Lodges in the Wilderness Part 7

The teams were soon inspanned, so after thanking Father Simon and the nuns for their kind entertainment, and paying a farewell visit to the student of Aquinas in his dingy hut, we made a start for Brabies,--"the place of the withered flower," as the Bushmen named it. At Brabies it was that we had decided to pitch our hunting camp, for we heard good reports as to the water in the vley there. No one, so far as we knew, had been there lately, but a heavy thunderstorm had been observed to pa.s.s over the vicinity of Brabies about a week previously. Our objective was about thirty miles away. There was a slight improvement in the weather. The cool spell of the distant sea, owing to last night's wind, still lay upon the grateful desert.

We pushed on steadily but could not travel fast, for the sand was heavy and the angular limestone fragments lay thick upon our course. However, we reached our destination just as the sun was going down. Brabies had no rock-saucer; its water was held in a vley, or shallow depression with a hard clay bottom. This vley was several hundred yards in circ.u.mference. It lay on an almost imperceptible rise; nevertheless this circ.u.mstance enabled anyone camping on its margin to gain a view over an immense area of desert. Usually, we had been told, at least one heavy thunderstorm broke over Brabies early in each season, and then the vley held water for about three weeks.

With the exception of a few small troops of ostriches, immensely far off, no game was in sight. However, a long, low ridge--rising so slightly above the general level that the eye had difficulty in recognising it as an elevation at all--lay to the northward, some six miles away. We knew that the tract just on the other side of that ridge was one of the favourite feeding-grounds of the oryx. And it was oryx and nothing else that we were just then interested in. Judging by the amount of spoor, some of it quite fresh, our game could not be very far off.

This more or less central area of Bushmanland,--a tract from ten to twelve hundred square miles in extent--was practically the last refuge of the oryx south of the Orange River. It is almost absolutely flat,-- except on its northern and eastern margins, where the dunes intrude for an inconsiderable distance over its bounds. The tract is quite arid, but occasionally, in perhaps half-a-dozen spots, the underground rock-saucers hold water for from three to five weeks. So far as I had been able to ascertain, Brabies and one other, but nameless, vley were the only places in the whole enormous northern section of the desert where water ever lay on the surface. Brabies, as has been stated, usually contained water once, at least, during each season, but the other vley sometimes remained dry for years at a stretch. As might be imagined, the region was of no economic value.

Owing to the circ.u.mstance that a measure of informal police protection had been afforded to the vicinity of Brabies during the previous two years, practically all the oryx in the desert had there congregated. I estimated their number at about twelve hundred. There was no reason why those animals should not have increased and multiplied. Andries was a Field Cornet,--an office combining the functions of a constable with those of a justice of the peace. I had appointed him Warden of the Desert Marches and Chief Protector of the Oryx and the Ostrich. Between us, we managed to protect these animals more or less effectively.

But--"thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn."

The oryx evinces several interesting peculiarities. I have mentioned in a previous chapter the remarkable formation of its foot,--the membrane connecting the wide-spreading toes, which enables it to gallop scathless over the Kanya stones which cripple all other animals. Another abnormality is shewn in the way the hair lies. If one wished to stroke the back of an oryx one would have to do so from back to front, as the hair slopes in a reverse direction as compared with all other antelopes.

The oryx fawn is born with horns about four inches long, but the points are capped with a plug-like ma.s.s of h.o.r.n.y substance. This falls off when the animal is about three weeks old.

An oryx fawn, until it has reached the age of from three to four months, is a most extraordinary object. Its neck, chest and flanks are covered with long hair, vivid red in hue. It has a s.h.a.ggy red mane and a big, black, muzzle; its ears are of enormous size. The first time I saw these creatures I almost mistook them for lions. Three of them stood up suddenly at a distance of about sixty yards and gazed at me. My horse was terrified to such an extent that he became unmanageable. It was only with difficulty that Andries was able to persuade me as to the true nature of the animals.

The male and female oryx are identical in the matter of marking and are of approximately the same height, but the male is the heavier in build.

The horns of the female are longer and straighter than those of the male, but are not so thick.

Occasionally, in the cool season of the year, one used dogs in hunting the oryx. But unless a dog had been specially trained to the business, it was speedily killed. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances a dog most effectively attacks an animal behind or on the flank, but the oryx, without breaking his stride, can give a lightning-quick sweep with his formidable horns and impale anything within four feet of his heels or on either side. The dog that knows its business runs in front of the oryx, for the latter cannot depress his head sufficiently forward to make the horns effective against anything before it which is low on the ground.

A trained dog can thus easily bring an oryx to bay, and hold him engaged until the hunter comes to close quarters.

