The Land of Footprints

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Land of Footprints

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The buffalo vanished into the blue. We were left with a dead
rhino, which we did not want, twelve miles from camp, and no
water. It was a hard hike back, but we made it finally, though
nearly perished from thirst.

This beast, be it noted, did not charge us at all, but I consider
him as one of the three undoubtedly animated by hostile
intentions. Of the others I can, at this moment, remember five
that might or might not have been actually and maliciously
charging when they were killed or dodged. I am no mind reader for
rhinoceros. Also I am willing to believe in their entirely
altruistic intentions. Only, if they want to get the practical
results of their said altruistic intentions they must really
refrain from coming straight at me nearer than twenty yards. It
has been stated that if one stands perfectly still until the
rhinoceros is just six feet away, and then jumps sideways, the
beast will pass him. I never happened to meet anybody who had
acted on this theory. I suppose that such exist: though I doubt
if any persistent exponent of the art is likely to exist long.
Personally I like my own method, and stoutly maintain that
within twenty yards it is up to the rhinoceros to begin to do the
dodging.

XXII. THE RHINOCEROS-(continued)

At first the traveller is pleased and curious over rhinoceros.
After he has seen and encountered eight or ten, he begins to look
upon them as an unmitigated nuisance. By the time he has done a
week in thick rhino-infested scrub he gets fairly to hating them.

They are bad enough in the open plains, where they can be seen and
avoided, but in the tall grass or the scrub they are a continuous
anxiety. No cover seems small enough to reveal them. Often they
will stand or lie absolutely immobile until you are within a very
short distance, and then will outrageously break out. They are,
in spite of their clumsy build, as quick and active as polo
ponies, and are the only beasts I know of capable of leaping into
full speed ahead from a recumbent position. In thorn scrub they
are the worst, for there, no matter how alert the traveller may
hold himself, he is likely to come around a bush smack on one.
And a dozen times a day the throat-stopping, abrupt crash and
smash to right or left brings him up all standing, his heart
racing, the blood pounding through his veins. It is jumpy work,
and is very hard on the temper. In the natural reaction from
being startled into fits one snaps back to profanity. The
cumulative effects of the epithets hurled after a departing and
inconsiderately hasty rhinoceros may have done something toward
ruining the temper of the species. It does not matter whether or
not the individual beast proves dangerous; he is inevitably most
startling. I have come in at night with my eyes fairly aching
from spying for rhinos during a day's journey through high grass.

And, as a friend remarked, rhinos are such a mussy death. One
poor chap, killed while we were away on our first trip, could not
be moved from the spot where he had been trampled. A few
shovelfuls of earth over the remains was all the rhinoceros had
left possible.

Fortunately, in the thick stuff especially, it is often possible
to avoid the chance rhinoceros through the warning given by the
rhinoceros birds. These are birds about the size of a robin that
accompany the beast everywhere. They sit in a row along his back
occupying themselves with ticks and a good place to roost. Always
they are peaceful and quiet until a human being approaches. Then
they flutter a few feet into the air uttering a peculiar rapid
chattering. Writers with more sentiment than sense of proportion
assure us that this warns the rhinoceros of approaching danger!
On the contrary, I always looked at it the other way. The
rhinoceros birds thereby warned ME of danger, and I was duly
thankful.

The safari boys stand quite justly in a holy awe of the rhino.
The safari is strung out over a mile or two of country, as a
usual thing, and a downwind rhino is sure to pierce some part of
the line in his rush. Then down go the loads with a smash, and up
the nearest trees swarm the boys. Usually their refuges are thorn
trees, armed, even on the main trunk, with long sharp spikes.
There is no difficulty in going up, but the gingerly coming down,
after all the excitement has died, is a matter of deliberation
and of voices uplifted in woe. Cuninghame tells of an inadequate
slender and springy, but solitary, sapling into which swarmed
half his safari on the advent of a rambunctious rhino. The tree
swayed and bent and cracked alarmingly, threatening to dump the
whole lot on the ground. At each crack the boys yelled. This
attracted the rhinoceros, which immediately charged the tree full
tilt. He hit square, the tree shivered and creaked, the boys
wound their arms and legs around the slender support and howled
frantically. Again and again rhinoceros drew back to repeat his
butting of that tree. By the time Cuninghame reached the spot,
the tree, with its despairing burden of black birds, was clinging
to the soil by its last remaining roots.

