``Much better than I was. I can stand and walk. I will
``even pace slowly to my kinsman’s
`````A Winter’s Tale=
|My leg, with the extra big gash, was a frightful nuisance. It was not
much, but was just enough to prevent my going out hunting for some time.
I could not run at all; and if you would hunt buck or beast, you must
run like Atalanta. From point to point you scamper on occasion, and it
is all as glorious as it sounds.
During the period of my rest I prevailed on Cecily to go out as of old,
and try her luck. I occupied myself in caring for the trophies we had
by now acquired. All the skulls were carefully buried near the largest
ant-hill in the vicinity, and were dug up every time we struck camp. The
earlier trophies were by now picked almost clean. The masks and skins
generally were rubbed with alum, taxidermine, and wood ashes. I was very
careful to smooth out any creases, and gave particular attention to the
magnificent coat from mine enemy. Even with occasional drenchings the
trophies suffered no harm, and we generally in rainy times tried to
spare them a covering of waterproof sheeting. In those days of idleness
the bored-looking camels had been two short expeditions for water
supplies. Cecily did wonders, bagging a fine oryx after an exciting
stalk, a lesser koodoo--a most beautiful creature--and a jackal. It was
of the black-backed variety, with silver hairs and flaming yellow sides,
and I admired him immensely. He was a monster too, and measured four
feet as he lay.
The men were revelling in any amount of meat of my cousin’s providing. I
think we were more generous in this direction than are many hunters. The
caravan is expected to rely on the usual ration of rice and dates--the
latter a gummed together mass of fruit, which is eaten by the Somalis in
handfuls. They were quite good, for I tasted them frequently.
We bought sheep throughout the trip, either by exchange or for cash;
and, as I say, there was a plentiful supply of venison.
As soon as I could ride we marched, and very glad we were to leave the
place where circumstances had enforced so long a stay. The camp began
to take on the slovenly, dirty ways of the average Somali _karia_ The
spirit of idleness sits ill on these natives. They like doing nothing,
but doing nothing does not like them, and very speedily they get
slothful.
The procedure of our camping arrangements varied but little when things
were normal and going smoothly. On selecting the right spot to halt,
every man went to his own work, and our tents were up almost as soon
as they were taken off the kneeling camels, who flopped down, joyfully
obedient at the first sign of a rest, and, being relieved of the loads,
were allowed to graze at once. Our butler put out everything we needed,
set up the beds, placed our goods and chattels to hand, and prepared a
bath each for us if we happened to be in a place where a bath was not
too great a luxury, and a mere sponge if water was absent.
Meanwhile the cook had a fire going, or theoretically he had, though
very often it was a long time before it got started. The camel men
hacked down thorn bushes, using native axes, and _hangols_, or wooden
crooks, for pulling the wood about with. The chant that accompanies all
Somali occupations was loud and helpful. Sometimes we took a hand at
this zareba building, using an English axe or a bill-hook, and the men
would laugh in surprise, and hold the boughs in readiness for us to
chop. They liked the English axes. “Best axe I see,” the camel-man in
chief said. But we would not lend them permanently, because they would
have been broken at once. Every mortal thing goes to pieces in the hands
of these Somalis; most extraordinary. Only tough native implements could
stand against such treatment. Buck were carried slung on Sniders, and
bent the weapon into graceful curves. The sights and even the triggers
were knocked off. The Somali boys broke all the handles off the pans,
and seemed incapable of taking care of anything. Many of the native
_harns_ gave out at the different wells because of the smashing about
they received, and meant our buying more from passing tribes.
At night my shikar pistol, loaded, lay to my hand on a box at my
bedside, for what I don’t quite know, as I should have disliked
immensely to use it. But it seemed the correct thing; the butler
expected it. He always asked me to give him the weapon from my belt
about supper time, and I next saw it in readiness for midnight affrays.
“Chota-hazari” was served us by the butler calling loudly outside our
tents, or by delicately tapping two stones together as an intimation
that a cup of tea stood on the ground at the entrance, when it meant
making a long arm to reach it. The teacups were not Dresden; they were
of thick enamel--we only had one each and two over in case of accidents
or visitors--and to appreciate them at their true value we would have
needed the mouths of flukes.