Here may be noted a contrast between the habits of the larger desert antelopes and of those antelopes which live in the forest. In the desert it is the males which head the flight, leaving the females and the weaklings to fend for themselves. But in the forest the male covers the retreat of his family and is always the last to flee. There is probably some connexion between the foregoing rule and the circ.u.mstance that the female of the antelope of the desert,--the oryx, the hartebeest and the blesbuck--is horned more or less as the male is, whereas the females of the forest dwellers,--the bushbuck, the koodoo and the impala--are hornless.

The horses had been watered, fed and picketed; we had eaten our supper and finished our pipes. I took my kaross and wandered away for a few hundred yards so as to be alone and undisturbed by snoring men or snorting horses. The only possible cause of anxiety was in respect of snakes. We killed a large yellow cobra just at dusk. The spoor of the cobra,--the hooded yellow death,--could be seen among the tussocks in every direction. The previous year one of my men had had a horse killed by a snake close to where the wagon then stood; the skeleton of the animal was still in evidence.

In the vicinity of the Brabies vley the sand was rather firmer than in most other parts of the desert; consequently cities of the desert mice abounded. Where mice were plentiful, so were snakes; they seemed to live together underground on the best of terms. In summer it was only at night that the snakes emerged and wandered abroad. However, cobras or no cobras, I intended to camp by myself.

And then--once more the unutterable peace, the sumptuous palace of the night,--the purple curtains of infinity excluding all that made for discord,--the music of the whispering tongues that filled the void. How the limitless, made manifest in the throbbing universe of stars, responds to the infinite which the most insignificant human soul contains. These are the transcendent wonders which the mighty Kant bracketed together.

An utterance of Shakespeare--embodying one of those cosmic imaginings only he or Goethe could have expressed, came to my mind--"the prophetic soul of the wide world dreaming on things to come." If there be a spirit proper to our globe--a thinking and informing spirit--surely the desert should be its habitation. If such ever dwelt where men congregate, it does so no longer, for men have no longer leisure to think; they spend their strength in continuous futile labour, the fruits of which are ashes and dust. Leisure, opportunity to collate experience and appraise its results,--surely that is necessary to balanced thought,--towards being able to see things in their true proportions.

But so-called progress has killed leisure.

Where, to-day, is the voice of Truth to be heard? Not in the frantic and contradictory shoutings of the forum or the market place, nor in the groans of those doomed to unrequited and unleisured toil,--but I think that an attentive ear may sometimes hear her voice whispering in the wilderness. And this I know: that when a spent and wounded soul steals out and sinks humbly at the feet of Solitude, some kind and bountiful hand holds out to it the cup of Peace,--and often the pearl of Wisdom is dissolved in that cup for the spirit's refreshment.

CHAPTER TEN.

THE ORYX HUNT--TERRIBLE THIRST--PREHISTORIC WEAPONS.

Soon after daybreak we saddled up. That day our hunting was to be northward, for thither all the oryx spoor trended. Andries, Hendrick and I rode off together. We had to pa.s.s the western end of the long, low ridge noted on the previous evening. Hendrick, just before we started, declared that he saw some "black sticks" protruding near the ridge's eastern extremity. This was difficult to credit when one took the distance into consideration, yet we could not help admitting that the Hun had never yet misled us. So we proceeded on the reasonable a.s.sumption that his eyes had not on this occasion played him false.

a.s.suming the oryx to be where Hendrick affirmed he had seen their horns, we had to endeavour to give the animals our wind from the proper distance. In hunting the oryx one has to follow a method opposite to that followed in the case of all other game. If one got their wind, failure was a foregone conclusion, for the oryx cannot run down the wind. To keep up the necessary supply of oxygenated blood to his mighty muscles he must run--his wide nostrils expanded like funnels--against the air-current. Should he attempt to run down the wind he would smother when hard pressed. This both he and the hunter know, so the great art in the n.o.ble sport of oryx-hunting lies in manoeuvring so as to prevent the game from taking the only course on which his powers will have full play.

The day promised to be hot; when the Kalihari wind blows in summer there is no possibility of cool weather in the desert. We advanced at a walking pace, for the strength of our horses had to be conserved against that long pursuit which, in hunting the oryx, is almost inevitable. The heat grew greater every moment. The morning was at seven; what would the sunshine be like at noon?

We reached the western limit of the ridge,--where the gentle slope merged itself almost imperceptibly into the plain. This was the juncture at which to exercise caution; one false move then, and our day would have been wasted. We dismounted and stole cautiously to our right--Hendrick and I,--Andries remaining with the horses. A low "s-s-s-t" from Hendrick, and we dropped in our tracks to the ground.

