CHAPTER IV

LATER VISITS TO SOUTH AFRICA

BY W. COTTON OSWELL

Vardon went home to England, I think, and I returned to India to finish my time before taking furlough in 1847. Early in 1849 hearing that Livingstone intended making an attempt to reach Lake ’Ngami, Murray and I again left England to join him. The Doctor had quitted his old missionary station, and was now with Sechélé at Kolobeng. As we neared this place, whilst we were lying at a small spring called Le Mawé, or the needles, from some pointed rocks which overhang it, the Kafirs told me there was a shorter way to Kolobeng through the hills, but they doubted if it would do for the waggons; so I volunteered one afternoon to examine it, and report for the onward move of the next day. I started at 2 P.M. on a good old horse, and had followed a winding track through the stony hills around us for an hour or more, and, as it seemed likely to answer, was thinking of returning to camp. We were at a slow walk when a low grumbling growl woke up man and beast, and on looking back I saw a lion within fifteen yards, coming up at his wicked slouching trot. He was too near to give me a chance of dismounting, and I spurred into a gallop; but he gained on me, and, in the hope of checking him, I fired a shot Parthianwise from the saddle. The bough of a tree swept off my hat, and, as it fell, the lion made a spring at it, giving me a moment’s law. Fifty or sixty yards ahead there was a small, rocky, but otherwise open space, and to this I pressed at best speed. I pulled up, as I could see well around, intending to load the barrel I had fired, and bring my friend to account; but my foot was not out of the stirrup before he was again on me. I was alone, and the horse was so scared I could hardly hold him; but, freeing my foot, I caught the reins over my left arm, faced the oncomer, and threw the gun up to fire; just as I covered him, and my finger began to press the trigger, I was violently pulled back, and my arm jerked up. The lion still came slowly on, with his body sunk between his shoulders, and his brisket nearly touching the ground. When within twelve yards, I shouted at him, instinctively, hoping to stop him. The human voice acted like a charm; he stood, and made as if he would turn away. The horse, seeing that he no longer advanced, left off tugging at the rein, and I snatched the opportunity and fired my remaining barrel. The bullet struck the point of the shoulder, and rolled him off the little rocky plateau into the bush below, where he lay roaring, without my being able to get sight of him. I went forwards to look for and settle him, but had to give it up, for my horse, which I had tied to a tree, did not at all approve of being left alone, and tried to break his _riem_. I coaxed him, and as long as I stood by him he was quiet, but directly I turned to leave terror seized him. I could not afford to lose him, so I mounted, and attempted to ride him near enough to get a sight and shot; but the tremendous noise was too much for him, and neither spur nor hand had any effect. He stood up on his hind legs, and broke into a white lather of sweat. I persevered for a time, but had to give it up, and, breaking a few twigs and leaves from the trees to make myself a kind of substitute for my lost hat, got back to camp.

[Illustration: THE DROP SCENE]

Next morning, after putting the waggons on the path I had looked out the day before, Murray, I, two Kafirs, and three dogs[6] went on ahead to pick up the lion. We had just reached the place where my hat had been torn off by the tree, and I turned round to tell the Kafirs that he must be hard by, when an angry growl to my left and then the shriek of a man told me that something had gone wrong. Jumping off my pony, I ran into the scrub, guided by the sound. I had hardly got fifty yards when, bursting through a thicket in front of me, a man, covered with blood, fell at my feet, crying out that he was killed by the lion, and at the same instant I caught sight of the beast close up on three legs, his mane as if electrified into an Elizabethan collar, with the Kafir’s dog in his mouth. As his head came clear of the bush I put a ball through it, and he dropped dead by the native’s foot. I looked to the yelling victim, and found he was terribly bitten in thigh and arm; so, tearing my shirt into strips, I bound him up as well as I could, never expecting him to live, for large surfaces were mangled, and I had to replace much a good deal at hazard. As I finished the waggons came up, and, lifting the wounded man on a blanket into one of them, I took him home, made him over to his wife, gave her a handful of beads and a yard or two of brass wire to purchase food whilst he was laid up, summoned the chief, said I was very sorry an accident should have happened to one of his men, received his assurance that it was not of the slightest consequence, especially as I had killed the lion, and then, as there was no water for the oxen, I moved on. In seven weeks I returned to this village. The first to meet and welcome me was my wounded friend, quite well and sound, and about to start on a journey. He brought back the blanket on which we had carried him--I had left it at his hut--cleanly washed; and when I told him to keep it his joy was so great that I think he would have had the other leg bitten for a like reward. The recuperative power of the wild man is marvellous. A European must have died of the wounds, or the consequent fever. The native, it appeared, had stopped behind, as we came through the pass, to mend his sandal, and, taking a short cut to rejoin us, had chanced upon the wounded lion, which first seized him by the large back muscles of the thigh, and on his striking him over the head with his fist, shifted his grip to the arm, which was munched up to the elbow, though no bones were broken. I have before said, lions do not attack men in daylight without strong cause. I opened this one, and found the stomach and nearly the whole of the intestines absolutely empty! The beast was starving--he had evidently bled all night, and was very weak, a fact which may account for the man’s getting off easier than one would expect.

