In Africa Part 22

Upon a later occasion--Christmas night, it was--I watched from a boma near an elephant we had killed, but except for the distant grunting of lions, there was nothing important to chronicle.

Lion hunting goes by luck. One man may sit in a boma night after night without getting a shot, while another may go out once and bring back a black-mane. I spent two nights in a boma without seeing a lion; Stephenson spent seven nights and saw only a lioness. He held his fire in the expectation that the male was with her and would soon appear.

Presently a huge beast appeared, vague in the dark shadows; he thought it was the male lion, shot, and the next morning found a large dead hyena.

Mrs. Akeley went out only once, had a night of thrilling experiences, and killed a large male lion. The lion appeared early in the evening and her first shot just grazed the backbone. An inch higher and it would have missed, but as it was, the mere grazing of the backbone paralyzed the animal, preventing its escape. All night long it crouched helplessly before them, twelve yards away, insane with rage and fury. Its roars were terrifying. A number of times she shot, but in the darkness none of the many hits reached a vital spot. Once in the night two other lions came, but escaped after being fired at.

As soon as daylight appeared and she could see the sights of her rifle she easily killed the lion. It was the largest one of the eleven killed in our hunting trip, and was killed with a little .256 Mannlicher, the same weapon with which she shot her record elephant on Mount Kenia.

In the tall-gra.s.s method, native beaters are sent in long skirmish line through swamps and such places as lions like to lay up in during the hours of daylight. The beaters chant a weird and rather musical refrain as they advance and thrash the high reeds with their sticks. Reedbuck, sometimes a bushbuck, frequently hyenas, and many large owls are driven out of nearly every good-sized swamp. The hunters divide, one or more on each side of the swamp and slightly ahead of the line of beaters. As the lion springs out it is up to the hunter nearest to it to meet it with the traditional unerring shot.

[Photograph: The Tree Method of Lion Shooting]

[Photograph: Dragged a Zebra to the Boma]

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. The Rifle Was Sighted on the Bait]

In our experience we beat dozens of swamps and reed beds. Stephenson would take one side of the swamp, I the other, while Akeley with his moving-picture machine, would take the side best suited to photographic purposes. He got some wonderful results, two of which were records of the death of two lionesses.

Upon the first of these occasions the beaters had worked down a long stretch of swamp and had almost reached the end. Suddenly they showed an agitated interest in something in front of them. They thought it was a lion until an innocent by-stander made an unauthorized guess that it was a hyena. This rea.s.sured the beaters and they advanced boldly in the belief that it was a harmless hyena. My valor rose in proportion and for the same reason, and I strolled bravely over to the edge of the reeds where a little opening appeared. It was something of a shock to see two lions stroll suddenly into view. I fired, hitting the last one. Then they both disappeared in the reeds ahead.

It was amazing to note the sudden epidemic of caution upon the part of all concerned. The beaters refused to advance until Stephenson joined them with his big rifle. I moved forward on the side lines and the moving-picture machine reeled off yards of film.

A man has to appear brave when a camera is turned on him, but with two lions a few feet away there was not a tendency to advance with that impetuous dash that one would like to see in a moving picture of oneself. Anyway, I tried to keep up an appearance of advancing without actually covering much territory.

One of my gunbearers suddenly clutched my arm and pointed into the reeds. There, only a few feet away, was the tawny figure of a lion, either lying down or crouching. I fired and nearly blew its head off. It was the one I had wounded a few minutes before.

[Drawing: _Photographed in Times of Danger_]

There was still the other lion in the reeds. So I joined the beaters while Stephenson came out and took a commanding position at the side of the reeds. In a moment or two there was a tawny flash and the lion was seen as it broke from the reeds and sprang away up the hill. It was on the opposite side of the reeds from Stephenson, but his first shot hit it and it stopped and turned angrily. In another instant it would have charged, but a second shot from his rifle killed it instantly. Both of the animals were young lionesses of the same age and nearly full grown.

