King Solomon's Mines
by
H. Rider Haggard
Part 1 out of 5
Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz
and Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
KING SOLOMON'S MINES
by H. RIDER HAGGARD
DEDICATION
This faithful but unpretending record
of a remarkable adventure
is hereby respectfully dedicated
by the narrator,
ALLAN QUATERMAIN,
to all the big and little boys
who read it.
PREPARER'S NOTE
This was typed from a 1907 edition published by Cassell and
Company, Limited.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The author ventures to take this opportunity to thank his readers
for the kind reception they have accorded to the successive
editions of this tale during the last twelve years. He hopes that
in its present form it will fall into the hands of an even wider
public, and that in years to come it may continue to afford
amusement to those who are still young enough at heart to love a
story of treasure, war, and wild adventure.
Ditchingham,
11 March, 1898.
POST SCRIPTUM
Now, in 1907, on the occasion of the issue of this edition, I can
only add how glad I am that my romance should continue to please
so many readers. Imagination has been verified by fact; the King
Solomon's Mines I dreamed of have been discovered, and are putting
out their gold once more, and, according to the latest reports,
their diamonds also; the Kukuanas or, rather, the Matabele, have
been tamed by the white man's bullets, but still there seem to be
many who find pleasure in these simple pages. That they may
continue so to do, even to the third and fourth generation, or
perhaps longer still, would, I am sure, be the hope of our old and
departed friend, Allan Quatermain.
H. Rider Haggard.
Ditchingham, 1907.
INTRODUCTION
Now that this book is printed, and about to be given to the world, a
sense of its shortcomings both in style and contents, weighs very
heavily upon me. As regards the latter, I can only say that it does
not pretend to be a full account of everything we did and saw. There
are many things connected with our journey into Kukuanaland that I
should have liked to dwell upon at length, which, as it is, have been
scarcely alluded to. Amongst these are the curious legends which I
collected about the chain armour that saved us from destruction in the
great battle of Loo, and also about the "Silent Ones" or Colossi at
the mouth of the stalactite cave. Again, if I had given way to my own
impulses, I should have wished to go into the differences, some of
which are to my mind very suggestive, between the Zulu and Kukuana
dialects. Also a few pages might have been given up profitably to the
consideration of the indigenous flora and fauna of Kukuanaland.[*]
Then there remains the most interesting subject--that, as it is, has
only been touched on incidentally--of the magnificent system of
military organisation in force in that country, which, in my opinion,
is much superior to that inaugurated by Chaka in Zululand, inasmuch as
it permits of even more rapid mobilisation, and does not necessitate
the employment of the pernicious system of enforced celibacy. Lastly,
I have scarcely spoken of the domestic and family customs of the
Kukuanas, many of which are exceedingly quaint, or of their
proficiency in the art of smelting and welding metals. This science
they carry to considerable perfection, of which a good example is to
be seen in their "tollas," or heavy throwing knives, the backs of
these weapons being made of hammered iron, and the edges of beautiful
steel welded with great skill on to the iron frames. The fact of the
matter is, I thought, with Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good, that the
best plan would be to tell my story in a plain, straightforward
manner, and to leave these matters to be dealt with subsequently in
whatever way ultimately may appear to be desirable. In the meanwhile I
shall, of course, be delighted to give all information in my power to
anybody interested in such things.
[*] I discovered eight varieties of antelope, with which I was
previously totally unacquainted, and many new species of plants,
for the most part of the bulbous tribe.--A.Q.
And now it only remains for me to offer apologies for my blunt way of
writing. I can but say in excuse of it that I am more accustomed to
handle a rifle than a pen, and cannot make any pretence to the grand
literary flights and flourishes which I see in novels--for sometimes I
like to read a novel. I suppose they--the flights and flourishes--are
desirable, and I regret not being able to supply them; but at the same
time I cannot help thinking that simple things are always the most
impressive, and that books are easier to understand when they are
written in plain language, though perhaps I have no right to set up an
opinion on such a matter. "A sharp spear," runs the Kukuana saying,
"needs no polish"; and on the same principle I venture to hope that a
true story, however strange it may be, does not require to be decked
out in fine words.
Allan Quatermain.
KING SOLOMON'S MINES
CHAPTER I
I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS
It is a curious thing that at my age--fifty-five last birthday--I
should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history. I wonder
what sort of a history it will be when I have finished it, if ever I
come to the end of the trip! I have done a good many things in my
life, which seems a long one to me, owing to my having begun work so
young, perhaps. At an age when other boys are at school I was earning
my living as a trader in the old Colony. I have been trading, hunting,
fighting, or mining ever since. And yet it is only eight months ago
that I made my pile. It is a big pile now that I have got it--I don't
yet know how big--but I do not think I would go through the last
fifteen or sixteen months again for it; no, not if I knew that I
should come out safe at the end, pile and all. But then I am a timid
man, and dislike violence; moreover, I am almost sick of adventure. I
wonder why I am going to write this book: it is not in my line. I am
not a literary man, though very devoted to the Old Testament and also
to the "Ingoldsby Legends." Let me try to set down my reasons, just to
see if I have any.
First reason: Because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good asked me.
Second reason: Because I am laid up here at Durban with the pain in my
left leg. Ever since that confounded lion got hold of me I have been
liable to this trouble, and being rather bad just now, it makes me
limp more than ever. There must be some poison in a lion's teeth,
otherwise how is it that when your wounds are healed they break out
again, generally, mark you, at the same time of year that you got your
mauling? It is a hard thing when one has shot sixty-five lions or
more, as I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should
chew your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the
thing, and putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and
don't like that. This is by the way.
Third reason: Because I want my boy Harry, who is over there at the
hospital in London studying to become a doctor, to have something to
amuse him and keep him out of mischief for a week or so. Hospital work
must sometimes pall and grow rather dull, for even of cutting up dead
bodies there may come satiety, and as this history will not be dull,
whatever else it may be, it will put a little life into things for a
day or two while Harry is reading of our adventures.
Fourth reason and last: Because I am going to tell the strangest story
that I remember. It may seem a queer thing to say, especially
considering that there is no woman in it--except Foulata. Stop,
though! there is Gagaoola, if she was a woman, and not a fiend. But
she was a hundred at least, and therefore not marriageable, so I don't
count her. At any rate, I can safely say that there is not a
/petticoat/ in the whole history.
Well, I had better come to the yoke. It is a stiff place, and I feel
as though I were bogged up to the axle. But, "/sutjes, sutjes/," as
the Boers say--I am sure I don't know how they spell it--softly does
it. A strong team will come through at last, that is, if they are not
too poor. You can never do anything with poor oxen. Now to make a
start.
I, Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman, make oath and say--
That's how I headed my deposition before the magistrate about poor
Khiva's and Ventvögel's sad deaths; but somehow it doesn't seem quite
the right way to begin a book. And, besides, am I a gentleman? What is
a gentleman? I don't quite know, and yet I have had to do with niggers
--no, I will scratch out that word "niggers," for I do not like it.
I've known natives who /are/, and so you will say, Harry, my boy,
before you have done with this tale, and I have known mean whites with
lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who /are not/.
At any rate, I was born a gentleman, though I have been nothing but a
poor travelling trader and hunter all my life. Whether I have remained
so I known not, you must judge of that. Heaven knows I've tried. I
have killed many men in my time, yet I have never slain wantonly or
stained my hand in innocent blood, but only in self-defence. The
Almighty gave us our lives, and I suppose He meant us to defend them,
at least I have always acted on that, and I hope it will not be
brought up against me when my clock strikes. There, there, it is a
cruel and a wicked world, and for a timid man I have been mixed up in
a great deal of fighting. I cannot tell the rights of it, but at any
rate I have never stolen, though once I cheated a Kafir out of a herd
of cattle. But then he had done me a dirty turn, and it has troubled
me ever since into the bargain.
Well, it is eighteen months or so ago since first I met Sir Henry
Curtis and Captain Good. It was in this way. I had been up elephant
hunting beyond Bamangwato, and had met with bad luck. Everything went
wrong that trip, and to top up with I got the fever badly. So soon as
I was well enough I trekked down to the Diamond Fields, sold such
ivory as I had, together with my wagon and oxen, discharged my
hunters, and took the post-cart to the Cape. After spending a week in
Cape Town, finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and having
seen everything there was to see, including the botanical gardens,
which seem to me likely to confer a great benefit on the country, and
the new Houses of Parliament, which I expect will do nothing of the
sort, I determined to go back to Natal by the /Dunkeld/, then lying at
the docks waiting for the /Edinburgh Castle/ due in from England. I
took my berth and went aboard, and that afternoon the Natal passengers
from the /Edinburgh Castle/ transhipped, and we weighed and put to
sea.
Among these passengers who came on board were two who excited my
curiosity. One, a gentleman of about thirty, was perhaps the biggest-
chested and longest-armed man I ever saw. He had yellow hair, a thick
yellow beard, clear-cut features, and large grey eyes set deep in his
head. I never saw a finer-looking man, and somehow he reminded me of
an ancient Dane. Not that I know much of ancient Danes, though I knew
a modern Dane who did me out of ten pounds; but I remember once seeing
a picture of some of those gentry, who, I take it, were a kind of
white Zulus. They were drinking out of big horns, and their long hair
hung down their backs. As I looked at my friend standing there by the
companion-ladder, I thought that if he only let his grow a little, put
one of those chain shirts on to his great shoulders, and took hold of
a battle-axe and a horn mug, he might have sat as a model for that
picture. And by the way it is a curious thing, and just shows how the
blood will out, I discovered afterwards that Sir Henry Curtis, for
that was the big man's name, is of Danish blood.[*] He also reminded
me strongly of somebody else, but at the time I could not remember who
it was.