My journey with Livingstone to Lake ’Ngami, and my subsequent visit to the Zambesi in the same company, have been fully described by the Doctor himself, and though on both occasions I had to kill game for the camp, they do not fall within the category of shooting expeditions. They were made with other ends in view, and would be out of place in a narrative of this kind; it will be sufficient to say we were successful in introducing two new antelopes[7]--the ’Nakong and the Leché. The latter, of a dark fawn-colour, with horns annulated and curved like the waterbuck’s, only smaller, was found on the flats between the shallow lake Kamadou and the Sesheké plains, west of the Zambesi, the former about Lake ’Ngami, and in the marshy land and pools of one of its affluents, the Teoge River. It is a veritable swamp-liver, about the size of a goat, with long, brownish hair, and horns resembling those of the koodoo in miniature. The abnormal elongation of its hoof enables it to skim over the surface of morasses into which other antelopes would sink. I have one, which I have just measured, very nearly four inches long--if it were in the ratio of the animal’s size, one and a half would be its proportion. On hard ground the ’Nakong runs with difficulty--the swamp shoe is a hindrance. Instead of escaping by flight or concealment in the bush, this antelope, on being disturbed, makes straight for the water, sits down in it, and submerges all but the nostrils until the danger be overpast.

When Murray and I reached Kolobeng in 1849 we found, for some reason or other, Livingstone had already started, but we caught him up beyond the Ba-Mungwato, with the chief of which tribe we had again a little difficulty. By the way, six or seven miles south of his kraals we found a hot, brackish spring, which bubbled up as if laden with gas.

Our trek to the lake was a hard one, and we were very anxious to see some of the dwellers of the desert, that we might gain information of the path and waters in advance; but messengers from Secomi, chief of the Ba-Mungwato, had gone through the land ordering all Bushmen and Balala to keep out of our way, and by no means to give us any assistance. If they happened to be anywhere near our line of march, they had instructions to step heavily on their toes, and, pressing the sand behind them, to make as good an imitation as they could of frightened wildebeest or quagga. We noticed these tracks, but were never able to use them to our advantage, though we saw through them, for in that land of thirst we could not afford time to follow the trail of people hostile to our advance, with perfect knowledge of the country and its hiding places, and likely to lead us in their flight as far from water as they possibly could. That they were often about us, even quite close, we knew; but we never sighted one. A little dog strayed one day into our camp: we caught it, and covered it with rings of beads, brass wire, and tinder boxes, then loosed it with a sudden crack of the waggon whip, in the hope of its running back to its ambushed masters and giving evidence of our friendly intentions; but nothing came of it. Again, I tried to lure our unseen watchers through that most sensitive organ, the stomach. Elephants trooped down one night to drink; in the morning I took up the spoor and shot one immediately, but after wounding a second had much trouble with him in the thick bush, the horse falling before the charging bull, and I only just escaping. Months afterwards, on our return from Lake ’Ngami, when there was no further object to be gained by opposition, we were encamped at the same pool, and were soon surrounded by the children of the wilderness, who recounted and acted the story of the elephant hunt; how they had followed and found number two, which escaped at the time, and eaten him; how they had witnessed it all as invisible spectators; and now, turning actors, they enjoyed the play vastly: trumpeted like the elephant, fell like the horse, and imitated my attack and retreat, and the noise of the gun.

