slaves; but as a grand specimen of manhood, good nature, faithfulness,
and cheerful endurance, I never met his equal, white or black. Plucky
to a fault, he was the least quarrelsome of men, the life and light
of our camp fires, and the pet of the Kafirs, who seemed at once
to understand his quiet unpretending nature, and always made their
requests to me through ‘bono Johnny.’ To tell his good deeds through a
five years’ wandering would very often be to show up my own faults; let
it be enough to say that he was a perfect servant to a very imperfect
master, who, now that his friend is dead, feels that he did not value
him half enough, though he never loved man better. His worth, to those
who know the troubles and difficulties of African travelling, may be
outlined by the following little story.
When Livingstone and I made our journey in search of Lake ’Ngami, we
held out to our followers that if we were successful we would not
attempt to press on further. They were, as a rule, a timid folk,
dreading the unknown, too ready to listen to any tale of danger and
difficulty that might be in the world beyond, and always eager to turn
colony-wards. After some hard work we reached the lake, and success
bred in us the wish to do more; but we were bound to stand to our
agreement. At last the desire of penetrating deeper into the land
became so strong that I suggested calling a meeting of the servants
and trying what our eloquence might effect. After putting before them
that we fully recognised our promise of not constraining them to go
with us any further, I told them that the Doctor and I had made up our
minds to give them one of the waggons with sufficient stores, supplies
and ammunition for their homeward journey, while we ourselves had
decided to push on ahead. I further explained to them that they would
have no difficulty in reaching the colony, as they knew the waters,
and had the wheel-tracks. I paused for a minute, and then added, that
though we could not ask them to accompany us, yet that if any one of
them was willing to do so, we should be very glad. I rather enlarged
upon our ignorance of the country in advance, for we did not wish to
influence them unduly to join us. For a few moments there was silence,
and blankness of face; then out stepped John, and speaking in Dutch, as
he always did when his feelings were touched, though he at other times
spoke English perfectly, said: ‘What you eat I can eat, where you sleep
I can sleep, where you go I will go; I will come with you.’ The effect
was instantaneous. ‘We will all go!’ was the cry. Do you think after
that it was much matter to us whether our brother was black or white?
Time wore on. I was obliged to return to England. John accompanied me
to the Cape. I told him, in part, how I valued his services, and asked
him if I could in any way repay my debt of gratitude. I had taught him
to read, in the bush, but that was the only good I had ever done him.
His answer came, after some hesitation. He had heard so much of England
that he should like, of all things, to go with me there. Two days
later we were on board ship together. He, as usual, was everything to
everybody--helping the steward, attending the sick ladies, nursing the
babies; the idol of the sailors, to whom he told stories of bush life,
the adored of the nurses. John, with all his virtues, was a flirt--the
admirer and admired of all womankind. On arriving in England, I left
him in London and went down to my brother’s. He hesitated about
my henchman, thinking a real live black man would hardly suit the
household of a country clergyman. But his coachman fell sick. Could
John drive? I should think so. He was the best eight-in-hander in Cape
Town. Down he came, and in half an hour he was perfectly established in
the family. My brother declared he never had such a coachman, and was
very kind to him, timidly at first. The cook taught him writing; the
lady’s-maid went on with his reading. I shall not forget meeting him
with the two women, one on either arm, chatting with them in the most
accomplished style. His stay in England was limited to six months, as
we had agreed, and he went back to the Cape with a friend of mine, who
wrote most highly of him.
Two years passed away; I was a wanderer again; and at the beginning of
the Crimean War found myself carrying secret-service money to Colonel,
now Field Marshal, Sir Lintorn Simmons, political agent at Shumla. On
my return to the coast I fell in with a cavalry regiment and the 60th
Rifles encamped near Devna, a few miles from Varna. A sergeant of the
latter regiment saluted as I passed, and asked for news from the front.
Silistria was then besieged. I turned myself half round to the right
on my saddle to talk with him, and presently felt a hand placed very
_gently_, _lovingly_, on my left foot. John stood by my stirrup, his
face a picture of affectionate triumph at having caught me again. He
had taken service with an officer of the 60th. We threw ourselves down
under a bush and renewed old memories. The Major, near whose tent we
were, called John, and, finding from him who I was, most courteously
entreated me, telling me how beloved John was by the regiment, and
how well, through him, they knew my name. I had letters to deliver
at Constantinople, and went on. John, I believe, sickened, and was
invalided to England; but for two or three years I heard no more of
him, for I was away in South America and elsewhere. Shortly after my
return home a letter came to me, asking if I could recommend a black
man named ‘John Thomas’ as a butler! He had referred the writer to me.
I was obliged to say I knew nothing of his capabilities in this line,
but added that, as a staunch ally in a fight with an elephant and an
absolutely trustworthy man in all the relations of life (save that of
a butler, in which I had not tried him), I could most highly recommend
him. My friend engaged him, and had an excellent servant, for such was
John’s power of adapting himself to circumstances that nothing ever
came amiss to him. But the dark day was coming on; and, in the midst
of his affectionate service, beloved from the head of the house to
the youngest child, trusted and never found wanting, always ready and
always willing, this fine, noble fellow died. I heard of his sickness
too late to see him alive on earth, but I trust that master and man may
hereafter meet as brothers in Heaven.
We had been shooting in this Ba-Wangketsi country for a fortnight, and
the work had been very hard. One morning after breakfast, my companion,
who was busy cleaning the head of a koodoo, said he would have a day
of rest, and finish what he was about. His laziness was catching. I
ordered my horses to be unsaddled, and was idling about the camp when
our head man told me there was no food for the twelve or fourteen
dogs, our night watchmen; so I took up my gun, which was only loaded
in one barrel, and strolled out on the chance of a shot; but as, kill
or miss, I intended to return immediately, I did not carry any spare
ammunition. A reedy pond lay close in advance of the waggons in a
little opening; beyond this, as on every other side, stretched a sea of
bush and mimosa-trees. Two hundred yards from the outspan I came upon
a clump of quagga and wounded one, which though mortally hit struggled
on before falling. I followed, and marking the place where it fell,
set my face as I thought towards the waggons, meaning to send out men
for the flesh. No doubt of the direction crossed my mind--the pool was
certainly not more that 400 yards in a straight line, and I thought I
could walk down upon it without any trouble; so taking no notice of my
out tracks, which had bent slightly in following the quagga, I started.
It was now about 10 A.M.; little did I think that 5 P.M. would still
find me seeking three vans nearly as large as Pickford’s, and half an
acre of water.
