African Camp Fires Part 11

VOI.

Part way up the narrow-gauge railroad from the coast is a station called Voi. On his way to the interior the traveller stops there for an evening meal. It is served in a high, wide stone room by white-robed Swahilis under command of a very efficient and quiet East Indian. The voyager steps out into the darkness to look across the way upon the outlines of two great rounded hills against an amethyst sky. That is all he ever sees of Voi, for on the down trip he pa.s.ses through it about two o'clock in the morning.

At that particularly trying hour F. and I descended, and attempted, by the light of lanterns, to sort out twenty safari boys strange to us, and miscellaneous camp stores. We did not entirely succeed. Three men were carried on down the line, and the fly to our tent was never seen again.

The train disappeared. Our boys, shivering, crept into corners. We took possession of the dak-bungalow maintained by the railroad for just such travellers as ourselves. It was simply a high stone room, with three iron beds, and a corner so cemented that one could pour pails of water over one's self without wetting the whole place. The beds were supplied with mosquito canopies and strong wire springs. Over these we spread our own bedding, and thankfully resumed our slumbers.

The morning discovered to us Voi as the station, the district commissioner's house on a distant side hill, and a fairly extensive East Indian bazaar. The keepers of the latter traded with the natives.

Immediately about the station grew some flat shady trees. All else was dense thorn scrub pressing close about the town. Opposite were the tall, rounded mountains.

Nevertheless, in spite of its appearance, Voi has its importance in the scheme of things. From it, crossing the great Serengetti desert, runs the track to Kilimanjaro and that part of German East Africa. The Germans have as yet no railroad; so they must perforce patronize the British line thus far, and then trek across. As the Kilimanjaro district is one rich in natives and trade, the track is well used. Most of the transport is done by donkeys--either in carts or under the pack saddle. As the distance from water to water is very great, the journey is a hard one. This fact, and the incidental consideration that from fly and hardship the mortality in donkeys is very heavy, pushes the freight rates high. And that fact accounts for the motor car, which has been my point of aim from the beginning of this paragraph.

The motor car plies between Voi and the German line at exorbitant rates.

Our plan was to have it take us and some galvanized water tanks out into the middle of the desert and dump us down there. So after breakfast we hunted up the owner.

He proved to be a very short, thick-set, blond German youth who justified Weber and Fields. In fact, he talked so exactly like those comedians that my task in visualizing him to you is somewhat lightened.

If all, instead of merely a majority of my readers, had seen Weber and Fields that task would vanish.

We explained our plan, and asked him his price.

"Sefen hundert and feefty rupees,"[11] said he uncompromisingly.

He was abrupt, blunt, and insulting. As we wanted transportation very much--though not seven hundred and fifty rupees' worth--we persisted. He offered an imperturbable take-it-or-leave-it stolidity. The motor truck stood near. I said something technical about the engine; then something more. He answered these remarks, though grudgingly. I suggested that it took a mighty good driver to motor through this rough country. He mentioned a particular hill. I proposed that we should try the station restaurant for beer while he told me about it. He grunted, but headed for the station.

For two hours we listened to the most blatant boasting. He was a great driver; he had driven for M., the American millionaire; for the Chinese Amba.s.sador to France; for Grand-Duke Alexis; for the Kaiser himself! We learned how he had been the trusted familiar of these celebrities, how on various occasions--all detailed at length--he had been treated by them as an equal; and he told us sundry sly, slanderous, and disgusting anecdotes of these worthies, his forefinger laid one side his nose.

When we finally got him worked up to the point of going to get some excessively bad photographs, "I haf daken myself!" we began to have hopes. So we tentatively approached once more the subject of transportation.

Then the basis of the trouble came out. One Davis, M.P. from England, had also dealt with our friend. Davis, as we reconstructed him, was of the blunt type, with probably very little feeling of democracy for those in subordinate positions, and with, most certainly, a good deal of insular and racial prejudice. Evidently a rather vague bargain had been struck, and the motor had set forth. Then ensued financial wranglings and disputes as to terms. It ended by useless hauteur on Davis's part, and inexcusable but effective action by the German. For Davis found himself dumped down on the Serengetti desert and left there.