During this journey, when very hard up for water, I offered to sacrifice a pony and ride on in advance of the slow-moving waggons, which were to follow on my spoor, on the chance of finding what we needed so sorely. John and three or four Kafirs accompanied me, and we had travelled I dare say twelve miles when I saw a patch of high grass wave as if something were passing through it. Thinking it might be a lion, and if a lion then water was near, I cantered to the head of the ‘Jheel,’ dismounted, and watched the line of movement. It came to the edge, and some living thing broke from it. I covered it, and only just in time saw it was a woman running, or rather crawling, very fast on all fours. I mounted in an instant, and shouting to the Kafirs to follow, I headed her and made signs to her to stop. She fell upon her knees, and in Sechuana begged me not to kill her. She had never seen horse or white man before, and evidently took me for a hippogriff. I calmed her apprehensions, cut the metal buttons off my waistcoat, presented them to her, and asked where the water was. ‘There is no water,’ she said, ‘I was just making something to drink’ (she was mashing a watery tuber in a wooden bowl) ‘when I saw the pitsi (horse).’ Bushmen--she was of that people--we knew, lived for months without real water, but I thought it worth while trying the experiment of offering her beads and brass wire if she would guide us to some. It succeeded. ‘Well, if you won’t kill me, I’ll show you where the elephants drink,’ she replied; I bade her go ahead, and made her walk just in front. Never did any old lady step out through prickly bush as did my dame. Her bare legs were scratched by the thorns; but what was that to her, expecting instant death if she stopped a moment? On she went. Presently we came upon an elephant. She suggested by signs that I should kill it, but I answered, ‘Water, then elephant.’ We entered a belt of high trees. I pressed even more closely on her, lest she should dodge among them and escape; my pony’s nose nearly touched her, and so we went through two miles of wood.

As we break into the open again, what do I see? The Lake! Can it be that I am the first to catch a glimpse of it? We had voted it mean to stand upon an ant-heap for the chance of a first view, and here was I engaged on a work of love for the public weal. I was the happy discoverer, and under ‘creditable circumstances.’ As far as the eye could reach, without limit rippled the bright blue water. Up went my old wide-awake, and I shouted for joy; down went the old lady on her knees begging for dear life: she feared the hour of sacrifice had struck. The Kafirs who were with me looked astonished, and thought I had gone mad. ‘What is it; what is it, Tlaga?’ ‘The Lake!’ I replied. ‘Where?’ ‘Here--under our feet--close by.’ ‘Why, that’s only a chooi!’ and so it was. The low sun cast a slanting beam over the incrustations of salt, and they looked like ripples--indeed, a moment before I would have sworn it was water. The bush-woman showed us the usual spring by the side of the pan, and we got water enough for the cattle; she was bountifully rewarded, but she bolted during the night.

As the waggons came up I watched to see if Livingstone would make the same mistake as I; but one of the Kafirs had told him the story before, so he posed as Solomon and I was chaffed. The Lake was still 200 miles distant. These choois are remarkable features in South African lands. This one was fifteen miles long by, say, about four broad; one to the immediate north was much larger. The wild animals visit them as ‘licks,’ and the Kafirs get their salt from them.

In 1850 I hoped to bring a boat, but found it impossible to carry it through the drought and heat, and launch it in serviceable condition on the inland waters. The Doctor and I had arranged to start together, but he had already left Kolobeng a month when I arrived, Mrs. Livingstone with him. There was no chance of overtaking him this time, so I decided upon getting on to the Zouga, the river running out of Lake ’Ngami, and having a quiet shoot by myself. This was our second journey across the Bakalahari, and knowing the waters, we made our arrangements accordingly, crossed without much trouble, and reached our destination.

Let me here record my gratitude for the nearly absolute perfection of the copper caps I used--Joyce’s. I might very ungratefully have forgotten my debt but for a rather narrow escape on this journey from _the only_ miss-fire I ever had in thousands of shots. In mid-desert, attracted perhaps by the water we had opened, a fine bull elephant came close to the waggons. I rode to meet him, and fired, but failed to do any serious damage, though he pulled up. I reloaded and manœuvred for his shoulder; but before I could get a shot he charged, and the cap of the right barrel snicked--fortunately the left stopped him with the front shot, and he fell dead. I dismounted and then looked on the ground. I was amongst a nest of pitfalls--how the horse and the elephant had avoided them I don’t know. On the Zouga the game was abundant, and the shooting, as it nearly always was, peerless.

Eight or ten days from Lake Kamadou the camp had been made, 150 yards from the river, just outside the thick fringe of trees, and all was quiet for the night; even the dogs were sleeping, I believe, for once, for I had not been roused since I turned in, when about midnight we were awakened suddenly by a tremendous noise, higher up stream, coming towards us. Crashing trees and a general rushing were the only sounds we at first heard, but presently the screams and trumpetings of panic-stricken elephants mingled in the din. The herd came tearing and breaking its way through the dense jungle straight for us; luckily they caught sight of the gleam of the fires and made a sharp bend to the left, but the outsiders were within a few yards of my waggon. On they passed into the darkness, and in five minutes all was again still. By coaxing and speaking to the horses, which were as usual tied two and two to the waggon-wheels, we calmed them down; but every ox had broken his tethering _riem_, for, as luck would have it, they were fastened to the trek-tow. The two teams with all the spare beasts had vanished no one knew whither, and five hours must pass before we could do anything to find out.

