A LEOPARD AND HER YOUNG ONE.
A LEOPARD AND HER YOUNG ONE.
AN UNSUCCESSFUL HUNT FOR ELEPHANTS—I TAKE AIM AT A BUFFALO—A LEOPARD IN THE GRASS NEAR US—WE SHOOT THE LEOPARD AND HER KITTEN—GREAT REJOICING IN CAMP—WHO SHALL HAVE THE TAIL?—A QUARREL OVER THE BRAINS—THE GUINEA HENS—THE MONKEYS.
Early the next morning, Aboko and I got up. Aboko covered himself with his war fetiches, and also with the fetiches that were to bring good luck, and give him a steady hand. On the middle of his forehead was a yellow spot madewith clay. When he had finished these preparations we started.
Our desire was to kill elephants. We saw plenty of tracks, and we hunted all day long. In many places, to judge by the tracks, the elephants had been only an hour or two before ourselves. But we did not see a single elephant, and I killed only a few monkeys for my men's dinner, as well as a few birds.
We were returning to the camp, rather down-hearted, when I heard the cry of the grey male partridge, of which I have already spoken, calling for his mates to come and perch on the tree he had chosen. We turned back to get a shot, if possible, for they are fine eating. We were just on the edge of the forest; and, as I pushed out into the prairie, suddenly I saw several buffaloes, one of which I made sure of as he stood a little in advance of the rest, where the grass was high enough for a stealthy approach. I immediately put a ball into the barrel that had only shot, so that I might have my two barrels loaded with bullets. Then Aboko and I advanced slowly towards the unconscious bull, which stood a fair mark, and I was about to raise my gun when Aboko made a quick sign to hold still and listen. Aboko, at the same time, breathed as if he were smelling something.
I did not know why it was that Aboko had stopped me, but I knew there must be better game at hand, or some other good reason for his doing so. Perhaps he had heard the footstep of an elephant. I looked at his face, and saw that it appeared anxious.
As we stood perfectly motionless, I heard, at apparently a little distance before us, a low purring sound, which might have been taken, by a careless ear, for the sound of the wind passing through the grass. But to Aboko's quick ear it betokened something else.His face grew very earnest, and he whispered to me "Njego" (leopard).
What were we to do? The noise continued. We cocked our guns, and moved, slowly and cautiously, a few steps ahead, to get a position where we thought we might see over the grass. The leopard might pounce upon us at any moment. What would prevent him from doing so if he chose? Certainly not our guns, for we did not know exactly where the beast was. To tell you the truth, I did not feel comfortable at all; I had a slight objection to being carried away in the jaws of a leopard and devoured in the woods.
Our situation was far from being a pleasant one. The leopard comes out generally by night only, and nothing but extreme hunger will bring him out of his lair in open day. When he is hungry, he is also unusually savage, and very quick in his motions.
We knew the animal was near, but we could not succeed in getting a sight of him. As the wind blew from him towards us, I perceived plainly a strong peculiar odour which this animal gives out; and this fact proved, still more decidedly, that the leopard could not be far off. The thought passed through my mind: Is he watching us? Is he coming towards us—crouching like a cat on the ground, and ready to spring upon us when near enough? Do his eyes penetrate the grass which we cannot see through? If so, is he ready to spring?
Meantime our buffalo-bull stood stupidly before his herd, not twenty yards from us, utterly innocent of the presence of so many of his formidable enemies—the leopard, Aboko, and myself.
Just then we moved a little to one side, and, peering through an opening in the grass, I beheld an immense leopard, a female, with a tiny young leopard by her side. The beast saw us at the same moment,having turned her head quickly at some slight noise we made. She had been watching the buffalo so intently as not to notice our approach. It seemed to me as if a curious look of indecision passed over her face. She, too, had more game than she had looked for, and was puzzled which to attack first. Her long tail swished from side to side, and her eyes glared, as she hesitated for a moment to decide which of the three—the bull, Aboko, or me—to pounce upon and make her victim.
But I saved her the trouble of making up her mind; for, in far less time than it takes me to tell you what took place, I had put a ball into her head, which, luckily for us, relieved her of further care for prey. She dropped down dead. At the same moment Aboko fired into the little leopard and killed it. At the noise of the guns, the buffalo-bull and the herd decamped in the opposite direction, at a tremendous pace, the bull little knowing the circumstances to which he owed his life.
I felt much relieved, for I had never before been in quite so ticklish a situation, and I felt no particular desire ever to be in a similar plight again.
When we returned to the camp there was a great excitement as soon as they heard the news that two leopards had been killed. Aboko carried in the young leopard on his back; but mine was too heavy, and had to be left in the field. Guns were fired in rejoicing; and the big leopard was fetched in. When the people returned with it to the camp, all shouted, "What an enormous beast! what an enormous beast! We heard gun firing," etc., etc.
In the midst of this noise Niamkala made his appearance with some of our party, bringing in some wild boars and a pretty little gazelle which the natives calledncheri. Of course the wild boars had been cutup into several pieces, for they were too heavy to carry whole.
