The Land of Footprints

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

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F. and B. deployed on the flanks, their double-barrelled rifles
ready for instant action. I occupied the middle with that
dangerous weapon the 3A kodak. Memba Sasa followed at my elbow,
holding my big gun.

Now the trouble with modern photography is that it is altogether
too lavish in its depiction of distances. If you do not believe
it, take a picture of a horse at as short a range as twenty-five
yards. That equine will, in the development, have receded to a
respectable middle distance. Therefore it had been agreed that
the advance of the battle line was to cease only when those
rhinoceroses loomed up reasonably large in the finder. I kept
looking into the finder, you may be sure. Nearer and nearer we
crept. The great beasts were evidently basking in the sun. Their
little pig eyes alone gave any sign of life. Otherwise they
exhibited the complete immobility of something done in granite.
Probably no other beast impresses one with quite this quality. I
suppose it is because even the little motions peculiar to other
animals are with the rhinoceros entirely lacking. He is not in
the least of a nervous disposition, so he does not stamp his feet
nor change his position. It is useless for him to wag his tail;
for, in the first place, the tail is absurdly inadequate; and, in
the second place, flies are not among his troubles. Flies
wouldn't bother you either, if you had a skin two inches thick.
So there they stood, inert and solid as two huge brown rocks,
save for the deep, wicked twinkle of their little eyes.

Yes, we were close enough to "see the whites of their eyes," if
they had had any: and also to be within the range of their
limited vision. Of course we were now stalking, and taking
advantage of all the cover.

Those rhinoceroses looked to me like two Dreadnaughts. The
African two-horned rhinoceros is a bigger animal anyway than our
circus friend, who generally comes from India. One of these
brutes I measured went five feet nine inches at the shoulder, and
was thirteen feet six inches from bow to stern. Compare these
dimensions with your own height and with the length of your motor
car. It is one thing to take on such beasts in the hurry of
surprise, the excitement of a charge, or to stalk up to within a
respectable range of them with a gun at ready. But this
deliberate sneaking up with the hope of being able to sneak away
again was a little too slow and cold-blooded. It made me nervous.
I liked it, but I knew at the time I was going to like it a whole
lot better when it was triumphantly over.

We were now within twenty yards (they were standing starboard
side on), and I prepared to get my picture. To do so I would
either have to step quietly out into sight, trusting to the
shadow and the slowness of my movements to escape observation, or
hold the camera above the bush, directing it by guess work. It
was a little difficult to decide. I knew what I OUGHT to do-

Without the slightest premonitory warning those two brutes
snorted and whirled in their tracks to stand facing in our
direction. After the dead stillness they made a tremendous row,
what with the jerky suddenness of their movements, their loud
snorts, and the avalanche of echoing stones and boulders they
started down the hill.

This was the magnificent opportunity. At this point I should
boldly have stepped out from behind my bush, levelled my trusty
3A, and coolly snapped the beasts, "charging at fifteen yards."
Then, if B.'s and F.'s shots went absolutely true, or if the
brutes didn't happen to smash the camera as well as me, I, or my
executors as the case might be, would have had a fine picture.

But I didn't. I dropped that expensive 3A Special on some hard
rocks, and grabbed my rifle from Memba Sasa. If you want really
to know why, go confront your motor car at fifteen or twenty
paces, multiply him by two, and endow him with an eagerly
malicious disposition.

They advanced several yards, halted, faced us for perhaps five or
six seconds, uttered snort, whirled with the agility of polo
ponies, departed at a swinging trot and with surprising agility
along the steep side hill.

I recovered the camera, undamaged, and we continued our climb.

The top of the mesa was disappointing as far as game was
concerned. It was covered all over with red stones, round, and as
large as a man's head. Thornbushes found some sort of sustenance
in the interstices.

But we had gained to a magnificent view. Below us lay the narrow
flat, then the winding jungle of our river, then long rolling
desert country, gray with thorn scrub, sweeping upward to the
base of castellated buttes and one tremendous riven cliff
mountain, dropping over the horizon to a very distant blue range.
Behind us eight or ten miles away was the low ridge through which
our journey had come. The mesa on which we stood broke back at
right angles to admit another stream flowing into our own. Beyond
this stream were rolling hills, and scrub country, the hint of
blue peaks and illimitable distances falling away to the unknown
Tara Desert and the sea.

