SOUTH AFRICA FIFTY YEARS AGO
BY W. COTTON OSWELL
_WILLIAM COTTON OSWELL: A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH_
BY SIR SAMUEL W. BAKER
One man alone was left who could describe from personal experience the
vast tracts of Southern Africa and the countless multitudes of wild
animals which existed fifty years ago in undisturbed seclusion; the
ground untrodden by the European foot; the native unsuspicious of the
guile of a white intruder. This man, thus solitary in this generation,
was the late William Cotton Oswell. He had scarcely finished the pages
upon the fauna of South Africa when death seized him (May 1, 1893) and
robbed all those who knew him of their greatest friend. His name will
be remembered with tears of sorrow and profound respect.
Although Oswell was one of the earliest in the field of South African
discovery, his name was not world-wide, owing to his extreme modesty,
which induced him to shun the notoriety that is generally coupled
with the achievements of an explorer. Long before the great David
Livingstone became famous, when he was the simple unknown missionary,
doing his duty under the direction of his principal, the late Rev.
Robert Moffat, whose daughter he married, Oswell made his acquaintance
while in Africa, and became his early friend.
At that time Oswell with his companion Murray allied themselves with
Livingstone to discover a reported lake of the unknown interior,
together with Mrs. Livingstone and their infantine family. This
expedition was at the private cost of Oswell and Murray; but, in
grateful remembrance of the assistance rendered by Livingstone in
communicating with the natives and in originating the exploration,
Oswell sent him a present of a new waggon and a span of splendid oxen
(sixteen animals), in addition to a thorough outfit for his personal
requirements.
Livingstone, in the ‘Zambesi and its Tributaries,’ dwelt forcibly upon
the obligation imposed upon him by Oswell’s generosity; but, having
submitted the manuscript to his friend for revision, Oswell insisted
upon disclaiming the title of a benefactor. After the discovery of
the Lake ’Ngami by Livingstone and his party, Oswell received the
medal of the French Geographical Society; he was therefore allied with
Livingstone, who was the first explorer of modern times to direct
attention to the lake system of Africa, which has been developed within
the last forty years by successive travellers.
Oswell was not merely a shooter, but he had been attracted towards
Africa by his natural love of exploration, and the investigation
of untrodden ground. He was absolutely the first white man who had
appeared upon the scene in many portions of South Africa which are now
well known. His character, which combined extreme gentleness with utter
recklessness of danger in the moment of emergency, added to complete
unselfishness, ensured him friends in every society; but it attracted
the native mind to a degree of adoration. As the first-comer among
lands and savage people until then unknown, he conveyed an impression
so favourable to the white man that he paved the way for a welcome to
his successors. That is the first duty of an explorer; and in this
Oswell well earned the proud title of a ‘Pioneer of Civilisation.’
As these few lines are not a biography, but merely a faint testimony
to one whose only fault was the shadowing of his own light, I can
sincerely express a deep regret that his pen throughout his life was
unemployed. No one could describe a scene more graphically, or with
greater vigour; he could tell his stories with so vivid a descriptive
power that the effect was mentally pictorial; and his listeners could
feel thoroughly assured that not one word of his description contained
a particle of exaggeration.
I have always regarded Oswell as the perfection of a Nimrod. Six feet
in height, sinewy and muscular, but nevertheless light in weight, he
was not only powerful, but enduring. A handsome face, with an eagle
glance, but full of kindliness and fearlessness, bespoke the natural
manliness of character which attracted him to the wild adventures of
his early life.
He was a first-rate horseman, and all his shooting was from the saddle,
or by dismounting for the shot after he had run his game to bay.
In 1861, when I was about to start on an expedition towards the Nile
sources, Oswell, who had then retired from the field to the repose
of his much-loved home, lent me his favourite gun, with which he
had killed almost every animal during his five years’ hunting in
South Africa. This gun was a silent witness to what its owner had
accomplished. In exterior it looked like an ordinary double-barrelled
rifle, weighing exactly ten pounds; in reality it was a smooth-bore
of great solidity, constructed specially by Messrs. Purdey & Co. for
Mr. Oswell. This useful gun was sighted like a rifle, and carried a
spherical ball of the calibre No. 10; the charge was six drachms of
fine-grained powder. There were no breech-loaders in those days, and
the object of a smooth-bore was easy loading, which was especially
necessary when shooting from the saddle. The spherical ball was
generally wrapped in either waxed kid or linen patch; this was rolled
rapidly between the hands with the utmost pressure; the folds were
then cut off close to the metal with scissors, and the bullet was
again rolled as before. The effect was complete; the covering adhered
tightly to the metal, which was now ready for ramming direct upon the
powder-charge, without wads or other substance intervening. In this
manner a smooth-bore could be loaded with great rapidity, provided
that the powder-charge was made up separately in the form of a paper
cartridge, the end of which could be bitten off, and the contents
thrust into the barrel, together with the paper covering. The ball
would be placed above, and the whole could be rammed down by a single
movement with a powerful loading rod if great expedition should be
necessary. Although the actual loading could thus be accomplished
easily, the great trouble was the adjustment of the cap upon the
nipple, which with an unsteady horse was a work of difficulty.
This grand old gun exhibited in an unmistakable degree the style of
hunting which distinguished its determined owner. The hard walnut
stock was completely eaten away for an inch of surface; the loss of
wood suggested that rats had gnawed it, as there were minute traces of
apparent teeth. This appearance might perhaps have been produced by
an exceedingly coarse rasp. The fore-portion of the stock into which
the ramrod was inserted was so completely worn through by the same
destructive action, that the brass end of the rod was exposed to view.
The whole of this wear and tear was the result of friction with the
‘wait-a-bit’ thorns!
Oswell invariably carried his gun across the pommel of his saddle when
following an animal at speed. In this manner at a gallop he was obliged
to face the low scrubby ‘wait-a-bits,’ and dash through these unsparing
thorns, regardless of punishment and consequences, if he were to keep
the game in view, which was absolutely essential if the animal were to
be ridden down by superior pace and endurance. The walnut stock thus
brought into hasty contact with sharp thorns became a gauge, through
the continual friction, which afforded a most interesting proof of
the untiring perseverance of the owner, and of the immense distances
that he must have traversed at the highest speed during the five
years’ unremitting pursuit of game upon the virgin hunting-grounds of
Southern Africa. I took the greatest care of this gun, and entrusted
it to a very dependable follower throughout my expedition of more than
four years. Although I returned the gun in good condition, the ramrod
was lost during a great emergency. My man (a native) was attacked, and
being mobbed during the act of loading, he was obliged to fire at the
most prominent assailant before he had time to withdraw his ramrod.
