King Solomon's Mines E-book
Author: H Rider Haggard
Genre: Literature, Mystery, Wonder
1885
KING SOLOMON'S MINES
by H. Rider Haggard
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
Introduction
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NOW THAT this book is printed, and about to be given to the world,
the sense of its shortcomings, both in style and contents, weighs very
heavily upon me. As regards the latter, I can only say that it does
not pretend to be a full account of everything we did and saw. There
are many things connected with our journey into Kukuanaland which I
should have liked to dwell upon at length, and which have, as it is,
been scarcely alluded to. Among these are the curious legends which
I collected about the chain armor that saved us from destruction in
the great battle of Loo, and also about the "silent ones" or colossi
at the mouth of the stalactite cave. Again, if I had given way to my
own impulses I should have liked to go into the differences, some of
which are to my mind very suggestive, between the Zulu and Kukuana
dialects. Also, a few pages might profitably have been given up to the
consideration of the indigenous flora and fauna of Kukuanaland. * Then
there remains the most interesting subject- which, as it is, has
been only incidentally alluded to- of the magnificent system of
military organization in force in that country, which is, in my
opinion, much superior to that inaugurated by Chaka in Zululand,
inasmuch as it permits of even more rapid mobilization, and does not
necessitate the employment of the pernicious system of forced
celibacy. And, lastly, I have scarcely touched on the domestic and
family customs of the Kukuanas, many of which are exceedingly
quaint, or on their proficiency in the art of smelting and welding
metals. This last they carry to considerable perfection, of which a
good example is to be seen in their "tollas," or heavy throwing
knives, the backs of these knives being made of hammered iron, and the
edges of beautiful steel welded with great skill onto the iron
backs. The fact of the matter is that I thought (and so did Sir
Henry Curtis and Captain Good) that the best plan would be to tell the
story in a plain, straightforward manner, and leave these matters to
be dealt with subsequently in whatever way may ultimately appear to be
desirable. In the meanwhile I shall, of course, be delighted to give
any information in my power to anybody interested in such things.
-
* I discovered eight varieties of antelope with which I was
previously totally unacquainted, and many new species of plants, for
the most part of the bulbous tribe.- A. Q.
-
And now it only remains for me to offer my apologies for my blunt
way of writing. I can only say in excuse for it that I am more
accustomed to handle a rifle than a pen, and cannot make any
pretense to the grand literary flights and flourishes which I see in
novels- for I sometimes like to read a novel. I suppose they- the
flights and flourishes- are desirable, and I regret not being able
to supply them; but at the same time I cannot help thinking that
simple things are always the most impressive, and books are easier
to understand when they are written in plain language, though I have
perhaps no right to set up an opinion on such a matter. "A sharp
spear," runs the Kukuana saying, "needs no polish," and on the same
principle I venture to hope that a true story, however strange it
may be, does not require to be decked out in fine words.
ALLAN QUATERMAIN
1. I Meet Sir Henry Curtis
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IT IS a curious thing that at my age- fifty-five last birthday- I
should find myself taking up a pen to try and write a history. I
wonder what sort of a history it will be when I have done it, if I
ever come to the end of the trip! I have done a good many things in my
life, which seems a long one to me, owing to my having begun so young,
perhaps. At an age when other boys are at school I was earning my
living as a trader in the old Colony. I have been trading, hunting,
fighting, or mining ever since. And yet it is only eight months ago
that I made my pile. It is a big pile now I have got it- I don't yet
know how big- but I don't think I would go through the last fifteen or
sixteen months again for it; no, not if I knew that I should come
out safe at the end, pile and all. But then, I am a timid man, and
don't like violence, and am pretty sick of adventure. I wonder why I
am going to write this book; it is not in my line. I am not a literary
man, though very devoted to the Old Testament and also to the
Ingoldsby Legends. Let me try and set down my reasons, just to see
if I have any.
First reason: Because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good asked
me to.
Second reason: Because I am laid up here at Durban with the pain and
trouble in my left leg. Ever since that confounded lion got hold of me
I have been liable to it, and its being rather bad just now makes me
limp more than ever. There must be some poison in a lion's teeth,
otherwise how is it that when your wounds are healed they break out
again, generally, mark you, at the same time of year that you got your
mauling? It is a hard thing, when one has shot sixty-five lions, as
I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should chew your
leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the thing, and,
putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and don't like
that. This is by the way.
Third reason: Because I want my boy Harry, who is over there at
the hospital in London studying to become a doctor, to have
something to amuse him and keep him out of mischief for a week or
so. Hospital work must sometimes pall and get rather dull, for even of
cutting up dead bodies there must come satiety, and as this history
won't be dull, whatever else it may be, it may put a little life
into things for a day or two while he is reading it.
Fourth reason and last: Because I am going to tell the strangest
story that I know of. It may seem a queer thing to say that,
especially considering that there is no woman in it- except Foulata.
Stop, though, there is Gagaoola, if she was a woman and not a fiend.
But she was a hundred at least, and therefore not marriageable, so I
don't count her. At any rate, I can safely say that there is not a
petticoat in the whole history. Well, I had better come to the yoke.
It's a stiff place, and I feel as though I were bogged up to the axle.
But "sutjes, sutjes," as the Boers say (I'm sure I don't know how they
spell it), softly does it. A strong team will come through at last,
that is if they ain't too poor. You will never do anything with poor
oxen. Now, to begin.
I, Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman, make oath and say-
That's how I began my deposition before the magistrate about poor
Khiva's and Ventvogel's sad deaths; but somehow it doesn't seem
quite the right way to begin a book. And, besides, am I a gentleman?
What is a gentleman? I don't quite know, and yet I have had to do with
niggers- no, I'll scratch that word "niggers" out, for I don't like
it- I've known natives who are, and so you'll say, Harry, my boy,
before you're done with this tale, and I have known mean whites with
lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who ain't. Well, at any
rate I was born a gentleman, though I've been nothing but a poor
traveling trader and hunter all my life. Whether I have remained so
I know not; you must judge of that. Heaven knows I've tried. I've
killed many men in my time, but I have never slain wantonly or stained
my hand in innocent blood, only in self-defense. The Almighty gave
us our lives, and I suppose he meant us to defend them; at least I
have always acted on that, and I hope it won't be brought up against
me when my clock strikes. There, there; it is a cruel and a wicked
world, and, for a timid man, I have been mixed up in a deal of
slaughter. I can't tell the rights of it, but at any rate I have never
stolen, though I once cheated a Kaffir out of a herd of cattle. But
then, he had done me a dirty turn, and it has troubled me ever since
into the bargain.
Well, it's eighteen months or so ago since I first met Sir Henry
Curtis and Captain Good, and it was in this way. I had been up
elephant hunting beyond Bamangwato, and had had bad luck. Everything
went wrong that trip, and to top up with I got the fever badly. So
soon as I was well enough I trekked down to the diamond fields, sold
such ivory as I had, and also my wagon and oxen, discharged my
hunters, and took the post cart to the Cape. After spending a week
in Cape Town, finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and
having seen everything there was to see, including the botanical
gardens, which seem to me likely to confer a great benefit on the
country, and the new Houses of Parliament, which I expect will do
nothing of the sort, I determined to go on back to Natal by the
Dunkeld, then lying in the docks waiting for the Edinburgh Castle
due in from England. I took my berth and went aboard, and that
afternoon the Natal passengers from the Edinburgh Castle
transhipped, and we weighed anchor and put out to sea.
Among the passengers who came on board there were two who excited my
curiosity. One, a man of about thirty, was one of the
biggest-chested and longest-armed men I ever saw. He had yellow
hair, a big yellow beard, clear-cut features, and large gray eyes
set deep into his head. I never saw a finer-looking man, and somehow
he reminded me of an ancient Dane. Not that I know much of ancient
Danes, though I remember a modern Dane who did me out of ten pounds;
but I remember once seeing a picture of some of those gentry, who, I
take it, were a kind of white Zulus. They were drinking out of big
horns, and their long hair hung down their backs, and as I looked at
my friend standing there by the companion ladder, I thought that if he
only let his hair grow a bit, put one of those chain shirts onto those
great shoulders of his, and gave him a battle-ax and a horn mug, he
might have sat as a model for that picture. And, by the way, it is a
curious thing, and just shows how the blood will show out, I found out
afterwards that Sir Henry Curtis, for that was the big man's name, was
of Danish blood. * He also reminded me strongly of somebody else,
but at that time I could not remember who it was.
-
* Mr. Quatermain's ideas about ancient Danes seem to be rather
confused; we have always understood that they were dark-haired people.
Probably he was thinking of Saxons.- EDITOR.
-
The other man, who stood talking to Sir Henry, was of quite a
different cut. I suspected at once that he was a naval officer. I
don't know why, but it is difficult to mistake a navy man. I have gone
on shooting trips with several of them in the course of my life, and
they have always been just the best and bravest and nicest fellows I
ever met, though given to the use of profane language.
I asked, a page or two back, what is a gentleman? I'll answer it
now: a Royal Navy officer is, in a general sort of a way, though, of
course, there may be a black sheep among them here and there. I
fancy it is just the wide sea and the breath of God's winds that
washes their hearts and blows the bitterness out of their minds and
makes them what men ought to be. Well, to return, I was right again; I
found out that he was a naval officer, a lieutenant of thirty-one,
who, after seventeen years' service, had been turned out of her
majesty's employ with the barren honor of a commander's rank,
because it was impossible that he should be promoted. This is what
people who serve the queen have to expect: to be shot out into the
cold world to find a living just when they are beginning to really
understand their work, and to get to the prime of life. Well, I
suppose they don't mind it, but for my part I had rather earn my bread
as a hunter. One's half-pence are as scarce, perhaps, but you don't
get so many kicks. His name, I found out- by referring to the
passengers' list- was Good- Captain John Good. He was broad, of medium
height, dark, stout, and rather a curious man to look at. He was so
very neat and so very clean shaved, and he always wore an eyeglass
in his right eye. It seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and
he never took it out except to wipe it. At first I thought he used
to sleep in it, but I afterwards found that this was a mistake. He put
it in his trousers pocket when he went to bed, together with his false
teeth, of which he had two beautiful sets that have often, my own
being none of the best, caused me to break the Tenth Commandment.
But I am anticipating.
Soon after we had got under way evening closed in, and brought
with it very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprang up off land, and a
kind of aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. And
as for that Dunkeld, she is a flat-bottomed punt, and, going up
light as she was, she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as
though she would go right over, but she never did. It was quite
impossible to walk about, so I stood near the engines, where it was
warm, and amused myself with watching the pendulum, which was fixed
opposite to me, swinging slowly backward and forward as the vessel
rolled, and marking the angle she touched at each lurch.
"That pendulum's wrong; it is not properly weighted," suddenly
said a voice at my shoulder somewhat testily. Looking round I saw
the naval officer I had noticed when the passengers came aboard.
"Indeed; now what makes you think so?" I asked.
"Think so. I don't think at all. Why there"- as she righted
herself after a roll- "if the ship had really rolled to the degree
that thing pointed to then she would never have rolled again, that's
all. But it is just like these merchant skippers, they always are so
confoundedly careless."
Just then the dinner bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a
dreadful thing to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy
when he gets onto that subject. I know only one worse thing, and
that is to hear a merchant skipper express his candid opinion of
officers of the Royal Navy.