Making the best of it I turned in again, and did not wake until the sun rose, when John, putting his head into the waggon, told me the oxen were on the flat, with a lion after them. I was up in a moment, and unslinging a gun from the side of the waggon tent, went in hot pursuit. Interrupted in his pastime, the would-be cattle-lifter turned quickly to bay, and as he gave me a fine open front shot at fifty yards, I fired for his chest; but I had been after elephants the day before, and the heavy charges were still in the barrels. For accuracy at the distance I had too much powder by half, and the gun threw up, the ball striking his neck, and down he came on me with a grunting bark. I waited till he was within twenty yards and fired the second barrel, but it was a poor shot, the gun kicking violently, and it struck the upper part of the near foreleg. Two more bounds, snap went the bone, and pitching heavily forward he lay six yards from me. I had run out in a hurry, and had neither powder nor ball. John and another man stood a short distance off. Keeping my full front to the lion and never taking my eyes off for a moment--a compliment he returned in kind--in an undertone I told one of the men to go back for ammunition. He may have been away two or three minutes, but it seemed a long time. When he returned the difficulty was to get what he had brought to me. There were two or three small trees on the spot. I was standing beside one of them, and he managed somehow to climb into it, and, leaning forward from a bough, to put the powder and balls into my hand, which I held behind me. I began very cautiously to load, by feeling not by sight, for I knew I must keep my eyes fixed. Fortunately the balls went home easily, though every little push I had to give with the ramrod brought a twitch and a growl from my neighbour. At last all was finished except putting on the caps, but this was the crux. Directly I raised the gun to fix them the lion began to show signs of waking up in earnest. It was a touchy operation, and oh! the relief when it was done! The first shot rolled him over, and the second finished him.

I had now time to look about me, and found the ground trampled by elephants into broad roads. Going back along the line of the stampede of the previous night, I met a poor little yearling calf elephant, torn badly by a lion, but still alive. I put it out of its misery. This was doubtless the cause of the last night’s scare. After a cup of coffee and a damper I started on the tracks. The herd was of cows, but I was induced to follow it, as to my surprise there were two or three bulls consorting with them--a most unusual circumstance, for as a rule they herd apart like stags. But there could be no mistake--there were the great tell-tale feet.

[Illustration: ELEPHANTS--ZOUGA FLATS]

The line of retreat kept widening from the numerous small parties that had joined the main body till at length it was two hundred yards broad, and I and John cantered merrily along it over the flat for ten miles, when we entered a dense belt of bush, into which we had not penetrated far when our progress was obstructed by a young bull with small tusks, who seemed inclined to make himself unpleasant. I did not want him and tried to drive him off, but he wouldn’t go, and at last charged down on our horses. This was too much, and I shot him. We pressed on as quickly as possible to the open park-like country of which I could now and again get glimpses, fearing that the shot might have disturbed the rest of the herd if they were within hearing. But I need not have troubled myself, for as I got clear of the bush I came upon at least 400 elephants standing drowsily in the shade of the detached clumps of mimosa-trees.[8] Such a sight I had never seen before and never saw again. As far as the eye could reach, in a fairly open country, there was nothing but elephants. I do not mean in serried masses, but in small separate groups. Lying on the pony’s neck I wormed in and out looking for the bulls whose spoor we had been following, and while doing so was charged by a very tall, long-legged, ugly beast, who would take no denial, and I was obliged to kill him. He was _the_ bull, but, alas! he was without tusks, and probably being defenceless had been driven from the bull herd and taken up with the cows. I did not want any of them, and turned waggonwards, rather disappointed at not getting ivory, but well satisfied with the sight my ride had given me.

In the evening a straight-horned gemsbok (_Oryx capensis_) coming up from the river passed near the camp; her horns struck me as unusually long, and with some of the dogs I gave chase on foot; she moved very slowly, soon stood to bay, and dropped to the shot. She was evidently very old and worn out. I introduce her to air a theory.

In many of the Bushman caves the head of the oryx is scratched in profile, and in that position one horn hides the other entirely. In Syria, even up to the present day, I am told, a very near relation of the _Oryx capensis_ is found; it is the habit of man in his hunting stage to try his hand at delineating the animals he lives upon. Probably the rocks or caves of Syria may show, or formerly may have shown, glyphs of the oryx resembling the work of the African Bushmen, and an early traveller may easily have taken them for representations of an animal with one horn, and have started the idea of the unicorn, Biblical and heraldic. With regard to the former, the word in the Hebrew in our version rendered unicorn is ‘reem’; in some old English Bibles, indeed, ‘reem’ has been preserved in the text untranslated. Again, I am told that the Syrian congener of the Cape oryx is called by the Arabs of to-day ريم ‘reem.’[9] Is it not likely then, that the Biblical Unicorn is the same as the ‘reem’ of the Arab? As an heraldic beast, the gemsbok lends himself most gallantly to the theory; he is a strongly marked equine antelope, and is the one of his family that frequently lowers his head to show fight, it is said even with the lion--and this is confirmed in song, though he certainly got the worst of it in poetry, as I very much think he would in real life.