There seemed to be nothing much to be gained here, so we made up
our minds to cut across the mesa, and from the other edge of it
to overlook the valley of the tributary river. This we would
descend until we came to our horses.

Accordingly we stumbled across a mile or so of those round and
rolling stones. Then we found ourselves overlooking a wide flat
or pocket where the stream valley widened. It extended even as
far as the upward fling of the barrier ranges. Thick scrub
covered it, but erratically, so that here and there were little
openings or thin places. We sat down, manned our trusty prism
glasses, and gave ourselves to the pleasing occupation of looking
the country over inch by inch.

This is great fun. It is a game a good deal like puzzle pictures.
Re-examination generally develops new and unexpected beasts. We
repeated to each other aloud the results of our scrutiny, always
without removing the glasses from our eyes.

"Oryx, one," said F.; "oryx, two."

"Giraffe," reported B., "and a herd of impalla."

I saw another giraffe, and another oryx, then two rhinoceroses.

The three bearers squatted on their heels behind us, their fierce
eyes staring straight ahead, seeing with the naked eye what we
were finding with six-power glasses.

We turned to descend the hill. In the very centre of the deep
shade of a clump of trees, I saw the gleam of a waterbuck's
horns. While I was telling of this, the beast stepped from his
concealment, trotted a short distance upstream and turned to
climb a little ridge parallel to that by which we were
descending. About halfway up he stopped, staring in our
direction, his head erect, the slight ruff under his neck
standing forward. He was a good four hundred yards away. B., who
wanted him, decided the shot too chancy. He and F. slipped
backward until they had gained the cover of the little ridge,
then hastened down the bed of the ravine. Their purpose was to
follow the course already taken by the waterbuck until they
should have sneaked within better range. In the meantime I and
the gunbearers sat down in full view of the buck. This was to
keep his attention distracted.

We sat there a long time. The buck never moved but continued to
stare at what evidently puzzled him. Time passes very slowly in
such circumstances, and it seemed incredible that the beast
should continue much longer to hold his fixed attitude.
Nevertheless B. and F. were working hard. We caught glimpses of
them occasionally slipping from bush to bush. Finally B. knelt
and levelled his rifle. At once I turned my glasses on the buck.
Before the sound of the rifle had reached me, I saw him start
convulsively, then make off at the tearing run that indicates a
heart hit. A moment later the crack of the rifle and the dull
plunk of the hitting bullet struck my ear.

We tracked him fifty yards to where he lay dead. He was a fine
trophy, and we at once set the boys to preparing it and taking
the meat. In the meantime we sauntered down to look at the
stream. It was a small rapid affair, but in heavy papyrus, with
sparse trees, and occasional thickets, and dry hard banks. The
papyrus should make a good lurking place for almost anything; but
the few points of access to the water failed to show many
interesting tracks. Nevertheless we decided to explore a short
distance.

For an hour we walked among high thornbushes, over baking hot
earth. We saw two or three dik-dik and one of the giraffes. At
that time it had become very hot, and the sun was bearing down on
us as with the weight of a heavy hand. The air had the scorching,
blasting quality of an opened furnace door. Our mouths were
getting dry and sticky in that peculiar stage of thirst on which
no luke-warm canteen water in necessarily limited quantity has
any effect. So we turned back, picked up the men with the
waterbuck, and plodded on down the little stream, or, rather, on
the red-hot dry valley bottom outside the stream's course, to
where the syces were waiting with our horses. We mounted with
great thankfulness. It was now eleven o'clock, and we considered
our day as finished.

The best way for a distance seemed to follow the course of the
tributary stream to its point of junction with our river. We rode
along, rather relaxed in the suffocating heat. F. was nearest the
stream. At one point it freed itself of trees and brush and ran
clear, save for low papyrus, ten feet down below a steep eroded
bank. F. looked over and uttered a startled exclamation. I
spurred my horse forward to see.

Below us, about fifteen yards away, was the carcass of a
waterbuck half hidden in the foot-high grass. A lion and two
lionesses stood upon it, staring up at us with great yellow eyes.
That picture is a very vivid one in my memory, for those were the
first wild lions I had ever seen. My most lively impression was
of their unexpected size. They seemed to bulk fully a third
larger than my expectation.