Niamkala and his party were received with great cheers. The prospect of a good supper brightened all their faces, and mine also; and I shouted, "Well done, Niamkala and boys!"
Everything was brought to my feet. There was so much to eat that there was no use in dividing the meat into equal shares; so I let everyone take as much as he liked.
After supper the leopards were hung on a pole resting on two forked sticks; and then the negroes danced round them. They sang songs of victory, and exulted over and abused the deceased leopard (the mother). They addressed to her comical compliments upon her beauty (and the leopard is really a most beautiful animal). They said, "What a fine coat you have!" (meaning her skin). "We will take that coat off from you." They shouted, "Now you will kill no more people! Now you will eat no more hunters! Now you cannot leap upon your prey! What has become of the wild bull you were looking after so keenly? Would you not have liked to make a meal of Aboko or of Chaillie?" (for they called me Chaillie).
Thus they sang and danced round till towards morning, when I made them go to sleep.
Next morning there was great quarrelling among my men. What could be the matter? I found that Niamkala was declaring his determination to have the end of my leopard's tail, while the rest of the hunters asserted their equal right to it. Aboko said he did not care, as he would have the tail of the one he had killed.
I skinned the two leopards in the most careful manner, and gave the end of the tail to Niamkala, and I promised Fasiko to give him the tail of the next oneI should kill. They all shouted, "I hope you will kill leopards enough to give to each of us a tail!"
Poor Fasiko looked very down-hearted. When I inquired why, he said, "Don't you know that when a man has the end of a leopard's tail in his possession he is sure to be fortunate in winning the heart of the girl he wants to marry?"
I said, "Fasiko, you have one wife, what do you care for a leopard's tail?"
He replied, "I want a good many wives."
The palaver about the tail was hardly over when another quarrel broke out. This time it was about the brains. Aboko, Niamkala, and Fasiko each wanted the whole brain of the animal. The others said they must have some too; that there was only one end to each tail, but that the brains could be divided among them all. For a few minutes a fight seemed imminent over the head of the leopard.
I said, "You may quarrel, but no fighting. If you do you will see me in the fight; and I will hit everybody, and hit hard too." At the same time I pointed out to them a large stick lying by my bedside. This immediately stopped them.
They all wanted the brain, they said, because, when mixed with some other charms, it makes a powerfulmonda(fetiche), which gives its possessors dauntless courage and great fortune in the hunt. Happily, I was able to persuade my three best hunters that they wanted no such means to bolster up their courage.
The dispute over the brains being settled, Aboko, in the presence of all the men, laid the liver before me. As this had no value or interest for me, since I was certainly not going to eat the liver of the leopard for my dinner, I was about to kick it aside, when they stopped me, and entreated me to take off the gall and destroy it, in order to save the party from futuretrouble. These negroes believe the gall of the leopard to be deadly poison, and my men feared to be suspected by their friends or enemies at Sangatanga of having concealed some of this poison. So I took off the gall, put it under my feet and destroyed it, and then, taking the earth in which it had been spilled, I threw it in every direction, for I did not want any of these poor fellows to be accused of a crime, and lose their lives by it. I intended to inform the king, on my return, that we had destroyed the liver. But I told my men that their belief was all nonsense, and a mere superstition. They said it was not. As I could not prove their notion to be false, I stopped the discussion by saying I did not believe it.
Having plenty of game, we carried the leopard-meat a long way off, and threw it away.
We did not go hunting for two days, but spent our time in smoking the meat we had on hand. It was just the sort of weather for hunting, and for living in the woods. The air was cool and refreshing, for it was June, and the dry season; but the sky was often clouded, which prevented the sun from being oppressive. To add to our pleasure, the forest trees were in bloom, and many of them were fragrant. The nights were very cold indeed for this country, the thermometer going down to sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. The wind blew hard, but against that we managed to protect ourselves. The dews were not nearly so heavy as they are in the rainy season. The grass was in great part burned off the prairies.
Every day we succeeded in shooting more or less game, among which were antelopes, gazelles, wild boars, monkeys without number, and guinea fowls. These guinea fowls were of a beautiful species. In this country you have never seen any like them.
My joy was great when I killed this hitherto unknownspecies of guinea-fowl (Numida plumifera). It is one of the handsomest of all the guinea-fowls yet discovered. Its head is naked, the skin being of a deep bluish-black tinge, and is crowned with a beautiful crest of straight, erect, narrow, downy feathers, standing in a bunch close together. The plumage of the body is of a fine bluish-black ground, variegated with numerouseyesof white, slightly tinged with blue. The bill and legs are coloured a blue-black, similar to the skin of the head.
This bird is not found near the seashore. It is very shy, but marches in large flocks through the woods. At night they perch on trees, where they are protected from the numerous animals which prowl about.