Sometimes a case of necessaries required for breakfast would be in our
tents doing duty as furniture, and then it was very funny indeed. The
cook would come and chant outside that unless he could have the box
Mem-sahib no breakfast would see, and if Mem-sahib no breakfast saw she
would upbraid the chef because he had not got the box. All this would
be woven into a little tune in a mixture of Somali, Hindostanee, and
so-called English. Mem-sahib would chant back to the effect that the
necessaries would appear all in good time. The cook would retire to stir
up the fire and cuff his assistant, a tow-headed “youth,” whose _raison
d’etre_ appeared to be the cleaning, or making worse dirty, of the pans,
and preparing things for the culinary artist. The tow-headed one was a
mere dauber; at least our cook told us so in effect, with great disdain,
when I suggested the assistant should be allowed to try his ’prentice
hand. That was one day when I got worried about my digestion holding out
against the insidious attacks made on it by the high-class cookery we
were supposed to be having.
It was a long time before I got used to the hot nauseating smell of the
camels. It was ever present in camp, and when the wind blew into one’s
tent the indescribable aroma transcended all others. Barring the horrid
odour, we had nothing else to complain of in our patient dumb servants.
The camels were good tempered beasts, taking them all round; very
different to Indian camels, among whom it would have been impossible to
wander so nonchalantly o’ nights. All our camels, save one, were of the
white variety usually to be found in Berbera. The one exception was
a trojan creature, dark and swarthy looking, who hailed from distant
Zeila. He was a splendid worker, untiring and ungrumbling, never roaring
at loading-up time. But the Gel Ad, or Berbera, camel is considered by
experts to be the better animal. We preferred “Zeila” to any animal we
had; we christened him after his home. It is very odd, and may be will
be found difficult to understand, as to explain, but in some of the
camels’ faces we traced the most speaking likenesses to friends and
relatives, either through expression, form, or fancy. Anyway, they
were like many of our acquaintances; and so, to Cecily and myself, the
different camels were thoroughly described and known as “Uncle Robert,”
“Aunt Helena,” or “Mrs. Stacy,” and so on and so forth. One haughty
white camel, with a lofty sneer of disdain and arrogance about it, was
so very like a human beauty of our acquaintance that we smiled every
time we looked at the animal. Our caravan on the march straggled like a
flock of geese. Some two or three of the camel-men had to lead the van;
the others lagged behind in a bunch. The hunters took it in turns to
ride the spare ponies, and Cecily and I rode the steeds we had purchased
at the first Somali _karia_ we came upon.
I often wondered what our followers thought of two women being in the
position to command attention, deference, and work--the Somali feminine
is such a very crushed down creature, and takes a back seat at all
times. Even if a superabundance of meat is on hand she is not spared a
tit-bit, but is presented with fearsome scraps and entrails, the while
the masculine element gorges on the choicest morsels. This is
rather different to our home system. I remember an Englishman of my
acquaintance telling me once, with no acrimony of tone, nothing but calm
acceptance of the inevitable, that he had never tasted the breast of
chicken since his marriage five years before! What a glimpse into a
household!
My first excursion was after that oryx I had so set my heart upon, and
Clarence, to his joy, accompanied me.
“Much better than I was,” but still not quite fit even yet. I carefully
stalked a small herd of oryx, four to be precise, crawling about on
hands and knees for upwards of an hour, and when my chance came at last,
and a bull (not anything very wonderful I am glad to remember) passed
broadside on, well within range, I fired--and missed! At the very
instant a violent stab agony in my damaged leg made me cringe
involuntarily. The oryx was gone!
I sat down, and but for the presence of my shikari I am sure I should
have cried.
Game was now most plentiful, gerenük, oryx, and aoul being more often
in sight than not. Thunderstorms became more frequent, and rain more
insistent. Since leaving the place where we sojourned so long we had
not known one day in which rain did not fall some time during the
twenty-four hours. We had managed fairly well by going out “between
whiles,” but now there weren’t any, and there came a time of no half
measures. Steady downpours bothered us no end. I am very used to water,
because my habitat in England is in that delectable spot where of all
other places nobody dreams of going out minus an umbrella. And I have
seen rain in many corners of the world, but never rain like the Somali
variety. It is for all the world like holding on to the string of a
shower bath--it pours and pours. Of course whilst the rain is on there
is no use in endeavouring to spoor, for all traces of game are simply
wiped out by the floods of water as a sponge cleans a slate. We could do
nothing save remain in our soaked tents and fume. Things were very bad
and uncomfortable at this time. For a whole week we never knew what
it was to be dry. Every mortal thing we had was drenched, and the
poor tents were no more use than brown paper in face of the continued
avalanches of water. We used to wring our blankets each night, and
but for copious doses of quinine I don’t know how I should have pulled
through. Cecily pinned her faith on weak whisky-and-water, of which
latter commodity there was now no scarcity, and both our schemes worked
admirably, and bar a little rheumatism in my left shoulder I carried on
all right. At last--“a fine day; let us go out and kill something” came
and, the conditions being splendid for spooring, we went off bent on an
execution--of anything.
