In the Wilds of Africa Part 34

Meantime every arrangement was made for starting. The oxen were harnessed to the huge machine; Kate and Bella took their seats by the side of their brother. The word was given to move on. The Hottentot drivers smacked their huge whips, and the lumbering waggon was put in motion. Natty and Leo had greatly recovered; but that they might not be fatigued, room was also made for them inside. Donald and Senhor Silva mounted their horses, and David and I agreed to take one between us.

When he rode, I was to walk, or mount an ox. The rest of the party proceeded on foot, or on the oxen. Far as the eye could reach, nothing but brown earth and leafless shrubs and trees could be seen; the ravaging hordes of locusts had cleared off every particle of verdure from the ground. North and south, east and west, the country had become a barren wilderness. The prospect for our poor oxen was a melancholy one. We could only push on therefore as fast as they could travel, in the hope of speedily getting beyond the ravaged country. Our friend Donald looked very grave. All day long we travelled on. The cattle began to show signs of thirst. We ourselves were also suffering from want of water, as we were afraid of exhausting the small supply we had brought in our bottles. At length some rocks appeared ahead, near which Donald told us was a pool. The cattle seemed to be aware of it, and eagerly moved on; but as we got near, no bright gleam, such as gladdens the sight of the thirsty traveller, played on the spot. On arriving at it, a ma.s.s of locusts and their larvae were alone visible, completely filling the s.p.a.ce where the water should have been.

Our men immediately set to work, and literally dug them out and threw them in ma.s.ses on the sh.o.r.e. We ourselves could not have drunk a drop.

The pool seemed filled with a thick, muddy, and putrid liquid. The cattle, however, when let loose, rushed down to it and drank eagerly, though I was afraid it would produce disease among them. Poor creatures! if there was nourishment in it, it was the only food they got; for that night we had to camp without water for ourselves or fodder for them.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

CROSSING THE DESERT.

Many days had pa.s.sed by, during which the usual incidents of African travel had occurred; but I need not stop to describe them, except to say that Mr Fraser had been successful in killing several elephants, which he did for the sake of their tusks, and also in purchasing a large quant.i.ty of ivory from the natives who visited our camp to trade, or inhabited the villages near which we pa.s.sed. Thus he had no reason to complain of the long journey he had made to rescue us, although we were not the less inclined to be grateful to him.

The country ravaged by the locusts had been pa.s.sed at last, but not till our cattle were almost starved, and we and they had suffered greatly from want of water. The dried and pounded locusts had a.s.sisted to support our people, but we were now greatly in want of provisions.

Stanley had borne the journey remarkably well, and was rapidly recovering from the hurts inflicted upon him by the lion; while Leo and Natty were completely themselves again. Stanley was very anxious once more to mount his horse and to a.s.sist in hunting, in order to supply the camp with food; but of this David would not hear, and declared that it would be equivalent to fratricide if he allowed it. Donald, Timbo, and I, and sometimes Senhor Silva, therefore scoured the country in every direction in search of game. Donald and I were riding on ahead one day, when he observed on a bush a fly somewhat smaller than the common blue-bottle fly--so annoying to the butcher--but with rather longer wings. Begging me to hold his horse, he jumped off and caught it.

Instantly leaping into his saddle, he told me to turn and ride for my life, with an expression of consternation in his countenance which made me fancy that he had suddenly gone out of his mind. However, as we rode on he explained that the fly which he held in his fingers was the tsetse fly (David called it the _Glossina morsitans_), and that it was more dangerous to cattle and horses than all the lions and snakes in the country. Fortunately our horses had not been bitten by it. He told me that had such been the case their death would have been certain. It attacks, however, only domesticated animals, for wild beasts range over the country infested by it with impunity; while human beings are scarcely more annoyed by it than they are by flea-bites. It is confined to certain localities, and is never known to s.h.i.+ft its haunts. He told me that it was found generally in the bush or among reeds. Though the insect is small, yet the poison it contains is of so virulent a nature that its bite is as deadly to horses and oxen as that of the most venomous serpent. Donald said he had ample reason to be afraid of it, for on one occasion, not believing in its power to injure him, he had attempted to pa.s.s through a district infested by it, when he lost all his oxen and horses, and very nearly his own life and that of his companions. They were in a wild and uninhabited district, and were barely able to secure provisions and water sufficient to support themselves, till they could obtain a.s.sistance. He said that four or five flies were sufficient to kill a full-grown ox. The animal, however, does not die so rapidly as when bitten by a snake. Sometimes, indeed, it exists for some weeks or months afterwards, gradually losing its strength, and peris.h.i.+ng ultimately of exhaustion. Frequently, however, oxen die, especially should rain fall, soon after they are bitten. In the case of one of his horses which had been bitten, the head and body swelled, its eyes became so swollen that it could not see, and it was painful to hear it neighing for its companions, who stood close to it while feeding. A remarkable feature with regard to the poison of the tsetse is that calves, and other young sucking animals, are safe so long as they suck; but it has been remarked that dogs though reared on milk die if bitten, while a dog which was reared on the meat of game accompanied his master when hunting in the districts infested by the fly without suffering.

