CHAPTER XV

ON SAFARI

On May 22nd I was informed that orders had been received to send me to Morogoro, and on the following morning, accompanied by Derndorf, whose camp at Bugiri had been closed down, I set out. Leaving Tabora at about 9 a.m., we reached Morogoro the next morning. Here I was met by a young fellow who conducted me to the hospital, where I learned that I was required to take medical charge of four wounded prisoners and accompany them to Mahenge. As most of them were suffering from fever and not fit to travel, I had to wait in Morogoro for about a week until they were convalescent.

Herr Stabsarzt Manteufel, the doctor in charge, kindly put me up in one of the smaller wards which at the time was occupied only by one patient who was recovering from dysentery. He was a Bavarian, a fact easily deducible from his speech, for he frequently relapsed into Platt-Deutsch, but I was able to understand him pretty well. He told me that I ought to understand Low German more easily than High German, since the former was more like English, and he lent me some of his books to read. I was interested to find that he had been in Dar-es-Salaam on the day I was captured, and further, that he was one of the men who had been taking pot-shots at me when I was in the boat! When I rallied him on his poor shooting he said that any way he did his best to hit me, and added that he had no idea I was a doctor. He was very anxious to get hold of an English sovereign to make a ring for his wife, and offered me fifty rupees in original paper money if I would give him one, and promised faithfully not to say a word about the transaction. Of course, gold currency was getting very scarce in the Colony, but it was long before I could persuade him that I truly did not possess such a coin as he craved for.

Later I was given a room to myself, and providing that I did not go near the railway-station, Dr. Manteufel gave me permission to come and go as I liked. Thus I was able to walk about without let or hindrance, a privilege I greatly appreciated.

I bought a quantity of tobacco and cigarettes for myself as well as for the other prisoners who had no money.

The food at this hospital was excellent, and we had quantities of fruit—papaws, bananas, custard-apples and cape gooseberries. As the water-supply was not above suspicion the patients were all allowed soda-water to drink.

We left Morogoro on June 1st, and travelled by train to Kilossa, a distance of only a few miles, and there we spent the night. Ellersdorf accompanied us as guard. He was a native of Munich—a young planter who for some reason or other was considered unfit for active service. At Kilossa we found four South Africans who had been recently captured near Kondoa, and they were to join our _safari_ and travel with us to Mahenge.

One of the patients under my charge had been shot in the thigh and could not walk any distance, so he had to be carried in a _masheela_. Before we could start the next morning, porters had to be procured for him, and as there was some difficulty about this, it was not until nearly midday that we got away.

The first day’s march was a short one of only about two hours’ duration, and we camped at a small village within sight of the Kilossa hills. I slept in a native hut, and as I had my own bed with me I was quite comfortable. A hut was also provided for the other prisoners, but they preferred the open, and spread their blankets under some trees.

Rations consisting of mealy-meal, rice, coffee, sugar, and a mixture of matama and wheat-flour for bread-making, as well as the necessary utensils, had been issued to them before leaving Kilossa, and they had to do their own cooking on arrival in camp. The inhabitants of each village had to provide the firing—dry sticks gathered in the jungle, and huge logs. The Askaris kept a great fire burning all night both for the sake of warmth, for it was very cold after sunset, and also for light, as one of them had to be continually on watch to see that none of the prisoners escaped. Ellersdorf, who had with him a tent as well as his two “boys”—one of whom acted as cook—was a decent fellow, and I had my meals with him. On the first day we talked German, but then I discovered that he had a good knowledge of English, and for the rest of the journey we spoke only in that tongue. From him I gathered that in the German schools modern languages are considered far more important than with us. He told me that in Munich, where he came from, it was the custom for any boy who had acquired a good knowledge of English to act as guide to British and American tourists when they visited the town, and in this way many of them gained a fluent and colloquial knowledge of the language.

Our second day’s journey was also a short one—about four hours’ march over a road fairly good and broad, though it was but a beaten track, not a made road, and any heavy traffic would soon have cut it up. We passed one or two _shambas_, but the district was for the most part uncultivated. We arrived about midday at our destination, a village called Ulaiya.

Ellersdorf and I each had a hut to ourselves, and the others were accommodated in a larger one. The road by which we had travelled was the main _safari_ route from Kilossa to Iringa, along which ran a single telegraph line, and as there was a good deal of traffic up and down, all these buildings had been erected especially for the benefit of wayfarers. A small and muddy river ran just behind the village, and in this we obtained permission to bathe in the afternoon—of course, with a guard over us.

The next day we breakfasted before dawn and were under way soon after 6 a.m. A long journey was before us, and the road, which lay through a forest, was but a primitive native track only a foot or two wide. The forest was not dense; the trees stood several feet apart, and the sun filtered down between them, but they gave a very welcome shade.

We had to proceed in single file through the elephant-grass, which grew to a height of from five to eight feet. All day we travelled through similar scenery. It was hard going, for we were in the foothills and the ground rose and fell continually. On a rise we could see for some distance, but nothing save trees and waving grass met the eye, and in a dip nothing was visible but the path immediately before us, flanked by the elephant-grass, which rose solid as a wall on either hand. It was a very dry strip of country, and not until midday did we come to water—a small, sluggish, dirty-looking stream, full of dead branches and decaying vegetation. Here we made a halt, cooked some food, and boiled water for coffee, and after our meal and a short rest started off again.