The magnificent beasts stood only long enough to see clearly what
had disturbed them, then turned, and in two bounds had gained the
shelter of the thicket.

Now the habit in Africa is to let your gunbearers carry all your
guns. You yourself stride along hand free. It is an English idea,
and is pretty generally adopted out there by every one, of
whatever nationality. They will explain it to you by saying that
in such a climate a man should do only necessary physical work,
and that a good gunbearer will get a weapon into your hand so
quickly and in so convenient a position that you will lose no
time. I acknowledge the gunbearers are sometimes very skilful at
this, but I do deny that there is no loss of time. The instant of
distracted attention while receiving a weapon, the necessity of
recollecting the nervous correlations after the transfer, very
often mark just the difference between a sure instinctive
snapshot and a lost opportunity. It reasons that the man with the
rifle in his hand reacts instinctively, in one motion, to get his
weapon into play. If the gunbearer has the gun, HE must first
react to pass it up, the master must receive it properly, and
THEN, and not until then, may go on from where the other man
began. As for physical labour in the tropics: if a grown man
cannot without discomfort or evil effects carry an eight-pound
rifle, he is too feeble to go out at all. In a long Western
experience I have learned never to be separated from my weapon;
and I believe the continuance of this habit in Africa saved me a
good number of chances.

At any rate, we all flung ourselves off our horses. I, having my
rifle in my hand, managed to throw a shot after the biggest lion
as he vanished. It was a snap at nothing, and missed. Then in an
opening on the edge a hundred yards away appeared one of the
lionesses. She was trotting slowly, and on her I had time to draw
a hasty aim. At the shot she bounded high in the air, fell,
rolled over, and was up and into the thicket before I had much
more than time to pump up another shell from the magazine. Memba
Sasa in his eagerness got in the way-the first and last time he
ever made a mistake in the field.

By this time the others had got hold of their weapons. We fronted
the blank face of the thicket.

The wounded animal would stand a little waiting. We made a wide
circle to the other side of the stream. There we quickly picked
up the trail of the two uninjured beasts. They had headed
directly over the hill, where we speedily lost all trace of them
on the flint-like surface of the ground. We saw a big pack of
baboons in the only likely direction for a lion to go. Being thus
thrown back on a choice of a hundred other unlikely directions,
we gave up that slim chance and returned to the thicket.

This proved to be a very dense piece of cover. Above the height
of the waist the interlocking branches would absolutely prevent
any progress, but by stooping low we could see dimly among the
simpler main stems to a distance of perhaps fifteen or twenty
feet. This combination at once afforded the wounded lioness
plenty of cover in which to hide, plenty of room in which to
charge home, and placed us under the disadvantage of a crouched
or crawling attitude with limited vision. We talked the matter
over very thoroughly. There was only one way to get that lioness
out; and that was to go after her. The job of going after her
needed some planning. The lion is cunning and exceeding fierce. A
flank attack, once we were in the thicket, was as much to be
expected as a frontal charge.

We advanced to the thicket's edge with many precautions. To our
relief we found she had left us a definite trail. B. and I
kneeling took up positions on either side, our rifles ready. F.
and Simba crawled by inches eight or ten feet inside the thicket.
Then, having executed this manoeuvre safely, B. moved up to
protect our rear while I, with Memba Sasa, slid down to join F.

>From this point we moved forward alternately. I would crouch, all
alert, my rifle ready, while F. slipped by me and a few feet
ahead. Then he get organized for battle while I passed him. Memba
Sasa and Simba, game as badgers, their fine eyes gleaming with
excitement, their faces shining, crept along at the rear. B. knelt
outside the thicket, straining his eyes for the slightest
movement either side of the line of our advance. Often these wily
animals will sneak back in a half circle to attack their pursuers
from behind. Two or three of the bolder porters crouched
alongside B., peering eagerly. The rest had quite properly
retired to the safe distance where the horses stood.

We progressed very, very slowly. Every splash of light or mottled
shadow, every clump of bush stems, every fallen log had to be
examined, and then examined again. And how we did strain our eyes
in a vain attempt to penetrate the half lights, the duskinesses
of the closed-in thicket not over fifteen feet away! And then the
movement forward of two feet would bring into our field of vision
an entirely new set of tiny vistas and possible lurking places.

