In the Heart of Africa

CHAPTER VII.

The start from Geera–Feats of horse­man­ship–A cu­ri­ous chase– Abou Do wins a race–Cap­tur­ing a young buf­fa­lo–Our is­land camp–Tales of the Base.

We start­ed from Geera on the 23d of De­cem­ber, with our par­ty com­plete. The Ham­ran sword-​hunters were Abou Do, Jali, and Suleiman. My chief track­er was Taher Noor, who, al­though a good hunter, was not a pro­fes­sion­al ag­gahr, and I was ac­com­pa­nied by the fa­ther of Abou Do, who was a renowned “howarti” or har­poon­er of hip­popota­mi. This mag­nif­icent old man might have been Nep­tune him­self. He stood about six feet two, and his griz­zled locks hung up­on his shoul­ders in thick, and mas­sive curls, while his deep bronze fea­tures could not have been ex­celled in beau­ty of out­line. A more clas­si­cal fig­ure I have nev­er be­held than the old Abou Do with his har­poon as he first breast­ed the tor­rent, and then land­ed drip­ping from the waves to join our par­ty from the Arab camp on the op­po­site side of the riv­er. In ad­di­tion to my Tokrooris, I had en­gaged nine camels, each with a sep­arate driv­er, of the Ham­rans, who were to ac­com­pa­ny us through­out the ex­pe­di­tion. These peo­ple were glad to en­gage them­selves, with their camels in­clud­ed, at one and a half dol­lars per month, for man and beast as one. We had not suf­fi­cient bag­gage to load five camels, but four car­ried a large sup­ply of corn for our hors­es and peo­ple.

Hard­ly were we mount­ed and fair­ly start­ed than the mon­key-​like agili­ty of our ag­gageers was dis­played in a va­ri­ety of an­tics, that were far more suit­ed to per­for­mances in a cir­cus than to a par­ty of steady and ex­pe­ri­enced hunters, who wished to re­serve the strength of their hors­es for a try­ing jour­ney.

Abou Do was mount­ed on a beau­ti­ful Abyssini­an horse, a gray; Suleiman rode a rough and in­fe­ri­or-​look­ing beast; while lit­tle Jali, who was the pet of the par­ty, rode a gray snare, not ex­ceed­ing four­teen hands in height, which matched her rid­er ex­act­ly in fire, spir­it, and speed. Nev­er was there a more per­fect pic­ture of a wild Arab horse­man than Jali on his mare. Hard­ly was he in the sad­dle than away flew the mare over the loose shin­gles that formed the dry bed of the riv­er, scat­ter­ing the round­ed peb­bles in the air from her flinty Hoofs, while her rid­er in the vigour of de­light threw him­self al­most un­der her bel­ly while at full speed, and picked up stones from the ground, which he flung, and again caught as they de­scend­ed. Nev­er were there more com­plete Cen­taurs than these Ham­ran Arabs ; the horse and man ap­peared to be one an­imal, and that of the most elas­tic na­ture, that could twist and turn with the sup­ple­ness of a snake. The fact of their be­ing sep­arate be­ings was well proved, how­ev­er, by the rid­er’s spring­ing to the earth with his drawn sword while the horse was in full gal­lop over rough and dif­fi­cult ground, and, clutch­ing the mane, again vault­ing in­to the sad­dle with the abil­ity of a mon­key, with­out once check­ing the speed. The fact of be­ing on horse­back had sud­den­ly al­tered the char­ac­ter of these Arabs; from a se­date and proud bear­ing, they had be­come the wildest ex­am­ples of the most sav­age dis­ci­ples of Nim­rod. Ex­cit­ed by en­thu­si­asm, they shook their naked blades aloft till the steel trem­bled in their grasp, and away they dashed over rocks, through thorny bush, across ravines, up and down steep in­cli­na­tions, en­gag­ing in a mim­ic hunt, and go­ing through the var­ious acts sup­posed to oc­cur in the at­tack of a fu­ri­ous ele­phant. I must ac­knowl­edge that, in spite of my ad­mi­ra­tion for their won­der­ful dex­ter­ity, I be­gan to doubt their pru­dence. I had three ex­cel­lent hors­es for my wife and my­self; the Ham­ran hunters had on­ly one for each, and if the com­mence­ment were an ex­am­ple of their usu­al style of horse­man­ship, I felt sure that a dozen hors­es would not be suf­fi­cient for the work be­fore us. How­ev­er, it was not the mo­ment to of­fer ad­vice, as they were sim­ply mad with ex­cite­ment and de­light.