Sometimes, when a lion is driven to bay in the tall gra.s.s at the end of a swamp, the beaters refuse to advance, and it then becomes necessary for the hunter to go in and take the lead. An occasion of this sort was among the most thrilling of my African experiences.

An immense swamp had been beaten out and nothing had developed until the beaters were almost at the end of the swamp. Extending from the end and joining it was a patch of wire-like reeds, eight or ten feet high and covering two or three acres. This high gra.s.s was almost impenetrable by a man, and it was only possible to go through it by throwing one's weight forward and crushing down the dense growth. The gra.s.s grew from hummocks, between which were deep water channels. An animal could glide through these channels, but a man must batter his way through the stockade of dense gra.s.s that spread out above.

It was in this place that the lion was first heard and the beaters refused to follow it in. Guttural grunts and snarls came from that uninviting jungle, and we knew that the only way to force the lion out was to go in and drive it out.

At about this time another lion came out of the swamp behind and loped up the hill. The saises were sent galloping after it to round it up, but they reappeared after a few moments and reported that it had got away in the direction of a huge swamp a mile or so beyond. We began to think we had struck a nest of lions.

Then we went in to drive out that lion in the deep gra.s.s. The native beaters, encouraged by seeing armed white men leading the way, came along with renewed enthusiasm. That gra.s.s was something terrible. One would hardly care to go through it if he knew that a bag of gold or a fairy princess awaited him beyond; with a lion there, the delight of the job became immeasurably less. We could not see three feet ahead. From time to time we were floundering down into channels of water hidden by the density of the gra.s.s. Some of these channels were two feet deep. And with each yard of advance came the realization that we were coming to an inevitable show-down with that lion. Akeley and I were in with the beaters, Stephenson was beyond the patch of gra.s.s to intercept the lion should it break forth, from cover.

It was not until we had nearly traversed the entire patch of reeds that the lion was found. It evidently lay silently ahead of us until we were almost upon it. Then, almost beneath my feet, came the angry and ominous growl, and my Somali gunbearer leaped in terror, falling as he did so. I expected to see a long, lean flash of yellow body and to experience the sensation of being mauled by a lion. All was breathlessly silent for a moment. Then a shot from Stephenson's rifle said that the lion had burst from the reeds and into view.

We pushed our way out to see what had happened.

The lion had come out, then turned suddenly back into the cover of reeds, working its way along the front of the beaters. For an instant Stephenson saw it and fired into the gra.s.s ahead of it without result.

The track of the lion was followed, but the animal had succeeded in getting around the beaters and back into the swamp. Fires were lighted, but the reeds were too green to burn except in occasional spots.

A few minutes later the saises, posted like sentinels high on the hills that flanked the swamp, saw the lion again and galloped down to head it off. It left the swamp and continued on down the rush-lined banks of a stream, zigzagging its way back and forth. After a pursuit of a couple of miles it was cornered in a small patch of reeds. Further retreat was impossible and it knew that it had to fight.

The moving-picture machine was set up on one side and I was detailed to guard that side. If the lion came out it was to be allowed to charge a certain distance, within forty feet, before I was to fire. If it didn't charge at us, but attempted to escape, it was to be allowed to run across the strip of open ground in front of the camera before I was to shoot.

Stephenson took his place on the other bank, twenty-five or thirty yards from the edge of the reeds. Then the beaters were told to advance, and they moved forward, throwing rocks and sticks into the reeds ahead of them. The lion appeared on Stephenson's side. Like a flash it sprang out. He fired and the lion stopped momentarily under the impact of a heavy ball. Then it sprang a few yards onward, when a second shot laid it out. The last shot was fired at less than twenty yards.

The moving-picture machine recorded the thrilling scene and there was an hour of great rejoicing and jubilation. The animal was an old lioness and the first shot had torn her lower jaw away and had gone into the shoulder. It is amazing that she was not instantly killed--but that's a way lions have. They never know when to quit.

CHAPTER XX

ABDULLAH THE COOK AND SOME INTERESTING GASTRONOMICAL EXPERIENCES.

