WIVSTED,CONN. 1874. CLASS F167 BOOK USS8 : i gs ‘) er . Wee 4 i aa) bea fa - Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/africancampfiresOOwhituoft Joyyne 34} Jo wooy Aydo1y AFRICAN CAMP ( FIRES BY STEWART EDWARD WHITE, F. R.G.5S. ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS GarpbDEN CIty New Yorx DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1913 a eee ee De ee ee es ee ne ad Copyright, 1913, by DOUBLEDAY, Pace & CoMPANY All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian Pi fa TABLE OF CONTENTS The Open Door The Farewell Port Said A The Red Sea AOR sc gs The Indian Ocean . Mombasa Part Il — Tue Suimpa HItts A Tropical Jungle . The Sable A EEL esa ktas A March Along the Coast The Fire ater Part III — Narrosi Up from the Coast A Fiat Town V BDVG.F uss Part I[— To THE IsLAND oF WaR 113 119 TABLE OF CONTENTS XV. People XVI. Part IV—A Lion Hunt on Kapiti An Ostrich Farm at Machakos,» . XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. AXITI. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVIT. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX, XXXIT. XXXII. XXXII. Over the Likipia Escarpment . Recruiting The First Lioness The Dogs . Bondoni ; Riding the Plains The Second Lioness . The Big Lion The Fifteen Lions Part V — Tue Tsavo RIvER A ada pag eae ‘The Fringe-Eared Oryx) . . Across the Serengetti Down the River The Lesser Kudu) Adventures by the Way . The Lost Safari The Babu Part VI — In MasaILanp XXXIV. To the Kedong vi PAGE 125 134 143 ISI 156 161 164 176 181 186 193 199 206 214 225 232 239 247 255 267 CHAPTER XXXYV. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVITI. XXXIX. XL. XLI. XLII. XLITI. XLIV. XLV. XLVI. XLVII. XLVIII. TABLE OF CONTENTS The Transport Rider. Across the Thirst The Southern Guaso Moeto: The Lower Benches . Notes on the Masai. . Through the Enchanted Forest . Naiokotoku Scouting in the Elephant Fo orest The Topi Camp . The Unknown Land . ‘The Roan . : e Greater Kudu . The Magic Portals Close The Last Trek Vii ILLUSTRATIONS Trophy Room of the author . . Frontispiece FACING PAGE “Camels laden with stone and in convoy of white-clad figures” The control station . ““Innumerable rowboats Siivioed ine filled with Sree salesmen of curios and ostrich plumes” . . Dhow in the Red Bah Another View of the Trophy Pope *“We waited patiently to see the camels ae aboard by the crane” Vasco da Gama Street, the Santina! chosuelt fare of Mombaso The trolley car of Mombaso In the ivory market of Mombasa The labour of Africa is carried forward by song Old Portuguese fort at Mombasa In the Arab quarter of Mombasa. ‘In the Swahili quarter of Mombasa . The entire water supply of Mombasa is drawn from numberless picturesque wells 1x 22 23 26 27 42 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE The lazy Boabab Tree . . ; In the native quarter of Mombasa Swahili women at Mombasa The slope fell gently away oe a ssohinee grove The camp beneath hey mangoes The Sable . “From it led a narrow r path dirdueh the thicket” : “The hotel manager came Sowa ith the offer of a gasoline launch, which we gladly accepted” SEP = - “Then scddenty we found samelves in a story- book, tropical paradise”’ Masai women at a station of the Uganda Rail- road Train on the ivaiiiia Railway. ; “Inside a fence — before the low, stone-built, wide-verandahed hotel”. ae “Savages from the jungle untouched by civili- zation — wander the streets unabashed” Convicts marching into Nairobi in charge of Soudanese OP aa Re “But the native is the joy, and ne never- ceasing delight” In the bazaar at Nairobi. kigivas teisinte x 76 77 86 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE “Kapiti goes on over the edge of the world to unknown, pa cknainean' regions, rolling and troubled like a sea” “The ostriches are kept i in some? ‘ “The first lioness, the Hills and Captain Duirs”’ “They closed in ane began to worry the nearly lifeless carcass” , Spying for lions from the cies **Kongoni” The fringe-eared Cries The desert of the Serengetti “In the river jungle” The Tsavo River below the cian The Lesser Kudu Bushbuck — a very shy beste tirctiing decnit This photograph is most unusual *‘Fach day the pinnacles over the way changed slightly their compass directions” ; Left to right — Timothy, Abba Ali, Leyeye, Mohamet . Perak ie et ig Cuninghame Crossing the Raothers Sane Nach: Kingangui . : Kimau oe teat “From it we looked ioe into he tet gorge of the Southern Guaso Nyero” x1 129 144 145 168 169 202 203 216 217 217 228 229 248 249 262 263 280 280 281 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE The Eland. . Cape Buffalo . The Fourth Bench The Valley of Lengeetoto . Cheetah ees, Our camp at the Nardssara Our camp in Lengeetoto . Illustrating the heavy iron scwelloe) Unmarried woman with goatskin robe “These low-rounded huts in shape like a loaf of bread” ; “Upward of a cleacand head 3 in charg of two old women on foot” “They visited camp freely, sid would sit down for a good lively afternoon of joking” Warriors Pt? “The southern braneh of the race — are very fine physically” Masai men and women aioe eae “In the southern districts the warriors wear two single black ostrich feathers” “The girl in the middle ground has painted her face white to indicate travel” ; When moving the villages they take with them only the wicker doors : Masai with headdress of lion’s mane xii 288 288 289 304 304 305 305 310 310° 311 314 315 324 324 325 325 332 332 333 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE A neophyte with headdress of small bird skins 333 The El-moraniisanimposingfigure . . . 340 Masai El-morani, or warrior . . . . . 340 Construction of V.’s boma. . . . «gal **T offered a half spec as a prize for an archers competition”. . Gee al es at! et 34S Naiokotuku and one of his SOD8 Sle cota, 5a0 _ Our southernmost camp. From this point we turned back . . . 352 “We called the Masai and Wardenche Sofie 9? es am Cece ner ya) el re ee SS pete ei SRy A present from Naiokotuku . . . . . 353 The Roan. . . , 360 “It was almost Sade like the see bieaih deserts” . . SEGA Oe ubilige, SOR “In the Elephant oueery? si Sig. Saget ogee ch Se Bahe Greater Kudu. 3. . . «» - «= 969 xiii ee RRAPYCT PY 7 TRRARY AFRICAN CAMP FIRES THE OPEN DOOR HERE are many interesting hotels scattered about the world, with a few of which I am acquainted and with a great many of which I am not. Of course all hotels are interesting, from one point of view or another. In fact the surest way to fix an audience’s attention is to introduce your hero, or to display your opening chorus in the lobby or along the facade ofa hotel. The life, the movement and colour, the shifting individualities, the pretence, the bluff, the self-consciousness, the independence, the ennui, the darting or lounging servants, the very fact that of those before your eyes seven out of ten are drawn from distant and scattered places, are sufficient in themselves to invest the smallest hostelry with glamour. It is not of this general interest that I would now speak. Nor is it my intention at present to glance at the hotels wherein 3 14O% AFRICAN CAMP FIRES “quaintness” is specialized, whether intentionally or no. There are thousands of them; and all of them well worth the discriminating traveller’s attention. Concerning some of them —as the old inns at Dives-sur-mer and at Mont St. Michel — whole books have been written. These depend for their charm on a mingled gift of the unusual and the picturesque. There are, as I have said, thousands of them; and of their cataloguing, should one embark on so wide a sea, there could be no end. And, again, I must for convenience exclude the altogether charming places like the Tour d’Argent of Paris, Simpsons of the Strand,* and a dozen others that will spring to every traveller’s memory, where the personality of the host, or of a chef, or even a waiter, is at once a magnet for the attraction of visitors and a reward for their coming. These too are many. In the interest to which I would draw attention, the hotel as a building or as an institution has little part. It is indeed a facade, a mise en scene before which play the actors that attract our attention and applause. The set may be as modernly elaborate as Peacock Alley of the Waldorf or the templed lobby of the St. Francis; or it may present the severe and Elizabethan simplicity of the stone-paved veranda of the Norfolk at Nairobi — the matter is ” Cipeld dage before the “improvements.” ~ 4 5 me = ete re otc rt Sin eee ee cee ie ee LE oe en a THE OPEN DOOR quite inessential to the spectator. His appreciation is only slightly and indirectly influenced by these things. Sunk in his arm-chair—of velvet or of canvas —he puffs hard and silently at his cigar, watching and listening as the pageant and the conversation eddy by. Of such hotels I number that gaudy and poly- syllabic hostelry the Grand Hotel du Louvre et de la Paix at Marseilles. I am indifferent to the facts that it is situated on that fine thoroughfare, the Rue de Cannebiere, which the proud and untravelled native devoutly believes to be the finest street in the world; that it possesses a dining-room of gilded and painted repousse work so elaborate and won- derful that it surely must be intended to represent a tinsmith’s dream of heaven; that its concierge is the most impressive human being on earth except Ludwig Von Kampf, whom I have never seen; that its head waiter is sadder and more elderly and forgiving than any other head waiter; and that its hushed and cathedral atmosphere has been undisturbed through immemorial years. That is to be expected; and elsewhere to be duplicated in greater or lesser degree. Nor in the lofty courtyard, _ or the equally lofty halls and reading rooms, is there ever much bustle and movement. People sit quietly, or move with circumspection. Servants 5 . } Ee o> > AFRICAN CAMP FIRES glide. The fall of a book or teaspoon, the sudden closing of a door, are events to be remarked. Once a day, however, a huge gong sounds, the glass doors of the inner courtyard are thrown open with a — flourish, and enter the huge ’bus fairly among those peacefully sitting at the tables, horses’ hoofs striking fire, long lash cracking volleys, wheels roaring amid hollow reverberations. From the interior of this *bus emerge people; and from the top, by means of a strangely constructed hooked ladder, are descended boxes and trunks and appurtenances of various sorts. In these people and in these boxes, trunks, and appurtenances are the real interest of the Grand Hotel du Louvre et de la Paix of the marvellous Rue Cannebiere of Marseilles. For at Marseilles land ships, many ships, from all the scattered ends of the earth; and#from Marseilles depart trains for the North, where is home, or the way home, for many peoples. And since the arrival of ships is uncertain, and the departure of trains ‘fixed, it follows that everybody descends for a little or greater period at the Grand Hotel du Louvre et de la Paix. &. They come lean and quiet and a little yellow from hard climatess with the names of strange places on their lips, and they speak familiarly of far-off things. "Their clothes are generally of ancient cut, and the THE OPEN DOOR wrinkles and camphor aroma of a long packing away are yet discernible. Often they are still wearing sun helmets or double terai hats pending a descent on a Piccadilly hatter two days hence. They move slowly and languidly; the ordinary piercing and dominant English enunciation has fallen to modulation; their eyes, while observant and alert, look tired. It is as though the far countries have sucked something from the pith of them in exchange for great experiences that nevertheless seem of little value; as though these men, having met at last face to face the ultimate of what the earth has to offer in the way of danger, hardship, difficulty and the things that try men’s souls, having unexpectedly found them all to fall short of both the importance and the final significance with which humaf-kind has always invested them, were now just a little at a loss. Therefore they stretch their long, lean frames in the wicker chairs, they sip the long drinks at their elbows, puff slowly at their long, lean cheroots, and talk spasmodically in short sentences. Of. quite a different type are those going out — young fellows full of northern health and energy, full of the eagerness of anticipation, full of romance skilfully concealed, self-certain, authoritative, clear voiced. Their exit from the ’bus is followed by a rain of hold-alls, bags, new tin boxes, new gun cases, 7 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES all lettered freshly — an enormous kit doomed to diminution. They overflow the place, ebb toward their respective rooms; return scrubbed and ruddy, correctly clad, correctly unconscious of everybody else; sink into more wicker chairs. ‘The quiet brown and yellow men continue to puff on their cheroots, quite eclipsed. After a time one of them picks up his battered old sun helmet and goes out into the street. The eyes of the newcomers follow him. They fall silent; and their eyes, under cover of pulled moustache, furtively glance toward the lean man’s companions. Then on that office falls a great silence, broken only by the occasional rare remarks of the quiet men with the cheroots. The youngsters are listening with all their ears, though from “their appearance no one would suspect that fact. Not a syllable escapes them. These quiet men have been there, they have seen with their own eyes, their lightest word is saturated with the mystery and romance of the unknown. Their easy, matter-of-fact, everyday knowledge is richly won- derful. It would seem natural for these young- young men to question these old-young men of that which they desire so ardently to know; but that isn’t done, you know. So they sit tight, and pretend they are not listening, and feast their ears on the wonderful syllables—Ankobur, Kabul, 8 ie nti ak ee THE OPEN DOOR Peshawur, Annam, Nyassaland, Kerman, Serengetti, Tanganyika and many others. On these beautiful syllables must their imaginations feed, for that which is told is as nothing at all. Adventure there is none, romance there is none, mention of high emprise there is none. Adventure, romance, high emprise have to these men somehow lost their importance. Perhaps such things have been to them too common — as well mention the morning egg. Perhaps they have found that there is no genuine adventure, no -real romance except over the edge of the world where the rainbow stoops. The ’bus rattles in and rattles out again. It takes the fresh-faced young men down past the inner harbour to where lie the tall ships waiting. They and their cargo of exuberance, of hope, of energy, of thirst for the bubble adventure, the rainbow romance, sail away to where these wares have a market. And the quiet men glide away to the north. Their wares have been marketed. The sleepy, fierce, passionate, sunny lands have taken all they had to bring. And have given in exchange? Indifference, ill-health, a profound realization that the length of days are as nothing at all, a supreme agnosticism as to the ultimate value of anything that a single man can do, a sublime faith that it must be done, the power to concentrate, patience 9 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES illimitable, contempt for danger, disregard of death, the intention to live, a final, weary estimate of the fact that mere things are as unimportant here as there, no matter how quaintly or fantastically they are dressed or named, and a corresponding emptiness of anticipation for the future — these items are only a random few of the price given by the ancient lands for that which the northern races bring to them. What other alchemical changes have been wrought only these lean and weary men could know — if they dared look so far within themselves. And even if they dared, they would not tell. 10 II THE FAREWELL E BOARDED ship filled witn a great, and what seemed to us an unappeasable, curiosity as to what we were goingtosee. Itwasnotavery big ship, in spite of the grandiloquent descriptions in the advertisements, or the lithograph wherein she cut _ grandly and evenly through huge waves to the mani- fest discomfiture of infinitesimal sailing craft bobbing alongside. She was manned entirely by Germans. The room stewards waited at table, cleaned the public saloons, kept the library, rustled the baggage, and played in the band. That is why we took our music between meals. Our staterooms were very tiny indeed. Each was provided with an electric fan; a totally inadequate and rather aggravating electric fan once we had entered the Red Sea. Just at this ‘moment we paid it little attention, for we were still in full enjoyment of sunny France where, in our Own experience, it had rained two months steadily. Indeed, at this moment it was raining; raining a steady, cold, sodden drizzle that had not II AFRICAN CAMP FIRES even the grace to pick out the surface of the harbour in the jolly dancing staccato that goes far to lend attraction to a genuinely earnest rainstorm. Down the long quai splashed cabs and omnibuses, their drivers glistening in wet capes, to discharge under the open shed at the end various hasty indi-. viduals who marshalled long lines of porters with astonishing impedimenta and drove them up the gangplank. A half-dozen roughs lounged aimlessly. A little bent old woman with a shawl over her head searched here and there. Occasionally she would find a twisted splinter of wood torn from the piles — by a hawser, or gouged from the planking by heavy freight, or kicked from the floor by the hoofs of horses. This she deposited carefully in a small covered market basket. She was entirely intent on this — minute and rather pathetic task, quite unattending ~ the greatness of the ship, or the many people the — great hulk swallowed or spat forth. Near us against the rail leaned a dark-haired young Englishman whom later every man on that many-nationed ship came to recognize and to avoid as an insufferable bore. Now, however, the angel of good inspiration stooped to him. He tossed a copper two-sou piece down to the bent old woman. She heard the clink of the fall, and looked up bewil- dered. One of the waterside roughs slouched for- 12 THE FAREWELL ward. The Englishman shouted a warning and a threat, indicating in pantomime for whom the coin was intended. To our surprise that evil-looking wharf rat smiled and waved his hand reassuringly; then took the old woman by the arm to show her _ where the coin had fallen. She hobbled to it with a haste eloquent of the horrible Marseillaise poverty- _ stricken alleys, picked it up joyously, turned — and with a delightful grace kissed her finger-tips _ toward the ship. Apparently we all of us had a few remaining French coins; and certainly we were all grateful to the young Englishman for his happy thought. _ The sous descended as fast as the woman could get to where they fell. So numerous were they that she had no time to express her gratitude except in broken snatches of gesture, in interrupted attitudes of the most complete thanksgiving. The day of miracles for her had come; and from the humble poverty that valued tiny and infrequent splinters of wood she had suddenly come into great wealth. _ Everybody was laughing, but in a very kindly sort _ of way, it seemed to me; and the very wharf rats and _ gamins, wolfish and fierce in their everyday life of _the waterfront, seemed to take a genuine pleasure _in pointing out to her the resting place of those her dim old eyes had not seen. Silver pieces followed. 13 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES These were too wonderful. She grew more and more excited, until several of the passengers leaning over the rail began to murmur warningly, fearing harm. After picking up each of these silver pieces, she bowed and gestured very gracefully, waving both hands outward, lifting eyes and hands to heaven, kissing her fingers, trying by every means in her power to express the dazzling wonder and joy that this unexpected marvel was bringing her. When she had done all these things many times, she hugged herself ecstatically. A very well-dressed and pros- perous-looking Frenchman standing near seemed to be a little afraid she might hughim. His fear had, perhaps, some grounds, for she shook hands with everybody all around, and showed them her wealth in her kerchief, explaining eagerly, the tears running down her face. ¢ Now the gangplank was drawn ae: and the - band struck up the usual lively air. At the first notes the old woman executed a few feeble little jig — steps in sheer exuberance. Then the solemnity of the situation sobered her. Her great, wealthy, powerful, kind friends were departing on their long voyage over mysterious seas. Again and again, very earnestly, she repeated the graceful, slow pantomime — the wave of the arms outward, the eyes raised to heaven, the hands clasped finally over her 14 THE FAREWELL head. As the brown strip of water silently widened between us it was strangely like a stage scene — the - roofed sheds of the quai, the motionless groups, the _ central figure of the old woman depicting emotion. Suddenly she dropped her hands and hobbled away at a great rate, disappearing finally into the maze of the street beyond. Concluding that she had decided to get quickly home with her great treasure, we commended her discretion and gave our attention to other things. The drizzle fell uninterruptedly. We had edged sidewise the requisite distance, and were now gather- ing headway in our long voyage. The quai was beginning to recede and to diminish. Back from the street hastened the figure of the little old woman. She carried a large white cloth, of which she had evidently been in quest. This she unfolded and waved vigorously with both hands. Until we had passed quite from sight she stood there signalling her farewell. Long after we were beyond distinguishing her figure we could catch the flutter of white. Thus that ship’s company, embarking each on his Great Adventure, far from home and friends, received his _ farewell, a very genuine farewell, from one poor old woman. B. ventured the opinion that it was the _ best thing we had bought with our French money. Pee Re are ee 15 III PORT SAID HE time of times to approach Port Said is just at the fall of dusk. Then the sea lies in opal- escent patches, and the low shores fade away into the gathering night. Slanting masts and yards of the dhows silhouette against a sky of the deepest translucent green; and the heroic statue of De Les- seps standing forever at the Gateway he opened, points always to the mysterious East. The rhythmical, accustomed chug of the engines - had fallen to quarter speed, leaving an uncanny stillness throughout the ship. Silently we slipped between the long piers, drew up on the waterside town, seized the buoy, and came to rest. All around us lay other ships of all sizes, motionless on the inky water. The reflections from their lights seemed to be thrust into the depths, like stilts; and the few lights from the town reflected shiveringly across. Along the waterfront all was dark and silent. We caught the loom of buildings; and behind them a dull glow as from a fire, and guessed tall minar- 16 PORT SAID ets, and heard the rising and falling of chanting. Numerous small boats hovered near, floating in and out of the patches of light we ourselves cast, waiting for permission to swarm at the gangplank for our patronage. We went ashore, passed through a wicket gate, and across the dark buildings to the heart of the town, whence came the dull glow and the sounds of people. Here were two streets running across one another, both brilliantly lighted, both thronged, both lined with little shops. In the latter one could buy any- thing, in any language, with any money. We saw cheap straw hats made in Germany hung side by side with gorgeous and beautiful stuffs from the orient; shoddy European garments and Eastern jewels; cheap celluloid combs and curious em- broideries. The crowd of passersby in the streets were compounded in the same curiously mixed fashion; a few Europeans, generally in white, and then a variety of Arabs, Egyptians, Somalis, Berbers, East Indians and the like, each in his own gaudy or graceful costume. It speaks well for the accuracy of feeling, anyway, of our various ‘“‘Midways,” “Pikes,’’ and the like of our world’s expositions that the streets of Port Said looked like Midways raised to the "th power. Along them we sauntered with a pleasing feeling of self-importance. On all sides 17 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES we were gently and humbly besought — by the shop- keepers, by the sidewalk vendors, by would-be guides, by fortune tellers, by jugglers, by magicians; all soft-voiced and respectful; all yielding as water to rebuff, but as quick as water to glide back again. The vendors were of the colours of the rainbow, and were heavily hung with long necklaces of coral or amber, with scarves, with strings of silver coins, with sequinned veils and silks, girt with many dirks and knives, furnished out in concealed pockets with scarabs, bracelets, sandal-wood boxes or anything else under the broad canopy of heaven one might or might not desire. Their voices were soft and pleasing, their eyes had the beseeching quality of a good dog’s, their anxious and deprecating faces were ready at the slightest encouragement to break out into the friendliest and most intimate of smiles. Wherever we went we were accompanied by a retinue straight out of the Arabian Nights, patiently await- ing the moment when we should tire; should seek out the table of a sidewalk café; and should, in our ~ relaxed mood, be ready to unbend to our royal purchases, At that moment we were too much interested in the town itself. Te tiny shops with their smil- ing and insinuating oriental keepers were fascinat- ing in their displays of carved woods, jewellery, 18 PORT SAID perfumes, silks, tapestries, silversmith’s work, os- trich feathers and the like. Either side the main street lay long, narrow, dark alleys in which flared single lights, across which flitted mysterious, long, robed figures, from which floated stray snatches of music either palpitatingly barbaric or ridiculously modern. ‘There the authority of the straight sol- dierly looking Soudanese policemen ceased; and it was not safe to wander unarmed or alone. Besides these motley variegations of the East and West, the main feature of the town was the street car. It was an open-air structure of spacious dimensions, as though benches and a canopy had - been erected rather haphazard on a small dancing platform. The track is absurdly narrow in gauge; and as a consequence the edifice swayed and swung from side to side. A single mule was attached to it loosely by about ten feet of rope. It was driven by a gaudy ragamuffin in a turban. Various other gaudy ragamufiins lounged largely and picturesquely on the widely spaced benches. Whence it came or whither it went I do not know. Its orbit swung into the main street, turned a corner and disap- peared. Apparently Europeans did not patronize this picturesque wreck, but drove elegantly but mysteriously in small open cabs conducted by to- tally incongruous turbaned drivers. 19 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES We ended finally at an imposing corner hotel where we dined by an open window just above the level of the street. A dozen upturned faces besought us silently during the meal. At a glance of even the mildest interest a dozen long, brown arms thrust ~ the spoils of the East upon our consideration. With us sat a large benign Swedish professor whose erudi- tion was encyclopedic, but whose kindly humanity was greater. Uttering deep, cavernous chuckles the — Professor bargained. A red coral necklace for the moment was the matter of interest. 'The Professor inspected it carefully, and handed it back. **T doubt if id iss coral,” said he simply. | The present owner of the beads went frantic with rapid-fire proof and vociferation. With the swift- ness and precision of much repetition he fished out — a match, struck it, applied the flame to the alleged coral, and blew out the match; cast the necklace on the pavement, produced mysteriously a small hammer, and with it proceeded madly to pound the beads. Evidently he was accustomed to being doubted, and carried his materials for proof around with him. Then, in one motion, the hammer dis- appeared; the beads were snatched up, and again offered, unharmed, for inspection. “Are those good tests for genuineness?” we asked the Professor, aside. 20 PORT SAID “As to that,” he replied regretfully, “ I do not know. I know of coral only that is the hard cal- careous skeleton of the marine ccelenterate polyps; and that this red coral iss called of a sclerobasic group; and other facts of the kind; but I do not know if it iss supposed to resist impact and heat. Pos- sibly,”’ he ended shrewdly, “‘it is the common imita- tion which does noz resist impact and heat. At any rate they are pretty. How much?” he demanded of the vendor, a bright-eyed Egyptian waiting pa- tiently until our conference should cease. “Twenty shillings,” he replied promptly. The Professor shook with one of his cavernous chuckles. “Too much,” he observed, and handed the neck- lace back through the window. The Egyptian would by no means receive it. **Keep! keep!” he implored, thrusting the mass of red upon the Professor with both hands. ‘‘How much you give?” “One shilling,” announced the Professor firmly. The coral necklace lay on the edge of the table throughout most of our leisurely meal. The vendor argued, pleaded, gave it up, disappeared in the crowd, returned dramatically after an interval. The Professor ate calmly, chuckled much, and from time to time repeated firmly the words, “One 21 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES shilling.” Finally, at the cheese, he reached out, swept the coral into his pocket, and laid down two shillings. The Egyptian deftly gathered the coin, ~ smiled cheerfully, and produced a glittering veil in which he tried in vain to enlist Billy’s interest. For coffee and cigars we moved to the terrace outside. Here an orchestra played, the peoples of many nations sat at little tables, the peddlers, fakirs, jugglers, and fortune tellers swarmed. A half dozen postal cards seemed sufficient to set a small boy up in trade, and to imbue him with all the impor- tance and insistence of a merchant with jewels. Other ten-year-old ragamuffins tried to call our attention to some sort of sleight-of-hand with poor downy little chickens. Grave turbaned and polite Indians squatted crosslegged at our feet begging to — give us a look into the future by means of the only genuine hallmarked Yogism; a troupe of acrobats went energetically and hopefully through quite a meritorious performance a few feet away; a deftly triumphant juggler did very easily, and directly beneath our watchful eyes, some really wonderful tricks. A butterfly-gorgeous swarm of insinuating smiling peddlers of small things dangled and spread their wares where they thought themselves most sure of attention. Beyond our own little group we saw slowly passing in the lighted street outside the 22 ‘Camels laden with stone and in convoy of white-clad figures shuffled down the slope at a picturesque angle” Oe ee Oe eee ee ‘WeSQ pied F ath 2 oe eee “t (eT RE ota fo a tre ek ion « gy ; niet. UOT}VIS [OIJUOI aL. # See PORT SAID portico the variegated and picturesque loungers. Across the way a phonograph bawled; our stringed orchestra played “The Dollar Princess”’; from some- where over in the dark and mysterious alleyways came the regular beating of a tom-tom. The mag- nificent and picturesque town car with its gaudy raga- muffins swayed by in train of its diminutive mule. Suddenly our persistent and amusing entourage vanished in all directions. Standing idly at the portico was a very straight, black Soudanese. On his head was the usual red fez; his clothing was of trim khaki; his knees and feet were bare, with blue puttees between; and around his middle was drawn close and smooth a blood-red sash at least a foot and a half in breadth. He made a fine upstanding Egyptian figure, and was armed with pride, a short sheathed club, anda great scorn. No word spoke he, nor command; but merely jerked a thumb toward the darkness, and into the darkness our many-hued horde melted away. We were left feeling rather lonesome! Near midnight we sauntered down the street to the quai, whence we were rowed to the ship by another turbaned, long-robed figure who sweetly begged just a copper-or so “for poor boatman.” We found the ship in the process of coaling, every porthole and doorway closed, and heavy canvas hung to protect as far as possible the clean decks. 23 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES Two barges were moored alongside. Two blazing braziers lighted them with weird red and flickering flames. In their depths, cast in black and red shadows, toiled half-guessed figures; from their depths, mounting a single steep plank, came an unbroken procession of natives, naked save for a wisp of cloth around the loins. They trod closely on each other’s heels, carrying each his basket atop his head or on one shoulder, mounted a gangplank, discharged their loads into the side of the ship, and descended again to the depths by way of another plank. The lights flickered across their dark faces, their gleaming teeth and eyes. Somehow the work demanded a heap of screeching, shouting, and gestic- ulation; but somehow also it went forward rapidly. Dozens of unattached natives lounged about the gunwales with apparently nothing to do but to look picturesque. Shore boats moved into the narrow circle of light, drifted to our gangway and dis- charged huge crates of vegetables, sacks of unknown . stuffs, and returning passengers. A vigilant police boat hovered near to settle disputes, generally with the blade of anoar. Fora long time we leaned over the rail watching them, and the various reflected lights in the water, and the very clear, unwavering stars. ‘Then, the coaling finished, and the portholes once more opened, we turned in. 24 IV SUEZ OMETIME during the night we must have started, but so gently had we slid along at fractional speed that until I raised my head and : looked out I had not realized the fact. I saw a high sand bank. ‘This glided monotonously by until I grew tired of looking at it; and got up. After breakfast, however, I found that the sand bank had various attractions all of its own. Three camels laden with stone and in convoy of white-clad figures shuffled down the slope at a picturesque angle. ‘Two cowled women in black, veiled to the eyes in gauze heavily sewn with sequins, barefooted, with massive silver anklets, watched us pass: Hindoo workmen in turban and loin cloth furnished a picturesque note, but did not seem to be injuring themselves by overexertion. Naked small boys raced us for a short distance. The banks glided by very slowly and very evenly, the wash sucked after us like water in a slough after a duck boat, and the sky above the yellow sand looked extremely blue. 25 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES At short and regular intervals, halfway up the minature sandhills, heavy piles or snubbing posts had been planted. For these we at first could guess no reason. Soon, however, we had to pass another ship; and then we saw that one of us must tie up to avoid being drawn irresistibly by suction into collision with the other. The craft sidled by, separated by only a few feet; so that we could look across to each other’s decks, and exchange greeting. As the day grew this interest grew likewise. Dredgers in the canal; rusty tramps flying unfamiliar flags of strange tiny countries; big freighters, often with Greek or Turkish characters on their sterns; small, dirty steamers of suspicious business; passenger ships like our own, returning from the tropics, with white-clad, languid figures reclining in canvas chairs; gunboats of this or that nation bound on mysterious affairs; once a P. &. O. converted into a troopship from whose every available porthole, hatch, deck, and shroud laughing, brown, English faces shouted chaff at our German decks — all these either tied up for us, or were tied up for by us. The only craft that received no consideration on our part were the various picturesque Arab dhows, with their single masts and the long yards slanting across them. Since these were very small, our suction dragged at them cruelly. As a usual thing four vociferous 26 ,saumnyd youjso pur ‘ SOHND JO Uausayes Josva YIM pally ‘UMOp paulIeMs s}eoqmo. 