Speaking for myself, I was keyed up to a tremendous tension. I
stared until my eyes ached; every muscle and nerve was taut.
Everything depended on seeing the beast promptly, and firing
quickly. With the manifest advantage of being able to see us, she
would spring to battle fully prepared. A yellow flash and a quick
shot seemed about to size up that situation. Every few moments, I
remember, I surreptitiously held out my hand to see if the
constantly growing excitement and the long-continued strain had
affected its steadiness.

The combination of heat and nervous strain was very exhausting.
The sweat poured from me; and as F. passed me I saw the great
drops standing out on his face. My tongue got dry, my breath came
laboriously. Finally I began to wonder whether physically I
should be able to hold out. We had been crawling, it seemed, for
hours. I dared not look back, but we must have come a good
quarter mile. Finally F. stopped.

"I'm all in for water," he gasped in a whisper.

Somehow that confession made me feel a lot better. I had thought
that I was the only one. Cautiously we settled back on our heels.
Memba Sasa and Simba wiped the sweat from their faces. It seemed
that they too had found the work severe. That cheered me up still
more.

Simba grinned at us, and, worming his way backward with the
sinuousity of a snake, he disappeared in the direction from which
we had come. F. cursed after him in a whisper both for departing
and for taking the risk. But in a moment he had returned carrying
two canteens of blessed water. We took a drink most gratefully.

I glanced at my watch. It was just under two hours since I had
fired my shot. I looked back. My supposed quarter mile had shrunk
to not over fifty feet!

After resting a few moments longer, we again took up our
systematic advance. We made perhaps another fifty feet. We were
ascending a very gentle slope. F. was for the moment ahead. Right
before us the lion growled; a deep rumbling like the end of a
great thunder roll, fathoms and fathoms deep, with the inner
subterranean vibrations of a heavy train of cars passing a man
inside a sealed building. At the same moment over F.'s shoulder I
saw a huge yellow head rise up, the round eyes flashing anger,
the small black-tipped ears laid back, the great fangs snarling.
The beast was not over twelve feet distant. F. immediately fired.
His shot, hitting an intervening twig, went wild. With the utmost
coolness he immediately pulled the other trigger of his double
barrel. The cartridge snapped.

"If you will kindly stoop down-" said I, in what I now remember
to be rather an exaggeratedly polite tone. As F.'s head
disappeared, I placed the little gold bead of my 405 Winchester
where I thought it would do the most good, and pulled trigger.
She rolled over dead.

The whole affair had begun and finished with unbelievable
swiftness. From the growl to the fatal shot I don't suppose four
seconds elapsed, for our various actions had followed one another
with the speed of the instinctive. The lioness had growled at our
approach, had raised her head to charge, and had received her
deathblow before she had released her muscles in the spring.
There had been no time to get frightened.

We sat back for a second. A brown hand reached over my shoulder.

"Mizouri-mizouri sana!" cried Memba Sasa joyously. I shook the
hand.

"Good business!" said F. "Congratulate you on your first lion."

We then remembered B., and shouted to him that all was over. He
and the other men wriggled in to where we were lying. He made
this distance in about fifteen seconds. It had taken us nearly an
hour.

We had the lioness dragged out into the open. She was not an
especially large beast, as compared to most of the others I
killed later, but at that time she looked to me about as big as
they made them. As a matter of fact she was quite big enough, for
she stood three feet two inches at the shoulder-measure that
against the wall-and was seven feet and six inches in length. My
first bullet had hit her leg, and the last had reached her heart.

Every one shook me by the hand. The gunbearers squatted about
the carcass, skilfully removing the skin to an undertone of
curious crooning that every few moments broke out into one or two
bars of a chant. As the body was uncovered, the men crouched
about to cut off little pieces of fat. These they rubbed on their
foreheads and over their chests, to make them brave, they said,
and cunning, like the lion.

We remounted and took up our interrupted journey to camp. It was
a little after two, and the heat was at its worst. We rode rather
sleepily, for the reaction from the high tension of excitement
had set in. Behind us marched the three gunbearers, all abreast,
very military and proud. Then came the porters in single file,
the one carrying the folded lion skin leading the way; those
bearing the waterbuck trophy and meat bringing up the rear. They
kept up an undertone of humming in a minor key; occasionally
breaking into a short musical phrase in full voice.

