LATER VISITS TO SOUTH AFRICA
BY W. COTTON OSWELL
Vardon went home to England, I think, and I returned to India to finish
my time before taking furlough in 1847. Early in 1849 hearing that
Livingstone intended making an attempt to reach Lake ’Ngami, Murray
and I again left England to join him. The Doctor had quitted his old
missionary station, and was now with Sechélé at Kolobeng. As we neared
this place, whilst we were lying at a small spring called Le Mawé, or
the needles, from some pointed rocks which overhang it, the Kafirs told
me there was a shorter way to Kolobeng through the hills, but they
doubted if it would do for the waggons; so I volunteered one afternoon
to examine it, and report for the onward move of the next day. I
started at 2 P.M. on a good old horse, and had followed a winding track
through the stony hills around us for an hour or more, and, as it
seemed likely to answer, was thinking of returning to camp. We were at
a slow walk when a low grumbling growl woke up man and beast, and on
looking back I saw a lion within fifteen yards, coming up at his wicked
slouching trot. He was too near to give me a chance of dismounting,
and I spurred into a gallop; but he gained on me, and, in the hope of
checking him, I fired a shot Parthianwise from the saddle. The bough of
a tree swept off my hat, and, as it fell, the lion made a spring at it,
giving me a moment’s law. Fifty or sixty yards ahead there was a small,
rocky, but otherwise open space, and to this I pressed at best speed.
I pulled up, as I could see well around, intending to load the barrel
I had fired, and bring my friend to account; but my foot was not out
of the stirrup before he was again on me. I was alone, and the horse
was so scared I could hardly hold him; but, freeing my foot, I caught
the reins over my left arm, faced the oncomer, and threw the gun up to
fire; just as I covered him, and my finger began to press the trigger,
I was violently pulled back, and my arm jerked up. The lion still came
slowly on, with his body sunk between his shoulders, and his brisket
nearly touching the ground. When within twelve yards, I shouted at him,
instinctively, hoping to stop him. The human voice acted like a charm;
he stood, and made as if he would turn away. The horse, seeing that he
no longer advanced, left off tugging at the rein, and I snatched the
opportunity and fired my remaining barrel. The bullet struck the point
of the shoulder, and rolled him off the little rocky plateau into the
bush below, where he lay roaring, without my being able to get sight
of him. I went forwards to look for and settle him, but had to give it
up, for my horse, which I had tied to a tree, did not at all approve
of being left alone, and tried to break his _riem_. I coaxed him,
and as long as I stood by him he was quiet, but directly I turned to
leave terror seized him. I could not afford to lose him, so I mounted,
and attempted to ride him near enough to get a sight and shot; but
the tremendous noise was too much for him, and neither spur nor hand
had any effect. He stood up on his hind legs, and broke into a white
lather of sweat. I persevered for a time, but had to give it up, and,
breaking a few twigs and leaves from the trees to make myself a kind of
substitute for my lost hat, got back to camp.
[Illustration: THE DROP SCENE]
Next morning, after putting the waggons on the path I had looked out
the day before, Murray, I, two Kafirs, and three dogs[6] went on ahead
to pick up the lion. We had just reached the place where my hat had
been torn off by the tree, and I turned round to tell the Kafirs that
he must be hard by, when an angry growl to my left and then the shriek
of a man told me that something had gone wrong. Jumping off my pony, I
ran into the scrub, guided by the sound. I had hardly got fifty yards
when, bursting through a thicket in front of me, a man, covered with
blood, fell at my feet, crying out that he was killed by the lion,
and at the same instant I caught sight of the beast close up on three
legs, his mane as if electrified into an Elizabethan collar, with the
Kafir’s dog in his mouth. As his head came clear of the bush I put a
ball through it, and he dropped dead by the native’s foot. I looked to
the yelling victim, and found he was terribly bitten in thigh and arm;
so, tearing my shirt into strips, I bound him up as well as I could,
never expecting him to live, for large surfaces were mangled, and I
had to replace much a good deal at hazard. As I finished the waggons
came up, and, lifting the wounded man on a blanket into one of them, I
took him home, made him over to his wife, gave her a handful of beads
and a yard or two of brass wire to purchase food whilst he was laid
up, summoned the chief, said I was very sorry an accident should have
happened to one of his men, received his assurance that it was not of
the slightest consequence, especially as I had killed the lion, and
then, as there was no water for the oxen, I moved on. In seven weeks
I returned to this village. The first to meet and welcome me was my
wounded friend, quite well and sound, and about to start on a journey.
He brought back the blanket on which we had carried him--I had left
it at his hut--cleanly washed; and when I told him to keep it his joy
was so great that I think he would have had the other leg bitten for
a like reward. The recuperative power of the wild man is marvellous.