The wom­en raised their loud and shrill yell at part­ing, and our par­ty of about twen­ty-​five per­sons, with nine camels, six hors­es, and two don­keys, ex­clu­sive of the Ger­man, Flo­ri­an, with his kick­ing gi­raffe-​hunter, and at­ten­dants, as­cend­ed the bro­ken slope that formed the broad val­ley of the Set­tite Riv­er.

There was very lit­tle game in the neigh­bour­hood, as it was com­plete­ly over­run by the Arabs and their flocks, and we were to march about fifty miles east-​south- east be­fore we should ar­rive in the hap­py hunt­ing-​grounds of the Base coun­try, where we were led to ex­pect great re­sults.

In a day’s march through a beau­ti­ful coun­try, some­times up­on the high ta­ble-​land to cut off a bend in the riv­er, at oth­er times up­on the mar­gin of the stream in the ro­man­tic val­ley, bro­ken in­to count­less hills and ravines cov­ered with mi­mosas, we ar­rived at Om­bre­ga (moth­er of the thorn), about twen­ty-​four miles from Geera. We soon ar­ranged a rest­ing-​place, and cleared away the grass that pro­duced the thorn which had giv­en rise to the name of Om­bre­ga, and in a short time we were com­fort­ably set­tled for the night. We were with­in fifty yards of the riv­er, the hors­es were lux­uri­at­ing in the green grass that grew up­on its banks, and the camels were hob­bled, to pre­vent them from wan­der­ing from the pro­tec­tion of the camp-​fires, as we were now in the wilder­ness, where the Base by day and the li­on and leop­ard by night were hos­tile to man and beast.

We were fast asleep a lit­tle af­ter mid­night, when we were awak­ened by the loud bark­ing of the dogs, and by a con­fu­sion in the camp. Jump­ing up on the in­stant, I heard the dogs, far away in the dark jun­gles, bark­ing in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions. One of the goats was gone! A leop­ard had sprung in­to the camp, and had torn a goat from its fas­ten­ing, al­though tied to a peg, be­tween two men, close to a large fire. The dogs had giv­en chase; but, as usu­al in such cas­es, they were so alarmed as to be al­most use­less. We quick­ly col­lect­ed fire­brands and searched the jun­gles, and short­ly we ar­rived where a dog was bark­ing vi­olent­ly. Near this spot we heard the moan­ing of some an­imal among the bush­es, and up­on a search with fire­brands we dis­cov­ered the goat, help­less up­on the ground, with its throat lac­er­at­ed by the leop­ard. A sud­den cry from the dog at a few yards’ dis­tance, and the bark­ing ceased.

The goat was car­ried to the camp where it short­ly died. We suc­ceed­ed in re­call­ing two of the dogs, but the third, which was the best, was miss­ing, hav­ing been struck by the leop­ard. We searched for the body in vain, and con­clud­ed that it had been car­ried off.

The coun­try that we now tra­versed was so to­tal­ly un­in­hab­it­ed that it was de­void of all foot­prints of hu­man be­ings; even the sand by the riv­er’s side, that, like the snow, con­fessed ev­ery print, was free from all traces of man. The Bas-​e were ev­ident­ly ab­sent from our neigh­bour­hood.