9[qeiouNnuUuy ,, 2G poy oy) ut Oud. ~ se SUEZ figures clung desperately to a rope passed around one of the snubbing posts ashore, while an old man shrieked syllables at them from the dhow itself. As they never by any chance thought of mooring her both stem and stern, the dhow generally changed ends rapidly, shipping considerable water in the proc- ess. It must be very trying to get so excited in a hot climate. The high sand banks of the early part of the day soon dropped lower to afford us a wider view. In its broad, general features the country was, quite simply, the best desert of Arizona over again. There were the same high, distant and brittle-looking mountains, fragile and pearly; the same low, broken half- distances; the same wide sweeps; the same wonderful _ changing effects of light, colour, shadow, and mirage; rf. the same occasional strips of green marking the water courses and oases. As to smaller detail we saw many interesting divergences. In the fore- ground constantly recurred the Bedouin brush _ shelters, each with its picturesque figure or so of _ flowing robes, and its grumpy camels. Twice we _ saw travelling caravans, exactly like the Bible - pictures. At one place a single burnoused Arab, leaning on his elbows, reclined full length on the sky- line of a clean-cut sand hill. Glittering in the mirage, half-guessed, half-seen, we made out distant little 27 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES white towns with slender palm trees. At places the water from the canal had overflowed wide tracts of country. Here along the shore we saw thousands of the water-fowl already familiar to us, as well as such strangers as gaudy kingfishers, ibises, and rosy flamingoes. The canal itself seemed to be in a continual state of repair. Dredgers were everywhere; some of the ordinary shovel type, others working by suction, and — discharging far inland by means of weird huge pipes that apparently meandered at will over the face of nature. The control stations were beautifully French and neat, painted yellow, each with its gorgeous bougainvilleas in flower, its square-rigged signal masts, its brightly painted extra buoys stand- ing in a row, its wharf —and its impassive Arab fishermen thereon. We reclined in our canvas chairs, had lime squashes brought to us, and watched the entertainment steadily and slowly unrolled before us. We reached the end of the canal about three o’clock of the afternoon, and dropped anchor far off low-lying shores. Our binoculars showed us white houses in apparently single rank along a far-reaching narrow sand spit, with sparse trees and a railroad line. That was the town of Suez, and seemed so little interesting that we were not particularly sorry that we could not go ashore. Far in the distance 28 SUEZ were mountains; and the water all about us was the light, clear green of the sky at sunset. _ Innumerable dhows and rowboats swarmed down, filled with eager salesmen of curios and ostrich _ plumes. They had not much time in which to _ bargain, so they made it up in rapid-fire vociferation. One very tall and dignified Arab had as sailor of his craft the most extraordinary creature, just above _ the lower limit of the human race. He was of a dull coal black, without a single high light on him any- _ where, as though he had been sanded; had prominent ' teeth, like those of a baboon, in a wrinkled, wizened _ monkey face across which were three tattooed bands; and possessed a little long-armed spare figure, bent and wiry. He clambered up and down his mast, _ fetching things at his master’s behest; leaped non- -chalantly for our rail or his own spar, as the case might be, across the staggering abyss; clung so well with his toes that he might almost have been classi- | - fied with the quadrumana; and between times | squatted humped over on the rail watching us with bright, elfish, alien eyes. i At last the big German sailors bundled the whole ; _ variegated horde overside. It was time to go; and our anchor chain was already rumbling in the hawse pipes. They tumbled hastily into their boats; and 29 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES ishly continued their interrupted bargaining. In © fact so fully embarked on the tides of commerce were they that they failed to notice the tides of nature widening between us. One old man, in especial, at the very top of his mast, jerked hither and thither by the sea, continued imploringly to offer an utterly ridiculous carved wooden camel long after it was possible to have completed the © transaction should anybody have been moonstruck enough to have desired it. Our ship’s prow swung; and just at sunset, as the lights of Suez were twin- © ~ kling out one by one, we headed down the Red Sea. 30 V THE RED SEA ee is indeed the gateway to the East. In the Mediterranean often the sea is rough, the winds cold, passengers are not yet acquainted and hug the saloons or the leeward side of the deck. - Once through the canal and all is changed by magic. - The air is hot and languid; the ship’s company down _ to the very scullions appear in immaculate white; _ the saloon chairs and transoms even are put in white coverings; electric fans hum everywhere; the run on lime squashes begins; and many quaint and curious customs of the tropics obtain. For example; it is etiquette that before spc ’ y *clock one may wander the decks at will in one’s pajamas, converse affably with fair ladies in pigtail and kimono, and be not abashed. But on the stroke _ of eight bells it is also Jae eae to disappear very _ promptly and to array one’s self for the day; and it is _ very improper indeed to see or be seen after that hour in the rather extreme negligée of the early morning. Also it becomes the universal custom, or 31 ‘ | AFRICAN CAMP FIRES perhaps I should say the necessity, to slumber for _ an hour after the noon meal. Certainly sleep descending on the tropical traveller is armed with a bludgeon. Passengers, crew, steerage, “deck,” animal, and bird fall down then in an enchantment. I have often wondered who navigates the ship during that sacred hour; or, indeed, if anybody navigates — it at all. Perhaps that time is sacred to the genii of the old East, who close all prying mortal eyes, but — in return lend a guiding hand to the most pressing — of mortal affairs. The deck of the ship is a curious — sight between the hours of half-past one and three. ‘ The tropical siesta requires no couching of the form. | You sit down in your chair, with a book — you fade slowly into a deep, restful slumber. And yet it is a ! slumber wherein certain small pleasant things persist © from the world outside. You remain dimly conscious ~ of the rhythmic throbbing of the engines, of the beat of soft, warm air on your cheek. | At three o’clock or thereabout you rise as gently back to life; and sit erect in your chair without a stretch or a yawn in your whole anatomy. Then is the one time of day for a display of energy — if you have any to display. Ship games, walks — fairly brisk—explorations to the forecastle, a watch for flying fish or Arab dhows, anything until tea time. Then the glowing sunset; the opalescent 32 Se i THE RED SEA sea, and the soft afterglow of the sky — and the bugle summoning you to dress. That is a mean job. Nothing could possibly swelter worse than the tiny cabin. The electric fan is an aggravation. You reappear in your fresh “‘whites”? somewhat warm and flustered in both mind and body. A turn around the deck cools you off; and dinner restores | your equanimity —dinner with the soft, warm tropic air breathing through all the wide-open ports; PD the electric fans drumming busily; the men all in clean white; the ladies, the very few precious ladies, in soft, low gowns. After dinner the deck, as near 4 cool as it will be, and bare heads to the breeze of our progress and glowing cigars. At ten or eleven o’clock the groups begin to break up, the canvas chairs toempty. Soon reappears a pajamaed figure _ followed by a steward carrying a mattress. This is | spread, under its owner’s direction, in a dark corner _ forward. With a sigh you in your turn plunge down _ into the sweltering inferno of your cabin, only to | reappear likewise with a steward and a mattress. _ The latter, if you are wise, you spread where the _ wind of the ship’s going will be full upon you. It is a strong wind and blows upon you heavily so that . the sleeves and legs of your pajamas flop, but it is a soft, warm wind, and beats you as with muffled fingers. In no temperate clime can you ever enjoy 33 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES this peculiar effect, of a strong breeze on your naked skin without eventhe faintest surface chilly sensation, So habituated has one become to feeling cooler in a draught that the absence of chill lends the night an unaccustomedness, the more weird in that it is unanalyzed, so that one feels definitely that one is in a strange, far country. ‘This is intensified by the fact that in these latitudes the moon, the great, glorious, calm tropical moon, is directly overhead— follows the centre line of the zenith — instead of, as with us in our temperate zone, always more or less declined to the horizon. This too lends the night an exotic quality, the more effective in that at first the reason for it is not apprehended. A night in the tropics is always more or less broken. One awakens, and sleeps again. Motion- less white-clad figures, cigarettes glowing, are — lounging against the rail looking out over a molten sea. The moonlight lies in patterns across the deck, shivering slightly under the throb of the engines, or occasionally swaying slowly forward or slowly back as the ship’scourse changes, but otherwise motionless, for here the sea is alwayscalm. You raise your head, look about,sprawl ina new position on your mattress, fall asleep. On one of these occasions you find unexpectedly that the velvet-gray night has become steel-gray dawn; and that the kindly old quarter- : 34 er THE RED SEA master is bending over you. Sleepily,very sleepily, you stagger to your feet and collapse into the nearest chair. Then to the swish of waters as the sailors sluice the decks all around and under you, you fall into a really deep sleep. At six o’clock this is broken by chota-hahzari, another tropical institution, consisting merely of clear tea and crackers. I never could get to care for it, but nowhere in the tropics could I head it off. No matter how tired I was or how dead sleepy, I had to receive that confounded chota-hahzari. ‘Throwing things at the native who brought it did no good at all. He merely dodged. Admonition did no good, nor prohibition in strong terms. I was but one _ white man of the whole white race; and I had no _ right to possess idiosyncrasies running counter to _ Distauri, the Custom. However, as the early hours are the profitable hours in the tropics, it did not _ drive me to homicide. _ The ship’s company now developed. Our two _ prize members fortunately for us, sat at our table. _ The first was the Swedish Professor aforementioned. He was large, benign, paternal, broad in mind, thoroughly human and-beloved, and yet profoundly erudite. He was our iconoclast in the way of food; for he performed small but illuminating dissections on his plate, and announced triumphantly results 35 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES that were not a bit in accordance with the menu. A single bone was sufficient to take the pretension out of any fish. Our other particular friend was C., with whom later we travelled in the interior of Africa. C. is a very celebrated hunter and explorer, an old Africander, his face seamed and tanned by many years in a hard climate. For several days we did not recognize him, although he sat fairly alongside; but put him down as a shy man and let — it go at that. He never stayed for the long table d’hote dinners; but fell upon the first solid course and made a complete meal from that. When he had quite finished eating all he could; he drank all he could; then he departed from the table, and took up a remote and inaccessible position in the corner of the smoking room. He was engaged in growing the beard he customarily wore in the jungle; a most fierce outstanding Mohammedan-looking beard that | terrified the intrusive into submission. And yet Bwana C. possessed the kindest blue eyes in the world, full of quiet patience, great understanding and infinite gentleness. His manner was abrupt and uncompromising; but he would do anything in the world for one who stood in need of him. From women he fled; yet Billy won him with infinite patience, and in the event they became the closest of friends. Withal he possessed a pair of the most 36 best of my friends. THE RED SEA powerful shoulders I have ever seen on a man of his frame; and in the depths of his mild blue eyes flickered a flame of resolution that I could well imagine flaring up to something formidable. Slow to make friends, but staunch and loyal; gentle and forbearing, but fierce and implacable in action; at once loved and most terribly feared; shy as a wild animal, but straightforward and undeviating in his human relations; most remarkably quiet and ungssuming, but with tremendous vital force in his _ deep eyes and forward-thrust jaw; informed with the _ widest and most understanding humanity, but unforgiving of evildoers; and with the most direct and absolute courage, Bwana C. was to me the most interesting man I met in Africa, and became the The only other man at our table happened to be, for our sins, the young Englishman mentioned as throwing the first coin to the old woman on the pier at Marseilles. We will call him Brown; and, because he represents a type, he is worth looking upon for a moment. He was of the super-enthusiastic sort; bubbling over with vitality; in and out of everything; bounding up at odd and languid moments. To an extra- ordinary extent he was afflicted with the spiritual blindness of his class. Quite genuinely, quite 37 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES - seriously, he was unconscious of the human signifi- cance of beings and institutions belonging to a foreign country or even to a class other than his own. His own kind he treated as complete and under- standable human creatures. All others were merely objective. As we, to a certain extent, happened to fall in the former category, he was as pleasant to us as possible — that is, he was pleasant to us in his way, but had not insight enough to guess at how to — be pleasant to us in our way. But as soon as he got out of his own class, or what he conceived to be such, he considered all people as ‘‘outsiders.”” He did not credit them with prejudices to rub, with feelings to hurt, indeed hardly with ears to overhear. Provided his subject was an “outsider” he had not the slightest hesitancy in saying exactly what he thought about any one, anywhere, always in his high, clear English voice, no matter what the time or occasion. © As a natural corollary he always rebuffed beggars and the like brutally; and was always quite sublimely doing little things that thoroughly shocked our sense of the other fellow’s rights as a human being. In all this he did not mean to be cruel nor inconsiderate. It was just the way he was built; and it never entered his head that “such people” had ears and brains. In the rest of the ship’s company were a dozen or 38 ‘ 7 THE RED SEA so other Englishmen of the upper classes, either army men on shooting trips, or youths going out with some idea of settling in the country. They were a clean-built pleasant lot, good people to know anywhere; but of no unusual interest. It was only when one went abroad into the other nations that inscribable human interest could be found. There was the Greek, Scutari, and his bride, a languorous rather opulent beauty, with large dark eyes for all men, and a luxurious manner of lying back and fanning herself. She talked, soft voiced, in half a dozen languages, changing from one to the other without a break in either her fluency or her thought. Her little lithe active husband sat around and adored her. He was apparently a very able citizen indeed, for he was going out to take charge of the construction work on a German Railway. To have filched so important a job from the Ger- man’s themselves shows that he must have had abil- ity. With them were a middle-aged Holland couple engaged conscientiously in travelling over the globe. They had been everywhere —the two American hemispheres, from one Arctic Sea to another, Siberia, China, the Malay Archipelago, this, that, and the other odd corner of the world. Always they sat placidly side by side, either in the saloon or on deck, smiling benignly, and conversing in spaced com- 39 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES fortable syllables with everybody who happened along. Mrs. Breemen worked industriously on some kind of feminine gear, and explained to all and sundry that she travelled “to see de sceenery wid my hoosband.” Also in this group was a small, wiry German Doctor who had lived for many years in the far interior of Africa, and was now returning after his vacation. He was a little man, bright-eyed and keen, with a clear complexion and hard flesh, in striking and agreeable contrast to most of his compatriots. The latter were trying to drink all the beer on the ship; but as she had been stocked for an eighty-day voyage, of which this was but the second week, they were not making noticeable headway. However, they did not seem to be easily discouraged. The Herr Doktor was most polite and attentive, but as we did not talk German nor ~ much Swahili; and he had neither English nor much — French, we had our difficulties. I have heard Billy in talking to him scatter fragments of these four languages through a single sentence! For several days we drifted down a warm flat sea. Then one morning we came on deck to find ourselves close aboard a number of volcanic islands. They were composed entirely of red and dark purple lava blocks, rugged, quite without vegetation save for 40 THE RED SEA occasional patches of stringy green in a gully; and uninhabited except for a lighthouse on one, and a fishing shanty near the shores of another. The high, mournful mountains with their dark shadows seemed to brood over hot desolation. The rusted and battered stern of a wrecked steamer stuck up at an acute angle from the surges. Shortly after we picked up the shores of Arabia. Note the advantages of a half ignorance. From early childhood we had thought of Arabia as the “burning desert” — flat, of course—and of the Red Sea as bordered by “shifting sands” alone. If we had known the truth — if we had not been half ignorant — we would have missed the profound surprise of discovering that in reality the Red Sea is bordered by high and rugged mountains, leaving just space enough between themselves and the shore for a sloping plain on which our glasses could make out occasional palms. Perhaps the “shifting sands of the burning desert” lie somewhere beyond; but somebody might have mentioned these great moun- tains! After examining them attentively we had to confess that if this sort of thing continued farther north, the children of Israel must have had a very hard time of it. Mocha shone white, glitter- ing and low, with the red and white spire of a mosque rising brilliantly above it. 41 VI ADEN T WAS cooler; and for a dienes we had turned into our bunks, when B. pounded on our state- room door. “In the name of the Eternal East, ”” said he, “come on deck!”’ | We slipped on kimonos and joined the row of scantily draped and interested figures along the rail. The ship lay quite still on a perfect sea of moon- light bordered by a low flat distant shore on one side, and nearer mountains on the other. A strong flare centred from two ship reflectors overside made a focus of illumination that subdued, but could not quench, the soft moonlight with which all outside was silvered. A dozen boats striving against a current or clinging as best they could to the ship’s side glided into the light and became real and solidy or dropped back into the ghostly white insubstanti- *. ability of the moon. They were long narrow boats, ~ with small flush decks fore and aft. We looked down on them from almost directly above, so that 42 wooy Aydory 94} Jo MOI, JOYOUY j ifitmedi. j ee, —— “We waited patiently to see the camels slung aboard ’ by the crane’ ADEN we saw the thwarts and the ribs and the things they contained. Astern in each stood men, bending gracefully against the thrust of long sweeps. About their Waists were squares of cloth, wrapped twice and tucked in. Otherwise they were naked, and the long smooth muscles of their slender bodies rippled under the skin. The latter was of a beautiful fine texture, and chocolate brown. These men had keen intelligent clear-cut faces, of the Greek order, as though the statues of a garden had been stained brown and had come to life. They leaned on their _ sweeps, thrusting slowly but strongly against the little wind and current that would drift them back. In the body of the boats crouched, sat, or lay a picturesque mob. Some pulled spasmodically on _ the very long limber oars; others squatted doing | nothing; some, huddled shapelessly underneath a white cloths that completely covered them, slept soundly in the bottom. We took these for mer- _ chandise until one of them suddenly threw aside his covering and sat up. Others again poised in proud a and graceful attitudes on the extreme prows of their _ bobbing craft. Especially decorative were two _ clad only in immense white turbans and white cloths _ about the waist. An old Arab with a white beard stood midships in one boat quite motionless except 43 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES for the slight swaying necessary to preserve his equilibrium, his voluminous white draperies flutter- ing in the wind, his dark face just distinguishable under his burnouse. Most of the men were Somalis, however. Their keen small faces, slender but graceful necks, slim, well-formed torsos bending to — every movement of the boat, and the white or gaudy draped nether garments were as decorative as the figures on an Egyptian tomb. One or two of the more barbaric had made neat headdresses of white clay plastered in the form of a skullcap. After an interval a small and fussy tugboat steamed around our stern and drew alongside the gangway. ‘Three passengers disembarked from her and made their way aboard. ‘The main deck of the craft under an awning was heavily encumbered with trunks, tin boxes, hand baggage, tin bathtubs, gun — cases and all sorts of impedimenta. ‘The tugboat — moored itself to us fore and aft, and proceeded to think about discharging. Perhaps twenty men in accurate replica of those in the small boats had charge of the job. They had their own methods. After a long interval devoted strictly to nothing, some unfathomable impulse would incite one or two or three of the natives to tackle a trunk. At it they tugged and heaved and pushed in the manner of ants making off with a particularly large fly or 44 ge ADEN | other treasure trove, teasing it up the steep gang- | way to the level of our decks. The trunks once _ safely bestowed, all interest, all industry died. We _ thought that finished it; and wondered why the tug _ did not pull out of the way. But always, after an | interval, another bright idea would strike another | native or natives. He—or they—would disap- | pear beneath the canvas awning over the tug’s deck, _ to emerge shortly carrying almost anything, from a parasol to a heavy chest. ' On close inspection they proved to be a very small people. The impression of graceful height had come from the slenderness and justness of their | proportions, the smallness of their bones, and the upright grace of their carriage. After standing alongside one, we acquired a fine respect for their | _ ability to handle those trunks at all. _ Moored to the other side of the ship we found two huge lighters from which bales of goods were being ' hoisted aboard. Two camels and a dozen diminu- | tive mules stood in the waist of one of these craft. * The camels were as sniffy and supercilious and scornful as camels always are; and everybody promptly hated them with the hatred of the abys- *, mally inferior spirit for something that scorns it, ag 'o as is the usual attitude of the human mind toward ¥ _ camels. We waited for upward of an hour in the 45 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES hope of seeing those camels hoisted aboard; but in vain. While we were so waiting one of the deck passengers below us, a Somali in white clothes and a gorgeous cerise turban decided to turn in. He spread a square of thin matting atop one of the hatches, and began to unwind yards and yards of the fine silk turban. He came to the end of it — whisk! he sank to the deck; the turban, spread open by the resistance of the air, fluttered down to cover him from head to foot. Apparently he fell asleep at once, for he did not again move nor alter his position. He, as well as an astonishingly large proportion of the other Somalis and Abyssinians we saw, carried a queer, well-defined, triangular wound in his head. It had long since healed, was an inch or so across, and looked as though a piece of the skull had been removed. If a conscientious enemy had leisure and an ice pick he would do just about that sort of a job. How its recipient had escaped instant death is a mystery. At length, about three o’clock, despairing of the camels, we turned in. After three hours’ sleep we were again on deck. Aden by daylight seemed to be several sections of a town tucked into pockets in bold,raw, lava mountains that came down fairly to the water’s edge. Between these pockets ran a narrow shore road; and along the 46 a ADEN road paced haughty camels hitched to diminutive carts. On contracted round bluffs toward the sea were various low bungalow buildings which, we were informed, comprised the military and civil officers’ quarters. The real Aden has been built inland a short distance at the bottom of a cup in the moun- tains. Elaborate stone reservoirs have been con- _ structed to catch rain water, as there is no other natural water supply whatever. The only difficulty _ is that it practically never rains; so the reservoirs _ stand empty, the water is distilled from the sea, and the haughty camels and the little carts do the distributing. _ The lava mountains occupy one side of the _ spacious bay or gulf. The foot of the bay and the other side are flat, with one or two very distant _ white villages, and many heaps of-glittering salt as | big as houses. We waited patiently at the rail for an hour more to see the camels slung aboard by the crane. It was worth the wait. They lost their impassive and _ immemorial dignity completely, sprawling, groaning, _ positively shrieking in dismay. When the solid _ deck rose to them, and the sling had been loosened, however, they regained their poise instantaneously. _ Their noses went up in the air, and they looked about them with a challenging, unsmiling superiority, 47 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES as though to dare any one of us to laugh. Their native attendants immediately squatted down in front of them and began to feed them with con- venient lengths of what looked like our common marsh cattails. The camels did not even then manifest the slightest interest in the proceedings. Indeed, they would not condescend to reach out three inches for the most luscious tidbit held that far from their aristocratic noses. ‘The attendants had actually to thrust the fodder between their jaws. I am glad to say they condescended to chew. 48 VII THE INDIAN OCEAN EAVING Aden, and rounding the great prom- ontory of Cape Gardafui, we turned south along the coast of Africa. Off the cape were strange, oily cross rips and currents on the surface of the sea; the flying fish rose in flocks before our bows; high mountains of peaks and flat table tops thrust their summits into clouds; and along the coast the breakers spouted like whales. For the first time, too, we began to experience what our preconceptions had imagined as tropical heat. Heretofore we had been hot enough, in all conscience, but the air had felt as though wafted from an opened furnace door — dry and scorching. Now, although the temperature was lower,* the humidity was greater. A swooning languor was abroad over the spellbound ocean, a relaxing mist of enchantment. My glasses were constantly clouding over with a fine coating of water drops; exposed metal rusted overnight; the folds in garments accumulated mildew in an as- *82-88° in daytime, and 75-83° at night. 49 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES tonishingly brief period of time. ‘There was never even the suggestion of chill in this dampness. It clung and enveloped like a grateful garment; and seemed only to lack sweet perfume. : At this time, by good fortune, it happened that the moon came full. We had enjoyed its waxing during our voyage down the Red Sea; but now it had reached its greatest phase, and hung over the slumbering tropic ocean like a lantern. The lazy sea stirred beneath it, and the ship glided on, its lights fairlysubdued by the splendour of the waters. Under the awnings the ship’s company lounged in lazy attitudes or promenaded slowly, talking low voiced, © cigars glowing in the splendid dusk. Overside, in — the furrow of the disturbed waters, the phosphores- — cence flashed perpetually beneath the shadow of the © ship. The days passed by languidly and all alike. On the chart outside the smoking-room door the proces- | sion of tiny German flags on pins marched steadily, — an inch at a time, toward the south. Otherwise we — might as well have imagined ourselves midgets afloat in a pond and getting nowhere. Somewhere north of the equator — before Father | Neptune in ancient style had come aboard and ducked the lot of us— we were treated to the spectacle of how the German “‘sheep”’ reacts under 50 THE INDIAN OCEAN a joke. Each nation has its type of fool; and all, for the joyousness of mankind, differ. On the bulletin board one evening appeared a notice to the effect that the following morning a limited number | of sportsmen would be permitted ashore for the day. _ Each was advised to bring his own lunch, rifle, and _ drinks. The reason alleged was that the ship must _ round a certain cape across which the sportsmen _ could march afoot in enough shorter time to permit _ them a little shooting. Now aboard ship were a dozen English, four 4 Americans, and thirty or forty Germans. The _ Americans and English looked upon that bulletin, _ smiled gently and went to order another round of lime squashes. It was a meek, mild, little joke _ enough; but surely the bulletin board was as far as it | could possibly go. Next morning, however, we ' observed a half dozen of our German friends in _ khaki and sun helmet, very busy with lunch boxes, bottles of beer, rifles, and the like. They said they _ were going ashore as per bulletin. We looked at _ each other and hied us to the upper deck. There we er found one of the boats slung overside, with our old friend the Quartermaster ostentatiously stowing kegs ___ of water, boxes and the like. “When,” we inquired gently, “does the expedition start?” Si AFRICAN CAMP FIRES **At ten o’clock,”’ said he. It was now within fifteen minutes of that hour. We were at the time fully ten miles off shore, and forging ahead full speed parallel with the coast. We pointed out this fact to the Quartermaster, but found to our sorrow that the poor old man had suddenly gone deaf! We, therefore, refrained from asking several other questions that had occurred to us, such as, Why the cape was not shown on the map? “Somebody,” said one of the Americans, a cowboy going out second class on a look for new cattle coun- try, “‘is a goat. It sure looks to me like it was these yere steamboat people. They can’t expect to rope nothing on such a raw deal as this!” To which the English assented, though in different idiom. | But now up the companion ladder struggled eight | serious-minded individuals herded by the second mate. ‘They were armed to the teeth and thoroughly equipped with things I had: seen in German cata- logues, but in whose existence I had never believed. A half-dozen sailors eagerly helped them with their multitudinous effects. Not a thought gave they to the fact that we were ten miles off the coast, that we gave no indication of slackening speed, that it would take the rest of the day to row ashore, that 52 THE INDIAN OCEAN there was no cape for us to round, that if there were — oh! all the other hundred improbabilities peculiar to the situation. Under direction of the mate they deposited their impedimenta beneath a tarpaulin, and took their places in solemn rows amidships across the thwarts of the boat slung overside. The importance of the occasion sat upon them heavily; they were going ashore — in | Africa — to Slay Wild Beasts. They looked upon themselves as of bolder, sterner stuff than the rest of us. When the procession first appeared, our cowboy’s face for a single instant had flamed with amazed incredulity. Then a mask of expressionless stolidity _ fell across his features, which in no line thereafter varied one iota. “What are they going to do with them?” mur- mured one of the Englishmen, at a loss. “TI reckon,” said the cowboy, “‘that they look on this as the easiest way to drown them all to onct.” Then from behind one of the other boats suddenly appeared a huge German sailor with a hose. ‘The devoted imbeciles in the shore boat were drenched as by a cloudburst. - Back and forth and up and down the heavy stream played, while every other human being about the ship shrieked with joy. Did the victims rise up in a body and capture that 53 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES hose nozzle and turn the stream to sweep the decks? Did they duck for shelter? did they at least know enough to scatter and run? They did none of these things; but sat there in meek little rows like manni-— kins until the boat was half full of water and every- thing awash. Then, when the sailor shut off the stream, they continued to sit there until the mate came to order them out. Why? I cannot tell you. Perhaps that is the German idea of how to take a — joke. Perhaps they were afraid worse things might be consequent on resistance. Perhaps they still hoped to go ashore. One of the Englishmen asked just that question. “What,” he demanded disgustedly, “‘what is the matter with the beggars?”’ Our cowboy may have had the correct solution. He stretched his long legs and jumped down from ~ the rail. ““Nothing stirring above the ears,” said he. It is customary in books of travel to describe this part of the journey about as follows: “skirting the low and uninteresting shores of Africa we at length reached,” etc. Low and uninteresting shores! — Through the glasses we made out distant mountains far beyond nearer hills. The latter were green- covered with dense forests whence rose mysterious smokes. Along the shore we saw an occasional 54 THE INDIAN OCEAN | coconut plantation to the water’s edge and native } huts and villages of thatch. Canoes of strange 1 models lay drawn up on shelving beaches; queer | fish-pounds of brush reached out considerable } distances from the coast. The white surf pounded | ona yellow beach. | All about these things was the jungle, hemming | ; in the plantations and villages, bordering the lagoons, | creeping down until it fairly overhung the yellow beaches; as though, conqueror through all the country beyond, it were half-inclined to dispute | dominion with old Ocean himself. It looked from | the distance like a thick, soft coverlet thrown down ' over the country; following, or, rather, suggesting, _ the inequalities. ‘Through the glasses we were | occasionally able to peek under the edge of this _ coverlet, and see where the fringe of the jungle drew _ back in a little pocket, or to catch the sheen of _ mysterious dark rivers slipping to the sea. Up ' these dark rivers, by way of the entrances of these _ tiny pockets, the imagination then could lead on into the dimness beneath the sunlit upper surfaces. _ Toward the close of one afternoon we changed our course slightly and swung in on a long slant - toward the coast. We did it casually; too casually _ for so very important an action, for now at last we were about to touch the mysterious continent. 55 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES Then we saw clearer the fine, big groves of palm and the luxuriance of the tropical vegetation. Against the greenery, bold and white, shone the buildings of Mombasa; and after a little while more we saw an inland glitter that represented her narrow, deep bay, the stern of a wreck against the low, green cliffs, and strange, fat-trunked squat trees without leaves. Straight past all this we glided at half speed, then turned sharp to the right to enter a long, wide ex- panse, like a river with green banks, twenty feet or so in height, grown thickly with the tall coconut palms. These gave way at times into broad, low lagoons, at the end of which were small beaches and boats, and native huts among more coconut groves. Through our glasses we could see the black men watching us, quite motionless, squatted on their heels. It was like suddenly entering another world, this gliding from the open sea straight into the heart of a green land. The ceaseless wash of waves we had left outside with the ocean; our engines had fallen | silent. Across the hushed waters came to us strange chantings and the beating of a tom-tom, an oc- casional shrill shout from the unknown jungle. The sun was just set, and the tops of the palms caught the last rays; all below was dense green shadow. Across the surface of the water glided dugout canoes of shapes strange to us. We passed 56 THE INDIAN OCEAN ancient ruins almost completely dismantled, their stones half-smothered in green rank growth. The wide riverlike bay stretched on before us as far as _ the waning light permitted us to see; finally losing itself in the heart of mystery. _ §teadily and confidently our ship steamed for- _ ward, until at last, when we seemed to be afloat in a land-locked lake, we dropped anchor and came 3 to rest. 3 Darkness fell utterly before the usual quarantine _ regulations had been carried through. Active and efficient agents had already taken charge of our _ affairs, so we had only to wait idly by the rail until summoned. Then we jostled our way down the long gangway, passed and repassed by natives | carrying baggage or returning for more baggage, | stepped briskly aboard a very bobby little craft, 0 clambered over a huge pile of baggage, and stowed _ ourselves as best we could. A figure in a long white _ robe sat astern, tiller ropes in hand; two half-naked _ blacks far up toward the prow manipulated a pair of _ tremendous sweeps. With a vast heaving, jabbering, _ and shouting our boat disengaged itself from the _ swarm of other craft. We floated around the stern _ of our ship — and were immediately suspended in _ blackness dotted with the stars and their reflections _ and with various, twinkling, scattered lights. To one | 57 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES of these we steered; and presently touched at a stone quai with steps. At last we set foot on the land to — which so long we had journeyed and toward which so great our expectations had grown. We experi- enced “the pleasure that touches the souls of men landing on strange shores.” 58 VIII MOMBASA SINGLE light shone at the end of the stone quai, and another inside a big indeterminate building at some distance. We stumbled toward this, and found it to be the biggest shed ever con- structed out of corrugated iron. A bearded Sikh stood on guard at its open entrance. He let any one and every one enter, with never a flicker of his expressionless black eyes; but allowed no one to go out again without the closest scrutiny for dutiable _ articles that lacked the blue customs paster. We entered. ‘The place was vast and barnlike and dim, and very, very hot. A half-dozen East Indians stood behind the counters; another, a babu, sat at a little desk ready to give his clerical attention to what might be required. We saw no European; but next morning found that one passed his daylight hours in this in- ' ferno of heat. For the moment we let our main bag- _ gage go, and occupied ourselves only with getting _ through our smaller effects. This accomplished, we 4 stepped out past the Sikh into the grateful night. 