A European must have died of the wounds, or the consequent fever. The
native, it appeared, had stopped behind, as we came through the pass,
to mend his sandal, and, taking a short cut to rejoin us, had chanced
upon the wounded lion, which first seized him by the large back muscles
of the thigh, and on his striking him over the head with his fist,
shifted his grip to the arm, which was munched up to the elbow, though
no bones were broken. I have before said, lions do not attack men in
daylight without strong cause. I opened this one, and found the stomach
and nearly the whole of the intestines absolutely empty! The beast
was starving--he had evidently bled all night, and was very weak, a
fact which may account for the man’s getting off easier than one would
expect.
My journey with Livingstone to Lake ’Ngami, and my subsequent visit
to the Zambesi in the same company, have been fully described by the
Doctor himself, and though on both occasions I had to kill game for the
camp, they do not fall within the category of shooting expeditions.
They were made with other ends in view, and would be out of place in a
narrative of this kind; it will be sufficient to say we were successful
in introducing two new antelopes[7]--the ’Nakong and the Leché. The
latter, of a dark fawn-colour, with horns annulated and curved like the
waterbuck’s, only smaller, was found on the flats between the shallow
lake Kamadou and the Sesheké plains, west of the Zambesi, the former
about Lake ’Ngami, and in the marshy land and pools of one of its
affluents, the Teoge River. It is a veritable swamp-liver, about the
size of a goat, with long, brownish hair, and horns resembling those of
the koodoo in miniature. The abnormal elongation of its hoof enables
it to skim over the surface of morasses into which other antelopes
would sink. I have one, which I have just measured, very nearly four
inches long--if it were in the ratio of the animal’s size, one and
a half would be its proportion. On hard ground the ’Nakong runs with
difficulty--the swamp shoe is a hindrance. Instead of escaping by
flight or concealment in the bush, this antelope, on being disturbed,
makes straight for the water, sits down in it, and submerges all but
the nostrils until the danger be overpast.
When Murray and I reached Kolobeng in 1849 we found, for some reason
or other, Livingstone had already started, but we caught him up beyond
the Ba-Mungwato, with the chief of which tribe we had again a little
difficulty. By the way, six or seven miles south of his kraals we found
a hot, brackish spring, which bubbled up as if laden with gas.
Our trek to the lake was a hard one, and we were very anxious to see
some of the dwellers of the desert, that we might gain information
of the path and waters in advance; but messengers from Secomi, chief
of the Ba-Mungwato, had gone through the land ordering all Bushmen
and Balala to keep out of our way, and by no means to give us any
assistance. If they happened to be anywhere near our line of march,
they had instructions to step heavily on their toes, and, pressing
the sand behind them, to make as good an imitation as they could of
frightened wildebeest or quagga. We noticed these tracks, but were
never able to use them to our advantage, though we saw through them,
for in that land of thirst we could not afford time to follow the
trail of people hostile to our advance, with perfect knowledge of the
country and its hiding places, and likely to lead us in their flight
as far from water as they possibly could. That they were often about
us, even quite close, we knew; but we never sighted one. A little
dog strayed one day into our camp: we caught it, and covered it with
rings of beads, brass wire, and tinder boxes, then loosed it with a
sudden crack of the waggon whip, in the hope of its running back to
its ambushed masters and giving evidence of our friendly intentions;
but nothing came of it. Again, I tried to lure our unseen watchers
through that most sensitive organ, the stomach. Elephants trooped down
one night to drink; in the morning I took up the spoor and shot one
immediately, but after wounding a second had much trouble with him
in the thick bush, the horse falling before the charging bull, and I
only just escaping. Months afterwards, on our return from Lake ’Ngami,
when there was no further object to be gained by opposition, we were
encamped at the same pool, and were soon surrounded by the children of
the wilderness, who recounted and acted the story of the elephant hunt;
how they had followed and found number two, which escaped at the time,
and eaten him; how they had witnessed it all as invisible spectators;
and now, turning actors, they enjoyed the play vastly: trumpeted like
the elephant, fell like the horse, and imitated my attack and retreat,
and the noise of the gun.
During this journey, when very hard up for water, I offered to
sacrifice a pony and ride on in advance of the slow-moving waggons,
which were to follow on my spoor, on the chance of finding what we
needed so sorely. John and three or four Kafirs accompanied me, and
we had travelled I dare say twelve miles when I saw a patch of high
grass wave as if something were passing through it. Thinking it might
be a lion, and if a lion then water was near, I cantered to the head
of the ‘Jheel,’ dismounted, and watched the line of movement. It came
to the edge, and some living thing broke from it. I covered it, and
only just in time saw it was a woman running, or rather crawling,
very fast on all fours. I mounted in an instant, and shouting to the
Kafirs to follow, I headed her and made signs to her to stop. She
fell upon her knees, and in Sechuana begged me not to kill her. She
had never seen horse or white man before, and evidently took me for
a hippogriff. I calmed her apprehensions, cut the metal buttons off
my waistcoat, presented them to her, and asked where the water was.