Captain Good and I went down to dinner together, and there we
found Sir Henry Curtis already seated. He and Captain Good sat
together, and I sat opposite to them. The captain and I soon got
into talk about shooting and what not, he asking me many questions,
and I answering as well as I could. Presently he got onto elephants.
"Ah, sir," called out somebody who was sitting near me, "you've
got to the right man for that; hunter Quatermain should be able to
tell you about elephants if anybody can."
Sir Henry, who had been sitting quite quiet listening to our talk,
started visibly.
"Excuse me, sir," he said, leaning forward across the table, and
speaking in a low, deep voice, a very suitable voice, it seemed to me,
to come out of those great lungs. "Excuse me, sir, but is your name
Allan Quatermain?"
I said it was.
The big man made no further remark, but I heard him mutter,
"Fortunate," into his beard.
Presently dinner came to an end, and as we were leaving the saloon
Sir Henry came up and asked me if I would come into his cabin and
smoke a pipe. I accepted, and he led the way to the Dunkeld deck
cabin, and a very good cabin it was. It had been two cabins, but
when Sir Garnet, or one of those big swells, went down the coast in
the Dunkeld they had knocked away the partition and never put it up
again. There was a sofa in the cabin, and a little table in front of
it. Sir Henry sent the steward for a bottle of whisky, and the three
of us sat down and lit our pipes.
"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry Curtis, when the steward had
brought the whisky and lit the lamp, "the year before last, about this
time, you were, I believe, at a place called Bamangwato, to the
north of the Transvaal."
"I was," I answered, rather surprised that this gentleman should
be so well acquainted with my movements, which were not, so far as I
was aware, considered of general interest.
"You were trading there, were you not?" put in Captain Good in his
quick way.
"I was. I took up a wagonload of goods and made a camp outside the
settlement, and stopped till I had sold them."
Sir Henry was sitting opposite to me in a Madeira chair, his arms
leaning on the table. He now looked up, fixing his large gray eyes
full upon my face. There was a curious anxiety in them, I thought.
"Did you happen to meet a man called Neville there?"
"Oh, yes; he outspanned alongside of me for a fortnight, to rest his
oxen before going on to the interior. I had a letter from a lawyer,
a few months back, asking me if I knew what had become of him, which I
answered to the best of my ability at the time."
"Yes," said Sir Henry, "your letter was forwarded to me. You said in
it that the gentleman called Neville left Bamangwato in the
beginning of May, in a wagon, with a driver, a voorlooper, and a
Kaffir hunter called Jim, announcing his intention of trekking, if
possible, as far as Inyati, the extreme trading post in the Matabele
country, where he would sell his wagon and proceed on foot. You also
said that he did sell his wagon, for, six months afterwards, you saw
the wagon in the possession of a Portuguese trader, who told you
that he had bought it at Inyati from a white man whose name he had
forgotten, and that the white man, with a native servant, had
started off for the interior on a shooting trip, he believed."
"Yes."
Then came a pause.
"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry suddenly, "I suppose you know or
can guess nothing more of the reasons of my- of Mr. Neville's
journey to the northward, or as to what point that journey was
directed?"
"I heard something," I answered, and stopped. The subject was one
which I did not dare to discuss.
Sir Henry and Captain Good looked at each other, and Captain Good
nodded.
"Mr. Quatermain," said the former, "I am going to tell you a
story, and ask your advice, and perhaps your assistance. The agent who
forwarded me your letter told me that I might implicitly rely upon it,
as you were," he said, "well known and universally respected in Natal,
and especially noted for your discretion."
I bowed, and drank some whisky-and-water to hide my confusion, for I
am a modest man; and Sir Henry went on.
"Mr. Neville was my brother."
"Oh," I said, starting; for now I knew who Sir Henry had reminded me
of when I first saw him. His brother was a much smaller man and had
a dark beard, but, now I thought of it, he possessed eyes of the
same shade of gray and with the same keen look in them, and the
features, too, were not unlike.
"He was," went on Sir Henry, "my only and younger brother, and
till five years ago I do not suppose we were ever a month away from
each other. But just about five years ago a misfortune befell us, as
sometimes does happen in families. We had quarreled bitterly, and I
behaved very unjustly to my brother in my anger." Here Captain Good
nodded his head vigorously to himself. The ship gave a big roll just
then, so that the looking glass, which was fixed opposite us to
starboard, was for a moment nearly over our heads, and as I was
sitting with my hands in my pockets and staring upward, I could see
him nodding like anything.
"As I dare say you know," went on Sir Henry, "if a man dies
intestate, and has no property but land- real property it is called in
England- it all descends to his eldest son. It so happened that just
at the time when we quarreled our father died intestate. He had put
off making his will until it was too late. The result was that my
brother, who had not been brought up to any profession, was left
without a penny. Of course it would have been my duty to provide for
him, but at the time the quarrel between us was so bitter that I did
not- to my shame I say it"- and he sighed deeply - "offer to do
anything. It was not that I grudged him anything, but I waited for him
to make advances, and he made none. I am sorry to trouble you with all
this, Mr. Quatermain, but I must, to make things clear; eh, Good?"
"Quite so, quite so," said the captain. "Mr. Quatermain will, I am
sure, keep this history to himself."
"Of course," said I, for I rather pride myself on my discretion.
"Well," went on Sir Henry, "my brother had a few hundred pounds to
his account at the time, and without saying anything to me he drew out
this paltry sum, and, having adopted the name of Neville, started
off for South Africa in the wild hope of making a fortune. This I
heard afterwards. Some three years passed, and I heard nothing of my
brother, though I wrote several times. Doubtless the letters never
reached him. But as time went on I grew more and more troubled about
him. I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that blood is thicker than water."
"That's true," said I, thinking of my boy Harry.
"I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that I would have given half my
fortune to know that my brother George, the only relation I have,
was safe and well, and that I should see him again."
"But you never did, Curtis," jerked out Captain Good, glancing at
the big man's face.
"Well, Mr. Quatermain, as time went on I became more and more
anxious to find out if my brother was alive or dead, and, if alive, to
get him home again. I set inquiries on foot, and your letter was one
of the results. So far as it went it was satisfactory, for it showed
that till lately George was alive; but it did not go far enough. So,
to cut a long story short, I made up my mind to come out and look
for him myself, and Captain Good was so kind as to come with me."
"Yes," said the captain; "nothing else to do, you see. Turned out by
my lords of the admiralty to starve on half pay. And now, perhaps,
sir, you will tell us what you know or have heard of the gentleman
called Neville."
2. The Legend of Solomon's Mines
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"WHAT WAS it that you heard about my brother's journey at
Bamangwato?" said Sir Henry, as I paused to fill my pipe before
answering Captain Good.
"I heard this," I answered, "and I have never mentioned it to a soul
till today. I heard that he was starting for Solomon's Mines."
"Solomon's Mines!" ejaculated both my hearers at once. "Where are
they?"
"I don't know," I said; "I know where they are said to be. I once
saw the peaks of the mountains that border them, but there was a
hundred and thirty miles of desert between me and them, and I am not
aware that any white man ever got across it, save one. But perhaps the
best thing I can do is tell you the legend of Solomon's Mines as I
know it, you passing your word not to reveal anything I tell you
without my permission. Do you agree to that? I have my reasons for
asking it."
Sir Henry nodded, and Captain Good replied, "Certainly, certainly."
"Well," I began, "as you may guess, in a general way elephant
hunters are a rough set of men, and don't trouble themselves with much
beyond the facts of life and the ways of Kaffirs. But here and there
you meet a man who takes the trouble to collect traditions from the
natives, and tries to make out a little piece of the history of this
dark land. It was such a man as this who first told me the legend of
Solomon's Mines, now a matter of nearly thirty years ago. It was
when I was on my first elephant hunt in the Matabele country. His name
was Evans, and he was killed next year, poor fellow, by a wounded
buffalo, and lies buried near the Zambesi Falls. I was telling Evans
one night, I remember, of some wonderful workings I had found while
hunting koodoo and eland in what is now the Lydenburg district of
the Transvaal. I see they have come across these workings again lately
in prospecting for gold, but I knew of them years ago. There is a
great wide wagon road cut out of the solid rock, and leading to the
mouth of the working or gallery. Inside the mouth of this gallery
are stacks of gold quartz piled up ready for crushing, which shows
that the workers, whoever they were, must have left in a hurry, and
about twenty paces in the gallery is built across, and a beautiful bit
of masonry it is.
"'Ay,' said Evans, 'but I will tell you a queerer thing than
that,' and he went on to tell me how he had found in the far
interior a ruined city, which he believed to be the Ophir of the
Bible- and, by the way, other more learned men have said the same long
since poor Evans's time. I was, I remember, listening open-eared to
all these wonders, for I was young at the time, and this story of an
ancient civilization, and of the treasure which those old Jewish or
Phoenician adventurers used to extract from a country long since
lapsed into the darkest barbarism, took a great hold upon my
imagination, when suddenly he said to me, 'Lad, did you hear of the
Suliman Mountains up to the northwest of the Mashukulumbwe country?' I
told him I never had. 'Ah, well,' he said, 'that was where Solomon
really had his mines- his diamond mines, I mean.'
"'How do you know that?' I asked.
"'Know it? Why, what is "Suliman" but a corruption of Solomon? *
And, besides, an old isanusi [witch doctor] up in the Manica country
told me all about it. She said that the people who lived across
those mountains were a branch of the Zulus, speaking a dialect of
Zulu, but finer and bigger men even; that there lived among them great
wizards, who had learned their art from white men when "all the
world was dark," and who had the secret of a wonderful mine of "bright
stones."'
-
* Suliman is the Arabic form of Solomon.- EDITOR.
-
"Well, I laughed at this story at the time, though it interested me,
for the diamond fields were not discovered then, and poor Evans went
off and got killed, and for twenty years I never thought any more of
the matter. But just twenty years afterwards- and that is a long time,
gentlemen; an elephant hunter does not often live for twenty years
at his business- I heard something more definite about Suliman's
Mountains and the country which lies beyond them. I was up beyond
the Manica country at a place called Sitanda's Kraal, and a
miserable place it was, for one could get nothing to eat there, and
there was but little game about. I had an attack of fever, and was
in a bad way generally, when one day a Portugee arrived with a
single companion- a half-breed. Now I know your Delagoa Portugee well.
There is no greater devil unhung, in a general way, battening as he
does upon human agony and flesh in the shape of slaves. But this was
quite a different type of man to the low fellows I had been accustomed
to meet; he reminded me more of the polite dons I have read about.
He was tall and thin, with large dark eyes and curling gray
mustache. We talked together a little, for he could speak broken
English, and I understood a little Portugee, and he told me that his
name was Jose Silvestre, and that he had a place near Delagoa Bay; and
when he went on next day, with his half-breed companion, he said,
'Good-by,' taking off his hat quite in the old style. 'Good-by,
senor,' he said; 'if ever we meet again I shall be the richest man
in the world, and I will remember you.' I laughed a little- I was
too weak to laugh much- and watched him strike out for the great
desert to the west, wondering if he was mad, or what he thought he was
going to find there.