We rode an hour. The camp looked very cool and inviting under its
wide high trees, with the river slipping by around the islands of
papyrus. A number of black heads bobbed about in the shallows.
The small fires sent up little wisps of smoke. Around them our
boys sprawled, playing simple games, mending, talking, roasting
meat. Their tiny white tents gleamed pleasantly among the cool
shadows.

I had thought of riding nonchalantly up to our own tents, of
dismounting with a careless word of greeting-

"Oh, yes," I would say, "we did have a good enough day. Pretty
hot. Roy got a fine waterbuck. Yes, I got a lion." (Tableau on
part of Billy.)

But Memba Sasa used up all the nonchalance there was. As we
entered camp he remarked casually to the nearest man.

"Bwana na piga simba-the master has killed a lion."

The man leaped to his feet.

"Simba! simba! simba!" he yelled. "Na piga simba!"

Every one in camp also leaped to his feet, taking up the cry.
>From the water it was echoed as the bathers scrambled ashore. The
camp broke into pandemonium. We were surrounded by a dense
struggling mass of men. They reached up scores of black hands to
grasp my own; they seized from me everything portable and bore it
in triumph before me-my water bottle, my rifle, my camera, my
whip, my field glasses, even my hat, everything that was
detachable. Those on the outside danced and lifted up their
voices in song, improvised for the most part, and in honor of the
day's work. In a vast swirling, laughing, shouting, triumphant
mob we swept through the camp to where Billy-by now not very
much surprised-was waiting to get the official news. By the
measure of this extravagant joy could we gauge what the killing
of a lion means to these people who have always lived under the
dread of his rule.

X. LIONS

A very large lion I killed stood three feet and nine inches at
the withers, and of course carried his head higher than that. The
top of the table at which I sit is only two feet three inches
from the floor. Coming through the door at my back that lion's
head would stand over a foot higher than halfway up. Look at your
own writing desk; your own door. Furthermore, he was nine feet
and eleven inches in a straight line from nose to end of tail, or
over eleven feet along the contour of the back. If he were to
rise on his hind feet to strike a man down, he would stand
somewhere between seven and eight feet tall, depending on how
nearly he straightened up. He weighed just under six hundred
pounds, or as much as four well-grown specimens of our own
"mountain lion." I tell you this that you may realize, as I did
not, the size to which a wild lion grows. Either menagerie
specimens are stunted in growth, or their position and
surroundings tend to belittle them, for certainly until a man
sees old Leo in the wilderness he has not understood what a fine
old chap he is.

This tremendous weight is sheer strength. A lion's carcass when
the skin is removed is a really beautiful sight. The great
muscles lie in ropes and bands; the forearm thicker than a man's
leg, the lithe barrel banded with brawn; the flanks overlaid by
the long thick muscles. And this power is instinct with the
nervous force of a highly organized being. The lion is quick and
intelligent and purposeful; so that he brings to his intenser
activities the concentration of vivid passion, whether of anger,
of hunger or of desire.

So far the opinions of varied experience will jog along together.
At this point they diverge.

Just as the lion is one of the most interesting and fascinating
of beasts, so concerning him one may hear the most diverse
opinions. This man will tell you that any lion is always
dangerous. Another will hold the king of beasts in the most utter
contempt as a coward and a skulker.

In the first place, generalization about any species of animal is
an exceedingly dangerous thing. I believe that, in the case of
the higher animals at least, the differences in individual
temperament are quite likely to be more numerous than the
specific likenesses. Just as individual men are bright or dull,
nervous or phlegmatic, cowardly or brave, so individual animals
vary in like respect. Our own hunters will recall from their
personal experiences how the big bear may have sat down and
bawled harmlessly for mercy, while the little unconsidered fellow
did his best until finished off: how one buck dropped instantly
to a wound that another would carry five miles: how of two
equally matched warriors of the herd one will give way in the
fight, while still uninjured, before his perhaps badly wounded
antagonist. The casual observer might-and often does-say that
all bears are cowardly, all bucks are easily killed, or the
reverse, according as the god of chance has treated him to one
spectacle or the other. As well try to generalize on the human
race-as is a certain ecclesiastical habit-that all men are vile
or noble, dishonest or upright, wise or foolish.

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