
they throw come out black, their flanks are lighted up in the dazzling
sunshine, and they shimmer with all colours and with ever-changing
effect.
Here by the lake we have the characteristic mark of the wilderness:
dwarf gazelles and zebras, zebras and dwarf gazelles in greater and
greater multitudes! Wherever the eye glances it falls upon these
two species, and the numerous waterbuck and Grant’s gazelles, and
the hundreds of hartebeests, are in a sense mere points of relief
for the sight amidst these vast crowds. Bathed in the shimmering
light this multitude of animals mingles together. Wherever I make my
appearance there is for awhile movement in the mass of wild creatures,
which otherwise are grazing quietly. I have long since left the
camp a considerable distance behind me. I am following One of the
rhinoceros--or hippopotamus--tracks leading to the lake margin,
lost, so to speak, in this multitudinous animal life, and once more
I have the feeling of finding myself, as it were, in the midst of a
vast flock of sheep, and the impression that all the creatures about
me are not “wild beasts,” but rather tame domestic animals that have
been driven out here to graze on the pastures under the supervision of
a herdsman.
[Illustration:
BEARERS ON THE MARCH. THE FIGURE ON THE RIGHT IS AN
ILLUSTRATION OF THE WAY IN WHICH THEY SOMETIMES RELIEVE THE
STRAIN ON THEIR SHOULDERS BY CARRYING THEIR LOAD AT ARMS’
LENGTH OVER THEIR HEAD. A HUNDRED PACES A MINUTE IS AN AVERAGE
RATE FOR A HEAVILY LADEN BEARER.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
TRANSPORT BEARERS IN DIFFICULTIES.]
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR BEING CARRIED ACROSS A SWAMP.]
The mass of animals surges and undulates to and fro. Some old bulls
of the heavily horned hartebeest species seem to have undertaken the
duty of sentinels. They stand apart fixed and motionless, watching
attentively the strange appearance of the approaching man, and then
make away in a long striding gallop, with heads bent well down, to
increase the distance between themselves and the suspicious object,
ready all the while to give the alarm signal for a general stampede
by loud snorting. In this district we do not find the flat-horned
hartebeest of the Kilimanjaro (_Bubalis cokei_, Gthr.), but the species
named after its discoverer, Jackson (_Bubalis jacksoni_). Long and
stately horns distinguish this variety of a remarkably formed species
of antelope, which is widely distributed throughout Darkest Africa.
To my great delight I succeeded in bringing down a specimen of a much
more interesting species, Neumann’s hartebeest[4] (_Bubalis neumanni_,
Rothsch.), then only known by one or two examples.
[Illustration: HOW MULES AND ASSES ARE GOT ACROSS A RIVER.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
TWO OF MY WANDOROBO GUIDES.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A HALT OF MY CARAVAN ON THE VELT. ON THE LEFT CAPTAIN MERKER,
THE EXPLORER OF THE MASAI COUNTRY AND THE GREAT AUTHORITY ON
THE RACE; NEAR HIM, WEARING A TROPICAL HELMET, STAFF-SURGEON
KÜNSTER, WHO LATER SERVED IN THE SOUTH-WEST AFRICAN CAMPAIGN.]
Overwhelming in its vastness, its rich variety of colour, form, and
movement is the picture of animal life thus displayed.
Moving along the hollows of the plateau hour after hour, looking out
from its ridges, now with the field-glass, now with unaided sight,
I find the whole grassy expanse covered with these wild creatures.
Hundreds and hundreds more of zebras alternate with larger or smaller
herds of Grant’s gazelles. Near them, but keeping apart, and all around
them the dwarf gazelles are swarming. Here and there one sees the
proudly uplifted head of a stately waterbuck, adorned with splendid
branching horns, and not far off his hornless doe, both of them in
form and action greatly reminding one of the stag, of our northern
lands. Occasionally the eye catches sight of splendid black-plumed
cock ostriches here and there on the plateau. They watch the traveller
carefully, and are accompanied by their mates, which are very much more
difficult for the eye to make out owing to their plain grey plumage. On
all sides there are whole herds of brown hartebeests grazing, resting,
or making for some more distant spot with their characteristic long
striding gallop. And now one suddenly comes upon a herd of giant eland
antelopes, brownish yellow, and adorned with white cross-stripes.
Conscious of their mighty strength, there is not much shyness about
them; but they know not the danger they run from the long-range weapon
of the European.
Think of all this animal life, bathed in the fulness of the tropical
sunlight! All depths and shades of colour play before our eyes.