We had sev­er­al times dis­turbed an­telopes dur­ing the ear­ly por­tion of the march, and we had just as­cend­ed from the rugged slopes of the val­ley, when we ob­served a troop of about 100 ba­boons, which were gath­er­ing gum-​ara­bic from the mi­mosas; up­on see­ing us, they im­me­di­ate­ly wad­dled off. “Would the la­dy like to have a gir­rit (ba­boon)?” ex­claimed the ev­er-​ex­cit­ed Jali. Be­ing an­swered in the af­fir­ma­tive, away dashed the three hunters in full gal­lop af­ter the as­ton­ished apes, who, find­ing them­selves pur­sued, went off at their best speed. The ground was rough, be­ing full of bro­ken hol­lows, cov­ered scant­ily with mi­mosas, and the stupid ba­boons, in­stead of turn­ing to the right in­to the rugged and steep val­ley of the Set­tite, where they would have been se­cure from the ag­gageers, kept a straight course be­fore the hors­es. It was a cu­ri­ous hunt. Some of the very young ba­boons were rid­ing on their moth­er’s backs; these were now go­ing at their best pace, hold­ing on­to their ma­ter­nal steeds, and look­ing ab­surd­ly hu­mans but in a few min­utes, as we close­ly fol­lowed the Arabs, we were all in the midst of the herd, and with great dex­ter­ity two of the ag­gageers, while at full speed, stooped like fal­cons from their sad­dles, and seized each a half-​grown ape by the back of the neck, and hoist­ed them up­on the necks of the hors­es. In­stead of bit­ing, as I had ex­pect­ed, the as­ton­ished cap­tives sat astride of the hors­es, and clung tena­cious­ly with both arms to the necks of their steeds, scream­ing with fear.

The hunt was over, and we halt­ed to se­cured the pris­on­ers. Dis­mount­ing, to my sur­prise the Arabs im­me­di­ate­ly stripped from a mi­mosa sev­er­al thongs of bark, and hav­ing tied the ba­boons by the neck, they gave them a mer­ci­less whip­ping with their pow­er­ful coor­batch­es of hip­popota­mus hide. It was in vain that I re­mon­strat­ed against this harsh treat­ment; they per­sist­ed in the pun­ish­ment. Oth­er­wise they de­clared that the ba­boons would bite, but if well-​whipped they would be­come “miskeen”(hum­ble). At length by wife in­sist­ed up­on mer­cy, and the un­for­tu­nate cap­tives wore an ex­pres­sion of coun­te­nance like pris­on­ers about to be led to ex­ecu­tion, and they looked im­plor­ing­ly at our faces, in which they ev­ident­ly dis­cov­ered some sym­pa­thy with their fate. They were quick­ly placed on horse­back be­fore their cap­tors, and once more we con­tin­ued our jour­ney, high­ly amused with the lit­tle en­tr’ acte.

We had hard­ly rid­den half a mile when I per­ceived a fine bull tetel stand­ing near a bush a few hun­dred yards dis­tant. Mo­tion­ing to the par­ty to halt, I dis­mount­ed, and with that the lit­tle Fletch­er ri­fle I en­deav­ored to ob­tain a shot. When with­in about a hun­dred and sev­en­ty yards, he ob­served our par­ty, and I was obliged to take the shot, al­though I could have ap­proached un­seen to a clos­er dis­tance, had his at­ten­tion not been at­tract­ed by the noise of the hors­es. He threw his head up prepara­to­ry to start­ing off, and he was just up­on the move as I touched the trig­ger. He fell like a stone to the shot, but al­most im­me­di­ate­ly he re­gained his feet and bound­ed off, re­ceiv­ing a bul­let from the sec­ond bar­rel with­out a flinch. In full speed he rushed away across the par­ty of ag­gageers about three hun­dred yards dis­tant.