We had now entered a far more desolate-looking country than any we had yet pa.s.sed through. Vast sandy plains extended round us, broken here and there by clumps of low bushes or coa.r.s.e long gra.s.s, with occasional patches of more nutritious verdure, from which our oxen plucked their scanty meals. Still, occasionally, herds of deer pa.s.sed us in the distance, but they were so wary that we could not approach them. The open nature of the country made stalking in the ordinary way impossible.

Every night, however, Donald, accompanied by Timbo, spent two or three hours, and sometimes longer, in lying in ambush, hoping to get a shot at a pa.s.sing animal, but their success had hitherto not been sufficient to supply us with as much meat as we required. Water too was very scarce.

We had been travelling slowly all day, when our cattle began to move on with greater rapidity than before, evidently believing that water was near. Donald was riding ahead, looking about him, when suddenly he and his horse disappeared. I was at no great distance behind him, and before I could pull up I was very nearly following. I found that he had slid down into a large sand-well, some twenty feet in diameter at the top, and upwards of twelve feet in depth. As soon as he was extricated from the pit, the men were called with spades to clear it out. However, after digging some time, no water flowed into it, though the bottom became thoroughly moist. We fortunately had some long reeds with us.

These were sunk into the sand, and immediately water began to rise. We quickly got enough to quench the thirst of the people, but we had to wait some time before a supply could be procured for the cattle. As soon as water had been given to the horses, Timbo set out in search of game. We were as unfortunate as we had usually been of late. Perhaps this might have arisen from our want of skill. Donald was an inferior hunter to Stanley, and had he been well, we should have met with more success. Timbo was riding near me, when I found him eagerly examining the sand on one side. Without saying a word he jumped from his horse, and began sc.r.a.ping away. Presently he produced a huge egg, then another, and another.

"Dere!" he exclaimed; "we no want food now. See, here are anoder dozen!

Dey eggs of ostrich!"

I looked into the nest, and saw that the eggs were arranged with their ends uppermost, to occupy, I concluded, as small a s.p.a.ce as possible.

"But, Timbo," I said, "do you think they are fresh, for otherwise I fear they would be of little use?"

"Oh yes," he said; "de hen-ostrich only just laid dem. See! see! dere she is, too, watching us!"

At that moment a loud roar saluted my ears. Instantly unslinging my rifle, I prepared to fire, believing that a lion was about to attack us, so similar was the voice to that of the king of beasts in a rage; but on looking round I could see no lion, but instead I caught sight, in the distance, of a huge long-necked bird, which I knew must be an ostrich, evidently observing with anxiety the visit we were paying to her nest.

She had gone away, Timbo said, to feed, or otherwise we should probably have found her sitting, as the flamingoes do, with her legs astraddle above it. The poor bird did not attempt to fly, and accordingly gave us time to secure the eggs in a way which we hoped would prevent their being broken. Donald had by this time come up, and telling Timbo to take charge of the eggs, started with me in chase of the ostrich. As we approached the bird, under the idea perhaps of leading us from her eggs, or alarmed, more probably, she set off at full speed. It seemed hopeless, however, to me that we should ever catch her. Away she flew, at first with small strides, increasing every instant, and extending her wings like sails. Her feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground, and yet we could see huge stones thrown up behind her, flying into the air.

"On, lad! on!" shouted Donald. "We will weary her out this hot day.

She will slacken her pace soon, and we may turn her maybe towards Timbo, if we do not run her down." Instead of pursuing directly in the wake of the bird, he turned on one side and I on the other; and at length she began, as he had expected, to slacken her tremendous speed. We were now moving up on parallel lines at some distance from her. At length we got ahead, when the bird, wheeling round, started back towards her nest.

"Hurrah!" shouted Donald, "she is ours now!" Again we followed the mighty bird, never for a moment allowing her to stop. It seemed a question whether she or our horses would have to give in first. At length a patch of the candelabra-shaped tree euphorbia appeared in sight, and the hard-pressed ostrich darted towards it, endeavouring, it seemed, to force her way through. Pressing on, we were soon close to her, when Donald, raising his rifle, fired, and the bird fell over. I was galloping up, when he called to me. "Stand back! You might as well get near a dying lion! A kick from one of her feet would break your horse's leg, and kill you, if you got within her reach." In a few minutes the bird ceased to move, and jumping from our horses we approached. The ostrich must have been nearly eight feet in height, the feathers being of an ashy brown colour, slightly fringed with white.