I killed several beautiful monkeys called by the nativesmondi. What curious-looking monkeys they were! Only the stuffed specimen of a young one had been received in England before this time. The mondi is entirely black, and is covered with long shaggy hair. It has a very large body, and a funny little head, quite out of proportion to the size of the animal. It is a very beautiful monkey; the hair is of a glossy jet black; and it has a very long tail. In Africa no monkeys have prehensile tails; I mean by that, tails which they can twist round the branch of a tree, and so hang themselves with the head downwards. That kind of monkey is only found in South America.
The mondi has a dismal cry, which sounds very strangely in the silent woods, and always enabled me to tell where these monkeys were.
ABOKO KILLS A ROGUE ELEPHANT.CHAP. XVIII.
ABOKO KILLS A ROGUE ELEPHANT.CHAP. XVIII.
ALONE IN CAMP—HUNTING FOR ELEPHANTS—ABOKO KILLS A ROGUE ELEPHANT—I CUT ANOTHER PYTHON IN TWO—WE SHOOT SOME WILD BOARS—A BUFFALO HUNT—RETURN TO SANGATANGA—KING BANGO SICK.
One fine day I remained in the camp, for I had been hunting so much that I wanted a day of rest. All the others had gone to hunt. I was left alone, and I enjoyed the solitude, everything around me was so beautiful and quiet. Nature seemed to smile on all sides. I placed myself at the foot of a large tree, and wrote in my journals; and then I thought of the dear friends I had at home, and wondered if they sometimes thought of me. Then I called to mind all I had seen in the wonderful country which I had explored. I could hardly believe it myself: it seemed like a dream. What extraordinary people, and what curious beasts, had I not met!How many wonderful dangers I had escaped! How kind God had been in protecting me! How He had watched over the poor lonely traveller, and taken care of him during sickness! Thus my heart went up in gratitude, and I silently implored that the protection of God might still be granted me.
Towards sunset, Aboko and Niamkala made their appearance, and brought a fine young boar with them. As usual, without saying a word, they came right to me, and put the dead animal at my feet. Then, seating themselves and clapping their hands, Aboko began to tell me what had happened from the time they started in the morning until the time they returned. They forgot nothing, even mentioning the tracks of the animals they had seen. They reported they had found fresh elephant tracks, and thought the elephants had made their head-quarters there for a few days. After hearing this, we immediately resolved that we would all turn out after elephants on the following day.
Accordingly, in the evening, we cleaned and prepared our guns, and everybody went to sleep early.
The next morning we started about daybreak, each of us carrying some provisions. We were to fire no guns in the forest, for fear of frightening the elephants, who are very shy in this region. We had taken pains to load our guns in the most careful manner.
We hunted all day, but in vain; no elephants were to be seen. We slept out in the woods, for we were too far from the camp to return. We felt so tired that we had only sufficient strength left to enable us to fetch firewood, and to cut a few branches of trees and lie down upon them. I had lost or forgotten the matches, so I had to light the fire with a piece of steel and a gun-flint. This took a little longer.
Very soundly we all slept, as you may easily suppose.When I awoke in the midst of the night our fires were almost out; at least they did not blaze up enough to frighten the wild beasts. Aboko, Niamkala, and Fasiko were snoring tremendously. One was lying flat on his back, the other had his legs up, while Fasiko had his arm extended at full length. By the side of each was his gun, which touched him in some way, so that it could not be taken without awaking him. I believe it was their snoring that had aroused me. They were so tired, and seemed to sleep so soundly, that I did not want to wake them, so I went and added fuel to the fire, which soon began to blaze up again.
The next day found us again exploring the woods in every direction. Elephants certainly were not plentiful; besides they travelled much in search of their favourite food—a kind of fern, which was not very abundant. Again I got very tired; but at last, in the afternoon, we came across our quarry.
Emerging from a thick part of the forest into a prairie which bordered it, we saw to our left, just upon the edge of the wood, a solitary bull elephant. There we stood still. I wonder what he was thinking about! I had seen the great beast in menageries, and also among the Fans, and I have described to you an elephant hunt in their country, but then there was great confusion.
Here, the huge animal stood quietly by a tree, innocent of our presence; and now, for the first time in my life, I was struck with the vast size of this giant of the forests. Large trees seemed like small saplings when compared with the bulk of this immense beast which was standing placidly near them.
What were we to do but to kill him? Though I felt a sense of pity at trying to destroy so noble an animal, yet I was very anxious to get the first shot myself; for it was a "rogue elephant"—that is, anelephant unattached.[1] It was an old one, as we could see by the great size of its tusks. I remembered that rogue elephants are said to be very ferocious. So much the better, I thought. I had killed a good deal of game, and I had ceased to be afraid of any of them, though I felt that hunting was no child's play.
[1] Sir Emerson Tennent ("Ceylon," vol. ii. p. 304) speaks of "the class of solitary elephants, which are known by the term ofGoondapo, in India, and from their vicious propensities, and predatory habits, are called Hora, or Rogues, in Ceylon."
You must not think that we were standing up all this time in sight of the elephant. As soon as we had seen him, we lay down and hid ourselves in the forest, in such a manner as not to lose sight of him. Then we held a grand council, and talked over what must be done to bag the beast.