The gemsbok is scarce, and hardly met with save in the barren open stretches of country like the Bakalahari desert; there were more near the colony in my day than further in. He can do without water for a long time certainly--indeed I believe altogether. He digs and eats watery roots such as luhoshé, a large tuber, and the bitter desert gourd; if rain falls, or he comes across water, he drinks, no doubt, but he does not need it to support life. His country is also the stronghold of the Bushmen, who can, as I have said before, live for months under the same conditions, but who generally obtain water by boring with a long pole through the sand, in hollows well known to them traditionally, down to the hard substratum. Enlarging the bottom of the boring as much as they can, by working their pole on the slant, and then tying a small bunch of grass to a long reed and inserting it in the hole, they suck up the water.

These maminas, or sucking holes, are common throughout the desert, and wherever we found the reeds we found water; in two instances, indeed, by digging to a depth of nine feet we were enabled to supply all our horses and oxen, for though the water never stood more than eight or ten inches, yet the oftener the well was emptied the quicker it filled again, obstructions to its free flow being removed by the continuous trickling.

[Illustration: Maneless lions]

I have mentioned how much the elephants of the Zouga differ from those of the Limpopo, and the more southern and eastern districts; the lions too are, I suppose, influenced by the drier climate and surroundings, for very few of the males grow manes. I thought at first this might depend on their age, as the lion of the south is only furnished in this

## particular in full lionhood; but one day whilst lying on the Zouga, a

few days’ march from Lake ’Ngami, a horse of mine fell into a pitfall, and in broad daylight three lions invited themselves to lunch. I was at the waggons, and ran out with a trader of the name of Wilson to get a shot at them. They saw us, and, leaving the horse, got into cover; as they had retreated very leisurely and were by no means scared, we took for granted they would come again. A low mound was within twenty yards of the pitfall, and gave an excellent standing-place behind a double-stemmed tree. Wilson took the right, I the left, and from our slightly raised position we commanded the only approach the lions could well return by. I can say that my eyes were never off that opening, and yet so quietly and glidingly did a lion fill it that I did not see him till he had come--the coming was a blank to me; he was looking at me. A ball in the chest killed him. A second closed the gap, halted inquiringly by his companion, who was stretching in the death spasm, and raising his head caught sight of us. I covered him, but let Wilson fire--the ball raked him from chest to tail, and he dropped dead alongside his mate. After watching some time vainly for the third, we walked up to the carcases; they were both males; the one I had shot was the longest I ever killed, teeth, claws, skin, perfect, in his very prime; the other the oldest, most worn-out specimen, no teeth, no claws, stumps only, his grizzled hide mangy and full of the scars of old wounds; in fact, he was, as the Kafirs said, ‘Ra le tao,’ the father of lions. Neither had a sign of mane.

A poor young fellow who had come out to shoot, but was utterly unfitted for the work, lost his companion on one of the lower reaches of this river, near where we now were. From the natives’ account, it appeared his friend had fired at a goose, which fell in the river. He stripped to go in after it, though they begged him not, as there were alligators; he would not listen to them and swam out. When two or three yards from the bird he was observed to strike sideways, as if he saw something, and in another instant rearing himself half out of the water, with a cry, he sank. There was no doubt what had happened. I first came across the former of these two travellers in a pass not many days’ trek from Kolobeng, Livingstone’s station; but the interview was a short one, as I was inspanned and on the move. Next morning I found all his men, they were Ba-Quaina and knew me, had followed my waggons, and upon my questioning them they said they really could not stay with that white man, as he starved them. They had found him elephants two or three times, but he never killed any; he only rode after their tails, expecting them to fall off. Of course I insisted on their going back, and shot a rhinoceros on their promise of doing so, just for the present distress. Here was a country swarming with animals, a man with guns and ammunition in abundance, and yet he couldn’t ‘keep his camp.’ I would not blame him for that; but why did he not give up at once when he discovered, as he must soon have done, his utter incapacity? My friend Vardon had interviewed him before he started, at the Cape, I afterwards learnt, and asked him what he had come out for. ‘To shoot a lion,’ he replied. ‘Was that all?’ he was asked; and he replied, ‘Yes; if he did that he should be quite content.’ ‘You’d better have given 200_l._ and shot the one at the Zoo; it would have been cheaper, less trouble, and less dangerous too.’ Poor lad! he picked up another mate and started on another journey, goodness knows what for; and on my second return from the Zouga we found his skull with a bullet-hole through it, and some small articles of dress, near an old camp-fire two or three marches only from where we first met. The hyænas had dragged away the rest of the bones. Rightly or wrongly, his death was attributed to his companion, and strangely enough this man, subsequently joining himself to an expedition, met a similar fate himself. I never could get full particulars of this sad story.