Out dashed Abou Do from the ranks on his ac­tive gray horse, and away he flew af­ter the wound­ed tetel, his long hair float­ing in the wind, his naked sword in hand, and his heels dig­ging in­to the flanks of his horse, as though armed with spurs in the last fin­ish of a race. It was a beau­ti­ful course. Abou Do hunt­ed like a cun­ning grey­hound; the tetel turned, and, tak­ing ad­van­tage of the dou­ble, he cut off the an­gle; suc­ceed­ing by the ma­noeu­vre, he again fol­lowed at tremen­dous speed over the nu­mer­ous in­equal­ities of the ground, gain­ing in the race un­til he was with­in twen­ty yards of the tetel, when we lost sight of both game and hunter in the thick bush­es. By this time I had re­gained my horse, that was brought to meet me, and I fol­lowed to the spot, to­ward which my wife and the ag­gageers, en­cum­bered with the un­will­ing apes, were al­ready has­ten­ing. Up­on ar­rival I found, in high yel­low grass be­neath a large tree, the tetel dead, and Abou Do wip­ing his bloody sword, sur­round­ed by the fore­most of the par­ty. He had ham­strung the an­imal so del­icate­ly that the keen edge of the blade was not in­jured against the bone. My two bul­lets had passed through the tetel. The first was too high, hav­ing en­tered above the shoul­der–this had dropped the an­imal for a mo­ment; the sec­ond was through the flank.

The Arabs now tied the ba­boons to trees, and em­ployed them­selves in care­ful­ly skin­ning the tetel so as to form a sack from the hide. They had about half fin­ished the op­er­ation, when we were dis­turbed by a pe­cu­liar sound at a con­sid­er­able dis­tance in the jun­gle, which, be­ing re­peat­ed, we knew to be the cry of buf­faloes. In an in­stant the tetel was ne­glect­ed, the ag­gageers mount­ed their hors­es, and leav­ing my wife with a few men to take charge of the game, ac­com­pa­nied by Flo­ri­an we went in search of the buf­faloes. This part of the coun­try was cov­ered with grass about nine feet high, that was re­duced to such ex­treme dry­ness that the stems broke in­to sev­er­al pieces like glass as we brushed through it. The jun­gle was open, com­posed of thorny mi­mosas at such wide in­ter­vals that a horse could be rid­den at con­sid­er­able speed if ac­cus­tomed to the coun­try. Al­to­geth­er it was the per­fec­tion of ground for shoot­ing, and the chances were in favour of the ri­fle.

We had pro­ceed­ed care­ful­ly about half a mile when I heard a rustling in the grass, and I short­ly per­ceived a bull buf­fa­lo stand­ing alone be­neath a tree, close to the sandy bed of a dried stream, which was about a hun­dred yards dis­tant, be­tween us and the an­imal. The grass had been en­tire­ly de­stroyed by the tram­pling of a large herd. I took aim at the shoul­der with one of my No. 10 Reil­ly ri­fles, and the buf­fa­lo rushed for­ward at the shot, and fell about a hun­dred paces be­yond in the bush. At the re­port of the shot, the herd, that we had not ob­served, which had been ly­ing up­on the sandy bed of the stream, rushed past us with a sound like thun­der, in a cloud of dust raised by sev­er­al hun­dreds of large an­imals in full gal­lop. I could hard­ly see them dis­tinct­ly, and I wait­ed for a good chance, when present­ly a mighty bull sep­arat­ed from the rest, and gave me a fair shoul­der-​shot. I fired a lit­tle too for­ward, and missed the shoul­der; but I made a still bet­ter shot by mis­take, as the Reil­ly bul­let broke the spine through the neck, and dropped him dead. Flo­ri­an, poor fel­low, had not the nec­es­sary tools for the work, and one of his light guns pro­duced no ef­fect.

Now came the time for the ag­gageers. Away dashed Jali op his fiery mare, close­ly fol­lowed by Abou Do and Suleiman, who in a few in­stants were ob­scured in the cloud of dust raised by the re­treat­ing buf­faloes. As soon as I could mount my horse that had been led be­hind me, I fol­lowed at full speed, and, spurring hard, I short­ly came in sight of the three ag­gageers, not on­ly in the dust, but ac­tu­al­ly among the rear buf­faloes of the herd. Sud­den­ly, Jali al­most dis­ap­peared from the sad­dle as he leaned for­ward with a jerk and seized a fine young buf­fa­lo by the tail. In a mo­ment Abou Do and Suleiman sprang from their hors­es, and I ar­rived just in time to as­sist them in se­cur­ing a fine lit­tle bull about twelve hands high, whose horns were six or sev­en inch­es long. A pret­ty fight we had with the young Her­cules. The Arabs stuck to him like bull­dogs, in spite of his tremen­dous strug­gles, and Flo­ri­an, with oth­er men, short­ly ar­riv­ing, we se­cured him by lash­ing his legs to­geth­er with our belts un­til im­promp­tu ropes could be made with mi­mosa bark.