This passed through the attacker’s body, and was gone beyond hope of
recovery.
There could not have been a better form of muzzle-loader than this No.
10 double-barrel smooth-bore. It was very accurate at fifty yards,
and the recoil was trifling with the considerable charge of six drams
of powder. This could be increased if necessary, but Oswell always
remained satisfied, and condemned himself, but not his gun, whenever
a shot was unsatisfactory. He frequently assured me that, although he
seldom fired at a female elephant, one bullet was sufficient to kill,
and generally two bullets for a large bull of the same species.
Unlike Gordon Cumming, who was accustomed to fire at seventy and
eighty yards, Oswell invariably strove to obtain the closest quarters
with elephants, and all other game. To this system he owed his great
success, as he could make certain of a mortal point. At the same time
the personal risk was much increased, as the margin for escape was
extremely limited when attacking dangerous game at so short a distance
as ten or fifteen paces. When Oswell hunted in South Africa, the sound
of a rifle had never disturbed the solitudes in districts which are
now occupied by settlers. The wild animals have now yielded up their
territory to domestic sheep and cattle; such are the rapid transitions
within half a century! In those days the multitudes of living creatures
at certain seasons and localities surpassed the bounds of imagination;
they stretched in countless masses from point to point of the horizon,
and devoured the pasturage like a devastating flight of locusts.
Whether they have been destroyed, or whether they have migrated to
far distant sanctuaries, it is impossible to determine; but it is
certain that they have disappeared, and that the report of the rifle
which announces the advance of civilisation has dispersed all those
mighty hosts of animals which were the ornaments of nature, and the
glory of the European hunter. The eyes of modern hunters can never see
the wonders of the past. There may be good sport remaining in distant
localities, but the scenes witnessed by Oswell in his youth can never
be viewed again. Mr. W. F. Webb, of Newstead Abbey, is one of the few
remaining who can remember Oswell when in Africa, as he was himself
shooting during the close of his expedition. Mr. Webb can corroborate
the accounts of the vast herds of antelopes which at that time occupied
the plains, and the extraordinary numbers of rhinoceros which intruded
themselves upon the explorer’s path, and challenged his right of way.
In a comparatively short period the white rhinoceros has almost ceased
to exist.
Where such extraordinary changes have taken place, it is deeply
interesting to obtain such trustworthy testimony as that afforded by
Mr. Oswell, who has described from personal experience all that, to us,
resembles history. He was accepted at that time as the Nimrod of South
Africa, ‘par excellence,’ and although his retiring nature tended to
self-effacement, all those who knew him, either by name or personal
acquaintance, regarded him as without a rival; and certainly without
an enemy: the greatest hunter ever known in modern times, the truest
friend, and the most thorough example of an English gentleman. We
sorrowfully exclaim, ‘We shall never see his like again.’
INTRODUCTION
BY W. COTTON OSWELL
I have often been asked to write the stories of the illustrations
given in the chapters on South Africa, but have hitherto declined, on
the plea that the British public had had quite enough of Africa, and
that all I could tell would be very old. As I now stand midway between
seventy and eighty I trusted I might, in the ordinary course of nature,
escape such an undertaking; but in the end of ’91 the best shot,
sportsman and writer that ever made Africa his field--I refer to my
good friend Sir Samuel Baker--urged me to put my experiences on paper;
and Mr. Norton Longman at the same time promising that, if suitable, he
would find them a place in the Badminton volume on ‘Big Game,’ I was
over-persuaded, made the attempt, and here is the result.
The illustrations are taken from a set of drawings in my possession by
the best artist of wild animal life I have ever known--Joseph Wolf.
After describing the scene, I stood by him as he drew, occasionally
offering a suggestion or venturing on two or three scrawling lines of
my own, and the wonderful talent of the man produced pictures so like
the reality in all essential points, that I marvel still at his power,
and feel that I owe him most grateful thanks for a daily pleasure.
Many of the scenes it would have been impossible to depict at the
moment of their occurrence, so that even if the chief human actor
had been a draughtsman he must have trusted to his memory. Happily I
was able to give my impressions into the hands of a genius who let
them run out at the end of his fingers. They are rather startling, I
know, when looked through in the space of five minutes; but it must be
remembered that they have to be spread over five years, and that these
are the few accidents amongst numberless uneventful days. I was once
asked to bring these sketches to a house where I was dining. During
dinner the servants placed them round the drawing-room, and on coming
upstairs I found two young men examining them intently. ‘What’s all
this?’ one asked. ‘I don’t know,’ the other replied. ‘Oh, I see now,’
the first continued, ‘a second Baron Munchausen; don’t you think so?’
he inquired, appealing to me. We were strangers to each other, so I
corroborated his bright and certainly pardonable solution; but they are
true nevertheless. I have kept them down to the truth: indeed, two of
them fall short of it. I am very well aware that there are two ways of
telling a story, one with a clearly defined boundary, the other with a
hazy one, over which if your reader or hearer pass but a foot’s length
he is in the realms of myth. I think I had my full share of mishaps;
but I was in the saddle from ten to twelve hours a day for close upon
five seasons, and general immunity, perhaps, induced carelessness.
I may say now, I suppose, that I was a good rider, and got quickly
on terms with my game. I was, however, never a crack shot, and not
very well armed according to present notions, though I still have the
highest opinion of a Purdey of 10-bore, which burnt five or six drachms
of fine powder, and at short distances drove its ball home. This gun
did nearly all my work. I had besides a 12-bore Westley-Richards, a
light rifle, and a heavy single-barrelled one carrying two-oz. belted
balls. This last was a beast of a tool, and once--I never gave it a
second chance--nearly cost me my life, by stinging, without seriously
wounding, a bull elephant. The infuriated brute charged nine or ten
times wickedly, and the number might have been doubled had I not at
last got hold of the Purdey, when he fell to the first shot. We had
no breech-loaders in those days, save the disconnecting one, and that
would have been useless, for we had to load as we galloped through the
thick bush, and the stock and barrel would soon have been wrenched
asunder or so strained as to prevent their coming accurately into
contact again.
The Purdey gun has a second history which gives it more value in my
eyes than the good work it did for me. I lent it to Baker when he went
up the Nile, and it had the honour, I believe, of being left with Lady
Baker to be used, if required, during her husband’s enforced absences.