59 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES We.had as guide a slender and wiry individual clad in tarboosh and long white robe. In a vague general way we knew that the town of Mombasa, was across the island and about four miles distant. In what direction or how we got there we had not the remotest idea. The ‘guide set off at a brisk pace with which we tried in vain to keep step. He knew the ground, and we did not; and the night was black-dark. Commands to stop were of no avail whatever; nor could we get hold of him to restrain him by force. © When we'put on speed he put on speed too. His white robe glimmered ahead of us just in sight; and in the darkness other white robes, passing and crossing, glimmered also. At first the ground was rough, so that we stumbled outrageously. Billy and B. soon fell behind, and I heard their voices calling plaintively for us to slow down a bit. “If I ever lose this nigger [ll never find him again,” I shouted back, “but I can find you. Do — the best you can!” We struck a smoother road that led up a hill on a long slant. Apparently for miles we followed © thus, the white-robed individual ahead still deaf to — all commands and the blood-curdling threats I had © now come to uttering. All our personal baggage — had long since mysteriously disappeared, ravished 60 it a Vasco da Gama Street, the principal thoroughfare of Mombasa The trolley car of Mombasa The labour of Africa is carried forward by song a x MOMBASA away from us at the customs house by a ragged | horde of blacks. It began to look as though we were stranded in Africa without baggage or effects. Billy and B. were all the time growing fainter in the | distance, though evidently they too had struck the | long, slanting road. _ Then we came to a dim, solitary lantern glowing _ feebly beside a bench at what appeared to be the top of the hill. Here our guide at last came to a halt and turned to me a grinning face. __. “Samama hapa,” he observed. There! That was the word I had been frantically searching my memory for! Samama— stop! _ The others struggled in. We were very warm. Up to the bench led a tiny car track, the rails not ‘over two feet apart, like the toy railroads children use. This did not look much like grown-up trans- portation, but it and the bench and the dim lantern represented all the visible world. _ We sat philosophically on the bench and enjoyed the soft tropical night. The air was tepid, heavy ~ with unknown perfurne, black as a band of velvet wd across the eyes, musical with the subdued undertones Bo a thousand thousand night insects. At points _ overhead the soft, blind darkness melted imper- _ ceptibly into stars. | _ After a long interval we distinguished a distant 5 . 61 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES faint rattling, that each moment increased in loud- ness. Shortly came into view along the narrow tracks a most extraordinary vehicle. It was a small square platform on wheels across which ran a bench seat, and over which spread a canopy. It carried also a dim lantern. This rumbled up to us - and stopped. From its stern hopped two black boys. — Obeying a smiling invitation, we took our places on the bench. The two boys immediately set to push- © ing us along the narrow track. We were off at an astonishing speed through the darkness. The night was deliciously tepid; and, as I have said, absolutely dark. We made out the tops of palms and the dim loom of great spreading trees, and could smell sweet, soft odours. The bare- headed, lightly clad boys pattered alongside whenever — the grade was easy, one hand resting against the rail; or pushed mightily up little hills; or clung alongside like monkeys while we rattled and swooped and plunged down hill into the darkness. Subsequently we learned that a huge flat beam projecting amid- ships from beneath the seat operated a brake which we above were supposed to manipulate; but being quite ignorant as to the ethics and mechanics of this strange street-car system, we swung and swayed at times quite breathlessly. After about fifteen minutes we began to pick up 62 MOMBASA lights ahead, then to pass dimly seen garden walls with trees whose brilliant flowers the lantern re- vealed fitfully. At last we made out white stucco houses; and shortly drew up with a flourish before the hotel itself. This was a two-story stucco affair, with deep verandas sunken in at each story. It fronted a wide white street facing a public garden; and this, we subsequently discovered, was about the only clear and open space in all the narrow town. Ante- lope horns were everywhere hung on the walls; and teakwood easy chairs with rests on which com- fortably to elevate your feet above your head stood all about. We entered a bare brick-floored dining- room, and partook of tropical fruits quite new to us __— papayas, mangoes, custard apples, pawpaws, and _ the small red eating bananas too delicate for export. - Overhead the punkahs swung back and forth in lazy hypnotic rhythm. We could see the two blacks at _ the ends of the punkah cords outside on the ve- _ randa, their bodies swaying lithely in alternation as - they threw their weight against the light ropes. _ Other blacks, in the long white robes and exquisitely _ worked white skullcaps of the Swahili, glided noise- _ lessly on bare feet, serving. After dinner we sat out until midnight in the q teakwood chairs of the upper gallery, staring through 63 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES the arches into the black, mysterious night, for it was very hot; and we rather dreaded the necessary mosquito veils as likely to prove stuffy. The mos- quitoes are few in Mombasa, but they are very, very deadly. At midnight the thermometer stood 87° F. . _~ Our premonitions as to stuffiness were well justi- — fied. After a restless night we came awake at daylight to the sound of a fine row of some sort — going on outside in the streets. Immediately we arose, threw aside the lattices, and hung out over the sill. | The chalk-white road stretched before us. Op- posite was a public square grown with brilliant flowers, and flowering trees. We could not doubt — the cause of the trouble. An Indian on a bicycle, — hurrying to his office, had knocked down a native — child. Said child, quite naked, sat in the middle of the white dust and howled to rend the heavens — _ whenever he felt himself observed. If, however, : the attention of the crowd happened for the moment — to be engrossed with the babu, the injured one sat — up straight and watched the row with interested — rolling pickaninny eyes. A native policeman made. the centre of a whirling, vociferating group. He was a fine-looking chap, straight and soldierly, dressed — in red tarboosh, khaki coat bound close around the 64 MOMBASA waist by yards and yards of broad red webbing, loose, short drawers of khaki, bare knees and feet, and blue puttees between. His manner was inflexible. The babu jabbered excitedly; telling, in all probability, how he was innocent of fault, was late for his work, etc. Invain. He had to go; also the kid, who now, seeing himself again an object of interest, recom- menced his howling. Then the babu began franti- cally to indicate members of the crowd whom he desired to retain as witnesses. Evidently not pleased with the prospect of appearing in court, those indicated promptly ducked and ran. The policeman as promptly pursued and collared them one by one. He was a long-legged policeman, and he ran well. The moment he laid hands on a fugitive, the latter collapsed; whereupon the police- man dropped him and took after another. The joke of it was that the one so abandoned did not _ try again to make off, but stayed as though he had been tagged at some game. Finally the whole lot, still vociferating, moved off down the white road. For over an hour we hung from our window sill thoroughly interested and amused by the varied life that deployed before our eyes. The morning seemed deliciously cool after the hot night, although _ the thermometer stood 79°. The sky was very blue, _ with big piled white clouds down near the horizon. 65 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES Dazzling sun shone on the white road, the white buildings visible up and down the street, the white walls enclosing their gardens, and the greenery and colours of the trees within them. For from what we could see from our window we immediately voted tropical vegetation quite up to advertisement. Whole trees of gaudy red or yellow or bright orange blossoms, flowering vines, flowering shrubs, peered over the walls or through the fences; and behind them rose great mangoes or the slenderer shafts of bananas and coconut palms. Up and down wandered groups of various sorts of natives. A month later we would have been able to identify their different tribes and to know more about them; but now we wondered at them as strange and picturesque peoples. ‘They impressed us in gen- eral as being a fine lot of men, for they were of good — physique, carried themselves well, and looked about | them with a certain dignity and independence, a fine, free pride of carriage and of step. This fact. alone differentiated them from our own negroes; but, further, their features were in general much finer, and their skins of a clear mahogony beautiful in its satiny texture. Most — and these were the blackest — wore long white robes and fine openwork skullcaps. They were the local race, the Swahili, — had we but known it; the original “Zanzibari” who _ 66 MOMBASA furnished Livingstone, Stanley, Speke, and the other early explorers with their men. Others, however, } were much less “civilized.””» We saw one “‘Cook’s tour from the jungle” consisting of six savages, | their hair twisted into innumerable points, their | ear lobes stretched to hang fairly to their shoulders | wearing only a rather. neglectful blanket, adorned | with polished wire, carrying war clubs and bright spears. They followed, with eyes and mouths _ open, a very sophisticated-looking city cousin in the usual white garments, swinging a jaunty, light bamboo cane. The cane seems to be a distinguish- ing mark of the leisure class. It not only means _ that you are not working; but also that you have no earthly desire to work. About this time one of the hotel boys brought the inevitable chota-hahzari— the tea and biscuits of early morning. For this once it was very welcome. Our hotel proved to be on the direct line of : freighting. There are no horses or draught animals in Mombasa; the fly is too deadly. ‘Therefore all hauling is done by hand. The tiny tracks of the unique street-car system run everywhere any one _ would wish to go; branching off even into private grounds and to the very front doors of bungalows ‘situated far out of town. Each resident owns his own street car just as elsewhere a man has his 67 = se sibel’ AFRICAN CAMP FIRES own carriage. There are of course public cars also, each with its pair of boys to push it; and also a number of rather decrepit rickshaws. As a natural corollary to the passenger traffic, the freighting also is handled by the blacks on large flat trucks with — short guiding poles. These men are quite naked save for a small loin cloth, are beautifully shaped, and glisten all over from the perspiration shining in the sun. Sofine is the texture of their skins, the softness of their colour, so rippling the play of — muscles, that this shining perspiration is like a beau- tiful polish. They push from behind slowly and steadily and patiently and unwaveringly the most tremendous loads of the heaviest stuffs. When the hill becomes too steep for them, they turn their backs against the truck; and by placing one foot — behind the other, a few inches at a time, they edge — their burden up the slope. ~ The steering is done by one man at the odie or tongue in front. This individual also sets the key — to the song by which in Africa all heavy labour is — carried forward. He cries his wavering shrill-voiced — chant; the toilers utter antiphony in low gruff tones. _ At a distance one hears only the wild high syncopated 5 chanting; but as the affair draws slowly nearer, he H catches the undertone of the responses. These — latter are cast in the regular swing and rhythm of 68 Old Portuguese fort at Mombasa In the Arab quarter of Mombasa In the Swahili quarter of Mombasa The entire water supply of Mombasa is drawn from numberless picturesque wells MOMBASA effort; but the steersman throws in his bit at odd and irregular intervals. Thus: Headman (shrill): ‘‘Hay ah mon!” Pushers (gruff in rhythm): Tunk! — tunk! — q tunk! — ” or: Headman (shrill and wavering minor chant): _ “Ah— nah — nee — e-e-e!”’ __. Pushers (undertone) : “ Umbwa — jo-e! Umbwa— = jo— el” _ These wild and barbaric chantings—in the ‘ distance; near at hand, dying into distance again, _ slow, dogged, toilsome — came to be to us one of the _ typical features of the place. _ After breakfast we put on our sun helmets and _ went forth curiously to view the town. We found it _ roughly divided into four quarters — the old Portu- | guese, the Arabic, the European, and the native. The Portuguese comprises the outer fringe next the _ waterfront of the inner bay. It is very narrow of | street, with whitewashed walls, balconies, and | wonderful carven and studded doors. The business __ of the town is done here. The Arabic quarter lies back of it —a maze of narrow alleys winding aim- gi py here and there between high white buildings, _ with occasionally the minarets and towers of a mosque. This district harbours beside the upper 4 class Swahilis and Arabs a large number of East 69 >’ “Soe . AFRICAN CAMP FIRES Indians. Still back of this are thousands of the | - low grass, or mud and wattle huts of the natives, their roofs thatched with straw or palm. These are apparently arranged on little system. The small European population lives atop the sea bluffs beyond the old fort in the most attractive bungalows. This, the most desirable location of all, has remained open to them because heretofore the fierce wars with which Mombasa, “‘the Island of Blood,” has . been swept have made the exposed seaward lands impossible. No idle occupation can be more fascinating than to wander about the mazes of this ancient town. The variety of race and occupation is something astounding. Probably the one human note that, everywhere persisting, draws the whole together is furnished by the water-carriers. Mombasa has no water system whatever. The entire supply is. drawn from numberless picturesque wells scattered everywhere in the crowded centre; and distributed mainly in Standard Oil cans suspended at either end of a short pole. By dint of constant daily exer- cise, hauling water up from a depth and carrying it - various distances, these men have developed the | most beautifully powerful figures. They proceed at a half trot, the slender poles, with forty pounds at either end, seeming fairly to cut into their naked 70 MOMBASA | shoulders, muttering a word of warning to the _ loiterers at every other breath — seméelay! semée- } lay! No matter in what part of Mombasa you may _ happen to be, or at what hour of the day or night, i you will meet these industrious little men trotting | along under their burdens. _ Everywhere also are the women, carrying them- selves proudly erect, with a free swing of the hips. _ They wear invariably a single sheet of cotton cloth _ printed in blue or black with the most astonishing _ borders and spotty designs. This is drawn tight ; just above the breasts, leaving the shoulders and -arms bare. Their hair is divided into perhaps a 4 dozen parts running lengthwise of the head from the forehead to the nape of the neck, after the manner 4 of the stripes on a watermelon. Each part then ends in a tiny twisted pigtail not over an inch long. _ The lobes of their ears have been stretched until ie they hold thick round disks about three inches in _ diameter, ornamented by concentric circles of _ different colours, with a red bull’s eye for a centre. a The outer edges of the ears are then further decorated with gold clasps set closely together. Many brace- _ lets, necklaces, and armlets complete the get-up. _ They are big women, with soft velvety skins, and a proud and haughty carriage; the counterparts of _ the men in the white robes and caps. 71 re AFRICAN CAMP FIRES By the way, it may be a good place here to remark that these garments, and the patterned squares of cloth worn by the women, are invariably most spotlessly clean. These, we learned, were the Swahilis, the ruling class, the descendents of the slave traders. Beside them are all sorts and conditions. Your true savage pleased his own fancy as to dress and personal adornment. The bushmen generally shaved the edges of their wool to leave a nice close-fitting natural skullcap, wore a single blanket draped from one shoulder, and carried a war club. ‘The ear lobe seemed always to be stretched; sometimes sufficiently to have carried a pint bottle. Indeed, white marma- lade jars seemed to be very popular wear. One ingenious person had acquired a dozen of the sort — of safety pins used to fasten curtains to their rings. | These he had snapped into the lobes, six on a side y We explored for some time. One of the Swahilis attached himself to us so unobtrusively that before we knew it we had accepted him as guide. In that capacity he realized an ideal, for he never addressed a word to us, nor did he even stay in sight. We wan- dered along at our sweet will, dawdling as slowly as we pleased. The guide had apparently quite disappeared. Look where we would we could in — no manner discover him. At the next corner we 72 7 Ia MOMBASA would pause, undecided as to what to do; there in the middle distance would stand our friend, smiling. When he was sure we had seen him and were about to take the turn properly, he would disappear again. Convoyed in this pleasant fashion we wound and twisted up and down and round and about through the most appalling maze. We saw the native mar- kets with their vociferating sellers seated cross-legged on tables behind piles of fruit or vegetables, while an equally vociferating crowd surged up and down the aisles. Gray parrots and little monkeys perched everywhere about. Billy gave one of the monkeys a banana. He peeled it exactly as a man would have done, smelled of it critically, and threw it back at her in the most insulting fashion. We saw also _ the rows of Hindu shops open to the street with their _ gaudily dressed children of blackened eyelids, their ) stolid dirty proprietors, and their women marvellous in bright silks and massive bangles. In the thatched native quarter were more of the fine Swahili women sitting cross-legged on the earth under low verandas, engaged in different handicrafts; and chickens; and many amusing naked children. We made’ friends _ with many of them, communicating by laughter and by signs, while our guide stood unobtrusively in the middle distance waiting for us to come on. Just at sunset he led us out to a great open space, B AFRICAN CAMP FIRES ‘ with a tall palm in the centre of it and the gathering of a multitude of people. A muzzein was clambering into a high scaffold built of poles, whence shortly he began to intone a long-drawn-out “Allah! Allah! il Allah!” The coconut palms cut the sunset, and the boabab trees — the fat, lazy boababs — looked more monstrous than ever. We called our guide and conferred on him the munificient sum of sixteen and a half cents; with which, apparently much pleased, he departed. Then slowly we wandered back to the hotel. . 74 PART II THE SHIMBA HILLS dal, qeqeog Azer] oy Seo SP mei In the native quarter of Mombass IX A TROPICAL JUNGLE ANY months later, and after adventures else- : where described,* besides others not relevant “4 for the moment, F., an Englishman, and I returned | to Mombasa. We came from some hundred odd _ miles in the interior where we had been exploring _ for the sources and the course of the Tsavo River. _ Now our purpose was to penetrate into the low, hot ~ wooded country along the coast known as the Shimba et ills in quest of a rare beast called the sable antelope. _ These hills could be approached in one of two Ya, ways — by crossing the harbour, and then marching wo days afoot; or by voyaging up to the very end one of the long arms of the sea that extend many - fhiles inland. The latter involved dhows; depen- _ dence on uncertain winds; favourable tides and a “heap of good luck. It was less laborious but most “uncertain. At this stage of the plan the hotel : aa anager came forward with the offer of a gasoline launch, which we gladly accepted. ‘ * “Land of Footprints” 77 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES We embarked about noon, storing our native carriers and effects aboard a dhow hired for the occasion. ‘This we purposed towing. ei ’ = 125 Bais 2 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES delight. For his benefit is the wide, glittering, colourful, unsanitary bazaar, with its dozens of little — open-air veranda shops, its “hotels”? where he can sit in a real chair and drink real tea, its cafés, and the dark mysteries of its more doubtful amusements. — The bazaar is whack in the middle of town, just where it ought not to be, and it is constantly being ~ quarantined, and threatened with removal. It houses a large population mysteriously, for it is of slight extent. Then on the borders of town are the two great native villages —one belonging to the — Somalis; and the other hospitably accommodating — the swarms of caravan porters and their families. For, just as in old days Mombasa and Zanzibar used — to be the points from which caravans into the interior would set forth, now Nairobi outfits the majority — of expeditions. Probably ten thousand picked natives of various tribes are engaged in the pro-- fession. Of course but a small proportion of this — number is ever at home at any one time; but the village is a large one. Both these villages are built _ in the native style, of plaster and thatch; have their ~ own headman government — under supervision — and are kept pretty well swept out and tidy. Be- side these three main gathering places are many camps and “‘shambas’’* scattered everywhere; and ~ *Native farmlets, generally temporary. 126 PEOPLE i the back country counts millions of raw jungle } savages, only too glad to drift in occasionally for a ; look at the metropolis. At first the newcomer is absolutely bewildered by _ the variety of these peoples; but after a little he | learns to differentiate. The Somalis are perhaps the first recognizable, with their finely chiselled, J intelligent, delicate brown features, their slender q forms, and their strikingly picturesque costumes of ~ turbans, flowing robes, and embroidered sleeveless _ jackets. Then he learns to distinguish the savage i from the sophisticated dweller of the town. Later : ‘comes the identification of the numerous tribes. 4 The savage comes in just as he has been for, * Beenclogists alone can guess, how many thousands of years. He is too old an institution to have been | affected as yet by this tiny spot of modernity in the ~ middle of the wilderness. As a consequence he \ startles the newcomer even more than the sight of peretes on the skyline. When the shenzi — wild man — comes to town “he gathers in two or three of his companions, and Presents himself as follows: His hair has been _ grown quite long, then gathered in three tight pig- tails wound with leather, one of which hangs over * his forehead, and the other two over his ears. The - entire head he has then annointed with a mixture 127 rate | \ AFRICAN CAMP FIRES of castor oil and a bright red colouring earth. This is wiped away evenly all around the face, about two inches below the hair, to leave a broad, bandlike, glistening effect around the entire head. The ears are most marvellous. From early youth the lobes have been stretched, until at last they have become — like two long elastic loops, hanging down upon the shoulders, and capable of accommodating anything © up to and including a tomato can. When in fatigue uniform these loops are caught up over the tops of the - ears; but on dress parade they accommodate almost anything considered ornamental. I have seen a row of safety pins clasped in them or a number of ~ curtain rings; or a marmalade jar, or the glittering — cover of a tobacco tin. ‘The edges of the ears, all around to the top, are pierced. Then the inser- tion of a row of long, white, wooden skewers gives - one a peculiarly porcupinish look; or a row of little brass danglers hints of wealth. Having thus finished off his head, your savage clasps around his neck various strings of beads; or collars of iron or copper wire, polished to the point of glitter; puts on ~ a half dozen armlets and leglets of the same; ties on a - narrow bead belt in which is thrust a short sword; — annoints himself all over with reddened castor oil until he glistens and shines in the sun; rubs his legs — with white clay and traces patterns therein; seizes 128 — nein, sutures.ieq «, }YSTap Buses. snAnyry ‘Iqollen }e ivezeq 94} UT -I9A9u ay} pure ‘Aof ay} st aAeU oy} Ing ,, (, BAS B IAL] Py[qhos, pue ouljjus- -‘suorse1 passansun ‘umouyunN 0} PfiomM ay} Jo a8pa dy} 19A0 UO S90 + or, 3 nidey ,, PEOPLE his long-bladed spear, and is ready for the city. Oh, no! I forgot — and he probably came near doing so —his strip of *Mericani.* This was originally white, but constant wear over castor oil has turned it a uniform and beautiful brown. The purpose of this is ornament, and it is so worn. There has been an attempt, I understand, to force these innocent children to some sort of conventional decency while actually in the streets of Nairobi. _It was too large an order. Some bring in clothes, to be sure, because the white man asks it; but why no sensible man could say. They are hung from one shoulder, flap merrily in the breeze, and are always quite frankly tucked up about the neck or under _ the arms when the wearer happens to be in haste. 4 As a matter of fact, these savages are so beautifully - smoothly formed; their red-brown or chocolate- _ brown skin is so fine in texture, and their complete | unconsciousness so genuine that in an hour the new- comer is quite accustomed to their nakedness. _ These proud youths wander mincingly down the street with an expression of the most fatuous and good-natured satisfaction with themselves. To their minds they have evidently done every last thing that human ingenuity or convention could encompass. “+ White cotten cloth. 129 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES They are the dandies, the proud young aristocracy of wealth and importance; and of course they may differ individually or tribally from the sample I have offered. Also there are many other social grades, ‘Those who care less for dress or have less to get it with can rub along very cheaply. The only real essentials are (a) something for the ear — a tomato can will do; (b) a trifle for clothing — and for that a scrap of gunny sacking will be quite enough. The women to be seen in the streets of Nairobi are mostly of the Kikuyu tribe. They are pretty much of a pattern. Their heads are shaven, either completely or to leave only ornamental tufts; and are generally bound with a fine wire fillet so tightly that the strands seem to sink into the flesh. A piece of cotton cloth, dyed dark umber red, is belted around the waist, and sometimes, but not always, another is thrown about the shoulders. ‘They goin > for more hardware than do the men. The entire arms and the calves of the legs are encased in a sort of armour made of quarter-inch wire wound closely. and a collar of the same material stands out like a ruff eight or ten inches around the neck. This is wound on for keeps; and must be worn day and night and all the time, a cumbersome and tremendously heavy burden. A dozen large loops of coloured beads strung through the ears, and various strings 130 PEOPLE and necklaces of beads, cowrie shells and the like, finish them out in all their gorgeousness. They would sink like plummets. ‘Their job in life, beside lugging all this stuff about, is to carry in firewood and forage. At any time of the day long files of _them can be seen bending forward under their bur- _ dens. ‘These they carry on their backs by means _ of a strap across the tops of their heads; after the fashion of the Canadian tump line. ; The next cut above the shenzi, or wild man, is the - individual who has been on safari as carrier, or has a otherwise been much employed around white men. _ From this experience he has acquired articles of shoes. This hint of the conventional only serves to | accent the little self-satisfied excursions he makes | into barbarism. The shirt is always worn outside, "shaved in strange patterns, a tiny tight tuft on the _ crown is useful as fastening for feathers or little _ streamers or anything else that will wave or glitter. One of these individuals wore a red label he had — with patience and difficulty — removed from one of our trunks. He had pasted it on his forehead; and it read “Baggage Room, Not Wanted.” These people are, after all, but modified shenzis. The 4 On sc eet , AFRICAN CAMP FIRES modification is nearly always in the direction of the comic. Now we step up to a class that would resent being called shenzis as it would resent an insult. This is the personal servant class. ‘The members are of all tribes, with possibly a slight preponderance of Swahilis and Somalis. They are a very clean, well- groomed, self-respecting class, with a great deal of dignity and a great deal of pride in their bwanas. — Also they are exceedingly likely to degenerate unless _ ruled with a firm hand and a wise head. Very rarely are they dishonest as respects the possessions of their own masters. They understand their work | perfectly, and the best of them get the equivalent of from eight to ten dollars a month. Every white — individual has one or more of them; even the tiny children with their ridiculous little sun helmets are followed everywhere by a tall, solemn, white-robed black. Their powers of divination approach the uncanny. About the time you begin to think of wanting something, and are making a first helpless survey of a boyless landscape, your own servant suddenly, mysteriously, and unobtrusively appears from nowhere. Where he keeps himself, where he feeds himself, where he sleeps you do not know. These beautifully clean, trim, dignified people are always a pleasant accent in the varied picture. 132 PEOPLE The Somalis are a clan by themselves. A few of em condescend to domestic service, but the most prefer the free life of traders, horse dealers, gun- bearers, camel drivers, labour go-betweens, and similar guerrilla occupations. ‘They are handsome, dashing, proud, treacherous, courageous, likeable, untrustworthy. They career around on their high, short-stirruped saddles; they saunter indolently in small groups; they hang about the hotel hoping for a dicker of some kind. There is nothing of the | savage about them, but much of the true barbarian, with the barbarian’s pride, treachery, and love of - colour. 133 XVI RECRUITING ho ob THE traveller Nairobi is most interesting as — the point from which expeditions start and to which they return. Doubtless an extended stay in the country would show him that problems of ad- © ministration and possibilities of development could ~ be even more absorbing; but such things are Rte sketchy to him at first. As a usual thing, when he wants porters he picks — them out from the throng hanging around the big outfitters’ establishments. Each man is then given a blanket — cotton, but of a most satisfying red — a tin water bottle, a short stout cord, and a navy blue jersey. After that ceremony he is yours. But on the occasion of one three months’ journey into comparatively unknown country we ran up — | t against difficulties. Some two weeks before our contemplated start two or three cases of bubonic plague had been discovered in the bazaar, and as a consequence Nairobi was quarantined. This meant that a rope had been stretched around the infected 134 RECRUITING area, that the shops had been closed, and that no ' native could — officially — leave Nairobi. The lat- _ ter provision affected us; for under it we should be _ unable to get our bearers out. _ As a matter of fact, the whole performance — unofficially — was a farce. Natives conversed affa- _ bly at arm’s length across the ropes; hundreds sneaked in and out of town at will; and from the rear of the infected area I personally saw beds, chests, : household goods, blankets, and clothes, passed to friends outside the ropes. When this latter condition was reported, in my presence, to the medical officers, | they replied that this was a matter for police ' cognizance! But the brave outward show of ropes, disinfectants, gorgeous sentries —in front — and | official inspection went solemnly on. Great, even | in Africa, is the god of red tape. ' Our only possible plan, in the circumstances, was - recruit the men outside the town to camp them e — march them across country to a way station and there embark them. Our goods and Beafari stores we could then ship out to them by train. : Accordingly we rode on bicycles out to the Swahili BS _ village. This is, as I have said, composed of large “bee- _ hive” houses thatched conically with straw. The roofs extend to form verandas beneath which sit m 135 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES indolent damsels, their hair divided in innumerable tiny parts running fore and aft like the stripes on a watermelon; their figured ’Mericani garments draped gracefully. As befitted the women of plutocrats, they wore much jewellery, some of it set in their noses. Most of them did all of nothing, but some sat half buried in narrow strips of bright-coloured tissue paper. ‘These they were pasting together like rolls of tape, the coloured edges of the paper forming concentric patterns on the resultant disks — an infinite labour. The disks, when completed, were for insertion in the lobes of the ears. When we arrived the irregular “‘streets” of the village were nearly empty, save for a few elegant youths, in long kanzuas, or robes of cinnamon colour and spotless white, on their heads fezzes or turbans, — in their hands slender rattan canes. They were very busy talking to each other, and of course did not notice the idle beauties beneath the verandas. Hardly had we appeared, however, when mysteri- ously came forth the headman—a_ bearded, — solemn, Arablike person with a phenomenally ugly - face but a most pleasing smile. We told him we wanted porters. Heclapped his hands. To the four young men who answered this summons he gave a command. From sleepy indolence they sprang into life. ‘To the four cardinal points of the compass 136 ; RECRUITING they darted away, running up and down the side "streets, beating on the doors, screaming at the tops | of their lungs the word “‘Cazz’’* over and over again. _ The village hummed like a wasp’s nest. Men } poured from the huts in swarms. The streets were filled; the idle sauntering youths were swamped and sunk from view. Clamour and shouting arose where before had been a droning silence. The mob | beat up to where we stood, surrounding us, shouting | at us. From somewhere some one brought an old _ table and two decrepit chairs, battered and rickety | in themselves, but symbols of great authority in a } community where nobody habitually used either. :’ wo naked boys proudly took charge of our bicycles. We seated ourselves. “Fall in!” we yelled. About half the crowd fell into rough lines. The rest drew slightly one side. Nobody stopped talking - for a single instant. | We arose and tackled our job. The first part of | it was to segregate the applicants into their different 137 4 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES We impressed on them emphatically they must stay put, and went after, in turn, the Baganda, the Wakamba, the Swahilis, the Kavirondo, the Kikuyu. When we had them grouped, we went over them individually. We punched their chests, we ran over all their joints, we examined their feet, we felt their muscles. Our victims stood rigidly at inspection, but their numerous friends surrounded us closely, urging the claims of the man to our notice. It was | rather confusing, but we tried to go at it as though we were alone in a wilderness. If the man passed muster we motioned him to a rapidly growing group. When we had finished, we had about sixty men segregated. Then we went over this picked lot. again. This time we tried not only to get good specimens, but to mix our tribes. At last our count of twenty-nine was made up, and we took a deep breath. But to us came one of them complaining that he was a Monumwezi, and that we had picked only three Monumwezi, and We cut him short. His contention was quite correct. A porter tent holds five, and it does not do to mix tribes. Re- organization! Cut out two extra Kavirondos, and include two more Monumwezi. “Bass! finished!” Now go get your effects. We start immediately. As quickly as it had filled, the street cleared. The rejected dove back into their huts, the newly 138 at Cee RECRUITING } enlisted carriers went to collect their baggage. ‘Only remained the headman and his fierce-faced ‘assistants, and the splendid youths idling up and down — none of them had volunteered, you may be }sure—and the damsels of leisure beneath the porticos. Also one engaging and peculiar figure hovering near. _ This individual had been particularly busy during our recruiting. He had hustled the men into line, he had advised us for or against different candidates, ) he had loudly sung my praises as a man to work for, although, of course, he knew nothing about me. Now he approached, saluted, smiled. He was a tall, slenderly built person, with phenomenally long, thin legs, slightly rounded shoulders, a forward thrust, een face, and remarkably long, slim hands. With these he gesticulated much, in a right-angled fashion, after the manner of Egyptian hieroglyphical figures. _ He was in no manner shenzt. He wore a fez, a neat khaki coat and shorts, blue puttees and boots. ' Also a belt with leather pockets, a bunch of keys, a wrist watch and a seal ring. His air was of great ' elegance and social ease. We took him with us as _ Cuninghame’s gunbearer. He proved staunch, a good tracker, an excellent hunter, and a most engaging “individual. His name was Kongoni, and he was a _ Wakamba. * 139 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES But now we were confronted with a new problem: that of getting our twenty-nine chosen ones to- gether again. They had totally disappeared. In all directions we had emissaries beating up the laggards. As each man reappeared carrying his little bundle, we lined him up with his companions. Then when we turned our backs we lost him again; he had thought of another friend with whom to exchange farewells. At the long last however, we got them all collected. The procession started, the naked boys proudly wheeling our bikes alongside. We saw them fairly clear of everything, then turned — them over to Kongoni, while we returned to Nairobi to see after our effects. | 140 PART IV A LION HUNT ON KAPITI oe XVII AN OSTRICH FARM AT MACHAKOS HIS has to do with a lion hunt on the Kapiti 4 Plains. On the veranda at Nairobi I had some me previous met Clifford Hill, who had invited me to visit him at the ostrich farm he and his cousin re running in the mountains near Machakos. ome time later, a visit to Juja Farm gave me the pportunity. Juja is only a day’s ride from the fills’. So an Africander, originally from the south, aptain Duirs, and I sent across a few carriers with jour personal effects, and ourselves rode over on horse- back. | Juja is on the Athi Plains. Between the Athi and Kapiti Plains runs a range of low mountains around the end of which one can make his way as around E _ promontory. The Hills’ ostrich farm was on nig ghlands in the bay the other side of the promontory. he Tivers were up. We had to swim our horses within a half mile of Juja, and got pretty wet. Shortly after crossing the Athi, however, five miles i, 143 > : 4 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES on, we emerged on the dry, drained