We heard all this in excruciatingly funny Weberandfieldese, many times repeated. The German literally beat his breast and cried aloud against Davis. We unblushingly sacrificed a probably perfectly worthy Davis to present need, and cried out against him too.

"Am I like one dog?" demanded the German fervently.

"Certainly not," we cried with equal fervour. We both like dogs.

Then followed wearisomely reiterated a.s.surances that we, at least, knew how a gentleman should be treated, and more boasting of proud connections in the past. But the end of it was a bargain of reasonable dimensions for ourselves, our personal boys, and our loads. Under plea of starting our safari boys off we left him, and crept, with shattered nerves, around the corner of the dak-bungalow. There we lurked, busy at pretended affairs, until our friend swaggered away to the Hindu quarters, where, it seems, he had his residence.

About ten o'clock a small safari marched in afoot. It had travelled all of two nights across the Thirst, and was glad to get there. The single white man in charge had been three years alone among the natives near Kilimanjaro, and he was now out for a six months' vacation at home. Two natives in the uniform of Sudanese troops hovered near him very sorrowful. He splashed into the water of the dak-bungalow, and then introduced himself. We sat in teakwood easy-chairs and talked all day.

He was a most interesting, likeable, and cordial man, at any stage of the game. The game, by means of French vermouth--of all drinks!--progressed steadily. We could hardly blame him for celebrating.

By the afternoon he wanted to give things away. So insistent was he that F. finally accepted an ebony walking-stick, and I an ebony knife inset with ivory. If we had been the least bit unscrupulous, I am afraid the relatives at home would have missed their African souvenirs. He went out _via_ freight car, all by himself, seated regally in a steamer chair between two wide-open side doors, one native squatted on either side to see that he did not lurch out into the landscape.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Fifty pounds.

XXVI.

THE FRINGE-EARED ORYX.

At ten o'clock the following morning we started. On the high front seat, under an awning, sat the German, F., and I. The body of the truck was filled with safari loads, Memba Sasa, Simba Mohammed, and F.'s boy, whose name I have forgotten. The arrangement on the front seat was due to a strike on the part of F.

"Look here," said he to me, "you've got to sit next that rotter. We want him to bring us back some water from the other side, and I'd break his neck in ten minutes. You sit next him and give him your motor car patter."

Therefore I took the middle seat and played chorus. The road was not a bad one, as natural mountain roads go; I have myself driven worse in California. Our man, however, liked to exaggerate all the difficulties, and while doing it to point to himself with pride as a perfect wonder.

Between times he talked elementary mechanics.

"The inflammation of the sparkling plugs?" was one of his expressions that did much to compensate.

The country mounted steadily through the densest thorn scrub I have ever seen. It was about fifteen feet high, and so thick that its penetration, save by made tracks, would have been an absolute impossibility. Our road ran like a lane between two spiky jungles. Bold bright mountains cropped up, singly and in short ranges, as far as the eye could see them.

This sort of thing for twenty miles--more than a hard day's journey on safari. We made it in a little less than two hours; and the breeze of our going kept us reasonably cool under our awning. We began to appreciate the real value of our diplomacy.

At noon we came upon a series of unexpectedly green and clear small hills just under the frown of a sheer rock cliff. This oasis in the thorn was occupied by a few scattered native huts and the usual squalid Indian dukka, or trading store. At this last our German friend stopped.

From under the seat he drew out a collapsible table and a basket of provisions. These we were invited to share. Diplomacy's highest triumph!

After lunch we surmounted our first steep grade to the top of a ridge.

This we found to be the beginning of a long elevated plateau sweeping gently downward to a distant heat mist, which later experience proved a concealment to snowcapped Kilimanjaro. This plateau also looked to be covered with scrub. As we penetrated it, however, we found the bushes were more or less scattered, while in the wide, shallow dips between the undulations were open gra.s.sy meadows. There was no water. Isolated mountains or peaked hills showed here and there in the illimitable s.p.a.ces, some of them fairly hull down, all of them toilsomely distant.

This was the Serengetti itself.

