XXXI.
THE LOST SAFARI.
We were possessed of a map of sorts, consisting mostly of wide blank spaces, with an occasional tentative mountain, or the probable course of streams marked thereon. The only landmark that interested us was a single round peak situated south of our river and at a point just before we should cross the railroad at Tsavo Station. There came a day when, from the top of a hill where we had climbed for the sake of the outlook, we thought we recognized that peak. It was about five miles away as the crow flies.
Then we returned to camp and made the fatal mistake of starting to figure. We ought to cover the distance, even with the inevitable twists and turns, in a day; the tri-weekly train passed through Tsavo the following night; if we could catch that we would save a two days' wait for the next train. You follow the thought. We arose very early the next morning to get a good start on our forced march.
There is no use in spinning out a sad tale. We passed what we thought must be our landmark hill just eleven times. The map showed only one butte; as a matter of fact there were dozens. At each disappointment we had to reconstruct our theories. It is the nature of man to do this hopefully—Tsavo Station must be just around the next bend. We marched six hours without pause; then began to save ourselves a little. By all the gods of logical reasoning we proved Tsavo just beyond a certain fringe of woods. When we arrived we found that there the river broke through a range of hills by way of a deep gorge. It was a change from the everlasting scrub, with its tumbling waters, its awful cliffs, its luxuriant tropical growths; but it was so much the more difficult to make our way through. Beyond the gorge we found any amount of hills, kopjes, buttes, sugar loaves, etc., each isolated from its fellows, each perfectly competent to serve as the map's single landmark.
We should have camped, but we were very anxious to catch that train; and we were convinced that now, after all that work, Tsavo could not be far away. It would be ridiculous and mortifying to find we had camped almost within sight of our destination!
The heat was very bad and the force of the sun terrific. It seemed to possess actual physical weight, and to press us down from above. We filled our canteens many times at the swift-running stream, and emptied them as often. By two o'clock F. was getting a little wobbly from the sun. We talked of stopping, when an unexpected thunder shower rolled out from behind the mountains, and speedily overcast the entire heavens. This shadow relieved the stress. F., much revived, insisted that we proceed. So we marched and passed many more hills.
In the meantime it began to rain, after the whole-hearted tropical fashion. In two minutes we were drenched to the skin. I kept my matches and notebook dry by placing them in the crown of my cork helmet. After the intense heat this tepid downpour seemed to us delicious.
And then, quite unexpectedly, of course, we came around a bend to make out through the sheets of rain the steel girders of the famous Tsavo bridge.[15]
We clambered up a steep, slippery bank to the right-of-way, along which we proceeded half a mile to the station. This consisted of two or three native huts, a house for the East Indian in charge, and the station building itself. The latter was a small frame structure with a narrow floorless veranda. There was no platform. Drawing close on all sides was the interminable thorn scrub. Later, when the veil of rain had been drawn aside, we found that Tsavo, perched on a hillside, looked abroad over a wide prospect. For the moment all we saw was a dark, dismal, dripping station, wherein was no sign of life.
We were beginning to get chilly, and we wanted very much some tea, fire, a chance to dry, pending the arrival of our safari. We jerked open the door and peered into the inky interior.
"Babu!" yelled F., "Babu!"
From an inner back room came the faint answer in most precise English,—
"I can-not come; I am pray-ing."
There followed the sharp, quick tinkle of a little bell—the Indian manner of calling upon the Lord's attention.
We both knew better than to hustle the institutions of the East; so we waited with what patience we had, listening to the intermittent tinkling of the little bell. At the end of fully fifteen minutes the devotee appeared. He proved to be a mild, deprecating little man, very eager to help, but without resources. He was a Hindu, and lived mainly on tea and rice. The rice was all out, but he expected more on the night train. There was no trading store here. He was the only inhabitant. After a few more answers he disappeared, to return carrying two pieces of letter paper on which were tea and a little coarse native sugar. These, with a half-dozen very small potatoes, were all he had to offer.
It did not look very encouraging. We had absolutely nothing in which to boil water. Of course we could not borrow of our host; caste stood in the way there. If we were even to touch one of his utensils, that utensil was for him defiled for ever. Nevertheless, as we had eaten nothing since four o'clock that morning, and had put a hard day's work behind us, we made an effort. After a short search we captured a savage possessed of a surfuria, or native cooking pot. Memba Sasa scrubbed this with sand. First we made tea in it, and drank turn about, from its wide edge. This warmed us up somewhat. Then we dumped in our few potatoes and a single guinea fowl that F. had decapitated earlier in the day. We ate; and passed the pot over to Memba Sasa.