slopes from the hills. Here the grass was long, and the ticks plenty. Our horses’ legs and chests were black with them; and when we dismounted for lunch we our- selves were almost immediately alive with the pests. In this very high grass the game was rather scarce, but after we had climbed by insensible grades to the shorter growth we began to see many hartebeeste, zebra, and gazelles, and a few of the wildebeeste, or brindled gnus. Travel over these great plains, and through these leisurely low hills is a good deal like coastwise sailing; the same apparently unattainable landmarks which, nevertheless, are at last passed” and left astern by the same sure but insensible progress. Thus we drew up on apparently contin- uous hills, found wide gaps between them, crossed — them, and turned to the left along the other side of the promontory. About five o’clock we came to the Hills’. . ; The ostrich farm is situated on the very top of a conical rise that sticks up like an island close inshore to the semicircle of mountains in which end the i plains of Kapiti. Thus the Hills have at their backs and sides these solid ramparts and face westward the immensities of space. For Kapiti goes on over the edge of the world to unknown, unguessed region : rolling and troubled like a sea. And from that 144 ,S[eitoo ul yday are sayotjso oy ],, ‘ : wea ee | AN OSTRICH FARM AT MACHAKOS } unknown, on very still days, the snowy peak of Kilimanjaro peers out, sketched as faintly against the sky as a soap bubble wafted upward and about to disappear. Here and there on the plains kopjes } stand like islands, their stone tops looking as though thrust (from beneath) through the smooth prairie surface. To them meandered long, narrow ravines full of low brush, like thin, wavering streaks of gray. On these kopjes — each of which had its name — and in these ravines we were to hunt the lions. _ We began the ascent of the cone on which dwelt our hosts. It was one of those hills that seem in no “part steep, and yet which finally succeed in raising " one toaconsiderable height. We passed two ostrich herds in charge of savages, rode through a scattered ) mative village, and so came to the farm itself, ) ‘situated on the very summit. | The house consisted of three large circular huts, thatched neatly with papyrus stalks, and with conical roofs. These were arranged as a triangle, _ just touching each other; and _ the space between had been roofed over to form a veranda. We were ushered i in to one of these circular rooms. It was spacious and contained two beds, two chairs, a _areseer, and a table. Its earth floor was completely sovered by the skins of animals. In the correspond- ing room, opposite, slept our hosts; while the third 145 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES hut was the living and dining-room. A long table, rawhide bottomed chairs, a large sideboard, book- cases, a long easy settee with pillows, gun racks, photographs in and out of frames,a table with writing materials, and books and magazines everywhere — not to speak of again the skins of many animals completely covering the floor. Out behind, in small separate buildings functioned the cook, and dwelt © the stores, the bathtub, and other such necessary ~ affairs. As soon as we had consumed the usual grateful ~ lime juice and sparklets, we followed our hosts into © open air to look around. ’ On this high, airy hilltop the Hills some dey are | going to build them a real house. In anticipation — they have laid out grounds and have planted many things. In examining these my California training stood by me. Out there, as here, one so often examines his own and his neighbours’ gardens not for what they are but for what they shall become. His imagination can exalt this tiny seedling to the impressiveness of spreading noontime shade; can magnify yonder apparent duplicate to the full symmetry of a shrub; can ruthlessly diminish the present importance of certain grand and lof growths to their true status of flower or annual. | from a dead uniformity of size he casts forward i 146 AN OSTRICH FARM AT MACHAKOS ~ the years to a pleasing variation of shade, of jungle, a of open glade, of flowered vista; and he goes away " full of expert admiration for “X.’s bully garden.” _ With this solid training beneath me I was able on _ this occasion to please immensely. _ From the house site we descended the slope to where the ostriches and the cattle and the people were in the last sunlight swarming upward from the _ plains pastures below. ‘These people were to the most extent Wakamba, quite savage, but attracted _ here by the justness and fair dealing of the Hills. i Some of them farmed on shares with the Hills, the _ white men furnishing the land and seed, and the ' black men the labour; some of them laboured on wage; some few herded cattle or ostriches; some ~ were hunters, and took the field only when, as now, | serious business was afoot. They had their complete villages, with priests, witch doctors, and all; and they _ seemed both contented and fond of the two white men. bs As we walked about we learned much of the ostrich business; and in the course of our ten days’ | Visit we came to a better realization of how much | there is to think of in what appears basically so 5 _ simple a proposition. e In the nesting time, then, the Hills went out over ¥ “the Open country, sometimes for days at a time, J 147 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES armed with long high-power telescopes. With these fearsome and unwieldy instruments they surveyed the country inch by inch from the advan- tage of a kopje. When thus they discovered a nest, | they descended and appropriated the eggs. The latter, hatched at home in an incubator, formed the nucleus of a flock. Pass the raising of ostrich chicks to full size through the difficulties of disease, wild beasts, and sheer cussedness. Of the resultant thirty birds or so of the season’s catch but two or three will even promise good production. These must be bred in captivity with other likely specimens. ‘Thus after several years the industrious ostrich farmer may — become possessed of a few really prime birds. To accumulate a proper flock of such in a new country is a matter of a decade or so. Extra prime birds are ~ as well known, and as much in demand for breeding as any blooded horse in a racing country. Your true ostrich enthusiast, like the Hills, possesses trunks full of feathers, not good commercially, but intensely interesting for comparison and for the purposes of prophecy. While I stayed with them came a rumour of a very fine plucking a distant neighbour had just finished from a likely two-year- old. The Hills were manifestly uneasy until one of them had ridden the long distance to compare 148 AN OSTRICH FARM AT MACHAKOS } this newcomer’s product with that of their own two- - year-olds. And I shall never forget the reluctantly _ admiring shake of the head with which he acknowl- _ ledged that it was indeed a “‘very fine feather!” _ But getting the birds is by no means all of ostrich _ farming, as many eager experimenters have dis- _ covered to their cost. The birds must have a certain sort of pasture land; and their paddocks _ must be built on an earth that will not soil or break the edges of the new plumes. And then there is the constant danger of wild _ beasts. When a man has spent years in gathering suitable flocks, he cannot be blamed for wild anger _ when, as happened while I was in the country, lions kill sixty or seventy birds in a night. The ostrich seems to tempt lions greatly. The beasts will _ make their way through and over the most compli- _ cated defences. Any ostrich farmer’s life is a constant warfare against them. ‘Thus the Hills had slain sixty-eight lions in and near their farm — | 4 a tremendous record. Still the beasts continued to come in. My hosts showed me with considerable | _ pride their arrangements finally evolved for night protection. _. The ostriches were confined in a series of heavy - corrals segregating the birds of different ages. _ Around the outside of this group of enclosures ran 149 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES a wide ring corral in which were confined the nu- ~ merous cattle; and as an outer wall to this were built — the huts of the Wakamba village.” Thus to pene- | trate to the ostriches the enterprising lion would have to pass both the people, the cattle, and the — strong thorn and log structures that contained them. This subject brings me to another set of acquaint- ~ ances we had already made — the dogs. These consisted of an Airedale named Ruby; two setters called Wayward and Girlie; a heavy black — mongrel, Nero; ditto brindle, Ben; and a smaller — black and white ditto, Ranger. They were very nice, friendly doggy dogs, but they did not look like lion hunters. Nevertheless, Hill assured us that — they were of great use in the sport, and promised us — that on the following day we should see just how. 150 XVIII THE FIRST LIONESS | T AN early hour we loaded our bedding, food, tents, and camp outfit on a two-wheeled wagon drawn by four of the humpbacked native oxen, _ and sent it away across the plains with instructions : to make camp on a certain kopje. Clifford Hill and myself, accompanied by our gunbearers and ' syces, then rode leisurely down the length of a _ shallow brushy cafion for a mile or so. There we _ dismounted and sat down to await the arrival of _ the others. These — including Harold Hill, Captain _ Duirs, five or six Wakamba spearmen, our own - carriers, and the dogs —came along more slowly, _ beating the bottoms on the off chance of game. _ The sun was just warming, and the bees and insects were filling the air with their sleepy droning - sounds. The sidehill opposite showed many little | outcrops of rocks so like the hills of our own Western | States that it was somewhat difficult to realize that __ we were in Africa. For some reason the delay was long. Then suddenly all four of us simultaneously = ISI AFRICAN CAMP FIRES saw the same thing. A quarter mile away and on the sidehill opposite a magnificent lioness came loping easily along through the grass. She looked very small at that distance, like a toy, and quite unhurried. Indeed, every few moments she paused to look back in an annoyed fashion over her shoulder in the direction of the row behind her. There was nothing to do but sit tight and wait. The lioness was headed exactly to cross our front; nor, except at one point, was she at all likely to deviate. A shallow tributary ravine ran into our own about two hundred yards away. She might possibly sneak down the bed of this. It seemed unlikely. The going was bad, and in addition © she had no idea as yet that she had been sighted. — Indeed, the chances were that she would come to a definite stop before making the crossing, in which case we would get a shot. “And if she does go down the donga,”’ whispered Hill, “‘the dogs will locate her.” Sitting still while things approach is always excit- ing. ‘This is true of ducks; but when you multiply ducks by lions it is still more true. We all crouched very low in the grass. She leaped without hesitation into the ravine — and did not emerge. | This was a disappointment. We concluded she must have entered the stream bottom, and were 152 THE FIRST LIONESS | just about to move when Memba Sasa snapped his fingers. His sharp eyes had discovered her sneaking along, belly to the ground, like the cat she was. The explanation of this change in her gait was | simple. Our companions had rounded the corner of the hill and were galloping in plain view a half mile away. ‘The lioness had caught sight of them. _ She was gliding by, dimly visible, through thick _ brush seventy yards distant. Now I could make out a tawny patch that faded while I looked; now © _ I could merely guess at a melting shadow. “Stir her up,” whispered Hill. “Never mind | whether you hit. She’ll sneak away.” At the shot she leaped fully out into the open with a snarl. Promptly I planted a Springfield bullet | inher ribs. She answered slightly to the hit but did | not shift position. Her head up, her tail thrashing | from side to side, her ears laid back, she stood there ! looking the landscape over carefully point by point. _ She was searching for us, but as yet could not locate ry It was really magnificent. | I attempted to throw in another cartridge, but | because of my desire to work the bolt quietly, in ie order not to attract the lioness’s attention, I did not | pull it back far enough, and the cartridge jammed in the magazine. As evidence of Memba Sasa’s E ‘coolness and efficiency, it is to be written that he 153 , AFRICAN CAMP FIRES became aware of this as soon as I dids He thrust the .405 across my right side, at the same time with- drawing the Springfield on the left. The motion was slight, but the lioness caught it. Immediately she dropped her head and charged. For the next few moments, naturally, I was pretty intent on lions. Nevertheless a corner of my mind was aware of Memba Sasa methodically picking © away at the jammed rifle, and paying no attention whatever tothe beast. Also I heard Hill making picturesque*r emarks about his gunbearer, who had © bolted with his second gun. The lioness charged very fast, but very straight, — about in the tearing, scrambling manner of a terrier — after a thrown ball. I got in the first shot as she came, the bullet ranging back from the shoulder and ~ Hill followed it immediately with another from his — .404 Jeffrey. She growled at the bullets, and checked - very slightly as they hit, but gave no other sign. Then our second shots hit her both together. The mere shock stopped] her short, but recovering instantly, she sprang forward again. Hill’s third shot came next, and perceptibly slowed and staggered but did not stop her. By this time she was quite close, and my own third shot reached her brain. She rolled over dead. Decidedly she was a game bentk and stood more 154 ei — an © THE FIRST LIONESS | hammering than any other lion I killed or saw killed. Before the final shot in the brain she had _ taken one light bullet and five heavy ones with hardly a wince. Memba Sasa uttered a loud grunt of _ satisfaction when she went down for keeps. He had the Springfield reloaded and cocked, right at my elbow. Hill’s gunboy hovered uncertainly some distance ‘in the rear. The sight of the charging lioness had been too much for him and he had bolted. He was not actually up astree; but he stood very near one. He lost the gun and acquired a swift kick. Our friends and the men now came up. ‘The dogs ‘made a great row over the dead lioness. She was measured and skinned to accompaniment of the | usual low-hummed chantings. We had with us a small boy of ten or twelve years whose job it was to take care of the dogs and to remove ticks. In fact he was known as the Tick Toto. As this was his first expedition afield, his father took especial pains to smear him with fat from the lioness. This was to make him brave. I am bound to confess the effect was not immediate. fi : 155 ia Lo ae : . 4 . XIX THE DOGS SOON discovered that we were hunting lions with the assistance of the dogs; not that the © dogs were hunting lions. They had not lost any lions, not they! My mental pictures of the snarl- ing, magnificent king of beasts surrounded by an equally snarling, magnificent pack vanished into’ thin air. | Our system was to cover as much likely country — as we could, and to let the dogs have a good time. As I have before indicated, they were thoroughly — doggy dogs, and interested in everything — except | able-bodied lions. None of the stick-at-your-heels : in their composition. They ranged far and wide through all sorts of cover seeking what they could find in the way of porcupines, mongoose, hares, birds, cats and whatever else should interest any healthy-minded dog. If there happened to be any lions in the path of these rangings, the dogs retired rapidly, discreetly, and with every symptom of horrified disgust. If a dog came sailing out of a 156 THE DOGS } thicket, ki-yi-ing agitatedly, and took up his position, tail between his legs, behind his master, we knew there was probably a lion about. Thus we hunted lions with dogs. _ But in order to be fair to these most excellent canines, it should be recorded that they recovered a certain proportion of their nerve after a rifle had ‘been fired. They then returned warily to the — ‘not attack — reconnaissance. This trait showed ‘touching faith, and was a real compliment to the ' marksmanship of their masters. Some day it will be misplaced. A little cautious scouting on their part located the wounded beast; whereupon, at a respectful distance, they lifted their voices. As a large element of danger in case of a wounded lion is the uncertainty as to his whereabout, it will be seen that the dogs were very valuable indeed. They seemed to know exactly how badly hit an animal might happen to be, and to gauge their distance ac- cordingly, until at last, when the quarry was ham- nered to harmlessness, they closed in and began so worry the nearly lifeless carcass. By this policy the dogs had a lot of fun hunting on their own hook, preserved their lives from otherwise inevitable €xtinction, and were of great assistance in saving - their masters’ skins. a One member of the pack, perhaps two, were, 157 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES however, rather pathetic figures. I refer to the setters, Wayward and Girlie. Ranger, Ruby, Ben, and Nero scampered merrily over the land-— scape after anything that stirred, from field mice to serval cats. All was game to their catholic tastes; and you may be sure, in a country like Africa, © they had few dull moments. But Wayward and — Girlie had been brought up in a more exclusive ; manner. Their instincts had been supplemented © by a rigorous early training. Game to them meant birds, and birds only. Furthermore, they had been — solemnly assured by human persons in whom they - had the utmost confidence that but one sequence © of events was permissible or even thinkable in the presence of game. The Dog at first intimation by scent must convey the fact to the Man, must proceed cautiously to locate exactly, must then stiffen to a point which he must hold staunchly, no matter how distracting events might turn out, of how long an interval might elapse. The Man must next walk up the birds; shoot at them, perhaps kill one, then command the Dog to retrieve. The Dog must on no account move from his tracks until such command is given. All the affair is perfectly simple; _ but quite inflexible. Any variation in this procedure fills the honest bird dog’s mind with the same horror and dismay experienced by a well-brought-up young 158 THE DOGS _ man who discovers that he has on shoes of the wrong colour. It isn’t done, you know. _ Consider then Wayward and Girlie in a country full of game birds. They quarter wide to right, then cross to left, their heads high, their feather ) tails waving in the most approved good form. When they find birds they draw to their points in the best possible style; stiffen out—and wait. It is 7 now, according to all good ethics, up to the Man. And the Man and his companions go right on by, " paying absolutely no attention either to the situation or our own magnificent piece of work! What is one to conclude? That our early training is all wrong? that we are at one experience to turn apostate to the ‘settled and only correct order of things? Or that Our masters are no gentlemen. ‘That is a pretty difficult thing, an impossible thing, to conclude of | one’s own master. But it leaves one in a fearful state mentally; and one has no idea of what to do! _ Wayward was a perfect gentleman, and he played ‘the game according to the very best traditions. | I e conscientiously pointed every bird he could get | ‘hisnoseon. Furthermore he was absolutely staunch and held his point even when the four non-bird dogs | rushed in ahead of him. The expression of puzzle- ment, grief, shock and sadness in his eyes deepened as bird after bird soared awav without a shot. 159 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES Girlie was more liberal-minded. She pointed her birds, and backed Wayward at need, but when the other dogs rushed her point, she rushed too. And when we swept on by her, leaving her on point; instead of holding it quixotically, as did Wayward, until the bird sneaked away; she merely waited until we were out of sight, and then tried to catch it. Finally Captain Duirs remarked that lions or no lions he was not going to stand it any longer. He got out a shotgun and all one afternoon killed grouse over Wayward, to the latter’s intense relief. His ideals had been rehabilitated. 160 XX BONDONI E followed many depressions, in which might . be lions, until about three o’clock in the _ afternoon. Then we climbed the gently rising long slope that culminated, far above the plains, in the _ peak of a hill called Bondoni. From a distance ‘a it was steep and well defined; but, like most of these larger kopjes, its actual ascent, up to the last few hundred feet, was so gradual that we hardly knew _ we were climbing. At the summit we found our men and the bullock cart. There also stood an _ oblong blockhouse of stone, the walls two feet thick . and ten feet high. It was entered only by a blind a angle passage; and was strong enough apparently _ to resist small artillery. This structure was simply an ostrich corral! and bitter experience had shown _ the massive construction absolutely necessary as adequate protection, in this exposed and solitary spot, against the lions. a We had some tea and bread and butter, and then Fo Clifford Hill and I set out afoot after meat. Only a 161 =. AFRICAN CAMP FIRES occasionally do these hard-working settlers get a chance for hunting on the plains so near them; and now they had promised their native retainers that they would send back a treat of game. To carry this promised luxury a number of the villagers had accompanied the bullock wagon. As we were to move on next day, it became very desirable to get the meat promptly while still near home. We slipped over to the other side, and by good fortune caught sight of a dozen zebras feeding in scrub halfway down the hill. They were out of their proper environment up there, but we were glad of it. Down on our tummies then we dropped; and crawled slowly forward through the high, sweet grasses. We were in the late afternoon shadow of the hill, and we enjoyed the mild skill of the stalk. Taking advantage of every cover, slipping over into _ little ravines, lying very flat when one of the beasts raised his head, we edged nearer and nearer. We were already well within range, but it amused us to play the game. Finally, at one hundred yards, we came to a halt. The zebra showed very hand- some at that range, for even their smaller leg stripes were all plainly visible. Of course at that distance there could be small chance of missing, and we downed one each. The Wakamba, who had been watching eagerly, swarmed down shouting. 162 oe tm BONDONI We dined just at sunset under a small tree at the very top of the peak. Long bars of light shot - through the western clouds; the plain turned from _ solid earth to a mysterious sea of shifting twilights; _ the buttes stood up wrapped in veils of soft desert | colours; Kilimanjaro hung suspended like a rose- coloured bubble above the abyss beyond the world. XXI RIDING THE PLAINS ROM the mere point of view of lions, lion hunting was very slow work indeed. It meant riding all of long days, from dawn until dark, investigating miles of country that looked all alike and in which we seemed to get nowhere. One by one the long billows of plain fell behind, until our camphill had turned blue behind us, and we seemed to be out in illimitable space, with no possibility, in an ordinary lifetime, of ever getting in touch with anything again. What from above had looked | as level as a floor now turned into a tremendously wide and placid ground swell. As a consequence we were always going imperceptibly up and up and up to a long-delayed skyline, or tipping as gently down the other side of the wave. From crest to crest of these long billows measured two or three miles. The vertical distance in elevation from — trough to top was perhaps not over fifty to one- hundred feet. | Slowly we rode along the shallow grass and brush 164 RIDING THE PLAINS ravines in the troughs of the low billows, while the dogs worked eagerly in and out of cover, and our handful of savages cast stones and shouted. Oc- casionally we divided forces and beat the length of a hill, two of us lying in wait at one end for the possible lion, the rest sweeping the sides and sum- mits. Many animals came bounding along, but no lions. Then Harold Hill, unlimbering a huge, - many-jointed telescope, would lie flat on his back and sight the fearsome instrument over his crossed } feet, in a general bird’s eye view of the plains for | _ miles around. While he was at it we were privileged |} to look about us less under the burden of respon- sibility. We could make out the game as little, _ light-coloured dots and speckles, thousands upon thousands of them, thicker than cattle ever grazed _ on the open range, and as far as the eye could make _ them out, and then a glance through our glasses _ picked them up again for mile after mile. Even | the six-power could go no farther. The imagina- | _ tion was left the vision of more leagues of wild animals even to the half-guessed azure mountains |} —andbeyond. Ihad.seen abundant game elsewhere q in Africa, but nothing like the multitudes inhabiting | the Kapiti Plains at that time of year. In other | a seasons this locality is comparatively deserted. The ’scope revealing nothing in our line, we rode 165 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES again to the lower levels, and again took up our slow, painstaking search. But although three days went Ly in this manner without our getting a glimpse of lions, they were far from being days lost. Minor adventure filled our hours. What elsewhere would be major interest of strange and interesting experience met us at every turn. The game, while abundant, was very shy. This had nothing to do with distrust of hunters; but merely to the fact that it was the season of green grass. We liked to come upon animals un- expectedly, to see them buck-jump and cavort. Otherwise we rode in a moving space cleared of animals, the beasts unobtrusively giving way before us, and as unobtrusively closing in behind. The sun flashed on the spears of savages travelling single file across the distance. Often we stopped short to gaze upon a wild and tumbled horizon of storm that Gustave Doré might have done. The dogs were always joyously routing out some beast, desirable from their point of view, and chasing it hopelessly about, to our great amusement. Once they ran into a giant porcupine — about the size a setter would be with shorter legs — which did not understand running away. They came upon it in a dense thicket, and the ensuing row was unholy. They managed to kill the porcupine among them, 166 RIDING THE PLAINS after which we plucked barbed quills from some very grieved dogs. ‘The quills were large enough to make excellent penholders. ‘The dogs also swore by all canine gods that they wouldn’t do a thing to a hyena, if only they could get hold of one. They never got hold of one, for the hyena is a coward. His skull and teeth, however, are as big and powerful as those of a lioness; so I do not know which was luckiest in his avoidance of trouble — he or the dogs. Nor from the shooting standpoint did we lack for sport. We had to shoot for our men; and we occasionally needed meat ourselves. It was always interesting, when such necessities arose, to stalk the shy bucks and do long-range rifle practice. _ This shooting, however, was done only after the _ day’s hunt was over. We had no desire to spoil our lion chances. The long circle toward our evening camp always _ proved very long indeed. We arrived at dusk to | find supper ready for us. As we were old cam- __paigners we ate this off chop boxes as tables, and sat | on the ground. It was served by a Wakamba _ youth we had nicknamed Herbert Spencer, on ac- count of his gigantic intellect. Herbert meant well, but about all he succeeded in accomplishing was a | pathetically wrinkled brow of care and scared eyes. _ He had never been harshly treated by any of us, a 167 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES but he acted as though always ready to bolt. If there were twenty easy right methods of doing a thing and one difficult wrong method, Herbert would get the latter every time. No amount of experience could teach him the logic of our simplest ways. One evening he brought a tumbler of mixed water and condensed milk. Harold Hill glanced into the receptacle. “Stir it,’ he commanded briefly. Herbert Spencer obeyed. We talked about some- thing else. Some five or ten minutes later one of us noticed that Herbert was still stirring, and called attention to the fact. When the latter saw our eyes were on him he speeded up until the spoon fairly rattled in the tumbler. Then when he thought our attention had relaxed again, he relaxed also his efforts. The spoon travelled slower and slower in its dreamy circle. We amused ourselves for some time thus. ‘Then we became so weak from laughter that we fell backward off our seats and some one gasped a command that Herbert cease. I am afraid, after a little, that we rather enjoyed mildly tormenting poor Herbert Spencer. He tried so hard, and looked so scared, and was so unbeliev- ably stupid! Almost always he had to pick his orders word by word from a vast amount of high- flown, unnecessary English. 168 Re Mw KL ;,SSBoIvd ssopos] Ajavau oy} AiIOM 0} URZIq pu UI posojD ADT], 1 wioly ~ safdoyx ay} uO it Swe RIDING THE PLAINS _ “© Herbert Spencer,” the command would run, “if you would condescend to bend your mighty intellect to the lowly subject of maji, and will snatch time from your profound cerebrations to assure its | being moto sana, I would esteem it infinite conde- ‘scension on your part to lete pest pest.” And Herbert, listening to all this with a painful, ‘strained intensity, would catch the six key words, and would falter forth a trembling “N’dio bwana.” _ Somewhere down deep within Herbert Spencer’s _ make up, however, was a moral sense of duty. When we finally broke camp for keeps, on the great hill of Lucania, Herbert Spencer, relieved from his job, bolted like a shot. As far as we could see him he was running at top speed. If he had not possessed a sense of duty, he would have done this long ago. _ We camped always well up on some of the numer- ous hills; for, although anxious enough to find lions in the daytime, we had no use for them at all by night. This usually meant that the boys had to carry water some distance for the benefit of the dogs. We kept a canvas bathtub full from which they could drink at any time. This necessary privilege : ter a hard day nearly drove Captain Duirs crazy. _ It happened like this: We were riding along the slope of a sidehill, when AFRICAN CAMP FIRES saw something dark pop up in sight and then down \ again. We shouted to some of the savage Wakamba ~ to go investigate. They closed in from all sides, — their long spears poised to strike. At the last mo- ment out darted, not an animal, but a badly fright-_ ened old man armed with bow and arrow. He dashed out under the upraised spears, clasped one of the men around the knees, and implored protec- tion. Our savages, their spears ready, glanced over their shoulders for instruction. ‘They would have liked nothing better than to have spitted the poor old fellow. We galloped down as fast as possible to the rescue. — With reluctance our spearmen drew back, releasing - their prize. We picked up his scattered bows and — arrows, restored them to him, and uttered many reassurances. He was so badly frightened that he could not stand for the trembling of his knees. Undoubtedly he thought that war had broken out and that he was the first of its unconscious victims. After calming him down, we told him what we were doing, and offered to shoot him meat if he cared to accompany us. He accepted the offer with joy. So pleased, and relieved, was he that he slipped about like a young and nimble goat. His hunting companion, who all this time had stood atop a hill at a safe distance, viewed these performances with 170 RIDING THE PLAINS | concern. Our captive shouted loudly for him to come join us and share in the good fortune. Not he! he knew a trap when he saw one! Not a bit dis- | turbed by the tales this man would probably carry back home, our old fellow attached himself to us for three days! _ Near sundown, to make our promise good, and E Iso to give our own men a feast, I shot two harte- beeste near camp. _ The evening was beautiful. The Machakos Range, “miles distant across the valley, was mantled with thick, soft clouds. From our elevation we could see over them, and catch the glow of moonlight on their upper surfaces. We were very tired, so we turned in early and settled ourselves for a good rest. - Outside our tent the little “Injun fire’ we had | built for our own comfort died down to coals. A short distance away, however, was a huge bonfire around which all the savages were gathered. They _ squatted comfortably on their heels, roasting meat. dehind each man was planted his glittering long- bladed spear. The old man held the place of honour, as befitted his flirtation with death that morning. _ Everybody was absolutely happy —a good fire, _ plenty of meat, and strangers with whom to have a grand “‘shauri.” The clatter of tongues was a babel, for almost every one talked at once and ex- 171 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES citedly. Those who did not talk crooned weird, © improvised chants in which they detailed the doings | of the camp. We fell very quickly into the half doze of too” great exhaustion. It never became more than a half doze. I suppose every one who reads this has had at some time the experience of dropping asleep to the accompaniment of some noise that ought soon to cease — a conversation in the next room, singing, the barking of a dog, the playing of music, or the like. The fact that it ought soon to cease permits the falling asleep. When after an interval the subconsciousness finds the row still going on, inexcusable and unabated, it arouses the victim to staring exasperation. That was our case here. Those natives should_have turned in for sleep after | a reasonable amount of powwow. ‘They did nothing of the kind. On the contrary, I dragged reluctantly back to consciousness and the realization that they had quite happily settled down to make a night of it. I glanced across the little tent to where Cap- tain Duirs lay on his cot. He was staring straight upward, his eyes wide open. After a few seconds he slipped out softly and silently. Our little fire had sunk to embers. A dozen sticks radiated from the centre of coals. Each made a firebrand with one end cool to the 172 RIDING THE PLAINS | grasp. Captain Duirs hurled one of these at the devoted and unconscious group. It whirled through the air and fell plunk in the other fire, scattering sparks and coals in all direc- ) tions. The second was under way before the first had landed. It hit a native with ditto ditto results plus astonished and grieved language. ‘The rest followed in rapid-magazine fire. Every one hit its ‘mark fair and square. The air was full of sparks exploding in all directions; the brush was full of Wakamba, their blankets flapping in the breeze of their going. The convention was adjourned. There fell the sucking vacuum of a great silence. Captain Duirs, breathing righteous wrath, flopped eavily and determinedly down on his cot. I caught a faint snicker from the tent next door. | Captain Duirs sighed deeply, turned over, and | prepared to sleep. Then one of the dogs uprose — I think it was Ben — stretched himself, yawned, ap- proached deliberately, and began to drink from the canvas bathtub just outside. He drank — lap lap lap lap lap — for a very long time. It seemed in- credible that any mere dog — or canvas bathtub — could hold so much water. The steady repetition of this sound long after it should logically have ceased was worse than the shenzi gathering around the fire. Each lap should have been the last, but 173 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES it was not. The shenzi convention had been abated with firebrands, but the dog was strictly within his rights. The poor pups had had a long day with little water, and they could hardly be blamed for feeling a bit feverish now. At last Ben ceased. Next morning Captain Duirs claimed vehemently - that he had drunk two hours forty-nine minutes and — ten seconds. With a contented sigh Ben lay down. Then Ruby got up, shook herself, and yawned. A bright idea struck her. She too went over and took adrink. After that I, personally, went to sleep. But in the morning I found Captain Duirs staring-eyed and strung nearly to madness, trying feverishly to calculate how seven dogs drinking on an average of three hours apiece could have finished by morning. — When Harold Hill innocently asked if he had slept well, the captain threw the remaining but now extinct firebrand at him. | One of the safari boys, a big Baganda, had twisted his foot a little, and it had swelled up considerably. — In the morning he came to have it attended to. The obvious treatment was very hot water and rest; but it would never do to tell him so. The recom- mendation of so simple a remedy would lose me his faith. So I gave him a little dab of tick ointment wrapped in a leaf. “This,” said I, “is most wonderful medicine; but 174 RIDING THE PLAINS | it is also most dangerous. If you were to rub it on your foot or your hand or any part of you, that ‘part would drop off. But if you wash the part in very hot water continuously for a half hour, and then put on the medicine, it is good, and will cure you very soon.” I am sure I do not know what they put in tick ointment; nor for the purpose did ‘it greatly matter. _ That night, also, Herbert Spencer capped the climax of his absurdities. The chops he had cooked did not quite suffice for our hunger, so we instructed him to give us some of the leg. By this we meant steak of course. Herbert Spencer was gone so long a time that finally we went to see what possibly could be the matter. We found him trying des- perately to cook the whole leg in a frying pan! an : 175 XXII THE SECOND LIONESS OW our luck changed most abruptly. We had been riding since early morning over the wide plains. By and by we came to a wide, shallow, flood-water course, carpeted with lava, boulders and scant, scattered brush. Two of us took one side of it, and two the other. At this we were just within hailing distance. The boys wan-. dered down the middle. 