Running in and out among some rocks were the quaintest little rabbits,
without tails, Manx rabbits, odd stumpy greyish bodies, and an engaging
air of indifference to passers-by.
A great yellow-beaked hornbill sat on a tree and made his own peculiar
croaking noise. Most wise he looked as he put his grey head to one side
and investigated us. Yet his looks bewrayed him; for when I threw some
dates at him to see if he knew how to catch them in his beak, he let
them pass him all unheeded. His cousin at the Zoo could teach many
things.
After a long ride we left our ponies to be led along behind by a syce,
and spoored on foot. Clarence and the two hunters were still riding. We
nearly went off our heads with joy and excitement when we suddenly came
on a neat little path made by lion. The print was perfect. The most
perfect I have ever seen. The soft earth had taken the mould like dough.
There were the fore indents, there the cushions of the pad. We knelt
down in our eagerness to realise how really soaked everything was. The
ground was sodden, and every step oozed water.
We ran on, Clarence and the hunters keeping pace easily with us. There
were scrubby bushes all about, but the pugs threaded in and out,
and held plainly on, until they ended in a vast pile of stones and
brushwood. An ideal lair. Clearly our quarry was run to earth. With a
“whuff” two mighty animals leapt up, over the stones and away, just for
all the world like a couple of agile common or garden cats. Cecily and
I flew after them. I don’t think I ever ran so hard in my life before.
I might have been the pursued rather than the pursuer. The ground opened
up to great plateau country, and the lion and lioness were cantering
close together, almost touching shoulders. Making a detour Clarence and
the hunters rounded the great cats up. For a moment it almost seemed
that they pulled up dead as the gallant little ponies dashed by them,
but a man is fairly safe on a galloping pony. I laid this flattering
well-known unction to my soul as I saw the lion go for “The Baron,”
whilst the lioness simply broke away, and vanished in that marvellous
manner of disappearing which lions know the secret of.
With quivering tail extended, and most horrible coughing snarls the lion
seemed about to disprove the idea that he was no match for a mounted
horseman. But away and away dashed the sporting little pony, and
His Majesty turned his terrific attentions to us, and in a whirl of
tossed-up mud came to within forty yards of the place where Cecily and
I stood in the open, rigid and awaiting the onslaught. Then we let him
have it. I saw his tremendous head over my sights as in short bounds he
cleared the distance that separated us. I fired simultaneously with my
cousin.
I was using the heavy 12-bore, but I kept my fingers on the rear trigger
as we advanced cautiously to the dropped lion. He crumpled up like a toy
with the mainspring broken, and sank as he finished his last spring with
his massive head between his paws--a majestic and magnificent sight.
[Illustration: 0101]
I measured him previous to the skinning operation and, stretched out,
from his nose to the end of his tail he touched seven feet ten and a
half inches. Of course this was before _rigor-mortis_ had set in, and
he may have stretched a little. His mane was shorter than our other
damaged lion trophy, and entirely clear from the patches of mange we
found on one or two other lions we bagged. But he was infested with
ticks. I should think life must have been an irritating affair for him.