And now, for the first time, I saw those magnificent large plumes of beautiful white feathers which form the wings and tail of the bird.

These the trader immediately began to pluck out with the greatest care, and having done so, secured them to our backs, where they were likely to be free from injury. He called me to a.s.sist him in hoisting the body up on his horse. It must have weighed upwards of two hundred pounds, no slight addition to the burden his tired steed had to bear.

On reaching Timbo we found that he had discovered another nest of eggs.

With these I loaded myself, and well satisfied with our prizes we returned to the camp. "No starve now, Ma.s.sa Andrew!" said Timbo, as he gave an affectionate glance at the huge eggs. As we rode up David and the two boys saluted us with shouts of laughter, at the extraordinary appearance we cut with the ostrich feathers sticking above our shoulders. Donald, I found, claimed them as his own property, and I did not wish to dispute the point, though I should have liked to have presented one to Kate and Bella. I could only hope to capture another bird without a.s.sistance. As soon as we had deposited our burdens, Timbo set to work to prepare the eggs. His process was a simple one. First, having made a hole at the end of the egg, he introduced into it salt, pepper, flour, and one or two other ingredients. He then shook the egg thoroughly, so as to mix what he had put in, as well as the white and yolk. He then placed the eggs he had thus prepared in the hot ashes, where they were soon perfectly baked. Meantime the other blacks, having skinned the bird, had cut it up, and began to roast it. We all quickly a.s.sembled round our usual supper-table--a cloth spread under an awning which projected a short distance from the waggon. The ostrich egg-omelets were p.r.o.nounced excellent. Although it is said that the ostrich egg, prepared in the way I have described, is equal to that of two dozen common fowl eggs, Mr Donald Fraser managed to eat a couple; while I found no difficulty in swallowing the greater part of one of them. David, Kate, and Bella, however, expressed themselves perfectly satisfied with a single one divided among them.

As we were seated at our supper, various anecdotes were told of the ostrich. Donald said he had seen the Bushmen stalk them much in the same way that we had seen the blacks further north stalk the buffalo.

The Bushman stuffs the head and neck of the ostrich, into which he introduces a stick, forming a sort of mantle for his shoulders with the feathers, so as greatly to resemble the bird. As his legs are black and the ostrich's white, he paints his legs with white, and taking his bow and arrow in his hand, sets off for the chase. It is extraordinary how admirably he mimics the ostrich--now stops, as if to feed, then turns his head as if keeping a look-out for enemies. Now he walks along slowly, then trots, just as the ostrich does, till he gets within bow-shot. With seldom erring aim he then pulls his bow. Instead of following the bird he has struck, however, when the others run away, he runs also. Should any wary old bird suspect that all is not right, and come towards him, he endeavours to escape; but if the bird approaches him, to avoid a stroke of its claws, or a blow from its wing, he sometimes throws off his disguise, which he leaves on the ground, and runs away to a distance to be prepared to pull his bow. He generally uses poisoned arrows, dipped in the milky juice of the tree euphorbia.

A slight wound from his weapon quickly brings the ostrich to the ground.

Formerly, he told us, it was supposed that the ostrich left its eggs to be hatched in the sand by the heat of the sun, as cold-blooded reptiles are known to do, but this is not the case. The hen-ostrich sits upon her eggs with great care, and as soon as the young are hatched, provides them with nourishment; and as broken eggs are generally found outside the nest, it is supposed that she keeps a certain number unhatched, that she may feed the young birds on them. She generally hatches about a dozen eggs; but the Hottentots play her a trick to induce her to lay a larger number. As soon as they find out a nest, they watch till the bird has left it to go in search of food, and then sc.r.a.pe out with a long stick two or three at a time. On returning and finding the number she expected deficient, she lays enough to supply their place, and thus goes on from day to day, till she has laid upwards of forty in the season. Timbo a.s.serted that not only does man wage war against the ostrich, but that a white vulture is particularly fond of her eggs. As his beak is not sufficiently strong to break the sh.e.l.l, he seizes a large stone between his talons, and soaring with it high into the air, gets over the nest; he then lets it drop upon the eggs, seldom failing to break a sufficient number to afford himself a repast. The young ostriches, when they emerge from the nest, are about the size of pullets. They are quickly able to follow the mother, who supplies them for a considerable time with food. Their colour is a kind of pepper and salt, resembling the gravel and sand of the plain over which they roam; so that it is with the greatest difficulty they can be seen by the hunter, even when close to them. They are clothed with a kind of p.r.i.c.kly stubble, which is neither down nor feathers, and which probably defends them from the coa.r.s.e vegetation and gravel which covers the region where they exist. The Romans called the ostrich the _Struthio camelus_, in consequence of its resemblance in many respects to the camel of the desert. The ostrich, like the camel, is able, from the formation of its interior, to exist for a long time without water, feeding on the stunted and dried herbage of the desert. Its foot is formed curiously, like that of the camel; and it has also excrescences on its breast, on which it leans whilst sleeping. To complete the likeness, it has the same muscular neck, which rises high above the plain, and enables it to perceive the approach of an enemy, while its body is out of sight.