"A week passed, and I got the better of my fever. One evening I
was sitting on the ground in front of the little tent I had with me,
chewing the last leg of a miserable fowl I had bought from a native
for a bit of cloth worth twenty fowls, and staring at the hot, red sun
sinking down into the desert, when suddenly I saw a figure, apparently
that of a European, for it wore a coat, on the slope of the rising
ground opposite to me, about three hundred yards away. The figure
crept along on its hands and knees, then it got up and staggered along
a few yards on its legs, only to fall and crawl along again. Seeing
that it must be somebody in distress, I sent one of my hunters to help
him, and presently he arrived, and who do you suppose it turned out to
be?"
"Jose Silvestre, of course," said Captain Good.
"Yes, Jose Silvestre, or rather his skeleton and a little skin.
His face was bright yellow with bilious fever, and his large, dark
eyes stood nearly out of his head, for all his flesh had gone. There
was nothing but yellow, parchment-like skin, white hair, and the gaunt
bones sticking up beneath.
"'Water! For the sake of Christ, water!' he moaned. I saw that his
lips were cracked, and his tongue, which protruded between them, was
swollen and blackish.
"I gave him water with a little milk in it, and he drank it in great
gulps, two quarts or more, without stopping. I would not let him
have any more. Then the fever took him again, and he fell down and
began to rave about Suliman's Mountains, and the diamonds, and the
desert. I took him into the tent and did what I could for him, which
was little enough; but I saw how it must end. About eleven o'clock
he got quieter, and I lay down for a little rest and went to sleep. At
dawn I woke again, and saw him in the half light sitting up, a
strange, gaunt form, and gazing out towards the desert. Presently
the first ray of the sun shot right across the wide plain before us
till it reached the faraway crest of one of the tallest of the Suliman
Mountains, more than a hundred miles away.
"'There it is!' cried the dying man in Portuguese, stretching out
his long, thin arm, 'but I shall never reach it, never. No one will
ever reach it!'
"Suddenly he paused, and seemed to take a resolution. 'Friend,' he
said, turning towards me, 'are you there? My eyes grow dark.'
"'Yes,' I said; 'yes, lie down now, and rest.'
"'Ay,' he answered, 'I shall rest soon; I have time to rest- all
eternity. Listen, I am dying! You have been good to me. I will give
you the paper. Perhaps you will get there if you can live through
the desert, which has killed my poor servant and me.'
"Then he groped in his shirt and brought out what I thought was a
Boer tobacco pouch of the skin of the Swartvet-pens [sable
antelope]. It was fastened with a little strip of hide, what we call a
rimpi, and this he tried to untie, but could not. He handed it to
me. 'Untie it,' he said. I did so, and extracted a bit of torn
yellow linen, on which something was written in rusty letters.
Inside was a paper.
"Then he went on feebly, for he was growing weak: 'The paper has
it all, that is on the rag. It took me years to read. Listen: my
ancestor, a political refugee from Lisbon and one of the first
Portuguese who landed on these shores, wrote that when he was dying on
those mountains which no white foot ever pressed before or since.
His name was Jose da Silvestra, and he lived three hundred years
ago. His slave, who waited for him on this side the mountains, found
him dead, and brought the writing home to Delagoa. It has been in
the family ever since, but none have cared to read it till at last I
did. And I have lost my life over it, but another may succeed, and
become the richest man in the world- the richest man in the world.
Only give it to no one; go yourself!' Then he began to wander again,
and in an hour it was all over.
"God rest him! He died very quietly, and I buried him deep, with big
boulders on his breast; so I do not think that the Jackals can have
dug him up. And then I came away."
"Ay, but the document," said Sir Henry, in a tone of deep interest.
"Yes, the document; what was in it?" added the captain.
"Well, gentlemen, if you like I will tell you. I have never showed
it to anybody yet except my dear wife, who is dead, and she thought it
was all nonsense, and a drunken old Portuguese trader who translated
it for me, and had forgotten all about it next morning. The original
rag is at my home in Durban, together with poor Don Jose's
translation, but I have the English rendering in my pocketbook, and
a facsimile of the map, if it can be called a map. Here it is."
-
þ€HAGG17.cifþ€
-
I, Jose da Silvestra, who am now dying of hunger in the little
cave where no snow is on the north side of the nipple of the
southernmost of the two mountains I have named Sheba's Breasts,
write this in the year 1590 with a cleft bone upon a remnant of my
raiment, my blood being the ink. If my slave should find it when he
comes, and should bring it to Delagoa, let my friend [name
illegible] bring the matter to the knowledge of the king, that he
may send an army which, if they live through the desert and the
mountains, and can overcome the brave Kukuanes and their devilish
arts, to which end many priests should be brought, will make him the
richest king since Solomon. With my own eyes have I seen the countless
diamonds stored in Solomon's treasure chamber behind the white
Death; but through the treachery of Gagool the witchfinder I might
bring nought away, scarcely my life. Let him who comes follow the map,
and climb the snow of Sheba's left breast till he comes to the nipple,
on the north side of which is the great road Solomon made, from whence
three days' journey to the King's Place. Let him kill Gagool. Pray for
my soul. Farewell.
JOSE DA SILVESTRA *
-
* Eu Jose da Silvestra que estou morrendo de fome na pequena cova
onde nao ha neve ao lado norte do bico mais ao sul das duas
montanhas que chamei seio de Sheba; escrevo isto no anno 1590; escrevo
isto com um pedaco d' osso n' um farrapo de minha roupa e com sangue
meu por tinta; se o meu escravo der com isto quando venha ao levar
para Lourenzo Marquez, que o meu amigo [___] leve a cousa ao
conhecimento d' El Rei, para que possa mandar um exercito que, se
desfiler pelo deserto e pelas montanhas e mesmo sobrepujar os bravos
Kukuanes e suas artes diabolicas, pelo que se deviam trazer muitos
padres Fara o Rei mais rico depois de Salomao. Com meus proprios olhos
ve os di amantes sem conto guardados nas camaras do thesouro de
Salomao a traz da morte branca, mas pela traicao de Gagoal a
feiticeira achadora, nada poderia levar, e apenas a minha vida. Quem
vier siga o mappa e trepe pela neve de Sheba peito a esquerda ate
chegar ao bico, do lado norte do qual esta a grande estrada do Salomao
por elle feita, donde ha tres dias de journada ate ao Palacio do
Rei. Mate Gagoal. Reze por minha alma. Adeos.
JOSE DA SILVESTRA
-
When I had finished reading the above and shown the copy of the map,
drawn by the dying hand of the old don with his blood for ink, there
followed a silence of astonishment.
"Well," said Captain Good, "I have been round the world twice, and
put in at most ports, but may I be hung if I ever heard a yarn like
that out of a storybook, or in it either, for the matter of that."
"It's a queer story, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry. "I suppose you
are not hoaxing us? It is, I know, sometimes thought allowable to take
a greenhorn in."
"If you think that, Sir Henry," I said, much put out, and
pocketing my paper, for I do not like to be thought one of those silly
fellows who consider it witty to tell lies, and who are forever
boasting to newcomers of extraordinary hunting adventures which
never happened, "why there is an end of the matter," and I rose to go.
Sir Henry laid his large hand upon my shoulder. "Sit down, Mr.
Quatermain," he said, "I beg your pardon; I see very well you do not
wish to deceive us, but the story sounded so extraordinary that I
could hardly believe it."
"You shall see the original map and writing when we reach Durban," I
said, somewhat mollified; for really, when I came to consider the
matter, it was scarcely wonderful that he should doubt my good
faith. "But I have not told you about your brother. I knew the man Jim
who was with him. He was a Bechuana by birth, a good hunter, and,
for a native, a very clever man. The morning Mr. Neville was starting,
I saw Jim standing by my wagon and cutting up tobacco on the
disselboom.
"'Jim,' said I, 'where are you off to this trip? Is it elephants?'
"'No, Baas,' he answered, 'we are after something worth more than
ivory.'
"'And what might that be?' I said; for I was curious. 'Is it gold?'
"'No, Baas, something worth more than gold,' and he grinned.
"I did not ask any more questions, for I did not like to lower my
dignity by seeming curious, but I was puzzled. Presently Jim
finished cutting his tobacco.
"'Baas,' said he.
"I took no notice.
"'Baas,' said he again.
"'Eh, boy, what is it?' said I.
"'Baas, we are going after diamonds.'
"'Diamonds! Why, then, you are going in the wrong direction; you
should head for the fields.'
"'Baas, have you ever heard of Suliman's Berg?' (Solomon's
Mountains.)
"'Ay!'
"'Have you ever heard of the diamonds there?'
"'I have heard a foolish story, Jim.'
"'It is no story, Baas. I once knew a woman who came from there, and
got to Natal with her child. She told me; she is dead now.'
"'Your master will feed the Assvogels [vultures], Jim, if he tries
to reach Suliman's country, and so will you, if they can get any
pickings off your worthless old carcass,' said I.
"He grinned. 'Mayhap, Baas. Man must die; I'd rather like to try a
new country myself; the elephants are getting worked out about here.'
"'Ah, my boy,' I said, 'you wait till the "pale old man" [death]
gets a grip of your yellow throat, and then we'll hear what sort of
a tune you sing.'
"Half an hour after that I saw Neville's wagon move off. Presently
Jim came running back. 'Good-by, Baas,' he said. 'I didn't like to
start without bidding you good-by, for I dare say you are right, and
we shall never come back again.'
"'Is your master really going to Suliman's Berg, Jim, or are you
lying?'
"'No,' says he; 'he is going. He told me he was bound to make his
fortune somehow, or try to; so he might as well try the diamonds.'
"'Oh!' said I. 'Wait a bit, Jim; you will take a note to your
master, Jim, and promise not to give it to him until you reach
Inyati?' (which was some hundred miles off).
"'Yes,' said he.
"So I took a scrap of paper and wrote on it, 'Let him who comes...
climb the snow of Sheba's left breast till he comes to the nipple,
on the north side of which is the great road Solomon made.'
"'Now, Jim,' I said, 'when you give this to your master, tell him he
had better follow the advice implicitly. You are not to give it to him
now, because I don't want him back asking me questions which I won't
answer. Now be off, you idle fellow, the wagon is nearly out of
sight.'
"Jim took the note and went, and that is all I know about your
brother, Sir Henry; but I am much afraid-"
"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, "I am going to look for my
brother; I am going to trace him to Suliman's Mountains, and over
them, if necessary, until I find him, or until I know that he is dead.
Will you come with me?"
I am, as I think I have said, a cautious man, indeed, a timid one,
and I shrank from such an idea. It seemed to me that to start on
such a journey would be to go to certain death, and, putting other
things aside, as I had a son to support, I could not afford to die
just then.
"No, thank you, Sir Henry, I think I had rather not," I answered. "I
am too old for wild-goose chases of that sort, and we should only
end up like my poor friend Silvestre. I have a son dependent on me, so
cannot afford to risk my life."
Both Sir Henry and Captain Good looked very disappointed.
"Mr. Quatermain," said the former, "I am well off, and I am bent
upon this business. You may put the remuneration for your services
at whatever figure you like, in reason, and it shall be paid over to
you before we start. Moreover, I will, before we start, arrange that
in the event of anything happening to us or to you, your son shall
be suitably provided for. You will see from this how necessary I think
your presence. Also, if by any chance we should reach this place,
and find diamonds, they shall belong to you and Good equally. I do not
want them. But of course the chance is as good as nothing, though
the same thing would apply to any ivory we might get. You may pretty
well make your own terms with me, Mr. Quatermain; of course I shall
pay all expenses."