We were immensely set up, and only regretted that the lioness had made
good her escape. One of the most extraordinary features about lions
to me is the way so large an animal can obliterate itself; they simply
blend into the landscape. Their brownish-yellow skins, so similar in
colour to the burnt grass, and their agile bodies, which can crouch and
wriggle like any lizard, play parts in the scheme for invisibility. On
one occasion Cecily and I surprised a lion in a small nullah. (We were
a trifle astonished ourselves, too, but that is a detail.) We ran in
pursuit, being out of range, and though we kept our eyes fixed on him,
or thought we did, that lion seemed to disappear as suddenly as though
the earth had swallowed him up. Then Clarence pointed out to us a patch
of brown grass, taller than the rest--any amateur like myself would have
sworn it was grass. “Libbah,” our man said impressively. And “libbah” it
was. We approached and the “grass” with a bound was off! We bagged him
in the end, and he was a very old creature indeed. Alone, and almost
toothless, his day was almost spent, and he died more royally at our
hands than ending as the ignominious prey of some hyæna. He put me
in mind of a wonderful lion picture I saw once at the Academy, which
portrayed an old, old lion, at twilight, in his own beloved haunts, weak
and doddering, yet still a king--too strong even yet to be pulled down
by the lurking forms, which with lurid eyes watched the dying lion from
the dark thorn background. I think the picture was called “Old Age.”
The strange inborn dread all wild creatures have of man, unknown man,
makes even the mightiest lion try for safety. There is, of course, no
sort of cowardice in him. In open country he knows the man has all the
advantage, but even then he faces the music grandly when cornered.
In cover, instinct tells him most of the game lies with himself. The
Somalis have a way--I am afraid this is a bit of a chestnut--of riding
down lion that is really a clever performance If some venturesome beast
makes a habit of helping himself to a baby camel or two from the _karia_
at night, he is a marked beast, and a small army of Somalis prepare to
give battle. Riding their quick little tats, and all armed with spears,
they drive the lion, with prodigious shouting and yelling, into the
open. Here they close around him and harry him hither and thither,
dazing the mazed creature with their cries and hurry. In the end the
monarch always abdicates, and some Somali, quicker than his fellows,
finishes the business with a drive of his spear. It is not unlike the
principle of bull-fighting, except that in the case of the Somalis
self-preservation originates the necessity for the battle.
In the lion-world I noticed that the rule of _Place aux dames_ did not
apply. The male invariably tried to take the shortest route to safety,
and madam had to look after herself.
Buck of every variety forms the staple food of lions. I have heard that
they have been known to kill wart-hog, but never myself came on any
proof of this.
A large trading caravan passed us here _en route_ to Berbera. They were
taking a heterogeneous collection for sale at the coast town, ostrich
feathers, _ghee_, gum-arabic, prayer-mats and skins of all varieties.
They sold us some _ghee_, which we were glad to get, as our supply was
running low. Their huts were standing when we came on the caravan, and
on the march were carried on camels as our tents were. Like turtles,
we carried our houses with us wherever we went. We wrote two or three
letters, enclosing them in an outer envelope asking that they should be
posted. Then we gave them to the head-man of the trading party with a
request that he should hand them to the first sahib he saw in Berbera.
The letters eventually turned up at their destinations, so some good
Samaritan posted them.
That same evening, as Cecily was riding alongside me, a group of some
twenty Somali horsemen rode up to us, and every one of them closed tight
around us until all the ponies were wedged like sardines. The whole
crowd wished to shake hands and welcome us. The Somali handshake is
not a shake strictly speaking. It is a mere pressing of hands and is
prefaced usually by the salutation “Aleikum salaam,” which you reply
to by reversing the order of it, “Salaam aleikum.” Then generally the
interview, if lagging a little, is materially assisted by “Mot! Mot!
io Mot!” (Hail! Hail! Again Hail!) This is a great feature of the
conversation, and, shouted as only a Somali can shout it, is a rousing
welcome indeed.
These friends of ours were the outposts of a vast horde of Somalis, for
at some wells we saw multitudes of camels standing in a sort of lake,
quite a good-sized piece of water, in a grilling sun. The water was
turgid and foul, or I should have schemed for a bath out of it. Every
one came to call, and to inquire what we were doing. They crowded round
the trophies drying, putting their fingers on the skins and then tasting
the fingers to see what the result was like. They were a great nuisance,
and we had to trek on again to get away from their unwelcome attentions.
One of our camels fought another as we loaded up. Never did I see such
viciousness. The fur flew, and bites were many, and at last the victor
drove the vanquished roaring before it. The camel-man who valeted the
conquering hero seemed quite charmed, but as the beaten animal had
some nasty bites in the neck, the performance did not seem to us so
meritorious. In a day or two the bites had developed into really open
wounds and the men treated them in cruel-to-be-kind fashion by applying
red-hot stones, tying this drastic treatment firmly over the sore.
Burning seemed to be an all-curing cure, and during most of the weeks a
spear was heated with which to raise blisters on one camel or another.