We had already witnessed the care which a hen-ostrich takes of her nest, and Donald told us that one day he was riding along, when he came near a bird evidently sitting. She remained quiet till he advanced, when instantly she sprang up and rushed towards him, hissing violently. When he turned round, she retreated a dozen paces or so; but directly he rode on she again rushed after him, endeavouring by her hisses to frighten him off.

"Did you kill her, Mr Fraser, after her exhibition of maternal affection?"

"I did," was the answer; "and got her feathers and her eggs, and I and my people ate her up afterwards. Necessity has no law, I know; and if a trader in these regions were to give way to sentiment, he might have to go back with an empty waggon."

The ostrich has, properly speaking, only the rudiments of wings, which are utterly unable to lift it off the ground. It is, however, those magnificent white plumes in the tail and wings which a.s.sist it to run at the rapid rate I have described. Both male and female possess these white plumes. The body of the male differs from that of the female. It is of a deep glossy black, among which a few whitish feathers are mingled, but only visible when the plumage is ruffled.

While we were still talking about the ostrich, Leo started up, exclaiming, "See! see! there is one just outside the camp. Run for your gun, Andrew. You may get a shot at it."

There, sure enough, was an object moving slowly towards us, apparently utterly fearless of the fire. Now it began to run exactly as the ostrich does. Now it stopped and bent its head as if to feed.

Presently it stretched out its neck, and a loud roar, which sounded very like that of a lion, burst from its throat.

"Do not fire, Mr Crawford," exclaimed Donald; "for if you do, you will be apt to hit a friend;" and he and Stanley burst into a loud laugh, echoed by Timbo and some of the black boys near us, and directly afterwards the seeming ostrich came trotting merrily into the camp.

Some of Donald's servants had been amusing themselves in forming such a disguise as I have already described, with the hope of catching a bird or more by means of it on the following day.

While the waggon proceeded onwards the next morning, our friend Donald again set out, accompanied this time by Chickango, to a.s.sist him in carrying home any game he might procure. They were to proceed on a line parallel with the caravan, while we ranged at a further distance. We went some little way together. We were about to separate, when, standing up, I caught sight of what I took to be the head of an ostrich in the distance, and we rode towards it. We had not got far when Donald exclaimed, "There is another! I hope there may be a family of them!"

Directly afterwards we saw the female bird scampering away, and the male following at some little distance.

"I see no young birds," I observed. "I think you must have been mistaken."

"They are there, though, notwithstanding," observed my companion. "I know it by the way they run. Depend upon it, they would be going twice as fast as that if they were alone."

Putting our horses to their utmost speed, we at length nearly overtook the ostriches; and then I saw a number of little brown duckling-looking birds following at the heels of the female ostrich. Greatly to my surprise, the male ostrich at this moment stopped short, and then wheeling round, darted off on one side. As we were anxious to obtain the young as well as the mother, we continued our pursuit of her. On this he once more put on his utmost speed; but instead of going in a straight line, kept wheeling round and round us, using every effort to attract our attention. Instead of increasing, he decreased his circles, till he got within twenty yards of me, when, to my surprise, over he fell on the ground, and began to struggle desperately, and I thought he would easily be our prize. I therefore dashed forward; but quick as lightning he was on his legs again, running off in an opposite direction to that which the hen had taken. "You follow him, and I will go after the other," exclaimed Donald, perhaps thinking, from some remarks that I had made, that I should not have the heart to knock over the mother and her young brood. I had ridden some way in chase of the male ostrich, when a bird appeared in the distance, towards which he immediately directed his course, fancying, perhaps, that it was his own hen and her young ones. He was a long way ahead of me, and I had lost all hope of overtaking him, for my horse was already beginning to pant with exertion, when the report of a rifle came from the direction where I saw the other bird, and immediately my chase rolled over on the sand, the stranger rus.h.i.+ng towards him, while three black heads appeared from some low rocks a little way beyond. Poor fellow! He deserved a better fate!