The grass was burnt in every direction to the leeward of him, and we dared not risk approaching him from the windward for fear he should smell us. What was to be done? The eyes of my men were fixed upon me with a keenly inquisitive look. They expected me to tell them what I thought best to do about the matter.
I looked at the country, and saw that the grass was very short; and, after taking account of all the chances of approach, I was compelled to admit that I could not manage to get near the beast myself with any certainty. I could not crawl on the ground; my clothes were sure to be seen by the elephant; therefore, as a sensible hunter, I was reluctantly compelled to resign in favour of Aboko, who, I thought, was the best man for the difficult undertaking. His eyes glistened with pleasure as he thought that now he could show his skill. Besides, among hunters there is something pleasant and exciting in knowing that you are about to rush into danger.
After cocking his musket, Aboko dropped down in the short grass, and began to creep up to the elephant slowly on his belly. The rest of us remained where we had held our council, and watched Aboko as he glided through the grass for all the world like a huge boa-constrictor; for, from the slight glimpses we caught, his back, as he moved farther and farther away from us, resembled nothing so much as the folds of a great serpent winding his way along. Finally we could no longer distinguish any motion. Then all was silence. I could hear the beating of my heart distinctly, I was so excited.
The elephant was standing still, when suddenly the sharp report of a gun rang through the woods and over the plain, and elicited screams of surprise from sundry scared monkeys who were on the branches of a tree close by us. I saw the huge beast helplessly tottering till he finally threw up his trunk, and fell in a dead mass at the foot of a tree. Then the black body of Aboko rose; the snake-like creature had become a man again. A wild hurrah of joy escaped from us; I waved my old hat, and threw it into the air, and we all made a run for the elephant. When we arrived, there stood Aboko by the side of the huge beast, calm as if nothing had happened, except that his body was shining with sweat. He did not say a word, but looked at me, and then at the beast, and then at me again, as if to say: "You see, Chaillu, you did right to send me. Have I not killed the elephant?"
The men began to shout with excitement at such a good shot. "Aboko is a man," said they, as we looked again at the beast, whose flesh was still quivering with the death agony. Aboko's bullet had entered his head a little below the ear, and, striking the brain, was at once fatal.
Aboko began to make fetich-marks on the groundaround the body. After this was done we took an axe, which Fasiko had carried with him, and broke the skull, in order to get out the two tusks, and very large tusks they were.
Of course we could not carry off the elephant, so Aboko and I slept that night near our prize on the grass and under the tree. Niamkala and Fasiko had started for the camp to tell the men the news, and the next morning all the men hurried out. While quietly resting under the shade of a tree close to the elephant, I spied them coming. As soon as they recognised us they shouted, and, when near enough, they made a spring at Aboko and then at the elephant. All the cutlasses, all the axes and knives that were in the camp, had been sharpened and brought out. Then the cutting up of the elephant took place. He was not very fat. What a huge beast he was! What a huge liver he had! What an enormous heart, too!
The trunk, being considered a choice morsel, was cut into small pieces. The meat was to be smoked immediately, and then carried to Sangatanga, to be sold and given away. Great bargains were looming before the men's eyes; they were all to get rich by selling the elephant's meat.
I never saw men more happy than these poor fellows were. The negroes believe in eating. Mine ate nothing but meat, and they ate such quantities of it that several of them got sick, and I was obliged to give them laudanum in brandy to cure them. They almost finished my little stock of brandy.
The camp was full of meat, and as we had no salt, the odour that came from it was not particularly agreeable. Indeed, I had to have a separate shanty built on one side, and to the windward of the camp. I could not stand the stench.
At night the negroes lay around the fires, the jolliestof mortals, drinking palm-wine, which they made regularly from the neighbouring palm-trees, and smoking tobacco when I was generous enough to give them some. In fact, they were as honest a set of negroes as I had met with anywhere, really good fellows.
As time passed on you must not think that I did nothing but kill animals. I rambled through the forest, and studied everything I saw. Sometimes, when too far away from the camp, and after a day of hard hunting, I slept soundly under a tree by the side of a big fire, with my gun by my side. I thought I would go hunting one day for wild animals; on another, for birds; and, when too tired to travel, I would remain in the camp, sleeping sweetly on my primitive couch, which consisted of a couple of mats spread on the bare and soft earth, with a thick blanket for cover, the foliage of a tree and the blue starlit sky being my canopy and roof. I had given up sleeping upon bare sticks, finding it too hard.
As fresh boar tracks had been seen near the camp, I could not resist the temptation of having another hunt after that savage beast. However tired I might be, I could hardly keep still whenever news came that game was near us. I was always in the hope of finding some new animal or something curious to stuff and bring home, to show what I had done.