So far, so good; but we were still very wet, and the uncomfortable thought would obtrude itself that the safari might not get in that day. It behoved us at least to dry what we had on. I hunted up Memba Sasa, whom I found in a native hut. A fire blazed in the middle of the floor. I stooped low to enter, and squatted on my heels with the natives. Slowly I steamed off the surface moisture. We had rather a good time chatting and laughing. After a while I looked out. It had stopped raining. Therefore I emerged and set some of the men collecting firewood. Shortly I had a fine little blaze going under the veranda roof of the station. F. and I hung out our breeches to dry, and spread the tails of our shirts over the heat. F. was actually the human chimney, for the smoke was pouring in clouds from the breast and collar of his shirt. We were fine figures for the public platform of a railway station!
We had just about dried off and had reassumed our thin and scanty garments, when the babu emerged. We stared in drop-jawed astonishment. He had muffled his head and mouth in a most brilliant scarf, as if for zero weather; although dressed otherwise in the usual pongee. Under one arm he carried a folded clumsy cotton umbrella; around his waist he had belted a huge knife; in his other hand he carried his battle-axe. I mean just that—his battle-axe. We had seen such things on tapestries or in museums, but did not dream that they still existed out of captivity. This was an Oriental looking battle-axe with a handle three feet long, a spike on top, a spike out behind, and a half-moon blade in front. The babu had with a little of his signal paint done the whole thing, blade and all, to a brilliant window-shutter green.
As soon as we had recovered our breath, we asked him very politely the reason for these stupendous preparations. It seemed that it was his habit to take a daily stroll just before sunset, "for the sake of the health," as he told us in his accurate English.
"The bush is full of bad men," he explained, "who would like to kill me; but when they see this axe and this knife they say to each other, 'There walks a very bad man. We dare not kill him.'"
He marched very solemnly a quarter-mile up the track and back, always in plain view. Promptly on his return he dived into his little back room where the periodic tinkling of his praying bell for some time marked his gratitude for having escaped the "bad men."
The bell ceased. Several times he came to the door, eyed us timidly, and bolted back into the darkness. Finally he approached to within ten feet, twisted his hands and giggled in a most deprecating fashion.
"What is the use of this killing game?" he gabbled as rapidly as he could. "Man should not destroy what man cannot first create." After which he giggled again and fled.
His conscience, evidently, had driven him to this defiance of our high mightinesses against his sense of politeness and his fears.
About this time my boy Mohammed and the cook drifted in. They reported that they had left the safari not far back. Our hopes of supper and blankets rose. They declined, however, with the gathering darkness, and were replaced by wrath against the faithless ones. Memba Sasa, in spite of his long day, took a gun and disappeared in the darkness. He did not get back until nine o'clock, when he suddenly appeared in the doorway to lean the gun in the corner, and to announce, "Hapana safari."
We stretched ourselves on a bench and a table—the floor was impossible—and took what sleep we could. In the small hours the train thundered through, the train we had hoped to catch!
FOOTNOTES:
This is the point at which construction was stopped by man-eating lions. See Patterson's "The Man-eaters of Tsavo."
XXXII.
THE BABU.
We stretched ourselves stiffly in the first gray of dawn, wondering where we could get a mouthful of breakfast. On emerging from the station a strange and gladsome sight met our eyes—namely, chop boxes and gun cases belonging to some sportsman not yet arrived. Necessity knows no law; so we promptly helped ourselves to food and gun-cleaning implements. Much refreshed, we lit our pipes and settled ourselves to wait for our delinquents.
Shortly after sunrise an Indian track inspector trundled in on a handcar propelled by two natives. He was a suave and corpulent person with a very large umbrella and beautiful silken garments. The natives upset the handcar off the track, and the newcomer settled himself for an enjoyable morning. He and the babu discussed ethics and metaphysical philosophy for three solid hours. Evidently they came from different parts of India, and their only common language was English. Through the thin partition in the station building we could hear plainly every word. It was very interesting. Especially did we chortle with delight when the inspector began one of his arguments somewhat as follows:—
"Now the two English who are here. They possess great sums of wealth"—F. nudged me delightedly—"and they have weapons to kill, and much with which to do things, yet their savage minds—"
It was plain, rank, eavesdropping, but most illuminating, thus to get at first hand the Eastern point of view as to ourselves; to hear the bloodless, gentle shell of Indian philosophy described by believers. They discussed the most minute and impractical points, and involved themselves in the most uncompromising dilemmas.