"Sir Henry," said I, "this is the most liberal offer I ever had, and
one not to be sneezed at by a poor hunter and trader. But the job is
the biggest I ever came across, and I must take time to think it over.
I will give you my answer before we get to Durban."
"Very good," answered Sir Henry, and then I said good night and
turned in, and dreamed about poor, long-dead Silvestre and the
diamonds.
3. Umbopa Enters Our Service
-
IT TAKES from four to five days, according to the vessel and the
state of the weather, to run up from the Cape to Durban. Sometimes, if
the landing is bad at East London, where they have not yet got that
wonderful harbor they talk so much of and sink such a mint of money
in, one is delayed for twenty-four hours before the cargo boats can
get out to take the goods off. But on this occasion we had not to wait
at all, for there were no breakers on the bar to speak of, and the
tugs came out at once with their long strings of ugly, flat-bottomed
boats, into which the goods were bundled with a crash. It did not
matter what they were, over they went, slap-bang! Whether they were
china or woolen goods they met with the same treatment. I saw one case
containing four dozen bottles of champagne smashed all to bits, and
there was the champagne fizzing and boiling about in the bottom of the
dirty cargo boat. It was a wicked waste, and so evidently the
Kaffirs in the boat thought, for they found a couple of unbroken
bottles, and knocking the tops off drank the contents. But they had
not allowed for the expansion caused by the fizz in the wine, and
feeling themselves swelling, rolled about in the bottom of the boat,
calling out that the good liquor was "tagati" (bewitched). I spoke
to them from the vessel, and told them that it was the white man's
strongest medicine, and that they were as good as dead men. They
went onto the shore in a very great fright, and I do not think they
will touch champagne again.
Well, all the time we were running up to Natal I was thinking over
Sir Henry Curtis's offer. We did not speak any more on the subject for
a day or two, though I told them many hunting yarns, all true ones.
There is no need to tell lies about hunting, for so many curious
things happen within the knowledge of a man whose business it is to
hunt; but this is by the way.
At last, one beautiful evening in January, which is our hottest
month, we steamed along the coast of Natal, expecting to make Durban
Point by sunset. It is a lovely coast all along from East London, with
its red sandhills and wide sweeps of vivid green, dotted here and
there with Kaffir kraals, and bordered by a ribbon of white surf which
spouts up in pillars of foam where it hits the rocks. But just
before you get to Durban there is a peculiar richness about it.
There are the deep kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains of
centuries, down which the rivers sparkle; there is the deepest green
of the bush, growing as God planted it, and the other greens of the
mealie gardens and the sugar patches, while here and there a white
house, smiling out at the placid sea, puts a finish and gives an air
of homeliness to the scene. For to my mind, however beautiful a view
may be, it requires the presence of man to make it complete, but
perhaps that is because I have lived so much in the wilderness, and
therefore know the value of civilization, though, to be sure, it
drives away the game. The Garden of Eden, no doubt, was fair before
man was, but I always think it must have been fairer when Eve was
walking about it. But we had miscalculated a little, and the sun was
well down before we dropped anchor off the Point, and heard the gun
which told the good folk that the English mail was in. It was too late
to think of getting over the bar that night, so we went down
comfortably to dinner, after seeing the mail carried off in the
lifeboat.
When we came up again the moon was up, and shining so brightly
over sea and shore that she almost paled the quick, large flashes from
the lighthouse. From the shore floated sweet spicy odors that always
remind me of hymns and missionaries, and in the windows of the
houses on the Berea sparkled a hundred lights. From a large brig lying
near came the music of the sailors as they worked at getting the
anchor up to be ready for the wind. Altogether it was a perfect night,
such a night as you get only in southern Africa, and it threw a
garment of peace over everybody as the moon threw a garment of
silver over everything. Even the great bulldog belonging to a sporting
passenger seemed to yield to the gentle influences, and, giving up
yearning to come to close quarters with the baboon in a cage on the
fo'c'stle, snored happily in the door of the cabin, dreaming, no
doubt, that he had finished him, and happy in his dream.
We all- that is, Sir Henry Curtis, Captain Good, and myself- went
and sat by the wheel, and were quiet for a while.
"Well, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry presently, "have you been
thinking about my proposals?"
"Ay," echoed Captain Good, "what do you think of them, Mr.
Quatermain? I hope you are going to give us the pleasure of your
company as far as Solomon's Mines, or wherever the gentleman you
knew as Neville may have got to."
I rose and knocked out my pipe before I answered. I had not made
up my mind, and wanted the additional moment to complete it. Before
the burning tobacco had fallen into the sea it was completed; just
that little extra second did the trick. It is often the way when you
have been bothering a long time over a thing.
"Yes, gentlemen," I said, sitting down again, "I will go, and by
your leave I will tell you why and on what terms. First, for the terms
which I ask.
"1. You are to pay all expenses, and any ivory or other valuables we
may get is to be divided between Captain Good and myself.
"2. That you pay me L500 for my service on the trip before we start,
I undertaking to serve you faithfully till you choose to abandon the
enterprise, or till we succeed, or disaster overtakes us.
"3. That before we start you execute a deed agreeing in the event of
my death or disablement, to pay my boy Harry, who is studying medicine
over there in London at Guy's Hospital, a sum of L200 a year for
five years, by which time he ought to be able to earn a living for
himself. That is all, I think, and I dare say you will say quite
enough, too."
"No," answered Sir Henry, "I accept them gladly. I am bent upon this
project, and would pay more than that for your help, especially
considering the peculiar knowledge you possess."
"Very well. And now that I have made my terms I will tell you my
reasons for making up my mind to go. First of all, gentlemen, I have
been observing you both for the last few days, and if you will not
think me impertinent I will say that I like you, and think that we
shall come up well to the yoke together. That is something, let me
tell you, when one has a long journey like this before one.
"And now as to the journey itself, I tell you flatly, Sir Henry
and Captain Good, that I do not think it probable that we can come out
of it alive, that is, if we attempt to cross the Suliman Mountains.
What was the fate of the old Don da Silvestra three hundred years ago?
What was the fate of his descendant twenty years ago? What has been
your brother's fate? I tell you frankly, gentlemen, that as their fate
was so I believe ours will be."
I paused to watch the effect of my words. Captain Good looked a
little uncomfortable; but Sir Henry's face did not change. "We must
take our chance," he said.
"You may perhaps wonder," I went on, "why, if I think this, I, who
am, as I told you, a timid man, should undertake such a journey. It is
for two reasons. First, I am a fatalist, and believe that my time is
appointed to come quite independently of my own movements, and that if
I am to go to Suliman Mountains to be killed, I shall go there and
shall be killed there. God Almighty, no doubt, knows his mind about
me, so I need not trouble on that point. Secondly, I am a poor man.
For nearly forty years I have hunted and traded, but I have never made
more than a living. Well, gentlemen, I don't know if you are aware
that the average life of an elephant hunter from the time he takes
to the trade is from four to five years. So you see I have lived
through about seven generations of my class, and I should think that
my time cannot be far off, anyway. Now, if anything were to happen
to me in the ordinary course of business, by the time my debts were
paid there would be nothing left to support my son Harry while he
was getting in the way of earning a living, whereas now he would be
provided for for five years. There is the whole affair in a nutshell."
"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, who had been giving me the most
serious attention, "your motives for undertaking an enterprise which
you believe can only end in disaster reflect a great deal of credit on
you. Whether or not you are right, time and the event, of course,
alone can show. But whether you are right or wrong, I may as well tell
you at once that I am going through with it to the end, sweet or
bitter. If we are going to be knocked on the head, all that I have
to say is that I hope we shall get a little shooting first- eh, Good?"
"Yes, yes," put in the captain. "We have all three of us been
accustomed to face danger, and hold our lives in our hands in
various ways, so it is no good turning back now."
"And now I vote we go down to the saloon and take an observation,
just for luck, you know." And we did- through the bottom of a tumbler.
Next day we went ashore, and I put Sir Henry and Captain Good up
at the little shanty I have on the Berea, and which I call my home.
There are only three rooms and a kitchen in it, and it is built of
green brick with a galvanized iron roof, but there is a good garden,
with the best loquot trees in it that I know, and some nice young
mangoes, of which I hope great things. The curator of the botanical
gardens gave them to me. It is looked after by an old hunter of
mine, named Jack, whose thigh was so badly broken by a buffalo cow
in Sikukunis country that he will never hunt again. But he can
potter about and garden, being a Griqua by birth. You can never get
your Zulu to take much interest in gardening. It is a peaceful art,
and peaceful arts are not in his line.
Sir Henry and Good slept in a tent pitched in my little grove of
orange trees at the end of the garden (for there was no room for
them in the house), and what with the smell of the bloom and the sight
of the green and golden fruit- for in Durban you will see all three on
the tree together- I dare say it is a pleasant place enough (for we
have few mosquitoes here unless there happens to come an unusually
heavy rain).
Well, to get on- for unless I do you will be tired of my story
before ever we fetch up at Suliman's Mountains- having once made up my
mind to go, I set about making the necessary preparations. First I got
the deed from Sir Henry, providing for my boy in case of accidents.
There was some little difficulty about getting this legally
executed, as Sir Henry was a stranger here, and the property to be
charged was over the water; but it was ultimately got over with the
help of a lawyer, who charged L20 for the job- a price that I
thought outrageous. Then I got my check for L500. Having paid this
tribute to my bump of caution, I bought a wagon and a span of oxen
on Sir Henry's behalf, and beauties they were. It was a
twenty-two-foot wagon with iron axles, very strong, very light, and
built throughout of stink-wood. It was not quite a new one, having
been to the diamond fields and back, but in my opinion it was all
the better for that, for one could see that the wood was well
seasoned. If anything is going to give in a wagon, or if there is
green wood in it, it will show out on the first trip. It was what we
call a "half-tented" wagon- that is to say, it was only covered in
over the after twelve feet, leaving all the front part free for the
necessaries we had to carry with us. In this after part was a hide
"cartle," or bed, on which two people could sleep, also racks for
rifles, and many other little conveniences. I gave L125 for it, and
think it was cheap at the price. Then I bought a beautiful team of
twenty "salted" Zulu oxen, which I had had my eye on for a year or
two. Sixteen oxen are the usual number for a team, but I had four
extra to allow for casualties. These Zulu oxen are small and light,
not more than half the size of the Africander oxen, which are
generally used for transport purposes; but they will live where the
Africander will starve, and with a light load will make five miles a
day better going, being quicker and not so liable to get footsore.
What is more, this lot were thoroughly "salted"- that is, they had
worked all over South Africa, and so had become proof (comparatively
speaking) against red water, which so frequently destroys whole
teams of oxen when they get onto strange "veldt" (grass country). As
for "lung sick," which is a dreadful form of pneumonia, very prevalent
in this country, they had all been inoculated against it. This is done
by cutting a slit in the tail of an ox, and binding in a piece of
the diseased lung of an animal which has died of the sickness. The
result is that the ox sickens, takes the disease in a mild form, which
causes its tail to drop off, as a rule about a foot from the root, and
becomes proof against future attacks. It seems cruel to rob the animal
of his tail, especially in a country where there are so many flies,
but it is better to sacrifice the tail and keep the ox than to lose
both tail and ox, for a tail without an ox is not much good except
to dust with. Still it does look odd to trek along behind twenty
stumps, where there ought to be tails. It seems as though Nature had
made a trifling mistake, and stuck the stern ornaments of a lot of
prize bulldogs onto the rumps of the oxen.