Strongly cast shadows, ever changing with the position of the sun,
alter again and again the whole appearance of this world of life, and
from minute to minute it presents new riddles to any one who has not
had years of experience in the wilderness. When the glittering light
of the midday hours is tiring and confusing the sight, one often can
hardly tell for certain whether it be a living multitude stretching
out in the distance before one, or whether the play of the sunlight is
imparting a semblance of life to scattered clumps of thorn bushes.
Four rhinoceroses which I now descry moving across the plain in the
distance, and a flock of ostriches which I can plainly make out
with the field-glass, change shape and colour so often that it is
astonishing to see them. According to their movements and position with
respect to the sun they appear to be of a blending blue and grey, or
intensely black, and then again almost invisible and the colour of the
earth, but always changing, always different from what they were the
moment before.
To realise all this one must in fancy place oneself in the condition
of exaggerated susceptibility to nervous excitement that results from
the intensity of the light, together with the climate, and the unusual
degree of hardship. All this produces the greater effect because one
has to do one’s work in solitude and loneliness, and is cut off from
all interchange of ideas with one’s fellows.
Here, where the flora makes so poor a display, the fauna is abundant.
What a sight it affords for the ornithologists!
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
MASAI WARRIORS, ARMED WITH THE LONG SPEARS WHICH HAVE COME INTO USE
WITH THEM DURING THE LAST GENERATION OR TWO. IN FORMER DAYS, ACCORDING
TO HOLLIS, THEY USED SPEARS WITH SHORTER BLADES.]
Amongst the herds of zebras our European stork together with its
smaller African cousin, the Abdim stork, is stalking in hundreds
over the plain hunting for locusts. In company with the storks I
saw also great flocks of the handsome crested crane engaged in the
same occupation. Or they rose in heavy flocks over the valleys with
loud and strangely discordant cries. Under the scanty shadows of the
mimosas the splendid giant bustards take their stand at midday, erect,
solemn, stiff-necked. At this time they are not very wary, but in the
coolness of the morning and in the evening hours they soon get away
to a safe distance, either running with their quick mincing step, or
spreading their strong pinions for a short flight along the ground.
Their smaller relative, _Otis gindiana_, Oust., rose before me in the
air, often throwing somersaults on the wing like a tumbler pigeon.
There is hardly any other bird of its size that has such a mastery of
flight. Sea-eagles circled by the margin of the lake uttering their
beautiful clear-sounding cries. Heedless of their presence thousands
of splendid rose-red flamingoes soared up into the deep blue dome
of the sky, or lined the margin of Nakuro, like a garland of living
lake-roses, in company with great flocks of ducks, geese, and waterside
birds of many kinds. Out of the clumps of acacias, and from between
the thickets of ‘msuaki bush by the lake, guinea fowl and francolins
rise, strung out in clattering flying lines, and in the morning hours
handsome sandfowl that have come from far-off regions of the plateau
sail by the margin of the lake. Altogether an overwhelmingly rich
picture of warmly pulsating life and activity! The sight of it all is
indeed quite capable of impressing one with the idea of flocks of
wild creatures that have been completely tamed; and once this idea has
suggested itself, the impression is so strong that for many minutes one
can believe in it!
Amidst all this wealth of “wild” life, which here seems hardly to
deserve the name of “wild,” it is much easier to understand how
primitive man in other continents gradually secured domestic animals
for his use, from the vast range of choice thus presented to him.
But a strange feeling comes over the observer when he remembers that
out of all this wealth of animal life the African has never been able
to link one single creature permanently to himself. He obtained his
cattle and also his goats and sheep from Asia. The camel may be left
out of account, for its connection with the human race is lost in the
mystery of primitive times. We may say that the fauna of Africa has not
given a single species to the group of our domestic animals. It is sad
and humiliating to reflect that the men of to-day cannot accomplish
what was done in the dim past--granted that it took endless ages in the
doing.
There were times, as I have said, when I could not get rid of this
impression of _tame_ herds of animals. And this was all in a land, and
a district, that left one nothing to desire in the way of primitive
wildness. What, then, must it have been in early days when man was
not yet waylaying the beasts of the wilderness, or at least had not
yet employed the poisoned dart and spear, the pitfall and the snare?
It must have been a veritable Garden of Eden. But here, far and wide,
there is nothing to be seen of man, only something that evokes
conjectures as to his former presence.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
GROUP OF MASAI, SHOWING THE HEAVY IRON ORNAMENTS WORN BY THE MARRIED
WOMEN. IN THE BACKGROUND, ONE OF THEIR HUTS, PLASTERED OVER WITH EARTH.]