[*] Mr. Quatermain's ideas about ancient Danes seem to be rather
confused; we have always understood that they were dark-haired
people. Probably he was thinking of Saxons.--Editor.
The other man, who stood talking to Sir Henry, was stout and dark, and
of quite a different cut. I suspected at once that he was a naval
officer; I don't know why, but it is difficult to mistake a navy man.
I have gone shooting trips with several of them in the course of my
life, and they have always proved themselves the best and bravest and
nicest fellows I ever met, though sadly given, some of them, to the
use of profane language. I asked a page or two back, what is a
gentleman? I'll answer the question now: A Royal Naval officer is, in
a general sort of way, though of course there may be a black sheep
among them here and there. I fancy it is just the wide seas and the
breath of God's winds that wash their hearts and blow the bitterness
out of their minds and make them what men ought to be.
Well, to return, I proved right again; I ascertained that the dark man
/was/ a naval officer, a lieutenant of thirty-one, who, after
seventeen years' service, had been turned out of her Majesty's employ
with the barren honour of a commander's rank, because it was
impossible that he should be promoted. This is what people who serve
the Queen have to expect: to be shot out into the cold world to find a
living just when they are beginning really to understand their work,
and to reach the prime of life. I suppose they don't mind it, but for
my own part I had rather earn my bread as a hunter. One's halfpence
are as scarce perhaps, but you do not get so many kicks.
The officer's name I found out--by referring to the passengers' lists
--was Good--Captain John Good. He was broad, of medium height, dark,
stout, and rather a curious man to look at. He was so very neat and so
very clean-shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right eye.
It seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and he never took it
out except to wipe it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it, but
afterwards I found that this was a mistake. He put it in his trousers
pocket when he went to bed, together with his false teeth, of which he
had two beautiful sets that, my own being none of the best, have often
caused me to break the tenth commandment. But I am anticipating.
Soon after we had got under way evening closed in, and brought with it
very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprung up off land, and a kind of
aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. As for the
/Dunkeld/, she is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was,
she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right
over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I
stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused myself with
watching the pendulum, which was fixed opposite to me, swinging slowly
backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking the angle she
touched at each lurch.
"That pendulum's wrong; it is not properly weighted," suddenly said a
somewhat testy voice at my shoulder. Looking round I saw the naval
officer whom I had noticed when the passengers came aboard.
"Indeed, now what makes you think so?" I asked.
"Think so. I don't think at all. Why there"--as she righted herself
after a roll--"if the ship had really rolled to the degree that thing
pointed to, then she would never have rolled again, that's all. But it
is just like these merchant skippers, they are always so confoundedly
careless."
Just then the dinner-bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a
dreadful thing to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy when
he gets on to that subject. I only know one worse thing, and that is
to hear a merchant skipper express his candid opinion of officers of
the Royal Navy.
Captain Good and I went down to dinner together, and there we found
Sir Henry Curtis already seated. He and Captain Good were placed
together, and I sat opposite to them. The captain and I soon fell into
talk about shooting and what not; he asking me many questions, for he
is very inquisitive about all sorts of things, and I answering them as
well as I could. Presently he got on to elephants.
"Ah, sir," called out somebody who was sitting near me, "you've
reached the right man for that; Hunter Quatermain should be able to
tell you about elephants if anybody can."
Sir Henry, who had been sitting quite quiet listening to our talk,
started visibly.
"Excuse me, sir," he said, leaning forward across the table, and
speaking in a low deep voice, a very suitable voice, it seemed to me,
to come out of those great lungs. "Excuse me, sir, but is your name
Allan Quatermain?"
I said that it was.
The big man made no further remark, but I heard him mutter "fortunate"
into his beard.
Presently dinner came to an end, and as we were leaving the saloon Sir
Henry strolled up and asked me if I would come into his cabin to smoke
a pipe. I accepted, and he led the way to the /Dunkeld/ deck cabin,
and a very good cabin it is. It had been two cabins, but when Sir
Garnet Wolseley or one of those big swells went down the coast in the
/Dunkeld/, they knocked away the partition and have never put it up
again. There was a sofa in the cabin, and a little table in front of
it. Sir Henry sent the steward for a bottle of whisky, and the three
of us sat down and lit our pipes.
"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry Curtis, when the man had brought the
whisky and lit the lamp, "the year before last about this time, you
were, I believe, at a place called Bamangwato, to the north of the
Transvaal."
"I was," I answered, rather surprised that this gentleman should be so
well acquainted with my movements, which were not, so far as I was
aware, considered of general interest.
"You were trading there, were you not?" put in Captain Good, in his
quick way.
"I was. I took up a wagon-load of goods, made a camp outside the
settlement, and stopped till I had sold them."
Sir Henry was sitting opposite to me in a Madeira chair, his arms
leaning on the table. He now looked up, fixing his large grey eyes
full upon my face. There was a curious anxiety in them, I thought.
"Did you happen to meet a man called Neville there?"
"Oh, yes; he outspanned alongside of me for a fortnight to rest his
oxen before going on to the interior. I had a letter from a lawyer a
few months back, asking me if I knew what had become of him, which I
answered to the best of my ability at the time."
"Yes," said Sir Henry, "your letter was forwarded to me. You said in
it that the gentleman called Neville left Bamangwato at the beginning
of May in a wagon with a driver, a voorlooper, and a Kafir hunter
called Jim, announcing his intention of trekking if possible as far as
Inyati, the extreme trading post in the Matabele country, where he
would sell his wagon and proceed on foot. You also said that he did
sell his wagon, for six months afterwards you saw the wagon in the
possession of a Portuguese trader, who told you that he had bought it
at Inyati from a white man whose name he had forgotten, and that he
believed the white man with the native servant had started off for the
interior on a shooting trip."
"Yes."
Then came a pause.
"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry suddenly, "I suppose you know or can
guess nothing more of the reasons of my--of Mr. Neville's journey to
the northward, or as to what point that journey was directed?"
"I heard something," I answered, and stopped. The subject was one
which I did not care to discuss.
Sir Henry and Captain Good looked at each other, and Captain Good
nodded.
"Mr. Quatermain," went on the former, "I am going to tell you a story,
and ask your advice, and perhaps your assistance. The agent who
forwarded me your letter told me that I might rely on it implicitly,
as you were," he said, "well known and universally respected in Natal,
and especially noted for your discretion."
I bowed and drank some whisky and water to hide my confusion, for I am
a modest man--and Sir Henry went on.
"Mr. Neville was my brother."
"Oh," I said, starting, for now I knew of whom Sir Henry had reminded
me when first I saw him. His brother was a much smaller man and had a
dark beard, but now that I thought of it, he possessed eyes of the
same shade of grey and with the same keen look in them: the features
too were not unlike.
"He was," went on Sir Henry, "my only and younger brother, and till
five years ago I do not suppose that we were ever a month away from
each other. But just about five years ago a misfortune befell us, as
sometimes does happen in families. We quarrelled bitterly, and I
behaved unjustly to my brother in my anger."
Here Captain Good nodded his head vigorously to himself. The ship gave
a big roll just then, so that the looking-glass, which was fixed
opposite us to starboard, was for a moment nearly over our heads, and
as I was sitting with my hands in my pockets and staring upwards, I
could see him nodding like anything.
"As I daresay you know," went on Sir Henry, "if a man dies intestate,
and has no property but land, real property it is called in England,
it all descends to his eldest son. It so happened that just at the
time when we quarrelled our father died intestate. He had put off
making his will until it was too late. The result was that my brother,
who had not been brought up to any profession, was left without a
penny. Of course it would have been my duty to provide for him, but at
the time the quarrel between us was so bitter that I did not--to my
shame I say it (and he sighed deeply)--offer to do anything. It was
not that I grudged him justice, but I waited for him to make advances,
and he made none. I am sorry to trouble you with all this, Mr.
Quatermain, but I must to make things clear, eh, Good?"
"Quite so, quite so," said the captain. "Mr. Quatermain will, I am
sure, keep this history to himself."
"Of course," said I, for I rather pride myself on my discretion, for
which, as Sir Henry had heard, I have some repute.
"Well," went on Sir Henry, "my brother had a few hundred pounds to his
account at the time. Without saying anything to me he drew out this
paltry sum, and, having adopted the name of Neville, started off for
South Africa in the wild hope of making a fortune. This I learned
afterwards. Some three years passed, and I heard nothing of my
brother, though I wrote several times. Doubtless the letters never
reached him. But as time went on I grew more and more troubled about
him. I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that blood is thicker than water."
"That's true," said I, thinking of my boy Harry.
"I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that I would have given half my fortune
to know that my brother George, the only relation I possess, was safe
and well, and that I should see him again."
"But you never did, Curtis," jerked out Captain Good, glancing at the
big man's face.
"Well, Mr. Quatermain, as time went on I became more and more anxious
to find out if my brother was alive or dead, and if alive to get him
home again. I set enquiries on foot, and your letter was one of the
results. So far as it went it was satisfactory, for it showed that
till lately George was alive, but it did not go far enough. So, to cut
a long story short, I made up my mind to come out and look for him
myself, and Captain Good was so kind as to come with me."
"Yes," said the captain; "nothing else to do, you see. Turned out by
my Lords of the Admiralty to starve on half pay. And now perhaps, sir,
you will tell us what you know or have heard of the gentleman called
Neville."
CHAPTER II
THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON'S MINES
"What was it that you heard about my brother's journey at Bamangwato?"
asked Sir Henry, as I paused to fill my pipe before replying to
Captain Good.