‘There is no water,’ she said, ‘I was just making something to drink’
(she was mashing a watery tuber in a wooden bowl) ‘when I saw the pitsi
(horse).’ Bushmen--she was of that people--we knew, lived for months
without real water, but I thought it worth while trying the experiment
of offering her beads and brass wire if she would guide us to some.
It succeeded. ‘Well, if you won’t kill me, I’ll show you where the
elephants drink,’ she replied; I bade her go ahead, and made her walk
just in front. Never did any old lady step out through prickly bush as
did my dame. Her bare legs were scratched by the thorns; but what was
that to her, expecting instant death if she stopped a moment? On she
went. Presently we came upon an elephant. She suggested by signs that
I should kill it, but I answered, ‘Water, then elephant.’ We entered a
belt of high trees. I pressed even more closely on her, lest she should
dodge among them and escape; my pony’s nose nearly touched her, and so
we went through two miles of wood.
As we break into the open again, what do I see? The Lake! Can it be
that I am the first to catch a glimpse of it? We had voted it mean
to stand upon an ant-heap for the chance of a first view, and here
was I engaged on a work of love for the public weal. I was the happy
discoverer, and under ‘creditable circumstances.’ As far as the eye
could reach, without limit rippled the bright blue water. Up went my
old wide-awake, and I shouted for joy; down went the old lady on her
knees begging for dear life: she feared the hour of sacrifice had
struck. The Kafirs who were with me looked astonished, and thought I
had gone mad. ‘What is it; what is it, Tlaga?’ ‘The Lake!’ I replied.
‘Where?’ ‘Here--under our feet--close by.’ ‘Why, that’s only a chooi!’
and so it was. The low sun cast a slanting beam over the incrustations
of salt, and they looked like ripples--indeed, a moment before I would
have sworn it was water. The bush-woman showed us the usual spring by
the side of the pan, and we got water enough for the cattle; she was
bountifully rewarded, but she bolted during the night.
As the waggons came up I watched to see if Livingstone would make the
same mistake as I; but one of the Kafirs had told him the story before,
so he posed as Solomon and I was chaffed. The Lake was still 200
miles distant. These choois are remarkable features in South African
lands. This one was fifteen miles long by, say, about four broad; one
to the immediate north was much larger. The wild animals visit them as
‘licks,’ and the Kafirs get their salt from them.
In 1850 I hoped to bring a boat, but found it impossible to carry it
through the drought and heat, and launch it in serviceable condition on
the inland waters. The Doctor and I had arranged to start together, but
he had already left Kolobeng a month when I arrived, Mrs. Livingstone
with him. There was no chance of overtaking him this time, so I decided
upon getting on to the Zouga, the river running out of Lake ’Ngami,
and having a quiet shoot by myself. This was our second journey across
the Bakalahari, and knowing the waters, we made our arrangements
accordingly, crossed without much trouble, and reached our destination.
Let me here record my gratitude for the nearly absolute perfection
of the copper caps I used--Joyce’s. I might very ungratefully have
forgotten my debt but for a rather narrow escape on this journey from
_the only_ miss-fire I ever had in thousands of shots. In mid-desert,
attracted perhaps by the water we had opened, a fine bull elephant came
close to the waggons. I rode to meet him, and fired, but failed to
do any serious damage, though he pulled up. I reloaded and manœuvred
for his shoulder; but before I could get a shot he charged, and the
cap of the right barrel snicked--fortunately the left stopped him
with the front shot, and he fell dead. I dismounted and then looked
on the ground. I was amongst a nest of pitfalls--how the horse and
the elephant had avoided them I don’t know. On the Zouga the game was
abundant, and the shooting, as it nearly always was, peerless.
Eight or ten days from Lake Kamadou the camp had been made, 150 yards
from the river, just outside the thick fringe of trees, and all was
quiet for the night; even the dogs were sleeping, I believe, for once,
for I had not been roused since I turned in, when about midnight
we were awakened suddenly by a tremendous noise, higher up stream,
coming towards us. Crashing trees and a general rushing were the only
sounds we at first heard, but presently the screams and trumpetings of
panic-stricken elephants mingled in the din. The herd came tearing and
breaking its way through the dense jungle straight for us; luckily they
caught sight of the gleam of the fires and made a sharp bend to the
left, but the outsiders were within a few yards of my waggon. On they
passed into the darkness, and in five minutes all was again still. By
coaxing and speaking to the horses, which were as usual tied two and
two to the waggon-wheels, we calmed them down; but every ox had broken
his tethering _riem_, for, as luck would have it, they were fastened to
the trek-tow. The two teams with all the spare beasts had vanished no
one knew whither, and five hours must pass before we could do anything
to find out.