The keen-eyed Hun had again discerned the tips of the "black sticks"

over the rim of the earth-curve. We crept back to Andries and the horses, held a council of war and finally decided upon our strategy.

Andries was heavily built; almost corpulent. This to him was a matter of great grief. His mount was strong, but no horse that ever was foaled could, with sixteen stone on its back, run down a herd of oryx.

Hendrick and I, accordingly, were to do the riding. The game was still several miles away, on our left front as we turned and faced the camp, but it nevertheless was necessary that we should make another wide sweep so as to get further to windward. So we rode off northward, leaving Andries behind. He decided to remain where he was, it being an even chance as to whether the herd, after it had started, would break past him or to the north-eastward. In any event its course would not be more than 45 degrees on either side of the point from which the wind was blowing. Andries, moreover, had an almost uncanny knack of forecasting the movements of wild animals.

Hendrick and I had got to within about three miles of the herd, and well to windward, when it sighted us. It was a fairly large one,--numbering about eighty head. Until the oryx started running we would continue to ride diagonally away from them, edging slightly to our right and proceeding at a walking pace. But I kept my head turned far enough over my right shoulder to enable me to keep one careful eye on the herd, which stood at gaze, every head pointing northward against the wind.

Our plans had been carefully laid. When the herd started running, as it now soon would, Hendrick, on his fierce black stallion, was to ride due east at full gallop, so as to cut clean across its course. My own actions would be governed by the behaviour of the game. I was anxious, if possible, to secure Andries a shot. At length the herd started and Hendrick, tense with desire, loosened his reins and thundered away. The course of the flight was, as we expected, a little to the east of north.

It is remarkable how experience teaches one to antic.i.p.ate what game will do when disturbed. I edged to my right at a moderate canter. Old Prince tried to break into a gallop, but the time for that was not yet.

The herd inclined its course still more to the eastward, but Hendrick had too much of a start for that to matter; he had, so far, the hunt completely in hand. Should the oryx have adhered to the course they started on, they would soon have been in a dilemma: that of having to choose between pa.s.sing Hendrick at close quarters and running down the wind. So the inevitable alteration in their course was now only a matter of seconds. Ha! they swerved; they were now heading for the opening between Andries, whom, being behind the end of the ridge, they could not see, and myself. This was precisely what we had been manoeuvring for.

I let Prince out and galloped towards the advancing herd, pressing it gently away from the wind. Were I to have pressed the oryx too hard, they would have again swerved to their right and rushed for the opening between Hendrick and me. This would have suited me, personally, well enough, but would have spoilt Andries' chance. On they came--the full-grown bulls, about thirty of them--leading in a close phalanx.

Then came the cows; behind these the fawns. I trended slightly to my right and gave Prince a looser rein. I had the herd fully in hand at about five hundred yards; I was easily holding their wind and could have closed with them whenever I liked. But, disregarding Andries'

oft-repeated advice, I yielded to temptation. After gaining another hundred yards I rolled from my horse and opened fire. It seemed impossible to miss such a mark, but my first wind had gone and the second had not yet taken its place. My bullets went all over the veld, every shot missed.

As I remounted, with shame and sorrow in my heart, I heard a shot from the other side of the herd; it was followed by a thud. Then a bull turned out of the press; it faltered, staggered and fell. Once more I let Prince out at his best gallop, keeping his nose on the flank of the phalanx. I had, through my foolish impatience, largely lost my advantage; now my only chance of a favourable shot was to ride for all I was worth, strenuously pressing the leaders of the herd away from the wind.

The herd was then about nine hundred yards away. All I could do was to continue the pressure, so as to defer the now inevitable stern chase for as long as possible. I was just barely holding my own, but that was good enough for the current stage. The oryx did not as yet venture to turn up wind; they well knew that an attempt to do so would have enabled me to close with them by putting on a spurt.

Prince knew his work and had settled down to that steady, tireless stride I knew and loved so well, and which he could easily keep up for ten miles without a rest. The wind sang as we cleft it, rushing through the swaying "toa." The desert lay before us as level as the sea. A few springbucks, waifs from some trekking herd, stood at gaze as we swept by. They knew quite well what my objective was and accordingly were not alarmed. Paauws arose here and there on heavy wings; the flight of one startled all others in sight. Ostriches scudded away in various directions. The desert was awake; word of the presence of man,--of the arch-enemy on the war-path--had been borne to its farthest bounds.