"I heard this," I answered, "and I have never mentioned it to a soul
till to-day. I heard that he was starting for Solomon's Mines."
"Solomon's Mines?" ejaculated both my hearers at once. "Where are
they?"
"I don't know," I said; "I know where they are said to be. Once I saw
the peaks of the mountains that border them, but there were a hundred
and thirty miles of desert between me and them, and I am not aware
that any white man ever got across it save one. But perhaps the best
thing I can do is to tell you the legend of Solomon's Mines as I know
it, you passing your word not to reveal anything I tell you without my
permission. Do you agree to that? I have my reasons for asking."
Sir Henry nodded, and Captain Good replied, "Certainly, certainly."
"Well," I began, "as you may guess, generally speaking, elephant
hunters are a rough set of men, who do not trouble themselves with
much beyond the facts of life and the ways of Kafirs. But here and
there you meet a man who takes the trouble to collect traditions from
the natives, and tries to make out a little piece of the history of
this dark land. It was such a man as this who first told me the legend
of Solomon's Mines, now a matter of nearly thirty years ago. That was
when I was on my first elephant hunt in the Matalebe country. His name
was Evans, and he was killed the following year, poor fellow, by a
wounded buffalo, and lies buried near the Zambesi Falls. I was telling
Evans one night, I remember, of some wonderful workings I had found
whilst hunting koodoo and eland in what is now the Lydenburg district
of the Transvaal. I see they have come across these workings again
lately in prospecting for gold, but I knew of them years ago. There is
a great wide wagon road cut out of the solid rock, and leading to the
mouth of the working or gallery. Inside the mouth of this gallery are
stacks of gold quartz piled up ready for roasting, which shows that
the workers, whoever they were, must have left in a hurry. Also, about
twenty paces in, the gallery is built across, and a beautiful bit of
masonry it is.
"'Ay,' said Evans, 'but I will spin you a queerer yarn than that'; and
he went on to tell me how he had found in the far interior a ruined
city, which he believed to be the Ophir of the Bible, and, by the way,
other more learned men have said the same long since poor Evans's
time. I was, I remember, listening open-eared to all these wonders,
for I was young at the time, and this story of an ancient civilisation
and of the treasures which those old Jewish or Phnician adventurers
used to extract from a country long since lapsed into the darkest
barbarism took a great hold upon my imagination, when suddenly he said
to me, 'Lad, did you ever hear of the Suliman Mountains up to the
north-west of the Mushakulumbwe country?' I told him I never had. 'Ah,
well,' he said, 'that is where Solomon really had his mines, his
diamond mines, I mean.'
"'How do you know that?' I asked.
"'Know it! why, what is "Suliman" but a corruption of Solomon?[*]
Besides, an old Isanusi or witch doctoress up in the Manica country
told me all about it. She said that the people who lived across those
mountains were a "branch" of the Zulus, speaking a dialect of Zulu,
but finer and bigger men even; that there lived among them great
wizards, who had learnt their art from white men when "all the world
was dark," and who had the secret of a wonderful mine of "bright
stones."'
[*] Suliman is the Arabic form of Solomon.--Editor.
"Well, I laughed at this story at the time, though it interested me,
for the Diamond Fields were not discovered then, but poor Evans went
off and was killed, and for twenty years I never thought any more of
the matter. However, just twenty years afterwards--and that is a long
time, gentlemen; an elephant hunter does not often live for twenty
years at his business--I heard something more definite about Suliman's
Mountains and the country which lies beyond them. I was up beyond the
Manica country, at a place called Sitanda's Kraal, and a miserable
place it was, for a man could get nothing to eat, and there was but
little game about. I had an attack of fever, and was in a bad way
generally, when one day a Portugee arrived with a single companion--a
half-breed. Now I know your low-class Delagoa Portugee well. There is
no greater devil unhung in a general way, battening as he does upon
human agony and flesh in the shape of slaves. But this was quite a
different type of man to the mean fellows whom I had been accustomed
to meet; indeed, in appearance he reminded me more of the polite doms
I have read about, for he was tall and thin, with large dark eyes and
curling grey mustachios. We talked together for a while, for he could
speak broken English, and I understood a little Portugee, and he told
me that his name was José Silvestre, and that he had a place near
Delagoa Bay. When he went on next day with his half-breed companion,
he said 'Good-bye,' taking off his hat quite in the old style.
"'Good-bye, senör,' he said; 'if ever we meet again I shall be the
richest man in the world, and I will remember you.' I laughed a little
--I was too weak to laugh much--and watched him strike out for the
great desert to the west, wondering if he was mad, or what he thought
he was going to find there.
"A week passed, and I got the better of my fever. One evening I was
sitting on the ground in front of the little tent I had with me,
chewing the last leg of a miserable fowl I had bought from a native
for a bit of cloth worth twenty fowls, and staring at the hot red sun
sinking down over the desert, when suddenly I saw a figure, apparently
that of a European, for it wore a coat, on the slope of the rising
ground opposite to me, about three hundred yards away. The figure
crept along on its hands and knees, then it got up and staggered
forward a few yards on its legs, only to fall and crawl again. Seeing
that it must be somebody in distress, I sent one of my hunters to help
him, and presently he arrived, and who do you suppose it turned out to
be?"
"José Silvestre, of course," said Captain Good.
"Yes, José Silvestre, or rather his skeleton and a little skin. His
face was a bright yellow with bilious fever, and his large dark eyes
stood nearly out of his head, for all the flesh had gone. There was
nothing but yellow parchment-like skin, white hair, and the gaunt
bones sticking up beneath.
"'Water! for the sake of Christ, water!' he moaned and I saw that his
lips were cracked, and his tongue, which protruded between them, was
swollen and blackish.
"I gave him water with a little milk in it, and he drank it in great
gulps, two quarts or so, without stopping. I would not let him have
any more. Then the fever took him again, and he fell down and began to
rave about Suliman's Mountains, and the diamonds, and the desert. I
carried him into the tent and did what I could for him, which was
little enough; but I saw how it must end. About eleven o'clock he grew
quieter, and I lay down for a little rest and went to sleep. At dawn I
woke again, and in the half light saw Silvestre sitting up, a strange,
gaunt form, and gazing out towards the desert. Presently the first ray
of the sun shot right across the wide plain before us till it reached
the faraway crest of one of the tallest of the Suliman Mountains more
than a hundred miles away.
"'There it is!' cried the dying man in Portuguese, and pointing with
his long, thin arm, 'but I shall never reach it, never. No one will
ever reach it!'
"Suddenly, he paused, and seemed to take a resolution. 'Friend,' he
said, turning towards me, 'are you there? My eyes grow dark.'
"'Yes,' I said; 'yes, lie down now, and rest.'
"'Ay,' he answered, 'I shall rest soon, I have time to rest--all
eternity. Listen, I am dying! You have been good to me. I will give
you the writing. Perhaps you will get there if you can live to pass
the desert, which has killed my poor servant and me.'
"Then he groped in his shirt and brought out what I thought was a Boer
tobacco pouch made of the skin of the Swart-vet-pens or sable
antelope. It was fastened with a little strip of hide, what we call a
rimpi, and this he tried to loose, but could not. He handed it to me.
'Untie it,' he said. I did so, and extracted a bit of torn yellow
linen on which something was written in rusty letters. Inside this rag
was a paper.
"Then he went on feebly, for he was growing weak: 'The paper has all
that is on the linen. It took me years to read. Listen: my ancestor, a
political refugee from Lisbon, and one of the first Portuguese who
landed on these shores, wrote that when he was dying on those
mountains which no white foot ever pressed before or since. His name
was José da Silvestra, and he lived three hundred years ago. His
slave, who waited for him on this side of the mountains, found him
dead, and brought the writing home to Delagoa. It has been in the
family ever since, but none have cared to read it, till at last I did.
And I have lost my life over it, but another may succeed, and become
the richest man in the world--the richest man in the world. Only give
it to no one, senör; go yourself!'
"Then he began to wander again, and in an hour it was all over.
"God rest him! he died very quietly, and I buried him deep, with big
boulders on his breast; so I do not think that the jackals can have
dug him up. And then I came away."
"Ay, but the document?" said Sir Henry, in a tone of deep interest.
"Yes, the document; what was in it?" added the captain.
"Well, gentlemen, if you like I will tell you. I have never showed it
to anybody yet except to a drunken old Portuguese trader who
translated it for me, and had forgotten all about it by the next
morning. The original rag is at my home in Durban, together with poor
Dom José's translation, but I have the English rendering in my pocket-
book, and a facsimile of the map, if it can be called a map. Here it
is."
[MAP OMITTED]
"I, José da Silvestra, who am now dying of hunger in the little
cave here no snow is on the north side of the nipple of the
southernmost of the two mountains I have named Sheba's Breasts,
write this in the year 1590 with a cleft bone upon a remnant of my
raiment, my blood being the ink. If my slave should find it when
he comes, and should bring it to Delagoa, let my friend (name
illegible) bring the matter to the knowledge of the king, that he
may send an army which, if they live through the desert and the
mountains, and can overcome the brave Kukuanes and their devilish
arts, to which end many priests should be brought, will make him
the richest king since Solomon. With my own eyes I have seen the
countless diamonds stored in Solomon's treasure chamber behind the
white Death; but through the treachery of Gagool the witch-finder
I might bring nought away, scarcely my life. Let him who comes
follow the map, and climb the snow of Sheba's left breast till he
reaches the nipple, on the north side of which is the great road
Solomon made, from whence three days' journey to the King's
Palace. Let him kill Gagool. Pray for my soul. Farewell.