Making the best of it I turned in again, and did not wake until the sun
rose, when John, putting his head into the waggon, told me the oxen
were on the flat, with a lion after them. I was up in a moment, and
unslinging a gun from the side of the waggon tent, went in hot pursuit.
Interrupted in his pastime, the would-be cattle-lifter turned quickly
to bay, and as he gave me a fine open front shot at fifty yards, I
fired for his chest; but I had been after elephants the day before,
and the heavy charges were still in the barrels. For accuracy at the
distance I had too much powder by half, and the gun threw up, the
ball striking his neck, and down he came on me with a grunting bark.
I waited till he was within twenty yards and fired the second barrel,
but it was a poor shot, the gun kicking violently, and it struck the
upper part of the near foreleg. Two more bounds, snap went the bone,
and pitching heavily forward he lay six yards from me. I had run out in
a hurry, and had neither powder nor ball. John and another man stood
a short distance off. Keeping my full front to the lion and never
taking my eyes off for a moment--a compliment he returned in kind--in
an undertone I told one of the men to go back for ammunition. He may
have been away two or three minutes, but it seemed a long time. When
he returned the difficulty was to get what he had brought to me. There
were two or three small trees on the spot. I was standing beside one
of them, and he managed somehow to climb into it, and, leaning forward
from a bough, to put the powder and balls into my hand, which I held
behind me. I began very cautiously to load, by feeling not by sight,
for I knew I must keep my eyes fixed. Fortunately the balls went home
easily, though every little push I had to give with the ramrod brought
a twitch and a growl from my neighbour. At last all was finished except
putting on the caps, but this was the crux. Directly I raised the gun
to fix them the lion began to show signs of waking up in earnest. It
was a touchy operation, and oh! the relief when it was done! The first
shot rolled him over, and the second finished him.
I had now time to look about me, and found the ground trampled by
elephants into broad roads. Going back along the line of the stampede
of the previous night, I met a poor little yearling calf elephant, torn
badly by a lion, but still alive. I put it out of its misery. This was
doubtless the cause of the last night’s scare. After a cup of coffee
and a damper I started on the tracks. The herd was of cows, but I was
induced to follow it, as to my surprise there were two or three bulls
consorting with them--a most unusual circumstance, for as a rule they
herd apart like stags. But there could be no mistake--there were the
great tell-tale feet.
[Illustration: ELEPHANTS--ZOUGA FLATS]
The line of retreat kept widening from the numerous small parties that
had joined the main body till at length it was two hundred yards broad,
and I and John cantered merrily along it over the flat for ten miles,
when we entered a dense belt of bush, into which we had not penetrated
far when our progress was obstructed by a young bull with small tusks,
who seemed inclined to make himself unpleasant. I did not want him and
tried to drive him off, but he wouldn’t go, and at last charged down
on our horses. This was too much, and I shot him. We pressed on as
quickly as possible to the open park-like country of which I could now
and again get glimpses, fearing that the shot might have disturbed
the rest of the herd if they were within hearing. But I need not have
troubled myself, for as I got clear of the bush I came upon at least
400 elephants standing drowsily in the shade of the detached clumps of
mimosa-trees.[8] Such a sight I had never seen before and never saw
again. As far as the eye could reach, in a fairly open country, there
was nothing but elephants. I do not mean in serried masses, but in
small separate groups. Lying on the pony’s neck I wormed in and out
looking for the bulls whose spoor we had been following, and while
doing so was charged by a very tall, long-legged, ugly beast, who would
take no denial, and I was obliged to kill him. He was _the_ bull, but,
alas! he was without tusks, and probably being defenceless had been
driven from the bull herd and taken up with the cows. I did not want
any of them, and turned waggonwards, rather disappointed at not getting
ivory, but well satisfied with the sight my ride had given me.
In the evening a straight-horned gemsbok (_Oryx capensis_) coming up
from the river passed near the camp; her horns struck me as unusually
long, and with some of the dogs I gave chase on foot; she moved very
slowly, soon stood to bay, and dropped to the shot. She was evidently
very old and worn out. I introduce her to air a theory.
In many of the Bushman caves the head of the oryx is scratched in
profile, and in that position one horn hides the other entirely. In
Syria, even up to the present day, I am told, a very near relation of
the _Oryx capensis_ is found; it is the habit of man in his hunting
stage to try his hand at delineating the animals he lives upon.
Probably the rocks or caves of Syria may show, or formerly may have
shown, glyphs of the oryx resembling the work of the African Bushmen,
and an early traveller may easily have taken them for representations
of an animal with one horn, and have started the idea of the unicorn,
Biblical and heraldic. With regard to the former, the word in the
Hebrew in our version rendered unicorn is ‘reem’; in some old English
Bibles, indeed, ‘reem’ has been preserved in the text untranslated.