The course of the herd was a segment of the periphery of a wide circle; my course was also a curve, but an elliptical one,--for it continually impinged on the leaders so as to continue pressing them away from the wind for every possible yard. But it was clear that very soon the oryx would be able to attain the course which was the object of their swift endeavour; this was rendered inevitable from the moment of my stupid blunder in dismounting too soon and thus throwing away my rare advantage. At length they had it; I could press them no longer. Now the flight is almost dead against the wind; now the trumpet-like nostrils are opened wide against the streaming current of air. This seems to stimulate the fugitives, for the distance between us has perceptibly increased.

Prince, unbidden, swerved to the right course and we followed hard on the heels of the flying game. It was at length a stern chase. A word to my faithful horse and his stride quickened. Soon it was clear that we were gaining. Herein was an ill.u.s.tration of how the instinct of animals, usually so true, may occasionally mislead them. These creatures, in the hour of danger blindly surrendering to the gregarious idea ingrained through the experience of ages, crowded so hard on each other that they got half-smothered in their own dust. Hence it is far more easy to ride down a large herd of oryx than a small one. When it is a case of a single animal, or even of two or three, a stern chase is almost hopeless, no matter how swift one's mount.

I was gaining rapidly; I overhauled the fawns and immature animals and pressed through, pa.s.sing some of them within a few yards. One I had to turn out of my way by leaning forward from the saddle and prodding it with the muzzle of my rifle. Those young things followed after me, bent only on overtaking their elders; apparently oblivious of the circ.u.mstance that I was their enemy. I overtook the crowd of cows; it opened out and scattered on either hand. I was now riding in a cloud of dust, the phalanx of bulls being only about a hundred and fifty yards ahead; the animals could be but dimly discerned through the dust-cloud.

I had to gain another hundred yards without attempting to dismount; not again would I yield to impatience.

The hundred yards were soon gained; Prince shewed signs of flagging, so I had to look out for a soft place whereon I could roll from the saddle without hurting myself. My second wind had come; I was as steady as a rock, but eyes, throat and nostrils were smarting from the acrid, pungent dust. I dropped the reins on Prince's neck; he shortened his stride and I rolled from his back on my right-hand side. I could just see the bulls, but the dust was so thick that it was impossible to pick an animal, so I fired into the brown of the moving ma.s.s. My bullet thudded hard; that was enough,--I would not fire again.

The herd of oryx sped on; I remounted and followed at a slow canter.

Yes,--there was my quarry,--a bull turned out of the press and faltered in his course. I rode towards him; he still cantered but his gait was laboured. He stood, turned and faced me.

He was a n.o.ble brute,--a leader among the oryx people. Still as a statue he stood, defying his enemy. His wire-like hair was erect and quivering; his red, trumpet-formed nostrils seemed to exude defiance; his shoulders and flanks were heavily banded with streaks of foam. In spite of the long chase he did not appear to pant.

I dismounted when within about sixty yards and advanced towards the doomed and stricken creature. Now it behoved me to be wary, for had the bull charged and my shot failed to disable him, my death would inevitably have resulted. So I took careful aim at a spot just above where his neck emerged from his chest, and fired. The bull sank to the ground in a huddled heap.

I now became aware for the first time that I was suffering from raging thirst. To my dismay I found that the small flask of weak whiskey and water I had slung to the side of my saddle had got smashed in the course of the gallop. Away--in the far distance--I saw Hendrick approaching at a walk.

I disembowelled the oryx and covered the carcase with bushes so as to conceal it from the vultures. Among the bushes I burnt a few charges of gunpowder; this would serve to keep off the jackals--at all events for a few hours. Then I mounted and rode slowly towards the wagon. Hendrick altered his course and joined me, en route. Black Bucephalus looked piebald as he approached, so flaked was he with dried sweat.

The wagon was about twelve miles from where the oryx had fallen. It took us over three hours--hours of intense physical anguish--to travel those miles. My mouth was so parched that the saliva had ceased to exude, my lips were cracked and bleeding. For a considerable portion of the time spent on that dolorous journey I was on the verge of delirium.

Hendrick also suffered, but in a somewhat less degree, for his fibre was tougher than mine. When about half-way to the wagon he asked my permission to ride apart, stating as his reason that he could not bear the sight of my torment. Brabies and the white tilt of the wagon seemed to recede before us. I then realised clearly how people might die on the threshold of relief. For untold gold I would not undergo another such experience.

But the journey came to an end at length, and the long drink which followed was unspeakably delicious. Soon the wagon was emptied of its contents and, with a team of eight fresh horses, despatched to fetch in the game. It was nightfall when the wagon returned with its heavy load,--the carcases of two large oryx bulls.

The morrow we spent at Brabies for the purpose of giving the horses a rest. We occupied ourselves in the prosaic process of cutting up and salting the oryx meat. On the following day we would start for home.

The water of the vley was rapidly drying up under the fierce heat; in another week there would not be a drop left.