Thus the gist of one argument was as follows: "All sexual intercourse is sin, but the race must go forward by means of sexual intercourse; therefore the race is conceived in sin and is sinful; but it is a great sin for me, as an individual, not to carry forward the race, since the Divine Will decrees that in some way the race is necessary to it. Therefore it would seem that man is in sin whichever way you look at it—"
"But," interposes the inspector firmly but politely, "is it not possible that sexual sin and the sin of opposing Divine Will may be of balance in the spirit, so that in resisting one sort a man acquires virtue to commit the other without harm—" And so on for hours.
At twelve-thirty the safari drifted in. Consider that fact and what it meant. The plain duty of the headman was, of course, to have seen that the men followed us in the day before. But allowing, for the sake of argument, that this was impossible, and that the men had been forced by the exhaustion of some of their number to stop and camp, if they had arisen betimes they should have completed the journey in two hours at most. That should have brought them in by half-past seven or eight o'clock. But a noon arrival condemned them without the necessity of argument. They had camped early, had risen very, very late, and had dawdled on the road.
We ourselves gave the two responsible headmen twenty lashes apiece; then turned over to them the job of thrashing the rest. Ten per man was the allotment. They expected the punishment; took it gracefully. Some even thanked us when it was over! The babu disappeared in his station.
About an hour later he approached us, very deprecating, and handed us a telegram. It was from the district commissioner at Voi ordering us to report for flogging "porters on the Tsavo Station platform."
"I am truly sorry, I am truly sorry," the babu was murmuring at our elbows.
"What does this mean?" we demanded of him.
He produced a thick book.
"It is in here—the law," he explained. "You must not flog men on the station platform. It was my duty to report."
"How did we know that? Why didn't you tell us?"
"If you had gone there"—he pointed ten feet away to a spot exactly like all other spots—"it would have been off the platform. Then I had nothing to say."
We tried to become angry.
"But why in blazes couldn't you have told us of that quietly and decently? We'd have moved."
"It is the law" He tapped his thick book.
"But we cannot be supposed to know by heart every law in that book. Why didn't you warn us before reporting?" we insisted.
"I am truly sorry," he repeated. "I hope and trust it will not prove serious. But it is in the book."
We continued in the same purposeless fashion for a moment or so longer. Then the babu ended the discussion thus,—
"It was my duty. I am truly sorry. Suppose I had not reported and should die to-day, and should go to heaven, and God should ask me, 'Have you done your duty to-day?' what should I say to Him?"
We gave it up; we were up against Revealed Religion.
So that night we took a freight train southward to Voi, leaving the babu and his prayer-bell, and his green battle-axe and his conscience alone in the wilderness. We had quite a respect for that babu.
The district commissioner listened appreciatively to our tale.
"Of course I shall not carry the matter further," he told us, "but having known the babu, you must see that once he had reported to me I was compelled to order you down here. I am sorry for the inconvenience."
And when we reflected on the cataclysmic upheaval that babu would have undergone had we not been summoned after breaking one of The Laws in the Book, we had to admit the district commissioner was right.
PART VI.
IN MASAILAND.
XXXIII.
OVER THE LIKIPIA ESCARPMENT.
Owing to an outbreak of bubonic plague, and consequent quarantine, we had recruited our men outside Nairobi, and had sent them, in charge of C., to a little station up the line.
Billy and I saw to the loading of our equipment on the train, and at two o'clock, in solitary state, set forth. Our only attendants were Mohammed and Memba Sasa, who had been fumigated and inoculated and generally Red-Crossed for the purpose.
The little narrow-gauge train doubled and twisted in its climb up the range overlooking Nairobi and the Athi Plains. Fields of corn grew so tall as partially to conceal villages of round, grass-thatched huts with conical roofs; we looked down into deep ravines where grew the broad-leaved bananas; the steep hillsides had all been carefully cultivated. Savages leaning on spears watched us puff heavily by. Women, richly ornamented with copper wire or beads, toiled along bent under loads carried by means of a band across the top of the head.[16] Naked children rushed out to wave at us. We were steaming quite comfortably through Africa as it had been for thousands of years before the white man came.