Baker returned it to me with a note apologising for the homeliness of
the ramrod--a thornstick which still rests in the ferrules--adding that
having to defend themselves from a sudden attack, his man Richarn,
being hard pressed whilst loading, had fired the original ramrod into a
chief’s stomach, from which they had no opportunity of extracting it.
I am sorry now for all the fine old beasts I have killed; but I was
young then, there was excitement in the work, I had large numbers
of men to feed, and if these are not considered sound excuses for
slaughter, the regret is lightened by the knowledge that every animal,
save three elephants, was eaten by man, and so put to a good use. I
have no notes, and though many scenes and adventures stand out sharply
enough, the sequence of events and surroundings is not always very
clear. If my short narrative seems to take too much the form of a
rather bald account of personal adventure, I must apologise; and I may
add that the nature and habits generally of the animals I met with are
now so well known, and have over and over again been so well described
by competent writers, that my relations with a few individuals of their
families must be the burden of my song.
I spent five years in Africa. I was never ill for a single day--laid
up occasionally after an accident, but that was all. I had the best
of companions--Murray, Vardon, Livingstone--and capital servants, who
stuck to me throughout. I never had occasion to raise a hand against a
native, and my foot only once, when I found a long lazy fellow poking
his paw into my sugar tin. If I remember right, I never lost anything
by theft, and I have had tusks of elephants, shot eighty miles from the
waggons, duly delivered. One chief, and one only, wanted to hector a
little, but he soon gave it up. And with the rest of the potentates,
and people generally, I was certainly a _persona grata_, for I filled
their stomachs, and thus, as they assured me, in some mysterious way
made their hearts white.
There is a fascination to me in the remembrance of the past in all its
connections: the free life, the self-dependence, the boring into what
was then a new country; the feeling as you lay under your caross that
you were looking at the stars from a point on the earth whence no other
European had ever seen them; the hope that every patch of bush, every
little rise, was the only thing between you and some strange sight
or scene--these are with me still; and were I not a married man with
children and grandchildren, I believe I should head back into Africa
again, and end my days in the open air. It is useless to tell me of the
advantages of civilisation; civilised man runs wild much easier and
sooner than the savage becomes tame. I think it desirable, however,
that he should be sufficiently educated, before he doffs his clothes,
to enjoy the change by comparison. Take the word of one who has tried
both states: there are charms in the wild; the ever-increasing,
never-satisfied needs of the tame my soul cannot away with.
But I am writing of close upon fifty years ago. Africa is nearly
used up; she belongs no more to the Africans and the beasts; Boers,
gold-seekers, diamond-miners and experimental farmers--all of them
(from my point of view) mistakes--have changed the face of her. A man
must be a first-rate sportsman now to keep himself and his family;
houses stand where we once shot elephants, and the railway train will
soon be whistling and screaming through all hunting-fields south of the
Zambesi.
FIRST EXPEDITION TO AFRICA
Reduced from 12 st. 2 lb. to 7 st. 12 lb. by many attacks of Indian
fever caught during a shooting excursion in the valley of the Bhavany
River, I was sent to the Cape as a last chance by the Madras doctors;
indeed, whilst lying in a semi-comatose state, I heard one of them
declare that I ought to have been dead a year ago; so all thanks to
South Africa, say I! I gained strength by the voyage, and, shortly
after reaching Cape Town, hearing that a Mr. Murray, of Lintrose,
near Cupar Angus, had come from Scotland for the purpose of making a
shooting expedition to the interior, I determined to join him. The
resolve was carried out early in the spring of 1844 (the beginning
of the Cape winter); we started out from Graham’s Town to Colesberg,
buying on the way horses, oxen, dogs, waggons, and stores, crossed
the Orange River, and set our faces northwards. We were all bitten
in those days by Captain--afterwards Sir Cornwallis-Harris, whose
book, published about 1837, was the first to give any notion of the
capabilities of South Africa for big game shooting, and, Harris
excepted, ‘we were the first that ever burst into that “sunny” sea’-as
sportsmen. Murray was an excellent kind-hearted gentleman, rather too
old perhaps for an expedition of this kind, as he felt the alternations
of the climate very much; and no wonder, for I have known the
thermometer to register 92° in the shade at 2 P.M., and 30° at 8 P.M. I
was younger, and though still weak from the effects of fever, the dry
air of the uplands daily gave me vigour, and the absolute freedom of
the life was delightful to me. Just at first I had to become accustomed
to the many little annoyances of missing oxen, strayed horses, &c.; but
when our waggons became our _home_, and our migratory state our life,
all anxious care vanished. Things would be put right somehow; there was
no use worrying ourselves; what had been yesterday would be to-morrow.
What though the flats between the Orange and Molopo Rivers were full
of sameness, they were also full of antelope, gnu, and quagga. These,
with the bird and insect life, were all fresh, and made the world very
bright around us. These upland flats have been so often described, that
I will not bore the reader unnecessarily with an account of them, and
besides, I am not writing of the country or its appearance, but have
merely undertaken to try and give some idea of the game that once held
possession of it; and, indeed, I doubt very much if I could convey any
notion at the present time of what it was some fifty years ago, for all
the glamour of the wildness and abundant life has long passed away.
On these plains the springbucks were met with in vast herds; for an
hour’s march with the waggons--say two and a quarter miles--I once
saw them to the left of the track, along a slightly rising ground,
thicker than I ever saw sheep. I suppose they must have been _trek
bokken_; that is, a collection of the herds over an extended area on
the move for pasturage. The Hottentot waggon-drivers shot many of them,
frequently killing two at a time, they were so closely packed. They
were to be counted only by tens of thousands. Formerly, they used often
to invade the northern outlying farms of the Boers, and destroy their
crops; and though shot in waggon-loads, they would still hang about
as long as there was a green blade of anything. They were nearly as
bad as the locusts, a flight of which we saw, by the way, a few days
after leaving Kuruman, near the ‘Chooi,’ or large natural salt-pan. We
were at breakfast, when far down on the south-east horizon I noticed
a wreath as of dark smoke rising rapidly, broadening as it advanced.