Again, I am told that the Syrian congener of the Cape oryx is called
by the Arabs of to-day ريم ‘reem.’[9] Is it not likely then, that the
Biblical Unicorn is the same as the ‘reem’ of the Arab? As an heraldic
beast, the gemsbok lends himself most gallantly to the theory; he is
a strongly marked equine antelope, and is the one of his family that
frequently lowers his head to show fight, it is said even with the
lion--and this is confirmed in song, though he certainly got the worst
of it in poetry, as I very much think he would in real life.
The gemsbok is scarce, and hardly met with save in the barren open
stretches of country like the Bakalahari desert; there were more near
the colony in my day than further in. He can do without water for a
long time certainly--indeed I believe altogether. He digs and eats
watery roots such as luhoshé, a large tuber, and the bitter desert
gourd; if rain falls, or he comes across water, he drinks, no doubt,
but he does not need it to support life. His country is also the
stronghold of the Bushmen, who can, as I have said before, live for
months under the same conditions, but who generally obtain water by
boring with a long pole through the sand, in hollows well known to them
traditionally, down to the hard substratum. Enlarging the bottom of the
boring as much as they can, by working their pole on the slant, and
then tying a small bunch of grass to a long reed and inserting it in
the hole, they suck up the water.
These maminas, or sucking holes, are common throughout the desert, and
wherever we found the reeds we found water; in two instances, indeed,
by digging to a depth of nine feet we were enabled to supply all our
horses and oxen, for though the water never stood more than eight or
ten inches, yet the oftener the well was emptied the quicker it filled
again, obstructions to its free flow being removed by the continuous
trickling.
[Illustration: Maneless lions]
I have mentioned how much the elephants of the Zouga differ from those
of the Limpopo, and the more southern and eastern districts; the lions
too are, I suppose, influenced by the drier climate and surroundings,
for very few of the males grow manes. I thought at first this might
depend on their age, as the lion of the south is only furnished in this
particular in full lionhood; but one day whilst lying on the Zouga, a
few days’ march from Lake ’Ngami, a horse of mine fell into a pitfall,
and in broad daylight three lions invited themselves to lunch. I was
at the waggons, and ran out with a trader of the name of Wilson to get
a shot at them. They saw us, and, leaving the horse, got into cover;
as they had retreated very leisurely and were by no means scared, we
took for granted they would come again. A low mound was within twenty
yards of the pitfall, and gave an excellent standing-place behind a
double-stemmed tree. Wilson took the right, I the left, and from our
slightly raised position we commanded the only approach the lions could
well return by. I can say that my eyes were never off that opening,
and yet so quietly and glidingly did a lion fill it that I did not see
him till he had come--the coming was a blank to me; he was looking at
me. A ball in the chest killed him. A second closed the gap, halted
inquiringly by his companion, who was stretching in the death spasm,
and raising his head caught sight of us. I covered him, but let Wilson
fire--the ball raked him from chest to tail, and he dropped dead
alongside his mate. After watching some time vainly for the third, we
walked up to the carcases; they were both males; the one I had shot
was the longest I ever killed, teeth, claws, skin, perfect, in his
very prime; the other the oldest, most worn-out specimen, no teeth,
no claws, stumps only, his grizzled hide mangy and full of the scars
of old wounds; in fact, he was, as the Kafirs said, ‘Ra le tao,’ the
father of lions. Neither had a sign of mane.
A poor young fellow who had come out to shoot, but was utterly
unfitted for the work, lost his companion on one of the lower reaches
of this river, near where we now were. From the natives’ account, it
appeared his friend had fired at a goose, which fell in the river.
He stripped to go in after it, though they begged him not, as there
were alligators; he would not listen to them and swam out. When two or
three yards from the bird he was observed to strike sideways, as if he
saw something, and in another instant rearing himself half out of the
water, with a cry, he sank. There was no doubt what had happened. I
first came across the former of these two travellers in a pass not many
days’ trek from Kolobeng, Livingstone’s station; but the interview was
a short one, as I was inspanned and on the move. Next morning I found
all his men, they were Ba-Quaina and knew me, had followed my waggons,
and upon my questioning them they said they really could not stay
with that white man, as he starved them. They had found him elephants
two or three times, but he never killed any; he only rode after their
tails, expecting them to fall off. Of course I insisted on their going
back, and shot a rhinoceros on their promise of doing so, just for
the present distress. Here was a country swarming with animals, a
man with guns and ammunition in abundance, and yet he couldn’t ‘keep
his camp.’ I would not blame him for that; but why did he not give
up at once when he discovered, as he must soon have done, his utter
incapacity? My friend Vardon had interviewed him before he started,
at the Cape, I afterwards learnt, and asked him what he had come out
for. ‘To shoot a lion,’ he replied. ‘Was that all?’ he was asked; and
he replied, ‘Yes; if he did that he should be quite content.’ ‘You’d
better have given 200_l._ and shot the one at the Zoo; it would have
been cheaper, less trouble, and less dangerous too.’ Poor lad! he
picked up another mate and started on another journey, goodness knows
what for; and on my second return from the Zouga we found his skull
with a bullet-hole through it, and some small articles of dress, near
an old camp-fire two or three marches only from where we first met.