On the banks of the stream were the remains of an old village—a few tumble-down huts and abandoned plots which the jungle was fast reclaiming. It had been, I was told, abandoned on account of the ticks—_papasi_, as the natives call them—which are the carriers of African Tick-fever, a relapsing fever, very difficult to cure, and the cause of much sickness. The ticks are huge, big brutes as large as a finger-nail, and when they have sucked their fill of blood, which they do by burying their horrid heads in the flesh of their victims, they swell out like miniature balloons. Owing to their prevalence in this district _safaris_ never camped there if it could be avoided.

We arrived about 4 p.m. at the village where we were to spend the night, and I doubt if we could have gone much further, for we were all dead-beat. It had been a very strenuous day for men unaccustomed to walking. My patients were only just out of hospital and I had for long been restricted to only the most moderate amount of exercise. It is true that the South Africans were more or less fit, but they complained more loudly than any of us, for they belonged to a mounted corps, and of course a South African never walks if he can ride.

Chickens were the staple diet on _safari_, and at each village we came to the Askari corporal would hunt up the headman and bring him before Ellersdorf, who gave him orders to provide so many fowls. These were paid for at a standard rate. Freshly-ground maize was obtainable at most of the villages, and it made very good porridge, or “mealy pap,” as the South Africans called it. Sometimes we were able to get fruit, too, but at this halting-place in the middle of the forest there was none to be had.

That night I pitched my bed under a tree and the others spread their blankets round the fire. We thought it unsafe to sleep in one of the native huts, as they were almost sure to be infected with the ticks afore mentioned.

Early next morning—the fourth day of our journeying—we were on the road again before the sun was well up. Our route lay through open forest-country, and we frequently came across the fresh spoor of elephants, but we never saw the beasts themselves. As a rule they lie up in a cool spot during the day and only come out at night to feed. At times during our nights in camp we heard the sinister coughing roar of lions at a little distance, and the skulking brutes of hyænas would come quite close, though they kept carefully outside the circle of light thrown by the fire.

That day’s march was not quite so long as the previous one had been, but it was very tiring, for it was all up and down hill. We seemed to be crossing a series of crests running in parallel low ranges across our line of march. Once we heard the sound of a river brawling along in a valley far below us, but we did not see it until we came suddenly upon it, flowing right across our path. We stripped off boots and socks and forded it. It was about thirty yards wide with firm sandy bottom, and the water was only up to our knees at the deepest part. We pitched our camp a few hundred yards on on the further side, and after we had unrolled our blankets and pegged out our claims, and put the pots on to boil, we gathered our towels together and went down and had a real good bathe. The water was cool and delicious, and but for the presence of the armed Askari, who stood guard on the hank, we might almost for that brief space of time have forgotten that we were—prisoners.

The only habitation near our camping-place was a curious circular hut formed of three walls, one within the other, with entrances in each. It was rather like a maze in construction, and the whole was covered in with a single large thatched roof. The owner was a very dark-skinned native with a prominent nose and filed teeth. He was a powerfully-built man, and looked an ugly customer.

On our approach all his chickens had been driven into the interior of the hut, and it was only after a lot of bargaining that we obtained a few skinny specimens for the pot. When the bargain was concluded the rest of the fowls were let out again, and we saw to our chagrin that among them were several much finer and fatter than those we had been allowed to buy.

Next morning we again started early, and were soon out of the hill-country and travelling over the plain to the southward. Here the going was much easier, for it lay over a wide level path which might almost have been termed a road if compared with the goat-tracks of the last three days. The hills through which we had come were absolutely wild, and abandoned to the big game with which they swarmed. We had seen no trace of human habitation save only the huts at our camping-places, but now signs of comparative civilisation and cultivation appeared. In the early afternoon we reached a large prosperous-looking village situated at the foot of a range of hills running north and south. This was Kidote.

Eastward, stretching out towards the far distant sea, lay a great plain, wild and desolate, covered with long rank grass and reeds, the monotonous distance only broken here and there by a solitary stunted tree. A broad, well-kept road bordered by custard-apple, mango and small cocoanut-trees ran down the centre of the village.

We camped in an enclosure specially reserved for passing _safaris_. There was a hut built of reed and bamboo for Europeans, but though comfortable it was small, and could only accommodate two persons, so the men took possession of another intended for the storing of baggage and lit their fire in the open. Just beside the enclosure was a stream which came tumbling down over huge boulders from the hills, forming numerous bright cascades and small pools, before it finally reached the level and went wandering out into the dreary plain. The water was very clear and cool, and we hugely enjoyed our evening bathe.

A German missionary from a station a little way off in the hills came down to visit Ellersdorf, and brought us some green vegetables, which were a great treat.

On the following morning, after travelling for about two hours, we came to a river too deep and wide to ford. This was the Ruhaha, which, after running through the plain to the eastward, flows into the Rufigi some miles above its mouth. Some authorities assert that the last-named should only be called the Rufigi after its junction with the Ruhaha, and that above that point its rightful name is the Ulanga.

There was a ferryman’s hut on the bank of this river, and we were ferried across in a large canoe fashioned from a single tree-trunk. Although it looked unwieldy this type of canoe is very light, and the boatmen seemed to handle it with the greatest ease. It was necessary to make two trips of it, and for the first the canoe was loaded up with our porters and baggage. Thereupon it promptly sank to within a few inches of the gunwale! But the passage, although it looked rather dangerous, was accomplished without mishap. Then we embarked with our guard, and as there were no seats we had to squat down in the bottom for fear of over-balancing the canoe. The current ran strongly, and the boatmen paddled gently up-stream for some little way before pushing out for the opposite shore, but they judged the distance so well that we grounded without difficulty at the appointed spot on the opposite bank.