In the Nairobi Club I met a gentleman with one arm gone at the
shoulder. He told his story in a slightly bored and drawling
voice, picking his words very carefully, and evidently most
occupied with neither understating nor overstating the case. It
seems he had been out, and had killed some sort of a buck. While
his men were occupied with this, he strolled on alone to see what
he could find. He found a rhinoceros, that charged viciously, and
into which he emptied his gun.

"When I came to," he said, "it was just coming on dusk, and the
lions were beginning to grunt. My arm was completely crushed, and
I was badly bruised and knocked about. As near as I could
remember I was fully ten miles from camp. A circle of carrion
birds stood all about me not more than ten feet away, and a great
many others were flapping over me and fighting in the air. These
last were so close that I could feel the wind from their wings.
It was rawther gruesome." He paused and thought a a moment, as
though weighing his words. "In fact," he added with an air of
final conviction, "it was QUITE gruesome!"

The most calm and imperturbable rhinoceros I ever saw was one
that made us a call on the Thika River. It was just noon, and our
boys were making camp after a morning's march. The usual racket
was on, and the usual varied movement of rather confused
industry. Suddenly silence fell. We came out of the tent to see
the safari gazing spellbound in one direction. There was a
rhinoceros wandering peaceably over the little knoll back of
camp, and headed exactly in our direction. While we watched, he
strolled through the edge of camp, descended the steep bank to
the river's edge, drank, climbed the bank, strolled through camp
again and departed over the hill. To us he paid not the slightest
attention. It seems impossible to believe that he neither scented
nor saw any evidences of human life in all that populated flat,
especially when one considers how often these beasts will SEEM to
become aware of man's presence by telepathy.* Perhaps he was the
one exception to the whole race, and was a good-natured rhino.

*Opposing theories are those of "instinct," and of slight causes,
such a grasshoppers leaping before the hunter's feet, not noticed
by the man approaching.

The babies are astonishing and amusing creatures, with blunt
noses on which the horns are just beginning to form, and with
even fewer manners than their parents. The mere fact of an
800-pound baby does not cease to be curious. They are truculent
little creatures, and sometimes rather hard to avoid when they
get on the warpath. Generally, as far as my observation goes, the
mother gives birth to but one at a time. There may be occasional
twin births, but I happen never to have met so interesting a
family.

Rhinoceroses are still very numerous-too numerous. I have seen
as many as fourteen in two hours, and probably could have found
as many more if I had been searching for them. There is no doubt,
however, that this species must be the first to disappear of the
larger African animals. His great size combined with his 'orrid
'abits mark him for early destruction. No such dangerous lunatic
can be allowed at large in a settled country, nor in a country
where men are travelling constantly. The species will probably be
preserved in appropriate restricted areas. It would be a great
pity to have so perfect an example of the Prehistoric Pinhead
wiped out completely. Elsewhere he will diminish, and finally
disappear.

For one thing, and for one thing only, is the traveller indebted
to the rhinoceros. The beast is lazy, large, and has an excellent
eye for easy ways through. For this reason, as regards the
question of good roads, he combines the excellent qualities of
Public Sentiment, the Steam Roller, and the Expert Engineer.
Through thorn thickets impenetrable to anything less armoured
than a Dreadnaught like himself he clears excellent paths. Down
and out of eroded ravines with perpendicular sides he makes
excellent wide trails, tramped hard, on easy grades, often with
zigzags to ease the slant. In some of the high country where the
torrential rains wash hundreds of such gullies across the line of
march it is hardly an exaggeration to say that travel would be
practically impossible without the rhino trails wherewith to
cross. Sometimes the perpendicular banks will extend for miles
without offering any natural break down to the stream-bed. Since
this is so I respectfully submit to Government the following
proposal:

(a) That a limited number of these beasts shall be licensed as
Trail Rhinos; and that all the rest shall be killed from the
settled and regularly travelled districts.

(b) That these Trail Rhinos shall be suitably hobbled by short
steel chains.

(c) That each Trail Rhino shall carry painted conspicuously on
his side his serial number.

(d) That as a further precaution for public safety each Trail
Rhino shall carry firmly attached to his tail a suitable red
warning flag. Thus the well-known habit of the rhinoceros of
elevating his tail rigidly when about to charge, or when in the
act of charging, will fly the flag as a warning to travellers.