Next came the question of provisioning and medicines, one which
required the most careful consideration, for what one had to do was to
avoid lumbering the wagon up, and yet take everything absolutely
necessary. Fortunately, it turned out that Good was a bit of a doctor,
having at some period in his previous career managed to pass through a
course of medical and surgical instruction, which he had more or
less kept up. He was not, of course, qualified, but he knew more about
it than many a man who could write M.D. after his name, as we found
out afterwards, and he had a splendid traveling medicine chest and a
set of instruments. While we were at Durban he cut off a Kaffir's
big toe in a way which it was a pleasure to see. But he was quite
flabbergasted when the Kaffir, who had sat stolidly watching the
operation, asked him to put on another, saying that a "white one"
would do at a pinch.
There remained, when these questions were satisfactorily settled,
two further important points for consideration, namely, that of arms
and that of servants. As to the arms I cannot do better than put
down a list of those we finally decided on from among the ample
store that Sir Henry had brought with him from England, and those
which I had. I copy it from my pocketbook, where I made the entry at
the time:
"Three heavy breechloading double-eight elephant guns, weighing
about fifteen pounds each, with a charge of eleven drams of black
powder." Two of these were by a well-known London firm, most excellent
makers, but I do not know by whom mine, which was not so highly
finished, was made. I had used it on several trips, and shot a good
many elephants with it, and it had always proved a most superior
weapon, thoroughly to be relied on.
"Three double .500 expresses, constructed to carry a charge of six
drams," sweet weapons, and admirable for medium-sized game, such as
eland or sable antelope, or for men, especially in an open country and
with the semihollow bullet.
"One double No. 12 central-fire Keeper's shotgun, full choke both
barrels." This gun proved of the greatest service to us afterwards
in shooting game for the pot.
"Three Winchester repeating rifles (not carbines)," spare guns.
"Three single-action Colt's revolvers, with the heavier pattern of
cartridge."
This was our total armament, and the reader will doubtless observe
that the weapons of each class were of the same make and caliber, so
that the cartridges were interchangeable, a very important point. I
make no apology for detailing it at length, for every experienced
hunter will know how vital a proper supply of guns and ammunition is
to the success of an expedition.
Now as to the men who were to go with us. After much consultation we
decided that their number should be limited to five, namely, a driver,
a leader, and three servants.
The driver and leader I got without much difficulty, two Zulus,
named respectively Goza and Tom; but the servants were a more
difficult matter. It was necessary that they should be thoroughly
trustworthy and brave men, as in a business of this sort our lives
might depend upon their conduct. At last I secured two, one a
Hottentot called Ventvogel ("Wind-bird"), and one a little Zulu
named Khiva, who had the merit of speaking English perfectly.
Ventvogel I had known before; he was one of the most perfect "spoorer"
(game trackers) I ever had to do with, and tough as whipcord. He never
seemed to tire. But he had one failing, so common with his race,
drink. Put him within reach of a bottle of grog and you could not
trust him. But as we were going beyond the region of grogshops this
little weakness of his did not so much matter.
Having got these two men I looked in vain for a third to suit my
purpose, so we determined to start without one, trusting to luck to
find a suitable man on our way upcountry. But on the evening before
the day we had fixed for our departure the Zulu Khiva informed me that
a man was waiting to see me. Accordingly, when we had done dinner, for
we were at table at the time, I told him to bring him in. Presently
a very tall, handsome-looking man, somewhere about thirty years of
age, and very light-colored for a Zulu, entered, and, lifting his knob
stick by way of salute, squatted himself down in the corner on his
haunches and sat silent. I did not take any notice of him for a while,
for it is a great mistake to do so. If you rush into conversation at
once a Zulu is apt to think you a person of little dignity or
consideration. I observed, however, that he was a "keshla" (ringed
man), that is, that he wore on his head the black ring, made of a
species of gum polished with fat and worked in with the hair,
usually assumed by Zulus on attaining a certain age or dignity.
Also, it struck me that his face was familiar to me.
"Well," I said at last, "what is your name?"
"Umbopa," answered the man, in a slow, deep voice.
"I have seen your face before."
"Yes; the Inkoosi [chief] saw my face at the place of the Little
Hand [Isandhlwana] the day before the battle."
Then I remembered. I had been one of Lord Chelmsford's guides in
that unlucky Zulu war, and had had the good fortune to leave the
camp in charge of some wagons the day before the battle. While I had
been waiting for the cattle to be inspanned I had fallen into
conversation with this man, who held some small command among the
native auxiliaries, and he had expressed to me his doubts of the
safety of the camp. At the time I had told him to hold his tongue, and
leave such matters to wiser heads; but afterwards I thought of his
words.
"I remember," I said; "what is it you want?"
"It is this, Macumazahn [that is my Kaffir name, and means the man
who gets up in the middle of the night; or, in vulgar English, he
who keeps his eyes open], I hear that you go on a great expedition far
into the north with the white chiefs from over the water. Is it a true
word?"
"It is."
"I hear that you go even to the Lukanga River, a moon's journey
beyond the Manica country. Is this so also, Macumazahn?"
"Why do you ask whither we go? What is it to thee?" I answered
suspiciously, for the objects of our journey had been kept a dead
secret.
"It is this, O white men, that if indeed you travel so far I would
travel with you."
There was a certain assumption of dignity in the man's mode of
speech, and especially in his use of the words "O white men,"
instead of "O inkoosis" (chiefs), which struck me.
"You forget yourself a little," I said. "Your words come out
unawares. That is not the way to speak. What is your name, and where
is your kraal? Tell us, that we may know with whom we have to deal."
"My name is Umbopa. I am of the Zulu people, yet not of them. The
house of my tribe is in the far north; it was left behind when the
Zulus came down here a 'thousand years ago,' long before Chaka reigned
in Zululand. I have no kraal. I have wandered for many years. I came
from the north as a child to Zululand. I was Cetywayo's man in the
Nkomabakosi regiment. I ran away from Zululand and came to Natal
because I wanted to see the white man's ways. Then I served against
Cetywayo in the war. Since then I have been working in Natal. Now I am
tired, and would go north again. Here is not my place. I want no
money, but I am a brave man, and am worth my place and meat. I have
spoken."
I was rather puzzled at this man and his way of speech. It was
evident to me from his manner that he was in the main telling the
truth, but he was somehow different from the ordinary run of Zulus,
and I rather mistrusted his offer to come without pay. Being in a
difficulty, I translated his words to Sir Henry and Good, and asked
them their opinion. Sir Henry told me to ask him to stand up. Umbopa
did so, at the same time slipping off the long military greatcoat he
wore, and revealing himself naked except for the moocha round his
middle and a necklace of lions' claws. He certainly was a
magnificent-looking man; I never saw a finer native. Standing about
six foot three high, he was broad in proportion, and very shapely.
In that light, too, his skin looked scarcely more than dark, except
here and there where deep, black scars marked old assegai wounds.
Sir Henry walked up to him and looked into his proud, handsome face.
"They make a good pair, don't they?" said Good; "one as big as the
other."
"I like your looks, Mr. Umbopa, and I will take you as my
servant," said Sir Henry in English.
Umbopa evidently understood him, for he answered in Zulu, "It is
well," and then, with a glance at the white man's great stature and
breadth, "we are men, you and I."
4. An Elephant Hunt
-
NOW I DO not propose to narrate at full length all the incidents
of our long journey up to Sitanda's Kraal, near the junction of the
Lukanga and Kalukwe rivers, a journey of more than a thousand miles
from Durban, the last three hundred or so of which, owing to the
frequent presence of the dreadful tsetse fly, whose bite is fatal to
all animals except donkeys and men, we had to make on foot.
We left Durban at the end of January, and it was in the second
week of May that we camped near Sitanda's Kraal. Our adventures on the
way were many and various, but as they were of the sort which befall
every African hunter, I shall not- with one exception to be
presently detailed- set them down here, lest I should render this
history too wearisome.
At Inyati, the outlying trading station in the Matabele country,
of which Lobengula (a great scoundrel) is king, we with many regrets
parted from our comfortable wagon. Only twelve oxen remained to us out
of the beautiful span of twenty which I had bought at Durban. One we
had lost from the bite of a cobra, three had perished from the want of
water, one had been lost, and the other three had died from eating the
poisonous herb called tulip. Five more sickened from this cause, but
we managed to cure them with doses of an infusion made by boiling down
the tulip leaves. If administered in time this is a very effective
antidote. The wagon and oxen we left in the immediate charge of Goza
and Tom, the driver and leader, both of them trustworthy boys,
requesting a worthy Scotch missionary who lived in this wild place
to keep an eye to it. Then, accompanied by Umbopa, Khiva, Ventvogel,
and half a dozen bearers whom we hired on the spot, we started off
on foot upon our wild quest. I remember we were all a little silent on
the occasion of that departure, and I think that each of us was
wondering if we should ever see that wagon again; for my part, I never
expected to. For a while we tramped on in silence, till Umbopa, who
was marching in front, broke into a Zulu chant about how some brave
men, tired of life and the tameness of things, started off into a
great wilderness to find new things or die, and how, lo and behold,
when they had got far into the wilderness, they found it was not a
wilderness at all, but a beautiful place full of young wives and fat
cattle, of game to hunt and enemies to kill.
Then we all laughed and took it for a good omen. He was a cheerful
savage, was Umbopa, in a dignified sort of way, when he had not got
one of his fits of brooding, and had a wonderful knack of keeping
one's spirits up. We all got very fond of him.
And now for the one adventure I am going to treat myself to, for I
do heartily love a hunting yarn.
About a fortnight's march from Inyati we came across a peculiarly
beautiful bit of fairly-watered wooded country. The kloofs in the
hills were covered with dense bush, idoro bush, as the natives call
it, and in some places with the wacht-een-beche (wait-a-little) thorn,
and there were great quantities of the beautiful machabell tree, laden
with refreshing yellow fruit with enormous stones. This tree is the
elephant's favorite food, and there were not wanting signs that the
great brutes were about, for not only was their spoor frequent, but in
many places the trees were broken down and even uprooted. The elephant
is a destructive feeder.
One evening, after a long day's march, we came to a spot of peculiar
loveliness. At the foot of a bush-clad hill was a dry riverbed, in
which, however, were to be found pools of crystal water all trodden
round with the hoofprints of game. Facing this hill was a parklike
plain, where grew clumps of flat-topped mimosa, varied with occasional
glossy-leaved machabells, and all round was the great sea of pathless,
silent bush.
As we emerged into this riverbed path we suddenly started a troop of
tall giraffes, who galloped, or, rather, sailed off, with their
strange gait, their tails screwed up over their backs, and their hoofs
rattling like castanets. They were about three hundred yards from
us, and therefore practically out of shot, but Good, who was walking
ahead and had an express loaded with solid ball in his hand, could not
resist, but upped gun and let drive at the last, a young cow. By
some extraordinary chance the ball struck it full on the back of the
neck, shattering the spinal column, and that giraffe went rolling head
over heels just like a rabbit. I never saw a more curious thing.