In my first cast I cannot say whether I got wide or stopped short of
the mark I was making for, and it was not until I had wandered about
carelessly hither and thither for half an hour, feeling sure that it
was only the one particular bush in front of me which hid the waggons,
that I very unwillingly owned to myself that I was drifting without
bearings in this bushy sea. The sun was nearly overhead, and gave but
slight help as to direction, and the constant turning to avoid thick
patches of thorns rendered it nearly impossible, in the absence of any
guiding point, to hold a fixed course through this maze of sameness.
I tried walking in circles in the hopes of cutting the wheel tracks,
but though on a previous occasion this plan had succeeded, it now
failed. As with empty gun I plodded on, occasional small herds of
rooyebuck and blue wildebeest, evidently very much at home, swept and
capered by me, and, stopping and looking at me with wondering eyes,
increased my feeling of loneliness. I had no doubts of regaining my
party next day at latest, and cared but little for passing a night in
the jungle; but, bewildered and baffled, I envied the instinct of the
so-called brutes, which, careless of their steps, were nevertheless
quite sure of their ways. Twilight near the tropics is very short. Just
before the sun set, therefore, I followed a game track which I knew
would lead to water, as it was still early in the season, and the rain
supply had not yet dried up in the hollows. At dusk I reached a pool
similar to the one I had quitted in the morning. After a good draught
I began collecting firewood, but for once it was very scarce, and the
night closed in so rapidly, that a bare hour’s supply was all my store.
Partly to save fuel, and partly in the hope that as the night crept on
signals would be made from the waggons, I climbed a tree which stood by
the side of the water, and had not been long perched before I heard,
though so far off that I could hardly catch the sound, the smothered
boom of guns. Alarmed at my absence my companions suspected the cause,
and were inviting my return: but it required a very pressing invitation
indeed to induce a man to walk through two miles of an African wood in
those days on a dark night.
This particular spot, too, was more infested with lions than any
other, save one, I was ever in; and, though harmless and cowardly
enough as a rule in the day, they were not likely to prove very
acceptable followers at night. But I had been walking all day under a
tropical sun, my clothing was wet with perspiration, and it now froze
hard--for freeze it can in Southern Africa--and I was bitterly cold.
I determined to come down and light my fire. I knew it would last
but a short time, but thought I would make the best of it, and thaw
myself before attempting to return. I got to the lowest bough of my
tree, and had placed my hand beside my feet before jumping off, when
from the bush immediately under me a deep note, and the sound of a
heavy body slipping through the thorny scrub, told me that a lion was
passing. Whether the creaking of the tree had roused his attention
and caused him to speak so opportunely I don’t know, but without the
warning, in another half-second I should have alighted on his back.
I very quickly put two or three yards more between the soles of my
feet and the ground. Presently, from the upper end of the pool came
the moaning pant of a questing lion; it was immediately answered from
the lower end--their majesties were on the look-out for supper, and
had divided the approaches to the water between them. It was much too
dark to see anything, but from the sounds they seemed to walk in beats,
occasionally telling one another of their whereabouts by a low pant; of
my presence I think they were not aware.
This went on for an hour or more, and I got colder and colder; my beard
and moustache were stiff with frost. I could not much longer endure
the cramped position in my scraggy tree, and I felt I must get down
and light a fire, when, suddenly up came the blessed moon, and right
under her the sound of three or four muskets fired together. With the
help of her light and partial direction in case my companions got tired
of firing, I was not going to stay up a tree to be frozen. Waiting,
therefore, until she was about ‘one tree high,’ and until the lions
were far asunder, on their separate beats, as well as I could make
out from the sound, I came down, and capping--it was all I could do;
for, as I said, I had started without powder and ball--my empty gun,
which was standing against the tree, I passed at the double round the
end of the water and dived into the bush on the opposite side. I have
no doubt my desire was to get on as quickly as possible, but reasons
for a cautious advance soon made themselves heard on all sides. An
African forest was then alive at night. I only thought of the lions,
and especially of the two I had left, or perhaps not left, at the
water; but every little nocturnal animal that stirred kept me on the
stretch--the less noise the more danger. The movement of a mouse might
well be mistaken for the stealthy tread of the king of the cats. Among
the trees the moon gave but scanty light, and nearly every minute I had
to stop and listen as some unseen animals passed near me. Sometimes I
could recognise them by their cry, but mostly it was ‘a running that
could not be seen of skipping beasts’ that troubled me. The only
animal I really saw that night was a rhinoceros that, with head and
tail up and in a terrible fuss, crossed a few yards before me. A sound
in front, and I strained my eyes into the shadowy darkness in advance;
the rustling of a leaf told of life to the right or left; and the
snapping of a twig of possible death in the rear. But I struggled on
for an hour, I should think, when, stooping to clear a low bough, four
or five muskets fired together within fifty yards told me I was at home
again. I hope I was thankful then; I know I am now. Two of my Hottentot
servants and a batch of Kafirs had come some distance into the bush
in the hope of meeting me, and escorted me to the fire in triumph. As
I held my still only half-thawed hands over it, the baulked roar of a
disappointed lion rang through the camp. He had not been heard before
that night. ‘He has missed you, Tlaga,[2] by a little this time,’ said
my black friends. ‘Let him go back to his game.’ They were right, for
in the morning we found his spoor on mine for a long way back. Whether
he had come with me from the water or I had picked up a follower in the
bush I never knew. My constantly stopping and listening probably saved
me, for a lion seldom makes up his mind very suddenly to attack a man
unless hard pressed by hunger. He likes to know all about it first, and
my turning, and slow, jerky progress had probably roused his suspicions.