The hyænas had dragged away the rest of the bones. Rightly or wrongly,
his death was attributed to his companion, and strangely enough this
man, subsequently joining himself to an expedition, met a similar fate
himself. I never could get full particulars of this sad story.
The way in which, according to the Kafirs, the native dogs worked the
alligators on this narrow Zouga River amused us. Three or four of them
wished to cross, either for better fare, or to see their friends on the
other side; but, though alligator is very partial to dog, dog is not
so fond of alligator. Assembling on the banks, they would run, barking
violently, a quarter of a mile up stream in full view; halt; join in a
chorus of barking, yelping, and baying; suddenly pull up in the middle
of the concert, and dash at the top of their speed, absolutely mute,
out of sight on a lower level, to the point they had started from, jump
into the water and swim across, selling the alligators, who, hungry
after their ‘course of bark,’ were eagerly expecting their dinner at
the spot where they had had the largest dose. Whether this was eyes or
ears, or both, I could not make out. One beast has wits, another power;
and so the balance is pretty fairly kept.
While still in the desert, during our first trip, Livingstone called
my attention to a wonderful bit of instinct in a bird--he mentions it
in his works, but it is worth telling a second time. We had been a
couple of days without water, and I was enjoying watching the cattle
swell themselves out in a chance thunder-shower pond we had just come
to, and sitting dabbling my feet, when to me the dear old Doctor, ‘I
say, what do you think is the greatest proof of conjugal affection you
ever knew?’ ‘Go along, I’m not occupied with such matters.’ ‘Don’t
be cross; come here. Do you see the chink in that tree, and that
large horn-billed bird going backwards and forwards to it? What do
you think he’s doing?‘ ‘Oh, making a fool of himself generally.’ ‘No,
he’s feeding his wife and his children, who are shut in behind it.’
And it was so. The ornithological name of the bird I don’t know, but
he’s something between a toucan and a hornbill, neither one nor the
other, about the size of a large pigeon, though, if I remember right,
more like a woodpecker in build. After marriage the birds select a
hole in a tree, and gather a few sticks for a nest; the hen takes some
feathers off her breast to line it and lays her eggs. When this is
done, and incubation begins, the male bird goes to the nearest pond,
and brings wet clay, with which he stops up the hole at which his wife
went in, leaving one narrow opening in the centre, and through this
the excellent fellow feeds mamma and little ones, until the latter are
fledged and ready to leave the nest, then he and she, from outside
and in, jointly peck away the clay, which has by this time under the
dry heat become as hard as a brick, and madame and her family make
their _début_. The poor monsieur is a rickle of bones, madame as round
as a ball; the Kafirs, knowing this, always dig her out as a tit-bit
whenever they find the nest. And what’s it done for? An African wood
is filled with all sorts of cats, and without a protection the toucan
(that’s not right, but let it stand) family would soon be improved off
the earth, for a hole in a tree comes handy to a cat; but the clay very
soon gets too hard for his claws, and the bird hatches in security. Now
come with me towards a Kafir kraal, such as those of the Ba-Quaina or
Ba-Wangketsi, permanent tribes. We walk through the outskirts; there’s
our friend the toucan again, but there’s his wife too, and they keep
alternately flying to and from that hole in the tree, out of which many
gaping mouths are protruded at each visit. They are the same birds,
but the house-door is open. Within a radius of five to six miles of
every large kraal no cat exists. The Kafirs kill everything that runs
upon four legs for food or clothing, the best _carosses_ are made of
cat-skins (I have one with thirty-six pussies in it), and the birds
have found this out--instinct? or reason?
I wandered on at my leisure, and on my return from the higher reaches
of the river unexpectedly came upon the waggons of Mr. Webb, of
Newstead Abbey, and Captain Shelley, and a companion who, I believe,
was travelling with them and trading on his own account. We exchanged
friendly greetings, they going towards the Lake, I homewards. I was
returning earlier than need be, for I was very nearly run out of lead,
and though J knew they were amply provided I had not the face to ask
them for metal more valuable than gold in the middle of Africa. Next
morning, however, I shot three elephants, and it occurred to me that I
might exchange their tusks for lead with Mr. Webb’s companion, and I
accordingly sent John on horseback with a note to Mr. Webb, asking him
to mediate for me, and telling him John would put his Kafirs on our
tracks from the elephants and they might run heel, and take the tusks
out. John overtook them twelve or fifteen miles off, and came back to
camp with his horse laden with bars of lead and the prettiest and most
courteous letter from Mr. Webb, who would not hear of my buying lead
with ivory, and sent me a bountiful supply and a number of kind words.