The stranger bird turned out to be one of Donald's Hottentots, who, with his companions, had been fortunately in the right direction to intercept him. I insisted on appropriating the tail of the bird, a.s.serting that the Hottentots would not have killed him had I not chased him up to them.

My horse being by this time well tired, we set off to overtake the waggon. Late in the day Donald arrived with the hen-ostrich over his saddle, his back and head ornamented with the feathers, and half a dozen young birds hanging from the crupper.

"Well, he does cut a curious figure!" exclaimed Leo, who saw Donald approaching. "If I had seen him for the first time, I should have taken him to be a fledged centaur--a mixture of man, quadruped, and bird."

Donald was inclined to claim the feathers I had appropriated; but Senhor Silva coming to my support, it was agreed that they were mine by right of conquest; and I had the satisfaction of presenting them to my fair cousins--the first trophies of the chase which I had deemed worthy of their acceptance.

We obtained, during the following days, a further supply of ostrich eggs, which, with the birds we had killed, gave us as much food as we required. We found it, when moving forward, very necessary to be careful not to deviate from the right course. Frequently over the country where there were no tracks, and often no landmarks, this was very difficult. Often it was a long day's journey from one fountain or pool to the next spot where water could be procured, and we knew well that without the necessary supply we and our cattle would suffer severely, even if we did not lose them altogether, in which case we should be involved in their destruction. Though I much enjoyed my gallops over the country, I was very thankful when Stanley was once more able to mount his horse; and I had, in consequence, generally to proceed on the back of one of the riding oxen, with Natty or Leo behind me. We were now able to carry far more water than usual. I should have said that the ostrich eggs were never broken. Their contents were extracted through a hole in one end, and were carefully surrounded by a basket-work of reeds, thus forming complete, and tolerably strong, bottles. At each fountain we came to they were re-filled.

"We have a long day's journey before us," observed Mr Fraser one morning as we were inspanning, as the colonists call yoking, the oxen to the waggon; "and I wish I was sure that we should find water at the end of it. We have not enough left for the oxen, as we must keep all we have for the horses and ourselves."

He looked graver than usual, and not without reason. The heat was very great, and we had a wide extent of country before us, the soil consisting of light-coloured soft sand, which appeared incapable of producing any green thing for the support of animals. Pa.s.s it, however, we must, as it extended right across our path to the south, far away to the east, from the very coast of the Atlantic. Notwithstanding this, our party were in good spirits, from feeling that we were now making steady progress towards home.

"We have encountered so many dangers, and escaped them, that we should not mistrust the willingness of the kind hand of Providence to protect us to the end of our journey," observed Kate.

Her calm confidence gave us all courage, and we resolved not to allow any antic.i.p.ation of evil to oppress us. Kate had never relaxed in her resolution to instruct Bella under all difficulties, and the greater part of the day they sat in the waggon with their books before them, or their work in their hands, labouring away as diligently as they would have done in their home in the colony. Leo and Natty were far more idle, though they occasionally took their seats near the young ladies, and either read to them, or listened to their reading. The Bible was their chief book, and happily its stores are inexhaustible. The other works they had read over and over again, till they declared that they could no longer look at them with patience. The heat was so great, that we were compelled to camp during the middle of the day, finding that we could make more progress by travelling early in the morning and again in the evening.

We had travelled on since daylight, when a group of trees, which are found here and there even on the desert, gladdened our eyes. We unyoked our weary oxen beneath them, and sought such shelter as their branches would afford; but not a drop or sign of water was to be seen round them.

It seemed surprising how they could exist in that arid spot. Fires were lighted to cook the remnant of our provisions, though they also had fallen very short. We were seated at our meal, when Stanley started up, exclaiming, "We must have some of those fellows! Who will come with me?" He pointed eastward--the quarter whence the wind blew--and there I saw, moving slowly over the plain, and cropping the scanty herbage as they went, a large herd of antelopes.

"I will," I said, "if I can have a horse."

"You shall have mine," said Senhor Silva.

"I must go with you!" exclaimed Donald Fraser, gulping down the largest part of the contents of an ostrich egg.

Donald having giving directions for the caravan to move on, and appointed their halting--place, we mounted our horses, intending to meet it there at night, and galloped off towards the herd. I imitated my companions' att.i.tude of leaning down, so as to conceal my head as much as possible, that we might get near without alarming the herd, keeping to leeward. Some time pa.s.sed before they were aware of our approach.