We had not gone far when we heard, to the right of us, the grunting of some wild boars. As they are very wild, we jumped hastily behind a fallen tree to hide ourselves. In our haste to do this, I heedlessly stepped on something in my path, and, looking down, found I was running upon an immense serpent, a huge python, which lay snugly coiled up beside the tree. Happily, he was in a state of stupefaction, consequent, probably, on having eaten too heavy a dinner. Hescarcely moved, and did not raise his head. I ran to Niamkala, and borrowed a kind of heavy cutlass which he carried with him, and with a blow of this I cut the python in two pieces, which instantly began to squirm about in a very snaky and horrible way. During his death-struggle the monster disgorged the body of a young gazelle, which was in a half digested condition. This python was not quite twenty feet long—a pretty good-sized one, you may judge.
The noise we made in killing the snake of course frightened the wild pigs. We pursued them, and succeeded, by good management, and after a hard chase of an hour, in coming up with the herd. They were ten in number, and we managed to bag two. They were not very large. Besides these pigs, my hunters carried the two halves of the serpent to the camp. We were received there with demonstrations of joy. They made a kind of soup with the boa, and seemed to relish it very much. I did not taste it, and can therefore say nothing against it.
I never saw a country like this for game. There was so much prairie land that it reminded me of Southern Africa. The contrast with the great forest, where I had travelled for days without seeing anything, was very great.
For a few days I remained quiet in the camp. The men had in the meantime been hunting and exploring in various directions. As they reported that great herds of buffaloes frequented every night a prairie situated about ten miles from our camp, I determined to have a hunt for them. I was very fond of buffaloes, at least of their meat.
We set out and left our camp just before sunset. Our route was through the midst of prairie land, and by eight o'clock in the evening we reached the forest beyond. There we hoped to find our game; andsecuring for ourselves safe hiding-places in the woods on the edge of the plain, we lay down and waited. Now, waiting is generally tedious, but waiting in a cold night from eight to two o'clock, every moment expecting that which does not come, is apt to try one's patience severely. Mine was entirely gone, and I wished myself comfortably under my blanket in camp, when suddenly the buffaloes came. Aboko heard them coming, and presently a herd of about twenty-five animals emerged from the woods, and scattered quietly about the grassy plain.
The moon was going down, and we could see from our hiding-places the long shadows of the buffaloes, silently gliding one way or another, but never near enough to us for a shot. Soon they felt quite at ease, and began feeding, ever and anon gambling sportively with one another. Seeing them engaged, we crawled towards them slowly and with great care. We had almost got within safe range when a sudden change of wind discovered us to them. They snuffed up the air suspiciously, and instantly gathering together, they disappeared in the woods.
There was ill luck! My hunters cursed in Shekiani, and I grumbled in several languages. But there was still hope. Silently we crawled back to our lair, and waited patiently for two mortal hours; when at last two—a bull and a cow—stalked leisurely into the fields and began to crop the grass. It was now dark. The moon had gone down, leaving us only the uncertain light of the stars. We watched the motions of the buffaloes until we thought we could venture, and then silently crawled towards them again. This time we got within range. I chose the bull for my shot, and Niamkala took the cow, while Aboko was ready to second me with his gun in case I should not kill my animal. We fired both at once, and by good luck, forthe light was not enough to afford a chance for a fair shot, both the animals fell down dead.
Daylight soon appeared, and we resolved to return to the camp and send men to bring in the meat, thinking that no wild beasts would trouble our prizes at such unseasonable hours. Aboko and Niamkala first cut off the bushy tails of black glossy hair, and then we made for the camp, where they showed to our companions these trophies of our chase. The men made haste, and reached the place early, but not before the cow was half eaten by a hungry leopard. The poor leopard who ventured out so early in the morning must have been nearly famished. I did not grudge him his meal, though I should have liked to watch for him and shoot him, had I thought of his coming, for I had plenty of friends to whom I could have given his skin on my return.
A few days afterwards we broke up our camp, and loaded ourselves with the birds and beasts I had killed and prepared, and also with the meat which my men had smoked; and all the time they were boasting of how much tobacco and other dainties they would get for this. They seemed very jolly, though groaning under their burdens; and I was pleased to see them so happy. The specimens of theBos brachicheroswere an inconvenient load, and I was obliged to be very careful with them.
When I reached Sangatanga I found that the king was in worse health than he was when I had left. He was alarmed, fearing he would die. He remarked that it was singular he had been taken worse immediately after my departure; and that, in fact, he grew sick on the very night when I slept in his house.
FISHING.
FISHING.
A JOLLY EXCURSION PARTY—A RACE FOR THE FISHING BANKS—THE OROUNGOU BURIAL-GROUND.
Not long after we returned from our hunting expedition, I prepared to go to Fetich Point on a fishing excursion. For this purpose it was necessary to have canoes. I had called on King Bango since I returned, but, remembering the rats, I had respectfully declined the hospitality of his palace. Nevertheless, he remained my friend and gave me all the men I wanted.
I not only wanted to fish, but I also wished to seethe burial-ground of the Oroungous, which is not far from Fetich Point. There were also some enormous turtles on Fetich Point, I was told, and I wished to catch some of them.