For suddenly from a height I notice a number of large mounds, formed
of stones, such as only the hand of man could have built up. Under the
secure protection of these masses of rock--rough hillocks of heaped up
stones--men, who were once chiefs and elders of the Masai, sleep their
everlasting sleep. Their resting-places have been so placed that they
are not visible from any considerable distance, but are hidden away
in the hollows of the ground. Out there in the wilderness, beneath
the bright blue sky, these simple old monuments speak to me most
impressively of the mighty harmony of everlasting change. As chance
will have it, I find not far from the graves a human skull shining
brightly in the sunlight and resting on a projecting rock. It must
have lain here very long, as if keeping a look out on the old tomb of
ol ‘loiboni, the departed “wizards” of the Masai. The empty eye-holes
stare at the ancient grave.
But this symbol of the least is not obedient to the spell of death
that whispers here all night long, for it has had to give shelter and
protection to the rearing up of new life. As my hand grasps the skull,
now brittle with decay, a family of mice takes to flight from inside
of it. They had set up their home in this bony palace, and built their
nest there.
And as if the Masai, resting probably for centuries under these heaps
of stone, had left their herds to me, once more there surges around me
this sea of animals. Near at hand they are sharply defined against the
ground, but farther off in the glittering light they grow indefinite.
How the whole flood of life contrasts with the grim volcanic barrenness
of the landscape!
At this moment my impression of vast shepherd-guarded herds is deepened
by the sudden appearance of some spotted hyenas, scattering among the
volcanic pebble beds, and then running away over the plain, and seeming
to play the part of the shepherds’ dogs.
But where are the herdsmen of all these herds? Immediately there comes
an answer to my question. Yonder, by the margin of the lake, in the
distance, I see little wreaths of smoke rising. The idea they give me
of herdsmen on the watch is to be quickly dissipated by a report, not
a loud one, followed by puffs of powder-smoke that vanish quickly in
the air. The shooting does not disturb the animals that surround me.
But then the report is hardly audible, the little puffs of smoke barely
perceptible to the eye. I must find out who is disturbing the peace. It
is perhaps a caravan making for the Victoria Nyanza. For we are upon
the new “road” to the lake--a road which is indeed still in the region
of projects, but which soon will be plainly marked with railway metal.
The smoke puffs appear at markedly regular intervals and as quickly
disappear. I cannot understand it. For a long time I keep my attention
anxiously fixed on these proceedings, all the while hurrying towards
this remarkable apparition. At last my field-glasses enable me to
descry a man, who from time to time drops on one knee to take aim.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A PARTY OF MY TRUSTY COMPANIONS.]
What in the world is he after?
As we draw closer, I am extremely surprised at seeing that the man does
not allow himself to be in the least disturbed in his proceedings. Now
his bullets begin to whistle unpleasantly near me. I fire in the air,
once, twice.... Now his attention is attracted, and simultaneously I
perceive a number of dark objects near the marksman. They seem to be
his companions, black men, and squatting on the ground.
From the background there emerge now great numbers of such objects--it
must be a large caravan.
The distance between us is diminished so that one can see plainly....
Now we can shout to each other.... At last I learn that the hunter is
marching with his long caravan of bearers to the great lake. He has
been putting out all his exertions to shoot some wild animals. But
although he has many surprisingly interesting hunting adventures to
tell of as the result of his three months’ march from the coast to
this point, that task seems to have been beyond his powers! With a
well-aimed shot he has stretched on the ground just one single dwarf
gazelle!!
After shaking hands, he bewails the fact that he has a rifle that
shoots so baldly. He says its system is absolutely worthless,
especially against wild animals.
Our fleeting acquaintance is broken off in a few minutes. He is the
first newly arrived European that I have met for a long time, but I
have not too much sympathy for this class of sportsmen. So my new
acquaintance goes off, still blazing away freely. He has been urged on
by my information that his camping and watering, place for the day
is a long way off, and that the borders of the lake seem to me to be
fever-haunted.
A queer kind of shepherd, in truth, for these wild herds! I fear
he would be very like a wolf, or rather--to be zoologically and
geographically precise--a leopard, in sheep’s clothing!
Again I was alone; the disturber of my peace had not frightened away
the animals. So, as I was regaining strength rapidly, I decided to
halt here for a few days. This meant having to provide for oneself in
the most primitive way, for I was short of some of the most necessary
provisions and supplies. But in such conditions the decision was not
difficult to take. I shall not easily forget the days I spent there.