I now re­turned to the spot where we had left my wife and the tetel. I found her stand­ing about fifty yards from the spot with a dou­ble ri­fle cocked, await­ing an ex­pect­ed charge from one of the buf­faloes that, sep­arat­ed from the herd, had hap­pened to rush in her di­rec­tion.

Ma­homet had been in an aw­ful fright, and was now stand­ing se­cure be­hind his mis­tress. I rode through the grass with the hope of get­ting a shot, but the an­imal had dis­ap­peared. We re­turned to the dead tetel and to our cap­tive ba­boons; but times had changed since we had left them. One had tak­en ad­van­tage of our ab­sence, and, hav­ing bit­ten through his teth­er, had es­caped. The oth­er had used force in­stead of cun­ning, and, in at­tempt­ing to tear away from con­fine­ment, had stran­gled him­self with the slip-​knot of the rope.

We now pushed ahead, and at 5 P.M. we ar­rived at the spot on the mar­gin of the Set­tite Riv­er at which we were to en­camp for some time. For many miles on ei­ther side the riv­er was fringed with dense groves of the green nab­buk, but up­on the east bank an is­land had been formed of about three hun­dred acres. This was a per­fect oa­sis of ver­dure, cov­ered with large nab­buk trees, about thir­ty feet high, and form­ing a mix­ture of the dens­est coverts, with small open glades of rich but low herbage. To reach this is­land, up­on which we were to en­camp, it was nec­es­sary to cross the arm of the riv­er, that was now dry, with the ex­cep­tion of deep pools, in one of which we per­ceived a large bull buf­fa­lo drink­ing, just as we de­scend­ed the hill. As this would be close to the larder, I stalked to with­in nine­ty yards, and fired a Reil­ly No. 10 in­to his back, as his head in­clined to the wa­ter. For the mo­ment he fell up­on his knees, but re­cov­er­ing im­me­di­ate­ly, he rushed up the steep bank of the is­land, re­ceiv­ing the ball from my left-​hand bar­rel be­tween his shoul­ders, and dis­ap­peared in the dense covert of green nab­buk on the mar­gin. As we were to camp with­in a few yards of the spot, he was close to home; there­fore, hav­ing crossed the riv­er, we care­ful­ly fol­lowed the blood tracks through the jun­gle. But, af­ter hav­ing pushed our way for about twen­ty paces through the dense covert, I came to the wise con­clu­sion that it was not the place for fol­low­ing a wound­ed buf­fa­lo, and that we should find him dead on the next morn­ing.

A few yards up­on our right hand was a beau­ti­ful open glade, com­mand­ing a view of the riv­er, and sur­round­ed by the largest nab­buk trees, that af­ford­ed a de­light­ful shade in the midst of the thick covert. This was a spot that in for­mer years had been used by the ag­gageers as a camp, and we ac­cord­ing­ly dis­mount­ed and turned the hors­es to graze up­on the wel­come grass. Each horse was se­cured to a peg by a long leath­ern thong, as the li­ons in this neigh­bour­hood were ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous, hav­ing the ad­van­tage of thick and opaque jun­gle.