At Kikuyu Station we came to a halt. Kikuyu Station ordinarily embarks about two passengers a month, I suppose. Now it was utterly swamped with business, for on it had descended all our safari of thirty-nine men and three mules. Thirty of the thirty-nine yelled and shrieked and got in the wrong place, as usual. C. and the train men and the stationmaster and our responsible boys heaved and tugged and directed, ordered, commanded. At length the human element was loaded to its places and locked in. Then the mules had to be urged up a very narrow gang-lank into a dangerous-looking car. Quite sensibly they declined to take chances. We persuaded them. The process was quite simple. Two of the men holding the ends at a safe distance stretched a light strong cord across the beasts' hind legs, and sawed it back and forth.
We clanged the doors shut, climbed aboard, and the train at last steamed on. Now bits of forest came across our way, deep, shaded, with trailing curtain vines, and wide leaves as big as table tops, and high, lush, impenetrable undergrowth full of flashing birds, fathomless shadows, and inquisitive monkeys. Occasionally we emerged to the edge of a long oval meadow, set in depressions among hills, like our Sierra meadows. Indeed so like were these openings to those in our own wooded mountains that we always experienced a distinct shock of surprise as the familiar woods parted to disclose a dark solemn savage with flashing spear.
We stopped at various stations, and descended and walked about in the gathering shadows of the forest. It was getting cool. Many little things attracted our attention, to remain in our memories as isolated pictures. Thus I remember one grave savage squatted by the track playing on a sort of mandoline-shaped instrument. It had two strings, and he twanged these alternately, without the slightest effort to change their pitch by stopping with his fingers. He bent his head sidewise, and listened with the meticulous attention of a connoisseur. We stopped at that place for fully ten minutes, but not for a second did he leave off twanging his two strings, nor did he even momentarily relax his attention.
It was now near sundown. We had been climbing steadily. The train shrieked twice, and unexpectedly slid out to the edge of the Likipia Escarpment. We looked down once more into the great Rift Valley.
The Rift Valley is as though a strip of Africa—extending half the length of the continent—had in time past sunk bodily some thousands of feet, leaving a more or less sheer escarpment on either side, and preserving intact its own variegated landscape in the bottom. We were on the Likipia Escarpment. We looked across to the Mau Escarpment, where the country over which our train had been travelling continued after its interruption by the valley. And below us were mountains, streams, plains. The westering sun threw strong slants of light down and across.
The engine shut off its power, and we slid silently down the rather complicated grades and curves of the descent. A noble forest threw its shadows over us. Through the chance openings we caught glimpses of the pale country far below. Across high trestle bridges we rattled, and craned over to see the rushing white water of the mountain torrents a hundred feet down. The shriek of our engine echoed and re-echoed weirdly from the serried trunks of trees and from the great cliffs that seemed to lift themselves as we descended.
We debarked at Kijabe[17] well after dark. It is situated on a ledge in the escarpment, is perhaps a quarter-mile wide, and includes nothing more elaborate than the station, a row of Indian dukkas, and two houses of South Africans set back towards the rise in the cliffs. A mile or so away, and on a little higher level, stand the extensive buildings of an American mission. It is, I believe, educational as well as sectarian, is situated in one of the most healthful climates of East Africa, and is prosperous.
At the moment we saw none of these things. We were too busy getting men, mules, and equipment out of the train. Our lanterns flared in the great wind that swept down the defile; and across the track little fires flared too. Shortly we made the acquaintance of the South Africander who furnished us our ox teams and wagon; and of a lank, drawling youth who was to be our "rider." The latter was very anxious to get started, so we piled all our stores and equipment but those immediately necessary for the night aboard the great wagon. Then we returned to the dak-bungalow for a very belated supper. While eating this we discussed our plans.
These were in essence very simple. Somewhere south of the Great Thirst of the Sotik a river called the Narossara. Back of the river were high mountains, and down the river were benches dropping off by thousands of feet to the barren country of Lake Magahdi. Over some of this country ranged the Greater Kudu, easily the prize buck of East Africa. We intended to try for a Greater Kudu.