In a very short time it enveloped us in the form of a locust storm;
the whole earth and air were full of them; tens of myriads settled,
and myriads of myriads rode on clanking in mimicry of armed cavalry,
and crackling like a flame devouring the stubble. Look which way you
would--nothing but locusts; they did not hide the sun, but they so
obscured his rays that you could look straight at him. No simile seems
so apt to me as that of a heavy snow-storm with large flakes, and this
uninterruptedly for two or three hours. Though the land before them
was not exactly as the Garden of Eden, verily behind them it was a
desolate wilderness. As the cold of night came on, they collected on
the bushes in enormous masses, eight or ten feet through, for warmth,
weighing them completely to the ground, and they took flight again the
next morning after the sun was well up. For two days my oxen never
put their heads down; there was nothing found for them to eat. The
swarms pass through waste and cultivated land alike, bringing dearth
and destruction, and men’s hearts fail; but the adversary has arrayed
his forces against them, and through the dense flights sweep the
wedge-shaped squadrons of the _springkhän vogel_, or locust birds: dark
and long of wing like swifts, with white patches beneath the pinion.
As squadron after squadron wheels and passes over you, the husks of
the locusts fall like hail. The birds are in very large numbers and do
their work deftly; before long the air above you is clear, and though
the evidence of the curse is upon the earth, and remains, the locusts
themselves are soon got rid of, for everything on two legs and four
eats them. The Bushmen follow the flights, feed on them, dry them,
and keep them in store. One night, Livingstone and I lost our way,
and seeing the light of a fire, made for it. Around it sat a family
of Bushmen; so, heralding our approach from a safe distance, for fear
of a flight of arrows, we introduced ourselves. They welcomed us, and
offered us guides and a snack of dried locusts. I ate two or three,
and they were not so nasty; something like what old shrimp-shells
without the insides might be. These insects are bad enough in their
winged, but worse in their early wingless, form, when, as the dreaded
‘_foot-gangers_’ of the Dutch farmer, they roll in living waves over
his land, defy all attempts at extermination from their multitude,
climb walls, quench lines of small fires placed in the hopes of turning
them, cross rivers, millions jumping in, and millions getting over
on the living raft. In both the winged and wingless state they are
wonderfully described in chapter ii. of Joel.
On these choois, of which there are many, some of them twenty miles
long and half as broad, the effect of mirage is more wonderful than
I have ever seen it elsewhere. What seems an antelope grows into an
elephant, and with the waving of the gauze returns to its actual
form--a bush. By nearly all these salt-pans there is a spring which may
perhaps have once played its part in their formation, or be the relic
of the cause.
At one period of its history, Africa must have been a better watered
country than it is now. In the driest tracts, in the waterless woods,
you light unexpectedly on deep eroded channels, coming no whither
and going nowhere. It gave me the impression that there had been a
gradual uplifting of the surface, and a consequent sinking away of the
old torrents and streams. The Bushmen and the elephants dig in these
courses for water, which is now never seen on the surface, though
the sides are sometimes worn away by its former action, twenty feet
down. Over a large area the rainfall is exceedingly small, and in
it the trees and grass have adapted themselves to their surrounding
conditions. The former all send down long tap-roots through the upper
soil to the close substratum, utilising them as the Bushman does the
reed in his sucking-holes mentioned elsewhere; the latter grows with
fleshy roots, and from the joints are thrown out delicate fibres ending
in small tubers which, through the excessive drought and heat, act as
reservoirs of moisture, thus sustaining vitality and enabling a bright
green carpet to be spread two days after the fall of the rain. The
animals, instinct led, follow the waterfall of the storm, and migrate
to and fro in narrow zones. The birds do likewise; one beautiful
hawk--happily called from his graceful movement _Molela shoquan_, ‘he
flows as he turns’--is a most assiduous attendant in the green-room
of nature. But the thunderstorms are very partial. For two days I
have passed through country so drought-stricken that the bushes were
leafless, the twigs dry, the grass dust, the ground iron, and all
animal, bird, and even insect life completely absent. In those two days
we felt and knew the abomination of desolation, and so did our poor
beasts.
Nothing particular happened during our journey between the two
rivers. We shot and trekked--one day much like another--and stopped
a short time at Kuruman, the station of that grand old patriarch of
missionaries, Mr. Moffat, where we received all the kindly hospitality,
attention and advice possible from him and Mrs. Moffat--verily the
two best friends travellers ever came across. I shall never forget
their affectionate courtesy, their beautifully ordered household, and
their earnest desire to help us on in every way. He advised us to go
to Livingstone, who was then stationed at Mabotsé, 220 miles or so to
the northward, and obtain from him guides and counsel for our further
wanderings.
We were once nearly in trouble, however, after leaving Kuruman. We had
crossed a little stream called, I think, the Meritsani, and one of our
men, while cooking some tit-bit of an antelope Murray had shot far away
from the camp, carelessly set the grass on fire. Luckily we saw it two
miles off, and by clearing the ground, and burning the stubble round
the waggons, we escaped. It was a wonderful sight to watch the wall of
smoke and flame as it licked up the grass and bush and coiled itself in
folds about the tree stems; birds, insects, and beasts fleeing before
it. As it approached our clearing, the heat was intense, and we had
some difficulty in restraining the frightened horses and oxen; but the
roaring rolling flame came within thirty yards of us, and then as it
touched the edge of our charmed circle died away into nothingness, its
disappointment seeming to goad it onward to right and left.
The flat open country held till we reached the Molopo River. The sketch
very correctly represents this little stream when we first saw it, and
gives a good general idea of the 500 or 600 miles we had come. Seven
different kinds of animals were within view, some, especially the
quaggas and the buffaloes, in large herds--springbucks, hartebeests,
gnus, &c., filling in the picture; together there could not have been
fewer than 3,000. I shot a couple of buffaloes for the camp, and then
inspanning passed ahead towards the ridge of low hills, fifteen miles
beyond, and running east and west; they told of a coming change of
scenery, and the next day we stood on the top of them--to the south
600 miles of rolling plain, very similar to that immediately below,
lay between us and the southern sea; but to the north the scene was
changed, the well-wooded and watered valley of the Ba-Katla, a broken
country full of game, was stretched out before us--in those days a
hunter’s paradise. For the first time tracks of rhinoceros, giraffe,
and other unknown creatures were abundant, and we longed to cultivate
the closest relations with them.
Without any just cause I thought myself a better sportsman than my
companion, and determined to seek my game alone, in the hope that I
might be the first to bag a rhinoceros. All day long I followed, with
an attendant Hottentot, a trail of one of these animals, neglecting
inferior game, but my experience in African woodcraft was small then,
and I believe now that the spoor may have been a week old. At last,
tired and disgusted with my want of success in not coming up with the
object of my search, I shot an antelope, and returned rather earlier
than usual to the waggons, which had been ordered to outspan under
the range of hills. It was still daylight when I reached them, and
there sat my friend Murray, quiet, cool and calm, very calm indeed.
