The Land of Footprints
S >>
Stewart Edward White >> The Land of Footprints
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22
"What is it?" we asked after it became evident he really wanted
something besides the pleasure of our company.
"N'dowa-medicine," said he.
"Why do you not go the Government dispensary?" we demanded.
"The doctor there is an Indian; I want REAL medicine, white man's
medicine," he explained.
Immensely flattered, of course, we wanted further to know what
ailed him.
"Nothing," said he blandly, "nothing at all; but it seemed an
excellent chance to get good medicine."
After the clinic was all attended to, we retired to our tents and
the screeching-hot bath so grateful in the tropics. When we
emerged, in our mosquito boots and pajamas, the daylight was
gone. Scores of little blazes licked and leaped in the velvet
blackness round about, casting the undergrowth and the lower
branches of the trees into flat planes like the cardboard of a
stage setting. Cheerful, squatted figures sat in silhouette or in
the relief of chance high light. Long switches of meat roasted
before the fires. A hum of talk, bursts of laughter, the crooning
of minor chants mingled with the crackling of thorns. Before our
tents stood the table set for supper. Beyond it lay the pile of
firewood, later to be burned on the altar of our safety against
beasts. The moonlight was casting milky shadows over the river
and under the trees opposite. In those shadows gleamed many
fireflies. Overhead were millions of stars, and a little breeze
that wandered through upper branches.
But in Equatorial Africa the simple bands of velvet black, against
the spangled brightnesses that make up the visual night world,
must give way in interest to the other world of sound. The air
hums with an undertone of insects; the plain and hill and jungle
are populous with voices furtive or bold. In daytime one sees
animals enough, in all conscience, but only at night does he
sense the almost oppressive feeling of the teeming life about
him. The darkness is peopled. Zebra bark, bucks blow or snort or
make the weird noises of their respective species; hyenas howl;
out of an immense simian silence a group of monkeys suddenly
break into chatterings; ostriches utter their deep hollow boom;
small things scurry and squeak; a certain weird bird of the
curlew or plover sort wails like a lonesome soul. Especially by
the river, as here, are the boomings of the weirdest of weird
bullfrogs, and the splashings and swishings of crocodile and
hippopotamus. One is impressed with the busyness of the world
surrounding him; every bird or beast, the hunter and the hunted,
is the centre of many important affairs. The world swarms.
And then, some miles away a lion roars, the earth and air
vibrating to the sheer power of the sound. The world falls to a
blank dead silence. For a full minute every living creature of
the jungle or of the veldt holds its breath. Their lord has
spoken.
After dinner we sat in our canvas chairs, smoking. The guard fire
in front of our tent had been lit. On the other side of it stood
one of our askaris leaning on his musket. He and his three
companions, turn about, keep the flames bright against the
fiercer creatures.
After a time we grew sleepy. I called Saa-sita and entrusted to
him my watch. On the crystal of this I had pasted a small piece
of surgeon's plaster. When the hour hand reached the surgeon's
plaster, he must wake us up. Saa-sita was a very conscientious
and careful man. One day I took some time hitching my pedometer
properly to his belt: I could not wear it effectively myself
because I was on horseback. At the end of the ten-hour march it
registered a mile and a fraction. Saa-sita explained that he
wished to take especial care of it, so he had wrapped it in a
cloth and carried it all day in his hand!
We turned in. As I reached over to extinguish the lantern I
issued my last command for the day.
"Watcha kalele, Saa-sita," I told the askari; at once he lifted
up his voice to repeat my words. "Watcha kalele!" Immediately
from the Responsible all over camp the word came back-from
gunbearers, from M'ganga, from tent boys-"kalele! kalele!
kalele!"
Thus commanded, the boisterous fun, the croon of intimate talk,
the gently rising and falling tide of melody fell to complete
silence. Only remained the crackling of the fire and the
innumerable voices of the tropical night.
VIII. THE RIVER JUNGLE
We camped along this river for several weeks, poking indefinitely
and happily around the country in all directions to see what we
could see. Generally we went together, for neither B. nor myself
had been tried out as yet on dangerous game-those easy rhinos
hardly counted-and I think we both preferred to feel that we had
backing until we knew what our nerves were going to do with us.
Nevertheless, occasionally, I would take Memba Sasa and go out
for a little purposeless stroll a few miles up or down river.