The plateau of the volcanic lakes Naiwasha, Elementeita and Nakuro,
standing nearly 6,000 feet above the sea, presents to the spectator all
the austere, stern, and strange charm peculiar to the Masai uplands.
Some ten years have gone by since that expedition of mine, and all
is now changed. Up to that time only the natives had lived in these
districts. Few Europeans had penetrated into these solitudes; but now
a track of iron rails links the Indian Ocean with the Central African
Lake basin, and the shrill whistle of the locomotive sounds in the
equatorial wilderness. Wherever the influence of the railway extends,
the Masai, whom I then learned to know, have disappeared. Reservations
have been assigned to them, like the Indians of North America.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
BEARERS MAKING THEIR WAY THROUGH HIGH GRASS.]
My former companion on my travels, Alfred Kaiser, describes, not
without a certain feeling of sadness, how he saw them once more,
not long, ago, under these new conditions, already to a great extent
changed by European influence--and changed in a way that was not at all
to their advantage. Using, instead of the beautiful Masai dialects,
some mangled fragments of English, they scornfully refused objects of
barter that were eagerly coveted ten years ago, and insisted on coined
money. They no longer wore their native ornaments, but were dressed in
European second-hand clothes. In a word they were stripped of all the
wild and primitive beauty that had once distinguished them.
It is a hard fate, when a rude aboriginal people is all of a sudden
brought into touch with those of a high degree of civilisation.
As the former lord of the land[5] was deprived of his rights, so the
same fate, more or less, befalls the splendid animal world that lends
its charm to these solitudes.
But then--ten years ago! I had been given back to life after sharp
suffering, and all that I was now allowed to see in such rich abundance
spoke to me in a more than ordinarily impressive language, a language
that seemed to me to have an enduring charm.
And how clearly must this language have sounded in the times of the
primitive past!
So we may here attempt a picture of the wild life of the lake margin
in former days, on the lines of the sketches I have already traced out
of the life and activity of the wild herds of the plateau, as I still
could see them....
Out of the many memories of those days, that still work on me like
magic, there is one above all that has a special meaning, for me:
“Elelescho!”
But what is “Elelescho”? the reader will ask. “Elelescho”[6] is the
name of a peculiar plant, perhaps it would be more correct to say a
bush, that has in many ways set its mark on the flora in the very
heart of the Masai region. Ranges of hills covered with silvery-leafed
Elelescho, the spicy smell of Elelescho, the water at the camping place
redolent of Elelescho--and also, in consequence, tea, coffee, cocoa
tasting of Elelescho--that is a memory that remains fixed firmly in
one’s thoughts of this home of the wild herds and of the Masai. It Was
these disappearing nomads who gave the bush its beautiful name.
Possibly the musical sound of the name has not a little to do with
reconciling us in memory to the plant. For the bush itself has in
process of time monotonous effect not very to the senses, but for
this very reason all the stronger and more enduring. Its character is
connected by strong links of memory with our experiences of those days,
and the sound of its name awakes rose-coloured recollections. For just
as it is not given to man to remember exactly the nature of intense
bodily pains, so fancy, looking backwards, kindly blots out much that
was hard and little that was pleasant in the life we have led. Thus
it is that this strange bush, with its silver-grey leaves and aromatic
odour, is capable, as hardly anything else is, of awakening in the mind
of the traveller a kind of nostalgia--nostalgia for the wilderness, to
which he is drawn by so much of beauty and of hardship. We have gained
very little by learning that botanists recognise our plant as one of
the Compositæ, and name it _Tarchonantus camphoratus_, L. It is to be
found also in other parts of Africa; and Professor Fritsch reported,
as early as 1863, that he found it growing in Griqualand, then still
an unsettled country, where it was called the “Mohatla.” It would be
a pity if its beautifully sounding Masai name were not preserved for
future times, and I must do my best to save “Elelescho” from such
oblivion.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
THE CARAVAN ON THE MARCH.]
One must have learned the word with its sweet-sounding pronunciation
from the lips of a proud, handsome, slender Masai warrior in order to
understand how so seemingly slight a thing can imbue one’s impression
of a whole land.