It was a most generous help, most graciously rendered, and enabled me
to enjoy my homeward march. Without it I should have been troubled to
feed my followers for 1,400 miles, for I had only a very small reserve.
These were the only elephants I shot that were not eaten, and I hope
some wandering Bushman, vulture led, may have come across even them. I
missed Livingstone. He was driven back by fever breaking out amongst
his party, and returned on the other side of the river, to which I
myself crossed over after a time, but he had then gone by.
Inspanning one morning whilst here, a shout of ‘Ingwe’ from the men, a
rush of the dogs, and up jumped a leopard in the midst of us, and made
for a large tree, which he climbed. I was beneath it in a minute with
a gun, and for half an hour with three or four men searched for him
along the branches without avail. At last we gave it up, and went after
the waggons, thinking he must have managed to get away unseen by us.
One man however stopped behind for a minute to tie up his bundle, and
before we were a hundred yards off the cunning beast raised his head
from a bough, came down, and made away too quickly for us to get back,
on the man’s halloo, in time to shoot him--he did wondrously in hiding
himself. Leopards were not common thus far in; they clung to the rocks
and hills in and near the colony. I only saw four or five of them,
but one performed a cleverish trick. The Kafirs were sitting round
their fire under a large tree, when, climbing along an overhanging
branch, he dropped into the circle, caught a dog, cleared the ring at a
bound, and got safely away. Towards the Colony, where the baboons are
plentiful, the leopard preys on them, though, when in large herds, the
old dog baboons will frequently drive him off; their canine teeth are
formidable weapons. Most amusing fellows are these noisy ancestors
of ours, especially when feeding, spread about, picking up what they
can find, lifting stones, and seizing anything that may be under them,
and popping it into their cheek pouches with a smack. Three or four
experienced veterans keep guard, to give warning of the approach of
danger. They cannot forage for themselves, so they have an eye for
the pouches of their brethren, and now and then make a spring, take a
young fellow by the ear, and cuff him well, until he allows them to put
their fingers into his pouch, and transfer its contents to their own.
The hunting leopard, too, was seldom seen. I once roughly tested his
tremendous speed. I was on horseback, and caught sight of one in such a
position that he must pass close to me, if I could gain a point fifty
yards off. To upset my plan he had a hundred and fifty yards to run,
and he beat me hollow, though I went at a full gallop.
The game was plentiful on this north side of the river, but the country
in places was very ugly for hunting from the dense thickets. Lying
lazily one day on a high bank of a beautiful reach, I was watching the
otters below me as they paddled and fished down stream, when a troop of
Bushmen from a neighbouring kraal came to the watering-place, to fill
their gourds and ostrich shells, before starting for the elephants I
had killed the previous day, which were as usual some twelve or fifteen
miles from camp, in a dry and thirsty land where no water was. After
filling their vessels with a supply sufficient to last them for the two
or three days it would take them to cut up and dry their meat, they
proceeded to fill themselves--a most remarkable process; each one,
whether at the moment thirsty or not, pouring down a cargo of water to
the utmost limit of his holding capacity, to economise the store he
carried at his back. Like Mr. Weller at Stiggins’ tea party, ‘I could
see them swelling wisibly before my very eyes,’ until their usually
shrivelled bodies became shining and distended all over; and man, woman
and child waddled away--so many different sized water balloons. The
last of the long line had disappeared in the dense forest--my otters
were all gone--the country was not a tempting one for hunting, the
thorns by the river being almost impenetrable, and the jungle further
off so matted and bound together with creepers and monkey-ropes that I
had determined not to try it again. The noonday heat had stilled the
earth of all distinguishable sounds, though the unbroken monotonous
hum of insect life, the never-failing accompaniment of a piping hot
day, seemed to fill and load the head and sultry air. I had nothing to
watch, less to do, and was not sleepy; the silence burdened me: and at
length, to break it, I shouted to my after-rider, who was enjoying his
siesta some distance off under the waggons, to saddle the horses, and
taking my gun, I mounted and rode along one of the narrow game tracks
into the thicket, picking up a Bushman who had remained behind at the
encampment. For some time the only living thing we saw was an old bull
buffalo, which with lowered head seemed inclined to bar the road until,
threatened by the Bushman’s spear, he sulkily withdrew. We had no need
of him, and were content to let him go in peace. A shot would have
disturbed the elephants we thought we might fall in with, for though
we were not on a trail, the fresh footprints which were ever and again
crossing the track, and the broken branches with the sap yet undried,
told us they had been there very lately. Into the thorny barriers on
either side of the way we could not have followed them with our horses,
even had we wished, so we stuck to the path and kept our eyes open.