People laughed at us. The beast is extremely rare; it ranges over a wide area; it inhabits the thickest sort of cover in a sheer mountainous country; its senses are wonderfully acute; and it is very wary. A man might, once in a blue moon, get one by happening upon it accidentally, but deliberately to go after it was sheer lunacy. So we were told. As a matter of fact, we thought so ourselves, but Greater Kudu was as good an excuse as another.
The most immediate of our physical difficulties was the Thirst. Six miles from Kijabe we would leave the Kedong River. After that was no more water for two days and nights. During that time we should be forced to travel and rest in alternation day and night, with a great deal of travel and very little rest. We should be able to carry for the men a limited amount of water on the ox wagon, but the cattle could not drink. It was a hard, anxious grind. A day's journey beyond the first water after the Thirst we should cross the Southern Guaso Nyero River.[18] Then two days should land us at the Narossara. There we must leave our ox wagon and push on with our tiny safari. We planned to relay back for porters from our different camps.
That was our whole plan. Our transport rider's object in starting this night was to reach the Kedong River, and there to outspan until our arrival next day. The cattle would thus get a good feed and rest. Then at four in the afternoon we would set out to conquer the Thirst. After that it would be a question of travelling to suit the oxen.
Next morning, when we arose, we found one of the wagon Kikuyus awaiting us. His tale ran that after going four miles, the oxen had been stampeded by lions. In the mix-up the dusselboom had been broken. He demanded a new dusselboom. I looked as wise as though I knew just what that meant; and told him largely, to help himself. Shortly he departed carrying what looked to be the greater part of a forest tree.
We were in no hurry, so we did not try to get our safari under way before eight o'clock. It consisted of twenty-nine porters, the gunbearers, three personal boys, three syces, and the cook. Of this lot some few stand out from the rest, and deserve particular attention.
Of course I had my veterans, Memba Sasa and Mohammed. There was also Kongoni, gunbearer, elsewhere described. The third gunbearer was Marrouki, a Wakamba. He was the personal gunbearer of a Mr. Twigg, who very courteously loaned him for this trip as possessing some knowledge of the country. He was a small person, with stripes about his eyes; dressed in a Scotch highland cap, khaki breeches, and a shooting coat miles too big for him. His soul was earnest, his courage great, his training good, his intelligence none too brilliant. Timothy, our cook, was pure Swahili. He was a thin, elderly individual, with a wrinkled brow of care. This represented a conscientious soul. He tried hard to please, but he never could quite forget that he had cooked for the Governor's safari. His air was always one of silent disapproval of our modest outfit. So well did he do, however, often under trying circumstances, that at the close of the expedition Billy presented him with a very fancy knife. To her vast astonishment he burst into violent sobs.
"Why, what is it?" she asked.
"Oh, memsahib," he wailed, "I wanted a watch!"
As personal boy Billy had a Masai named Geyeye.[19] The members of this proud and aristocratic tribe rarely condescend to work for the white man; but when they do, they are very fine servants, for they are highly intelligent. Geyeye was short and very, very ugly. Perhaps this may partly explain his leaving tribal life, for the Masai generally are over six feet.
C.'s man was an educated Coast Swahili named Abba Ali. This individual was very smart. He wore a neatly-trimmed Vandyke beard, a flannel boating hat, smart tailored khakis, and carried a rattan cane. He was alert, quick, and intelligent. His position was midway between that of personal boy and headman.
Of the rank and file we began with twenty-nine. Two changed their minds before we were fairly started, and departed in the night. There was no time to get regular porters; but fortunately a Kikuyu chief detailed two wild savages from his tribe to act as carriers. These two children of nature drifted in with pleasant smiles and little else save knick-knacks. From our supplies we gave them two thin jerseys, reaching nearly to the knees. Next day they appeared with broad tucks sewed around the middle! They looked like "My Mama didn't use wool soap." We then gave it up, and left them free and untrammelled.
They differed radically. One was past the first enthusiasms and vanities of youth. He was small, unobtrusive, unornamented. He had no possessions save the jersey, the water-bottle, and the blanket we ourselves supplied. The blanket he crossed bandolier fashion on one shoulder. It hung down behind like a tasselled sash. His face was little and wizened and old. He was quiet and uncomplaining, and the "easy mark" for all the rest. We had constantly to be interfering to save him from imposition as to too heavy loads, too many jobs, and the like. Nearing the close of the long expedition, when our loads were lighter and fewer, one day C. spoke up.