José da Silvestra."[*]
[*] Eu José da Silvestra que estou morrendo de fome ná pequena cova
onde năo ha neve ao lado norte do bico mais ao sul das duas
montanhas que chamei scio de Sheba; escrevo isto no anno 1590;
escrevo isto com um pedaço d'ôsso n' um farrapo de minha roupa e
com sangue meu por tinta; se o meu escravo dęr com isto quando
venha ao levar para Lourenzo Marquez, que o meu amigo ---------
leve a cousa ao conhecimento d' El Rei, para que possa mandar um
exercito que, se desfiler pelo deserto e pelas montonhas e mesmo
sobrepujar os bravos Kukuanes e suas artes diabolicas, pelo que se
deviam trazer muitos padres Far o Rei mais rico depois de Salomăo
Com meus proprios olhos vé os di amantes sem conto guardados nas
camaras do thesouro de Salomăo a traz da morte branca, mas pela
traiçăo de Gagoal a feiticeira achadora, nada poderia levar, e
apenas a minha vida. Quem vier siga o mappa e trepe pela neve de
Sheba peito ŕ esquerda até chegar ao bica, do lado norte do qual
estŕ a grande estrada do Solomăo por elle feita, donde ha tres
dias de jornada até ao Palacio do Rei. Mate Gagoal. Reze por minha
alma. Adeos. José da Silvestra.
When I had finished reading the above, and shown the copy of the map,
drawn by the dying hand of the old Dom with his blood for ink, there
followed a silence of astonishment.
"Well," said Captain Good, "I have been round the world twice, and put
in at most ports, but may I be hung for a mutineer if ever I heard a
yarn like this out of a story book, or in it either, for the matter of
that."
"It's a queer tale, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry. "I suppose you
are not hoaxing us? It is, I know, sometimes thought allowable to take
in a greenhorn."
"If you think that, Sir Henry," I said, much put out, and pocketing my
paper--for I do not like to be thought one of those silly fellows who
consider it witty to tell lies, and who are for ever boasting to
newcomers of extraordinary hunting adventures which never happened--
"if you think that, why, there is an end to the matter," and I rose to
go.
Sir Henry laid his large hand upon my shoulder. "Sit down, Mr.
Quatermain," he said, "I beg your pardon; I see very well you do not
wish to deceive us, but the story sounded so strange that I could
hardly believe it."
"You shall see the original map and writing when we reach Durban," I
answered, somewhat mollified, for really when I came to consider the
question it was scarcely wonderful that he should doubt my good faith.
"But," I went on, "I have not told you about your brother. I knew the
man Jim who was with him. He was a Bechuana by birth, a good hunter,
and for a native a very clever man. That morning on which Mr. Neville
was starting I saw Jim standing by my wagon and cutting up tobacco on
the disselboom.
"'Jim,' said I, 'where are you off to this trip? It is elephants?'
"'No, Baas,' he answered, 'we are after something worth much more than
ivory.'
"'And what might that be?' I said, for I was curious. 'Is it gold?'
"'No, Baas, something worth more than gold,' and he grinned.
"I asked no more questions, for I did not like to lower my dignity by
seeming inquisitive, but I was puzzled. Presently Jim finished cutting
his tobacco.
"'Baas,' said he.
"I took no notice.
"'Baas,' said he again.
"'Eh, boy, what is it?' I asked.
"'Baas, we are going after diamonds.'
"'Diamonds! why, then, you are steering in the wrong direction; you
should head for the Fields.'
"'Baas, have you ever heard of Suliman's Berg?'--that is, Solomon's
Mountains, Sir Henry.
"'Ay!'
"'Have you ever heard of the diamonds there?'
"'I have heard a foolish story, Jim.'
"'It is no story, Baas. Once I knew a woman who came from there, and
reached Natal with her child, she told me:--she is dead now.'
"'Your master will feed the assvögels'--that is, vultures--'Jim, if he
tries to reach Suliman's country, and so will you if they can get any
pickings off your worthless old carcass,' said I.
"He grinned. 'Mayhap, Baas. Man must die; I'd rather like to try a new
country myself; the elephants are getting worked out about here.'
"'Ah! my boy,' I said, 'you wait till the "pale old man" gets a grip
of your yellow throat, and then we shall hear what sort of a tune you
sing.'
"Half an hour after that I saw Neville's wagon move off. Presently Jim
came back running. 'Good-bye, Baas,' he said. 'I didn't like to start
without bidding you good-bye, for I daresay you are right, and that we
shall never trek south again.'
"'Is your master really going to Suliman's Berg, Jim, or are you
lying?'
"'No,' he answered, 'he is going. He told me he was bound to make his
fortune somehow, or try to; so he might as well have a fling for the
diamonds.'
"'Oh!' I said; 'wait a bit, Jim; will you take a note to your master,
Jim, and promise not to give it to him till you reach Inyati?' which
was some hundred miles off.
"'Yes, Baas.'
"So I took a scrap of paper, and wrote on it, 'Let him who comes . . .
climb the snow of Sheba's left breast, till he reaches the nipple, on
the north side of which is Solomon's great road.'
"'Now, Jim,' I said, 'when you give this to your master, tell him he
had better follow the advice on it implicitly. You are not to give it
to him now, because I don't want him back asking me questions which I
won't answer. Now be off, you idle fellow, the wagon is nearly out of
sight.'
"Jim took the note and went, and that is all I know about your
brother, Sir Henry; but I am much afraid--"
"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, "I am going to look for my brother;
I am going to trace him to Suliman's Mountains, and over them if
necessary, till I find him, or until I know that he is dead. Will you
come with me?"
I am, as I think I have said, a cautious man, indeed a timid one, and
this suggestion frightened me. It seemed to me that to undertake such
a journey would be to go to certain death, and putting other
considerations aside, as I had a son to support, I could not afford to
die just then.
"No, thank you, Sir Henry, I think I had rather not," I answered. "I
am too old for wild-goose chases of that sort, and we should only end
up like my poor friend Silvestre. I have a son dependent on me, so I
cannot afford to risk my life foolishly."
Both Sir Henry and Captain Good looked very disappointed.
"Mr. Quatermain," said the former, "I am well off, and I am bent upon
this business. You may put the remuneration for your services at
whatever figure you like in reason, and it shall be paid over to you
before we start. Moreover, I will arrange in the event of anything
untoward happening to us or to you, that your son shall be suitably
provided for. You will see from this offer how necessary I think your
presence. Also if by chance we should reach this place, and find
diamonds, they shall belong to you and Good equally. I do not want
them. But of course that promise is worth nothing at all, though the
same thing would apply to any ivory we might get. You may pretty well
make your own terms with me, Mr. Quatermain; and of course I shall pay
all expenses."
"Sir Henry," said I, "this is the most liberal proposal I ever had,
and one not to be sneezed at by a poor hunter and trader. But the job
is the biggest I have come across, and I must take time to think it
over. I will give you my answer before we get to Durban."
"Very good," answered Sir Henry.
Then I said good-night and turned in, and dreamt about poor long-dead
Silvestre and the diamonds.
CHAPTER III
UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE
It takes from four to five days, according to the speed of the vessel
and the state of the weather, to run up from the Cape to Durban.
Sometimes, if the landing is bad at East London, where they have not
yet made that wonderful harbour they talk so much of, and sink such a
mint of money in, a ship is delayed for twenty-four hours before the
cargo boats can get out to take off the goods. But on this occasion we
had not to wait at all, for there were no breakers on the Bar to speak
of, and the tugs came out at once with the long strings of ugly flat-
bottomed boats behind them, into which the packages were bundled with
a crash. It did not matter what they might be, over they went slap-
bang; whether they contained china or woollen goods they met with the
same treatment. I saw one case holding four dozen of champagne smashed
all to bits, and there was the champagne fizzing and boiling about in
the bottom of the dirty cargo boat. It was a wicked waste, and
evidently so the Kafirs in the boat thought, for they found a couple
of unbroken bottles, and knocking off the necks drank the contents.
But they had not allowed for the expansion caused by the fizz in the
wine, and, feeling themselves swelling, rolled about in the bottom of
the boat, calling out that the good liquor was "tagati"--that is,
bewitched. I spoke to them from the vessel, and told them it was the
white man's strongest medicine, and that they were as good as dead
men. Those Kafirs went to the shore in a very great fright, and I do
not think that they will touch champagne again.
Well, all the time that we were steaming up to Natal I was thinking
over Sir Henry Curtis's offer. We did not speak any more on the
subject for a day or two, though I told them many hunting yarns, all
true ones. There is no need to tell lies about hunting, for so many
curious things happen within the knowledge of a man whose business it
is to hunt; but this is by the way.
At last, one beautiful evening in January, which is our hottest month,
we steamed past the coast of Natal, expecting to make Durban Point by
sunset. It is a lovely coast all along from East London, with its red
sandhills and wide sweeps of vivid green, dotted here and there with
Kafir kraals, and bordered by a ribbon of white surf, which spouts up
in pillars of foam where it hits the rocks. But just before you come
to Durban there is a peculiar richness about the landscape. There are
the sheer kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains of centuries,
down which the rivers sparkle; there is the deepest green of the bush,
growing as God planted it, and the other greens of the mealie gardens
and the sugar patches, while now and again a white house, smiling out
at the placid sea, puts a finish and gives an air of homeliness to the
scene. For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires
the presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I
have lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the value of
civilisation, though to be sure it drives away the game. The Garden of
Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was, but I always think that it
must have been fairer when Eve adorned it.