He greeted me with a nod and a smile, and asked me what I had killed?
‘A buck,’ I answered. He said nothing, but kept on smiling serenely.
Presently I noticed a group of Kafirs sitting round their fire,
and eating as only Kafirs can eat. ‘What are those brutes gorging
themselves with?’ I asked my quiet friend. ‘Oh, only some of the
rhinoceroses I shot this afternoon.’ I noted the plural, the iron
entered into my soul, but I merely said: ‘Ah! indeed!’ in an easy
nonchalant way I flattered myself, as if the shooting a rhinoceros was
a matter of supreme indifference to me in those days, and walked to my
own waggon.
Next morning at breakfast my friend offered to show me where the
rhinoceroses lived. I was quite meek now, and ready to be introduced
to this entirely imaginary locality. At that time we had not to go far
to find, and had hardly left the camp a quarter of an hour, when the
leading Kafir pointed out a great ugly beast rubbing itself against a
tree eighty yards from us. I was off my pony in a second, determined
to get to close quarters as soon as, and if possible sooner than, my
companion. We both stalked to within twenty yards without being seen,
and knelt down, I with the stump of a small tree before me; we fired
together, and while the smoke still hung, I was aware of an angry and
exceedingly plain-looking beast making straight at me through it.
Luckily he had to come rather uphill to my stump, and his head was a
little thrown back, when, within five feet of the muzzle of my gun, he
fell, with a shot up his nostril, the powder blackening his already
dingy face. This was a _borili_ (or sour-tempered one); as a rule, the
only really troublesome fellow of his family. I remember thinking my
first introduction promised a stormy acquaintance, and hoping there
might be gentler specimens, who rather liked being shot, or at all
events did not resent it so violently. I got two or three times into
serious trouble with these lumbering creatures; but the stories shall
be told as they crop up. I may mention here, however, that success in
rhinoceros shooting depends very greatly upon the sportsman’s kneeling
or squatting. I lost many at first by firing from a standing position.
The consequence was, that the ball only penetrated one lung, and with
the other untouched the beast runs on for miles, unless, of course,
the heart happen to be pierced; whereas, fired from a lower level, the
ball passes through both lungs, and brings him up in 100 or 200 yards.
A rhinoceros very seldom drops to the shot. Of all I killed, but two
fell dead in their tracks. Exclusive of the Quebaaba (_R. Oswellii_),
which was probably a variety of the mahoho, (_R. Simus_), and of which
we killed three and saw five, there were three kinds--the Mahoho, the
_R. Africanus_, and the _R. Keitloa_.[1] I say ‘were,’ for whilst I
write I hear that the dear old mahoho is extinct. I am very sorry. He
was never, I believe, found north of the Zambesi, but between that
river and the Molopo, of which we have just spoken, he was formerly in
great force. Poor old stupid fellow, too quiet as a rule, though, when
thoroughly upset (like a good-natured man in a passion) reckless, he
was just the very thing for young gunners to try their ’prentice hand
on, and directly the Kafirs got muskets he was bound to go; though,
considering the numbers there used to be, I hoped he would have lasted
longer. He had no enemies to fear, save man and the hyæna, and the
first without firearms would have made but little impression on him;
for, although sometimes taken in the pitfalls, he was never, so far as
I know, killed by spears. The hyæna, when hard pressed for food, would
occasionally attack the male, who is formed like the boar, and eat into
his bowels from behind; but it was a long business, and not by any
means always successful. The ‘Cape wolf’ must have been very hard set
before he attempted it.
I have seen these long-horned, square-nosed creatures in herds of six
and eight, and when in need of a large supply of meat for a tribe, have
shot six within a quarter of a mile, with single balls. They had a
curious habit which helped the sportsman, and has no doubt led to their
too rapid extinction. If you found four or five together, and wounded
one mortally, he would run off with the others until he fell, and then
the survivors would make a circular procession round him until the gun
was again fired, and another wounded. Off they would go again, halting
and repeating the performance when the second fell, and so on to the
end. The female was an affectionate mother, never deserting her calf,
but making it trot before her, until she was mortally wounded, when
she seemed to lose her head and shot on in advance, and we then always
knew she would not go fifty yards further. Though they were a very
meditative inoffensive lot, there was a point at which they drew the
line. I once saw Vardon pull a mahoho’s tail; this, however, was taking
too great a liberty, and if I had not been near he might have suffered,
but, as the heavy brute swung round to give chase, a ball at very
close quarters stopped him. We have often been obliged to drive them
from the bush before camping for the night. They apparently mistook
the waggons for some huge new beasts, and were very troublesome; but
this hallucination was not confined to the mahoho. A borili in a great
passion away to the east of the Limpopo, charged Livingstone’s waggon,
smashing his iron baking-pot. The borili is fidgety, apparently always
in bad health, and constantly on the look out for a tree to scratch his
mangy hide against. He has, too, an evil habit of hunting you like a
bloodhound. He is the smallest of the three, with a short, snubby head,
and a well-defined prehensile lip.
The keitloa, or more equal horned variety, is a mixture in form and
temper between the mahoho and the borili; much larger than the latter,
with differently shaped body, head, and horns, and less development of
lip. The mahoho and quebaaba live on grass, the end of the latter’s
horn from its downward curve being abraded by contact with the ground
as he feeds. The borili eats bush alone, and the keitloa a mixed diet
of grass and bush.
I could never understand the great power and strength of a rhinoceros’
horn. It is sessile on the bone of the snout, but not part of, or
attached to it; apparently it is only kept in its place by the
thickness of the skin, and yet, as I mention hereafter, a white
rhinoceros threw me and my horse clear up into the air. Of course, the
enormous muscles of the neck bore the brunt of the lift, but the horn
did not suffer in any way. It is quite intelligible that the fact of it
not being cemented to the bone would render it less liable to fracture
at the base, and in itself it is tough enough, though consisting only
of agglutinated hair; but I am only wondering that, attached as it is,
it should possess the necessary rigidity for the work it does. It is
occasionally used in the most determined way by rhinoceroses who have
mutual differences to adjust. The Kafirs pare it down into hafts for
their battle-axes. Of strips of the hide we made horse-whips, as the
Egyptians do man-whips of that of the hippopotamus.