The way in which, according to the Kafirs, the native dogs worked the alligators on this narrow Zouga River amused us. Three or four of them wished to cross, either for better fare, or to see their friends on the other side; but, though alligator is very partial to dog, dog is not so fond of alligator. Assembling on the banks, they would run, barking violently, a quarter of a mile up stream in full view; halt; join in a chorus of barking, yelping, and baying; suddenly pull up in the middle of the concert, and dash at the top of their speed, absolutely mute, out of sight on a lower level, to the point they had started from, jump into the water and swim across, selling the alligators, who, hungry after their ‘course of bark,’ were eagerly expecting their dinner at the spot where they had had the largest dose. Whether this was eyes or ears, or both, I could not make out. One beast has wits, another power; and so the balance is pretty fairly kept.

While still in the desert, during our first trip, Livingstone called my attention to a wonderful bit of instinct in a bird--he mentions it in his works, but it is worth telling a second time. We had been a couple of days without water, and I was enjoying watching the cattle swell themselves out in a chance thunder-shower pond we had just come to, and sitting dabbling my feet, when to me the dear old Doctor, ‘I say, what do you think is the greatest proof of conjugal affection you ever knew?’ ‘Go along, I’m not occupied with such matters.’ ‘Don’t be cross; come here. Do you see the chink in that tree, and that large horn-billed bird going backwards and forwards to it? What do you think he’s doing?‘ ‘Oh, making a fool of himself generally.’ ‘No, he’s feeding his wife and his children, who are shut in behind it.’ And it was so. The ornithological name of the bird I don’t know, but he’s something between a toucan and a hornbill, neither one nor the other, about the size of a large pigeon, though, if I remember right, more like a woodpecker in build. After marriage the birds select a hole in a tree, and gather a few sticks for a nest; the hen takes some feathers off her breast to line it and lays her eggs. When this is done, and incubation begins, the male bird goes to the nearest pond, and brings wet clay, with which he stops up the hole at which his wife went in, leaving one narrow opening in the centre, and through this the excellent fellow feeds mamma and little ones, until the latter are fledged and ready to leave the nest, then he and she, from outside and in, jointly peck away the clay, which has by this time under the dry heat become as hard as a brick, and madame and her family make their _début_. The poor monsieur is a rickle of bones, madame as round as a ball; the Kafirs, knowing this, always dig her out as a tit-bit whenever they find the nest. And what’s it done for? An African wood is filled with all sorts of cats, and without a protection the toucan (that’s not right, but let it stand) family would soon be improved off the earth, for a hole in a tree comes handy to a cat; but the clay very soon gets too hard for his claws, and the bird hatches in security. Now come with me towards a Kafir kraal, such as those of the Ba-Quaina or Ba-Wangketsi, permanent tribes. We walk through the outskirts; there’s our friend the toucan again, but there’s his wife too, and they keep alternately flying to and from that hole in the tree, out of which many gaping mouths are protruded at each visit. They are the same birds, but the house-door is open. Within a radius of five to six miles of every large kraal no cat exists. The Kafirs kill everything that runs upon four legs for food or clothing, the best _carosses_ are made of cat-skins (I have one with thirty-six pussies in it), and the birds have found this out--instinct? or reason?

I wandered on at my leisure, and on my return from the higher reaches of the river unexpectedly came upon the waggons of Mr. Webb, of Newstead Abbey, and Captain Shelley, and a companion who, I believe, was travelling with them and trading on his own account. We exchanged friendly greetings, they going towards the Lake, I homewards. I was returning earlier than need be, for I was very nearly run out of lead, and though J knew they were amply provided I had not the face to ask them for metal more valuable than gold in the middle of Africa. Next morning, however, I shot three elephants, and it occurred to me that I might exchange their tusks for lead with Mr. Webb’s companion, and I accordingly sent John on horseback with a note to Mr. Webb, asking him to mediate for me, and telling him John would put his Kafirs on our tracks from the elephants and they might run heel, and take the tusks out. John overtook them twelve or fifteen miles off, and came back to camp with his horse laden with bars of lead and the prettiest and most courteous letter from Mr. Webb, who would not hear of my buying lead with ivory, and sent me a bountiful supply and a number of kind words. It was a most generous help, most graciously rendered, and enabled me to enjoy my homeward march. Without it I should have been troubled to feed my followers for 1,400 miles, for I had only a very small reserve.