7 Game was here very abundant, and in this broken country proved quite approachable. I saw one Grant’s gazelle head, in especial, that greatly tempted me; but we were hunting lions, and other: shooting was out of place. Also the prospects for lions had brightened, for we were continually seein hyenas in packs of from three to six. They lay among the stones, but galloped away at our ap proach. ‘The game paid not the slightest attentio to these huge, skulking brutes. One passed withi twenty feet of a hartebeeste; the latter hardly glanced at him. As the hyena is lazy as well as cowardly, 176 THE SECOND LIONESS and almost never does his killing, we inferred from the presence of so many a good supply of lion-killed meat. From a tributary ravine we flushed nineteen! _. Harold Hill was riding with me on the right bank. | His quick.eye caught a glimpse of something beyond | our companions on the left side. A glance through the glasses showed me that it was a lion, just dis- appearing over the hill. At once we turned our ‘horses to cross. It was a mean job. We were | naturally in a tremendous hurry; and the footing among those boulders and rounded rocks was so vile that a very slow trot was the best we could | accomplish. And that was only by standing in | our stirrups, and holding up our horses’ heads by } main strength. We reached the skyline in time to } see a herd of game stampeding away from a de- pression a half mile away. We fixed our eyes on that point, and a moment later saw the lion or lioness, as it turned out, leap a little gully and make out the other side. _ The footing down this slope too was appalling, _ consisting mainly of chunks of lava interspersed with | smooth, rounded stones and sparse tufts of grass. | Ir spite of the stones we managed a sort of stumbling ’ gallop. Why we did not all go down in a heap, | Ido not know. At any rate we had no chance to 177 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES watch our quarry, for we were forced to keep our eyes strictly to our way. When finally we emerged from that tumble of rocks, she had disappeared. Either she had galloped out over the plains, or she had doubled back to take cover in the ravine. In the latter case she would stand. Our first job, therefore, was to determine whether she had escaped over the open country. To this end we galloped our horses madly in four different directions, push- ing them to the utmost, swooping here and there in wide circles. ‘That was an exhilarating ten minutes until we had surmounted every billow of the plain, spied in all directions, and assured ourselves beyond | doubt that she had not run off. The horses fairly flew, spurning the hard sod, leaping the rock dikes, skipping nimbly around the pig holes, turning like cow-ponies under pressure of knee and rein. Finally we drew up, converged, and together jogged our sweating horses back to the ravine. There wef learned from the boys that nothing more had been seen of our quarry. We dismounted, handed our mounts to thei syces, and prepared to make afoot a clean swee of the wide, shallow ravine. Here was where th dogs came in handy. We left a rear guard of two men, and slowly began our beat. The ravine could hardly be called a ravine; rather} 178 cs THE SECOND LIONESS a shallow depression with banks not over a foot high, and with a varying width of from two to two- } hundred feet. The grass grew very patchy, and not very high; in fact, it seemed hardly tall enough to } conceal anything as large as a lioness. We men walked along the edge of this depression, while the dogs ranged back and forth in its bottom. _ We had gone thus a quarter mile when one of the rear guard came running up. “Bwana,” said he, ‘we have seen the lioness. She is lying in a patch of grass. After you had passed, we saw her raise her head.” _ It seemed impossible that she should have escaped both our eyes and the dogs’ noses, but we returned. The man pointed out a thin growth of dried, yellow srass ten feet in diameter. Then it seemed even more incredible. Apparently we could look right through every foot of it. The man persisted so we advanced in battle array. At thirty yards Captain " Duirs saw the black tips of her ears. We all looked hard, and at last made her out, lying very flat, her head betwgen her paws. Even then she was _ shadowy and unreal, and, as I have said, the cover “did not look thick enough to conceal a good-sized dog. _ As though she realized she had been sighted, she at this moment leaped to her feet. Instantly I 179 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES put a.405 bullet into her shoulder. Any other lion — I ever saw or heard of would in such circumstances © and at such a distance immediately have charged home. She turned tail and ran away. I missed her as she ran, then knocked her down with a third shot. She got up again, but was immediately hit by Captain Duir’s .350 Magnum and brought to a halt. The dogs, seeing her turn tail and hearing our shots, had scrambled madly after her. We dared not shoot again for fear of hitting one of them; so we dashed rapidly into the grass and out the other side. Before we could get to her, she had sent Ruby flying through the air, and had then fallen” over dead. Ruby got off lucky with only a decry gash the length of her leg. | This was the only instance I experienced of a wounded lion showing the white feather. She was, however, only about three quarters grown, and was suffering from diarrhoea. 180 XXIII THE BIG LION 3 HE boys skinned her while we ate lunch. q Then we started several of them back toward camp with the trophy, and ourselves cut across country to a small river known as the Stony Athi. There we dismounted from our horses, and sent them and the boys atop the ridge above the stream, while we ourselves explored afoot the side hill along _ the river. _ This was a totally different sort of country from “that to which we had been accustomed. Imagine ‘avery bouldery side hill planted thickly with knee- - high blackberry vines and more sparsely with higher bushes. They were not really blackberry vines, of course, but their tripping, tangling, spiky quali- _ ties were the same. We had to force our way through these, or step from boulder to boulder. Only very rarely did we get a little rubbly clear _ space to walk in, and then for only ten or twenty ' feet. We tried in spaced intervals to cover the a whole side hill. It was very hard work. The boys, ‘: 181 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES z rp eee sy See sey with the horses, kept pace with us on the gkyline i atop, and two or three hundred yards away. We had proceeded in this fashion for about a — mile, when suddenly and most unexpectedly, the biggest lion I ever saw leaped straight up from a bush twenty-five yards in front of me and with a tremendous roar vanished behind another bush. I had just time to throw up the .405 shotgun-fashion ~ and let drive a snap shot. Clifford Hill, who was ten yards to my right, saw the fur fly, and we all heard the snarl as the bullet hit. Naturally we expected an instant charge, but, as things turned out, it was evident the lion had not seen us at all. He had leaped at the sight of our men and horses on the skyline, and when the bullet hit he must have ascribed it to them. At any rate, he began to circle through the tangled vines toward their direc- © tion. From their elevation they could follow his move- ments. At once they set up howls of terror and appeals for help. Some began frantically to run back and forth. None of them tried to run away; there was nowhere to go! The only thing that saved them was the thick and spiky character of the cover. The lion, instead of charging straight and fast, was picking an easy way. 182 THE BIG LION We tore directly up hill as fast as we were able, leaping from rock to rock and thrusting recklessly _ through the tangle. About halfway up I jumped to the top of a high, conical rock, and thence by | good luck caught sight of the lion’s great yellow head advancing steadily about eighty yards away. I took _as good a sightas I could and pulled trigger. The recoil knocked me clear off the boulder, but as I | fell I saw his tail go up and knew that I had hit. | At once Clifford Hill and I jumped up on the rock | again, but the lion had moved out of sight. By _ this time, however, the sound of the shots and the smell of blood had caused the dogs to close in. They did not of course attempt to attack the lion nor even to get very near him, but their snarling and barking showed us the beast’s whereabout. Even 4 this much is bad judgment on their part, as a number of them have been killed at it. The thicket burst into an unholy row. We all manceuvred rapidly for position. Again _ luck was with me, for again I saw his great head, the mane standing out all around it; and for the second time I planted a heavy bullet square in his chest. This stopped his advance. He lay _ down; his head was up and his eyes glared, as he _ uttered the most reverberating and magnificent roars _ and growls. The dogs leaped and barked around i 183 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES him. We came quite close, and I planted my — fourth bullet in his shoulder. Even this was not enough. It took a fifth in the same place to finish him, and he died at last biting great chunks of © earth. The howls from the hilltop ceased. All gathered to marvel at the lion’s immense size. He measured three feet nine inches at the shoulder, and nine feet eleven inches between stakes, or ten feet eleven inches along contour. This is only five inches under record. We weighed him piecemeal, after a fashion, and put him between 550 and 600 pounds. But these are only statistics and mean little unless a real attempt is made to visualize them. As a ~ matter of fact his mere height — that of a medium- size zebra — was little unless accented by the impression of his tremendous power and quick- ness. We skinned him, and then rode four long hours © to camp. We arrived at dark, and at once set to © work preparing the trophy.’ A‘dozen of us squatted around the skin, working by lantern light. Memba Sasa had had nothing to eat since before dawn, but in his pride and delight he refused to touch a mouth- ful until the job was finished. Several times we urged him to stop long enough for even a bite. He 184 ane ER THE BIG LION | _ steadily declined, and whetted his knife, his eyes gleaming with delight, his lips crooning one of his weird Momumwezi songs. At eleven o’clock the task was done. Then I presented Memba Sasa with a tall mug of coffee and lots of sugar. He considered this a great honour. 185 XXIV THE FIFTEEN LIONS WO days before Captain Duirs and I were to return to Juja we approached, about eleven o’clock in the morning, a long, low, rugged range of hills called Lucania. They were not very high, but bold with cliffs, buttes, and broken rocky stretches. Here we were to make our final hunt. We led our safari up to the level of a boulder flat — between two deep cafions that ran down from the hills. Here should be water, so we gathered under a lone little tree, and set about directing the simple disposition of our camp. Herbert Spencer brought us a cold lunch, and we sat down to rest and refresh- ment before tackling the range. Hardly had we taken the first mouthfuls, however, when Memba Sasa, gasping for breath, came tearing up the slope from the cafion where he had descended for a drink. “Lions!” he cried guardedly, ‘I went to drink, and I saw four lions. Two were lying under the 186 | THE FIFTEEN LIONS _ shade, but two others were playing like puppies, one on its back.” _ While he was speaking a lioness wandered out _ from the cafion and up the opposite slope. She _ was somewhere between six and nine hundred yards _ away, and looked very tiny; but the binoculars _ brought us up to her with a jump. Through them _ she proved to be a good one. She was not at all hurried, but paused from time to time to yawn and | look about her. After a short interval another, also a lioness, followed in her footsteps. She too had climbed well clear when a third, probably a full-grown but still immature lion, came out, and after him the fourth. _ “You were right” we told Memba Sasa, “there are your four.” But while we watched a fifth, again at the spaced interval, this time a maned lion, clambered leisurely | up in the wake of his family; and after him another, _ and another, and yet another! We gasped, and sat . _ down the better to steady our glasses with our _ knees. There seemed no end to lions. They came out of that apparently inexhaustible cafion bed one - ata time, and at the same regular intervals; perhaps _ twenty yards or so apart. It was almost as though | they were being released singly. Finally we had fifteen in sight. 187 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES It was a most magnificent spectacle, and we could enjoy it unhurried by the feeling that we were losing opportunities. At that range it would be silly to open fire. If we had descended to the cafion in order to follow them out the other side, they would merely have trotted away. Our only chance was to wait until they had disappeared from sight, and then to attempt a wide circle in order to catch them from the flank. In the meantime we had merely to sit still. Therefore we stared through our glasses and en- joyed to the full this most unusual sight. There were four cubs about as big as setter dogs; four full- grown but immature youngsters; four lionesses, and three male lions. They kept their spaced, single file formation for two thirds the ascent of the hill — probably the nature of the ground forced them to — it — and then gradually drew together. Near the top, but still below the summit, they entered a jumble of boulders and stopped. We could make out several of them lying down. One fine old yellow — fellow stretched himself comfortably atop a flat rock, in the position of a bronze lion on a pedestal. We waited twenty minutes to make sure they were not going to move. Then, leaving all our men except the gunbearers under the tree, we slipped back until out of sight, and began to execute our 188 THE FIFTEEN LIONS flank movement. The chances seemed good. The jumble of boulders was surrounded by open country, and it was improbable the lions could leave it without _ being seen. We had arranged with our men a _ system of signals. For two hours we walked very hard in order to circle out of sight, down wind, and to gain the other _ side of the ridge back of the lions. We purposed _ slipping over the ridge and attacking from above. _ Even this was but a slight advantage. The job was _ astiff one, for we might expect certainly the majority to charge. _ Therefore when we finally deployed in skirmish _ order and bore down on that patch of brush and _ boulders, we were braced for the shock of battle. | We found nothing. Our men, however, signalled | that the lions had not left cover. After a little _ search, however, we discovered a very shallow de- | pression running slantwise up the hill and back of ' the cover. So slight it was that even the glasses had failed to show it from below. The lions had in all probability known about us from the start, _ and were all the time engaged in withdrawing after their leisurely fashion. | Of course we hunted for them; in fact we spent two days at it; but we never found trace of them a again. The country was too hard for tracking. They = 189 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES had left Lucania. Probably by the time we had completed our two hours of flanking movement they were five miles away. The presence of cubs would account for this. In ordinary circumstances we should have had a wonderful and exciting fight. But the sight of those fifteen great beasts was one I shall never forget. 3 After we had hunted Lucania thoroughly, we parted company with the Hills, and returned to Juja Farm. | 190 THE TSAVO RIVER XXV VOI J)ART 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 passes through it about two o’clock in the morning. _ At that particularly trying hour F. and I de- scended and attempted, by the light of lanterns, to sort out twenty safari boys strange to us, and mis- ‘cellaneous 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 193 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 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 down 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. Over 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 this 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 194 VOI | from fly and hardship the mortality in donkeys is very heavy, pushes the freight rates away up. 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. 4 He proved to bea 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,”* said he un- ‘ compromisingly. _ He was abrupt, blunt, and insulting. As we - wanted transportation very much —though not seven hundred and fifty rupees’ worth — we per- a sisted. He offered an imperturbable take-it-or- leave-it stolidity. The motor truck stood near. I 7 said something technical about the engine; then ae” *$250. 195 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 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 pro- posed that we 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 Am- bassador 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 196 Vol 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 in- excusable but effective action by the German. For Davis found himself dumped down on the Seren- -getti desert and left there. | We heard all this in excruciatingly funny Weber- | andfieldese, many times repeated. The German ‘literally beat his breast and cried aloud against Davis. We unblushingly sacrificed a probably per- fectly 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 assurance that we, at least, knew how a gentleman should be treated, and more boasting of proud connection in the past. But the end of it was a bargain of reason- _able 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 4 lurked, busy at pretended affairs, until our friend | 197 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES swaggered away to the Hindu quarters, where, it seems, he kept 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 Soudanese 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, likable 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 celebrat- ing. By afternoon he wanted to give things away. | So insistent was he that F. finally accepted an ebony walking staff, 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 both wide-open side doors, one sorrowful native squatted on either side to see that he did not lurch out into the landscape. 198 XXVI THE FRINGE-EARED ORYX T 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, Mo- | hamet, 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 199 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES one of his expressions that did much to compen- sate. | | 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 impossi- bility. 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 diplo- macy. , 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 oc- — cupied 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 of 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 200 THE FRINGE-EARED ORYX | downward to a distant heat mist which later ex- perience proved a concealment to snow-capped Kilimanjaro. The 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, grassy meadows. ‘There was no water. Iso- | lated mountains or peaked hills showed here and | there in the illimitable spaces, 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 _ nobody knew very much about them. One of the , species would be the rare and localized fringe-eared -oryx. This beast was the principal zodlogical 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 passed 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 a 201 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 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 Kiliman- jaro 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 — lacework, © 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 midair halfway to the zenith, hung like delicate bubbles the double snow- clad 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 moun- 202 %9 < (Ly Kongoni xA1Q parea-aSuty ou THE FRINGE-EARED ORYX tains in all parts of the world, but none as fan- tastically insubstantial, as wonderfully lofty, as gracefully able to yield before clouds and storms - and sunrise glows all the space in infinity they could _ possibly use, and yet to tower above them all serene in an upper space 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 ie it. q _. In the meantime we were tramping steadily ahead ” over the desert, threading the thorn scrub, crossing the wide shallow grass-grown swales, spying about us for signs of game. At the end of three or four _ miles we came across some ostrich and four harte- _ beeste. 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, e sixty yards ahead. Any creature not easily identi- fied is a scientific possibility in Africa. Therefore _ we fired at once. One of the bullets hit his fore- _ paw. Immediately this astonishing small creature _ turned and charged us! If his size had equalled his __ ferocity, he would have been a formidable opponent. 203 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 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. Be- tween 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 thirty 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 grass was coming up green. We gave one look, and sank back into cover. The sparse game of the immediate vicinity had — gathered to this fresh feed. A herd of hartebeeste — and gazelle were grazing; and five giraffe adorned the skyline. But what interested us especially was a group of about fifty cob-built animals with the unmistakable rapier horns of the oryx. We recog- nized 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 204 THE FRINGE-EARED ORYX | 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 laid 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 lucky shot was indeed fortunate, for we saw no more fringe- eared oryx. 205 XXVIT ACROSS THE SERENGETTI E arrived in camp about noon, almost ex- hausted with the fierce heat and a six hours’ tramp, to find our German friend awaiting us. By an irony of fate the drums of water he had brought back with him were now unnecessary; we had our oryx. However, we wearily fed him lunch and listened to his prattle and finally sped him on his way, hoping never to see him again. About three o’clock our men came in. We doled out water rations, and told them to rest in prepara- tion for the morrow. Late that night we were awakened bya creakingand snorting and the flash of torches passing. We looked out to see a donkey transport toiling slowly along, travelling thus at night to avoid the terrific day heats. ‘The two-wheeled carts with their wild and | savage drivers looked very picturesque in the flick- — ering lights. We envied them vaguely their defined — route that permitted night travel, and sank to sleep. 206 ACROSS THE SERENGETTI In the morning, however, we found they had left with us new responsibilities in the shape of an elderly Somali, very sick, and down with the fever. This was indeed a responsibility. It was manifestly im- possible for us to remain there with him; we should all die of thirst. It was equally impossible to take ' him with us, for he was quite unfit to travel under | thesun. Finally, as the best solution of a bad busi- ‘ness, we left him five gallons of water, some food, and some quinine, together with the advice to rest | until night, and then to follow his companions along ‘the beaten track. What between illness and wild beasts his chances did not look very good, but it was the best we could do for him. This incident exemplifies well the cruelty of this singular people. They probably abandoned the old man because his groans annoyed them, or because one of them wanted | to ride in his place on the donkey cart.* We struck off as early as possible through the ‘thorn scrub on a compass bearing that we hoped _ would bring us to a reported swamp at the head of 1 e Swanee River. The Swanee River is one of ' the sources of the Tsavo. Of course this was guess- } ot We did not know certainly the*location of _ the swamp, its distance from us, nor what lay be- 4 *I have just heard that this old man survived, and has been singing our praises in Nairobi as the saviours of his life. 207 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES tween us and it. However, we loaded all our trans- portable vessels with water, and set forth. The scrub was all alike; sometimes thinner, some- times thicker. _We marched by compass until we had raised a conical hill above the horizon, and then we bore just to the left of that. The surface of the ground was cut by thousands of game tracks. They were all very old, however, made after a rain; and it was evident the game herds venture into this country only when it contains rainwater. After two hours, however, we did see one solitary harte- beeste, whom we greeted as an old friend in desola- tion. Shortly afterward we ran across one oribi, which I shot for our own table. At the end of two hours we sat down. ‘The safari of twenty men was a very miscellaneous lot, con- sisting of the rag-tag and bobtail of the bazaars. picked up in a hurry. They were soft and weak, and they straggled badly. The last weakling — prodded along by one of our two askaris — limped — in only at the end of half an hour. Then we took a new start. The sun was by now up and hot. The work was difficult enough at best, but the weight of the tropics © was now cast in the scale. ‘Twice more within the next two hours we stopped to let every one catch up. Each time this required a longer interval. In 208 ace mele igs Rene tn SE I oe ACROSS THE SERENGETTI the thorn it was absolutely essential to keep in touch with every member of the party. A man once lost would likely remain so, for we could not afford to endanger all for the sake of one. _ Time wore on until noon. Had it not been for a thin film of haze that now overspread the sky, I think the sun would have proved too much for some ‘of the men. Four or five straggled so very badly | that we finally left them in charge of one of our | two askaris, with instructions to follow on as fast as they could. In order to make this possible, we were at pains to leave a well-marked trail. _ After this fashion, slowly, and with growing anxiety for some of the men, we drew up on our landmark hill. ‘There our difficulties increased; the t orn brush thickened. Only by a series of short | zigzags and by taking advantage of every rhino trail going in our direction could we make our way ‘through it at all; while to men carrying burdens on their heads the tangle aloft must have been fairly Q addening. So slow did our progress necessarily ' become, and so difficult was it to keep in touch with everybody, that F. and I finally halted for consul- tation. It was decided that I should push on ahead with Memba Sasa to make certain that we were "not on the wrong line, while F. and the askaris _ struggled with the safari. 7 209 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES Therefore I took my compass bearing afresh, and plunged into the scrub. The sensation was of hitting solid ground after a long walk through sand. We seemed fairly to shoot ahead and out of sight. Whenever we came upon earth we marked it deeply with our heels; we broke twigs downward, and laid hastily snatched bunches of grass to help the trail we were leaving for the others to follow. This, in spite of our compass, was a very devious track. Beside the thorn bushes were patches of spiky aloe, coming into red flower, and the spears of sisal. After an hour’s steady, swift walking the general trend of the country began to slope downward. This augured a watercourse between us and the hills around Kilimanjaro. There could be no doubt that we would cut it; the only question was whether it, like so many desert watercourses, might not prove empty. We pushed on the more rapidly. Then we caught a glimpse, through a chance opening, of the tops of trees below us. After another hour we suddenly burst from the scrub to a strip of green grass beyond which were the great trees, the palms, and the festooned vines of a watercourse. ‘Two bush bucks plunged into the thicket as we approached; and fifteen or twenty mongooses sat up as straight and stiff as so many picket pins the better to see us. For a moment my heart sank. The low under- 210 ACROSS THE SERENGETTI growth beneath the trees apparently swept unbroken | from where we stood to the low bank opposite. It was exactly like the shallow damp but waterless } ravines at home, filled with blackberry vines. We pushed forward, however, and found ourselves look- ing down on a smooth, swift-flowing stream. It was not over six feet wide, grown close with | vines and grasses, but so very deep and swift and | quiet that an extraordinary volume of water passed, | as through an artificial aqueduct. Furthermore, unlike most African streams, it was crystal clear. e plunged our faces and wrists in it, and took long, thankful draughts. It was all most grateful after | the scorching desert. The fresh trees meeting in canopy overhead were full of monkeys and bright birds; festooned vines swung their great ropes here and there; long heavy grass carpeted underfoot. _ After we had rested a few minutes we filled our empty canteens, and prepared to start back for our companions. But while I stood there, Memba Sasa, good faithful Memba Sasa, seized both canteens and darted away. _ “Vie down!” he shouted back at me, “I will go back.” , _ Without protest — which would have been futile ~ anyway —I sank down on the grass. I was very tired. A little breeze followed the watercourse; the 211 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES grass was soft; I would have given anything for a nap. But in wild Africa a nap is not healthy; so I drowsily watched the mongooses that had again come out of seclusion, and the monkeys, and the birds. At the end of a long time, and close to sun- down, I heard voices. A moment later F., Memba Sasa, and about three quarters of the men came in. We all, white and black, set to work to make camp. Then we built smudges and fired guns in the faint hope of guiding in the stragglers. As a matter of fact we had not the slightest faith in these expedients. Unless the men were hopelessly lost they should be able to follow our trail. They might be almost anywhere out in that awful scrub. ‘The only course open to them would be to climb thorn trees for the night. Next day we would organize a formal search for them. | | In the meantime, almost dead from exhaustion, we sprawled about everywhere. The men, too dispirited even to start their own campfires, sat — around resting as do boxers between rounds. ‘Then — to us came Memba Sasa, who had already that day made a double journey, and who should have been the most tired of all. “Bwana,” said he, “if you will lend me Winchi,* — and a lantern, I will bring in the men.” *His name for the .405 Winchester. 212 Hours later he returned, carefully leaned “ Winchi” in the corner of the tent, deposited the lantern, and ‘stood erect at attention. _ Well, Memba Sasa?” I inquired. ‘The men are here.” “They were far?”’ “Very far.” _ *Vema, Memba Sasa, assanti sana.”’* _ That was his sole — and sufficient reward. | __ *Very good, Memba Sasa, thanks very much. 213 XXVIII DOWN THE RIVER ELIEVED now of all anxiety as to water we had merely to make our way downstream. First, however, there remained the interesting task of determining its source. Accordingly, next day we and our gunbearers left the boys to a well-earned rest, and set out upstream. At first we followed the edge of the river jungle, tramping over hard hot earth, winding in and out growths of thorn scrub and brilliant aloes. We saw a herd of impallas gliding like phantoms, and as we. stood in need of meat, I shot at one of them but missed. The air was very hot and moist. At five o’clock in the morning the thermometer had stood at 78; and by noon it had mounted to 106. In addition the atmosphere was filled with the humidity — that later in the day was to break in extraordinary © deluges. We moved slowly, but even then our garments were literally dripping wet. At the end of three miles the stream bed widened. We came upon beautiful, spacious, open lawns of 214 DOWN THE RIVER from eighty to one hundred acres apiece, separated from each other by narrow strips of tall forest trees. The grass was high, and waved in the breeze like planted grain; the boundary trees resembled artificial windbreaks of eucalyptus or Normandy poplar. | One might expect a white ranch house beyond some low clump of trees, and chicken runs, and corrals. _ Along these apparent boundaries of forest trees | our stream divided, and divided again; so that we | were actually looking upon what we had come to | seek: the source of the Swanee branch of the Tsavo - River. In these peaceful, protected meadows was it cradled. From them it sprang full size out into the African wilderness. _ A fine impalla buck grazed in one of these fields. I crept as near him as I could behind one of the | windbreak rows of trees. It was not very near, _and for the second time I missed. Thereupon we decided two things: that we were not really meat hungry, and that yesterday’s hard work was not _ conducive to to-day’s good shooting. _ Having thus accomplished the second object of our expedition, we returned to camp. From that _ time begins a regular sequence of events on which | I look back with the keenest of pleasure. The two * constant factors were the river and the great dry _ country on either side. Day after day we followed 215 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES down the one, and we made brief excursions out into the other. Each night we camped near the sound of the swift-running, water; where the winds rustled in the palms; the acacias made lacework © across the skies; and the jungle crouched in velvet blackness close to earth, like a beast. Our life in its routine was regular; in its details bizarre and full of the unexpected. Every morning we arose an hour before day, and ate by lantern light and the gleam of fires. At the first gray we were afoot and on the march. F. and I, with our gunbearers, then pushed ahead down the river, leaving the men to come along as fast or as slowly as they pleased. After about six hours or so of © marching, we picked out a good camp site, and lay down to await the safari. By two o’clock- camp was made. Also it was very hot. After © a light lunch we stripped to the skin, lay on our cots underneath the mosquito canopies, and tried to doze or read. The heat at this time of day was blighting. About four o’clock, if we hap- pened to be inspired by energy, one or the other of fi us strolled out at right angles to the stream to see — what we could see. The evening was tepid and beautiful. Bathed and pajama-clad we lolled in our canvas chairs, smoking, chatting, or listening to the innumerable voices of the night. 216 1}}98U919G 94} JO Jlasap oT uorjounf 94} MOfEq JOATY OARS], IU, .,ojsunf JdATI 9Y} UT,, DOWN THE RIVER Such was the simple and almost invariable routine of our days. But enriching it, varying it, disguising it even —as rain-squalls, sunshine, cloud shadow, and unexpected winds modify the landscape so well known from a study window — were the incredible incidents and petty adventure of African travel. The topography of the river itself might be divided very roughly into three: the headwater country down to its junction with the Tsavo, the palm-elephant- grass stretch, and the gorge and hill district just before it crosses the railroad. The headwater country is most beautiful. The stream is not over ten feet wide, but very deep, swift, andclear. It flows between defined banks, and is set in a narrow strip of jungle. In places the bed widens out to a carpet of the greenest green grass sown with flowers; at other places it offers either mysterious thickets, spacious cathedrals, or snug bowers. Immediately beyond the edge of this river jungle begins the thorn scrub, more or less dense. Distant single mountains or buttes serve as land- marks in a brush-grown, gently rising, strongly rolling country Occasional alluvial flats draw back to low cliffs not over twenty feet high. After the junction of the Tsavo palms of various sorts replace to a large extent the forest trees. Naturally also the stream widens and flows more 217 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES slowly. Outside the palms grow tall elephant grass and bush. Our marching had generally to be done in the narrow, neutral space between these two growths. It was pleasant enough, with the river snatching at the trailing branches, and the birds and animals rustling away. Beyond the elephant-grass flats low ridges ran down to the river, varying in width, but carrying always with them the dense thorn. Between them ran recesses, sometimes three or four hundred acres in extent, high with elephant grass or little trees like popples. So much for the immediate prospect on our right as we marched. — Across the river to our left were huge riven moun- — tains, with great cliffs and cafions. As we followed necessarily every twist and turn of the river, some- times these mountains were directly ahead of us, then magically behind, so that we thought we had passed them by. But the next hour threw them again across our trail. The ideal path would, of course, have cut across all the bends and ridges; but the thorn of the ridges, and the elephant grass of the flats forbade it. So we marched ten miles to gain four. After days of struggle and deception we passed those mountains. Then we entered a new type of country where the Tsavo ran in cafions between hills. ‘The high cliffs often towered far above us; 218 dead oat ee DOWN THE RIVER ' we had to pick our way along narrow river ledges; _ again the river ran like a trout stream over riffles _ and rapids, while we sauntered along cleared banks - beneath the trees. Had we not been making a _ forced march under terrific heat at just that time, this last phase of the river might have been the pleasantest of all. Throughout the whole course of our journey the rhinoceros was the most abundant of the larger ani- mals. ‘The indications of old tracks proved that at some time of the year, or under some different con- ditions, great herds of the more gregarious plains } antelope and zebra visited the river, but at the time } of our visit they lacked. Rhinoceros, however, in | incredible numbers came regularly to water. Para- _ doxically, we saw very few of them; and enjoyed } comparative immunity from their charges. This _ was due to the fact that their habits and ours swung _ in different orbits. The rhinoceros, after drinking } took to the hot, dry thorn scrub in the low hills; and _ as he drank at night, we rarely encountered him in the river bottoms where we were marching. This _ was very lucky, for the cover was so dense that a | meeting must necessarily be at close quarters. 