We em­ployed our­selves un­til the camels should ar­rive in cut­ting thorn branch­es and con­struct­ing a za­ree­ba or fenced camp, to pro­tect our an­imals dur­ing the night from the at­tack of wild beasts. I al­so hol­lowed out a thick green bush to form an ar­bour, as a re­treat dur­ing the heat of the day, and in a short space of time we were pre­pared for the re­cep­tion of the camels and ef­fects. The riv­er had cast up im­mense stores of dry wood; this we had col­lect­ed, and by the time the camels ar­rived with the re­main­der of our par­ty af­ter dark, huge fires were blaz­ing high in air, the light of which had guid­ed them di­rect to our camp. They were heav­ily laden with meat, which is the Arab’s great source of hap­pi­ness; there­fore in a few min­utes the whole par­ty was busi­ly em­ployed in cut­ting the flesh in­to long thin strips to dry. These were hung in fes­toons over the sur­round­ing trees, while the fires were heaped with tid­bits of all de­scrip­tions. I had cho­sen a re­mark­ably snug po­si­tion for our­selves; the two an­gareps (stretch­ers) were neat­ly ar­ranged in the mid­dle of a small open space free from over­hang­ing boughs; near these blazed a large fire, up­on which were roast­ing a row of mar­row-​bones of buf­fa­lo and tetel, while the ta­ble was spread with a clean cloth and ar­ranged for din­ner.

The wom­an Bar­rak, who had dis­cov­ered with re­gret that she was not a wife but a ser­vant, had got over the dis­ap­point­ment, and was now mak­ing dhur­ra cakes up­on the do­ka. This is a round earth­en­ware tray about eigh­teen inch­es in di­am­eter, which, sup­port­ed up­on three stones or lumps of earth, over a fire of glow­ing em­bers, forms a hearth. Slices of liv­er, well pep­pered with cayenne and salt, were grilling on the grid­iron, and we were prepar­ing to dine, when a ter­rif­ic roar with­in a hun­dred and fifty yards in­formed us that a li­on was al­so think­ing of din­ner. A con­fu­sion of tremen­dous roars pro­ceed­ing from sev­er­al li­ons fol­lowed the first round, and my ag­gageers qui­et­ly re­marked, “There is no dan­ger for the hors­es tonight; the li­ons have found your wound­ed buf­fa­lo!”

Such a mag­nif­icent cho­rus of bass voic­es I had nev­er heard. The jun­gle cracked, as with re­peat­ed roars they dragged the car­cass of the buf­fa­lo through the thorns to the spot where they in­tend­ed to de­vour it. That which was mu­sic to our ears was dis­cord to those of Ma­homet, who with ter­ror in his face came to us and ex­claimed, “Mas­ter, what’s that? What for mas­ter and the mis­sus come to this bad coun­try? That’s one bad kind will eat the mis­sus in the night! Per­haps he come and eat Ma­homet!” This af­terthought was too much for him, and Bacheet im­me­di­ate­ly com­fort­ed him by telling the most hor­ri­ble tales of death and de­struc­tion that had been wrought by li­ons, un­til the nerves of Ma­homet were com­plete­ly un­hinged.

This was a sig­nal for sto­ry-​telling, when sud­den­ly the ag­gageers changed the con­ver­sa­tion by a few tales of the Bas-​e na­tives, which so thor­ough­ly eclipsed the dan­gers of wild beasts that in a short time the en­tire par­ty would al­most have wel­comed a li­on, pro­vid­ed he would have agreed to pro­tect them from the Bas-​e. In this very spot where we were then camped, a par­ty of Arab hunters had, two years pre­vi­ous, been sur­prised at night and killed by the Bas-​e, who still boast­ed of the swords that they pos­sessed as spoils from that oc­ca­sion. The Bas-​e knew this spot as the fa­vorite rest­ing-​place of the Ham­ran hunt­ing-​par­ties, and they might be not far dis­tant NOW, as we were in the heart of their coun­try. This in­tel­li­gence was a reg­ular damper to the spir­its of some of the par­ty. Ma­homet qui­et­ly re­tired and sat down by Bar­rak, the ex-​slave wom­an, hav­ing ex­pressed a res­olu­tion to keep awake ev­ery hour that he should be com­pelled to re­main in that hor­ri­ble coun­try. The li­ons roared loud­er and loud­er, but no one ap­peared to no­tice such small thun­der; all thoughts were fixed up­on the Bas-​e, so thor­ough­ly had the ag­gageers suc­ceed­ed in fright­en­ing not on­ly Ma­homet, but al­so our Tokrooris.