My old hunting friend, Fasiko, had got together a party of forty men. Besides Fetich Point, I was to visit the Fetich river, and the end of Cape Lopez. There being no houses whatever there, the women had prepared for us a great quantity of powdered manioc, baskets of ground nuts, sweet potatoes, and bunches of plantain. We had a very large outfit. Fasiko got together a lot of mats to sleep upon, and kettles to cook in, and a great quantity of salt, with which to salt the fish we hoped to catch. We had several fish-nets made, of the fibre of a vine. We also had fish-hooks; and I took an enormous hook to catch sharks. I always had a hatred of sharks, they are such savage and voracious monsters.
We had a great number of baskets. The women carried these to put the fish in. We did not forget guns; for leopards lurk in the jungle, on the south side of the cape, and the boa hangs from the trees, waiting for his prey. If you got up early there, as everybody at a watering-place should, you can see huge elephants trotting down along the beach, and cooling their tender toes in the surf.
It was a very jolly party, for Cape Lopez is the Cape May, or Nahant of Sangatanga. The dry season there answers to our July, when "everybody that is anybody" is supposed to be "out of town and down by the seaside."
Niamkala and Aboko were of the party; for we were great friends; and wherever I went they wanted to go with me. They were slaves of King Bango; but we had shared the same dangers, we had shared the same pleasures.
At last everything was ready. I embarked in the biggest canoe, which was manned by sixteen oarsmen. As usual, there was a good deal of shouting and bustle before we got off. The sails, made with matting, were unfurled, and we set out across the bay. We had an exciting race to see which canoe was the fastest. There was a stiffbreeze; but unfortunately the wind was nearly in our faces, so that our sails were of little use. The men worked lustily at their paddles, and as they paddled they sang their wild canoe songs. The morning was clear and bright, but in the afternoon the sky became clouded. We reached Fetich Point a little before sunset; and the men, who seemed as lively and jolly as could be, at once cast their net, in a way not materially different from our mode of using the hand-net, and made a great haul of fish, the principal part of which were mullets. How beautiful they looked! They seemed like silver fish.
The men went immediately in search of firewood. We lighted our fires; and, having cooked and eaten our fish, which were delicious, we prepared for a night's rest by spreading mats upon the sand. It was terribly cold; for we were not sheltered from the wind, which went right through my blanket.
Not far from Fetich Point is the river Tetica, one of the tributaries of the Nazareth river. The Nazareth falls into the bay, through a tangled, dreary, and poisonous track of back country, consisting of mangrove swamps, like those I have described on the Monda river, and where, I daresay, no animals, except serpents, are to be found. There are no human habitations there.
In the morning, I wished to see the Oroungou burial-ground, before starting for Cape Lopez itself. It lay about a mile from our camp, towards Sangatanga, from which it is distant about half a day's pull in a canoe.
It was only by the promise of a large reward that I persuaded Niamkala to accompany me. The negroes visit the place only on funeral errands, and hold it in the greatest awe, conceiving that here the spirits of their ancestors wander about, and that they are not lightly to be disturbed.
Niamkala and I left the camp, and, following the seashore, we soon reached the place. It is in a grove of noble trees, many of them of magnificent size and shape. As I have said, the natives hold the place in great reverence.
The grove is by the sea. It is entirely cleared of underbrush; and, as the wind sighs through the dense foliage of the trees, and whispers in their darkened, somewhat gloomy recesses, there is something awful about the place. I thought how many lives had been sacrificed on these graves.
Niamkala stood in silence by the strand, while I entered the domain of the Oroungou dead.
The corpses are not put below the surface. They lie about beneath the trees, in huge wooden coffins, many of which are made of trees. By far the greater number were crumbling away. Some new ones betokened recent arrivals. The corpses of some had only been surrounded by a mat. Here was a coffin falling to pieces, and disclosing a grinning skeleton within. On the other side were skeletons, already without their covers, which lay in the dirt beside them. Everywhere were bleached bones, and mouldering remains. It was curious to see the brass anklets and bracelets, in which some Oroungou maiden or wife had been buried, still surrounding her whitened bones, and to note the remains of articles which had been laid in the coffin or put by the side of some wealthy fellow now crumbling to dust. What do you think these articles were? Umbrellas, guns, spears, knives, bracelets, bottles, cooking-pots, swords, plates, jugs, glasses, etc.
In some places there remained only little heaps of shapeless dust, from which some copper, or iron, or ivory ornaments, or broken pieces of the articles I have just mentioned, gleamed out, to prove that here, too, once lay a corpse, and exemplifying the saying of the Bible, "Dust, to dust thou shalt return." I could not help saying to myself. "Man, what art thou?"
Suddenly I came to a corpse that must have been put there only the day before. The man looked asleep, for death does not show its pallor in the face of the negro as it does in that of the white man. This corpse had been dressed in a coat, and wore a necklace of beads. By his side stood a jar, a cooking-pot, and a few other articles, which his friend, or his heir, had put by his side.