3 Indeed these large and truculent beasts were rather - a help than a hindrance, for we often made use of 4 their wide, clear paths to penetrate some particularly 219 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES distressing jungle. However, we had several small adventures with them; just enough to keep us alert in rounding corners, or approaching bushes — and nine tenths of our travel was bushes and corners. The big flat footsteps, absolutely fresh in the dust, padded methodically ahead of us down the only way until it seemed that we could not fail to plump upon their maker around the next bend. We crept forward foot by foot, every sense alert, finger on trigger. Then after a time the spoor turned off to the right, toward the hills. We straightened our backs and breathed a sigh of relief. ‘This happened over and over again. At certain times of year also elephants frequent the banks of the Tsavo in considerable numbers. We saw many old signs; and once came upon the fresh path ofasmall herd. The great beasts had passed by that very morning. We gazed with considerable awe on — limbs snatched bodily from trees; on flat-topped aca- cias a foot in diameter pulled up by the roots and stood upside down; on tree trunks twisted like ropes. Of the game by far the most abundant were the beautiful red impalla. We caught glimpses of their © graceful bodies gliding in and. out of sight through the bushes; or came upon them standing in small openings, their delicate ears pointed to us. They and the tiny dik-dik furnished our table; and an occasional waterbuck satisfied the men. One day 220 ee DOWN THE RIVER _ in a tiny open space. He was lying down, and his ; nose rested against the earth, just like a very old _ family horse in a paddock. _ Beside these common species were bush buck, | warthog, lesser kudu, giraffe, and leopard. The bush _ buck we jumped occasionally quite nearathand. They _ ducked their heads low and rushed tearingly to the ' next cover. The leopard we heard sighing every night, and saw their pad marks next day; but only _ twice did we catch glimpses of them. One morning we _ came upon the fresh killed carcass of a female lesser 4 kudu from which, evidently, we had driven the slayer. _ These few species practically completed the game list. They were sufficient for our needs; and the _ lesser kudu was a prize much desired for our collec- J tion. But by far the most interesting to me were - the smaller animals, the birds, and the strange, in- ~ numerable insects. _ We saw no natives in the whole course of our _ journey. The valley of the river harboured many monkeys. : They seemed to be of two species, blue and brown, _ but were equally noisy and amusing. They retired _ ahead of our advance with many remarks, or slipped _ past us to the rear without any comments whatever. : When we made camp they retired with indignant ke 221 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES protests, and when we had quite settled down, they returned as near as they dared. One very hot afternoon I lay on my canvas cot — in the open staring straight upward into the over- — arching greenery of the trees. ‘This is a very pleasant thing to do. The beautiful upspreading, outreach- — ing of the tree branches and twigs intrigue the eye; the leaves make fascinating hypnotically waving — patterns against a very blue sky; and in the chambers and galleries of the upper world the birds and in- — sects carry on varied businesses of theirown. After a time the corner of my eye caught a quick move- ment far to the left and in a shadow. At once J — turned my attention that way. After minute scrutiny I at length made out a monkey. Evidently considering himself quite unobserved, he was slowly and with great care stalking our camp. Inch by © inch he moved, taking skilful advantage of every bit — of cover, flattening himself along the limbs, hunching ~ himself up behind bunches of leaves, until he had gained a big limb directly overhead. ‘There he stretched flat, staring down at the scene that had so strongly aroused his curiosity. I lay there for over two hours reading and dozing. My friend aloft never stirred. When dusk fell he was still there. Some time after dark he must have regained his band, for in the morning the limb was vacant. 222 ncpagnsctet ie e DOWN THE RIVER _ Nowcomes the part of this story that really needs a witness, not to veracity perhaps, but to accuracy ' of observations. Fortunately I have F. About "noon next day the monkey returned to his point of | observation. He used the same precautions as to concealment; he followed his route of the day before; _ he proceeded directly to his old conning tower on _ the big limb. It did not take him quite so long to ' get there, for he had already scouted out the trail. ' And close at his heels followed two other monkeys! ' They crawled where he crawled; they scrooched _ where he scrooched; they hid where he hid; they flat- _ tened themselves out by him on the big limb and all three of them passed the afternoon gazing down on the strange and fascinating things below. Whether _ these newcomers were part of the first one’s family | out for a treat, or whether they were Cook’s Tourists - of the Jungle in charge of my friend’s competence as a guide, I do not know. _ Farther down the river F. and I stopped for some _ time to watch the crossing of forty-odd of the little i blue monkeys. The whole band clambered to near _ There, one by one, they ran out on a straight over- _ hanging limb and cast themselves into space. On ° ‘the opposite bank of the river, and leaning well f out, grew a small springy bush. Each monkey 223 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES landed smash in the middle of this;clasped it with all four hands; swayed alarmingly; recovered and. scampered ashore. It was rather a nice problem in ballistics, this; for the mistake in calculation of _a foot in distance or a pound in push would land Mr. Monkey in the water. And the joke of it was that directly beneath that bush lay two hungry- looking crocodiles! As each tiny body hurtled through the air I’ll swear a look of hope came into the eyes of those crocs. We watched until the last had made his leap. There were no mistakes. ‘The joke was on the crocodiles. We encountered quite a number of dog-faced baboons. These big apes always retreated very slowly and noisily. Scouts in the rear guard were continually ascending small trees or bushes for a better look at us, then leaping down to make dis-— paraging remarks. One lot seemed to show such variation in colour from the usual that we shot — one. The distance was about two hundred and ~ fifty yards. Immediately the whole band —a hun- — dred or so strong — dropped on all fours and started — in our direction. This was rather terrifying. How- — ever, as we stood firm, they slowly came to a halt — at about seventy yards, barked and chattered for a moment, then hopped away to right and left. 224 XXIX THE LESSER KUDU BOUT eight o’clock, the evening of our first | day on the Swanee, the heat broke in a trop- | ical downpour. We heard it coming from a long | distance, like the roar of a great wind. The velvet | blackness, star hung, was troubled by an invisible, blurring mist, evidenced only through a subtle | effect on the subconsciousness. Every leaf above us, in the circle of our firelight, depended absolutely ' motionless from its stem. The insects had ceased their shrilling; the night birds their chirping; the | animals, great and small, their callings or their stealthy rustling to and fro. Of the world of sound _ there remained only the crackling of our fires, the _ tiny singing of the blood in our ears, and that far- off, portentous roar. Our simple dispositions were ; made. Trenches had been dug around the tents; _ the pegs had been driven well home; our stores had _ been put in shelter. We waited silently, puffing _ away at our pipes. The roaring increased in volume. Beneath it we 225 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES began to hear the long, rolling crash of thunder. Overhead the stars, already dimmed, were suddenly blotted from existence. ‘Then came the rain; in a literal deluge; as though the god of floods had turned over an entire reservoir with one twist of his mighty hand. Our fire went out instantly; the whole world went out with it. We lay on our canvas cots unable to see a foot beyond our tent opening; unable to hear anything but the insistent, terrible drumming over our heads; unable to think of anything through the tumult of waters. Asa man’s body might strug- gle from behind a waterfall through the torrents, so our imaginations, half-drowned, managed dimly to picture forth little bits — the men huddled close in their tiny tents, their cowled blankets over their heads. All the rest of the universe had gone. After a time the insistent beat and rush of waters © began to wear through our patience. We willed that this wracking tumult should cease; we willed it with all the force that was in us. Then, as this — proved vain, we too humped our spiritual backs, _ cowled our souls with patience, and waited dumbly ~ for the force of the storm to spend itself. Our faculties were quite as effectually drowned out by the unceasing roar and crash of the waters as our © bodily comfort would have been had we lacked the © protection of our tent. . 226 THE LESSER KUDU _ Abruptly the storm passed. It did not die away _ slowly in the diminuendo of ordinary storms. It _ ceased as though the reservoir had been tipped back again. Therapid drip drip drip of waters now made | the whole of sound; all the rest of the world lay | breathless. Then, inside our tent, a cricket struck | up bravely. | This homely, cheerful little sound roused us. We | went forth to count damages and to put our house } in order. The men hunted out dry wood and made ' another fire; the creatures of the jungle and the | stars above them ventured forth. _ Next morning we marched into a world swept | clean. The ground was as smooth as though a _ new broom had gone over it. Every track now was ' fresh, and meant an animal near at hand. The 4 bushes and grasses were hung with jewels. Merry | little showers shook down from trees sharing a joke with some tiny wind. White steam rose from _ amoist, fertile-looking soil. The smell of greenhouses _ was in the air. Looking back we were stricken - motionless by the sight of Kilimanjaro, its twin _ peaks suspended against a clean blue sky, fresh _ snow mantling its shoulders. _ This day, so cheeringly opened, was destined to a fulfil its promise. In the dense scrub dwells a : shy and rare animal called the lesser kudu, speci- i‘ 227 ne eRe AFRICAN CAMP FIRES mens of which we greatly desired. ‘The beast keeps to the thickest and driest cover, where it is impos- sible to see fifty yards ahead, but where the slightest movement breaks one of the numberless dry inter- lacements of which the place seems made. To move really quietly one could not cover over a half mile in an hour. As the countryside extends a thousand square. miles or more, and the lesser kudu is rare, it can be seen that hunting them might have to be a slow and painful process. We had twice seen their peculiar tracks. ! On this morning, however, we caught a glimpse of the beast itself. A flash of gray, with an impres- sion of the characteristic harnesslike stripes — that was all. The trail, in the soft ground, was of course very plain. I left the others, and followed it into the brush. As usual the thorn scrub was so thick that I had to stoop and twist to get through it at all, and so brittle that the least false move made a crackling like a fire. The rain of the night before had, however, softened the débris lying on the ground. I moved forward as quickly as I could, half suffocated in the steaming heat of the dense thicket. After three or four hundred yards the beast fell into a walk, so I immediately halted. I reasoned that after a few steps at this gait he would look back to see whether or not he was followed. 228 ee ee npny Jessy ayy jensnun jsow st ydeisojoyd sty, =" [ewrtue Suyjamp-ysnq Ays AraA Be — yonqusng THE LESSER KUDU If his scouting showed him nothing, he might throw off suspicion. After ten minutes I crept forward again. ‘The spoor showed my surmises to be correct, for | came to where the animal had turned, behind a small bush, and had stood for a few minutes. Taking up the tracks from this point I was delighted to find that the kudu had forgotten its fear, and was browsing. At the end of five minutes more of very careful work, I was fortunate enough to see it, feeding from the top of a small bush thirty-five yards away. ‘The raking shot from the Springfield dropped it in its tracks. It proved to be a doe, a great prize of course, but not to be compared with the male. We skinned her carefully, and moved on, delighted to have the - species. Our luck was not over, however. At the end of six hours we picked our camp in a pretty grove by the swift-running stream. There we sat down to await the safari. The treetops were full of both the brown and blue monkeys, baboons barked at us from a distance, the air was musical with many sweet birds. Big thunder clouds were gathering around the horizon. The safaricame in. Mohamet immediately sought us out to report, in great excitement, that he had seen five kudu across the stream. He claimed to 229 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES have watched them even after the safari had passed; and that they had not been alarmed. The chance was slight that those kudu could be found, but still it was achance. Accordingly we rather reluctantly gave up our plans for a loaf and a nap. Mohamet said the place was an hour back; we had had six hours’ march already. However, about two o’clock we set out. Before we had arrived quite at the spot we caught a glimpse of the five kudu as they dashed across a tiny opening ahead of us. They had moved downstream and crossed the river. It seemed rather hopeless to follow them into that thick country once they had been alarmed, but the prize was great. ‘Therefore Memba Sasa and I took up the trail. We crept forward a mile, very quiet, very tense —very sweaty. Then simultaneously through a chance opening and a long distance away we caught a patch of gray with a single transverse white stripe. ‘There was no chance to ascertain the sex of the beast, nor what part of its anatomy was thus exposed. I took a bull’s-eye chance on that patch of gray; had the luck to hit it in the middle. The animal went down. Memba Sasa leaped for- ward like a madman; I could not begin to keep pace with him. When I had struggled through the thorn, I found him dancing with delight. ** Monuome, bwana! (Buck, master)!” he cried as 230 THE LESSER KUDU soon as he saw me, and made a spiral gesture in _ imitation of the male’s beautiful corkscrew horns. _ While the men prepared the trophy, F. and I - followed on after the other four to see what they _ would do, and speedily came to the conclusion that _ we were lucky to land two of the wily beasts. The _ four ran compactly together and in a wide curve _ for several hundred yards. ‘Then two faced directly back, while the other two, one on either side, made - ashort detour out and back to guard the flanks. _ We did not get back to camp until after dark. _ A tremendous pair of electric storms were volleying and roaring at each other across the space of night; _ leopards were crying; a pack of wild dogs were _ barking vociferously. ‘The camp, as we approached _ it, was a globe of light in a bower of darkness. The fire, shining and flickering on the under sides of the _ leaves, lent them a strangely unreal stagelike ap- pearance; the porters, their half-naked bodies and red blankets catching the blaze, roasted huge chunks of meat over little fires. _ We ate a belated supper in comfort, peace, and _ satisfaction. Then the storms joined forces and fell 4 upon us. 231 XXX ADVENTURES BY THE WAY FE, journeyed slowly on down the stream. Interesting things happened to us. ‘The impressions of that journey are of two sorts; the little isolated details and the general background of our day’s routine, with the gray dawn, the great heats of the day, the blessed evening and its fireflies; the thundering of heaven’s artillery, and the down- pour of torrents; the hot, high, crackling thorn scrub. into which we made excursions; the swift-flowing — river with its palms and jungles; outleaning palms trailing their fronds just within the snatch of the flood-waters; wide flats in the embrace of the river bends, or extending into the low hills, grown thick with lush green and threaded with rhinoceros paths; the huge sheer cliff mountains over the way; distant single hills far down. ‘The mild discomfort of the start before daylight clearly proving the thorns and stumbling blocks; the buoyant cheerfulness of the first part of the day, with the grouse rocketing straight up out of the elephant grass, the birds 232 ADVENTURES BY THE WAY "singing everywhere, and the beasts of the jungle ‘still a-graze at the edges; the growing weight of the } sun, as though a great pressing hand were laid upon the shoulders; the suffocating, gasping heat of after- noon, and the gathering piling black and white r louds; the cool evening in pajamas with the fireflies flickering among the bushes, the river singing, and little breezes wandering like pattering raindrops in the dry palm leaves—all these, by repetition of main } elements, blend in my memory to form a single image. To be sure each day the rock pinnacles over the way Beate slightly their compass bearings, and little variations of contour lent variety to the procession of days. But in essential they were of one kin. But here and there certain individual scenes and incidents stand out clearly and alone. Without reference to my notebook I could not tell you their ‘chronological order, nor the days of their happening. They occurred, without correllation. | Thus one afternoon at the loafing hour, when F. was sound asleep under his mosquito bar, and I in my canvas chair was trying to catch the breeze from an approaching deluge, to me came a total stranger in a large turban. He was without arms or baggage of any sort, an alien in a strange and "savage country. 233 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES ** Jambo, bwana mkubwal (Greeting, great mas- ter!)’”’ said he. “‘ Jambo,” said I, as though his existence were not in the least surprising, and went on reading. This showed him that I was indeed a great master. After a suitable interval, I looked up. , ““Wataka neenee? (Whatdo you want?)” I de- manded. ““Nataka sema qua heri (1 want to say good- bye),” said this astonishing individual. I had, until that moment, been quite unaware of his existence. As he had therefore not yet said *“How do you do,” I failed to fathom his reasons for wanting to say “good-bye.” However, far be it from me to deny any one innocent pleasure, so I gravely bade him good-bye, and he disappeared into > the howling wilderness whence he had come. 3 One afternoon we came upon two lemurs seated gravely side by side on a horizontal limb ten feet up athorn tree. ‘They contemplated us with the preter- natural gravity of very young children, and without the slightest sign of fear. We coveted them as pets for Billy, but soon discovered that their apparent tameness was grounded on good solid common sense. The thorns of that thorn tree ! We left them sitting upright, side by side. 234 ADVENTURES BY THE WAY } A little farther on, and up a dry earthy side hill, a medium-sized beast leaped from an eroded place fairly under my feet and made off with a singularly | familiar kiyi. It wasa strange-looking animal, ap- parently brick red in colour. When I had collected myself I saw it was a wild dog. It had been asleep } in a warm hollow of red clay, and had not awakened until I was fairly upon it. We had heard these | beasts nearly every night, but this was the first we ‘had seen. Some days later we came upon the tire pack drinking at the river. They leaped suddenly across our front eighty yards away, their heads all turned toward us truculently, barking at us like so many watch dogs. They made off, but not as though particularly alarmed. } One afternoon I had wounded a good warthog across the river; and had gone downstream to find a dry way over. F., more enthusiastic, had plunged | in, and promptly attacked the warthog. He was “armed with the English service revolver shooting the .455 Ely cartridge. It is a very short stubby bit of ammunition. I had often cast doubt on its Rd riving power as compared to the .45 Colt, for | example. F.,as a sore Englishman, had, of course, | defended his army’s weapon. When I reached the ( sentre of disturbance I found that F. had emptied 235 i ia AFRICAN CAMP FIRES his revolver three times — eighteen shots — into the head and forequarters of that warthog without much effect. Incidentally the warthog had given him a good lively time, charging again and again. The weapon has not nearly the shocking power of even our .38 service — a cartridge determined as too light for serious business. One afternoon I gave my shotgun to one of the porters to carry afield, remarking facetiously to all and sundry that he looked like a gunbearer. After twenty minutes we ran across a rhinoceros. I spent some time trying to manceuvre into position for a photograph of the beast. However, the attempt failed. We managed to dodge his rush. Then, after the excitement had died, we discovered the porter and the shotgun up a tree. He descended rather shamefaced. Nobody said anything about it. A half hour later we came upon another rhino- ceros. The beast was visible at some distance, and downhill. Nevertheless the porter moved a little nearer a tree. This was too much for Memba Sasa. All the rest of the afternoon he “‘joshed” that porter in much the same terms we would have employed in the same circumstances. “That place ahead,” said he, “‘looks like a good place for rhinoceros. Perhaps you’d better climb a tree.” 236 ADVENTURES BY THE WAY q “There is a dik-dik; a bush is big enough to climb for him.” _ “Are you afraid of jackals, too?”’ | The fireflies were our regular evening companions. We caught one or two of them for the pleasure of watching them alternately igniting and extinguishing their little lamps. Even when we put them in a {bottle they still kept up their performance bravely. | But beside them we had an immense variety of Jevening visitors. Beetles of the most inconceivable {shapes and colours, all sorts of moths, and number- less strange things— leaf insects, walking-stick insects, sxactly like dry twigs, and the fierce, tall, praying } mantis with their mock air of meekness and devotion. j st one of the other insects stray within reach and jtheir piety was quickly enough abandoned! One |beetle about three eighths of an inch across was oblong in shape and of pure glittering gold. His | wing covers, on the other hand, were round and |transparent. The effect was of a jewel under a |tiny glass case. Other beetles were of red dotted | with black, or of black dotted with red; they sported is ipes, or circles of plain colours; they wore long {slender antenne, or short knobby horns; they car- ‘Ti d rapiers or pinchers, long legs or short. In fact they ran the gamut of grace and horror, so that ° 6% Bi €, 2 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES an inebriate would find here a great rest for the imagination. | After we had gone to bed we noticed more pleas- antly our cricket. He piped up, you may remember, the night of the first great storm. ‘That evening he took up his abode in some fold or seam of our tent, and there stayed throughout all the rest of the journey. Every evening he tuned up cheerfully; and we dropped to sleep to the sound of his homelike piping. We grew very fond of him; as one does of everything in this wild and changing country that can represent a stable point of habitude. Nor must I forget one evening when all of a sudden out of the darkness came a tremendous hollow booming, like the beating of war drums or the bellowing of some strange great beast. At length we identified the performer as an unfamiliar kind © of frog! 238 XXXI THE LOST SAFARI E were possessed of a map of sorts, consisting | mostly of wide blank spaces, with an oc- ‘casional tentative mountain, or the probable course of streams marked thereon. The only landmark that interested us was a single round peak situated south of our river and at a point just before we should cross the railroad at Tsavo Station. There | came a day when, from the top of a hill where we nad climbed for the sake of the outlook, we thought we recognized that peak. It was about five miles | away as the crow flies. Then we returned to camp and made the fatal mistake of starting to figure. We ought to cover e distance, even with the inevitable twists and turns, in a day; the tri-weekly train passed through Tsavo the following night; if we could catch that we would save a two days’ wait for the next train. You follow the thought. We arose very early the I ext morning to get a good start on our forced march. There is no use in spinning out a sad tale. We 239 a oS : ‘ Soh, BY ig 7 (oe. a a ie Pp io , ae AFRICAN CAMP FIRES passed what we thought must be our landmark hill just eleven times. The map showed only one butte; as a matter of fact there were dozens. At éach disappointment we had to reconstruct our theories. It is the nature of man to do this hopefully — Tsavo Station must be just around the next bend. We marched six hours without pause; then began to. save ourselves a little. By all the gods of logical reasoning we proved Tsavo just beyond a certain fringe of woods. When we arrived we found that there the river broke through a range of hills by way of a deep gorge. It was a change from the ever- lasting scrub, with its tumbling waters, its awful cliffs, its luxuriant tropical growths; but it was by that the more difficult to make our way through. Beyond the gorge we found any amount of hills, kopjes, buttes, sugar loafs, etc., each isolated from its fellows, each perfectly competent to serve as the map’s single landmark. We should have camped, but we were very anxious. to make that train; and we were convinced that now, after all that work, Tsavo could not be far away. It would be ridiculous and mortifying to find we had camped almost within sight of our desti- nation! The heat was very bad, and the force of the sun terrific. It seemed to possess actual physical 240 THE LOST SAFARI ‘weight, and to press us down from above. We filled our canteens many times at the swift-running stream, and emptied them as often. By two o’clock F. was getting a little wobbly from the sun. We talked of stopping; when an unexpected thunder hower rolled out from behind the mountains, and speedily overcast the entire heavens. This shadow relieved the stress. F., much revived, insisted that |we proceed. So we marched; and passed many more | hills. _ In the meantime it began to rain, after the whole- hearted tropical fashion. In two minutes we were drenched to the skin. I kept my matches and note- |book dry by placing them in the crown of my cork helmet. After the intense heat this tepid downpour seemed to us delicious. _ And then, quite unexpectedly, of course, we came jaround a bend to make out through the sheets of Tain the steel girders of the famous Tsavo bridge.* _ We clambered up a steep slippery bank to the \right of way, along which we proceeded half a mile \tc the station. ° | This consisted of two or three native huts, a house for the East Indian in charge, and the Station build- ing itself. The latter was a small frame structure __~ This is the point at which construction was stopped by man-eating lions. S¢¢ Patterson’s “The Man-eaters of Tsavo.” 241 i i eo le i i ‘i AFRICAN CAMP FIRES with a narrow floorless veranda. There was no platform. Drawing close on all sides was the in- terminable thorn scrub. Later, when the veil of rain had been drawn aside, we found that Tsavo, perched on a side hill, looked abroad over a wide prospect. For the moment all we saw was a dark, dismal, dripping station wherein was no sign of life. We were beginning to get chilly, and we wanted very.much some tea, fire, a chance to dry, pending the arrival of our safari. We jerked open the door and peered into the inky interior “Babu!” yelled F., ‘‘Babu!” From an inner back room came the faint answer’ in most precise English. **T can-not come; I am pray-ing.” There followed the sharp, quick tinkle of a little: bell — the Indian manner of calling upon the Lord’s: attention. We both knew better than to buck the Insti- tutions of the East; so we waited with what patience we had, listening to the intermittent tink ling of the little bell. At the end of fully fifteen minutes the devotee appeared. He proved to be a mild, deprecating little man, very eager to help, but without resources. He was a Hindu, and live mainly on tea and rice. The rice was all out, bu he expected more on the night train. There was no 242 THE LOST SAFARI trading store here. He was the only inhabitant. After a few more answers he disappeared, to return carrying two pieces of letter paper on which were ‘tea and a little coarse native sugar. These, with a half dozen very small potatoes, were all he had to ' It did not look very encouraging. We had ab- solutely nothing in which to boil water. Of course we could not borrow of our host; caste stood in the “way there. If we were even to touch one of his utensils, that utensil was for him defiled forever. Nevertheless as we had eaten nothing since four o’clock that morning, and had put a hard day’s work yehind us, we made an effort. After a short search we captured a savage possessed of a surfuria, or lative cooking pot. Memba Sasa scrubbed this with sand. First we made tea in it, and drank turn ibout, from its wide edge. This warmed us up 3 somewhat. ‘Then we dumped in our few potatoes | | and a single guinea fowl that F. had decapitated earlier in the day. We ate; and passed the pot over | to Memba Sasa. | ‘So far, so good; but we were still very wet, and the juncomfortable thought would obtrude itself that ‘the safari might not get in that day. It behooved us at least to dry what we had on. I hunted up MN emba Sasa, whom I found in a native hut. A 243 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES fire blazed in the middle of the floor. I stooped low to enter, and squatted on my heels with the natives. Slowly I steamed off the surface moisture. We had rather a good time, chatting and laughing. After a while I looked out. It had stopped raining. There- fore I emerged and set some of the men collecting firewood. Shortly I had a fine little blaze going under the veranda roof of the station. fF. and I hung out our breeches to dry, and spread the tails of our skirts over the heat. F. was actually the human chimney, for the smoke was pouring in clouds from the breast and collar of his shirt. We were fine figures for the public platform of a railway station! We had just about dried off and had reassumed our thin and scanty garments, when the babu emerged. We stared in drop-jawed astonishment. He had muffled his head and mouth in a most brilliant scarf, as if for zero weather; although dressed otherwise in the usual pongee. Under one arm he carried a folded clumsy cotton umbrella; around his waist he had belted a huge knife; in his other hand he carried his battle-axe. I mean just that — his battle-axe. We had seen such things on tapestries or in mu- seums, but did not dream that they still existed out of captivity. This was an oriental looking battle-axe with a handle three feet long, a spike up 244 THE LOST SAFARI _ top, a spike out behind, and a half-moon blade in | § ront. The babu had with a little of his signal paint ‘done the whole thing, blade and all, to a brilliant | window-shutter green. _ As soon as we had recovered our breath, we asked him very politely the reason for these stupendous ‘preparations. It seemed that it was his habit to “take a daily stroll just before sunset, “for the | sake of the health,” as he told us in his accurate _ English. “The bush is full of bad men,” he explained, _ “who would like to kill me; but when they see this axe and this knife they say to each other, ‘There walks a very bad man. We dare not kill him.’ ” | He marched very solemnly a quarter mile up the ‘track and back, always in plain view. Promptly | on his return he dove into his little back room where | the periodic tinkling of his praying bell for some ‘time marked his gratitude for having escaped the “bad men.” _ The bell ceased. Several times he came to the door, eyed us timidly, and bolted back into the darkness. Finally he approached to within ten feet, _ twisted his hands and giggled in a most deprecating ~ fashion. _ “What is the use of this killing game?” he gabbled as rapidly as he could. “‘Man should not destroy 245 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES what man cannot first create.” After which he giggled again, and fled. His conscience, evidently, had driven him to this defiance of our high and mightinesses against his sense of politeness and his fears. About this time my boy Mohamet and the cook drifted in. ‘They reported that they had left the safari not far back. Our hopes of supper and blankets rose. They declined, however, with the © gathering darkness, and were replaced by wrath © against the faithless ones. Memba Sasa, in spite © of his long day, took a gun and disappeared in the © darkness. He did not get back until nine o’clock, © when he suddenly appeared in the doorway to lean © the gun in the corner, and to announce, ““Hapana © safari.’ We stretched ourselves on a bench and a table — © the floor was impossible — and took what sleep we — could. In the small hours the train thundered — through, the train we had hoped to catch! 246 ~~ - P mse. —— XXXII THE BABU E stretched ourselves stiffly in the first gray of | dawn, wondering where we could get a - mouthful of breakfast. On emerging from the station a strange and gladsome sight met our eyes — viz., _ chop boxes and gun cases put off from last night’s ‘train, and belonging to some sportsman not yet ‘arrived. Necessity knows no law; so we promptly | helped ourselves to food and gun cleaning imple- / ments. Much refreshed we lit our pipes, and settled ' ourselves to wait for our delinquents. - Shortly after sunrise an Indian track inspector _ trundled in on a handcar propelled by two natives. _ He was a suave and corpulent person with a very large umbrella and beautiful silken garments. _ The natives upset the handcar off the track, and the newcomer settled himself for an enjoyable morning. He and the babu discussed ethics and - metaphysical philosophy for three solid hours. Evi- _ dently they came from different parts of India, and their only common language was English. Through 247 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES the thin partition in the station building we could hear plainly every word. It was very interesting. Especially did we chortle with delight when the inspector began one of his arguments somewhat as follows: | “Now the two English who are here. They possess great sums of wealth’ — F. nudged me de- — lightedly, “‘and they have weapons to kill, and much with which to do things, yet their savage minds id It was plain, rank, eavesdropping, but most illuminating, thus to get at first hand the Eastern point of view as to ourselves; to hear the bloodless, gentle shell of Indian philosophy described by be- lievers. They discussed the most minute and im- practical points, and involved themselves in the most uncompromising dilemmas. Thus the gist of one argument was as follows: All sexual intercourse is sin, but the race must go — forward by means of sexual intercourse; therefore the race is conceived in sin and is sinful; but it is a great sin for me, as an individual, not to carry forward the race, since the Divine Will decrees that in some way the race is necessary to it. Therefore it would seem that man is in sin whichever way you look at it sy “But,” interposes the inspector firmly but politely, “‘is it not possible that sexual sin and the 248 “Each day the pinnacles over the way changed slightly their compass directions” : Ne cg a ow as ts se iar mR SUreUOTT ‘ghaho'] Ty eqqy ‘AyOuL yy, — —yy8u 0} WT THE BABU | sin of opposing Divine Will may be of balance in the Spirit, so that in resisting one sort a man acquires | virtue to commit the other without harm ci | And so on for hours. ' At twelve-thirty the safari drifted in. Consider that fact, and what it meant. The plain duty of the headman was, of course, to have seen that the men followed us in the day before. But allowing, for the sake of argument, that this was impossible and that the men had been forced by the exhaustion _ of some of their number to stop and camp. If they _had arisen betimes they should have completed the journey in two hours, at most. That should have _ brought them in by half-past seven or eight o’clock. But a noon arrival condemned them without the | “necessity of argument. They had camped early; | had arisen very, very late; and had dawdled on | the road. We ourselves gave the two responsible headmen ' twenty lashes apiece; then turned over to them the _ job of thrashing the rest. Ten per man was the _ allotment. They expected the punishment; took it _ gracefully. Some even thanked us when it was _ over! The babu disappeared in his station. _ About an hour later he approached us, very _ deprecating, and handed us a telegram. It was 249 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES to report for “flogging porters on the Tsavo Sta- tion platform.” “IT am truly sorry, I am truly sorry,” the babu was murmuring at our elbows. **What does this mean?” we demanded of him. He produced a thick book. “It is in here — the law,” he explained. ‘‘You must not flog men on the station platform. It was my duty to report.” “How did we know that? Why didn’t you tell us?” “If you had gone there’ — he pointed ten feet away to a spot exactly like all other spots—“it — would have been off the platform. Then I had © nothing to say.” ; We tried to become angry. | “But why in blazes couldn’t you have told us of — that quietly and decently? We’d have moved.” “Tt is the law He tapped his thick book. **But we cannot be supposed to know by heart every law in that book. Why didn’t you warn us before reporting?” we insisted. “Tam truly sorry,” he repeated. ‘‘I hope and trust it will not prove serious. But it is in the book.” We continued in the same purposeless fashion for a moment or so longer. ‘Then the babu ended the discussion thus: 250 THE BABU — “Tt was my duty. I am truly sorry. Suppose I | had not reported and should die to-day, and should go to heaven, and God should ask me, ‘Have you | done your duty to-day?’ what should I say to Him?” _ We gave it up; we were up against Revealed Religion. _ So that night we took a freight train southward to Voi, leaving the babu and his prayer bell, and his green battle-axe and his conscience alone in the . wilderness. We had quite a respect for that babu. The district commissioner listened appreciatively to our tale. _ “Of course I shall not carry the matter further,” he told us, “but having known the babu, you must see that once he had reported to me I was com- pelled to order you down here. I am sorry for the inconvenience.” And when we reflected on the cataclysmic up- heaval that babu would have undergone had we not been summoned after breaking one of The Laws ‘in The Book, we had to admit the district com- _ missioner was right. 