These were the only elephants I shot that were not eaten, and I hope some wandering Bushman, vulture led, may have come across even them. I missed Livingstone. He was driven back by fever breaking out amongst his party, and returned on the other side of the river, to which I myself crossed over after a time, but he had then gone by.

Inspanning one morning whilst here, a shout of ‘Ingwe’ from the men, a rush of the dogs, and up jumped a leopard in the midst of us, and made for a large tree, which he climbed. I was beneath it in a minute with a gun, and for half an hour with three or four men searched for him along the branches without avail. At last we gave it up, and went after the waggons, thinking he must have managed to get away unseen by us. One man however stopped behind for a minute to tie up his bundle, and before we were a hundred yards off the cunning beast raised his head from a bough, came down, and made away too quickly for us to get back, on the man’s halloo, in time to shoot him--he did wondrously in hiding himself. Leopards were not common thus far in; they clung to the rocks and hills in and near the colony. I only saw four or five of them, but one performed a cleverish trick. The Kafirs were sitting round their fire under a large tree, when, climbing along an overhanging branch, he dropped into the circle, caught a dog, cleared the ring at a bound, and got safely away. Towards the Colony, where the baboons are plentiful, the leopard preys on them, though, when in large herds, the old dog baboons will frequently drive him off; their canine teeth are formidable weapons. Most amusing fellows are these noisy ancestors of ours, especially when feeding, spread about, picking up what they can find, lifting stones, and seizing anything that may be under them, and popping it into their cheek pouches with a smack. Three or four experienced veterans keep guard, to give warning of the approach of danger. They cannot forage for themselves, so they have an eye for the pouches of their brethren, and now and then make a spring, take a young fellow by the ear, and cuff him well, until he allows them to put their fingers into his pouch, and transfer its contents to their own. The hunting leopard, too, was seldom seen. I once roughly tested his tremendous speed. I was on horseback, and caught sight of one in such a position that he must pass close to me, if I could gain a point fifty yards off. To upset my plan he had a hundred and fifty yards to run, and he beat me hollow, though I went at a full gallop.

The game was plentiful on this north side of the river, but the country in places was very ugly for hunting from the dense thickets. Lying lazily one day on a high bank of a beautiful reach, I was watching the otters below me as they paddled and fished down stream, when a troop of Bushmen from a neighbouring kraal came to the watering-place, to fill their gourds and ostrich shells, before starting for the elephants I had killed the previous day, which were as usual some twelve or fifteen miles from camp, in a dry and thirsty land where no water was. After filling their vessels with a supply sufficient to last them for the two or three days it would take them to cut up and dry their meat, they proceeded to fill themselves--a most remarkable process; each one, whether at the moment thirsty or not, pouring down a cargo of water to the utmost limit of his holding capacity, to economise the store he carried at his back. Like Mr. Weller at Stiggins’ tea party, ‘I could see them swelling wisibly before my very eyes,’ until their usually shrivelled bodies became shining and distended all over; and man, woman and child waddled away--so many different sized water balloons. The last of the long line had disappeared in the dense forest--my otters were all gone--the country was not a tempting one for hunting, the thorns by the river being almost impenetrable, and the jungle further off so matted and bound together with creepers and monkey-ropes that I had determined not to try it again. The noonday heat had stilled the earth of all distinguishable sounds, though the unbroken monotonous hum of insect life, the never-failing accompaniment of a piping hot day, seemed to fill and load the head and sultry air. I had nothing to watch, less to do, and was not sleepy; the silence burdened me: and at length, to break it, I shouted to my after-rider, who was enjoying his siesta some distance off under the waggons, to saddle the horses, and taking my gun, I mounted and rode along one of the narrow game tracks into the thicket, picking up a Bushman who had remained behind at the encampment. For some time the only living thing we saw was an old bull buffalo, which with lowered head seemed inclined to bar the road until, threatened by the Bushman’s spear, he sulkily withdrew. We had no need of him, and were content to let him go in peace. A shot would have disturbed the elephants we thought we might fall in with, for though we were not on a trail, the fresh footprints which were ever and again crossing the track, and the broken branches with the sap yet undried, told us they had been there very lately. Into the thorny barriers on either side of the way we could not have followed them with our horses, even had we wished, so we stuck to the path and kept our eyes open. Presently the ground to our right with its sea of thorns rose in a long low swell, and as it sank into the little hollow beyond, five or six colossal bodiless legs stood out amongst the bare lower stems of the closely woven branches. I slipped from my pony, and crawling on hands and knees, got within twenty yards of the legs, without being able to see anything more of the owners. A large tree was in advance, round whose stem the thorns did not press quite so pertinaciously as elsewhere. Slowly and cautiously I gained its side. An elephant was close to me, but though I could now see his body he was stern on. I broke a twig to attract his attention: his head swung half round, but was so guarded by the bush that it would have been useless to fire at it. His shoulder was more exposed. There was no time to wait, he was on the move, and the dust flew from his side as the heavy ball struck him. Screaming angrily, he turned full front in the direction of the tree by which I stood motionless. I do not think he made me out, and the bush was too thick for me to risk giving him further information by a second shot. For a moment we confronted one another: and then, the rumbling note of alarm uttered by his companions decided him on joining them, and the stiff thorns bent before the weight of seven or eight bulls, as a cornfield in the wind.