Passing on into a yet more sombre gloom, I came at last to the grave of old King Pass-all, the brother of the present king. Niamkala had pointed out to me the place where I should find it. The huge coffin lay on the ground, and was surrounded on every side with great chests, which contained some of the property of his deceased majesty. Many of them were tumbling down, and the property destroyed. The wood, as well as the goods, had been eaten up by the white ants. Among some of these chests, and on the top of them, were piled huge earthenware jugs, glasses, mugs, plates, iron pots, and brass kettles. Iron and copper rings, and beads were scattered around, with other precious things which Pass-all had determined to carry to the grave with him. There lay also the ghastly skeletons of the poor slaves, who, to the number of one hundred, were killed when the king died, that he might not pass into the other world without due attendance.
It was a grim sight, and one which filled me with a sadder feeling than even the disgusting slave barracoons had given me.
The land breeze was blowing when I returned, and we started for the sandy point of the cape. It is a curious beach, very low, and covered with a short scrub, which hides a part of the view, while the sand ahead is undistinguishable at a distance from the water, above which it barely rises. I was repeatedly disappointed, thinking we had come to the end, when in fact we had before us a long narrow sand-spit. Finally we reached the extreme end, and landed in smooth water on the inside of the spit.
The point gains continually upon the sea. Every year a little more sand appears above the water, while the line of short shrubs, which acts as a kind of dam or breakwater, is also extended, and holds the new land firm against the encroachments of old Neptune.
Among these shrubs we built our camp, and here for some days we had a very pleasant and lively time.
The weather was delightful; we had no rain, it being the dry season, and we were not afraid of the awful tornadoes.
TURNING TURTLES JUST BEFORE SUNRISE.
TURNING TURTLES JUST BEFORE SUNRISE.
OUR CAMP AT POINT FETICH—AN AFRICAN WATERING-PLACE—FISHING, BUT NOT BATHING—THE SHARKS—CURING MULLETS, ETC.—TURNING TURTLES—BIRD SHOOTING—A LEOPARD SPRINGS UPON US.
Our camp presented a very picturesque appearance, and was unlike the one described a little while ago, and of which I gave you a picture. Here each man had built for himself a cosy shade with mats, which, by the way, are very beautiful. These mats are about five or six feet inlength and three feet wide. We made our walls of them, so that we were sheltered from the wind. Our houses looked very much like large boxes.
As usual, the first day was occupied in making everything comfortable, and in collecting firewood, which it was not so easy a matter to find, for the shrubs did not furnish much, and we had to go far to get it; afterwards it was made the business of the children to gather brushwood for the fires; and the poor children had hard work too.
We built largeoralas, or frames, on which to dry the fish when salted, or to smoke it by lighting a fire beneath, in which case the oralas were built higher.
Some had brought with them large copper dishes, called Neptunes, which looked like gigantic plates, in which they were to boil down salt water to get supplies of salt for salting the fish, and to take home with them. Some of the women were all day making salt; when made, it was packed securely in baskets, and placed near the fire to keep it dry.
Every day we had some new kind of fish to eat, or to salt down.
As for myself, as I have said, I had brought along an immense shark-hook and a stout rope. The hook was attached to a strong chain two feet long, so that the teeth of the shark could not cut the line if they should swallow the piece of meat or the large fish put on the hook for a bait.
There were so many sharks swarming in the waters about the cape that they were often almost washed upon the beach by the waves. I never saw such an immense number. The Chinese, who eat sharks' fins, would find enough here to glut the Canton market. In truth, I sometimes trembled when in a canoe at the idea that it might upset, for if that had happened, in a short time I should have been seized by a dozenhungry sharks, been dragged to the bottom of the sea, and there been devoured. These sharks are certainly the lions and tigers of the water: they show no mercy. The very sight of them is horrible, for you cannot help thinking and saying to yourself, "I wonder how many people this shark has eaten!" There is a superstition among sailors that whenever there is a sick person aboard, the sharks will follow the ship, watching for the corpse to be thrown overboard.
I confess I felt a hatred for sharks, and while at Cape Lopez I killed as many of them as I could. Almost every day you could have seen me in a canoe near the shore, throwing my shark-hook into the sea, and after awhile making for the beach, and calling all the men together to pull with all our might, and draw in my victim. One day I took a blue-skin shark. He was a tremendous fellow. I thought we should never be able to haul him ashore, or that the line would part. It took us an hour before we saw him safely on the beach. Now and then I thought he would get the better of us, and that we should have to let the line go, or be pulled into the water. At last he came right up on the beach, and a great shout of victory welcomed him. Aboko was ready for him, and with a powerful axe he gave him a tremendous blow that cut off his tail. Then we smashed his head, and cut his body into several pieces, which quivered to and fro for some time. In his stomach we found a great number of fish. If I remember correctly, he had six or seven rows of teeth, and such ugly teeth! I pity the poor man whose leg should unfortunately get caught between them.
Hardly a day passed that I did not catch some sharks, and then for a bait I used to put on my hook a piece of their own flesh, which, like the cannibals, they ate apparently without any remorse.