For his bulk the rhinoceros, especially the borili, is a quick mover
in a hard trot and sometimes a gallop. The whole tribe are heavies,
taking their pleasure, if any, very sadly. The hippopotamus, an even
more ungainly beast, has the decency to remain most of his time in the
water, but the ‘chukuru’ thinks it behoves him to bask in the sunlight
and parade his ugliness. Standing motionless is the routine of his
life, a scrub now and then against a tree his _délassement_--a very
solid, stolid brute!
These creatures appear to me to be out of time, to have belonged to a
former state of things, and to have been forgotten when the change was
made. Often have I sat upon a ridge and looked at them as they moved
solemnly and clumsily on the plain below, wondering how they still
came to be in this world, and it has occurred to me how delightful
it would have been to watch the pre-Adamite beasts in the same way,
and learn their manners--which, I fear, were bad--as they came and
went, no other man to interfere with your preserves, the world all to
yourself and your beastly companions! How they would fight, and wallow,
and roar, and how very cunning you would have to be to escape being
eaten! I am afraid in my dreams two or three large-bored, hard-hitting
guns have figured as _desiderata_; indeed, under such circumstances, I
should not see the fun of doing king with a celt for a sceptre and half
a dozen flint-headed arrows as a standing armament.
The rhinoceros would be even easier of approach than he is were it not
for his attendant bird, a black slim-built fellow very like the king
crow of India, who, in return I take it for his food, the parasitic
insects on the chukuru, watches over his fat friend and warns him of
the coming danger by springing up in the air and alighting smartly
again with a peck on his back or head. This puts him on the alert, and
he does his best, by sniffing and listening, to find out the point from
which he is threatened, for his ears are quick and his scent excellent;
but, as you are below wind of him, sound and smell travel badly, and
his vision is by no means first rate. The natives by a figure transfer
the connection between the bird and the beast to themselves, and when
they wish to emphasise the great affection they bear you, or the great
care they intend to take of you, address you as ‘my rhinoceros,’ an
elliptical expression by which they mean to convey that they are your
guardian birds. They are not always quite unfailing. Going out from
Kolobeng after elephants I had heard of in the neighbourhood, I passed
an old rain-doctor, whom I knew well, making rain with his pot on the
fire, and his herbs and charms on the bubble. ‘Chukuru ami, where are
you going?’ he asked. ‘To shoot elephants,’ I replied. ‘I was just
making rain, but as you are my chukuru, I put it off till to-morrow.’
Is it necessary to say I was wet through in half an hour? A fine heavy
thunderstorm was brewing whilst he was boiling. This rain-making is
the Kafir’s pet superstition--the power is hereditary--believed in by
the maker and his fellow-countrymen. Conditions difficult to keep are
imposed, such as that the women are not to speak one word when at work
in the fields: if the rain fails, why of course the women spoke!
We travelled very slowly towards Mabotsé, Livingstone’s station, and on
our arrival there received every kindness and attention from him and
Mrs. Livingstone, guides to the country to the north, with advice as to
route, &c. Livingstone had not long got over his lion mishap--get over
it altogether, indeed, he never did--the overlapping end of the broken
humerus was visible enough when the body was brought home. The story of
the accident was fresh with him and the Kafirs when we reached Mabotsé.
A lion had killed an ox near the village, and the Ba-Katla turned out,
as they always did when the lion deserted his game, and attacked their
herds. Each man, as is usual in a hunt of this kind, carried two or
three assegais and a plume of ostrich feathers on a pointed six-foot
stick. The lion was tracked to his sleeping place, and the men made
a ring round it, gradually closing the space between man and man as
they advanced. Presently the quarry was roused and sat up, and then a
spearman, taking a few steps in advance, threw his assegai. The thrower
is generally charged, but the animal’s attention is immediately taken
off by a second spearman and second assegai, and so on until, poor
beast, it is killed. Accidents seldom occur in fairly open ground,
as the men support one another very coolly and effectively. In rocky
places the sport is dangerous; sometimes, however, even in favourable
spots, the man is pressed closely by the beast, and he then as he
runs plants the stick with the plume firmly in the ground and dodges
away from it; the lion, half-blinded by rage, sees something before
him, and springs at the ostrich feathers, giving the man a chance of
escape. In Livingstone’s case they had lost the lion after wounding
it, and were looking for it; the dear old Doctor caught sight of its
tail switching backwards and forwards. Up and off went a gun that would
hardly have killed a strong tomtit. Livingstone was spun over eight or
ten feet, and the lion was standing over him. The brute took his arm in
its mouth and put a heavy paw on the nape of his neck, from which he
pushed it off, for, as he said, ‘It was so heavy, man, and I don’t like
to be stamped on’--neither did he! The lion was then driven off and
killed. Livingstone was so quiet and imperturbable that he would have
made a capital sportsman, but he could neither shoot nor ride (except
on oxback)--this was not his business. I am afraid he despised the
_rôle_ of a sportsman, and no doubt believed, as he has stated, that
the Kafirs looked upon us as weaklings to be used for providing them
food. Perhaps he was right; but I think he overlooked that we, with no
knowledge of the language, would have found it very difficult to make
our way, if we had only come to see the country, without shooting. He
could talk to the Kafirs’ ears and hearts, we only to their stomachs;
and I would fain believe that his grand work was occasionally made a
little smoother by the guns.
An incident highly creditable to Kafir womanhood occurred just as we
reached Mabotsé. The women, as is their custom, were working in the
fields--for they hoe, and the men sew--and a young man, standing by
the edge of the bush, was chatting with them. A lioness sprang on
him and was carrying him off, when one of the women ran after her,
and, catching her by the tail, was dragged for some little distance.
Hampered with the man in her mouth and the woman behind her, she
slackened her pace, whereupon her assailant straddled over her back and
hit her across the nose and head with a heavy short-handled hoe till
she dropped her prey and slunk into cover. This man was her husband!
Would Mrs. Smith do as much for Mr. Smith? Could she do more?
We pushed on from Livingstone’s station and hunted through the country
of the Ba-Katla, the people amongst whom he was living. It was then
full of game, and put me in mind of the children’s pictures of Adam
naming the beasts in the Garden of Eden--more animals than bushes. The
first giraffes fell here, Murray again scoring, and killing No. 1. We
seldom shot these beautiful-eyed, gentle-looking creatures--only a cow
as a dainty now and then, for the flesh of the female is the most
excellent eating, a kind of venisony beef. They were to be seen nearly
every day in herds of from five to thirty. Shooting them on foot was
a difficult matter, their great height giving them an extended view.