"I'm going to give the old man a good time," said he. "I doubt if he's ever had one before, or if he ever will again. He's that sort of a meek damnfool."
So it was decreed that Kimau[20] should carry nothing for the rest of the trip, was to do no more work, was to have all he wanted to eat. It was a treat to see him. He accepted these things without surprise, without spoken thanks; just as he would have accepted an increased supply of work and kicks. Before his little fire he squatted all day, gazing vacantly off into space, or gnawing on a piece of the meat he always kept roasting on sticks. He spoke to no one; he never smiled or displayed any obvious signs of enjoyment; but from him radiated a feeling of deep content.
His companion savage was a young blood, and still affected by the vanities of life. His hair he wore in short tight curls, resembling the rope hair of a French poodle, liberally anointed with castor-oil and coloured with red-paint clay. His body, too, was turned to bronze by the same method, so that he looked like a beautiful smooth metal statue come to life. To set this quality off he wore glittering collars, bracelets, and ear ornaments of polished copper and brass. When he joined us his sole costume was a negligent two-foot strip of cotton cloth. After he had received his official jersey, he carefully tied the cloth over his wonderful head; nor as far as we knew did he again remove it until the end of the expedition. All his movements were inexpressibly graceful. They reminded one somehow of Flaxman's drawings of the Greek gods. His face, too, was good-natured and likeable. A certain half feminine, wild grace, combined with the queer effect of his headgear, caused us to name him Daphne. At home he was called Kingangui. At first he carried his burden after the fashion of savages—on the back; and kept to the rear of the procession; and at evening consorted only with old Lightfoot. As soon as opportunity offered, he built himself a marvellous iridescent ball of marabout feathers. Each of these he split along the quill, so that they curled and writhed in the wind. This picturesque charm he suspended from a short pole in front of his tent. Also, he belonged to the Kikuyu tribe; he ate no game meat, but confined his diet to cornmeal porridge. We were much interested in watching Daphne's gradual conversion from savage ways to those of the regular porter. Within two weeks he was carrying his load on his head or shoulder, and trying to keep up near the head of the safari. The charm of feathers disappeared shortly after, I am sorry to say. He took his share of the meat. Within two months Daphne was imitating as closely as possible the manners and customs of his safari mates. But he never really succeeded in looking anything but the wild and graceful savage he was.
FOOTNOTES:
After the fashion of the Canadian tump line.
Pronounce all the syllables.
An entirely different stream from that flowing north of Mt. Kenia.
Pronounce every syllable.
His official name was Lightfoot, Queen of the Fairies, because of his ballet-like costume.
XXXIV.
TO THE KEDONG.
For four hours we descended the valley through high thorn scrub or the occasional grassy openings. We were now in the floor of the Rift Valley, and both along the escarpments and in the floor of the great blue valley itself mountains were all about us. Most of the large ones were evidently craters; and everywhere were smaller kopjes or buttes, that in their day had also served as blow holes for subterranean fires.
At the end of this time we arrived at the place where we were supposed to find the wagon. No wagon was there.
The spot was in the middle of a level plain on which grew very scattered bushes, a great deal like the sparser mesquite growths of Arizona. Towards the Likipia Escarpment, and about half-way to its base, a line of trees marked the course of the Kedong River. Beyond that, fairly against the mountain, we made out a settler's house.
Leaving Billy and the safari, C. and I set out for this house. The distance was long, and we had not made half of it before thunder clouds began to gather. They came up thick and black behind the escarpment, and rapidly spread over the entire heavens. We found the wagon shortly, still mending its dusselboom, or whatever the thing was. Leaving instructions for it to proceed to a certain point on the Kedong River, we started back for our safari.
It rained. In ten minutes the dusty plains, as far as the eye could reach, were covered with water two or three inches deep, from which the sparse bunches of grasses grew like reeds in a great marshy lake. We splashed along with the water over our ankles. The channels made by the game trails offered natural conduits, and wherever there was the least grade they had become rushing brooks. We found the safari very bedraggled. Billy had made a mound of valuables, atop which she perched, her waterproof cape spread as wide as possible, a good deal like a brooding hen. We set out for the meeting-point on the Kedong. In half an hour we had there found a bit of higher ground and had made camp.