In this great extent of country somewhere were game herds. They were exceedingly migratory, and n.o.body knew very much about them. One of the species would be the rare and localized fringe-eared oryx. This beast was the princ.i.p.al zoological end of our expedition; though, of course, as always, we hoped for a chance lion. Geographically we wished to find the source of the Swanee River, and to follow that stream down to its joining with the Tsavo. About half-past one we pa.s.sed our safari boys.

We had intended to stop and replenish their canteens from our water-drums; but they told us they had encountered a stray and astonishing shower, and did not need more. We left them trudging cheerfully across the desert. They had travelled most of the night before, would do the same in the night to come, and should reach our camping-place about noon of the next day.

We ourselves stopped about four o'clock. In a few hours we had come a hard three days' march. Over the side went our goods. We bade the German a very affectionate farewell; for he was still to fill our drums from one of the streams out of Kilimanjaro and deliver them to us on his return trip next day. We then all turned to and made camp. The scrub desert here was exactly like the scrub desert for the last sixty miles.

The next morning we were up and off before sunrise. In this job time was a very large element of the contract. We must find our fringe-eared oryx before our water supply gave out. Therefore we had resolved not to lose a moment.

The sunrise was most remarkable--lace work, flat clouds, with burnished copper-coloured clouds behind glowing through the lace. We admired it for some few moments. Then one of us happened to look higher. There, above the sky of the horizon, apparently suspended in mid-air half-way to the zenith, hung like delicate bubbles the double snow-cloud peaks of Kilimanjaro. Between them and the earth we could apparently see clear sky. It was in reality, of course, the blue-heat haze that rarely leaves these torrid plains. I have seen many mountains in all parts of the world, but none as fantastically insubstantial; as wonderfully lofty; as gracefully able to yield, before clouds and storms and sunrise glows, all the s.p.a.ce in infinity they could possibly use, and yet to tower above them serene in an upper s.p.a.ce of its own. Nearly every morning of our journey to come we enjoyed this wonderful vision for an hour or so.

Then the mists closed in. The rest of the day showed us a grayish sky along the western horizon, with apparently nothing behind it.

In the meantime we were tramping steadily ahead over the desert; threading the thorn scrub, crossing the wide shallow gra.s.s-grown swales; spying about us for signs of game. At the end of three or four miles we came across some ostrich and four hartebeeste. This encouraged us to think we might find other game soon, for the hartebeeste is a gregarious animal. Suddenly we saw a medium-sized squat beast that none of us recognized, trundling along like a badger sixty yards ahead. Any creature not easily identified is a scientific possibility in Africa.

Therefore we fired at once. One of the bullets. .h.i.t his foreleg paw.

Immediately this astonishing small creature turned and charged us! If his size had equalled his ferocity, he would have been a formidable opponent. We had a lively few minutes. He rushed us again and again, uttering ferocious growls. We had to step high and lively to keep out of his way. Between charges he sat down and tore savagely at his wounded paw. We wanted him as nearly perfect a specimen as possible, so tried to rap him over the head with a club. Owing to remarkably long teeth and claws, this was soon proved impracticable; so we shot him. He weighed about fifty pounds, and we subsequently learned that he was a honey badger, an animal very rarely captured.

We left the boys to take the whole skin and skull of this beast, and strolled forward slowly. The brush ended abruptly in a wide valley. It had been burnt over, and the new gra.s.s was coming up green. We gave one look, and sank back into cover.

The spa.r.s.e game of the immediate vicinity had gathered to this fresh feed. A herd of hartebeeste and gazelle were grazing, and five giraffe adorned the sky-line. But what interested us especially was a group of about fifty cob-built animals with the unmistakable rapier horns of the oryx. We recognized them as the rarity we desired.

The conditions were most unfavourable. The cover nearest them gave a range of three hundred yards, and even this would bring them directly between us and the rising sun. There was no help for it, however. We made our way to the bushes nearest the herd, and I tried to align the blurs that represented my sights. At the shot, ineffective, they raced to the right across our front. We lay low. As they had seen nothing they wheeled and stopped after two hundred yards of flight. This shift had brought the light into better position. Once more I could define my sights. From the sitting position I took careful aim at the largest buck. He staggered twenty feet and fell dead. The distance was just 381 paces. This shot was indeed fortunate, for we saw no more fringe-eared oryx.

XXVII.