Two nights before this we had met with a sad misfortune. The oxen
were ‘kraaled’--surrounded, that is, by a hedge of thorn-trees, and
bushes strong enough to keep them in and lions out, we hoped--a mode
of defence we always adopted if there was wood enough close to the
outspan, or we intended staying any length of time in the same place;
though occasionally, when we only halted for the night and were distant
from water, and therefore likely to be free from lions, the oxen were
instead made fast to the leathern rope, or ‘trek tow,’ by which they
draw the waggon, each pair--there were five to each waggon--to their
own yoke in the order they worked in the team, so that they were ready
and in right position for inspanning in the morning. We were lying
on this occasion by a large Wangketsi village, and the cattle had
been kraaled rather to prevent them getting mixed with those of the
Wangketsi, as they were taken out to graze at sunrise, than from any
apprehension of an attack. The three waggons were drawn up as usual
on one side of the enclosure, and the Kafirs were by their fires on
the other. I was asleep, but was roused by shouts, the discharge of
a musket, and the sudden rush of our pack of dogs. I found a lion
had sprung over a weak place in the thorn fence on to the back of
an ox, and, scared by the shouting, had jumped back again the same
way. According to tradition I know the ox ought to have been in his
mouth, but it wasn’t. A lion will drag an ox by the nape of its neck
anywhere, but he can’t carry it, much less jump a 6-foot hedge with it
in his jaws. It was quite dark, but by the gleam of the fires the men,
aroused by the panic of the oxen, caught sight of him, and one of the
Hottentot drivers had taken a flying shot. The dogs pressed hard upon
him; directly he gained the cover he stood to bay. I suppose the poor
things got hampered in the bush, for presently two crawled up to us
mangled and dying. The hubbub went on for some minutes, and then the
lion, frightened probably by the firing and yelling--we could give no
other aid to our allies--broke bay, and ten dogs returned exclusive
of the two that had come in to die; two were still missing--one of
them a brindled bull terrier, which we all knew must one day come to
grief, for he was a most reckless, determined brute, game to go in to
anything. A few days before, feeling offended at a puff adder--the
worst of the Cape snakes--hissing at him, he had seized it, and
notwithstanding the snake striking him on the head with its fangs,
had stuck to and killed it. His head swelled to an immense size, but
he pulled through and recovered. With day we went to the place where
the scrimmage of the night before had occurred, and there lay ‘Tod,’
as the Hottentots had named him, with the other absentee, both dead.
‘Tod’ had apparently run straight into the lion’s mouth, for the marks
of the teeth were visible enough over his back and loins. He was a
rash fellow, but he died an honourable death. The loss of dogs was a
very serious one, for it was through their fidelity and watchfulness
we were able to sleep in comparative ease and safety. At the first
sound or smell of danger they went to the fore, and walked barking
round and round with the lions, just keeping clear of their spring or
sudden rush, showing them they were detected and that the camp was not
all asleep. In the times I am writing of I don’t think it would have
been possible, save with a large number of armed watchers and fires,
to have kept your oxen in anything like safety without dogs. You went
to sleep in peace as soon as the dog-watch was set and the fires made
up for the night. Firewood was abundant after passing the Molopo. A
store of huge logs was collected directly the waggons halted, and the
blaze was kept up throughout the night, the fires being shaken together
and replenished by anyone who chanced to wake; and as their own safety
depended on it, the men were zealous in this part of their duty.
By this time we had shot most of the kinds of game to be found away
from the rivers, in large numbers--Harris’s black buck potoquan
(_Aigoceros niger_), and the beautiful hill zebra (_Equus montanus_)
excepted. The former I only saw once during my five years in Africa,
and never got a chance at, and the latter I would not have shot if
I could--he is such a pretty, tiny, thoroughbred-looking thing, the
size of a small Shetland pony, and the most playful little fellow
imaginable, springing about the rocky hill-tops with the surefootedness
of an ibex. We had not yet fallen in with elephants or even seen their
tracks. Three years after the time of which I am writing I killed them
frequently to the south, but now they were away to pastures new for the
time, and we decided on going on north to the Ba-Mungwato country in
the hope of finding them.
[Illustration: A night attack--Lupapi]
On our way we halted at a small spring at the bottom of a slight
depression. It looked as if the water had once been much larger, and
might have occupied the best part of the area. There was a trickling
overflow, which, after running a few yards, tumbled into a hole and
disappeared; hence its name ‘Lupapi,’ or the ‘Mouse.’ This was the very
worst place for lions I ever knew; not so much from their number as
their insolent audacity. I stopped here on three separate occasions,
and each time was molested more than sufficiently. On this, the first,
we had made, luckily, a very strong kraal. The fires would not burn
brightly, as there was a misty rain falling. At 10 P.M. or half-past
we had only just turned in when we were attacked in force by two lions
and a lioness. Our vedettes, the dogs, were driven in, and the enemy
charged down upon the cattle enclosure. The noise, of course, woke
us all, and dogs, Kafirs, Hottentots, Murray and myself had our work
fully cut out; our assailants kept just outside the firelight, making
savage rushes at the dogs, but never giving us the chance of a shot. I
stood for a long time in very scant attire (someone brought me a jacket
and trousers later on), my first entrance to the scene being anything
but noble, for on running from the waggon to the front my foot caught
in a creeper, and I fell heavily. The Kafirs behaved admirably, never
yielding an inch, though the lions were very determined. After half an
hour or so we nursed the fires into brighter glow, and increased the
circle of light around us, and things grew rather calmer. We could hear
every breath and angry purr, though as we were looking into the dark
we could see nothing. For some time I made a Kafir stand beside me and
throw brands into the darkness, hoping by a gleam to get sufficient
indication of the whereabouts of our foes for a shot--but in vain. I
fired frequently as near as I could guess on the spot where the purring
seemed to come from, and could hear the angry beast make a dash at the
pinging ball. But I struck nothing save the ground. However, we had
checked the onset, and now had only to keep on the alert. Just before
the day broke the siege was raised, and I was on horseback to look out
a better camping-ground for the next night. As I cleared the low jungle
which lay around us, a lioness broke away from the edge of it and took
across an opening beyond. She was eighty yards from me, rather too long
a shot for the old Purdey; but there was cover ahead from which I could
not cut her off, and I was savage enough at her unwished-for attentions
during the night, for she was, no doubt, one of the three, and oh! how
glad I was when I heard the ball thud, and saw her stride short. I
mounted and rode her to a standstill in a couple of hundred yards, when
she squatted in front of a bush. I got within twenty or twenty-five
yards of her, intending to dismount, but found I had fired all my
loose balls away during the night, and that the one in the barrel was
all I had to rely on. I have a weakness for a second bullet, and
backing my pony a little further off I told my after-rider to go to the
waggon and bring me a fresh supply. He was only absent a few minutes,
I keeping watch on the lioness meanwhile. On his return I loaded the
empty barrel, and, getting off for a steady shot, found to my dismay
that, although I could see her well enough whilst sitting on my horse,
the long grass hid her entirely when on my feet. I could not remount,
for the after-rider had removed the horse, and it is not probable the
lioness would have allowed me to do so without interference. For a
moment I was in a fix, but about ten yards to my left I saw a dead
mimosa-tree with a fork in it five feet from the ground. It appeared
my only chance, though a risky one; and I wonder to this day that
the beast did not charge when she saw the scrub moving as I passed
through it. She did not, however, and I gained my fork and could now
see her quite plainly, and she me likewise, for she never took her
eyes off for one second. Her head was full front. I aimed between her
eyes, but a twig must have turned the ball, for I was firing from a
rest, and it only bored a clean hole through her ear. She struck it
angrily with her paw, and then faced me again. The second shot was more
successful, and she dropped dead. I had hit her the first time very far
aft, but I think she must have been more crippled than I had supposed,
or she would never have allowed me to move about so clumsily without
attempting a diversion.