To return, we had miscalculated a little, and the sun was well down
before we dropped anchor off the Point, and heard the gun which told
the good folks of Durban that the English Mail was in. It was too late
to think of getting over the Bar that night, so we went comfortably to
dinner, after seeing the Mails carried off in the life-boat.
When we came up again the moon was out, and shining so brightly over
sea and shore that she almost paled the quick, large flashes from the
lighthouse. From the shore floated sweet spicy odours that always
remind me of hymns and missionaries, and in the windows of the houses
on the Berea sparkled a hundred lights. From a large brig lying near
also came the music of the sailors as they worked at getting the
anchor up in order to be ready for the wind. Altogether it was a
perfect night, such a night as you sometimes get in Southern Africa,
and it threw a garment of peace over everybody as the moon threw a
garment of silver over everything. Even the great bulldog, belonging
to a sporting passenger, seemed to yield to its gentle influences, and
forgetting his yearning to come to close quarters with the baboon in a
cage on the foc'sle, snored happily at the door of the cabin, dreaming
no doubt that he had finished him, and happy in his dream.
We three--that is, Sir Henry Curtis, Captain Good, and myself--went
and sat by the wheel, and were quiet for a while.
"Well, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry presently, "have you been
thinking about my proposals?"
"Ay," echoed Captain Good, "what do you think of them, Mr. Quatermain?
I hope that you are going to give us the pleasure of your company so
far as Solomon's Mines, or wherever the gentleman you knew as Neville
may have got to."
I rose and knocked out my pipe before I answered. I had not made up my
mind, and wanted an additional moment to decide. Before the burning
tobacco had fallen into the sea I had decided; just that little extra
second did the trick. It is often the way when you have been bothering
a long time over a thing.
"Yes, gentlemen," I said, sitting down again, "I will go, and by your
leave I will tell you why, and on what conditions. First for the terms
which I ask.
"1. You are to pay all expenses, and any ivory or other valuables we
may get is to be divided between Captain Good and myself.
"2. That you give me Ł500 for my services on the trip before we start,
I undertaking to serve you faithfully till you choose to abandon the
enterprise, or till we succeed, or disaster overtakes us.
"3. That before we trek you execute a deed agreeing, in the event of
my death or disablement, to pay my boy Harry, who is studying medicine
over there in London, at Guy's Hospital, a sum of Ł200 a year for five
years, by which time he ought to be able to earn a living for himself
if he is worth his salt. That is all, I think, and I daresay you will
say quite enough too."
"No," answered Sir Henry, "I accept them gladly. I am bent upon this
project, and would pay more than that for your help, considering the
peculiar and exclusive knowledge which you possess."
"Pity I did not ask it, then, but I won't go back on my word. And now
that I have got my terms I will tell you my reasons for making up my
mind to go. First of all, gentlemen, I have been observing you both
for the last few days, and if you will not think me impertinent I may
say that I like you, and believe that we shall come up well to the
yoke together. That is something, let me tell you, when one has a long
journey like this before one.
"And now as to the journey itself, I tell you flatly, Sir Henry and
Captain Good, that I do not think it probable we can come out of it
alive, that is, if we attempt to cross the Suliman Mountains. What was
the fate of the old Dom da Silvestra three hundred years ago? What was
the fate of his descendant twenty years ago? What has been your
brother's fate? I tell you frankly, gentlemen, that as their fates
were so I believe ours will be."
I paused to watch the effect of my words. Captain Good looked a little
uncomfortable, but Sir Henry's face did not change. "We must take our
chance," he said.
"You may perhaps wonder," I went on, "why, if I think this, I, who am,
as I told you, a timid man, should undertake such a journey. It is for
two reasons. First I am a fatalist, and believe that my time is
appointed to come quite without reference to my own movements and
will, and that if I am to go to Suliman's Mountains to be killed, I
shall go there and shall be killed. God Almighty, no doubt, knows His
mind about me, so I need not trouble on that point. Secondly, I am a
poor man. For nearly forty years I have hunted and traded, but I have
never made more than a living. Well, gentlemen, I don't know if you
are aware that the average life of an elephant hunter from the time he
takes to the trade is between four and five years. So you see I have
lived through about seven generations of my class, and I should think
that my time cannot be far off, anyway. Now, if anything were to
happen to me in the ordinary course of business, by the time my debts
are paid there would be nothing left to support my son Harry whilst he
was getting in the way of earning a living, whereas now he will be set
up for five years. There is the whole affair in a nutshell."
"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, who had been giving me his most
serious attention, "your motives for undertaking an enterprise which
you believe can only end in disaster reflect a great deal of credit on
you. Whether or not you are right, of course time and the event alone
can show. But whether you are right or wrong, I may as well tell you
at once that I am going through with it to the end, sweet or bitter.
If we are to be knocked on the head, all I have to say is, that I hope
we get a little shooting first, eh, Good?"
"Yes, yes," put in the captain. "We have all three of us been
accustomed to face danger, and to hold our lives in our hands in
various ways, so it is no good turning back now. And now I vote we go
down to the saloon and take an observation just for luck, you know."
And we did--through the bottom of a tumbler.
Next day we went ashore, and I put up Sir Henry and Captain Good at
the little shanty I have built on the Berea, and which I call my home.
There are only three rooms and a kitchen in it, and it is constructed
of green brick with a galvanised iron roof, but there is a good garden
with the best loquot trees in it that I know, and some nice young
mangoes, of which I hope great things. The curator of the botanical
gardens gave them to me. It is looked after by an old hunter of mine
named Jack, whose thigh was so badly broken by a buffalo cow in
Sikukunis country that he will never hunt again. But he can potter
about and garden, being a Griqua by birth. You will never persuade a
Zulu to take much interest in gardening. It is a peaceful art, and
peaceful arts are not in his line.
Sir Henry and Good slept in a tent pitched in my little grove of
orange trees at the end of the garden, for there was no room for them
in the house, and what with the smell of the bloom, and the sight of
the green and golden fruit--in Durban you will see all three on the
tree together--I daresay it is a pleasant place enough, for we have
few mosquitos here on the Berea, unless there happens to come an
unusually heavy rain.
Well, to get on--for if I do not, Harry, you will be tired of my story
before ever we fetch up at Suliman's Mountains--having once made up my
mind to go I set about making the necessary preparations. First I
secured the deed from Sir Henry, providing for you, my boy, in case of
accidents. There was some difficulty about its legal execution, as Sir
Henry was a stranger here, and the property to be charged is over the
water; but it was ultimately got over with the help of a lawyer, who
charged Ł20 for the job--a price that I thought outrageous. Then I
pocketed my cheque for Ł500.
Having paid this tribute to my bump of caution, I purchased a wagon
and a span of oxen on Sir Henry's behalf, and beauties they were. It
was a twenty-two-foot wagon with iron axles, very strong, very light,
and built throughout of stink wood; not quite a new one, having been
to the Diamond Fields and back, but, in my opinion, all the better for
that, for I could see that the wood was well seasoned. If anything is
going to give in a wagon, or if there is green wood in it, it will
show out on the first trip. This particular vehicle was what we call a
"half-tented" wagon, that is to say, only covered in over the after
twelve feet, leaving all the front part free for the necessaries we
had to carry with us. In this after part were a hide "cartle," or bed,
on which two people could sleep, also racks for rifles, and many other
little conveniences. I gave Ł125 for it, and think that it was cheap
at the price.
Then I bought a beautiful team of twenty Zulu oxen, which I had kept
my eye on for a year or two. Sixteen oxen is the usual number for a
team, but I took four extra to allow for casualties. These Zulu cattle
are small and light, not more than half the size of the Africander
oxen, which are generally used for transport purposes; but they will
live where the Africanders would starve, and with a moderate load can
make five miles a day better going, being quicker and not so liable to
become footsore. What is more, this lot were thoroughly "salted," that
is, they had worked all over South Africa, and so had become proof,
comparatively speaking, against red water, which so frequently
destroys whole teams of oxen when they get on to strange "veldt" or
grass country. As for "lung sick," which is a dreadful form of
pneumonia, very prevalent in this country, they had all been
inoculated against it. This is done by cutting a slit in the tail of
an ox, and binding in a piece of the diseased lung of an animal which
has died of the sickness. The result is that the ox sickens, takes the
disease in a mild form, which causes its tail to drop off, as a rule
about a foot from the root, and becomes proof against future attacks.
It seems cruel to rob the animal of his tail, especially in a country
where there are so many flies, but it is better to sacrifice the tail
and keep the ox than to lose both tail and ox, for a tail without an
ox is not much good, except to dust with. Still it does look odd to
trek along behind twenty stumps, where there ought to be tails. It
seems as though Nature made a trifling mistake, and stuck the stern
ornaments of a lot of prize bull-dogs on to the rumps of the oxen.
Next came the question of provisioning and medicines, one which
required the most careful consideration, for what we had to do was to
avoid lumbering the wagon, and yet to take everything absolutely
necessary. Fortunately, it turned out that Good is a bit of a doctor,
having at some point in his previous career managed to pass through a
course of medical and surgical instruction, which he has more or less
kept up. He is not, of course, qualified, but he knows more about it
than many a man who can write M.D. after his name, as we found out
afterwards, and he had a splendid travelling medicine chest and a set
of instruments. Whilst we were at Durban he cut off a Kafir's big toe
in a way which it was a pleasure to see. But he was quite nonplussed
when the Kafir, who had sat stolidly watching the operation, asked him
to put on another, saying that a "white one" would do at a pinch.
There remained, when these questions were satisfactorily settled, two
further important points for consideration, namely, that of arms and
that of servants. As to the arms I cannot do better than put down a
list of those which we finally decided on from among the ample store
that Sir Henry had brought with him from England, and those which I
owned. I copy it from my pocket-book, where I made the entry at the
time.