I never stalked but two--a delicate head peering over a mimosa-tree
nearly always detecting the coming danger before I could get within
reasonable distance with my smooth-bore. There is no difficulty in
riding them down (as we had, of course, sometimes to do for the men
when other game was scarce) provided you are a light weight and a fair
rider, for a horse requires more driving up to this animal than to any
other. The towering height and the ungainly sawing motion appear to
terrify him; and to these must, I think, be added the scent. Horses
have very sensitive noses, and try to avoid giraffes, as in India they
do camels. A good-couraged beast soon conquers his fears, but I have
had regular fights with faint-hearted ones. Get as good a start as
possible, press your game as much as you can for 300 or 400 yards--for
press them you must, or you may ride after their tails all day--and
you are alongside; a shot in the gallop with the gun across the pommel
brings the poor thing to the ground, and you are ashamed of yourself
if it has been done wantonly. Eland hunting, from horseback, may be
classed with giraffe, as very tame after the novelty is over.
I would utter two words of warning with regard to hunting the giraffe.
Do not ride close behind him, for in his panic he sometimes lashes out
most vigorously--I have had his heels whiz very ominously within a few
inches of my head; and my friend Vardon, in pistolling one that was
standing wounded, only just missed what might have been serious injury
from a vicious stamp of the forefoot--and be careful after you have
fired to slacken speed at once, or pull your horse to the right, lest
your victim fall on you.
I have measured bulls quite 18 feet--6 feet of leg, 6 feet of body, 6
feet of neck. For their peculiarity of shape, shared by other African
animals, there must be a reason. Now we can understand that ‘a deer
with a neck that was longer by half than the rest of his family--try
not to laugh--by stretching and stretching became a giraffe,’ to
the detriment of his hind-quarters. But what about the sasaybye,
hartebeest, and elephant--why are they so low behind? The lion, too,
is weak-quartered in comparison with his forehand, and even the hyæna
has thought it necessary to follow the fashion. The animals of South
Africa, indeed, are a queer lot--all countries have their specialities,
but Africa is all speciality--distinct are the giraffes, the gnus,
the hippos; adapted _plus æquo_ are the elephants, rhinoceroses and
antelopes.
Buffaloes were abundant, the bravest and most determined of all animals
when wounded and at bay; courage is the instinct of the buffalo family.
Look at the wild cousin in India, who will charge home upon a line
of elephants, and even at his tame relations in the same country. In
Collegal, an outlying talook of the district of Coimbatoor, in the
Madras Presidency, I have seen the village buffaloes drive a full-grown
tiger helter-skelter up the hills, pursuing him far beyond their
feeding grounds. Again, I have known a misguided tiger spring into the
midst of a herd penned up for the night; he was stamped and gored to
death, and when taken out from amongst the half-maddened beasts in the
morning he was a pulp. The _Bubalus caffer_ is a stirring fellow when
his blood is up; you may shoot a dozen on a flat or in open ground,
taking your own distance for dismounting and shooting, and think them
oxen; but wound one in thickish bush and follow him, and if alive
he’ll let you know it! The Kafirs will hunt a blood spoor of elephant,
lion, rhinoceros, or any other animal right ahead of you like hounds;
but put them upon wounded buffalo tracks, they will _follow_ you at
a respectful distance; they know the ways of him and his character.
Wounded in bush he runs straight on for some little distance, then
turns back and takes a line close to and parallel with his up-tracks,
lying down or concealing himself behind a patch of cover. With his
eyes on the ground the sportsman is picking out the trail, when a hard
grunting bellow to right or left makes him look up, and he had better
beware and hold straight now if ever, for down comes the wounded bull,
and nothing but death or a disabling shot will stop him. I have seen
one with entirely paralysed hind-quarters attempt to carry out his
rush to the bitter end by dragging himself along with his forefeet.
His pluck is splendid; no single lion will face him, though, attacked
by stealth or numbers, he occasionally falls a prey. Once I went out
in one direction and Murray in another to shoot elands for fat to make
candles--we carried wicks and tin moulds amongst our stores. I turned
homewards early to throw off my load, and within a mile or two of the
waggons put up six lions on a flat surrounded by bush; in riding after
them for a shot I drove up a couple more, so I had a ‘flock’ of eight
before me. Pressing them, the hindmost, a fine black-maned fellow, who
seemed willing to sacrifice himself for his friends and relations,
turned on me, thus giving the others time to continue their retreat.
Twice I dismounted to shoot him, but before I could get the chance I
wanted, I was obliged to remount, for the whole of his companions,
seeing their rearguard cut off and in difficulties, bore down upon me.
One was all very well, but I felt I was not the man for the eight; they
were not very far from bush when I first saw them, and before I could
get upon anything I thought equal terms they reached cover without a
shot.
I found Murray already in camp. He had come upon an ostrich’s nest, and
making his after-rider take off his trousers and tie up the bottoms,
he had carefully packed the eggs in them, put them across a horse,
and, with heart set on omelet, had returned to the cookery pots.
Unfortunately, he had not broken an egg, but taken them in faith, and
they all contained young birds, which the Kafirs were joyfully stirring
round in our big baking-pot preparatory to a feast when I appeared
on the scene. My readers may naturally say, ‘What has eland fat and
ostrich eggs to do with the courage of buffaloes?’ Well, these are
just the incidents of daily camp life, which have brought up another
recollection illustrative of my point.
[Illustration: Death of Superior]
That night, half a mile from the waggons, from dark to dawn a fight was
going on. The air rang again and again with the short snapping bark of
attacking lions and the grunting snorts of buffaloes on the defensive;
and, as soon as it was day, we went to the field of battle. None of
the combatants were to be seen, but the whole story was clearly told
by the trampled ground. A herd of 40 or 50 buffaloes had evidently
been attacked by a number of lions--the Kafirs said nine, from the
spoor--but the ground was so torn and trampled I could not pretend to
count. They had taken up a position in front of a very dense patch of
thorns, on a curve, and shifted backwards and forwards as their flanks
were threatened; the bulls and cows had come to the front, the calves
had been placed in the rear, and they had held their own throughout the
night without the loss of a single calf! The lions I had seen in the
afternoon were probably the baffled marauders.