THIRTEEN TRIBES REPRESENTED IN THE SAFARI. ABDI'S STORY OF HIS UNCLE AND THE LIONS

Our cook was a dark-complexioned man between whom and the ace of spades there was considerable rivalry. He was of that deadly night shade. He was the darkest spot on the Dark Continent. After dark he blended in with the night so that you couldn't tell which was cook and which was night.

His name was Abdullah, his nature was mild and gentle, and his skill in his own particular sphere of action was worthy of honorable mention by all refined eaters. He was about fifty or sixty years of age, five feet tall, with a smile varying from four to six inches from tip to tip. It was a smile that came often, and when really unfurled to its greatest width it gave the pleasing effect of a dark face ambushed behind a row of white tombstones.

When Abdullah joined our _safari_ it was freely predicted that he would do well for the first month or so, after which he would fade away to rank mediocrity; but, strangely enough, he became better and better as time went on, and during our last two weeks was springing culinary coups that excited intense interest on our part. He had a way of a.s.sembling a few odds and ends together that finally merged into a rice pudding par excellence, while his hot cakes were so good that we spoke of them in rapt, reverential whispers. There wasn't a twinge of indigestion in a "three by six" stack of them, and when flooded with a crown of liquid honey they made one think of paradise and angels' choruses.

Quite naturally, in my wanderings of nine months there were moments when my thoughts dwelt upon such material things as "vittles," and it was instructive to compare the various kinds of food served on a dozen ships, a score of hotels, and a hundred camps. Some were good and some were bad, but as viewed in calm retrospect I think that Abdullah excelled all other chefs, taking him day in and day out.

Upon only three occasions was he vanquished, but these were memorable ones. As food is a pleasant topic, perhaps I may be pardoned if I dwell fondly upon these three red-letter days in my memory.

One was in Paris. The night that we started for Africa a merry little company dined at Henry's. That distinguished master was given _carte blanche_ to get up the best dinner known to culinary science, and he had a day's start. Everything was delicious. The dinner was a symphony, starting in a low key and gradually working up in a stirring crescendo until the third course, where it reached supreme heights in climacteric effect. That third course, if done in music, would have sent men cheering to the cannon's mouth or galloping joyously in a desperate cavalry charge.

[Photograph: One of Our Askaris]

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. Ha.s.san Mohammed]

The dish was called "poulet archduc," although I should have called it at least poulet archangel. In this divine creation Henry reached the Nirvana of good things to eat. I beseeched him for the recipe, which he cheerfully wrote out, so now I am happy to pa.s.s it along that all may try it. It really ought to be dramatized.

I transcribe it in M. Henry's own verbiage:

The chicken must be well cleaned inside. Next put in it some b.u.t.ter, salt and pepper, a little paprika, and into full of sweet corn, then close the chicken. Next put it in a saucepan with other more sweet corn, against b.u.t.ter, salt, pepper, a little whisky; cook about half of one hour.

The best sweet corn is the California sweet corn in can.

The sauce is done with white of chicken. Squeeze two yolks of eggs and b.u.t.ter like for a sauce mousseline and finish it with a little whisky.

And there you are.

The second occasion came some months later. We had been on _safari_ for several weeks and had returned to Nairobi for two or three days. It was the "psychological moment" for something new in the way of food. The stage was all set for it, and it came in the form of a pudding that would have delighted all the gastronomes and epicures of history. We called it the Newland-Tarlton pudding, because it was the joint creation of Mrs. Newland and Mrs. Tarlton. One wrote the poetry in it and the other set it to music. We ate it so thoroughly that the plates looked as clean as new. Cuninghame was there, dressed up for the first time in months, and the way that pudding disappeared behind his burly beard was suggestive of the magic of Kellar or Herrmann.

The recipe of this pudding is worthy of export to the United States, so here it is. It really is a combination of two puddings, served together and eaten at the same time.

THE NEWLAND BANANA CUSTARD