The second attack, a year afterwards, was not so prolonged, but the
lions pressed the men so hard that they had to take refuge between
the fires and the hedge of the kraal, and the beasts twice crossed
the line of firelight in pursuit. The third imbroglio at this water
was more serious, but the initiative this time was with me. John, my
after-rider, woke me very early one morning to tell me a lioness and
her cub were drinking at the spring, from which we were lying only 200
yards distant. Ordering him to saddle two horses--they had not yet been
loosed from the waggon-wheels to which we always made them fast in
pairs--I slipped on my clothes and, jumping on the back of one of them,
galloped towards the spring, followed by John, half a dozen Kafirs,
and the dogs, hoping to cut off mother and child from the thick bush
behind them. But they beat me; and the dogs, taking the scent, followed
them. The Kafirs had come with me, partly to see the fun and partly, in
case of my shooting the lioness, to catch the cub, which, when it is
quite young, they manage to do by chasing and dodging it, and throwing
their short skin carosses over it. They then roll it up like a baby in
swaddling clothes, with only its head out at one end and its tail at
the other; round the bundle they wind a leathern riem or strap, and
pass the snarling though now harmless little beast from one to another,
saying pretty things of its father and mother, aunts and uncles, &c.
[Illustration: ‘Post equitem sedet “fulva” cura’--The lioness does the
scansion]
The dogs very soon brought the lioness to bay, and I got within thirty
yards, but from the thickness of the bush could neither see them nor
her. I shifted my position once or twice in the hope of making out
what was going on, standing up in my stirrups looking for an opening,
that I might dismount and get a shot. Suddenly the barking of the dogs
and snapping snarl of the lioness ceased, and I thought she had broken
bay and gone on, but in a second I heard a roar on the horse’s right
quarter, in a different direction from that into which I had been
peering, and, looking round, saw her with her mouth open, clearing a
rather high patch of bush twenty yards from me. There was no time to
get off the horse, and no possibility of a shot from his back, for the
charge was on his _right_ flank, and you cannot shoot to the right. I
did the only thing that I could--jammed the spurs in and tried to make
a gallop of it; but my follower was too close, and before I could get
up full speed I heard her strike the ground heavily twice in her bound,
and with the third she sat up behind me. She jumped short, however, and
failed to get hold with her mouth, but drove her front claws well into
the horse’s quarters, and a hind foot underneath him, and so clung,
but only for a moment; for the poor beast, maddened by fright and pain,
and unable to stand up under the extra weight, became unmanageable,
threw his head up, and swerved under the projecting bough of a tree
which, striking me on the chest, swept me from the saddle against the
lioness, and we rolled to the ground together. A sharp rap on the head,
from my having fallen on a stump, stunned me for a minute or two, and I
woke to life to find John kneeling alongside of me, asking me if I was
dead, which was a needless question, seeing I was at the time sitting
up rubbing my eyes. ‘What’s the matter?’I said, but at the same instant
I heard the dogs again baying fifty yards off, and recollection came
back. Rising to my feet, I staggered like a drunken man, rather than
walked towards the sound, and propped myself up against a tree, for I
was still weak and dazed; indistinctly I could occasionally see both
dogs and lioness. Presently, something broke through the thinner part
of the bush, and I fired and wounded one of the dogs. And the lioness,
tired by the protracted worrying, and startled perhaps by the sound
of the gun, bounded off and escaped without a shot. I have been often
asked by those who have seen the sketch, ‘Oh, but why did you not turn
round and shoot her from the saddle?’ And all the answer I could or
can give is, ‘It’s easy to say but difficult to do,’ and that in a
second we were on the ground together. The men told Livingstone that
the dogs came out so close upon the lioness that she, rather flustered
at being swept from the horse’s back, turned to fight with them, and
took no notice of me. We caught the horse four miles off, and I sewed
up and cured his wounds, but he was never fit for anything again,
bolting dangerously at a stump or other dark object. A hard spin after
a straight-horned gemsbok killed him.
It was here at Lupapi that I first saw the wild dogs hunting. I had
gone towards the water on the chance of a shot, late one afternoon,
and as I got into the little flat in which the spring lay, an antelope
broke through the bush on my right, panic-stricken and blown. Thirty
yards behind it came the wild dogs; before it had gained the middle of
the open space they ran into it, and though I was within 100 yards,
they had torn it nearly to pieces when I got up. They then retired a
short distance, sitting down and watching menacingly whilst I cut away
part of the hind quarters, and the moment I turned my back swooped
down on their prey, dismembering and putting it out of sight in an
incredibly short time. They are ugly-looking brutes, more like jackals
than dogs, with great endurance in running, and great grip of jaw.
Three or four head the pack, holding the scent. As they tire, three
or four others take their places, the pack running loosely after the
leaders.
We reached the kraals of the Ba-Mungwato, but met with a surly
reception. The chief wished to play the part of the great potentate,
and declined seeing us, sending messengers for presents and specifying
what they were to be. His envoys, however, returned empty-handed, with
a reply that we were not in the habit of giving without expectation
of some return; that if we could not see him we would go to the next
tribe; that we had come to hunt elephants in his country, and to feed
his people; but that if he did not wish us to do so, or would not help
us in our hunting, neither would we send him any gift in anticipation,
or on the chance of changing his mind, adding that we should mention
his politeness to other white men, who would henceforth avoid him. So
the day passed. Two or three lounging fellows of the tribe told my
men yarns of Secomi’s power and of the retaliation he took upon his
enemies, mentioning _inter alia_ that we were encamped, having been led
to it by his orders, upon the very spot where last year he had disposed
of a party of Matabili who had come on an embassage. Hottentots are
open to swaggering stories, but in this instance their credulity was
confirmed when shortly before sunset they rambled out in advance of the
waggons, and found that we were in a _cul de sac_, the hills closing
in round us 300 yards off and offering no passage through them, and,
horror of horrors! on the ground lay a number of human skulls.
They came back in great fear, and told us the result of their
explorations. We were not much disturbed, but I thought it wise to take
precautions against surprise, and served out ammunition to the men,
bidding them sleep with their muskets handy and take their cue from
us. The night, however, passed quietly. About 7 in the morning news
was brought me that the great man was approaching with a number of his
warriors. I ordered the horses to be made fast to the waggon-wheels and
the oxen to be tied, ready for inspanning, to the trek tow, and then
allotted to each man his tree, intimating very clearly that, in the
case of a disturbance, they were to follow, not set, an example, and
that if anyone fired a shot before I did, I would shoot him.