(e) That an official shall be appointed to be known as the
Inspector of Rhinos whose duty it shall be to examine the
hobbles, numbers and flags of all Trail Rhinos, and to keep the
same in due working order and repair.

And I do submit to all and sundry that the above resolutions have
as much sense to them as have most of the petitions submitted to
Government by settlers in a new country.

XXIII. THE HIPPO POOL

For a number of days we camped in a grove just above a dense
jungle and not fifty paces from the bank of a deep and wide
river. We could at various points push through light low
undergrowth, or stoop beneath clear limbs, or emerge on tiny open
banks and promontories to look out over the width of the stream.
The river here was some three or four hundred feet wide. It
cascaded down through various large boulders and sluiceways to
fall bubbling and boiling into deep water; it then flowed still
and sluggish for nearly a half mile and finally divided into
channels around a number of wooded islands of different sizes. In
the long still stretch dwelt about sixty hippopotamuses of all
sizes.

During our stay these hippos led a life of alarmed and angry
care. When we first arrived they were distributed picturesquely
on banks or sandbars, or were lying in midstream. At once they
disappeared under water. By the end of four or five minutes they
began to come to the surface. Each beast took one disgusted look,
snorted, and sank again. So hasty was his action that he did not
even take time to get a full breath; consequently up he had to
come in not more than two minutes, this time. The third
submersion lasted less than a minute; and at the end of half hour
of yelling we had the hippos alternating between the bottom of
the river and the surface of the water about as fast as they
could make a round trip, blowing like porpoises. It was a comical
sight. And as some of the boys were always out watching the show,
those hippos had no respite during the daylight hours. From a
short distance inland the explosive blowing as they came to the
surface sounded like the irregular exhaust of a steam-engine.

We camped at this spot four days; and never, in that length of
time, during the daytime, did those hippopotamuses take any
recreation and rest. To be sure after a little they calmed down
sufficiently to remain on the surface for a half minute or so,
instead of gasping a mouthful of air and plunging below at once;
but below was where they considered they belonged most of the
time. We got to recognize certain individuals. They would stare
at us fixedly for a while; and then would glump down out of sight
like submarines.

When I saw them thus floating with only the very top of the head
and snout out of water, I for the first time appreciated why the
Greeks had named them hippopotamuses-the river horses. With the
heavy jowl hidden; and the prominent nostrils, the long
reverse-curved nose, the wide eyes, and the little pointed ears
alone visible, they resembled more than a little that sort of
conventionalized and noble charger seen on the frieze of the
Parthenon, or in the prancy paintings of the Renaissance.

There were hippopotamuses of all sizes and of all colours. The
little ones, not bigger than a grand piano, were of flesh pink.
Those half-grown were mottled with pink and black in blotches.
The adults were almost invariably all dark, though a few of them
retained still a small pink spot or so-a sort of persistence in
mature years of the eternal boy-, I suppose. All were very sleek
and shiny with the wet; and they had a fashion of suddenly and
violently wiggling one or the other or both of their little ears
in ridiculous contrast to the fixed stare of their bung eyes.
Generally they had nothing to say as to the situation, though
occasionally some exasperated old codger would utter a grumbling
bellow.

The ground vegetation for a good quarter mile from the river bank
was entirely destroyed, and the earth beaten and packed hard by
these animals. Landing trails had been made leading out from the
water by easy and regular grades. These trails were about two
feet wide and worn a foot or so deep. They differed from the
rhino trails, from which they could be easily distinguished, in
that they showed distinctly two parallel tracks separated from
each other by a slight ridge. In other words, the hippo waddles.
These trails we found as far as four and five miles inland. They
were used, of course, only at night; and led invariably to lush
and heavy feed. While we were encamped there, the country on our
side the river was not used by our particular herd of hippos. One
night, however, we were awakened by a tremendous rending crash of
breaking bushes, followed by an instant's silence and then the
outbreak of a babel of voices. Then we heard a prolonged
sw-i-sh-sh-sh, exactly like the launching of a big boat. A hippo
had blundered out the wrong side the river, and fairly into our
camp.

In rivers such as the Tana these great beasts are most
extraordinarily abundant. Directly in front of our camp, for
example, were three separate herds which contained respectively
about sixty, forty, and twenty-five head. Within two miles below
camp were three other big pools each with its population; while a
walk of a mile above showed about as many more. This sort of
thing obtained for practically the whole length of the
river-hundreds of miles. Furthermore, every little tributary
stream, no matter how small, provided it can muster a pool or so
deep enough to submerge so large an animal, has its faithful
band. I have known of a hippo quite happily occupying a ditch
pool ten feet wide and fifteen feet long. There was literally not
room enough for the beast to turn around; he had to go in at one
end and out at the other! Each lake, too, is alive with them; and
both lakes and rivers are many.