We had been unsuccessful up to this time in killing buffaloes
handsomely. More than half those hit got away--chiefly, I think, from
our not having as yet adopted the squatting position; but this may be a
fad of mine, and our bad shooting have been the cause. Two days after
leaving the camping ground I have just spoken of, whilst the waggons
were moving slowly through the low bush, three bulls crossed the line
of march. I was on my horse, Superior, and, with a shout to Murray that
I intended to make sure of a bag this time, galloped after them, and
singling out one, got alongside of him within five feet and fired. He
pitched upon his head and lay perfectly still. Making sure he was dead,
I would not give him the second barrel, and turned the horse to ride
after the two others which were still in view; but, before I could get
my animal into his stride, the wounded beast sprang up and struck him
heavily. I felt the thud, but the horse did not fall, and cantered on
for twenty yards, when the whisk of his tail dabbled my trousers with
blood, and, on getting off, I found a hole thirty inches deep, and
nearly wide enough to get into, in his flank, for the horn had been
driven up to the base. The bull was too weak to follow up the attack,
and died where he stood; the horse crawled on for a few yards, and
then, seeing it was a hopeless case, I put a ball through his head.
This lesson early in shooting experiences made me cautious in
buffalo-hunting throughout the whole of my time, though I have had a
narrow escape or two. Coming homewards one afternoon, we stumbled into
the middle of a herd asleep in the long grass. Our sudden appearance
startled them from their dreams, a panic seized them, and away they
galloped in the wildest confusion. One old patriarch had been taking
his siesta apart from the rest, in a dense patch of bush to the right:
the sound of the gun and the rush of his companions roused him, and
with one barrel loaded, as I ran after his relations, I found myself
face to face with him, within ten yards. He was evidently bent on
mischief. We stared at one another for a second. I fired at his broad
chest; it was the best I could do, for his nose was up, and the points
of his shoulders were not exposed. He plunged at me instantly. I
fortunately caught a projecting bough of the mimosa-tree under which
I was standing, and, drawing my knees up to my chin, he passed below
me. I have heard of people avoiding a charge by quickly stepping on
one side, but the ground must have been in their favour, and they
must have been very cool, and only resorted to this instinctively, I
think, as a last resource. A buffalo, it is true, drops his head very
low, but only just before he closes, and he can strike desperately
right and left from the straight line, so you ought to secure four or
five feet side room. I have never been obliged to try this lateral
movement, and fear I should have made a mess of it, though I know it
is possible; for I once travelled down the west coast of South America
with a bull-fighting man and woman, and they explained to me how, when
the ‘toro’ charged, they stepped aside and stuck the banderillos into
his neck; but they had no bush or smoke to contend with. I have often,
however, had to dodge animals round a tree, and once escaped from a
borili by catching a bough, as in this instance.
On our first journey to Lake ’Ngami, when within a hundred miles, the
oxen wearied, so we selected twelve of the freshest and started with my
waggon only, and some of the men, leaving the rest to encamp themselves
and await our return. During our absence the drivers had to supply
the party with meat. One of them wounded a buffalo, which immediately
charged. The man, dropping his musket, climbed a tree just in time.
For four hours the buffalo watched that tree, walking round and lying
down under it. How Piet got to _terra firma_ again I do not remember.
Probably the animal grew tired of waiting, though they are generally
very patient, and willing to bide their time for retaliation. The
following short story illustrates the vengeful nature of the beast; it
is told, I think, in Moffat’s ‘Missionary Travels,’ but I have not the
book by me, and cannot vouch for the exact words: A native, sitting
by the water at night, wounded a buffalo, but not mortally. It made
for the shooter, who ran and lay down under a projecting rock. Unable
to get its horns to bear, but not to be baulked, with its long, rough
tongue it licked off the flesh of the exposed part of the man’s thigh
down to the bone, and then left its victim, who died early in the
morning.
The smell of blood seems to madden these beasts; they will turn on a
wounded and bleeding companion and gore him most savagely. As I write
recollections come back of scenes that had left no vivid pictures in
my mind, because nothing untoward happened; but why not, and how not,
now one thinks of it, is wonderful. Stalking an antelope, or I know
not what, I found myself in an immense herd of buffaloes. The bush was
full of them, I was surrounded, and had nothing to do but stand still.
They dashed about me like rooks after the wireworms in a newly ploughed
field. I had the sensation of drawing myself in very tightly about
the waistband. Till they thinned out into a tail I could not begin to
shoot, but there were such numbers that even then I knocked over six at
exceedingly close quarters. The danger was, being run over or butted
down in the headlong stampede. The same thing has happened to me, and,
I dare say, to many all-round shots, with elephants. How they avoided
or missed you--for they didn’t seem to try to avoid--you can’t tell.
You come out of it without a scratch, and therefore, as a rule, think
no more of it.
If I were to write our daily life and shooting, it would be weary
reading. In a few chapters of this kind, all I can do is to take my
readers into some of my scrapes, and let them fill in the blanks;
but perhaps, once for all, I may put the abundance of the game in
those days in some way intelligibly before them, if I say that in
most parts, with horses, one gun could easily have kept 800 men--600
we tried--fattened, and supplied with a store sufficient to last for
months. Fortunately, in consequence of the excessive dryness of the
climate, meat, cut into long thin strips and hung over the bushes to
dry in the sun, will keep quite good for a long time. It needs soaking
before cooking, and loses much of its flavour, but it holds body and
soul together.
Leaving the valley and rocky hills of the Ba-Katla, we moved slowly
onwards towards the Ba-Wangketsi; before reaching them, an event
occurred which coloured my whole African life, and will colour my
life as long as I live. It is no story of big game, and perhaps ought
not to find a place in these pages; but it is so bound up with all my
shooting, all my pleasure in Africa, that I would ask to be forgiven
for telling it. I should feel a traitor to the memory of a dead friend
if I did not.
We were trekking through some low sand-hills covered with scrub, when
three lions crossed about fifty yards ahead of the oxen. Snatching up
a gun, I jumped from the waggon, calling upon someone to follow me
with a heavy rifle which was always kept loaded as a reserve battery.
I pressed so closely on the leisurely retreating trio that the largest
stopped short. I squatted, intending to take his shoulder as he turned,
looked round for my second gun, and heard the bearer, who was close to
me, whisper in Dutch, ‘You can get nearer by the ant-hill.’ The move
lost me the lion, as he broke away after his companions; and then for
the first time I took notice of the cool, tall, handsome lad who had
offered me advice, and recognised in him at once the stuff to make a
henchman of. From that day forth he was my right-hand man in the field,
and never failed me.