African Camp Fires Part 22

"With this bathe the wounds of your steer. Then sprinkle the remainder over your cattle. The lion will not return," said I. Then reflecting that I was to be some time in the country, and that the lion might get over his scare, I added, "The power of this magic is three days."

They departed very much impressed. A little later Memba Sasa and I followed them. The manyatta was most picturesquely placed atop the conical hill at the foot of the valley. From its elevation we could see here and there in the distance the variegated blotches of red and white and black that represented the cattle herds. Innumerable flocks of sheep and goats, under charge of the small boys and youths, fed nearer at hand. The low smooth-plastered huts, with their abattis of thorn bush between, crowned the peak like a chaplet. Outside it sat a number of elders sunning themselves, and several smiling, good-natured young women, probably the spoiled darlings of these plutocrats. One of these damsels spake Swahili, so we managed to exchange compliments. They told us exactly when and how the lion had gone. Three nimble old gentlemen accompanied us when we left. They were armed with spears; and they displayed the most extraordinary activity, skipping here and there across the ravines and through the brush, casting huge stones into likely cover, and generally making themselves ubiquitous. However, we did not come up with the lion.

In our clinic that evening appeared one of the men claiming to suffer from rheumatism. I suspected him, and still suspect him, of malingering in advance in order to get out of the hard work we must soon undertake, but had no means of proving my suspicion. However, I decided to administer asperin. We possessed only the powdered form of the drug. I dumped about five grains on his tongue, and was about to proffer him the water with which to wash it down--when he inhaled sharply! I do not know the precise effect of asperin in the windpipe, but it is not pleasant.

The boy thought himself bewitched. His eyes stuck out of his head; he gasped painfully; he sank to the ground; he made desperate efforts to bolt out into the brush. By main strength we restrained him, and forced him to swallow the water. Little by little he recovered. Next night I missed him from the clinic, and sent Abba Ali in search. The man a.s.sured Abba Ali most vehemently that the medicine was wonderful, that every trace of rheumatism had departed, that he never felt better in his life, and that (important point) he was perfectly able to carry a load on the morrow.

XLIV.

THE UNKNOWN LAND.

C. returned the next day from V.'s boma, bringing more potio and some trade goods. We sent a good present back to Naiokotuku, and prepared for an early start into the new country.

We marched out of the lower end of our elliptical valley towards the miniature landscape we had seen through the opening. But before we reached it we climbed sharp to the right around the end of the mountains, made our way through a low pa.s.s, and so found ourselves in a new country entirely. The smooth, undulating green-gra.s.s plains were now superseded by lava expanses grown with low bushes. It was almost exactly like the sage-brush deserts of Arizona and New Mexico--the same coa.r.s.e sand and lava footing, the same deeply eroded barrancas, the same scattered round bushes dotted evenly over the scene. We saw here very little game. Across the way lay another range of low mountains clothed darkly with dull green, like the chaparral-covered coast ranges of California. In one place was a gunsight pa.s.s through which we could see other distant blue mountains. We crossed the arid plain and toiled up through the notch pa.s.s.

The latter made very difficult footing indeed, for the entire surface of the ground was covered with smooth, slippery boulders and rocks of iron and quartz. What had so smoothed them I do not know, for they seemed to be ill-placed for water erosion. The boys with their packs atop found this hard going, and we ourselves slipped and slid and b.u.mped in spite of our caution.

Once through the pa.s.s we found ourselves overlooking a wide prospect of undulating thorn scrub from which rose occasional bushy hills, solitary b.u.t.tes, and bold cliffs. It was a thick-looking country to make a way through.

Nevertheless somewhere here dwelt the Kudu, so in we plunged. The rest of the day--and of days to follow--we spent in picking a way through the thorn scrub and over loose rocks and shifting stones. A stream bed contained an occasional water hole. Tall aloes were ablaze with red flowers. The country looked arid, the air felt dry, the atmosphere was so clear that a day's journey seemed--usually--but the matter of a few hours. Only rarely did we enjoy a few moments of open travel. Most of the time the thorns caught at us. In the mountain pa.s.ses were sometimes broad trails of game or of the Masai cattle. The country was harsh and dry and beautiful with the grays and dull greens of arid-land brush, or with the soft atmospheric tints of arid-land distances. Game was fairly common, but rather difficult to find. There were many buffalo, a very few zebra, leopards, hyenas, plenty of impalla, some sing-sing, a few eland, abundant wart-hog, Thompson's gazelle, and duiker. We never lacked for meat when we dared shoot it, but we were after n.o.bler game.

The sheep given us by Naiokotuku followed along under charge of the syces.