Sometimes we skirted the jungle, sometimes we held as near as
possible to the river's bank, sometimes we cut loose and rambled
through the dry, crackling scrub over the low volcanic hills of
the arid country outside.
Nothing can equal the intense interest of the most ordinary walk
in Africa. It is the only country I know of where a man is
thoroughly and continuously alive. Often when riding horseback
with the dogs in my California home I have watched them in envy
of the keen, alert interest they took in every stone, stick, and
bush, in every sight, sound, and smell. With equal frequency I
have expressed that envy, but as something unattainable to a
human being's more phlegmatic make-up. In Africa one actually
rises to continuous alertness. There are dozy moments-except you
curl up in a safe place for the PURPOSE of dozing; again just
like the dog! Every bush, every hollow, every high tuft of grass,
every deep shadow must be scrutinized for danger. It will not do
to pass carelessly any possible lurking place. At the same time
the sense of hearing must be on guard; so that no break of twig
or crash of bough can go unremarked. Rhinoceroses conceal
themselves most cannily, and have a deceitful habit of leaping
from a nap into their swiftest stride. Cobras and puff adders are
scarce, to be sure, but very deadly. Lions will generally give
way, if not shot at or too closely pressed; nevertheless there is
always the chance of cubs or too close a surprise. Buffalo lurk
daytimes in the deep thickets, but occasionally a rogue bull
lives where your trail will lead. These things do not happen
often, but in the long run they surely do happen, and once is
quite enough provided the beast gets in.
At first this continual alertness and tension is rather
exhausting; but after a very short time it becomes second nature.
A sudden rustle the other side a bush no longer brings you up all
standing with your heart in your throat; but you are aware of it,
and you are facing the possible danger almost before your slower
brain has issued any orders to that effect.
In rereading the above, I am afraid that I am conveying the idea
that one here walks under the shadow of continual uneasiness.
This is not in the least so. One enjoys the sun, and the birds
and the little things. He cultivates the great leisure of mind
that shall fill the breadth of his outlook abroad over a newly
wonderful world. But underneath it all is the alertness, the
responsiveness to quick reflexes of judgment and action, the
intimate correlations to immediate environment which must
characterize the instincts of the higher animals. And it is good
to live these things.
Along the edge of that river jungle were many strange and
beautiful affairs. I could slip along among the high clumps of
the thicker bushes in such a manner as to be continually coming
around unexpected bends. Of such maneouvres are surprises made.
The graceful red impalla were here very abundant. I would come on
them, their heads up, their great ears flung forward, their noses
twitching in inquiry of something they suspected but could not
fully sense. When slightly alarmed or suspicious the does always
stood compactly in a herd, while the bucks remained discreetly in
the background, their beautiful, branching, widespread horns
showing over the backs of their harems. The impalla is, in my
opinion, one of the most beautiful and graceful of the African
bucks, a perpetual delight to watch either standing or running.
These beasts are extraordinarily agile, and have a habit of
breaking their ordinary fast run by unexpectedly leaping high in
the air. At a distance they give somewhat the effect of dolphins
at sea, only their leaps are higher and more nearly
perpendicular. Once or twice I have even seen one jump over the
back of another. On another occasion we saw a herd of twenty-five
or thirty cross a road of which, evidently, they were a little
suspicious. We could not find a single hoof mark in the dust!
Generally these beasts frequent thin brush country; but I have
three or four times seen them quite out in the open flat plains,
feeding with the hartebeeste and zebra. They are about the size
of our ordinary deer, are delicately fashioned, and can utter the
most incongruously grotesque of noises by way of calls or
ordinary conversation.
The lack of curiosity, or the lack of gallantry, of the impalla
bucks was, in my experience, quite characteristic. They were
almost always the farthest in the background and the first away
when danger threatened. The ladies could look out for themselves.
They had no horns to save; and what do the fool women mean by
showing so little sense, anyway! They deserve what they get! It
used to amuse me a lot to observe the utter abandonment of all
responsibility by these handsome gentlemen. When it came time to
depart, they departed. Hang the girls! They trailed along after
as fast as they could.