251 PART VI IN MASAILAND ae ee ae Coe ee Big tha vit weer XXXITI OVER THE LIKIPIA ESCARPMENT WING to an outbreak of bubonic plague, and consequent quarantine, we had recruited - our men outside Nairobi and had sent them, in charge of Cuninghame, to a little station up the line. _ Billy and I saw to the loading of our equipment on the train, and at two o’clock, in solitary state, set forth. Our only attendants were Mohamet and ~Memba Sasa, who had been fumigated and in- | oculated and generally Red-Crossed for the purpose. The little narrow-gauge train doubled and twisted in its climb up the range overlooking Nairobi and the Athi Plains. Fields of corn grew so tall as _ partially to conceal villages of round, grass-thatched _ huts with conical roofs; we looked down into deep _ ravines where grew the broad-leaved bananas; the | steep hillsides had all been carefully cultivated. _ Savages leaning on spears watched us puff heavily | by. Women, richly ornamented with copper wire or 4 beads, toiled along bent under loads carried by - ; 255 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES means of a band across the top of the head.* Naked children rushed out to wave atus. We were steam- ing quite comfortably through Africa as it had been for thousands of years before the white man came. At Kikuyu Station we came to a halt. Kikuyu Station ordinarily embarks about two passengers a month, I suppose. Now it was utterly swamped with business, for on it had descended all our safari of thirty-nine men and three mules. ‘Thirty of the thirty-nine yelled and shrieked and got in the wrong place, as usual. Cuninghame and the trainmen and the station master and our responsible boys heaved and tugged and directed, ordered, commanded. At length the human element was loaded to its places and lockedin. ‘Then the mules were to be urged up a very narrow gangplank into a dangerous-looking car. Quite sensibly they declined to take chances. We persuaded them. The process was quite simple. Two of the men holding the ends at a safe distance stretched a light strong cord across the beasts’ hind legs, and sawed it back and forth. We clanged the doors shut, climbed aboard, and the train at last steamed on. Now bits of forest came across our way, deep, shaded, with trailing cur- tain vines, and wide leaves big as table tops, and high lush impenetrable undergrowth full of flashing *After the fashion of the Canadian tump line. 256 OVER THE LIKIPIA ESCARPMENT | birds, fathomless shadows and inquisitive monkeys. ‘Occasionally we emerged to the edge of a long oval ‘meadow, set in depressions among hills, like our Sierra meadows. Indeed so like were these openings | to those in our own wooded mountains that we | always experienced a distinct shock of surprise as the | familiar woods parted to disclose a dark solemn | savage with flashing spear. _ We stopped at various stations, and descended and walked about in the gathering shadows of the forest. It was getting cool. Many little things attracted our attention, to remain in our memories | as isolated pictures. Thus I remember one grave savage squatted by the track playing on a sort of mandolin-shaped instrument. It had two strings, and he twanged these alternately, without the ‘slightest effort to change their pitch by stopping with his fingers. He bent his head sidewise, and listened | with the meticulous attention of a connoisseur. We stopped at that place for fully ten minutes, but ‘not for a second did he leave off twanging his two ' strings, nor did he even momentarily relax his at- tention. , _ It was now near sundown. We had been climbing _ steadily. The train shrieked twice, and unexpect- " edly slid out to the edge of the Likipia Escarpment. We looked down once more into the great Rift Valley. 257 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES The Rift Valley is as though a strip of Africa — extending half the length of the continent — had in time past sunk bodily some thousands of feet, leaving a more or less sheer escarpment on either side, and preserving intact its own variegated landscape in the bottom. We were on the Likipia Escarpment. We looked across to the Mau Escarpment, where . the country over which our train had been travelling continued after its interruption by the valley. And below us were mountains, streams, plains. The westering sun threw strong slants of light down and across. The engine shut off its power, and we slid silently down the rather complicated grades and curves of the descent. A noble forest threw its shadows over us. Through the chance openings we caught glimpses of the pale country far below. Across high trestle bridges we rattled, and craned over to see the rushing white water of the mountain torrents a hundred feet down. The shriek of our engine echoed and reéchoed weirdly from the serried trunks of trees and from the great cliffs that seemed to lift themselves as we descended. We debarked at Kijabe* well after dark. It is situated on a ledge in the escarpment, is perhaps a quarter mile wide, and includes nothing more elabo- *Pronounce all the syllables. 258 OVER THE LIKIPIA ESCARPMENT _ rate than the station, a row of Indian dukkas, and two houses of South Africans set back toward the rise in the cliffs. A mile or so away, and on a little higher level, stand the extensive buildings of an American | ission. It is, I believe educational as well as | “sectarian, is situated in one of the most healthful ‘climates of East Africa, and is prosperous. At the moment we saw none of these things. We | were too busy getting men, mules, and equipment, pout of the train. Our lanterns flared in the great wind that swept down the defile; and across the track ‘little fires flared too. Shortly we made the ac- _quaintance of Ulyate, the South Africander who furnished us our ox teams and wagon; and of a lank, drawling youth who was to be our “rider.” The latter was very anxious to get started, so we piled aboard the great wagon all our stores and equipment but those immediately necessary for the night. _ Then we returned to the dak-bungalow for a very belated supper. While eating this we discussed our 3 - plans. q These were in essence very simple. Somewhere south of the great Thirst of the Sotik was a river called the Nardssara. Back of the river were high _ mountains, and down the river were benches drop- ' ping off by thousands of feet to the barren country 3 of Lake Maghadi. Over some of this country ranged io 259 re. i, * ire fe 2 su AFRICAN CAMP FIRES the greater kudu, easily the prize buck of East Africa. We intended to try for a greater kudu. People laughed at us. The beast is extremely rare; it ranges over a wide area; it inhabits the thick- est sort of cover in a sheer mountainous country; its senses are wonderfully acute; and it is very wary. A man might, once in a blue moon, get one by happen- ing upon it accidentally; but deliberately to go after it was sheer lunacy. So we were told. As a matter of fact, we thought so ourselves, but greater kudu was as good an excuse as another. The most immediate of our physical difficulties was the Thirst. Six miles from Kijabe we would leave the Kedong River. After that was no more water for two days and nights. During that time we should be forced to travel and rest in alternation day and night; with a great deal of travel and very little rest. We should be able to carry for the men a limited amount of water on the ox wagon; but the cattle could not drink. It was a hard, anxious grind. A day’s journey beyond the first water after the Thirst we should cross the Southern Guaso Nyero River.* ‘Then two days should land us at the Nardssara. There we must leave our ox wagon and push on with our tiny safari. We planned to relay back for patio from our different camps. *An entirely different stream from that flowing north of Mt. Kenia. 260 OVER THE LIKIPIA ESCARPMENT _ That was our whole plan. Our transport rider’s | object in starting this night was to reach the Kedong | River, and there to outspan until our arrival next | day. ‘The cattle would thus get a good feed and | rest. ‘Then at four in the afternoon we would set out to conquer the Thirst. After that it would be a question of travelling to suit the oxen. _ Next morning, when we arose, we found one of t e wagon Kikuyus awaiting us. His tale ran that “after going four miles, the oxen had been stampeded by lions. In the mix-up the dusselboom had been broken. He demanded a new dusselboom. I looked as wise as though I knew just what that meant; and told him, largely, to. help himself. | Shortly he departed carrying what looked to be the greater part of a forest tree. | We were in no hurry, so we did not try to get our safari under way before eight o’clock. It consisted of twenty nine porters, the gunbearers, three personal boys, three syces, and the cook. Of this lot some few stand out from the rest, and deserve particular "attention. _ Of course I had my veterans, Memba Sasa and Mohamet. There was also Kongoni, gunbearer, elsewhere described. The third gunbearer was ~ Mavrouki, a Wakamba. He was the personal gun- bearer of a Mr, Twigg, who very courteously loaned : 261 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES him for this trip as possessing some knowledge of the country. He was a small person, with stripes about his eyes; dressed in a Scotch highland cap, khaki breeches, and a shooting coat miles too big for him. His soul was earnest, his courage great, his training good, his intelligence none too brilliant. Timothy, our cook, was pure Swahili. He was a thin, elderly individual, with a wrinkled brow of care. This represented a conscientious soul. He tried hard to please, but he never could quite forget that he had cooked for the Governor’s safari. His air was always one of silent disapproval of our modest outfit. So well did he do, however, often under trying circum- stances, that at the close of the expedition Billy presented him with a very fancy knife. ‘To her vast astonishment he burst into violent sobs. “Why, what is it?” she asked. *“Oh, memsahib,” he wailed, “‘I wanted a watch!” As personal boy Billy had a Masai named Leyeye.* The members of this proud and aristocratic tribe rarely condescend to work for the white man; but when they do, they are very fine servants, for they are highly intelligent. Leyeye was short and very, very ugly. Perhaps this may partly explain his leaving tribal life; for the Masai generally are over six feet. *Pronounce every syllable. 262 sureysuruns) yoreN oseny, weyINOS ay} Butssosa C3 OVER THE LIKIPIA ESCARPMENT | Cuninghame’s man was an educated coast Swahili Ba wo Abba Ali. This individual was very smart. tan cane. He was alert, quick, and intelligent. His _ position was midway between that of personal boy _ and headman. _ Of the rank and file we began with twenty-nine. _ Two changed their minds before we were fairly " started and departed in the night. There was no ' time to get regular porters; but fortunately a Kikuyu - chief detailed two wild savages from his tribe to act as carriers. These two children of nature drifted in _ with pleasant smiles, and little else save knick- | knacks. From our supplies we gave them two thin _ jerseys, reaching nearly tothe knees. Next day they appeared with broad tucks sewed around the specie le They looked like ‘My mama didn’t use wool soap.” _ We then gave it up, and left them free and untram- _ ‘They differed radically. One was past the first - enthusiasms and vanities of youth. He was small, . eee erosive, unornamented. He had no possessions _ save the jersey, the water bottle and the blanket we ~ ourselves supplied. The blanket he crossed bando- - lier fashion on one shoulder. It hung down behind - like a tasselled sash. His face was little and wizened | 263 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES and old. He was quiet and uncomplaining, and the “easy mark” for all the rest. We had constantly to be interfering to save him from imposition as to too heavy loads, too many chores and the like. Nearing the close of the long expedition, when our loads were lighter and fewer, one day Cuninghame spoke up. | “‘T’m going to give the old man a good time,” said he, “I doubt if he’s ever had one before, or if he ever willagain. He’s that sort of ameek damn fool.” So it was decreed that Kimau* should carry nothing for the rest of the trip, was to do no more © work, was to have all he wanted to eat. It was | atreattoseehim. He accepted these things without _ surprise, without spoken thanks; just as he would — have accepted an increased supply of work and kicks. © Before his little fire he squatted all day, gazing vacantly off into space, or gnawing on a piece of the — meat he always kept roasting on sticks. He spoke to no one; he never smiled or displayed any obvious signs of enjoyment; but from him radiated a feeling © of deep content. His companion savage was a young blood, and still affected by the vanities of life. His hair he wore in short tight curls, resembling the rope hair of *His official name was Lightfoot Queen of the Fairies because of his ballet- — like costume. 264 ae OVER THE LIKIPIA ESCARPMENT | a French poodle, liberally anointed with castor-oil | and coloured with red-paint clay. His body too | _ was turned to bronze by the same method; so that | he looked like a beautiful smooth metal statue come to life. To set this quality off he wore glittering collars, bracelets, anklets, and ear ornaments of { polished copper and brass. When he joined us his _ sole costume was a negligent two-foot strip of cotton cloth. After he had received his official jersey, he carefully tied the cloth over his wonderful head; nor _ as far as we knew did he again remove it until the end of the expedition. All his movements were inexpres- -sibly graceful. They reminded one somehow of Flaxman’s drawings of the Greek gods. His face, too, was good-natured and likable. A certain half | feminine, wild grace, combined with the queer effect | of his headgear, caused us toname him Daphne. At home he was called Kingangui. At first he carried his burden after the fashion of "savages — on the back; and kept to the rear of the ! 4 procession; and at evening consorted only with old Lightfoot. As soon as opportunity offered he built _ himself a marvellous iridescent ball of marabout _ feathers. Each of these he split along the quill, so _ that they curled and writhed in the wind. This pictu- ra resque charm he suspended from a short pole in front 4 of his tent. Also, since he belonged to the Kikuyu q se AFRICAN CAMP FIRES tribe, he ate no game meat; but confined his diet to cornmeal potio. We were much interested in watching Daphne’s gradual conversion from savage ways to those of the regular porter. Within two weeks he was carrying his load on his head or shoulder, and trying to keep up near the head of the © safari. The charm of feathers disappeared shortly after, I am sorry to say. He took his share of the meat. Within two months Daphne was imitating as closely as possible the manners and customs of his safari mates. But he never really succeeded in look- ing anything but the wild and graceful savage he was. 266 XXXIV TO THE KEDONG R four hours we descended the valley through high thorn scrub, or the occasional grassy _ openings. We were now in the floor of the Rift Valley, and both along the escarpments and in the floor of the great blue valley itself mountains were all about us. Most of the large ones were evidently ‘craters; and everywhere were smaller kopjes or -buttes, that in their day had also served as blow ‘holes for subterranean fires. At the end of this time we arrived at the place | where we were supposed to find the wagon. No wagon was there. _ The spot was in the middle of a level plain on which grew very scattered bushes, a great deal like the sparser mesquite growths of Arizona. Toward 4 the Likipia Escarpment, and about halfway to its base, a line of trees marked the course of the Kedong River. Beyond that, fairly against the mountain, _ we made out a settler’s house. Leaving Billy and the safari, Cuninghame and I set 267 TF RT Re CR a A Nea RE ar eet ee F na er fons m AFRICAN CAMP FIRES out for this house. The distance was long, and we had not made half of it before thunder clouds began to gather. ‘They came up thick and black behind the | | escarpment, and rapidly spread over the entire heav- _ ens. We found the wagon shortly, still mending its dusselboom, or whatever the thing was. Leaving instructions for it to proceed to a certain point on the Kedong River, we started back for our safari. — It rained. In ten minutes the dusty plains, as far as the eye could reach, were covered with water two or three inches deep, from which the sparse bunches of grasses grew like reeds in a great marshy lake. We splashed along with the water over our ' ankles. ‘The channels made by the game trails offered natural conduits, and wherever there was the least grade they had become rushing brooks. We found the safari very bedraggled. Billy had ~ made a mound of valuables atop which she perched, her waterproof cape spread as wide as possible, a good deal like a brooding hen. We set out for the meeting point on the Kedong. In half an hour we had there found a bit of higher ground and had made camp. As suddenly as they had gathered the storm clouds broke away. The expiring sun sent across the valley a flood of golden light, that gilded the rugged old mountain of Suswa over the way. 268 ee et) € Diin en ; TO THE KEDONG - “Tirectly on the other side of Suswa,” Cun- inghame told me, “there is a ‘pan’ of hard clay. | This rain will fill it; and we shall find water there. | Wecan take a night’s rest, and set off comfortably the morning.” So the rain that had soaked us so thoroughly was a blessing after all. While we were cooking supper the wagon passed us, its wheels and frame creaking, its great whip cracking like a rifle, its men shrieking ‘at the imperturbable team of eighteen oxen. It would travel until the oxen wanted to graze, or ‘sleep, or scratch an ear, or meditate on why is a Kikuyu. ‘Thereupon they would be outspanned and allowed to do it, whatever it was, until they were ready to go on again. Then they would go on. These sequences might take place at any time of the day or night, and for greater or lesser intervals of time. That was distinctly up to the oxen; the human beings had mighty little to say in the matter. But transport riding, from the point of view of the rank outsider, really deserves a chapter of its own. . t e t XXXV THE TRANSPORT RIDER HE wagon is one evolved in South Africa, a long, heavily constructed affair, with ingen- ious braces and timbers so arranged as to furnish the maximum clearance with the greatest facility for substitution in case the necessity for repairs — might arise. ‘The whole vehicle can be dismounted and reassembled in a few hours; so that unfordable - streams or impossible bits of country can be crossed piecemeal. Its enormous wheels are set wide apart. — The brake is worked by a crank at the rear; like a | reversal of the starting mechanism of a motor car. Bolted to the frame on either side between the front and rear wheels are capacious cupboards, and two stout water kegs swing to and fro when the craft is under way. ‘The net carrying capacity of such a wagon is from three to four thousand pounds. This formidable vehicle in our own case was drawn by a team of eighteen oxen. The biggest brutes, the wheelers, were attached to a tongue; all the others pulled on a long chain. The only 270 THE TRANSPORT RIDER | harness was the pronged yoke that fitted just for- | wardofthe hump. Over rough country the wheelers |-were banged and jerked about savagely by the | tongue; they did not seem to mind it, but exhibited a certain amount of intelligence in manipulation. To drive these oxen we had one white man, named Brown, and two small Kikuyu savages. One of these worked the brake crank in the rear; while the | other preceded the lead cattle. Brown exercised | general supervision, a long lashed whip, and Boer- Dutch expletives and admonitions. _ In transport riding, as this game is called, there is required a great amount of especial skill, though not necessarily a high degree of intelligence. Along | the flats all goes well enough; but once in the un- | believable rough country of a hill trek the situation | alters. A man must know cattle and their symp- toms. It is no light feat to wake up eighteen 3 Singpish bovine minds to the necessity for effort, and t en to throw so much dynamic energy into the “situation that the whole eighteen will begin to pull -atonce. That is the secret; unanimity. An ox is "the most easily discouraged working animal on earth. E If the first three couples begin to haul before the others have aroused to their effort, they will not succeed in budging the wagon an inch, but after a moment’s struggle will give up completely. By that " 271 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES time the leaders respond to the command and throw themselves forward in the yoke. In vain. They cannot pull the wagon and their wheel comrades too. Therefore they give up. By this time, perhaps, the — lash has aroused the first lot to another effort. And so they go, pulling and hauling against each other, getting nowhere, until the end is an exhausted team, a driver half insane, and a great necessity for un- loading. A good driver on the other hand, shrieks a few premonitory Dutch words — and then! I suppose — inside those bovine heads the effect is somewhat that _ of a violent electric explosion. At any rate it hits | them all at once; and all together, in response, they - surge against their yokes. The heavily laden wagon i creaks, groans, moves forward. The hurricane of Dutch and the volleys of whip crackings rise to at crescendo. We are off! : To perform just this little simple trick of getting the thing started requires not only a peculiar skill or gift, but also lungs of brass and a throat of iron. A transport rider without a voice is as a tenor in the same fix. He may — and does — get so hoarse that it is a pain to hear him; but as long as he can croak in good volume he is all right. Mere shouting will not do. He must shriek, until to the sym- pathetic bystander it seems that his throat must 272 } | THE TRANSPORT RIDER | split wide open. Furthermore, he must shriek the ‘proper things. It all sounds alike to every one but | transport riders and oxen; but as a matter of fact | it is Boer-Dutch, nicely assorted to suit different ‘occasions. It is incredible that oxen should dis- tinguish; but, then, it is also incredible that trout should distinguish the nice differences in artificial - flies. _ After the start has been made successfully, the ' craft must be kept under way. To an unbiased by- stander the whole affair looks insane. The wagon creaks and sways and groans and cries aloud as it _bumps over great boulders in the way; the leading Kikuyu dances nimbly and shrills remarks at the | nearest cattle; the tail Kikuyu winds energetically back and forth on his little handle, and tries to keep | his feet. And Brown! he is magnificent! His long lash sends out a volley of rifle reports, down, up, | ahead, back; his cracked voice roars out an unending | stream of apparent gibberish. Back and forth along ' the lineof the teamhe skips nimbly, the sweat stream- a ing from his face. And the oxen plod along, unhast- ing, unexcited, their eyes dreamy, chewing the end _ of yesterday’s philosophic reflection. The situation _ conveys the general impression of a peevish little stream breaking against great calm cliffs. All this _ frantic excitement and expenditure of energy is so 273 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES apparently purposeless and futile, the calm cattle seem so aloof and superior to it all, so absolutely unaffected by it. ‘They are going slowly, to be sure, their gait may be maddeningly deliberate, but evi- dently they do not intend to be hurried. Why not let them take their own speed? But all this hullabaloo means something, after all. It does its business, and the top of the boulder- strewn hill is gained. Without it the whole concern would have stopped; and then the wagon would have had to be unloaded before a fresh start could have been made. Results with cattle are not shown by facial expression nor by increased speed, but simply by continuance. They will plod up steep hills or along the level at the same placid gait. Only in the former case they require especial treatment. In case the wagon gets stuck on a hill, as will occasionally happen, so that all the oxen are dis- couraged at once, we would see one of the Kikuyus leading the team back and forth, back and forth, on the side hill just ahead of the wagon. This is to confuse their minds, cause them to forget their failure, and thus to make another attempt. At one stretch we had three days of real moun- tains. N’gombe* Brown shrieked like a steam cal- liope all the way through. He lasted the distance, * N’ gombe—oxen. 274 THE TRANSPORT RIDER but had little campfire conversation even with his beloved Kikuyus. _ When the team was outspanned, which in the water- } less country of forced marches.is likely to be almost any time of the day or night, N’gombe Brown sought | alittle rest. For this purpose he had a sort of bunk | that let down underneath the wagon. If it was | daytime, the cattle were allowed to graze under ‘supervision of one of the Kikuyus. If it was night _ time they were tethered to the long chain, where they layin asomnolent double row. A lantern at the head of the file and one at the wagon’s tail were supposed ‘to discourage lions. In a bad lion country fires | were added to these defences. N’gombe Brown thus worked hard all of varied _and long hours in strict intimacy with stupid and exasperating beasts. After working hours he liked to wander out to watch those same beasts grazing! ‘His mind was as full of cattle as that! Although we _ offered him reading matter, he never seemed to care _ for it, nor for long-continued conversation with 2 white people not of his trade. In fact the only gleam of interest I could get out of him was by _ commenting on the qualities or peculiarities of the 4 oxen. He had a small mouth organ on which he _ occasionally performed, and would hold forth for hours with his childlike Kikuyus. In the intelli- 275 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES gence to follow ordinary directions he was an infant. We had to iterate and reiterate in words of one syllable our directions as to routes and meeting points, and then he was quite as apt to go wrong as right. Yet, I must repeat, he knew thoroughly all the ins and outs of a very difficult trade, and under- stood, as well, how to keep his cattle always fit and in good condition. In fact he was a little hipped on what the “dear n’gombes”’ should or should not be called upon to do. One incident will illustrate all this better than I could explain it. When we reached the Nardssara River we left the wagon and pushed on afoot. We were to be gone an indefinite time; and we left N’gombe Brown and his outfit very well fixed. Along the Nardssara ran a pleasant shady strip of high jungle; the country about was clear and open; but most important of all, a white man of education and personal charm occupied a trading boma, or enclosure, near at hand. An accident changed our plans and brought us back unexpectedly at the end of a few weeks. We found that N’gombe Brown had trekked back a long day’s journey, and was encamped alone at the end of a spur of mountains. We sent native runners after him. He explained his change of base by saying that the cattle feed was a little better at his new camp! Mind you this; at 276 THE TRANSPORT RIDER the NarOssara the feed was plenty good enough, the oxen were doing no work, there was companionship, books, papers, and even a phonograph to while away the long weeks until our return. N’gombe Brown juite cheerfully deserted all this, to live in solitude where he imagined the feed to be microscopically stter! 277 XXXVI ACROSS THE THIRST E were off a bright, clear day after the rains. Suswa hung grayish pink against the bluest of skies. Our way slanted across the Rift Valley to her base; turned the corner, and continued on the other side of the great peak until we had reached the rainwater “‘pan”’ on her farther side. It was a long march. The plains were very wide and roomy. Here and there on them rose many small cones and craters, lava flows and other varied evidences of recent volcanic activity. Geologically recent, I mean. The grasses of the flowing plains were very brown, and the molehill craters very dark; the larger craters blasted and austere; the higher escarpment in the background blue with a solemn distance. ‘The sizes of things were not originally fitted out for little tiny people like human beings. We walked hours to reach landmarks apparently only a few miles away. In this manner we plodded along industriously un- 278 ACROSS THE THIRST | til noon, by which time we had nearly reached the | shoulder of Suswa, around which we had to double. | The sun was strong, and the men not yet hardened | tothe work. Wehad many stragglers. After lunch ~Memba Sasa and I strolled along on a route flanking ' that of the safari looking for the first of our meat supply. Within a short time I had killed a Thomp- -son’s gazelle. Some solemn giraffes looked on at _ the performance, and then moved off liked mechan- ~ ical toys. _ The day lengthened. We were in the midst of wonderful scenery. Our objection grew to be that _it took so long to put any of it behind us. Insensi- bly, however, we made progress. Suddenly, as it | seemed, we found ourselves looking at the other | side of Suswa, and various brand-new little craters had moved up to take the places of our old friends. | At last, about half-past four, we topped the swell of one of the numerous and interminable land _ billows that undulate across all plains countries here, q and saw, a few miles away, the wagon outspanned. _ We reached it about sunset, to be greeted by the _ welcome news that there was indeed water in the _ pan. | We unsaddled just before dark, and I immediately started toward the game herds, many of which were grazing a half mileaway. The gazelle would supply . 279 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES our own larder, but meat for hard-worked men was very desirable. I shot a hartebeeste, made the prearranged signal for men to carry meat, and re- turned to camp. Even yet the men were not all in. We took lan- terns and returned along the road; for the long marches under a desert sun are no joke. At last we had accounted for all but two. These we had to abandon. Next day we found their loads, but never laid eyes on them again. Thus early our twenty-nine became twenty-seven. About nine o’clock, about as we were turning, in a number of lions began to roar. Usually a lion roars once or twice by way of satisfaction after leaving a kill. These, however, were engaged in driving game, and hence trying to make as much noise as — possible. We distinguished plainly seven individuals, perhaps more. ‘The air trembled with the sound as to the deepest tones of a big organ, only the organ is near and enclosed, while these vibrations were in the open air and remote. For a few moments the great salvos would boom across the veldt, roll after roll of thunder; then would ensue a momentary dead silence; then a single voice would open, to be joined immediately by the others. We awoke next day to an unexpected cold drizzle. This was a bit uncomfortable, from one point of 280 NeulLy InsUuvSUTYy ‘From it we looked down into the deep gorge of the ) Southern Guaso Nyero’ ACROSS THE THIRST view, and most unusual, but it robbed the Thirst of Bes terrors. We were enabled to proceed leisurely, ‘and to get a good sleep near water every night. The wagon had, as usual, pulled out some time dur- ing the night. _ Our way led over a succession of low rolling ridges each higher that its predecessor. Game herds ‘fed in the shallow valleys between. At about ten o'clock we came to the foot of the Mau Escarpment; and also to the unexpected sight of the wagon outspanned. N’gombe Brown explained to us that "the oxen had refused to proceed farther in face of a number of lions that came around to sniff at them. Then the rain had come on, and he had been un- willing to attempt the Mau while the footing was - slippery. This sounded reasonable; in fact it was _ still reasonable. The grass was here fairly neck i. high, and we found a rain-filled water hole. ‘There- - fore we decided to make camp. Cuninghame and I wandered out in search of game. We tramped a great - deal of bold, rugged country, both in cafion bottoms and along the open ridges, but found only a rhinoce- ros, one bush buck and a dozen hartebeeste. African _ game, as a general rule, avoids a country where the grass grows very high. We enjoyed, however, some _ bold and wonderful mountain scenery; and obtained glimpses through the flying murk of the vast plains 281 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES at the base of Suswa. On a precipitous cafion cliff we found a hanging garden of cactus and of looped cactuslike vines that was a marvel to bencie We ran across the hartebeeste on our way home. Our men were already out of meat: the NPS 4 of yesterday had disappeared. These porters are ‘ a good deal like the old-fashioned Michigan lumber- jacks — they take a good deal of feeding for the first few days. When we came upon the little herd in the neck-high grass, I took a shot. At the report the animal went down flat. We wandered over slowly. Memba Sasa whetted his knife and walked up. Thereupon Mr. Hartebeeste jumped to his feet; flirted his tail gayly, and departed. We fol-_ lowed him a mile or so, but he got stronger and§ gayer every moment; until at last he frisked out of © the landscape quite strong and hearty. In all my — African experience I lost only six animals hit by bullets, as I took infinite pains and any amount of — time to hunt down wounded beasts. This animal was, I think, “‘creased” by too high a shot. Cer-— tainly he was not much injured; and certainly he — got a big shock to start with. The little herd had gone on. I got down and crawled on hands and knees in the thick grass. It was slow work; and I had to travel by landmarks. — When I finally reckoned I had about reached the 282 ee AOE eee a Ve ACROSS THE THIRST | proper place, I stood up suddenly, my rifle at ready. ‘So dense was the cover and so still the air that I a had actually crawled right into the middle of the | band! While we were cutting up the meat the ‘sun broke through strongly. Therefore the wagon started on up the Mau at ‘six o’clock. Twelve hours later we followed. The fine drizzle had set in again. We were very glad the wagon had taken advantage of the brief dry _ time. From the top of the sheer rise we looked back for ‘the last time over the wonderful panorama of the ‘Rift Valley. Before us were wide rounded hills covered with a scattered small growth that in general | appearance resembled scrub oak. It sloped away gently until it was lost in mists. Later, when these ‘cleared, we saw distant blue mountains across a ‘tremendous shallow basin. We were nearly on a level with the summit of Suswa itself, nor did we ‘again drop much below that altitude. After five or six miles we overtook the wagon outspanned. _ The projected all-night journey had again been frus- trated by the lions. These beasts had proved so bold and menacing that finally the team had been forced to stop in sheer self-defence. However, the _ day was cool and overcast, so nothing was lost. After topping the Mau we saw a few gazelle, 283 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES zebra, and hartebeeste; but soon plunged into a bush country quite destitute of game. We were paralleling the highest ridge of the escarpment; and so alternated between the crossing of cafions — and the travelling along broad ridges between them. In lack of other amusement for a long time I rode with the wagon. ‘The country was very rough and rocky. Everybody was excited to the point of frenzy, except the wagon. It had a certain Dutch > stolidity in its manner of calmly and bumpily sur-— mounting such portions of the landscape as happened © in its way. After a very long tiresome march we camped above a little stream. Barring our lucky rain this — ‘ would have been the first water since leaving the — Kedong River. Here were hundreds of big blue pigeons swooping in to their evening drink. For two days more we repeated this sort of travel; but always with good camps at fair-sized streams. Gradually we slanted away from the main ridge; though we still continued cross-cutting the swells — and ravines thrown off its flanks. Only the ravines — hour by hour became shallower, and the swells lower and broader. On their tops the scrub sometimes gave way to openings of short-grass. On these fed — a few gazelle of both sorts, and an occasional zebra or so. We saw also four topi, a beast about the © 284 I : ACROSS THE THIRST size of our caribou, built on the general specifications of a hartebeeste, but with the most beautiful iri- descent plum-coloured coats. This quartette was very wild. I made three separate stalks on them, but the best I could do was 360 paces, at which range I missed. _ Finally we surmounted the last low swell to look down a wide and sloping plain to the depression in which flowed the principal river of these parts, the ‘Southern Guaso Nyero. Beyond it stretched the immense oceanlike plains of the Loieta, from which ere and there rose isolated hills, very distant, like lonseome ships at sea. A little to the left, also very distant, we could make out an unbroken blue range of mountains. ‘These were our ultimate destination. 