I regained the path and rode along the line of their retreat, which, as shown by the yielding bush, was parallel to it. After a time the thorns thinned out, and I caught sight of the wounded elephant holding a course of his own a little to the left of his fellows; and when he entered the tropical forest beyond I was in his wake, and very soon compelled to follow where he broke away. Lying flat on my pony’s neck and guiding him as I best might by occasional glimpses of the tail of my now slowly retreating pioneer, I laboured on in the hope that more open ground might enable me to get up alongside of him. A most unpleasant ride it was. My constrained position gave me but little chance of using my hands to save my head; I was at one time nearly pulled from the saddle by the heavy boughs, and at another nearly torn to pieces by the wicked thorns of the ‘wait-a-bit,’ which, although no longer _the_ tree of the jungle, were intolerably scattered through it. I have killed elephants on very bad ground, but this was the worst piece of bush I ever rode into in my life. A little extra noise from the pursuers caused the pursued to stop; and whilst clinging like Gilpin to the calender’s horse and peering at the broad stern of the chase, I saw him suddenly put his head where his tail ought to have been. The trunk was tightly coiled-an elephant nearly always coils his trunk in thick bush for fear of pricking it--forward flapped the huge ears, up went the tail, and down he came like a gigantic bat, ten feet across. Pinned above and on either side, by dismounting I could neither hope to escape nor to kill my opponent. I therefore lugged my unfortunate animal round and urged him along; but I had not taken into account with what great difficulties and how slowly I had followed the bull. He was now in full charge, and the small trees and bush gave way before him like reeds, whereas I was compelled to keep my head lowered as before and try and hold the path, such as it was, up which we had come. I was well mounted, and my spurs were sharp. Battered and torn by branch and thorn I managed a kind of gallop, but it was impossible to keep it up. The elephant thundered straight through obstacles we were obliged to go round, and in fifty yards we were fast in a thick bush and he within fifteen of us. As a last chance I tried to get off, but in rolling round on my saddle my spur gored the pony’s flank, and the elephant screaming over him at the same moment, he made a convulsive effort and freed himself, depositing me in a sitting position immediately in front of the uplifted forefoot of the charging bull. So near was it that I mechanically opened my knees to allow him to put it down, and, throwing myself back, crossed my hands upon my chest, obstinately puffing myself out with the idea of trying to resist the gigantic tread, or at all events of being as troublesome to crush as possible. I saw the burly brute from chest to tail as he passed directly over me lengthways, one foot between my knees, and one fourteen inches beyond my head, and not a graze! Five tons at least! As he turned from chasing the pony-which, without my weight and left to its own instinct, escaped easily to my after-rider’s horse--he swept by me on his way to rejoin his companions, and I got another snap shot at his shoulders. As soon as I could I followed his spoor, but must have changed it in the thick bush, for in five minutes I had run into and killed a fresh elephant in a small open space. The Bushmen found the first, next morning, dead.

[Illustration: THREATENING OF ELEPHANTIASIS]

Out of all my narrow escapes this is the only one that remained with me in recollection for any time. On four or five other occasions I was half or wholly stunned, and therefore not very clear about my sensations; but on this I was well aware of what was going on and over me. One hears of night-mares--well, for a month or more I dare say, I had night-elephants.

My reader will be glad to know that this is the last mishap I am going to tell him of, and that my contribution to the Big Game of Africa is finished. I beg his pardon for not making it more interesting, but I began a new trade too late in life. At starting I only proposed to give the stories of the illustrations; this I have done as well as I am able, but I have coupled them together with remarks not strictly within the subject of ‘Big Game,’ because in writing of African animals I could not quite get rid of African surroundings; and, besides, entirely by themselves they looked too bare. I hope I may be excused, therefore, for going a little beyond the limits prescribed for this ‘accidental’ sketch.

##