Nobody disturbs hippos, save for trophies and an occasional
supply of meat for the men or of cooking fat for the kitchen.
Therefore they wax fat and sassy, and will long continue to
flourish in the land.

It takes time to kill a hippo, provided one is wanted. The mark
is small, and generally it is impossible to tell whether or not
the bullet has reached the brain. Harmed or whole the beast sinks
anyway. Some hours later the distention of the stomach will float
the body. Therefore the only decent way to do is to take the
shot, and then wait a half day to see whether or not you have
missed. There are always plenty of volunteers in camp to watch
the pool, for the boys are extravagantly fond of hippo meat. Then
it is necessary to manoeuvre a rope on the carcass, often a
matter of great difficulty, for the other hippos bellow and snort
and try to live up to the circus posters of the Blood-sweating
Behemoth of Holy Writ, and the crocodiles like dark meat very
much. Usually one offers especial reward to volunteers, and
shoots into the water to frighten the beasts. The volunteer
dashes rapidly across the shallows, makes a swift plunge, and
clambers out on the floating body as onto a raft.

Then he makes fast the rope, and everybody tails on and tows the
whole outfit ashore. On one occasion the volunteer produced a
fish line and actually caught a small fish from the floating
carcass! This sounds like a good one; but I saw it with my own
two eyes.

It was at the hippo pool camp that we first became acquainted
with Funny Face.

Funny Face was the smallest, furriest little monkey you ever saw.
I never cared for monkeys before; but this one was altogether
engaging. He had thick soft fur almost like that on a Persian
cat, and a tiny human black face, and hands that emerged from a
ruff; and he was about as big as old-fashioned dolls used to be
before they began to try to imitate real babies with them. That
is to say, he was that big when we said farewell to him. When we
first knew him, had he stood in a half pint measure he could just
have seen over the rim. We caught him in a little thorn ravine
all by himself, a fact that perhaps indicates that his mother had
been killed, or perhaps that he, like a good little Funny Face,
was merely staying where he was told while she was away. At any
rate he fought savagely, according to his small powers. We took
him ignominiously by the scruff of the neck, haled him to camp,
and dumped him down on Billy. Billy constructed him a beautiful
belt by sacrificing part of a kodak strap (mine), and tied him to
a chop box filled with dry grass. Thenceforth this became Funny
Face's castle, at home and on the march.

Within a few hours his confidence in life was restored. He
accepted small articles of food from our hands, eyeing us
intently, retired and examined them. As they all proved
desirable, he rapidly came to the conclusion that these new large
strange monkeys, while not so beautiful and agile as his own
people, were nevertheless a good sort after all. Therefore he
took us into his confidence. By next day he was quite tame, would
submit to being picked up without struggling, and had ceased
trying to take an end off our various fingers. In fact when the
finger was presented, he would seize it in both small black
hands; convey it to his mouth; give it several mild and gentle
love-chews; and then, clasping it with all four hands, would
draw himself up like a little athlete and seat himself upright on
the outspread palm. Thence he would survey the world, wrinkling
up his tiny brow.

This chastened and scholarly attitude of mind lasted for four or
five days. Then Funny Face concluded that he understood all about
it, had settled satisfactorily to himself all the problems of the
world and his relations to it, and had arrived at a good working
basis for life. Therefore these questions ceased to occupy him.
He dismissed them from his mind completely, and gave himself over
to light-hearted frivolity.

His disposition was flighty but full of elusive charm. You
deprecated his lack of serious purpose in life, disapproved
heartily of his irresponsibility, but you fell to his engaging
qualities. He was a typical example of the lovable
good-for-naught. Nothing retained his attention for two
consecutive minutes. If he seized a nut and started for his chop
box with it, the chances were he would drop it and forget all
about it in the interest excited by a crawling ant or the colour
of a flower. His elfish face was always alight with the play of
emotions and of flashing changing interests. He was greatly given
to starting off on very important errands, which he forgot before
he arrived.