285 XXXVIT THE SOUTHERN GUASO NYERO HE southern Guaso Nyero, unlike its northern namesake, is a sluggish muddy stream, rather small, flowing between abrupt clay banks. Farther down it drops into great canons and eroded abysses, and acquires a certain grandeur. But here, at the ford of Agate’s Drift, it is decidedly unimpressive. Scant greenery ornaments its banks. In fact, at most places they run hard.and baked to a sheer drop-off of ten or fifteen feet. Scattered mimosa trees and aloes mark its course. ‘The earth for a mile or so is trampled by thousands of Masai cattle that at certain seasons pass through the funnel of this, the only ford for miles Apparently insignificant, © it is given to sudden, tremendous rises. These - originate in the rainfalls of the upper Mau Escarp- ment, many miles away. It behooves the safari to cross promptly if it can; and to camp always on the farther bank. This we did, pitching our tents in a little opening, between clumps of pretty flowering aloes and the 286 THE SOUTHERN GUASO NYERO ‘mimosas. Here, as everywhere in this country until ‘we had passed the barrier of the Naréssara moun- ‘tains, the common houseflies were a plague. They | follow the Masai cattle. I can give you no better dea of their numbers than to tell you two isolated facts; I killed twenty-one at one blow; and in the “morning before sunrise the apex of our tent held a | solid black mass of the creatures running the length | of the ridge pole, and from half an inch to two ‘inches deep! Every pack was black with them on | the march; and the wagon carried its millions. When the shadow of a branch would cross that | slowly lumbering vehicle, the swarm would rise and bumble around distractedly for a moment before settling down again. They fairly made a nimbus of darkness. | _ After we had made camp we saw a number of | Masai warriors hovering about the opposite bank, ‘but they did not venture across. Some of their women did, however, and came cheerfully into camp. ‘These most interesting people are worth more than a casual word, so I shall reserve my observations on ‘them until a later chapter. One of our porters, a big Baganda named Sabakaki, was suffering severely from pains in the chest that subsequently developed into pleurisy. From the Masai women we tried to ' buy some of the milk they carried in gourds. At 287 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES first they seemed not averse, but as soon as they realized the milk was not for our own consumption, they turned their backs on poor Sabakaki and re- fused to have anything more to do with us. These Masai are very difficult to trade with. Their only willing barter is done in sheep. These they seem to consider legitimate objects of commerce. A short distance from our camp stood three white- washed round houses with thatched, conical roofs, property of a trader named Agate. He was away at the time of our visit. After an early morning but vain attempt to get Billy a shot at a lion* we set out for our distant blue mountains. The day was a journey over plains of great variegation. At times they were covered with thin scrub; at others with small groves; or again they were open and grassy. Always they undulated gently, so from their tops one never saw as far as he thought he was going to see. As landmark we steered by a good-sized butte named Donya Rasha. Memba Sasa and I marched ahead on foot. In this thin scrub we got glimpses of many beasts. At one time we were within fifty yards of a band of magnificent eland. By fleeting glimpses we saw also many wildebeeste and zebra, with occasionally one of the smaller grass antelope. Finally, in an open *See “The Land of Footprints.” 288 ao) =| 3 ea) © = eH Cape Buffalo yousg YWnoy ayy in the middle of a bush. It was too high off the | ground to be a buck. We sneaked nearer. At fifty yards we came to a halt, still puzzled. Judging “by its height and colour, it should be a lion, but _ try as we would, we could not make out what part " of his anatomy was thus visible. At last I made “up my mind to give him a shot from the Springfield, _ with the .405 handy. At the shot the tawny patch heaved and lay still. We manceuvred cautiously, _ and found we had killed stone dead not a lion, but _ a Bohur reed buck lying atop an anthill concealed in the middle of the bush. This accounted for its “height above the ground. As it happened, I very | much wanted one of these animals as a specimen; so everybody was satisfied. _ Shortly after, attracted by a great concourse of carrion birds, both on trees and in the air, we pene- _ trated a thicket to come upon a full-grown giraffe killed by lions. The claw marks and other indica- _ tions were indubitable. The carcass had been _ partly eaten; but was rapidly vanishing under the attacks of the birds. | _ Just before noon we passed Donya Rasha and emerged on the open plains. Here I caught sight _ of a Roberts’ gazelle, a new species to me, and started alone in pursuit. They, as usual, trotted 289 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES over the nearest rise; so with due precautions I followed after. At the top of that rise I lay still in astonishment. Before me marched solemnly an unbroken single file of game, reaching literally to — my limit of vision in both directions. ‘They came over the land swell a mile to my left, and they were disappearing over another land swell a mile and a — half to my right. It was rigidly single file, except for the young; the nose of one beast fairly touching the tail of the one ahead, and it plodded along at a businesslike walk. There were but three species represented, the gnu, the zebra, and the hartebeeste. I did not see the head of the procession, for it had © gone from sight before I arrived; nor did I ever see the tail of it either, for the safari appearing inop- portunely broke its continuance. But I saw two — miles and a half, solid, of big game. It was a great and formal trek, probably to new pastures. Then I turned my attention to the Roberts’ gazelle, and my good luck downed a specimen at 273 yards. This with the Bohur reed buck, made the second new species for the day. Our luck was not yet over, however. We had proceeded but a few miles when Kongoni discovered a herd of topi. The safari im- mediately lay down, while I went ahead. There was little cover, and I had a very hard time to get within range, especially as a dozen zebras kept 290 THE SOUTHERN GUASO NYERO | grazing across the line of my stalks. The topi | themselves were very uneasy, crossing and recrossing | and looking doubtfully in my direction. I had a ‘number of chances at small bucks, but refused them in my desire to get a shot at the big leader of the herd. Finally he separated from the rest and faced in my direction at just 268 yards. At the shot he fell dead. _ For the first time we had an opportunity to admire the wonderful pelt. It is beautiful in quality, plum colour, with iridescent lights and wavy “water marks” changing to pearl colour on the four quarters, with black legs. We were both struck with the -gorgeousness of a topi motor-rug made of three | skins, with these pearl spots as accents in the corners. | To our ambitions and hopes we added more topi. _ Our journey to the Nardssara River lasted three | days in all. We gained an outlying spur of the blue _ mountains, and skirted their base. The usual varied foothill country led us through defiles, over ridges, _ and by charming groves. We began to see Masai cattle in great herds. The gentle humpbacked beasts were held in close formation by herders afoot, tall, lithe young savages with spears. In the distance and through the heat haze the beasts shimmered ¢ strangely, their glossy reds and whites and blacks ' blending together. In this country of wide ex- | 291. AFRICAN CAMP FIRES panses and clear air we could thus often make out a very far-off herd simply as a speck of rich colour against the boundless rolling plains. | Here we saw a good variety of game. Zebras of course, and hartebeeste; the Robert’s gazelle, a few topi, a good many of the gnu or wildebeeste dis- covered by and named after Roosevelt; a few giraffes, klipspringer on the rocky buttes, cheetah, and the usual jackals, hyenas, etc. I killed one very old — zebra. So ancient was he that his teeth had worn down to the level of the gums, which seemed fairly — on the point of closing over. Nevertheless he was — still fat and sleek. He could not much longer have continued to crop the grass. Such extreme age in wild animals is, in Africa at least, most remarkable; for generally they meet violent deaths while still - in their prime. About three o’clock of the third afternoon we came in sight of a long line of forest trees running down parallel with the nearest mountain ranges. These ' marked the course of the Nardssara; and by four o’clock we were descending the last slope. 292 XXXVITI THE LOWER BENCHES ; HE Nardssara is really only about creek size, : but as it flows the year around it merits the - title of river. It rises in the junction of a long _ spur with the main ranges, cuts straight across a _wide inward bend of the mountains, joins them again, ‘plunges down a deep and tremendous cafion to the level of a second bench below great cliffs, mean- ‘ders peacefully in flowery meadows and delightful | glades for some miles, and then once more, and, | most unexpectedly, drops eighteen hundred feet by _ waterfall and precipitous cascade to join the Southern _ Guaso Nyero. The country around this junction _ is some of the roughest I saw in Africa. _ We camped at the spot where the river ran at : about its maximum distance from the mountains. Our tents were pitched beneath the shade of tall and _ refreshing trees. A number of Masai women visited us, laughing and joking with Billy in their quizzically humorous : fashion. About as we were sitting down at table 293 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES an Englishman wandered out of the greenery and approached. He was a small man, with a tremen- dous red beard; wore loose garments and tennis shoes; and strolled up, his hands in his pockets and smok- ing a cigarette. ‘This was V., a man of whom we had heard. A member of a historical family, officer in a crack English regiment, he had resigned every- thing to come into this wild country. Here he had built a “‘boma,” or enclosed compound, and engaged himself in acquiring Masai sheep in exchange for beads, wire, and cloth. Obviously the profits of — such transactions could not be the temptation. He liked the life, and he liked his position of influence © with these proud and savage people. Strangely © enough, he cared little for the sporting possibilities — of the country, though of course he did a little © occasional shooting; but was quite content with his © trading, his growing knowledge of and intimacy with the Masai, and his occasional tremendous journeys. To the casual and infrequent stranger his attitude was reported most uncertain. We invited him to tea, which he accepted, and we fell into conversation. He and Cuninghame were al- ready old acquaintances. ‘The man, I found, was shy about talking of the things that interested him; but as they most decidedly interested us also we managed to convey an impression of our sincerity. There- 294 THE LOWER BENCHES after he was most friendly. His helpfulness, kind- _ ness, and courtesy could not have been bettered. a e lent us his own boy as guide down through the “cafions of the Naréssara to the lower benches, where we hoped to find kudu; he offered store room to ‘such of our supplies as we intended holding in reserve; he sent us sheep and eggs as a welcome variation of our game diet; and in addition he gave us Masai implements and ornaments we could not _ possibly have acquired in any other way. It is impossible to buy the personal belongings of this proud and independent people at any price. The price of a spear ordinarily runs about two rupees’ worth, when one trades with any other tribe. I _know of a case where a Masai was offered fifty | rupees for his weapon, but refused scornfully. V.. F acquired these things through friendship; and after _ we had gained his, he was most generous with them. “a Thus he presented us with a thing almost impossible to get and seen rarely outside of museums — the _ Masai war bonnet made of the mane of a lion. It _ is in shape and appearance, though not in colour, almost exactly like the grenadier’s shako of the last _ century. In addition to this priceless trophy V. _ also gave us samples of the cattle bells, both wooden and metal, ivory ear ornaments, bead bracelets, steel collars, circumcision knives, sword belts, and 295 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES other affairs of like value. But I think that the apogee of his kindliness was reached when much later he heard from the native tribes that we were engaged in penetrating the defiles of the higher mountains. Then he sent after us a swift Masai runner bearing to us a bottle of whiskey and a mes- sage to the effect that V. was afraid we would find — it very cold up there! Think of what that meant; turn it well over in your mind, with all the circum- stances of distance from supplies, difficulty of trans- — portation and all! We none of us used whiskey in the tropics, so we later returned it with suitable explanation and thanks as being too good to waste. Next morning, under guidance of our friend’s boy, we set out for the lower benches, leaving N’gombe ~ Brown and his outfit to camp indefinitely until we © needed him for the return journey. The whole lay of the land hereabout is, roughly speaking, in a series of shelves. Back of us were the high mountains — the Fourth Bench; we had been travelling on the plateau of the Loieta — the Third Bench; now we were to penetrate some apparently low hills down an unexpected thousand feet to the Second Bench. This was smaller; perhaps only five miles at its widest. Its outer rim consisted also of low hills concealing a drop of precipitous cliffs. There were no passes nor cafions here — the streams 296 THE LOWER BENCHES dropped over in waterfalls — and precarious game t ails offered the only chance for descent. The First Bench was a mere ledge, a mile or so wide. From it one looked down into the deep gorge of the Southern Guaso Nyero, and across to a tangle of f oded mountains and malpais that filled the eye. Only away in an incredible distance were other blue mountains that marked the farther side of the great Rift Valley. _ Our present task was to drop from the Third Bench to the Second. For some distance we fol- lowed the Nardssara; then, when it began to drop into its tremendous gorge, we continued along the side hills above it until by means of various “‘hogs’ backs” and tributary cafions we were able to regain its level far below. The going was rough and stony, and hard on the porters; but the scenery was very wild and fine. We met the river bottom again in ‘the pleasantest oval meadow with fine big trees. ‘The mountains quite surrounded us, towering im- minent above our heads. Ahead of us the stream | Bbroke through between portals that rose the full height of the ranges. We followed it, and found ourselves on the Second Bench. _ Here was grass, high grass in which the boys were almost lost to sight. Behind us the ramparts rose _ sheer and high; and over across the way were some 297 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES low fifty-foot cliffs that marked a plateau land. Between the plateau and the ranges from which we had descended was a sort of slight flat valley through which meandered the forest trees that marked the stream. We turned to the right and marched an hour. The river gradually approached the plateau, so leaving between it and the ramparts a considerable plain, and some low foothills. ‘These latter were reported to be one of the feeding grounds of the greater kudu. We made a most delightful camp at the edge of © great trees by the stream. ‘The water flowed at the bottom of a little ravine, precipitous in most places; but with gently sloping banks at the spot we had chosen. It flowed rapidly over clean gravel, with a hurrying, tinkling sound. A broad gravel beach — was spread on the hither side of it, like a spacious — secret room in the jungle. Here too was a little slope on which to sit, with the thicket all about, the clean, swift little stream below, the high forest arches above, and the inquisitive smaller creatures hovering near. Others had been here before us, the wild things, taking advantage of the easy descent to drinking water —eland, buffalo, leopard, and small bucks. ‘The air was almost cloy- ingly sweet with a perfume like sage-brush honey. 298 THE LOWER BENCHES | Our first task was to set our boys to work clearing | a space; the grass was so high and rank that mere | trampling had little effect on it. The Baganda, Sabakaki, we had been compelled to leave with the ox-team. So our twenty-seven had become twenty- ‘Six. _ Next morning Cuninghame and I started out very early with one gunbearer. The direction of the wind compelled us to a two hours’ walk before we could be- gintohunt. The high grass was soaked with a very heavy dew, and shortly we were as wet as though we had fallen into the river. A number of horn- bills and parrots followed us for some distance, but soon left us in peace. We saw the Roberts’ gazelle and some hartebeeste. ~ When we had gained a point of vantage, we turned back and began to work slowly along the base of ‘the mountains. We kept on a general level a hun- ‘dred feet or so up their slope, just high enough to give us a point of overlook for anything that might ‘stir either in the flat plateau foothills or the plains. We also kept a sharp lookout for signs. _ We had proceeded in this manner for an hour when in an opening between two bushes below us, ‘and perhaps five hundred yards away we saw a leopard standing like a statue, head up, a most 4 eautiful spectacle. While we watched her through 299 ' Ls \ ‘ 7 ¥ AFRICAN CAMP FIRES the glasses, she suddenly dropped flat out of sight. The cause we discovered to be three hartebeeste strolling sociably along, stopping occasionally to snatch a mouthful; but headed always in the direc- tion of the bushes behind which lay the great cat. Much interested, we watched them. They dis- appeared behind the screen. A sudden fldsh marked the leopard’s spring. ‘Two badly demoralized harte- _ beeste stampeded out into the open and away; two only. The kill had been made. We had but the one rifle with us, for we were supposed to be out after kudu only, and were travelling as light as possible. No doubt the Spring- field would kill a leopard, if the bullet landed in the right place. We discussed the matter. It ended, of course, in our sneaking down there; I with the — Springfield, and Cuninghame with his knife un- sheathed. Our precautions and trepidations were wasted. The leopard had carried the hartebeeste bodily some distance, had thrust it under a bush, and had departed. Cuninghame surmised it would return © toward evening. Therefore we continued after kudu. We found old signs, proving that the beasts visited this country, but nothing fresh. We saw, however, the first sing- sing; some impalla, some klipspringer, and Chan- — ler’s reed buck. 300 THE LOWER BENCHES | At evening we made a crafty sneak atop the mesa- | ike foothills to a point overlooking the leopard’s ) kill. We lay here looking the place over inch by | inch through our glasses, when an ejaculation of jisgust from Kongoni called our attention. There at another spot that confounded beast sat like a house cat watching us cynically. Either we had come too soon, or she had heard us and retired to what she considered a safe distance. There was of course no chance of getting nearer; so I sat down, for a steadier hold, and tried her anyway. At the shot she leaped high in the air, rolled over once, then recovered her feet and streaked off at full speed. — Just before disappearing over a slight rise, she stopped to look back. I tried her again. We con- cluded this shot a miss, as the distance and light were such that only sheer luck could have landed the bullet. However, that luck was with us. Later developments showed that both shots had hit. One cut a foreleg, but without breaking a bone, and the other had hit the paunch. One was at 380 _ paces and the other at 490. _ We found blood on the trail; and followed it a hundred yards and over a small ridge to a wide _ patch of high grass. It was now dark; the grass 3 ‘was very high; and the animal probably desperate. _ The situation did not look good to us, badly armed 301 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES as we were. So we returned to camp, resolved to take up the trail again in the morning. | Every man in camp turned out next day to help beat the grass. Cuninghame with the .405, stayed to direct and protect the men; while I, with the Spring- field, sat down at the head of the ravine. Soon I could © hear the shrieks, rattles, shouts, and whistles of the” line of men as they beat through the grass. Small — grass bucks and hares bounded past me; birds came _ whirring by. I sat ona little anthill spying as hard © as I could in all directions. Suddenly the beaters ; fell to dead silence. Guessing this as a signal to — me that the beast had been seen, I ran to climb a_ higher anthill to the left. From there I discerned the animal plainly, sneaking along belly to earth, — exactly in the manner of a cat after a sparrow. It was not a woods-leopard; but the plains-leopard, or cheetah, supposed to be a comparatively harmless — beast. i At my shot she gave one spring forward and — rolled over into the grass. The nearest porters — yelled, and rushed in. I ran too, as fast as I could, — but was not able to make myself heard above the © row. An instant later the beast came to its feet © with a savage growl and charged the nearest of the : men. She was crippled, and could not move as © quickly as usual, but could hobble along faster than © 302 THE LOWER BENCHES her intended victim could run. This was a tall and | very conceited Kavirondo. He fled; but ran around | in circles, in and out among his excited companions. | The cheetah followed him, and him only, with most single-minded purpose. _ I dared not shoot while men were in the line of fire even on the other side of the cheetah, for I knew the high-power bullet would at that range go right on through; and I fairly split my throat trying to clear the way. It seemed five minutes, though it was probably only as many seconds, before I got my chance. It was high time. The cheetah had reared to strike the man down.* My shot bowled her over. She jumped to her feet again, made another dash at thoroughly scared Kavirondo, and | I killed her just at his coattails. | ‘The cheetahs ordinarily are supposed to be cow- ards, although their size and power are equal to | that of other leopards. Nobody is afraid of them. Yet this particular animal charged with all the af rocity and determination of the lion; and would “certainly have killed or badly mauled my man.f ‘To be sure it had been wounded; and had had all night to think about it. ; 4 *This is an interesting fact —that she reared to strike instead of springing. _ fit must be remembered that this beast had the evening before killed a 350-pound hartebeeste with ease. 303 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES In the relief from the tension we all burst into shrieks of laughter; all except the near-victim of © the scrimmage, who managed only a sickly smile. Our mirth was short. Out from a thicket over a © hundred yards away walked one of the men who © had been in no way involved in the fight, calmly announcing that he had been shot. We were skep-— tical, but he turned his back and showed us the | bullet hole at the lower edge of the ribs. One of © my bullets, after passing through the cheetah, had ricocheted and picked this poor fellow out from the © whole of an empty landscape. And this after I had delayed my rescue fairly to the point of danger in © order to avoid all chance of hurting some one! We had no means of telling how deeply the bullet had penetrated; so we reassured the man, and de- tailed two men to assist him back to camp by easy stages. He did not seem to be suffering much pain, and he had lost little strength. | At camp, however, we found that the wound was — deep. Cuninghame generously offered to make a | forced march in order to get the boy out to a hos- ; pital. By hitting directly across the rough country ; below the benches it was possible to shorten the : journey somewhat, provided V. could persuade the ‘ Masai to furnish a guide. The country was a desert, and the water scarce. We lined up our remaining | 304 ° — ° —— vo vo 50 = o — a ) >> = oe > v e co Our camp at the Narossara Our camp in Lengeetoto 7] THE LOWER BENCHES twenty-five men and selected the twelve best and strongest. ‘These we offered a month and a half’s extra wages for the trip. We then made a hammock out of one of the ground cloths, and the same after- noon Cuninghame started. I sent with him four of my own men as far as the ox-wagon for the purpose ‘of bringing back more potio. They returned the next afternoon, bringing also a report from Cuning- hame that all was well so far, and that he had seen alion. He made the desert trip without other casu- alty than the loss of his riding mule; and landed the wounded man in the hospital all right. In spite of -Cuninghame’s expert care on the journey out, and the best of treatment later, the boy, to my great distress, died’ eleven days after reaching the hospital. Cuninghame was gone just two weeks. In the meantime I sent out my best trackers in all directions to look for kudu signs, conceiving this the best method of covering the country rapidly. In this manner I shortly determined that chances were small here; and made up my mind to move down to the edge of the bench where the Nardssara makes its plunge. Before doing so, however, I hunted for and killed a very large eland bull reported by Mavrouki. This beast was not only one of the largest I ever saw, but was in especially fine coat. He stood five feet and six inches high at the shoulder; 305 ——— AFRICAN CAMP FIRES was nine feet eight inches long, without the tail; and would weigh twenty-five hundred pounds. The men were delighted with this acquisition. I now had thirteen porters, the three gunbearers, the cook, and the two boys. They surrounded each tiny fire with switches full of roasting meat; they cut off great hunks for a stew; they made quantities of biltong, or jerky. Next day I left Kongoni and one porter at the old camp, loaded my men with what they could carry, and started out. We marched a little over two hours; then found ourselves beneath a lone mimosa tree about a quarter mile from the edge of the bench. At this point the stream drops into a little canon” preparatory to its plunge; and the plateau rises ever so gently to tremendous cliffs. I immediately — dispatched the porters back for another load. A. fine sing-sing lured me across the river. I did not get the sing sing; but had a good fight with two lions, as narrated elsewhere.* ' In this spot we camped a number of days; did a : heap of hard climbing and looking; killed another — lion out of a band of eight;} thoroughly determined ~ that we had come at the wrong time for kudu; and © decided on another move. i eat diche *“The Land of Footprints.” t“ The Land of Footprints.” 306 THE LOWER BENCHES _ This time our journey lasted five hours, so that our relaying consumed three days. We broke back through the ramparts, by means of another pass we | had discovered when looking for kudu, to the Third | Bench again. Here we camped in the valley of Lengetoto. — _ This valley is one of tne most beautiful and secluded in this part of Africa. It is shaped like an ellipse, five or six miles long by about three miles “wide; and is completely surrounded by mountains. : he ramparts of the western side — those forming the walls of the Fourth Bench — rise in sheer rock cliffs, forest crowned. To the east, from which } direction we had just come, were high, rounded mountains. At sunrise they cut clear in an outline of milky slate against the sky. | The floor of this ellipse was surfaced in gentle undulations, like the low swells of a summer sea. Between each swell a singing, clear-watered brook leaped and dashed or loitered through its jungle. Into the mountains ran broad upward flung valleys of green grass; and groves of great forest trees marched down cajions and out a short distance into the plains. Everything was fresh and green and cool. We needed blankets at night, and each morn- ng the dew was cool and sparkling, and the sky very blue. Underneath the forest trees of the stream 3°97 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES beds, and the cafion, were leafy rooms as small as a closet, or great cathedral aisles. And in the short brush dwelt rhinoceros and impalla; in the jungles. were buffalo and elephant; on the plains we saw giraffe, hartebeeste, zebra, duiker; and in the bases of the hills we heard at evening iil early morning the roaring of lions. . In this charming spot we lingered eight days; Memba Sasa and I spent most of our time trying to get one of the jungle-dwelling buffalo without his getting us. In this we were finally successful.* Then, as it was about time for Cuninghame to return, © we moved back to V.’s boma on the Nardssara; relay- ing, as usual, the carrying of our effects. Atthis time — I had had to lay off three more men on account of various sorts of illness, so was still more cramped q for transportation facilities. As we were breaking camp a lioness leaped to her feet from where she had been lying under a bush. So near was it to camp that I had not my rifle ready. She must have been lying there within two hundred yards of our tents, watching all our activities. We drew in to V.’s boma a little after two o’clock. The man in charge of our tent did not put in an — appearance until next day. Fortunately V. had an ~ extra tent, which he lent us. We camped near the " began eagerly to scrutinize the brush across the way. If the kudu still lingered we had to find it out before ~ we ventured out of cover to take up his trail. Inch 7 by inch we scrutinized every possible concealment. ~ Finally Cuninghame breathed sharp with satisfaction. ~ He had caught sight of the tip of onehorn. Withsome ~ | difficulty he indicated to me where. After staring long enough, we could dimly make out the kudu him- ~ self browsing, from the tender branch-ends. . All we could do was to lielow. If the kudu fed on out of sight into the cover, we could not possibly get a shot;if he should happen again to cross the opening, we would get a good shot. No one but a © hunter can understand the panting, dry-mouthed — excitement of those minutes; five weeks’ hard work © hung in the balance. The kudu did neither of — these things; he ceased browsing, took three steps forward, and stood. The game seemed blocked. ‘The kuduhad evidently settled down for a snooze; it was impossible, in the situation, to shorten the distance without being discovered; the daylight was almost gone; we could — make out no trace of him except through our glasses. 7 Look as hard as we could, we could see nothing with the naked eye. Unless something happened within m, 370 THE GREATER KUDU the next two minutes we would bring nothing into camp but the memory of a magnificent beast. And next day he would probably be inextricably lost in the wilderness of mountains.* | It was a time for desperate measures, and, to Cun- _ inghame’s evident anxiety,I took them. Through the glasses the mane of the kudu showed as a dim gray streak. Carefully I picked out two twigs on a bush fifteen feet from me and a tuft of grass ten yards on, all of which were in line with where the shoulder of the kudu ought to be. Then I lowered my glasses. The gray streak of the kudu’s mane had disappeared in the blending twilight; but I could still see the tips _ of the twigs and the tuft of grass. Very carefully I aligned the sights with these; and, with a silent prayer to the Red Gods, loosed the bullet into the darkness. At the crack of the rifle the kudu leaped into plain - sight. | “Hit!” rasped Cuninghame in great excitement. I did not wait to verify this, but fired four times more as fast as I could work the bolt. ‘Three of the bullets told. At the last shot he crumpled and came rolling down the slope. We both raised a wild whoop of triumph, which was answered at once by the expectant gunbearers below. The finest trophy in Africa was ours! *Trailing for any distance was impossible on account of the stony soil. 371 XLVII THE MAGIC PORTALS CLOSE T seemed hopeless to try for a picture. Never- © theless I opened wide my lens, steadied the 7 camera, and gave it a half second. The result was © fairly good. So much for a high grade lens. We — sent Kongoni in to camp for help, and ourselves — | proceeded to build up the usual fire for signal and © for protection against wild beasts. Then we sat | down to enjoy the evening, while Mavrouki skinned © the kudu. | We looked abroad over a wide stretch of country. Successive low ridges crossed our front, each of a different shade of slate gray from its neighbours; 7 and a gray half-luminous mist filled the valley between them. ‘The edge of the world was thrown sharp against burnished copper. After a time the moon rose. 3 i Memba Sasa arrived before the lanterns, out of 7 breath, his face streaming with perspiration. Poor 7 Memba Sasa! this was almost the only day he had not © followed close at my heels, and on this day we had 372 THE MAGIC PORTALS CLOSE captured theGreat Prize! No thought of that seemed to affect the heartiness of his joy. He rushed up to shake both my hands; he examined the kudu with an attention that was held only by great restraint; he let go that restraint to shake me again enthusiasti- cally by the hands. After him, up the hill, bobbed slowly the lanterns. The smiling bearers shouldered the trophy and the meat; and we stumbled home through the half shadows and the opalescences of the moonlight. Our task in this part of the country was now finished. We set out on the return journey. The weather changed. A beautiful, bright-copper sun- _ set was followed by a drizzle. By morning this had turned into a heavy rain. We left the topi camp to which we had by now returned, cold and miserable. Cuninghame and I had contributed our waterproofs to protect the precious trophies; and we were speedily wet through. The grass was long. ‘This was no warm and grateful tropical rain; but a driving, chill- ing storm straight out from the high mountains. We marched up the long plain, we turned to the left around the base of the ranges, we mounted the narrow grass valley, we entered the forest — the dark, dripping, and unfriendly forest. Over the edge we dropped and clambered down through the hang- ing vines and the sombre trees. By and by we 373 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES emerged on the open plains below, the plains on the © hither side of the Nardssara, the Africa we had ~ known so long. The rain ceased. It was almost ~ as though a magic portal had clicked after us. Be- 7 hind it lay the wonderful secret upper country of — the unknown. 374 XLVIII THE LAST TREK OME weeks later we camped high on the slopes of Suswa, the great mountain of the Rift Val- ley, only one day’s march from the railroad. After the capture of the kudu Africa still held for us various adventures — a buffalo, a go of fever, and the like — but the culmination had been reached. We had lingered until the latest moment, reluctant to go. Now in the gray dawn we were filing down _ the slopes of the mountains for the last trek. A low, flowing mist marked the distant Kedong; the flames _ of an African sunrise were revelling in the eastern skies. All our old friends seemed to be bidding us good-bye. Around the shoulder of the mountains a lion roared, rumble upon rumble. Two hyenas _ leaped from the grass, ran fifty yards, and turned to look at us. “Good-bye, simba! good-bye, fice!” we cried to them sadly. A little farther we saw zebra, and the hartebeeste, and the gazelles. One by one appeared and disap- | 375 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES peared again the beasts with which we had grown ~ so familiar during our long months in the jungle. So — remarkable was the number of species that we both began to comment upon the fact, to greet the animals, to say them farewell, as though they were reporting orderly from the jungle to bid us godspeed. Half in earnest we waved our hands to them and ~ shouted our greetings to them in the native — punda — milia, kongoni, pa-a, fice, m’pofu, twiga, simba, n groout, and the rest. Before our eyes the misty — ranges hardened and stiffened under the fierce sun. — Our men marched steadily, cheerfully, beating their — loads in rhythm with their safari sticks, crooning — under their breaths and occasionally breaking into — full-voiced chant. They were glad to be back from ~ the long safari, back from across the Thirst, from the high, cold country, from the dangers and discom- forts of the unknown. We rode a little wistfully, — for these great plains and mysterious jungles, — these populous, dangerous, many-voiced nights, ~ these flaming, splendid dawnings and day-falls, these q fierce, shimmering noons we were to know no more. Two days we had in Nairobi before going to the © coast. There we paid off and dismissed our men, — giving them presents according to the length and — faithfulness of their service. They took them and —} departed, eagerly, as was natural, to the families and ~ 376 THE LAST TREK the pleasures from which they had been so long separated. Mohamet said good-bye, and went, and was sorry; Kongoni departed, after many, and sincere protestions; quiet little Mavrouki came back three times to shake hands again, and disappeared reluctantly — but disappeared; Leyeye went; Abba Ali followed the service of his master, Cuninghame; “Timothy” received his present —in which he was disappointed — and departed with salaams. Only Memba Sasa remained. I paid him for his long service, and I gave him many and rich presents, and bade farewell to him with genuine regret and affection. Memba Sasa had wives and a farm near town, neither of which possessions he had seen for a very _ long while. Nevertheless he made no move to see them. When our final interview had terminated _ with the usual “bass!”’ (It is finished) he shook hands once more and withdrew, but only to take his position across the street. There he squatted on his heels, fixed his eyes upon me, and remained. I went downtown on business. Happening to glance through the office window I caught sight of Memba Sasa, again across the street, squatted on his heels, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on my face. So it was for two days. When I tried to approach him, he glided away, so that I got no further speech with him; 377 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES but always, quietly and unobtrusively, he returned — to where he could see me plainly. He considered — that our interview had terminated our official — relations, but he wanted to see the last of the bwana — with whom he had journeyed so far. One makes many acquaintances as one knocks about the world; and once in a great many moons one finds a friend — a man the mere fact of whose existence one is glad to realize, whether one ever — sees him again or not. These are not many, and — they are of various degree. Among them I am glad to number this fierce savage. He was efficient, self- respecting, brave, staunch, and loyal with a great loyalty. I do not think I can better end this book than by this tribute to a man whose opportunities — were not many, but whose soul was great THE END 378 Deb ebete Yo how Soles ob hes the " : 1 P sag utt , mt fi Hid ae y ite Ht [YD eT ehiyihin? oh His OY od pie nt hiei 4 ie that the ‘hy wf a hey ie " seep h ies oH sata het bape ven A yet yin uh Rie Ta Prat ; Hh nei May Hh i rt Ponty aca Hea bet ruacitt Wyse Pari “ Whe dtben fehil etes es lap 1 F ee + tphes REF Ekta tis Mest 4 (ie lata! 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