The waterbuck-a fine large beast about the size of our caribou,
a well-conditioned buck resembling in form and attitude the
finest of Landseer's stags-on the other hand, had a little more
sense of responsibility, when he had anything to do with the sex
at all. He was hardly what you might call a strictly domestic
character. I have hunted through a country for several days at a
time without seeing a single mature buck of this species,
although there were plenty of does, in herds of ten to fifty,
with a few infants among them just sprouting horns. Then finally,
in some small grassy valley, I would come on the Men's Club.
There they were, ten, twenty, three dozen of them, having the
finest kind of an untramelled masculine time all by themselves.
Generally, however, I will say for them, they took care of their
own peoples. There would quite likely be one big old fellow, his
harem of varying numbers, and the younger subordinate bucks all
together in a happy family. When some one of the lot announced
that something was about, and they had all lined up to stare in
the suspected direction, the big buck was there in the foreground
of inquiry. When finally they made me out, it was generally the
big buck who gave the signal. He went first, to be sure, but his
going first was evidently an act of leadership, and not merely a
disgraceful desire to get away before the rest did.
But the waterbuck had to yield in turn to the plains gazelles;
especially to the Thompson's gazelle, familiarly-and
affectionately-known as the "Tommy." He is a quaint little chap,
standing only a foot and a half tall at the shoulder, fawn colour
on top, white beneath, with a black, horizontal stripe on his
side, like a chipmunk, most lightly and gracefully built. When he
was first made, somebody told him that unless he did something
characteristic, like waggling his little tail, he was likely to
be mistaken by the undiscriminating for his bigger cousin, the
Grant's gazelle. He has waggled his tail ever since, and so is
almost never mistaken for a Grant's gazelle, even by the
undiscriminating. Evidently his religion is Mohammedan, for he
always has a great many wives. He takes good care of them,
however. When danger appears, even when danger threatens, he is
the last to leave the field. Here and there he dashes
frantically, seeing that the women and children get off. And when
the herd tops the hill, Tommy's little horns bring up the rear of
the procession. I like Tommy. He is a cheerful, gallant, quaint
little person, with the air of being quite satisfied with his own
solution of this complicated world.
Among the low brush at the edge of the river jungle dwelt also
the dik-dik, the tiniest miniature of a deer you could possibly
imagine. His legs are lead pencil size, he stands only about nine
inches tall, he weighs from five to ten pounds; and yet he is a
perfect little antelope, horns and all. I used to see him singly
or in pairs standing quite motionless and all but invisible in
the shade of bushes; or leaping suddenly to his feet and
scurrying away like mad through the dry grass. His personal
opinion of me was generally expressed in a loud clear whistle.
But then nobody in this strange country talks the language you
would naturally expect him to talk! Zebra bark, hyenas laugh,
impallas grunt, ostriches boom like drums, leopards utter a
plaintive sigh, hornbills cry like a stage child, bushbucks sound
like a cross between a dog and a squawky toy-and so on. There is
only one safe rule of the novice in Africa: NEVER BELIEVE A WORD
THE JUNGLE AND VELDT PEOPLE TELL YOU.
These two-the impalla and the waterbuck-were the principal buck
we would see close to the river. Occasionally, however, we came
on a few oryx, down for a drink, beautiful big antelope, with
white and black faces, roached manes, and straight, nearly
parallel, rapier horns upward of three feet long. A herd of these
creatures, the light gleaming on their weapons, held all at the
same slant, was like a regiment of bayonets in the sun. And there
were also the rhinoceroses to be carefully espied and avoided.
They lay obliterated beneath the shade of bushes, and arose with
a mighty blow-off of steam. Whereupon we withdrew silently, for
we wanted to shoot no more rhinos, unless we had to.
Beneath all these obvious and startling things, a thousand other
interesting matters were afoot. In the mass and texture of the
jungle grew many strange trees and shrubs. One most scrubby, fat
and leafless tree, looking as though it were just about to give
up a discouraged existence, surprised us by putting forth,
apparently directly from its bloated wood, the most wonderful red
blossoms. Another otherwise self-respecting tree hung itself all
over with plump bologna sausages about two feet long and five
inches thick. A curious vine hung like a rope, with Turk's-head
knots about a foot apart on its whole length, like the
hand-over-hand ropes of gymnasiums. Other ropes were studded all
over with thick blunt bosses, resembling much the outbreak on one
sort of Arts-and-Crafts door: the sort intended to repel
Mail-clad Hosts.