Secomi came up with his spearmen, and sat down opposite me, fifteen
feet from our fire, where we were taking our morning coffee.
Livingstone had sent a very fine old Bechuana fighter with us as a
kind of head man, a most dignified superior fellow, by name Syami
(_Anglicè_, I believe, ‘stand firm’), who had won great renown in many
a fight, and once, when wounded badly and left for dead, on coming to
had broken off the shafts of the assegais, and crawled three miles on
hands and knees to a friendly village, with the irons still in him.
This man we put up as our champion, and for an hour and a half did he
argue in our interests, speaking with all the untrammelled fluency of
uncivilised man. We understood but little of what he said, and that
only by signs, not words; but he was evidently very eloquent. The chief
at first would hardly listen to him, but was by degrees brought to
treat upon the matter, making suggestions as to what presents would
be likely to assuage his wrath; but we firmly refused to budge an
inch from our original lines, until he should give us a guide to the
next tribe, for after his conduct we told him we were determined not
to shoot in his country. There was no active sign of hostility. The
position Secomi had placed himself in with respect to the muzzle of my
gun, which lay across my knees, exercised perhaps a calming influence;
but he would not help us in any way, and steadily refused guides. We
were wearied of the long discussion, and I called to the Hottentots
to inspan the oxen and loose the horses; this operation was watched
intently, without remark, by the chief and his followers. I then gave
orders to turn the waggons, for I had the night before ascertained
the direction of the Bakaa Hills. As the oxen slowly brought the
heavy carts round and faced the other way, I gave the order to trek,
and the faces of the Ba-Mungwato were a sight to see. Throughout the
preliminary operations they had watched us eagerly, believing us
ignorant of the trap into which we had been inveigled, and hoping that
we should go further on into it. I do not think they would even then
have attacked us, but their feelings would have been relieved by our
disappointment and the success of their arrangements. The bird had,
however, seen the snare and escaped out of the hand of the fowler.
They stood stupefied and crestfallen, and the waggons moved on without
a word or sign of opposition. I brought up the rear with the loose oxen
and horses. We had gained 300 or 400 yards from the camping ground,
which was still in sight, when I heard the sound of running behind me,
and turning saw a man coming on at the top of his speed after us. He
threw up his hands to show he was carrying no arms, and I grounded my
gun and waited for him. ‘What is it?’ ‘I am sent by the chief to take
you wherever you like to go!’ ‘Lead on to the Bakaa then!’ and thus
ended our first and only difficulty with the natives.
On our arrival we found this people in a pitiable state; the crops
had failed, and they were starving. The chief welcomed us warmly,
asked what we had come for, and on receiving answer to hunt elephants,
besought us to take his people and feed them, putting his country and
his services at our disposal. On condition that _his_ people during
their stay with me were to be _my_ people, I accepted 600 men, women,
and children in the most terrible state of starvation. No white man,
emaciated as these poor fellows were, could have walked ten yards--the
two bones in the lower arm and leg were distinctly visible, and you
could see them working in the joints and attachments; in truth, nearly
the whole party were bones covered with skin, and poor skin too, for
from poverty of blood you could hardly have found a sound patch large
enough to lay a crown piece on. The chief introduced three of the
head men to me, and bade me hold them responsible for the rest, and I
did--and never had the very slightest trouble.
We started for the hunting grounds next morning, and were among the
elephants in a day or two. There have been discussions as to who is
king among the beasts, and to this day the lion is generally given
the title. But look down that narrow game-track. A lion is coming up
it from the water. As he turns the curve in the winding path he sees
that a rhinoceros or buffalo is coming down to drink. He slinks into
the bush, lies very low, gives them the road, lets them pass well
by, and then resumes his interrupted way. If this is the king, he is
exceedingly courteous to his subjects--one might even think just a
little in awe of some of them. King of the cats in Africa he may be,
and is; but king of the beasts he is not.
Come with me to a desert pool some clear moonlight night when the
shadows are deep and sharply cut, and the moon herself, in the dry,
cloudless air, looks like a ball. All is nearly as bright as day,
only the light is silver, not gold. Sit down on that rock and watch
the thirsty animals as they drink--buffalo, rhinoceros, antelope,
quagga, and occasionally, if the water is large, lions too. But what
has frightened the antelope and quagga that they throw their heads up
for a second and fade away into the shadows? The other beasts, too,
are listening, and now leave the sides of the pond. Nothing but the
inevitable, irrepressible jackal, that _gamin_ amongst wild things,
remains in view. As yet your dull human ears have caught no sound,
but very soon the heavy tread, and low, rumbling note of an oncoming
herd of elephants reaches you. They are at the water. The jackals have
sat down with their tails straight out behind them, but not another
creature is to be seen. The king drinks. Not a sound is heard. He
squirts the water over his back, makes the whole pool muddy, and
retires solemnly, leaving his subjects, who now gather round, to make
the best of what he has fouled. This is the king in the opinion of the
beasts. You may think him a nervous monarch, subject to panic, and I do
not know that you are not right; but he has weight in the animal world,
you may be assured.
This African elephant is an uncomely, ragged fellow, with his bad
facial angle, huge ears, long forelegs, sliced off quarters, and
generally untidy appearance; but he carries fine tusks, and often gives
you a lot of trouble. I have ridden nearly twenty miles on his spoor
before coming up with him, and liked him all the better for it. He is
wanting in ready wit, but is a wise, thoughtful being in his ponderous
way, and a great hand at combination. He wishes to feed on the top of
a tree, finds it too strong for him alone, calls on a friend or two,
and, with an all-together swing, they bring it to the ground. When at
bay, he has a fancy for pushing down a tree on your head and charging
through the branches. His friend tumbles into a pitfall--by the way,
males very seldom do, for, fearing no other animal, they carry their
trunks down; the sensitiveness of that organ warns them of the danger,
and they will walk securely amongst a nest of these traps and neatly
uncover them, throwing the reeds and grass into the air with scorn.
The cows, however, are frequently taken, for, anxious about their
calves--which are often attacked by lions--they carry their trunks in
the air, feeling for a chance scent of the enemy. The Kafirs sometimes
lie in wait by the water near to which the pits are dug, and after the
elephants or other game have drunk, raise a shout, and in the hurry of
the retreat the living graves reap their harvest.