The Elelescho is as prominent in those regions as the oak and beech
or fir in Germany, or as the juniper, the heath, and the broom, and
has the same influence on the landscape. But it has a greater and
deeper influence upon the imagination, because it so dominates those
solitudes, that to him who has long travelled in them the mere memory
of it evokes a vivid picture of their once familiar aspect. The strong
scent of the Elelescho plant leads the Masai to wear the leaves of the
bush as a decoration round their ears for the sake of its perfume. It
belongs thus to the plants that because of their scent are used as
ornaments by warriors and maidens: “Il-käk ooitaa ‘l muran oo ‘n----
doiye ‘l---- orôpili.”[7] So there pass before us Masai maidens, and
Masai warriors decked with Elelescho leaves and Elelescho branches,
and received with sympathetic smiles by the caravan leaders--who,
however, unlike the Masai, think very little of it. Very simple and
naïve are the relations of these natives with nature around them. Only
the obvious, the actually useful, comes into their thoughts, and for
my black companions the Elelescho always recalls only memories of poor
desert regions of the waste--regions in which they must often endure
hunger and suffer many hardships. Far different is the influence of
the Elelescho region on my feelings. For me this bush is symbolically
linked with the plunge into uninhabited solitudes, with self-liberation
from the pressure of the civilisation of modern men and all its haste
and hurry.
We wish to feel once more, and to give ourselves up fully to, the spell
of the Elelescho--the charm of the Elelescho thickets, that are also in
South Africa in the lands about the Cape the characteristic mark of the
velt, now so lonely, but once alive with hundreds of thousands of wild
herds.
A wonderful night has come on.
The moon--in a few days it will be at the full--sheds its beams in
glittering splendour over Lake Nakuro.
The little camp is soon wrapped in silence. The weary bearers sink into
deep and well-earned slumber. Only the sentries, pushed far out, are
on the alert. It was but a few days since the rebel Wakamassia
hillmen were a source of danger to us, and nightly precautions are
not yet forgotten. The moonbeams flicker ghost-like over the lake.
Night-jars give forth their songs close to the camp all round us.
Strange sounds and cries ring out from the throats of the waterfowl
on the lake margins, and not far away one hears the snorting of the
hippopotami. Jackals and spotted hyenas prowl round the camp, betraying
themselves by their voices. The hyena’s howl and jackal’s wailing bark
mingle strangely with the deep bass note of a bull-hippopotamus. Here
in the wilderness there is hardly any sound that is louder than the
mighty voice of these giants of the water.[8]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A HERD OF ZEBRAS TAKING REFUGE FROM THE HEAT OF THE MIDDAY SUN.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
FLAMINGOES ON THE MARGIN OF A LAKE. THEY MUST BE VERY LONG-LIVED BIRDS,
SOME OF THEM NOW LIVING IN THE COLOGNE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS HAVE BEEN
THERE THIRTY YEARS.]
A strange feeling came over me. Amid all the ever-varying sensations of
the last year my capacity for enjoyment, my sensitiveness to outside
impressions, had been developed and enhanced. A short time since I was
between life and death, struggling with the treacherous infection of
fever. Now I was well. I was breathing the air some three thousand feet
higher than the place where I lay ill near Victoria Nyanza. I was again
in a region whose vast volcanic solitudes contrasted strongly with its
abundance of highly developed organic life, and exercised a strange
influence upon me.
Is there such a place as Europe? Is it possible that thousands of miles
away there is a centre of civilisation whose teeming millions would
fain imprint their image on the whole earth, and even lay covetous
hands on this far-off wilderness, and that in time this must happen?
A world of which I myself am a unit! How strange that I can delight
so deeply in all this wild charm! And how quickly the wishes of men
change! A while ago, in the long nights of fever, I had but one
desire--that my heart, my heart alone, should not be buried in a
foreign soil, but be taken back to the Fatherland.
And now, only a few weeks after my recovery, how different seems to me
all I may hope for from Fate, and how much more complex, how much more
difficult to accomplish!
I yield myself up entirely to the spell of the wilderness, to the mood
of the night.
That was ten years ago, before the Europeans had banished it--when it
ached on the senses like the nocturne of some great tone-poet. But I
know well that to-day it is no longer in existence; Lake Nakuro is now
only a lake like any other, and the railway whistle wakes its echoes.
That night the spell must have been exceptionally strong. It seemed to
me as though I were under some charm, as if I were carried back into
the far-off times. There came before my mind much of what the lake
had seen in the long vanished past. The lands around me heaved and
quaked. Mighty earth-shaping forces were doing their work. I seemed to
see before my eyes what happened here in primeval times--how volcanic
forces, strange, boundless, and terrible, had built up and given
form to the country around me here, destroying all living things, and
yet at the same time preparing the conditions for the hotly pulsating
waves of life of later days. In my mind I saw pass before me wondrous
mighty forms of the animal world of the past, long since extinct.
Then--suddenly I started up. What was that?
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
FLAMINGOES FLYING DOWN TO THE LAKE MARGIN.]
[Illustration: ALFRED KAISER (IN ARAB COSTUME).]