The monkeys undoubtedly used such obvious highways through the
trees. These little people were very common. As we walked along,
they withdrew before us. We could make out their figures
galloping hastily across the open places, mounting bushes and
stubs to take a satisfying backward look, clambering to treetops,
and launching themselves across the abysses between limbs. If we
went slowly, they retired in silence. If we hurried at all, they
protested in direct ratio to the speed of our advance. And when
later the whole safari, loads on heads, marched inconsiderately
through their jungle! We happened to be hunting on a parallel
course a half mile away, and we could trace accurately the
progress of our men by the outraged shrieks, chatterings, appeals
to high heaven for at least elemental justice to the monkey
people.
Often, too, we would come on concourses of the big baboons. They
certainly carried on weighty affairs of their own according to a
fixed polity. I never got well enough acquainted with them to
master the details of their government, but it was indubitably built
on patriarchal lines. When we succeeded in approaching without
being discovered, we would frequently find the old men baboons
squatting on their heels in a perfect circle, evidently
discussing matters of weight and portent. Seen from a distance,
their group so much resembled the council circles of native
warriors that sometimes, in a native country, we made that
mistake. Outside this solemn council, the women, young men and
children went about their daily business, whatever that was. Up
convenient low trees or bushes roosted sentinels.
We never remained long undiscovered. One of the sentinels barked
sharply. At once the whole lot loped away, speedily but with a
curious effect of deliberation. The men folks held their tails in
a proud high sideways arch; the curious youngsters clambered up
bushes to take a hasty look; the babies clung desperately with
all four feet to the thick fur on their mothers' backs; the
mothers galloped along imperturbably unheeding of infantile
troubles aloft. The side hill was bewildering with the big
bobbing black forms.
In this lower country the weather was hot, and the sun very
strong. The heated air was full of the sounds of insects; some of
them comfortable, like the buzzing of bees, some of them strange
and unusual to us. One cicada had a sustained note, in quality
about like that of our own August-day's friend, but in quantity
and duration as the roar of a train to the gentle hum of a good
motor car. Like all cicada noises it did not usurp the sound
world, but constituted itself an underlying basis, so to speak.
And when it stopped the silence seemed to rush in as into a
vacuum!
We had likewise the aeroplane beetle. He was so big that he would
have made good wing-shooting. His manner of flight was the
straight-ahead, heap-of-buzz, plenty-busy,
don't-stop-a-minute-or-you'll-come-down method of the aeroplane;
and he made the same sort of a hum. His first-cousin,
mechanically, was what we called the wind-up-the-watch insect.
This specimen possessed a watch-an old-fashioned Waterbury,
evidently-that he was continually winding. It must have been
hard work for the poor chap, for it sounded like a very big
watch.
All these things were amusing. So were the birds. The African
bird is quite inclined to be didactic. He believes you need
advice, and he means to give it. To this end he repeats the same
thing over and over until he thinks you surely cannot
misunderstand. One chap especially whom we called the lawyer
bird, and who lived in the treetops, had four phrases to impart.
He said them very deliberately, with due pause between each; then
he repeated them rapidly; finally he said them all over again
with an exasperated bearing-down emphasis. The joke of it is I
cannot now remember just how they went! Another feathered
pedagogue was continually warning us to go slow; very good advice
near an African jungle. "Poley-poley! Poley-poley!" he warned
again and again; which is good Swahili for "slowly! slowly!" We
always minded him. There were many others, equally impressed with
their own wisdom, but the one I remember with most amusement was
a dilatory person who apparently never got around to his job
until near sunset. Evidently he had contracted to deliver just so
many warnings per diem; and invariably he got so busy chasing
insects, enjoying the sun, gossiping with a friend and generally
footling about that the late afternoon caught him unawares with
never a chirp accomplished. So he sat in a bush and said his say
over and over just as fast as he could without pause for breath
or recreation. It was really quite a feat. Just at dusk, after
two hours of gabbling, he would reach the end of his contracted
number. With final relieved chirp he ended.