These pitfalls are 10 feet long by about 9 deep and 4 wide at the top,
narrowing as they deepen, so that a large beast gets jammed in them;
they are made larger specially for elephants, and are most skilfully
covered with reeds, grass, and a few handfuls of sand. I have ridden
into them horse and all, and I have walked into them; in the first
instance, I shook my feet out of the stirrups in time to prevent my
legs being crushed, and managed to scramble out from the horse’s
back. In the second, walking on the high bank of the Zouga River, I
was rating one of my drivers in the river-bed below for punishing his
oxen, when I suddenly felt the ground give way beneath me, and amidst
a shower of dust and broken reeds thought I could catch the sound of
laughter from the waggon--let us hope I was mistaken. Luckily this
one had no stake at the bottom, as many have. But we have left our
elephant in the trap too long; let us return to him. His friends at
first run off panic-stricken, but often come back affected by his
piteous calls for help; and, swinging their heavy forefeet, strike the
sandy soil with the front part, cutting away earth from the end or
side of the pitfall, quicker than a navvy could with a spade, and at
last successfully freeing their companion, who stamps all the débris
of the broken-down sides beneath his feet, by helping him with their
trunks up the rough kind of incline they have made. This occurred one
night within 300 yards of our waggons; we, of course, did not see the
operations, but we heard them being carried on, and the elephants
talking to one another, and these were the inferences the Kafirs drew
next morning from the foot-marks and appearances, and they assured
me the case was not uncommon. If the wariness of these heavy animals
among pitfalls is wonderful, not less to be admired is the way in
which they manage to clamber up trackless heights, and come down by
impossible-looking paths. A wall of rock 300 feet high is before
me; immediately along the edge runs a shelf five or six feet wide,
in places so precipitous that you could only slip down it, and even
that at considerable risk, but over it, in Indian file, come eighteen
or twenty elephants making their way to the jungle below. As they
reach the sharp inclines they sit down, and thrusting their hind legs
straight out under them, as far forward as they can, they ‘go it,’ as
Albert Smith used to say of the Alpine tourist, and everyone comes
safely to the bottom. They take readily to deep water, displacing so
much that only the ridge of the back, and upper part of the head down
to the eyes, show above the surface; they carry the trunk up and swim
strongly. I have known them come to the opposite side of a river, and
finding the bank too steep to climb, at once begin pounding it with
their forefeet until they had established a firm resting-place for one
gigantic rammer, and then starting from their fresh point of departure,
go on making steps till the flight was complete--this was in India.
In elephant country we were always obliged to be very careful, for
a single shot at night will sometimes drive a herd far away. Unlike
the rhinoceros and buffalo, elephants seldom drink twice at the same
place in a river. This is partly due to caution, though perhaps it may
chiefly depend on their soon eating up a district, and having to seek
new feeding grounds. With this object they frequently travel great
distances--fifty miles or more--in a night. This will not appear so
remarkable if it is considered that the bulls often stand fifteen miles
from the water, and walk to and fro in the hot nights without missing,
though during the colder season they are contented with alternate
nights. In India, where vegetation is rank and the forests dense,
elephants hold on to the same locale.
The ears of the African elephant are enormous--six feet in length, and
broad in proportion, though I never measured the breadth. The lower
end just touches the point for the side shot. I was once hunting these
animals in the Ba-Quaina country, and had killed three, when a tiny
dark wreath on the horizon warned us of a coming thunderstorm. A South
African sky is for nine months quite free of cloud; for 300 out of
the 365 days of the year the sun rises as glowing copper, and sets as
flaming gold, without a framing of any sort. A happy thought struck me:
I ordered the Kafirs to cut off an ear from one of the dead elephants,
and, lying curled up beneath it, I escaped a wet jacket, though the
rain came down in waterspouts, and I stood six feet. The scientists of
the future may find occupation for some time to come in developing the
cause of abnormal ears, sloping backs, thorns at the ends of lions’
tails, and a number of other little peculiarities in beasts, birds,
insects and fishes; but they ought not to delay, for many types are
already on the wane.
The elephant’s head is wonderfully constructed. If it were great masses
of bone and muscle, the ligaments of the neck would need to be of
extraordinary power to support it; but between the larger bones, and
in all admissible parts of the skull, the spaces are filled in with a
cellular, bony structure, fulfilling both requirements of strength and
lightness.
I believe some people suppose the Carthaginians tamed and used the
African elephant; they could hardly have had Mahouts Indian fashion,
for there is no marked depression in the nape of the neck for a seat,
and the hemming of the ears,[3] when erected, would have half-smothered
them. My knowledge does not allow me to raise any argument on this
point; but might not the same market have been open to the dwellers at
Carthage as was afterwards to Mithridates, who, I suppose, drew his
supply from India, where they have been broken and made to do man’s
work from time immemorial? _Vide_ friezes, carvings, pictures, stories,
myths innumerable--the last running back into obscurity--the elephant
holding in them the position of the ‘gin’ in the Arab tales. Half the
world has at one time been the _habitat_ of this great pachyderm or its
congeners. Siberia, with its fossil ivory mines, and Europe everywhere,
are its tombs. Destroyed or driven south by some climatic change, India
and Africa are its present homes; but in Africa the place thereof shall
soon know it no more, and to our great-great-grandchildren the old
‘tlou’ will be as the mammoth is to us.
The elephant’s age is a disputed point; but, as no one has quite
decided, let me put it down at 200 years, upon these two grounds: 1st,
that most animals live four or five times as long as they take to
attain maturity, and an elephant is certainly not a ‘man’ till he is
fifty; 2ndly, that I had charge for the Government of a large take of
elephants caught in a ‘coopum’ in India. They were sometimes, while
being broken, very troublesome, and if they got beyond the control
of the men a tame elephant, ‘Lachmé,’ was called in to ‘whip’ them.
Lachmé had been a pagoda elephant sixty years; we had the record of her
capture as a full-grown female. That makes her upwards of a hundred,
and she was then, in 1847, quite in her prime, without a sign of old
age, and I dare say is very much the same still. The young calves,
too, are the smallest beasts for the size they afterwards attain,
and must take a long while growing. Such tinies are they that I have
had them run under my pony, and touched their little pinky bodies
with my foot--poor morsels! I never could shoot the female with any
satisfaction, and I think I never did at all but twice; males were
plentiful enough.
Men differ as to the height of the African elephant. I have seen
thousands, and shot the largest one I ever saw. I measured him, and
he was 12 ft. 2 in. I have _heard_ of one 17 feet high, but I did not
see him, and it is long ago, so perhaps he was the last of the giants!
A tusk was exhibited in the African Exhibition in Regent Street, in
1890, by Sir Edmund Loder. It weighed 180 lbs. odd, and was by far the
heaviest single tusk known, I should suppose; but I have been shown
a pair, 303 lbs. and 9 feet in length. My largest trophy was rather
under 8 feet long, and the pair weighed between 230 and 240 lbs. They
belonged to a bull I killed on the Zouga; he was the smallest old one
I shot in Africa-not more than 9 feet high. I went out with John one
bitter morning to provide food for the camp, and, having dropped a
white rhinoceros, made for the waggons to get hot coffee and breakfast.