As suddenly as they had gathered the storm clouds broke away. The expiring sun sent across the valley a flood of golden light, that gilded the rugged old mountain of Suswa over the way.
"Directly on the other side of Suswa," C. told me, "there is a 'pan' of hard clay. This rain will fill it, and we shall find water there. We can take a night's rest, and set off comfortably in the morning."
So the rain that had soaked us so thoroughly was a blessing after all. While we were cooking supper the wagon passed us, its wheels and frame creaking, its great whip cracking like a rifle, its men shrieking at the imperturbable team of eighteen oxen. It would travel until the oxen wanted to graze, or sleep, or scratch an ear, or meditate on why is a Kikuyu. Thereupon they would be outspanned and allowed to do it, whatever it was, until they were ready to go on again. Then they would go on. These sequences might take place at any time of the day or night, and for greater or lesser intervals of time. That was distinctly up to the oxen; the human beings had mighty little to say in the matter. But transport riding, from the point of view of the rank outsider, really deserves a chapter of its own.
XXXV.
THE TRANSPORT RIDER.
The wagon is one evolved in South Africa—a long, heavily-constructed affair, with ingenious braces and timbers so arranged as to furnish the maximum clearance with the greatest facility for substitution in case the necessity for repairs might arise. The whole vehicle can be dismounted and reassembled in a few hours; so that unfordable streams or impossible bits of country can be crossed piecemeal. Its enormous wheels are set wide apart. The brake is worked by a crank at the rear, like a reversal of the starting mechanism of a motor car. Bolted to the frame on either side between the front and rear wheels are capacious cupboards, and two stout water kegs swing to and fro when the craft is under way. The net carrying capacity of such a wagon is from three to four thousand pounds.
This formidable vehicle, in our own case, was drawn by a team of eighteen oxen. The biggest brutes, the wheelers, were attached to a tongue, all the others pulled on a long chain. The only harness was the pronged yoke that fitted just forward of the hump. Over rough country the wheelers were banged and jerked about savagely by the tongue; they did not seem to mind it but exhibited a certain amount of intelligence in manipulation.
To drive these oxen we had one white man named Brown, and two small Kikuyu savages. One of these worked the brake crank in the rear while the other preceded the lead cattle. Brown exercised general supervision, a long-lashed whip and Boer-Dutch expletives and admonitions.
In transport riding, as this game is called, there is required a great amount of especial skill though not necessarily a high degree of intelligence. Along the flats all goes well enough, but once in the unbelievable rough country of a hill trek the situation alters. A man must know cattle and their symptoms. It is no light feat to wake up eighteen sluggish bovine minds to the necessity for effort, and then to throw so much dynamic energy into the situation that the whole eighteen will begin to pull at once. That is the secret, unanimity; an ox is the most easily discouraged working animal on earth. If the first three couples begin to haul before the others have aroused to their effort, they will not succeed in budging the wagon an inch, but after a moment's struggle will give up completely. By that time the leaders respond to the command and throw themselves forward in the yoke. In vain. They cannot pull the wagon and their wheel comrades too. Therefore they give up. By this time, perhaps, the lash has aroused the first lot to another effort. And so they go, pulling and hauling against each other, getting nowhere, until the end is an exhausted team, a driver half insane, and a great necessity for unloading.
A good driver, on the other hand, shrieks a few premonitory Dutch words—and then! I suppose inside those bovine heads the effect is somewhat that of a violent electric explosion. At any rate it hits them all at once, and all together, in response, they surge against their yokes. The heavily laden wagon creaks, groans, moves forward. The hurricane of Dutch and the volleys of whip crackings rise to a crescendo. We are off!
To perform just this little simple trick of getting the thing started requires not only a peculiar skill or gift, but also lungs of brass and a throat of iron. A transport rider without a voice is as a tenor in the same fix. He may—and does—get so hoarse that it is a pain to hear him; but as long as he can croak in good volume he is all right. Mere shouting will not do. He must shriek, until to the sympathetic bystander it seems that his throat must split wide open. Furthermore, he must shriek the proper things. It all sounds alike to every one but transport riders and oxen; but as a matter of fact it is Boer-Dutch, nicely assorted to suit different occasions. It is incredible that oxen should distinguish; but, then, it is also incredible that trout should distinguish the nice differences in artificial flies.