It has been said that African birds are "songless." This is a
careless statement that can easily be read to mean that African
birds are silent. The writer evidently must have had in mind as a
criterion some of our own or the English great feathered
soloists. Certainly the African jungle seems to produce no
individual performers as sustained as our own bob-o-link, our
hermit thrush, or even our common robin. But the African birds
are vocal enough, for all that. Some of them have a richness and
depth of timbre perhaps unequalled elsewhere. Of such is the
chime-bird with his deep double note; or the bell-bird tolling
like a cathedral in the blackness of the forest; or the bottle
bird that apparently pours gurgling liquid gold from a silver
jug. As the jungle is exceedingly populous of these feathered
specialists, it follows that the early morning chorus is
wonderful. Africa may not possess the soloists, but its full
orchestrial effects are superb.
Naturally under the equator one expects and demands the "gorgeous
tropical plumage" of the books. He is not disappointed. The
sun-birds of fifty odd species, the brilliant blue starlings, the
various parrots, the variegated hornbills, the widower-birds, and
dozens of others whose names would mean nothing flash here and
there in the shadow and in the open. With them are hundreds of
quiet little bodies just as interesting to one who likes birds.
>From the trees and bushes hang pear-shaped nests plaited
beautifully of long grasses, hard and smooth as hand-made
baskets, the work of the various sorts of weaver-birds. In the
tops of the trees roosted tall marabout storks like dissipated,
hairless old club-men in well-groomed, correct evening dress.
And around camp gathered the swift brown kites. They were robbers
and villains, but we could not hate them. All day long they
sailed back and forth spying sharply. When they thought they saw
their chance, they stooped with incredible swiftness to seize a
piece of meat. Sometimes they would snatch their prize almost
from the hands of its rightful owner, and would swoop
triumphantly upward again pursued by polyglot maledictions and a
throwing stick. They were very skilful on their wings. I have
many times seen them, while flying, tear up and devour large
chunks of meat. It seems to my inexperience as an aviator rather
a nice feat to keep your balance while tearing with your beak at
meat held in your talons. Regardless of other landmarks, we
always knew when we were nearing camp, after one of our strolls,
by the gracefully wheeling figures of our kites.
IX. THE FIRST LION
One day we all set out to make our discoveries: F., B., and I with
our gunbearers, Memba Sasa, Mavrouki, and Simba, and ten porters
to bring in the trophies, which we wanted very much, and the
meat, which the men wanted still more. We rode our horses, and
the syces followed. This made quite a field force-nineteen men
all told. Nineteen white men would be exceedingly unlikely to get
within a liberal half mile of anything; but the native has sneaky
ways.
At first we followed between the river and the low hills, but
when the latter drew back to leave open a broad flat, we followed
their line. At this point they rose to a clifflike headland a
hundred and fifty feet high, flat on top. We decided to
investigate that mesa, both for the possibilities of game, and
for the chance of a view abroad.
The footing was exceedingly noisy and treacherous, for it was
composed of flat, tinkling little stones. Dried-up, skimpy bushes
just higher than our heads made a thin but regular cover. There
seemed not to be a spear of anything edible, yet we caught the
flash of red as a herd of impalla melted away at our rather noisy
approach. Near the foot of the hill we dismounted, with orders to
all the men but the gunbearers to sit down and make themselves
comfortable. Should we need them we could easily either signal or
send word. Then we set ourselves toilsomely to clamber up that
volcanic hill.
It was not particularly easy going, especially as we were trying
to walk quietly. You see, we were about to surmount a skyline.
Surmounting a skyline is always most exciting anywhere, for what
lies beyond is at once revealed as a whole and contains the very
essence of the unknown; but most decidedly is this true in
Africa. That mesa looked flat, and almost anything might be
grazing or browsing there. So we proceeded gingerly, with due
regard to the rolling of the loose rocks or the tinkling of the
little pebbles.
But long before we had reached that alluring skyline we were
halted by the gentle snapping of Mavrouki's fingers. That,
strangely enough, is a sound to which wild animals seem to pay no
attention, and is therefore most useful as a signal. We looked
back. The three gunbearers were staring to the right of our
course. About a hundred yards away, on the steep side hill, and
partly concealed by the brush, stood two rhinoceroses.
They were side by side, apparently dozing. We squatted on our
heels for a consultation.
The obvious thing, as the wind was from them, was to sneak
quietly by, saying nuffin' to nobody. But although we wanted no
more rhino, we very much wanted rhino pictures. A discussion
developed no really good reason why we should not kodak these
especial rhinos-except that there were two of them. So we began
to worm our way quietly through the bushes in their direction.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22