On the way we came across an elephant, its head entirely hidden by a
thick bush. Thinking, from its size, it was a cow, I was passing it
unnoticed, when John, with the desire, I suppose, of adding to his
collection of tails, begged me to shoot it. I fired, and down went the
bush, as, with a shrill trumpet, the elephant trampled through it,
disclosing nearly six feet of naked ivory, over the curve; so long
were the tusks, and so diminutive their owner, that the points barely
cleared the ground. A second ball finished him.
The drier the country the smaller the elephants. On the Limpopo the
average height of the bulls was 11 feet, on the Zouga and through the
Kalahari 10 feet. The ivory of the smaller kind was larger and, I am
told, closer in grain. These tusks, which are deposited by a gum, are
very slow of growth; and the molar teeth, to ensure a supply for
a long life, have always a young tooth growing at the back of the
alveolar process which pushes out the old ones as they become worn.
Most of my elephants were killed from horseback with the shoulder-shot;
the cover is rarely thick enough to allow you to get within reach on
foot. Besides, on foot you can seldom dispose of more than two at a
time; whereas from horseback, under favourable conditions, you may
double or even treble that number. Sometimes you must crawl in, and
then, of course, you take the head shot if you can get it; but you
ought to be within fifteen yards, on a line parallel with your quarry,
just a trifle in advance, and then a ball in the lower depression, or
temple, will, nineteen times out of twenty, be instantly fatal. I see
Sir S. Baker does not believe in the front shot for Africans; but,
though as a rule I agree with him entirely, I certainly have killed
them by this. Their heads slope so much backwards, however, that it
often fails. In tolerable ground there is but little difficulty; but
in thick bush there is always some danger, more especially if you are
particular in choosing your tusks; and in riding the bull you select
out of the herd there is a certain amount of knack--you settle to him
and then press him individually, disregarding the rest of the herd for
the time. He shoots ahead of his companions, or turns round on you
and charges; in either case you have gained your object--separation.
If he charges, put the horse to the gallop and let him follow you,
the farther the better. Watch as he slacks off, keeping about twenty
yards ahead, and pull up sharp when he comes to a stand. He is too
blown to charge again, and when he turns to go after his mates he must
give you his side; one or two shots properly placed at short range are
enough, and you are away again after the flying herd. The oftener you
attack the easier the victory, for the heavy beasts get tired, and in
consequence are much less difficult to kill.
The little elephant is an amusing imitator of the ways of his elders.
I have come upon cow herds with a number of very small calves. As the
mothers move off, disturbed and trumpeting, the little fellows fancy
it their business to follow suit. Up goes each tiny trunk with a penny
trumpet and a fussy waving to and fro. When frightened they run under
their mothers, and peer out in the most old-fashioned way; and if you
have been unfortunate enough to kill the parent, they will often follow
your horse--poor little beggars!
The mothers, I think, as a rule, do not show so much affection for
their young as might be expected. They are too nervous and easily
affected to remain mistresses of themselves, and, so far as I have
experience, forget their offspring in troubled times. You have
occasionally striking instances to the contrary, but they are the
exceptions. In a large herd of females I once shot a young bull,
believing him a good tusked cow; as he dropped, a gaunt old lady,
presumably his mamma, fell out from the herd, and charged me at once. I
was on horseback and galloped away from her, as she had shabby stumpy
tusks, and though I was that day shooting for the pot, there were
plenty of others to choose from. She turned back to the dead elephant,
which lay in the opening through which I had to pass to get at the
others, and stood guard over it, charging in the most determined way
every time I attempted to get by--which I had to do at last by allowing
her to follow me and then doubling on her. This scene I remember more
clearly than I otherwise perhaps should because of an extraordinary
sight. When I caught the elephants again they were slinging down a
hillside. Dismounting, I killed three of them, two pitching on their
heads and rolling over like rabbits.
We shot through the country of the Bakaa for about seven weeks, north
and south of the rocky hills on which they lived, and I was here first
introduced to that giant tree, the baobab. I was following elephant
spoor on foot, with three or four men, through thick thorns, when I
found that they had led me off the tracks; and on looking up for a
reason why, quite close to me stood what at first I took to be the body
of an elephant, I threw my gun into my left hand to be in readiness,
to the amusement of my followers, who, knowing I had never as yet
fallen in with the baobab (_Adansonia digitata_), had led me a little
aside to grin at my astonishment. These quaint, enormous trees seem to
have belonged, like many of the animals of Africa, to a bygone world,
and, finding the present doesn’t suit them, they are taking their
leave. A few of the old ones still remain, but I never saw a young one.
The largest I measured was 74 feet girth at four feet from the ground,
and the smallest 45 feet, but I perhaps overlooked smaller specimens.
We had very good sport, unbroken by accident or anything remarkable.
Our starvelings had fattened day by day, and were now shining and
very merry and happy in their new skins. Uncivilised man does not
take long to pick up; he only wants food, and plenty of it. Shall I
be believed if I say that Kafirs will eat, if you give it them, from
12 lbs. to 15 lbs. of solid meat in the day? It appears, I know, an
impossible feat, but I can vouch for it and partly explain it, too;
for in a short journey with Livingstone, between the Chobé and Zambesi
rivers, two or three years after this, we had no sort of meal with us,
and were consequently obliged to live on meat alone. And I certainly
thought the dear old Doctor was very greedy, for he would eat 4 lbs.
for his breakfast and the same or more for his dinner. On telling him
my opinion of his performance, he retaliated, ‘Well, to tell you the
truth, I’ve been thinking just the same of you!’ The fact is that a
very large quantity of meat is required if nothing else is eaten. When
I got back to the waggons I tried giving two or three of the men a
handful of beans with their rations, and found they could not possibly
eat more than 3 lbs. of flesh, the smaller mixed diet meeting all the
requirements of the system.
We had harried the country of the Bakaas a good deal, and decided on
seeking a new field along the banks of the Limpopo, where we heard the
game--elephants especially--were in great abundance; so, setting our
heads about E. by S., we journeyed onwards, and, travelling slowly,
came to it on the third or fourth day--the last twenty-four hours
without water for the cattle.