Presently the ground to our right with its sea of thorns rose in a
long low swell, and as it sank into the little hollow beyond, five or
six colossal bodiless legs stood out amongst the bare lower stems of
the closely woven branches. I slipped from my pony, and crawling on
hands and knees, got within twenty yards of the legs, without being
able to see anything more of the owners. A large tree was in advance,
round whose stem the thorns did not press quite so pertinaciously as
elsewhere. Slowly and cautiously I gained its side. An elephant was
close to me, but though I could now see his body he was stern on. I
broke a twig to attract his attention: his head swung half round, but
was so guarded by the bush that it would have been useless to fire at
it. His shoulder was more exposed. There was no time to wait, he was on
the move, and the dust flew from his side as the heavy ball struck him.
Screaming angrily, he turned full front in the direction of the tree by
which I stood motionless. I do not think he made me out, and the bush
was too thick for me to risk giving him further information by a second
shot. For a moment we confronted one another: and then, the rumbling
note of alarm uttered by his companions decided him on joining them,
and the stiff thorns bent before the weight of seven or eight bulls, as
a cornfield in the wind.
I regained the path and rode along the line of their retreat, which,
as shown by the yielding bush, was parallel to it. After a time the
thorns thinned out, and I caught sight of the wounded elephant holding
a course of his own a little to the left of his fellows; and when he
entered the tropical forest beyond I was in his wake, and very soon
compelled to follow where he broke away. Lying flat on my pony’s neck
and guiding him as I best might by occasional glimpses of the tail
of my now slowly retreating pioneer, I laboured on in the hope that
more open ground might enable me to get up alongside of him. A most
unpleasant ride it was. My constrained position gave me but little
chance of using my hands to save my head; I was at one time nearly
pulled from the saddle by the heavy boughs, and at another nearly torn
to pieces by the wicked thorns of the ‘wait-a-bit,’ which, although no
longer _the_ tree of the jungle, were intolerably scattered through
it. I have killed elephants on very bad ground, but this was the worst
piece of bush I ever rode into in my life. A little extra noise from
the pursuers caused the pursued to stop; and whilst clinging like
Gilpin to the calender’s horse and peering at the broad stern of the
chase, I saw him suddenly put his head where his tail ought to have
been. The trunk was tightly coiled-an elephant nearly always coils his
trunk in thick bush for fear of pricking it--forward flapped the huge
ears, up went the tail, and down he came like a gigantic bat, ten
feet across. Pinned above and on either side, by dismounting I could
neither hope to escape nor to kill my opponent. I therefore lugged my
unfortunate animal round and urged him along; but I had not taken into
account with what great difficulties and how slowly I had followed the
bull. He was now in full charge, and the small trees and bush gave
way before him like reeds, whereas I was compelled to keep my head
lowered as before and try and hold the path, such as it was, up which
we had come. I was well mounted, and my spurs were sharp. Battered
and torn by branch and thorn I managed a kind of gallop, but it was
impossible to keep it up. The elephant thundered straight through
obstacles we were obliged to go round, and in fifty yards we were
fast in a thick bush and he within fifteen of us. As a last chance I
tried to get off, but in rolling round on my saddle my spur gored the
pony’s flank, and the elephant screaming over him at the same moment,
he made a convulsive effort and freed himself, depositing me in a
sitting position immediately in front of the uplifted forefoot of the
charging bull. So near was it that I mechanically opened my knees to
allow him to put it down, and, throwing myself back, crossed my hands
upon my chest, obstinately puffing myself out with the idea of trying
to resist the gigantic tread, or at all events of being as troublesome
to crush as possible. I saw the burly brute from chest to tail as he
passed directly over me lengthways, one foot between my knees, and one
fourteen inches beyond my head, and not a graze! Five tons at least! As
he turned from chasing the pony-which, without my weight and left to
its own instinct, escaped easily to my after-rider’s horse--he swept by
me on his way to rejoin his companions, and I got another snap shot at
his shoulders. As soon as I could I followed his spoor, but must have
changed it in the thick bush, for in five minutes I had run into and
killed a fresh elephant in a small open space. The Bushmen found the
first, next morning, dead.
[Illustration: THREATENING OF ELEPHANTIASIS]
Out of all my narrow escapes this is the only one that remained with
me in recollection for any time. On four or five other occasions I
was half or wholly stunned, and therefore not very clear about my
sensations; but on this I was well aware of what was going on and over
me. One hears of night-mares--well, for a month or more I dare say, I
had night-elephants.
My reader will be glad to know that this is the last mishap I am going
to tell him of, and that my contribution to the Big Game of Africa is
finished. I beg his pardon for not making it more interesting, but I
began a new trade too late in life. At starting I only proposed to give
the stories of the illustrations; this I have done as well as I am
able, but I have coupled them together with remarks not strictly within
the subject of ‘Big Game,’ because in writing of African animals I
could not quite get rid of African surroundings; and, besides, entirely
by themselves they looked too bare. I hope I may be excused, therefore,
for going a little beyond the limits prescribed for this ‘accidental’
sketch.