"Curse it!" said Good- for I am sorry to say he had a habit of using
strong language when excited- contracted no doubt, in the course of
his nautical career. "Curse it, I've killed him."
"Ou, Bougwan," ejaculated the Kaffirs; "Ou! Ou!"
They called Good "Bougwan" ("Glass Eye") because of his eyeglass.
"Oh, 'Bougwan'!" reechoed Sir Henry and I; and from that day
Good's reputation as a marvelous shot was established, at any rate
among the Kaffirs. Really he was a bad one, but whenever he missed
we overlooked it for the sake of that giraffe.
Having set some of the "boys" to cut off the best of the giraffe
meat, we went to work to build a "scherm" near one of the pools
about a hundred yards to the right of it. This is done by cutting a
quantity of thorn bushes and laying them in the shape of a circular
hedge. Then the space enclosed is smoothed, and dry tambouki grass, if
obtainable, is made into a bed in the center, and a fire or fires
lighted.
By the time the scherm was finished the moon was coming up, and
our dinner of giraffe steaks and roasted marrowbones was ready. How we
enjoyed those marrowbones, though it was rather a job to crack them! I
know no greater luxury than giraffe marrow, unless it is elephant's
heart, and we had that on the morrow. We ate our simple meal,
pausing at times to thank Good for his wonderful shot, by the light of
the full moon, and then we began to smoke and yarn, and a curious
picture we must have made squatted there round the fire. I, with my
short grizzled hair sticking up straight, and Sir Henry with his
yellow locks, which were getting rather long, were rather a
contrast, especially as I am thin and short and dark, weighing only
nine stone and a half, and Sir Henry is tall and broad and fair, and
weighs fifteen. But perhaps the most curious-looking of the three,
taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration, was
Captain John Good, R.N. There he sat upon a leather bag, looking
just as though he had come in from a comfortable day's shooting in a
civilized country, absolutely clean, tidy, and well dressed. He had on
a shooting suit of brown tweed, with a hat to match, and neat gaiters.
He was, as usual, beautifully shaven, his eyeglass and his false teeth
appeared to be in perfect order, and altogether he was the neatest man
I ever had to do with in the wilderness. He even had on a collar, of
which he had a supply, made of white gutta-percha.
"You see, they weigh so little," he said to me innocently, when I
expressed my astonishment at the fact; "I always liked to look like
a gentleman."
Well, there we all sat yarning away in the beautiful moonlight,
and watching the Kaffirs a few yards off sucking their intoxicating
"daccha" in a pipe of which the mouthpiece was made of the horn of
an eland, till they one by one rolled themselves up in their
blankets and went to sleep by the fire, that is, all except Umbopa,
who sat a little apart (I noticed he never mixed much with the other
Kaffirs), his chin resting on his hand, apparently thinking deeply.
Presently, from the depths of the bush behind us came a loud
"Woof! Woof!" "That's a lion," said I, and we all started up to
listen. Hardly had we done so, when from the pool, about a hundred
yards off, came the strident trumpeting of an elephant.
"Unkungunklovo! Unkungunklovo!" ("Elephant! Elephant!") whispered
the Kaffirs; and a few minutes afterwards we saw a succession of
vast shadowy forms moving slowly from the direction of the water
towards the bush. Up jumped Good, burning for slaughter, and thinking,
perhaps, that it was as easy to kill elephant as he had found it to
shoot giraffe, but I caught him by the arm and pulled him down.
"It's no good," I said, "let them go."
"It seems that we are in a paradise of game. I vote we stop here a
day or two, and have a go at them," said Sir Henry presently.
I was rather surprised, for hitherto Sir Henry had always been for
pushing on as fast as possible, more especially since we had
ascertained at Inyati that about two years ago an Englishman of the
name of Neville had sold his wagon there, and gone on upcountry; but I
suppose his hunter instincts had got the better of him.
Good jumped at the idea, for he was longing to have a go at those
elephants; and so, to speak the truth, did I, for it went against my
conscience to let such a herd as that escape without having a pull
at them.
"All right, my hearties," said I. "I think we want a little
recreation. And now let's turn in, for we ought to be off by dawn, and
then perhaps we may catch them feeding before they move on."
The others agreed, and we proceeded to make preparations. Good
took off his clothes, shook them, put his eyeglass and his false teeth
into his trousers pocket, and, folding them all up neatly, placed them
out of the dew under a corner of his mackintosh sheet. Sir Henry and I
contented ourselves with rougher arrangements, and were soon curled up
in our blankets and dropping off into the dreamless sleep that rewards
the traveler.
Going, going, go- What was that?
Suddenly, from the direction of the water came a sound of violent
scuffling, and next instant there broke upon our ears a succession
of the most awful roars. There was no mistaking what they came from;
only a lion could make such a noise as that. We all jumped up and
looked towards the water, in the direction of which we saw a
confused mass, yellow and black in color, staggering and struggling
towards us. We seized our rifles, and, slipping on our veldtschoons
(shoes made of untanned hide), ran out of the scherm towards it. By
this time it had fallen, and was rolling over and over on the
ground, and by the time we reached it, it struggled no longer, but was
quite still.
And this was what it was. On the grass there lay a sable antelope
bull- the most beautiful of all the African antelopes- quite dead, and
transfixed by its great curved horns was a magnificent black-maned
lion, also dead. What had happened, evidently, was this. The sable
antelope had come down to drink at the pool, where the lion- no
doubt the same we had heard- had been lying in wait. While the
antelope was drinking the lion had sprung upon him, but was received
upon the sharp, curved horns and transfixed. I once saw the same thing
happen before. The lion, unable to free himself, had torn and beaten
at the back and neck of the bull, which, maddened with fear and
pain, had rushed on till it dropped dead.
As soon as we had sufficiently examined the dead beasts we called
the kaffirs, and between us managed to drag their carcasses up to
the scherm. Then we went in and lay down, to wake no more till dawn.
With the first light we were up and making ready for the fray. We
took with us the three eight-bore rifles, a good supply of ammunition,
and our large water bottles filled with weak, cold tea, which I have
always found the best stuff to shoot on. After swallowing a little
breakfast we started, Umbopa, Khiva, and Ventvogel accompanying us.
The other Kaffirs we left, with instructions to skin the lion and
the sable antelope, and cut up the latter.
We had no difficulty in finding the broad elephant trail, which
Ventvogel, after examination, pronounced to have been made by
between twenty and thirty elephants, most of them full-grown bulls.
But the herd had moved on some way during the night, and it was nine
o'clock, and already very hot, before, from the broken trees,
bruised leaves and bark, and smoking dung, we knew we could not be far
off them.
Presently we caught sight of the herd, numbering, as Ventvogel had
said, between twenty and thirty, standing in a hollow, having finished
their morning meal, and flapping their great ears. It was a splendid
sight.
They were about two hundred yards from us. Taking a handful of dry
grass, I threw it into the air to see how the wind was; for if once
they winded us I knew they would be off before we could get a shot.
Finding that, if anything, it blew from the elephants to us, we
crept stealthily on, and, thanks to the cover, managed to get within
forty yards or so of the great brutes. Just in front of us and
broadside on stood three splendid bulls, one of them with enormous
tusks. I whispered to the others that I would take the middle one; Sir
Henry covered the one to the left, and Good the bull with the big
tusks.
"Now," I whispered.
Boom! Boom! Boom! went the three heavy rifles, and down went Sir
Henry's elephant, dead as a hammer, shot right through the heart. Mine
fell onto its knees, and I thought he was going to die, but in another
moment he was up and off, tearing along straight past me. As he went I
gave him the second barrel in his ribs, and this brought him down in
good earnest. Hastily slipping in two fresh cartridges, I ran up close
to him, and a ball through the brain put an end to the poor brute's
struggles. Then I turned to see how Good had fared with the big
bull, which I had heard screaming with rage and pain as I gave mine
its quietus. On reaching the captain I found him in a great state of
excitement. It appeared that on receiving the bullet the bull had
turned and come straight for his assailant, who had barely time to get
out of his way, and then charged blindly on past him, in the direction
of our encampment. Meanwhile the herd had crashed off in wild alarm in
the other direction.
For a while we debated whether to go after the wounded bull or
follow the herd, and finally decided for the latter alternative, and
departed thinking that we had seen the last of those big tusks. I have
often wished since that we had. It was easy work to follow the
elephants, for they had left a trail like a carriage road behind them,
crushing down the thick bush in their furious flight as though it were
tambouki grass.
But to come up with them was another matter, and we had struggled on
under a broiling sun for over two hours before we found them. They
were, with the exception of one bull, standing together, and I could
see, from their unquiet way and the manner in which they kept
lifting their trunks to test the air, that they were on the lookout
for mischief. The solitary bull stood fifty yards or so this side of
the herd, over which he was evidently keeping sentry, and about
sixty yards from us. Thinking that he would see or wind us, and that
it would probably start them all off again if we tried to get
nearer, especially as the ground was rather open, we all aimed at this
bull and, at my whispered word, fired. All three shots took effect,
and down he went, dead. Again the herd started on, but,
unfortunately for them, about a hundred yards farther on was a nullah,
or dried water track, with steep banks, a place very much resembling
the one the Prince Imperial was killed in in Zululand. Into this the
elephants plunged, and when we reached the edge we found them
struggling in wild confusion to get up the other bank, and filling the
air with their screams, and trumpeting as they pushed one another
aside in their selfish panic, just like so many human beings. Now
was our opportunity, and, firing away as quick as we could load, we
killed five of the poor beasts, and no doubt should have bagged the
whole herd had they not suddenly given up their attempts to climb
the bank and rushed headlong down the nullah. We were too tired to
follow them, and perhaps also a little sick of slaughter, eight
elephants being a pretty good bag for one day.
So, after we had rested a little and the Kaffirs had cut out the
hearts of two of the dead elephants for supper, we started homeward,
very well pleased with ourselves, having made up our minds to send the
bearers on the morrow to chop out the tusks.
Shortly after we had passed the spot where Good had wounded the
patriarchal bull we came across a herd of eland, but did not shoot
at them, as we had already plenty of meat. They trotted past us, and
then stopped behind a little patch of bush about a hundred yards
away and wheeled round to look at us. As Good was anxious to get a
near view of them, never having seen an eland close, he handed his
rifle to Umbopa, and, followed by Khiva, strolled up to the patch of
bush. We sat down and waited for him, not sorry of the excuse for a
little rest.
The sun was just going down in its reddest glory, and Sir Henry
and I were admiring the lovely scene, when suddenly we heard an
elephant scream, and saw its huge and charging form with uplifted
trunk and tail silhouetted against the great red globe of the sun.
Next second we saw something else, and that was Good and Khiva tearing
back towards us with the wounded bull (for it was he) charging after
them. For a moment we did not dare to fire- though it would have
been little use if we had at that distance- for fear of hitting one of
them, and the next a dreadful thing happened: Good fell a victim to
his passion for civilized dress. Had he consented to discard his
trousers and gaiters as we had, and hunt in a flannel shirt and a pair
of veldtschoons, it would have been all right, but as it was his
trousers cumbered him in that desperate race, and presently, when he
was about sixty yards from us, his boot, polished by the dry grass,
slipped, and down he went on his face right in front of the elephant.
We gave a gasp, for we knew he must die, and ran as hard as we could
towards him. In three seconds it had ended, but not as we thought.