"Three heavy breech-loading double-eight elephant guns, weighing about
fifteen pounds each, to carry a charge of eleven drachms of black
powder." Two of these were by a well-known London firm, most excellent
makers, but I do not know by whom mine, which is not so highly
finished, was made. I have used it on several trips, and shot a good
many elephants with it, and it has always proved a most superior
weapon, thoroughly to be relied on.
"Three double-500 Expresses, constructed to stand a charge of six
drachms," sweet weapons, and admirable for medium-sized game, such as
eland or sable antelope, or for men, especially in an open country and
with the semi-hollow bullet.
"One double No. 12 central-fire Keeper's shot-gun, full choke both
barrels." This gun proved of the greatest service to us afterwards in
shooting game for the pot.
"Three Winchester repeating rifles (not carbines), spare guns.
"Three single-action Colt's revolvers, with the heavier, or American
pattern of cartridge."
This was our total armament, and doubtless the reader will observe
that the weapons of each class were of the same make and calibre, so
that the cartridges were interchangeable, a very important point. I
make no apology for detailing it at length, as every experienced
hunter will know how vital a proper supply of guns and ammunition is
to the success of an expedition.
Now as to the men who were to go with us. After much consultation we
decided that their number should be limited to five, namely, a driver,
a leader, and three servants.
The driver and leader I found without much difficulty, two Zulus,
named respectively Goza and Tom; but to get the servants proved a more
difficult matter. It was necessary that they should be thoroughly
trustworthy and brave men, as in a business of this sort our lives
might depend upon their conduct. At last I secured two, one a
Hottentot named Ventvögel, or "windbird," and one a little Zulu named
Khiva, who had the merit of speaking English perfectly. Ventvögel I
had known before; he was one of the most perfect "spoorers," that is,
game trackers, I ever had to do with, and tough as whipcord. He never
seemed to tire. But he had one failing, so common with his race,
drink. Put him within reach of a bottle of gin and you could not trust
him. However, as we were going beyond the region of grog-shops this
little weakness of his did not so much matter.
Having secured these two men I looked in vain for a third to suit my
purpose, so we determined to start without one, trusting to luck to
find a suitable man on our way up country. But, as it happened, on the
evening before the day we had fixed for our departure the Zulu Khiva
informed me that a Kafir was waiting to see me. Accordingly, when we
had done dinner, for we were at table at the time, I told Khiva to
bring him in. Presently a tall, handsome-looking man, somewhere about
thirty years of age, and very light-coloured for a Zulu, entered, and
lifting his knob-stick by way of salute, squatted himself down in the
corner on his haunches, and sat silent. I did not take any notice of
him for a while, for it is a great mistake to do so. If you rush into
conversation at once, a Zulu is apt to think you a person of little
dignity or consequence. I observed, however, that he was a "Keshla" or
ringed man; that is, he wore on his head the black ring, made of a
species of gum polished with fat and worked up in the hair, which is
usually assumed by Zulus on attaining a certain age or dignity. Also
it struck me that his face was familiar to me.
"Well," I said at last, "What is your name?"
"Umbopa," answered the man in a slow, deep voice.
"I have seen your face before."
"Yes; the Inkoosi, the chief, my father, saw my face at the place of
the Little Hand"--that is, Isandhlwana--"on the day before the
battle."
Then I remembered. I was one of Lord Chelmsford's guides in that
unlucky Zulu War, and had the good fortune to leave the camp in charge
of some wagons on the day before the battle. While I was waiting for
the cattle to be inspanned I fell into conversation with this man, who
held some small command among the native auxiliaries, and he had
expressed to me his doubts as to the safety of the camp. At the time I
told him to hold his tongue, and leave such matters to wiser heads;
but afterwards I thought of his words.
"I remember," I said; "what is it you want?"
"It is this, 'Macumazahn.'" That is my Kafir name, and means the man
who gets up in the middle of the night, or, in vulgar English, he who
keeps his eyes open. "I hear that you go on a great expedition far
into the North with the white chiefs from over the water. Is it a true
word?"
"It is."
"I hear that you go even to the Lukanga River, a moon's journey beyond
the Manica country. Is this so also, 'Macumazahn?'"
"Why do you ask whither we go? What is it to you?" I answered
suspiciously, for the objects of our journey had been kept a dead
secret.
"It is this, O white men, that if indeed you travel so far I would
travel with you."
There was a certain assumption of dignity in the man's mode of speech,
and especially in his use of the words "O white men," instead of "O
Inkosis," or chiefs, which struck me.
"You forget yourself a little," I said. "Your words run out unawares.
That is not the way to speak. What is your name, and where is your
kraal? Tell us, that we may know with whom we have to deal."
"My name is Umbopa. I am of the Zulu people, yet not of them. The
house of my tribe is in the far North; it was left behind when the
Zulus came down here a 'thousand years ago,' long before Chaka reigned
in Zululand. I have no kraal. I have wandered for many years. I came
from the North as a child to Zululand. I was Cetewayo's man in the
Nkomabakosi Regiment, serving there under the great Captain,
Umslopogaasi of the Axe,[*] who taught my hands to fight. Afterwards I
ran away from Zululand and came to Natal because I wanted to see the
white man's ways. Next I fought against Cetewayo in the war. Since
then I have been working in Natal. Now I am tired, and would go North
again. Here is not my place. I want no money, but I am a brave man,
and am worth my place and meat. I have spoken."
[*] For the history of Umslopogaasi and his Axe, the reader is
referred to the books called "Allan Quatermain" and "Nada the
Lily."--Editor.
I was rather puzzled by this man and his way of speech. It was evident
to me from his manner that in the main he was telling the truth, but
somehow he seemed different from the ordinary run of Zulus, and I
rather mistrusted his offer to come without pay. Being in a
difficulty, I translated his words to Sir Henry and Good, and asked
them their opinion.
Sir Henry told me to ask him to stand up. Umbopa did so, at the same
time slipping off the long military great coat which he wore, and
revealing himself naked except for the moocha round his centre and a
necklace of lions' claws. Certainly he was a magnificent-looking man;
I never saw a finer native. Standing about six foot three high he was
broad in proportion, and very shapely. In that light, too, his skin
looked scarcely more than dark, except here and there where deep black
scars marked old assegai wounds. Sir Henry walked up to him and looked
into his proud, handsome face.
"They make a good pair, don't they?" said Good; "one as big as the
other."
"I like your looks, Mr. Umbopa, and I will take you as my servant,"
said Sir Henry in English.
Umbopa evidently understood him, for he answered in Zulu, "It is
well"; and then added, with a glance at the white man's great stature
and breadth, "We are men, thou and I."
CHAPTER IV
AN ELEPHANT HUNT
Now I do not propose to narrate at full length all the incidents of
our long travel up to Sitanda's Kraal, near the junction of the
Lukanga and Kalukwe Rivers. It was a journey of more than a thousand
miles from Durban, the last three hundred or so of which we had to
make on foot, owing to the frequent presence of the dreadful "tsetse"
fly, whose bite is fatal to all animals except donkeys and men.
We left Durban at the end of January, and it was in the second week of
May that we camped near Sitanda's Kraal. Our adventures on the way
were many and various, but as they are of the sort which befall every
African hunter--with one exception to be presently detailed--I shall
not set them down here, lest I should render this history too
wearisome.
At Inyati, the outlying trading station in the Matabele country, of
which Lobengula (a great and cruel scoundrel) is king, with many
regrets we parted from our comfortable wagon. Only twelve oxen
remained to us out of the beautiful span of twenty which I had bought
at Durban. One we lost from the bite of a cobra, three had perished
from "poverty" and the want of water, one strayed, and the other three
died from eating the poisonous herb called "tulip." Five more sickened
from this cause, but we managed to cure them with doses of an infusion
made by boiling down the tulip leaves. If administered in time this is
a very effective antidote.
The wagon and the oxen we left in the immediate charge of Goza and
Tom, our driver and leader, both trustworthy boys, requesting a worthy
Scotch missionary who lived in this distant place to keep an eye on
them. Then, accompanied by Umbopa, Khiva, Ventvögel, and half a dozen
bearers whom we hired on the spot, we started off on foot upon our
wild quest. I remember we were all a little silent on the occasion of
this departure, and I think that each of us was wondering if we should
ever see our wagon again; for my part I never expected to do so. For a
while we tramped on in silence, till Umbopa, who was marching in
front, broke into a Zulu chant about how some brave men, tired of life
and the tameness of things, started off into a vast wilderness to find
new things or die, and how, lo and behold! when they had travelled far
into the wilderness they found that it was not a wilderness at all,
but a beautiful place full of young wives and fat cattle, of game to
hunt and enemies to kill.
Then we all laughed and took it for a good omen. Umbopa was a cheerful
savage, in a dignified sort of way, when he was not suffering from one
of his fits of brooding, and he had a wonderful knack of keeping up
our spirits. We all grew very fond of him.
And now for the one adventure to which I am going to treat myself, for
I do dearly love a hunting yarn.
About a fortnight's march from Inyati we came across a peculiarly
beautiful bit of well-watered woodland country. The kloofs in the
hills were covered with dense bush, "idoro" bush as the natives call
it, and in some places, with the "wacht-een-beche," or "wait-a-little
thorn," and there were great quantities of the lovely "machabell"
tree, laden with refreshing yellow fruit having enormous stones. This
tree is the elephant's favourite food, and there were not wanting
signs that the great brutes had been about, for not only was their
spoor frequent, but in many places the trees were broken down and even
uprooted. The elephant is a destructive feeder.