After the start has been made successfully, the craft must be kept under way. To an unbiassed bystander the whole affair looks insane. The wagon creaks and sways and groans and cries aloud as it bumps over great boulders in the way; the leading Kikuyu dances nimbly and shrills remarks at the nearest cattle; the tail Kikuyu winds energetically back and forth on his little handle, and tries to keep his feet. And Brown! he is magnificent! His long lash sends out a volley of rifle reports, down, up, ahead, back; his cracked voice roars out an unending stream of apparent gibberish. Back and forth along the line of the team he skips nimbly, the sweat streaming from his face. And the oxen plod along, unhasting, unexcited, their eyes dreamy, chewing the cud of yesterday's philosophic reflections. The situation conveys the general impression of a peevish little stream breaking against great calm cliffs. All this frantic excitement and expenditure of energy is so apparently purposeless and futile, the calm cattle seem so aloof and superior to it all, so absolutely unaffected by it. They are going slowly, to be sure; their gait may be maddeningly deliberate, but evidently they do not intend to be hurried. Why not let them take their own speed?
But all this hullabaloo means something after all. It does its business, and the top of the boulder-strewn hill is gained. Without it the whole concern would have stopped, and then the wagon would have to be unloaded before a fresh start could have been made. Results with cattle are not shown by facial expression nor by increased speed, but simply by continuance. They will plod up steep hills or along the level at the same placid gait. Only in the former case they require especial treatment.
In case the wagon gets stuck on a hill, as will occasionally happen, so that all the oxen are discouraged at once, we would see one of the Kikuyus leading the team back and forth, back and forth, on the side hill just ahead of the wagon. This is to confuse their minds, cause them to forget their failure, and thus to make another attempt.
At one stretch we had three days of real mountains. N'gombe[21] Brown shrieked like a steam calliope all the way through. He lasted the distance, but had little camp-fire conversation even with his beloved Kikuyus.
When the team is outspanned, which in the waterless country of forced marches is likely to be almost any time of the day or night, N'gombe Brown sought a little rest. For this purpose he had a sort of bunk that let down underneath the wagon. If it were daytime, the cattle were allowed to graze under supervision of one of the Kikuyus. If it was night time they were tethered to the long chain, where they lay in a somnolent double row. A lantern at the head of the file and one at the wagon's tail were supposed to discourage lions. In a bad lion country fires were added to these defences.
N'gombe Brown thus worked hard through varied and long hours in strict intimacy with stupid and exasperating beasts. After working hours he liked to wander out to watch those same beasts grazing! His mind was as full of cattle as that! Although we offered him reading matter, he never seemed to care for it, nor for long-continued conversation with white people not of his trade. In fact the only gleam of interest I could get out of him was by commenting on the qualities or peculiarities of the oxen. He had a small mouth-organ on which he occasionally performed, and would hold forth for hours with his childlike Kikuyus. In the intelligence to follow ordinary directions he was an infant. We had to iterate and reiterate in words of one syllable our directions as to routes and meeting-points, and then he was quite as apt to go wrong as right. Yet, I must repeat, he knew thoroughly all the ins and outs of a very difficult trade, and understood, as well, how to keep his cattle always fit and in good condition. In fact he was a little hipped on what the "dear n'gombes" should or should not be called upon to do.
One incident will illustrate all this better than I could explain it. When we reached the Narossara River we left the wagon and pushed on afoot. We were to be gone an indefinite time, and we left N'gombe Brown and his outfit very well fixed. Along the Narossara ran a pleasant shady strip of high jungle; the country about was clear and open; but most important of all, a white man of education and personal charm occupied a trading boma, or enclosure, near at hand. An accident changed our plans and brought us back unexpectedly at the end of a few weeks. We found that N'gombe Brown had trekked back a long day's journey, and was encamped alone at the end of a spur of mountains. We sent native runners after him. He explained his change of base by saying that the cattle feed was a little better at his new camp! Mind you this: at the Narossara the feed was quite good enough, the oxen were doing no work, there was companionship, books, papers, and even a phonograph to while away the long weeks until our return. N'gombe Brown quite cheerfully deserted all this to live in solitude where he imagined the feed to be microscopically better!
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