Khiva, the Zulu boy, had seen his master fall, and, brave lad that
he was, had turned and flung his assegai straight into the
elephant's face. It stuck in his trunk.
With a scream of pain the brute seized the poor Zulu, hurled him
to the earth, and, placing his huge foot onto his body about the
middle, twined his trunk round his upper part and tore him in two.
We rushed up, mad with horror, and fired again and again, and
presently the elephant fell upon the fragments of the Zulu.
As for Good, he got up and wrung his hands over the brave man who
had given his life to save him; and myself, though an old hand, I felt
a lump in my throat. Umbopa stood and contemplated the huge dead
elephant and the mangled remains of poor Khiva.
"Ah, well," he said presently, "he is dead, but he died like a man."
5. Our March into the Desert
-
WE HAD KILLED nine elephants, and it took us two days to cut out the
tusks and get them home and bury them carefully in the sand under a
large tree, which made a conspicuous mark for miles round. It was a
wonderfully fine lot of ivory. I never saw a better, averaging as it
did between forty and fifty pounds a tusk. The tusks of the great bull
that killed poor Khiva scaled one hundred and seventy pounds the pair,
as nearly as we could judge.
As for Khiva himself, we buried what remained of him in an
ant-bear hole, together with an assegai to protect himself with on his
journey to a better world. On the third day we started on, hoping that
we might one day return to dig up our buried ivory, and in due course,
after a long and wearisome tramp, and many adventures which I have not
space to detail, reached Sitanda's Kraal, near the Lukanga River,
the real starting-point of our expedition. Very well do I recollect
our arrival at that place. To the right was a scattered native
settlement with a few stone cattle kraals and some cultivated lands
down by the water, where these savages grew their scanty supply of
grain, and beyond it great tracts of waving veldt covered with tall
grass, over which herds of the smaller game were wandering. To the
left was the vast desert. This spot appeared to be the outpost of
the fertile country, and it would be difficult to say to what
natural causes such an abrupt change in the character of the soil
was due. But so it was. Just below our encampment flowed a little
stream, on the farther side of which was a stony slope, the same
down which I had twenty years before seen poor Silvestre creeping back
after his attempt to reach Solomon's Mines, and beyond that slope
began the waterless desert covered with a species of karoo shrub. It
was evening when we pitched our camp, and the great fiery ball of
the sun was sinking into the desert, sending glorious rays of
many-colored light flying over all the vast expanse. Leaving Good to
superintend the arrangement of our little camp, I took Sir Henry
with me, and we walked to the top of the slope opposite and gazed
out across the desert. The air was very clear, and far, far away I
could distinguish the faint blue outlines, here and there capped
with white, of the great Suliman Berg.
"There," I said, "there is the wall of Solomon's Mines, but God
knows if we shall ever climb it."
"My brother should be there, and if he is I shall reach him
somehow," said Sir Henry, in that tone of quiet confidence which
marked the man.
"I hope so," I answered, and turned to go back to the camp, when I
saw that we were not alone. Behind us, also gazing earnestly towards
the far-off mountains, was the great Zulu, Umbopa.
The Zulu spoke when he saw that I had observed him, but addressed
himself to Sir Henry, to whom he had attached himself.
"Is it to that land that thou wouldst journey, Incubu [a native word
meaning, I believe, an elephant, and the name given to Sir Henry by
the Kaffirs]?" he said, pointing towards the mountains with his
broad assegai.
I asked him sharply what he meant by addressing his master in that
familiar way. It is very well for natives to have a name for one among
themselves, but it is not decent that they should call one by their
heathenish appellations to one's face. The man laughed a quiet
little laugh which angered me.
"How dost thou know that I am not the equal of the Inkoosi I serve?"
he said. "He is of a royal house, no doubt; one can see it in his size
and in his eye; so, mayhap, am I. At least I am as great a man. Be
my mouth, O Macumazahn, and say my words to the Inkoosi, Incubu, my
master, for I would speak to him and to thee."
I was angry with the man, for I am not accustomed to be talked to in
that way by Kaffirs, but somehow he impressed me, and besides I was
curious to know what he had to say, so I translated, expressing my
opinion at the same time that he was an impudent fellow, and that
his swagger was outrageous.
"Yes, Umbopa," answered Sir Henry, "I would journey there."
"The desert is wide and there is no water; the mountains are high
and covered with snow, and man cannot say what is beyond them,
behind the place where the sun sets; how shalt thou come thither,
Incubu, and wherefore dost thou go?"
I translated again.
"Tell him," answered Sir Henry, "that I go because I believe that
a man of my blood, my brother, has gone there before me, and I go to
seek him."
"That is so, Incubu; a man I met on the road told me that a white
man went out into the desert two years ago towards those mountains
with one servant, a hunter. They never came back."
"How do you know it was my brother?" asked Sir Henry.
"Nay, I know not. But the man, when I asked what the white man was
like, said that he had your eyes and a black beard. He said, too, that
the name of the hunter with him was Jim, that he was a Bechuana hunter
and wore clothes."
"There is no doubt about it," said I; "I knew Jim well."
Sir Henry nodded. "I was sure of it," he said. "If George set his
mind upon a thing he generally did it. It was always so from his
boyhood. If he meant to cross the Suliman Berg he has crossed it,
unless some accident has overtaken him, and we must look for him on
the other side."
Umbopa understood English, though he rarely spoke it.
"It is a far journey, Incubu," he put in, and I translated his
remark.
"Yes," answered Sir Henry, "it is far. But there is no journey
upon this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it.
There is nothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he
may not climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain
and a desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him,
and he holds his life in his hand counting it as nothing, ready to
keep it or to lose it as Providence may order."
I translated.
"Great words, my father," answered the Zulu (I always called him a
Zulu, though he was not really one), "great, swelling words, fit to
fill the mouth of a man. Thou art right, my father Incubu. Listen!
What is life? It is a feather; it is the seed of the grass, blown
hither and thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act,
sometimes carried away into the heavens. But if the seed be good and
heavy it may perchance travel a little way on the road it will. It
is well to try and journey one's road and to fight with the air. Man
must die. At the worst he can but die a little sooner. I will go
with thee across the desert and over the mountains, unless perchance I
fall to the ground on the way, my father."
He paused awhile, and then went on with one of those strange
bursts of rhetorical eloquence which Zulus sometimes indulge in, and
which, to my mind, full as they are of vain repetitions, show that the
race is by no means devoid of poetic instinct and of intellectual
power.
"What is life? Tell me, O white men, who are wise, who know the
secrets of the world, and the world of stars, and the world that
lies above and round the stars; who flash their words from afar
without a voice; tell me, white men, the secret of our life- whither
it goes and whence it comes!
"Ye cannot answer; ye know not. Listen, I will answer. Out of the
dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night
we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the
light of the fire, and, lo, we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life
is nothing. Life is all. It is the hand with which we hold off
death. It is the glowworm that shines in the nighttime and is black in
the morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the
little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset."
"You are a strange man," said Sir Henry, when he ceased.
Umbopa laughed. "It seems to me that we are much alike, Incubu.
Perhaps I seek a brother over the mountains."
I looked at him suspiciously. "What dost thou mean?" I asked.
"What dost thou know of the mountains?"
"A little; a very little. There is a strange land there, a land of
witchcraft and beautiful things; a land of brave people and of trees
and streams and white mountains and of a great white road. I have
heard of it. But what is the good of talking? It grows dark. Those who
live to see will see."
Again I looked at him doubtfully. The man knew too much.
"Ye need not fear me, Macumazahn," he said, interpreting my look. "I
dig no holes for ye to fall in. I make no plots. If ever we cross
those mountains behind the sun, I will tell what I know. But death
sits upon them. Be wise, and turn back. Go and hunt elephant. I have
spoken."
And without another word he lifted his spear in salutation and
returned towards the camp, where shortly afterwards we found him
cleaning a gun like any other Kaffir.
"That is an odd man," said Sir Henry.
"Yes," answered I, "too odd by half. I don't like his little ways.
He knows something, and won't speak out. But I suppose it is no use
quarreling with him. We are in for a curious trip, and a mysterious
Zulu won't make much difference one way or another."
Next day we made our arrangements for starting. Of course it was
impossible to drag our heavy elephant rifles and other kit with us
across the desert, so, dismissing our bearers, we made an
arrangement with an old native who had a kraal close by to take care
of them till we returned. It went to my heart to leave such things
as those sweet tools to the tender mercies of an old thief, of a
savage whose greedy eyes I could see gloating over them. But I took
some precautions.
First of all I loaded all the rifles, and informed him that if he
touched them they would go off. He instantly tried the experiment with
my eight-bore, and it did go off, and blew a bole right through one of
his oxen, which were just then being driven up to the kraal, to say
nothing of knocking him head over heels with the recoil. He got up
considerably startled, and not at all pleased at the loss of the ox,
which he had the impudence to ask me to pay for, and nothing would
induce him to touch them again.
"Put the live devils up there in the thatch," he said, "out of the
way, or they will kill us all."
Then I told him that if, when we came back, one of those things
was missing I would kill him and all his people by witchcraft; and
if we died and he tried to steal the things, I would come and haunt
him and turn his cattle mad and his milk sour till life was a
weariness, and make the devils in the guns come out and talk to him in
a way he would not like, and generally gave him a good idea of
judgment to come. After that he swore he would look after them as
though they were his father's spirit. He was a very superstitious
old Kaffir and a great villain.
Having thus disposed of our superfluous gear we arranged the kit
we five- Sir Henry, Good, myself, Umbopa, and the Hottentot Ventvogel-
were to take with us on our journey. It was small enough, but do
what we would we could not get it down under about forty pounds a man.
This is what it consisted of:
The three express rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition.
The two Winchester repeating rifles (for Umbopa and Ventvogel), with
two hundred rounds of cartridge.
Three Colt revolvers and sixty rounds of cartridge.
Five Cochrane's water bottles, each holding four pints.
Five blankets.
Twenty-five pounds' weight of biltong (sun-dried game flesh).
Ten pounds' weight of best mixed beads for gifts.
A selection of medicine, including an ounce of quinine, and one or
two small surgical instruments.
Our knives, a few sundries, such as a compass, matches, a pocket
filter, tobacco, a trowel, a bottle of brandy, and the clothes we
stood in.
This was our total equipment, a small one, indeed, for such a
venture, but we dared not attempt to carry more. As it was, that
load was a heavy one per man to travel across the burning desert with,
for in such places every additional ounce tells upon one. But try as
we would we could not see our way to reducing it. There was nothing
but what was absolutely necessary.
With great difficulty, and by the promise of a present of a good
hunting knife each, I succeeded in persuading three wretched natives
from the village to come with us for the first stage, twenty miles,
and to carry each a large gourd holding a gallon of water. My object
was to enable us to refill our water bottles after the first night's
march, for we determined to start in the cool of the night. I gave out
to these natives that we were going to shoot ostriches, with which the
desert abounded. They jabbered and shrugged their shoulders, and
said we were mad and should perish of thirst, which I must say
seemed very probable; but being desirous of obtaining the knives,
which were almost unknown treasures up there, they consented to
come, having probably reflected that, after all, our subsequent
extinction would be no affair of theirs.