One evening, after a long day's march, we came to a spot of great
loveliness. At the foot of a bush-clad hill lay a dry river-bed, in
which, however, were to be found pools of crystal water all trodden
round with the hoof-prints of game. Facing this hill was a park-like
plain, where grew clumps of flat-topped mimosa, varied with occasional
glossy-leaved machabells, and all round stretched the sea of pathless,
silent bush.
As we emerged into this river-bed path suddenly we started a troop of
tall giraffes, who galloped, or rather sailed off, in their strange
gait, their tails screwed up over their backs, and their hoofs
rattling like castanets. They were about three hundred yards from us,
and therefore practically out of shot, but Good, who was walking
ahead, and who had an express loaded with solid ball in his hand,
could not resist temptation. Lifting his gun, he let drive at the
last, a young cow. By some extraordinary chance the ball struck it
full on the back of the neck, shattering the spinal column, and that
giraffe went rolling head over heels just like a rabbit. I never saw a
more curious thing.
"Curse it!" said Good--for I am sorry to say he had a habit of using
strong language when excited--contracted, no doubt, in the course of
his nautical career; "curse it! I've killed him."
"/Ou/, Bougwan," ejaculated the Kafirs; "/ou! ou!/"
They called Good "Bougwan," or Glass Eye, because of his eye-glass.
"Oh, 'Bougwan!'" re-echoed Sir Henry and I, and from that day Good's
reputation as a marvellous shot was established, at any rate among the
Kafirs. Really he was a bad one, but whenever he missed we overlooked
it for the sake of that giraffe.
Having set some of the "boys" to cut off the best of the giraffe's
meat, we went to work to build a "scherm" near one of the pools and
about a hundred yards to its right. This is done by cutting a quantity
of thorn bushes and piling them in the shape of a circular hedge. Then
the space enclosed is smoothed, and dry tambouki grass, if obtainable,
is made into a bed in the centre, and a fire or fires lighted.
By the time the "scherm" was finished the moon peeped up, and our
dinners of giraffe steaks and roasted marrow-bones were ready. How we
enjoyed those marrow-bones, though it was rather a job to crack them!
I know of no greater luxury than giraffe marrow, unless it is
elephant's heart, and we had that on the morrow. We ate our simple
meal by the light of the moon, pausing at times to thank Good for his
wonderful shot; then we began to smoke and yarn, and a curious picture
we must have made squatting there round the fire. I, with my short
grizzled hair sticking up straight, and Sir Henry with his yellow
locks, which were getting rather long, were rather a contrast,
especially as I am thin, and short, and dark, weighing only nine stone
and a half, and Sir Henry is tall, and broad, and fair, and weighs
fifteen. But perhaps the most curious-looking of the three, taking all
the circumstances of the case into consideration, was Captain John
Good, R.N. There he sat upon a leather bag, looking just as though he
had come in from a comfortable day's shooting in a civilised country,
absolutely clean, tidy, and well dressed. He wore a shooting suit of
brown tweed, with a hat to match, and neat gaiters. As usual, he was
beautifully shaved, his eye-glass and his false teeth appeared to be
in perfect order, and altogether he looked the neatest man I ever had
to do with in the wilderness. He even sported a collar, of which he
had a supply, made of white gutta-percha.
"You see, they weigh so little," he said to me innocently, when I
expressed my astonishment at the fact; "and I always like to turn out
like a gentleman." Ah! if he could have foreseen the future and the
raiment prepared for him.
Well, there we three sat yarning away in the beautiful moonlight, and
watching the Kafirs a few yards off sucking their intoxicating
"daccha" from a pipe of which the mouthpiece was made of the horn of
an eland, till one by one they rolled themselves up in their blankets
and went to sleep by the fire, that is, all except Umbopa, who was a
little apart, his chin resting on his hand, and thinking deeply. I
noticed that he never mixed much with the other Kafirs.
Presently, from the depths of the bush behind us, came a loud "/woof/,
/woof/!" "That's a lion," said I, and we all started up to listen.
Hardly had we done so, when from the pool, about a hundred yards off,
we heard the strident trumpeting of an elephant. "/Unkungunklovo/!
/Indlovu/!" "Elephant! Elephant!" whispered the Kafirs, and a few
minutes afterwards we saw a succession of vast shadowy forms moving
slowly from the direction of the water towards the bush.
Up jumped Good, burning for slaughter, and thinking, perhaps, that it
was as easy to kill elephant as he had found it to shoot giraffe, but
I caught him by the arm and pulled him down.
"It's no good," I whispered, "let them go."
"It seems that we are in a paradise of game. I vote we stop here a day
or two, and have a go at them," said Sir Henry, presently.
I was rather surprised, for hitherto Sir Henry had always been for
pushing forward as fast as possible, more especially since we
ascertained at Inyati that about two years ago an Englishman of the
name of Neville /had/ sold his wagon there, and gone on up country.
But I suppose his hunter instincts got the better of him for a while.
Good jumped at the idea, for he was longing to have a shot at those
elephants; and so, to speak the truth, did I, for it went against my
conscience to let such a herd as that escape without a pull at them.
"All right, my hearties," said I. "I think we want a little
recreation. And now let's turn in, for we ought to be off by dawn, and
then perhaps we may catch them feeding before they move on."
The others agreed, and we proceeded to make our preparations. Good
took off his clothes, shook them, put his eye-glass and his false
teeth into his trousers pocket, and folding each article neatly,
placed it out of the dew under a corner of his mackintosh sheet. Sir
Henry and I contented ourselves with rougher arrangements, and soon
were curled up in our blankets, and dropping off into the dreamless
sleep that rewards the traveller.
Going, going, go--What was that?
Suddenly, from the direction of the water came sounds of violent
scuffling, and next instant there broke upon our ears a succession of
the most awful roars. There was no mistaking their origin; only a lion
could make such a noise as that. We all jumped up and looked towards
the water, in the direction of which we saw a confused mass, yellow
and black in colour, staggering and struggling towards us. We seized
our rifles, and slipping on our veldtschoons, that is shoes made of
untanned hide, ran out of the scherm. By this time the mass had
fallen, and was rolling over and over on the ground, and when we
reached the spot it struggled no longer, but lay quite still.
Now we saw what it was. On the grass there lay a sable antelope bull--
the most beautiful of all the African antelopes--quite dead, and
transfixed by its great curved horns was a magnificent black-maned
lion, also dead. Evidently what had happened was this: The sable
antelope had come down to drink at the pool where the lion--no doubt
the same which we had heard--was lying in wait. While the antelope
drank, the lion had sprung upon him, only to be received upon the
sharp curved horns and transfixed. Once before I saw a similar thing
happen. Then the lion, unable to free himself, had torn and bitten at
the back and neck of the bull, which, maddened with fear and pain, had
rushed on until it dropped dead.
As soon as we had examined the beasts sufficiently we called the
Kafirs, and between us managed to drag their carcases up to the
scherm. After that we went in and lay down, to wake no more till dawn.
With the first light we were up and making ready for the fray. We took
with us the three eight-bore rifles, a good supply of ammunition, and
our large water-bottles, filled with weak cold tea, which I have
always found the best stuff to shoot on. After swallowing a little
breakfast we started, Umbopa, Khiva, and Ventvögel accompanying us.
The other Kafirs we left with instructions to skin the lion and the
sable antelope, and to cut up the latter.
We had no difficulty in finding the broad elephant trail, which
Ventvögel, after examination, pronounced to have been made by between
twenty and thirty elephants, most of them full-grown bulls. But the
herd had moved on some way during the night, and it was nine o'clock,
and already very hot, before, by the broken trees, bruised leaves and
bark, and smoking droppings, we knew that we could not be far from
them.
Presently we caught sight of the herd, which numbered, as Ventvögel
had said, between twenty and thirty, standing in a hollow, having
finished their morning meal, and flapping their great ears. It was a
splendid sight, for they were only about two hundred yards from us.
Taking a handful of dry grass, I threw it into the air to see how the
wind was; for if once they winded us I knew they would be off before
we could get a shot. Finding that, if anything, it blew from the
elephants to us, we crept on stealthily, and thanks to the cover
managed to get within forty yards or so of the great brutes. Just in
front of us, and broadside on, stood three splendid bulls, one of them
with enormous tusks. I whispered to the others that I would take the
middle one; Sir Henry covering the elephant to the left, and Good the
bull with the big tusks.
"Now," I whispered.
Boom! boom! boom! went the three heavy rifles, and down came Sir
Henry's elephant dead as a hammer, shot right through the heart. Mine
fell on to its knees and I thought that he was going to die, but in
another moment he was up and off, tearing along straight past me. As
he went I gave him the second barrel in the ribs, and this brought him
down in good earnest. Hastily slipping in two fresh cartridges I ran
close up to him, and a ball through the brain put an end to the poor
brute's struggles. Then I turned to see how Good had fared with the
big bull, which I had heard screaming with rage and pain as I gave
mine its quietus. On reaching the captain I found him in a great state
of excitement. It appeared that on receiving the bullet the bull had
turned and come straight for his assailant, who had barely time to get
out of his way, and then charged on blindly past him, in the direction
of our encampment. Meanwhile the herd had crashed off in wild alarm in
the other direction.
For awhile we debated whether to go after the wounded bull or to
follow the herd, and finally deciding for the latter alternative,
departed, thinking that we had seen the last of those big tusks. I
have often wished since that we had. It was easy work to follow the
elephants, for they had left a trail like a carriage road behind them,
crushing down the thick bush in their furious flight as though it were
tambouki grass.