When we should run quite out of meat, we intended to eat them. We delayed too long, however. One evening the fool boy tied them to a thorn bush; one of them pulled back, the thorns bit, and both broke loose and departed into the darkness. Of course everybody pursued, but we could not recapture them. Ten minutes later the hyenas broke into the most unholy laughter. We could not blame them; the joke was certainly on us.

In pa.s.sing, the cachinnations of the laughing hyena are rather a series of high-voiced self-conscious t.i.tters than laughter. They sound like the stage idea of a lot of silly and rather embarra.s.sed old maids who have been accused by some rude man of "taking notice." This call is rarely used; indeed, I never heard it but the once. The usual note is a sort of moaning howl, impossible to describe, but easy to recognize.

Thus we penetrated gradually deeper and deeper into this wild country; through low mountains, over bush-clad plains, into thorn jungles, down wide valleys, over hill-divided plateaus. Late in the afternoon we would make camp. Sometimes we had good water; more often not. In the evening the throb of distant drums and s.n.a.t.c.hes of intermittent wailing song rose and fell with the little night breezes.

XLV.

THE ROAN.

Our last camp, before turning back, we pitched about two o'clock one afternoon. Up to this time we had marched steadily down wide valleys, around the end of mountain ranges, moving from one room to the other of this hill-divided plateau. At last we ended on a slope that descended gently to water. It was grown sparingly with thorn trees, among which we raised our tents. Over against us, and across several low swells of gra.s.s and scrub-grown hills, was a range of mountains. Here, Mavrouki claimed, dwelt roan antelope.

We settled down quite happily. The country round about was full of game; the weather was cool, the wide sweeps of country, the upward fling of mountains and b.u.t.tes were much like some parts of our great West. Almost every evening the thunderstorms made gorgeous piled effects in the distance. At night the lions and hyenas roared or howled, and some of the tiny fever owls impudently answered them back.

Various adventures came our way, some of which have been elsewhere narrated. Here we killed the very big buffalo that nearly got Billy.[29]

In addition, we collected two more specimens of the Neuman's hartebeeste, and two Chanler's reed buck.

But Mavrouki's glowing predictions as to roan were hardly borne out by facts. According to him the mountains simply swarmed with them--he had seen thirty-five in one day, etc. Of course we had discounted this, but some old tracks had to a certain extent borne out his statement.

Lunch time one day, however, found us on top of the highest ridge. Here we hunted up a bit of shade, and spent two hours out of the noon sun.

While we lay there the sky slowly overcast, so that when we aroused ourselves to go on, the dazzling light had softened. As time was getting short, we decided to separate. Memba Sasa and Mavrouki were to go in one direction, while C., Kongoni and I took the other.

Before we started I remarked that I was offering two rupees for the capture of a roan.

We had not gone ten minutes when Kongoni turned his head cautiously and grinned back at us.

"My rupees," said he.

A fine buck roan stood motionless beneath a tree in the valley below us.

He was on the other side of the stream jungle, and nearly a mile away.

While we watched him, he lay down.

Our task now was to gain the shelter of the stream jungle below without being seen, to slip along it until opposite the roan, and then to penetrate the jungle near enough to get a shot. The first part of this contract seemed to us the most difficult, for we were forced to descend the face of the hill, like flies crawling down a blackboard, plain for him to see.

We slid cautiously from bush to bush; we moved by imperceptible inches across the numerous open s.p.a.ces. About half-way down we were arrested by a violent snort ahead. Fifteen or twenty zebras nooning in the brush where no zebras were supposed to be, clattered down the hill like an avalanche. We froze where we were. The beasts ran fifty yards, then wheeled, and started back up the hill, trying to make us out. For twenty minutes all parties to the transaction remained stock still, the zebras staring, we hoping fervently they would decide to go down the valley and not up it, the roan dozing under his distant tree.

By luck our hopes were fulfilled. The zebra turned downstream, walking sedately away in single file. When we were certain they had all quite gone, we resumed our painful descent.

At length we dropped below the screen of trees, and could stand upright and straighten the kinks out of our backs. But now a new complication arose. The wind, which had been the very basis of our calculations, commenced to chop and veer. Here it blew from one quarter, up there on the side hill from another, and through the bushes in quite another direction still. Then without warning they would all shift about. We watched the tops of the gra.s.ses through our binoculars, hoping to read some logic into the condition. It was now four o'clock--our stalk had thus far consumed two hours--and the roan must soon begin to feed. If we were going to do anything, we must do it soon.

Therefore we crept through a very spiky, noisy jungle to its other edge, sneaked along the edge until we could make out the tree, and raised ourselves for a look. Through the gla.s.s I could just make out the roan's face stripe. He was still there!

Quite encouraged, I instantly dropped down and crawled to within range.