In this he contrasted strangely with his friend Darwin. Darwin
was another monkey of the same species, caught about a week
later. Darwin's face was sober and pondering, and his methods
direct and effective. No side excursions into the brilliant
though evanescent fields of fancy diverted him from his ends.
These were, generally, to get the most and best food and the
warmest corner for sleep. When he had acquired a nut, a kernel of
corn, or a piece of fruit, he sat him down and examined it
thoroughly and conscientiously and then, conscientiously and
thoroughly, he devoured it. No extraneous interest could distract
his attention; not for a moment. That he had sounded the
seriousness of life is proved by the fact that he had observed
and understood the flighty character of Funny Face. When Funny
Face acquired a titbit, Darwin took up a hump-backed position
near at hand, his bright little eyes fixed on his friend's
activities. Funny Face would nibble relishingly at his prune for
a moment or so; then an altogether astonishing butterfly would
flitter by just overhead. Funny Face, lost in ecstasy would gaze
skyward after the departing marvel. This was Darwin's
opportunity. In two hops he was at Funny Face's side. With great
deliberation, but most businesslike directness, Darwin disengaged
Funny Face's unresisting fingers from the prune, seized it, and
retired. Funny Face never knew it; his soul was far away after
the blazoned wonder, and when it returned, it was not to prunes
at all. They were forgotten, and his wandering eye focussed back
to a bright button in the grass. Thus by strict attention to
business did Darwin prosper.

Darwin's attitude was always serious, and his expression grave.
When he condescended to romp with Funny Face one could see that
it was not for the mere joy of sport, but for the purposes of
relaxation. If offered a gift he always examined it seriously
before finally accepting it, turning it over and over in his
hands, and considering it with wrinkled brow. If you offered
anything to Funny Face, no matter what, he dashed up, seized it
on the fly, departed at speed uttering grateful low chatterings;
probably dropped and forgot it in the excitement of something new
before he had even looked to see what it was.

"These people," said Darwin to himself, "on the whole, and as an
average, seem to give me appropriate and pleasing gifts. To be
sure, it is always well to see that they don't try to bunco me
with olive stones or such worthless trash, but still I believe
they are worth cultivating and standing in with."

""It strikes me," observed Funny Face to himself, "that my
adorable Memsahib and my beloved bwana have been very kind to me
to-day, though I don't remember precisely how. But I certainly do
love them!"

We cut good sized holes on each of the four sides of their chop
box to afford them ventilation on the march. The box was always
carried on one of the safari boy's heads: and Funny Face and
Darwin gazed forth with great interest. It was very amusing to
see the big negro striding jauntily along under his light burden;
the large brown winking eyes glued to two of the apertures. When
we arrived in camp and threw the box cover open, they hopped
forth, shook themselves, examined their immediate surroundings
and proceeded to take a little exercise. When anything alarmed
them, such as the shadow of a passing hawk, they skittered madly
up the nearest thing in sight-tent pole, tree, or human form-
and scolded indignantly or chittered in a low tone according to
the degree of their terror. When Funny Face was very young,
indeed, the grass near camp caught fire. After the excitement was
over we found him completely buried in the straw of his box,
crouched, and whimpering like a child. As he could hardly, at his
tender age, have had any previous experience with fire, this
instinctive fear was to me very interesting.

The monkeys had only one genuine enemy. That was an innocent
plush lion named Little Simba. It had been given us in joke
before we left California, we had tucked it into an odd corner of
our trunk, had discovered it there, carried it on safari out of
sheer idleness, and lo! it had become an important member of the
expedition. Every morning Mahomet or Yusuf packed it-or rather
him-carefully away in the tin box. Promptly at the end of the
day's march Little Simba was haled forth and set in a place of
honour in the centre of the table, and reigned there-or
sometimes in a little grass jungle constructed by his faithful
servitors-until the march was again resumed. His job in life was
to look after our hunting luck. When he failed to get us what we
wanted, he was punished; when he procured us what we desired he
was rewarded by having his tail sewed on afresh, or by being
presented with new black thread whiskers, or even a tiny blanket
of Mericani against the cold. This last was an especial favour
for finally getting us the greater kudu. Naturally as we did all
this in the spirit of an idle joke our rewards and punishments
were rather desultory. To our surprise, however, we soon found
that our boys took Little Simba quite seriously. He was a fetish,
a little god, a power of good or bad luck. We did not appreciate
this point until one evening, after a rather disappointing day,
Mahomet came to us bearing Little Simba in his hand.

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