The Witch Doctor and other Rhodesian Studies Part 14

I set out, with the natives following, to look for the spoor.

Shush, shush; I heard it quite plainly. Good heavens! where is that lion? Broad daylight now. Is the thing a ghost?

No. There it is--a scrubby, little, scaly anteater! Still grubbing in the fallen leaves. Shush, shush; shush, shush.

We stood looking at it, tired-eyed and weary.

"Why don't you kill the wretched rat?"

It was the Rev. Mr. b.u.mpus who spoke.

Talking of rats, I could have killed that man there and then.

When I got back to my own waggon I found lion spoor on the sandy road.

It was not difficult to read from their tracks--there were three lions--that they had followed the missionary's waggon until they came to a turn in the road and saw my lanterns. From that point the spoor led down to the river bed, across it, and into the thick bush on the other side. They hadn't come near the waggons.

THE SALVATION ARMY CAPTAIN.

To-day you may book your pa.s.sage with Cook's, in Ludgate Circus, to the Victoria Falls and back, and travel in comfort all the way. In 1897 it was different. There was no road to the Victoria Falls then, let alone a railway. I won't bother you with an account of our journey out by waggon as far as Panda-Ma-Tenga, or of how we rode across country from the edge of the Kalahari Desert to the Falls, guided by the column of spray arising from them, or, where the land dipped, by a sense of direction.

At length we got there, or, more correctly, within a hundred yards of the tumbling waters. Their roar was deafening. It was a wonderful sound and a more wonderful sight. Imagine the hum of London traffic increased ten thousand fold. Imagine a forest of palm, fern, black-trunked trees, all within a hothouse of immense proportions, and a tepid, tropical rain soaking you to the skin. We cut through the distance which separated us from the lip of the Falls. Thick, tough creeper and undergrowth, maidenhair fern waist high; it seemed a sin to trample it underfoot.

From time to time up to the thigh in watery mud when, unluckily, one stepped in the pit-like spoor of a hippopotamus which had pa.s.sed in the night. Monkeys chattering from overhead. I think I caught sight of a buffalo.

What a difference to-day! You might see a monkey in the trees now and then, but a fire has since pa.s.sed through that jungle at the end of a dry season, and a century will not repair the damage. Moreover, there are gravel paths leading from the new hotel to every "view" now, but we, who saw the Victoria Falls twenty-four years ago, have something to remember and to brag about.

We spent half a day looking and looking and looking. We were drenched by the spray, dried by the sun, deafened by the roar of the waters, and struck dumb by the beauty of it all.

At about one o'clock we felt hungry, and went in search of our pack-horses. We had off-saddled outside the thicket and turned our beasts loose. We found our saddles easily enough, and the horses, too, for that matter; the gra.s.s was so luscious and plentiful that no horse would desire to stray far after several weeks in the dry Kalahari. We had lunch and a little rest, and then set out again to do more exploring. We hadn't gone far before we came upon the track of a waggon.

Robinson Crusoe, when he found the footprint of the man Friday, could not have been more amazed than we.

So far as we knew, no other expedition had come to the Falls ahead of us. Who, then, was the intruder?

We followed the track, and presently, in a small clearing, we saw a waggon. Whoever he was, this traveller deserved full credit for what he had done. We had ridden to the Falls, and were proud of it, but here was a man who had got a waggon through. Stout fellow. And there, seated on a skin near his oxen, was the man. He had a matted beard, and didn't look too clean. Under one arm he hugged a huge calabash, from which he was eating honey with a stick. The honey was old and granulated. There were many flies in it, too, evidence that the neck of the calabash had been left uncovered at times. He didn't move when he saw us, but, holding out his stick, said: "Have some."

We told him we had just fed, but thanked him all the same.

"Sit down," said he, "sit on this skin," but he made no room for us. "I shot it yesterday at the Falls. This is the cub; the lioness went off."

"How long have you been here?"

"A couple of days."

"How did you get through?"

"Cut my way."

"Lose any cattle in the thirst country?"

"Didn't come that way; took a bee line from Bulawayo."

This was a good performance indeed. All the old hands had said it couldn't be done.

"What did you come for?"

"What did you?"

The man who asked the question first was travelling north to take over the administration of a tract of country as big as France. He explained his business.

"Oh, so you're the magistrate, are you?"

"Yes, that's about it. And you?"

"I'm a captain in the Salvation Army down south, but I've brought a fellow up to prospect for mineral on the other side of the Zambesi. He crossed yesterday, and moved up country on foot this morning."

I looked at this queer fellow with interest. His cap of calling lay on the ground beside him. Throughout the conversation he went on eating the honey. The Zambesi in those days was about the last place I should have expected to find a Salvation Army man. Looking round I caught sight of the familiar red jersey with the yellow letters. It was hanging on a bush, evidently drying. The captain had followed my gaze, and volunteered: "Had a bit of a washing day, first on this trip." From the look of him I concluded that his own turn was yet to come.

"Well, tell us about the lion cub."

I think he told the truth. I can't, of course, vouch for it, but he was sitting on the skin of a newly-killed cub. Before we left the Falls the vultures told us where to find the lioness. But this is his story:

"I was walking along in the rain-forest with my rifle, looking for a pig or a palla or anything else eatable. I hadn't gone far when I nearly fell over this cub. He snarled at me, so I shot him. While he lay kicking on his back up comes his mother, so I reloaded my old Martini and gave her one for herself. Not being a first-cla.s.s shot, I didn't do for her right off. She looked so angry and seemed to be coming on that I stepped back a pace or two, but keeping my eye on her. I tried to reload, but the empty cartridge case jammed. I broke off a stick from a handy bush and plugged it down the muzzle. I must have pushed too hard, for the stick broke off short."

The captain stopped, got up, and fetched his rifle from the wagon. The stick was still in the barrel, evidently stuck fast in the cartridge, which, in its turn, was firmly fixed in the breech. We had a look at the rifle and then at the captain. He simply said: "Can either of you gentlemen fix this up for me?" We both said we could, and both asked: "But what about the lioness?"

"Oh, the lioness. Why, there she was and there I was. She with a very ugly look, and growling, and I with my rifle put out of action. I felt it was time to do something, so I backed out of the bush singing a hymn in a loud voice."

THE SPORT OF KINGS.

The days have gone by when the Paramount Chiefs of the Barotse embarked annually upon a large-scale Lechwe drive. I believe the last big hunt took place in 1899. I, at any rate, have heard of no such happening since.

It is just as well that these drives have come to an end. The African natives' idea of sport does not altogether tally with that of the white man; no sportsman likes to see animals slaughtered _en ma.s.se_.

In those days the Lechwe antelope were strictly preserved for the pleasure of the Paramount Chief and his entourage. No native was permitted to disturb them in their natural haunts--the wide, open plains--and no man could kill one under pain of heavy penalty. The only exception to this rule was when a few head strayed into the vicinity of Lealni, the princ.i.p.al native village of the Barotse valley. Then the people were allowed to hunt them with dogs, but not to shoot them.

The time chosen for these drives was after the rains had ceased to fall, but while the Zambesi had still more water to carry off than its banks could contain. The overflow was such that for a s.p.a.ce the Barotse Valley became a vast lake, varying in depth from a few inches to a dozen feet.

The same may be said with equal truth of the Luena river, an important tributary which, flowing from the East, made its junction with the Zambesi not far from Lealni. It was in the Luena basin that the drives took place.