When again I raised my head the roan had disappeared. One of these aggravating little side puffs of breeze had destroyed our two hours'

work.

The outlook was not particularly encouraging. We had no means of telling how far the animal would go, nor into what sort of country; and the hour was well advanced toward sunset. However, we took up the track, and proceeded to follow it as well as we could. That was not easy, for the ground was hard and stony. Suddenly C. threw himself flat. Of course we followed his example. To us he whispered that he thought he had caught a glimpse of the animal through an opening and across the stream bed. We stalked carefully, and found ourselves in the middle of a small herd of topis, one of which, half concealed in the brush, had deceived C. This consumed valuable time. When again we had picked up the spoor, it was agreed that I was to still-hunt ahead as rapidly as I could, while C.

and Kongoni would puzzle out the tracks as far as possible before dark.

Therefore I climbed the little rocky ridge on our left, and walked along near its crest, keeping a sharp lookout over the valley below--much as one would hunt August bucks in California. After two or three hundred yards I chanced on a short strip of soft earth in which the fresh tracks of the roan going uphill were clearly imprinted. I could not without making too much noise inform the others that I had cut in ahead of them; so I followed the tracks as cautiously and quietly as I could. On the very top of the hill the roan leapt from cover fifty yards away, and with a clatter of rocks dashed off down the ridge. The gra.s.s was very high, and I could see only his head and horns, but I dropped the front sight six inches and let drive at a guess. The guess happened to be a good one, for he turned a somersault seventy-two yards away.

C. and Kongoni came up. The sun had just set. In fifteen minutes it would be pitch dark. We dispatched Kongoni for help and lanterns, and turned to on the job of building a signal fire and skinning the trophy.

The reason for our strangely chopping wind now became apparent. From our elevation we could see piled thunder-clouds looming up from the west.

They were spreading upward and outward in the swift, rushing manner of tropic storms; and I saw I must hustle if I was to get my fire going at all. The first little blaze was easy, and after that I had to pile on quant.i.ties of any wood I could lay my hands to. The deluge blotted out every vestige of daylight and nearly drowned out my fire. I had started to help C. with the roan, but soon found that I had my own job cut out for me, and so went back to nursing my blaze. The water descended in sheets. We were immediately soaked through, and very cold. The surface of the ground was steep and covered with loose round rocks, and in my continuous trips for firewood I stumbled and slipped and ran into thorns miserably.[30]

After a long interval of this the lanterns came bobbing through the darkness, and a few moments later the dim light revealed the shining rain-soaked faces of our men.

We wasted no time in the distribution of burdens. C. with one of the lanterns brought up the rear, while I with the other went on ahead.

Now as Kongoni had but this minute completed the round trip to camp, we concluded that he would be the best one to give us a lead. This was a mistake. He took us out of the hills well enough, and a good job that was, for we could not see the length of our arms into the thick, rainy blackness, and we had to go entirely by the slants of the country. But once in the more open, sloping country, with its innumerable bushy or wooded ravines, he began to stray. I felt this from the first; but Kongoni insisted strongly he was right, and in the rain and darkness we had no way of proving him wrong. In fact I had no reason for thinking him wrong; I only felt it. This sense of direction is apparently a fifth wheel or extra adjustment some people happen to possess. It has nothing to do with acquired knowledge, as is very well proved by the fact that in my own case it acts only as long as I do not think about it. As soon as I begin consciously to consider the matter I am likely to go wrong.

Thus many, many times I have back-tracked in the dark over ground I had traversed but once before, and have caught myself turning out for bushes or trees I could not see, but which my subconscious memory recalled.

This would happen only when I would think of something besides the way home. As soon as I took charge, I groped as badly as the next man. It is a curious and sometimes valuable extra, but by no means to be depended upon.

Now, however, as I was following Kongoni, this faculty had full play, and it a.s.sured me vehemently that we were wrong. I called C. up from the rear for consultation. Kongoni was very positive he was right; but as we had now been walking over an hour, and camp should not have been more than three miles from where we had killed the roan, we were inclined towards my instinct. So we took the compa.s.s direction, in order to a.s.sure consistency at least, and struck off at full right angles to the left.

So we tramped for a long time. Every few moments Kongoni would want another look at that compa.s.s. It happened that we were now going due north, and his notion was that the needle pointed the way to camp. We profoundly hoped that his faith in white man's magic would not be shattered. At the end of an hour the rain let up, and it cleared sufficiently to disclose some of the mountain outlines. They convinced us that we were in the main right; though just where, to the north, camp now lay was beyond our power to determine. Kongoni's detour had been rather indeterminate in direction and distance.

The country now became very rough, in a small way. The feeble light of our leading lantern revealed only ghosts and phantoms and looming, warning suggestions of things which the shadows confused and shifted.