There is another species of shark, of a grey leadencolour, which is shorter and thicker than the blue-skin shark; it has a broader head, and a much wider mouth, and is far more voracious. This species is the most common. It will attack a man in shallow water. I remember a poor boy who was going to his canoe, where the water was not up to his knees, when suddenly, just as he was going to get in, he was seized by his leg and dragged into the water by one of these terrible sharks, which had probably been for some time swimming along the beach watching for prey. In that country it is dangerous to bathe in the sea, and I did not attempt to do so. So much for the sharks.
Every day, on the muddy banks near the mouth of the Fetich river, we hauled in with our nets a great quantity of mullets and other fish. These were split open, cleaned, salted, dried, and smoked, and then packed away in baskets.
Sometimes, early in the morning, we went out to turn turtles. To do this we had to start before daylight. They came on the beach to lay their eggs in the sand, which the sea does not reach. There the heat of the sun hatches them out. I have sometimes spied these turtles early in the morning coming out of the water and ascending the beach in a clumsy way, until they reached the dry spot where they wish to lay their eggs. After laying them, they manage to cover them with sand. I should have liked very much to have seen the young ones come out of the eggs. How funny the little wee turtles must look! But I have never been so fortunate.
One day we caught a turtle which had only three legs; the fourth had been bitten off, no doubt by a hungry shark. The wound had got well, and must have been made long before we caught the turtle.
Would you like to know how we captured turtles?
As soon as they see people coming towards themthey generally make for the water. Then we rush with all speed upon the unwieldy turtle, and with one jerk roll it over on its back, where it lies, vainly struggling to recover its legs. Then we kill it.
Hundreds of eggs are sometimes found in one turtle. I was very fond of them when found in the body, otherwise I did not like them. They made splendid omelettes.
The turtles look very curious when they lie fast asleep on the water. At such times I am told that, with great care, they may be approached and captured.
Besides fishing, we had hunting also. South of the cape was a dense forest, in which might be found most of the animals that live in African woods. Several times we saw elephants on the beach, but we shot none. I killed a great number of sea fowls, which fly about there in such flocks as almost to darken the air. They collect in this way in order to feed on the fish which are so plentiful.
One evening, as Aboko, Niamkala, and I were returning from a fruitless hunt in the woods, we fell in with larger game. Passing along the edge of the forest we were suddenly startled by a deep growl. Looking quickly about, we perceived an immense male leopard just crouching for a spring upon our party. Fortunately our guns were loaded with ball. No doubt we had come upon the animal unawares. In a flash we all three fired into the beast, for there was no time to be lost. He was already upon the spring, and our shot met him as he rose. He fell dead and quivering almost within a foot of Aboko, who may be said to have had a very narrow escape, for the leopard had singled him out as his prey. He was an immense animal, and his skin, which I preserved as a trophy, is most beautifully shaded and spotted; in fact there is scarcely a more beautiful animal than the African leopard.
At the mouth of the Nazareth the savage saw-fish is found. It is no doubt one of the most formidable, and the most terrible of the animals that live in the water.
I was quietly paddling in a little canoe, when my attention was drawn to a great splashing of water a little way off. I saw at once it was a deadly combat between two animals. All round the water was white with foam. The cause of this could not be two hippopotami fighting, for in that case I should have seen them.
I approached cautiously, having first made my two rifles ready in case of an emergency. At last I came near enough to see an enormous saw-fish attacking a large shark. It was a fearful combat; both fought with desperation. But what could the shark do against the powerful saw of his antagonist?
At last they came too near my canoe. I moved off lest they might attack my canoe, for they would have made short work of my small, frail boat; and a single blow of the saw-fish would have disabled me. Each tooth of the saw must have been two inches long, and there were, I should say, forty on each side; the saw was about five feet long. In the end, the saw-fish, more active than the shark, gave him a terrible blow, making his teeth go right through the flesh of the shark. Several such blows were quickly delivered, and all became still, the foam ceased, and the water resumed its accustomed stillness. I paddled towards the scene, when suddenly I saw, at the bottom of the river, what I recognised to be a great shark; it was dead, and lay on its back, showing its belly. The body was frightfully lacerated.
The saw-fish had killed its antagonist, and left the field of battle, and only the blood of the shark stained the water.
In the bay of Cape Lopez, in the month of July, Icould see whales playing about in every direction, and sending water high into the air.
They come at that time of the year with their young; and the water of the bay being very quiet, they enjoy there the sea, and the young whales get strong before they go into the broad ocean. Very pretty it looks to see them swimming by the side of the big mothers.
Year after year the whales came, always in July; but one year the whalers found them out, and made war upon them; and now, when July comes, they are no more to be seen, for the whale is very intelligent, and knows well the places where he is not safe; so they look out for some other unfrequented bay wherein to play and train their young.
Besides the whale, all the year round can be seen what the sailor commonly calls thebottle-nose, an enormous fish, not so big as a whale, but nevertheless of great size. It is of the whale family.