All next day we rested and slept, and at sunset ate a hearty meal of
fresh beef washed down with tea, the last, as Good sadly remarked,
we were likely to drink for many a long day. Then, having made our
final preparations, we lay down and waited for the moon to rise. At
last, about nine o'clock, up she came in all her chastened glory,
flooding the wild country with silver light and throwing a weird sheen
on the vast expanse of rolling desert before us, which looked as
solemn and quiet and as alien to man as the star-studded firmament
above. We rose up, and in a few minutes were ready, and yet we
hesitated a little, as human nature is prone to hesitate on the
threshold of an irrevocable step. We three white men stood there by
ourselves. Umbopa, assegai in hand and the rifle across his shoulders,
a few paces ahead of us, looked out fixedly across the desert; the
three hired natives, with gourds of water, and Ventvogel were gathered
in a little knot behind.
"Gentlemen," said Sir Henry presently, in his low, deep voice, "we
are going on about as strange a journey as men can make in this world.
It is very doubtful if we can succeed in it. But we are three men
who will stand together for good or for evil to the last. And now
before we start let us for a moment pray to the Power who shapes the
destinies of men, and who ages since has marked out our paths, that it
may please him to direct our steps in accordance with his will."
Taking off his hat, he, for the space of a minute or so, covered his
face with his hands, and Good and I did likewise.
I do not say that I am a first-rate praying man; few hunters are;
and as for Sir Henry, I never heard him speak like that before, and
only once since, though deep down in his heart I believe he is very
religious. Good, too, is pious, though very apt to swear. Anyhow, I do
not think I ever, excepting on one single occasion, put in a better
prayer in my life than I did during that minute, and somehow I felt
the happier for it. Our future was so completely unknown, and I
think the unknown and the awful always bring a man nearer to his
Maker.
"And now," said Sir Henry, "trek."
So we started.
We had nothing to guide ourselves by except the distant mountains
and old Jose da Silvestra's chart, which, considering that it was
drawn by a dying and half distraught man on a fragment of linen
three centuries ago, was not a very satisfactory sort of thing to work
on. Still, such as it was, our sole hope of success depended on it. If
we failed in finding that pool of bad water which the old don had
marked as being situated in the middle of the desert, about sixty
miles from our starting point and as far from the mountains, we must
in all probability perish miserably of thirst. And to my mind the
chances of our finding it in that great sea of sand and karoo scrub
seemed almost infinitesimal. Even supposing Da Silvestra had marked it
right, what was there to prevent its having been generations ago dried
up by the sun, or trampled in by game, or filled with drifting sand?
On we tramped silently as shades through the night and in the
heavy sand. The karoo bushes caught our shins and retarded us, and the
sand got into our veldtschoons and Good's shooting boots, so that
every few miles we had to stop and empty them; but still the night was
fairly cool, though the atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a
sort of creamy feel to the air, and we made fair progress. It was very
still and lonely there in the desert, oppressively so indeed. Good
felt this, and once began to whistle "The Girl I Left Behind Me,"
but the notes sounded lugubrious in that vast place, and he gave it
up. Shortly afterwards a little incident occurred which, though it
made us jump at the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good, as the holder of
the compass, which, being a sailor, of course he thoroughly
understood, was leading, and we were toiling along in single file
behind him, when suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he
vanished. Next second there arose all round us a most extraordinary
hubbub- snorts, groans, wild sounds of rushing feet. In the faint
light, too, we could descry dim, galloping forms half hidden by
wreaths of sand. The natives threw down their loads and prepared to
bolt, but, remembering that there was nowhere to bolt to, cast
themselves upon the ground and howled out that it was the devil. As
for Sir Henry and myself, we stood amazed; nor was our amazement
lessened when we perceived the form of Good careering off in the
direction of the mountains, apparently mounted on the back of a
horse and halloing like mad. In another second he threw up his arms,
and we heard him come to the earth with a thud. Then I saw what had
happened: we had stumbled right on to a herd of sleeping quagga,
onto the back of one of which Good had actually fallen, and the
brute had naturally enough got up and made off with him. Singing out
to the others that it was all right, I ran towards Good, much afraid
lest he should be hurt, but to my great relief found him sitting in
the sand, his eyeglass still fixed firmly in his eye, rather shaken
and very much startled, but not in any way injured.
After this we traveled on without any further misadventure till
after one o'clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little
water- not much, for water was precious- and rested for half an
hour, started on again.
On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the
cheek of a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light that
changed presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out
across the desert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last
they vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges
stood out clear against her sickly face like the bones on the face
of a dying man; then came spear upon spear of glorious light
flashing far away across the boundless wilderness, piercing and firing
the veils of mist till the desert was draped in a tremulous golden
glow, and it was day.
Still we did not halt, though by this time we should have been
glad enough to do so, for we knew that when once the sun was fully
up it would be almost impossible for us to travel in it. At length,
about six o'clock, we spied a little pile of rocks rising out of the
plain, and to this we dragged ourselves. As luck would have it, here
we found an overhanging slab of rock carpeted beneath with smooth
sand, which afforded a most grateful shelter from the heat. Underneath
this we crept, and having drunk some water each and eaten a bit of
biltong, we lay down and were soon sound asleep.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find our
three bearers preparing to return. They had already had enough of
the desert, and no number of knives would have tempted them to come
a step farther. So we had a hearty drink, and, having emptied our
water bottles, filled them up again from the gourds they had brought
with them, and then watched them depart on their twenty miles' tramp
home.
At half-past four we also started on. It was lonely and desolate
work, for, with the exception of a few ostriches, there was not a
single living creature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy
plain. It was evidently too dry for game, and, with the exception of a
deadly-looking cobra or two, we saw no reptiles. One insect,
however, was abundant, and that was the common or house fly. There
they came, "not as single spies, but in battalions," as I think the
Old Testament says somewhere. He is an extraordinary animal, is the
house fly. Go where you will you find him, and so it must always
have been. I have seen him enclosed in amber which must, I was told,
have been half a million years old, looking exactly like his
descendant of today, and I have little doubt that when the last man on
the earth lies dying he will be buzzing round- if that event should
happen to occur in summer- watching for an opportunity to settle on
his nose.
At sunset we halted, waiting for the moon to rise. At ten she came
up beautiful and serene as ever, and, with one halt about two
o'clock in the morning, we trudged wearily on through the night,
till at last the welcome sun put a period to our labors. We drank a
little and flung ourselves down, thoroughly tired out, on the sand,
and were soon all asleep. There was no need to set a watch, for we had
nothing to fear from anybody or anything in that vast, untenanted
plain. Our only enemies were heat, thirst, and flies, but far rather
would I have faced any danger from man or beast than that awful
trinity. This time we were not so lucky as to find a sheltering rock
to guard us from the glare of the sun, with the result that about
seven o'clock we woke up experiencing the exact sensations one would
attribute to a beefsteak on a gridiron. We were literally being
baked through and through. The burning sun seemed to be sucking our
very blood out of us. We sat up and gasped.
"Phew!" said I, grabbing at the halo of flies which buzzed
cheerfully round my head. The heat did not affect them.
"My word," said Sir Henry.
"It is hot!" said Good.
It was hot, indeed, and there was not a bit of shelter to be had.
Look where we would there was no rock or tree; nothing but an unending
glare, rendered dazzling by the hot air which danced over the
surface of the desert as it does over a red-hot stove.
"What is to be done?" asked Sir Henry. "We can't stand this for
long."
We looked at each other blankly.
"I have it," said Good; "we must dig a hole and get into it, and
cover ourselves with the karoo bushes."
It did not seem a very promising suggestion, but at least it was
better than nothing, so we set to work, and, with the trowel we had
brought with us and our hands, succeeded in about an hour in delving
out a patch of ground about ten feet long by twelve wide to the
depth of two feet. Then we cut a quantity of low scrub with our
hunting knives, and, creeping into the hole, pulled it over us all,
with the exception of Ventvogel, on whom, being a Hottentot, the sun
had no particular effect. This gave us some slight shelter from the
burning rays of the sun, but the heat in that amateur grave can be
better imagined than described. The Black Hole of Calcutta must have
been a fool to it; indeed, to this moment, I do not know how we
lived through the day. There we lay panting, and every now and again
moistening our lips from our scanty supply of water. Had we followed
our inclinations we should have finished off all we had in the first
two hours, but we had to exercise the most rigid care, for if our
water failed us we knew that we must quickly perish miserably.
But everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it,
and somehow that miserable day wore on towards evening. About three
o'clock in the afternoon we determined that we could stand it no
longer. It would be better to die walking than to be slowly killed
by heat and thirst in that dreadful hole. So, taking each of us a
little drink from our fast diminishing supply of water, now heated
to about the same temperature as a man's blood, we staggered on.
We had now covered some fifty miles of desert. If my reader will
refer to the rough copy and translation of old Da Silvestra's map,
he will see that the desert is marked as being forty leagues across,
and the "pan bad water" is set down as being about in the middle of
it. Now, forty leagues is one hundred and twenty miles;
consequently, we ought at the most to have been within twelve or
fifteen miles of the water, if any really existed.
Through the afternoon we crept slowly and painfully along,
scarcely doing more than a mile and a half an hour. At sunset we again
rested, waiting for the moon, and, after drinking a little, managed to
get some sleep.
Before we lay down Umbopa pointed out to us a slight and
indistinct hillock on the flat surface of the desert about eight miles
away. At the distance it looked like an ant hill, and as I was
dropping off to sleep I fell to wondering what it could be.
With the moon we started on again, feeling dreadfully exhausted, and
suffering tortures from thirst and prickly heat. Nobody who has not
felt it can know what we went through. We no longer walked, we
staggered, now and again falling from exhaustion, and being obliged to
call a halt every hour or so. We had scarcely energy left in us to
speak. Up to now Good had chatted and joked, for he was a merry
fellow; but now he had not a joke left in him.
At last, about two o'clock, utterly worn out in body and mind, we
came to the foot of this queer hill, or sand koppie, which did at
first sight resemble a gigantic ant heap about a hundred feet high,
and covering at the base nearly a morgen (two acres) of ground.
Here we halted, and, driven by our desperate thirst, sucked down our
last drops of water. We had but half a pint a head, and we could
each have drunk a gallon.
Then we lay down. Just as I was dropping off to sleep I heard Umbopa
remark to himself in Zulu, "If we cannot find water we shall all be
dead before the moon rises tomorrow."
I shuddered, hot as it was. The near prospect of such an awful death
is not pleasant, but even the thought of it could not keep me from
sleeping.
6. Water! Water!
-
IN TWO HOURS' time, about four o'clock, I woke up. As soon as the
first heavy demand of bodily fatigue had been satisfied, the torturing
thirst from which I was suffering asserted itself. I could sleep no
more. I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a running stream
with green banks, and trees upon them, and I awoke to find myself in
that arid wilderness, and to remember that, as Umbopa had said, if
we did not find water that day we must certainly perish miserably.
No human creature could live long without water in that heat. I sat up
and rubbed my grimy face with my dry and horny hands. My lips and
eyelids were stuck together, and it was only after some rubbing and
with an effort that I was able to open them. It was not far from dawn,
but there was none of the bright feel of dawn in the air, which was
thick with a hot murkiness I cannot describe. The others were still
sleeping. Presently it began to grow light enough to read, so I drew
out a little pocket copy of the Ingoldsby Legend |
|