This day ought to be marked with a very large though dull-coloured
stone in my shooting annals. Murray made a long _détour_ to the
N.E., intending to strike the river lower down and follow it up to
the encampment. I kept within easy distance of the waggons, as I was
anxious to see the cattle watered and well cared for. I shot two
large bull elephants and a rhinoceros, and one of the drivers killed
a giraffe and a quagga. I think we must have been near the river, for
men were left behind to cut them up and dry the flesh, and I do not
remember any other water within reach. It was about 3 P.M. when we
drew up on the bank, and I was sitting down and enjoying the pleasant
sight of the thirsty beasts taking their fill, when I heard three shots
in quick succession three-quarters of a mile down stream. It could
only be Murray, for there were no guns in the country in those days
except our own and those of the Boers far away to the eastward, and
my Kafirs would have told me soon enough had any stray party of these
been about. Again came shot after shot, and thinking Murray was either
in trouble or had fallen in with a herd of buffalo, the spoor of which
was very plentiful, I caught one of the ponies, and putting the bit in
his mouth, kicked him along as fast as he could go in his waterlogged
condition.
Immediately opposite the sound of the guns the bush was so thick I
could not get through with the horse; so, tying him to a tree on the
outside, I crawled in, and came upon a kind of backwater from the
main river, very deep, 150 yards long by fifty wide, with high banks,
especially the one opposite me, on which sat the dear old laird blazing
away right merrily--his after-rider helping him keep up the cannonade
by loading one of the guns. ‘What is it?’ I shouted. ‘Look at those
beasts,’ he replied--_bang_. ‘There again’--_bang_. ‘Look!’ he cried.
The pool was alive with monstrous heads, and though this was the first
time I had seen the hippopotamus in the flesh--fat, perhaps, I ought
to say--for we had then no friendly hippo in the Zoo--there was no
mistaking him.
I opened fire at once from my side at heads which showed for a second
above water and then disappeared below, again to reappear; and Murray
kept pounding away from his. This went on for a quarter of an hour,
and nothing came of it; though the hippos were hit every time, not
one of them seemed to die--there was, apparently, the same amount of
snorting, puffing, and blowing--but no results of the thirty or forty
shots that had been fired, and yet the animals were within twenty or
twenty-five yards of us. ‘Have you killed any, old fellow?’ I shouted,
and the answer came back to me, ‘No!’ At the same moment a big bull
made straight for the part of the bank on which I was standing. Letting
him get his forelegs clear of the water, I fired within three feet
of his head, blowing him back, as it seemed, into the stream. ‘Well,
I’ll swear I hit him!’I roared to Murray. ‘Oh, I’ve hit all I’ve fired
at,’ was his reply. The evening was closing in, and just before we
started for the waggons one hippopotamus floated up dead on Murray’s
side. We looked at one another, and did not say much of our shooting.
Next morning, however, on the surface of the creek lay fourteen huge
bodies--a hippopotamus sinks to the bottom when killed, and only floats
when the gas distends the stomach; at least, that was our reading of
the riddle. It is the poorest of sport, and I never shot another except
for food. The young are very good eating, the flesh resembling the most
delicate pork.
We knew nothing about the tusks when we shot this first batch, and so
lost some valuable ivory. Large hippopotamus’ teeth were then worth
20_s._ a lb., when elephant ivory would bring only 5_s._ 6_d._, the
former, I believe, being used for the finest sort of inlaying and
artificial teeth.[4]
The hippopotamus and crocodile live together in the same rivers, and
keep the peace, though on what pact I know not, for the young of the
former would be sucking-pig to the latter; I suppose there is a mutual
agreement of bear and forbear. The hippopotamus looks more like a
retired publican than a fighter, but whether he can bite or not, ask
the canoes. The little calves stand on the broad backs of their mothers
as the school moves from one feeding ground to another, and this may
be a precautionary measure, for I fear ‘Brer’ Crocodile is not a very
honourable fellow. I may mention as a curious fact that once or twice I
found his armoured skeleton fifteen feet up in the trees by the river’s
bank. The Kafirs assured me that it was thrown there by an elephant who
had come down to drink, and on whose trunk the crocodile had fastened,
whereupon the elephant in his fright and fury had kneaded him to death
and then, with a toss from his tusks, treed him. I could see, and can
suggest, no better explanation of his position--high above even flood
mark.
Next morning our now plump Bakaa came as a deputation, assured us we
had made their hearts quite white, and requested leave to return to
their kraals. It was granted, of course, and a few days later, after
drying their strips of meat and making it up into large faggots, having
requisitioned as carriers a number of Ba-Lala--a kind of poor Kafirs
who hang on the outskirts of the more powerful tribes like pariahs or
mean whites, and whose position I could never exactly make out--they
set out for their villages, each man, woman, and child staggering under
as much meat as he or she could possibly stand up under. This one day’s
shooting of elephants and hippos had given them over 60,000 lbs. They
had large stores beside, and every few days had sent back men with
loads to their chief throughout the whole time of their being with me.
They _all_ went to their homes. Out of the 600 not one was missing,
sick or feeble.
We shot down the river for a month or five weeks. On one of the last
days, Murray and I rode out together. We usually took our separate
beats, and this is, as a rule, by far the best plan, for men get
jealous shooting against one another--the camp fires dull; in
this way, too, you learn more of the country through which you are
travelling. We had pottered about, shot a giraffe, and some smaller
game, when accidentally we lighted upon a herd of elephants. Now you
very seldom come across elephants by chance; you have nearly always to
follow them for miles from the water; but here they were, and eight
fine bulls too--nothing very large in tusks, but all good. Though
startled, they stood and fronted us. We each took one of the flankers,
firing at the point of the shoulder. With a flourish of trumpets the
whole eight charged in a crescent--it was a grand sight--we turned and
galloped right and left, the bulls pressing after Murray, and in their
course driving up an old mahoho, who puffed and snorted, and putting on
full steam managed at last to get clear, in great alarm. We only bagged
a couple; in after years with more knowledge I should have got at least
four single-handed.
The season was drawing on, and we set our heads southward and westward
towards Mabotsé, and, shaking the dear old Doctor and Mrs. Livingstone
by the hand, went down to the Colony, I to refit for next year, Murray
to return to England. I should have managed very well with the stores I
had, but from December to April you cannot keep your horses alive--the
horse sickness kills every one. This mysterious illness, though an
epidemic at the Cape, is endemic through the old hunting grounds. It
is said to be peripneumonia, and to arise from the rank vegetation
springing up after the first rains; but I think some other explanation
of its cause than this must be found, as the horses suffered just the
same once when I was crossing the Bakalahari desert rather too early in
the season, for I lost six in nine days. Bleeding to exhaustion seems
the only remedy, and one or two I certainly managed to pull through by
opening the veins at both sides of their necks at once, and letting the
blood run till I could push them down with my hand. Had it not been for
this we should never have taken the trouble of the long journey to and
fro, but have remained quiet for the hot months, and then resumed the
campaign when the weather became cooler.