But to come up with them was another matter, and we had struggled on
under the broiling sun for over two hours before we found them. With
the exception of one bull, they were standing together, and I could
see, from their unquiet way and the manner in which they kept lifting
their trunks to test the air, that they were on the look-out for
mischief. The solitary bull stood fifty yards or so to this side of
the herd, over which he was evidently keeping sentry, and about sixty
yards from us. Thinking that he would see or wind us, and that it
would probably start them off again if we tried to get nearer,
especially as the ground was rather open, we all aimed at this bull,
and at my whispered word, we fired. The three shots took effect, and
down he went dead. Again the herd started, but unfortunately for them
about a hundred yards further on was a nullah, or dried-out water
track, with steep banks, a place very much resembling the one where
the Prince Imperial was killed in Zululand. Into this the elephants
plunged, and when we reached the edge we found them struggling in wild
confusion to get up the other bank, filling the air with their
screams, and trumpeting as they pushed one another aside in their
selfish panic, just like so many human beings. Now was our
opportunity, and firing away as quickly as we could load, we killed
five of the poor beasts, and no doubt should have bagged the whole
herd, had they not suddenly given up their attempts to climb the bank
and rushed headlong down the nullah. We were too tired to follow them,
and perhaps also a little sick of slaughter, eight elephants being a
pretty good bag for one day.
So after we were rested a little, and the Kafirs had cut out the
hearts of two of the dead elephants for supper, we started homewards,
very well pleased with our day's work, having made up our minds to
send the bearers on the morrow to chop away the tusks.
Shortly after we re-passed the spot where Good had wounded the
patriarchal bull we came across a herd of eland, but did not shoot at
them, as we had plenty of meat. They trotted past us, and then stopped
behind a little patch of bush about a hundred yards away, wheeling
round to look at us. As Good was anxious to get a near view of them,
never having seen an eland close, he handed his rifle to Umbopa, and,
followed by Khiva, strolled up to the patch of bush. We sat down and
waited for him, not sorry of the excuse for a little rest.
The sun was just going down in its reddest glory, and Sir Henry and I
were admiring the lovely scene, when suddenly we heard an elephant
scream, and saw its huge and rushing form with uplifted trunk and tail
silhouetted against the great fiery globe of the sun. Next second we
saw something else, and that was Good and Khiva tearing back towards
us with the wounded bull--for it was he--charging after them. For a
moment we did not dare to fire--though at that distance it would have
been of little use if we had done so--for fear of hitting one of them,
and the next a dreadful thing happened--Good fell a victim to his
passion for civilised dress. Had he consented to discard his trousers
and gaiters like the rest of us, and to hunt in a flannel shirt and a
pair of veldt-schoons, it would have been all right. But as it was,
his trousers cumbered him in that desperate race, and presently, when
he was about sixty yards from us, his boot, polished by the dry grass,
slipped, and down he went on his face right in front of the elephant.
We gave a gasp, for we knew that he must die, and ran as hard as we
could towards him. In three seconds it had ended, but not as we
thought. Khiva, the Zulu boy, saw his master fall, and brave lad as he
was, turned and flung his assegai straight into the elephant's face.
It stuck in his trunk.
With a scream of pain, the brute seized the poor Zulu, hurled him to
the earth, and placing one huge foot on to his body about the middle,
twined its trunk round his upper part and /tore him in two/.
We rushed up mad with horror, and fired again and again, till
presently the elephant fell upon the fragments of the Zulu.
As for Good, he rose and wrung his hands over the brave man who had
given his life to save him, and, though I am an old hand, I felt a
lump grow in my throat. Umbopa stood contemplating the huge dead
elephant and the mangled remains of poor Khiva.
"Ah, well," he said presently, "he is dead, but he died like a man!"
CHAPTER V
OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT
We had killed nine elephants, and it took us two days to cut out the
tusks, and having brought them into camp, to bury them carefully in
the sand under a large tree, which made a conspicuous mark for miles
round. It was a wonderfully fine lot of ivory. I never saw a better,
averaging as it did between forty and fifty pounds a tusk. The tusks
of the great bull that killed poor Khiva scaled one hundred and
seventy pounds the pair, so nearly as we could judge.
As for Khiva himself, we buried what remained of him in an ant-bear
hole, together with an assegai to protect himself with on his journey
to a better world. On the third day we marched again, hoping that we
might live to return to dig up our buried ivory, and in due course,
after a long and wearisome tramp, and many adventures which I have not
space to detail, we reached Sitanda's Kraal, near the Lukanga River,
the real starting-point of our expedition. Very well do I recollect
our arrival at that place. To the right was a scattered native
settlement with a few stone cattle kraals and some cultivated lands
down by the water, where these savages grew their scanty supply of
grain, and beyond it stretched great tracts of waving "veld" covered
with tall grass, over which herds of the smaller game were wandering.
To the left lay the vast desert. This spot appears to be the outpost
of the fertile country, and it would be difficult to say to what
natural causes such an abrupt change in the character of the soil is
due. But so it is.
Just below our encampment flowed a little stream, on the farther side
of which is a stony slope, the same down which, twenty years before, I
had seen poor Silvestre creeping back after his attempt to reach
Solomon's Mines, and beyond that slope begins the waterless desert,
covered with a species of karoo shrub.
It was evening when we pitched our camp, and the great ball of the sun
was sinking into the desert, sending glorious rays of many-coloured
light flying all over its vast expanse. Leaving Good to superintend
the arrangement of our little camp, I took Sir Henry with me, and
walking to the top of the slope opposite, we gazed across the desert.
The air was very clear, and far, far away I could distinguish the
faint blue outlines, here and there capped with white, of the Suliman
Berg.
"There," I said, "there is the wall round Solomon's Mines, but God
knows if we shall ever climb it."
"My brother should be there, and if he is, I shall reach him somehow,"
said Sir Henry, in that tone of quiet confidence which marked the man.
"I hope so," I answered, and turned to go back to the camp, when I saw
that we were not alone. Behind us, also gazing earnestly towards the
far-off mountains, stood the great Kafir Umbopa.
The Zulu spoke when he saw that I had observed him, addressing Sir
Henry, to whom he had attached himself.
"Is it to that land that thou wouldst journey, Incubu?" (a native word
meaning, I believe, an elephant, and the name given to Sir Henry by
the Kafirs), he said, pointing towards the mountain with his broad
assegai.
I asked him sharply what he meant by addressing his master in that
familiar way. It is very well for natives to have a name for one among
themselves, but it is not decent that they should call a white man by
their heathenish appellations to his face. The Zulu laughed a quiet
little laugh which angered me.
"How dost thou know that I am not the equal of the Inkosi whom I
serve?" he said. "He is of a royal house, no doubt; one can see it in
his size and by his mien; so, mayhap, am I. At least, I am as great a
man. Be my mouth, O Macumazahn, and say my words to the Inkoos Incubu,
my master, for I would speak to him and to thee."
I was angry with the man, for I am not accustomed to be talked to in
that way by Kafirs, but somehow he impressed me, and besides I was
curious to know what he had to say. So I translated, expressing my
opinion at the same time that he was an impudent fellow, and that his
swagger was outrageous.
"Yes, Umbopa," answered Sir Henry, "I would journey there."
"The desert is wide and there is no water in it, the mountains are
high and covered with snow, and man cannot say what lies beyond them
behind the place where the sun sets; how shalt thou come thither,
Incubu, and wherefore dost thou go?"
I translated again.
"Tell him," answered Sir Henry, "that I go because I believe that a
man of my blood, my brother, has gone there before me, and I journey
to seek him."
"That is so, Incubu; a Hottentot I met on the road told me that a
white man went out into the desert two years ago towards those
mountains with one servant, a hunter. They never came back."
"How do you know it was my brother?" asked Sir Henry.
"Nay, I know not. But the Hottentot, when I asked what the white man
was like, said that he had thine eyes and a black beard. He said, too,
that the name of the hunter with him was Jim; that he was a Bechuana
hunter and wore clothes."
"There is no doubt about it," said I; "I knew Jim well."
Sir Henry nodded. "I was sure of it," he said. "If George set his mind
upon a thing he generally did it. It was always so from his boyhood.
If he meant to cross the Suliman Berg he has crossed it, unless some
accident overtook him, and we must look for him on the other side."
Umbopa understood English, though he rarely spoke it.
"It is a far journey, Incubu," he put in, and I translated his remark.
"Yes," answered Sir Henry, "it is far. But there is no journey upon
this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it. There
is nothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may
not climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain and a
desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he
holds his life in his hands counting it as nothing, ready to keep it
or lose it as Heaven above may order."
I translated.
"Great words, my father," answered the Zulu--I always called him a
Zulu, though he was not really one--"great swelling words fit to fill
the mouth of a man. Thou art right, my father Incubu. Listen! what is
life? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and
thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes
carried away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it
may perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. It is well to
try and journey one's road and to fight with the air. Man must die. At
the worst he can but die a little sooner. I will go with thee across
the desert and over the mountains, unless perchance I fall to the
ground on the way, my father."
He paused awhile, and then went on with one of those strange bursts of
rhetorical eloquence that Zulus sometimes indulge in, which to my
mind, full though they are of vain repetitions, show that the race is
by no means devoid of poetic instinct and of intellectual power.
"What is life? Tell me, O white men, who are wise, who know the
secrets of the world, and of the world of stars, and the world that
lies above and around the stars; who flash your words from afar
without a voice; tell me, white men, the secret of our life--whither
it goes and whence it comes!
"You cannot answer me; you know not. Listen, I will answer. Out of the
dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night
we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the
light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life
is nothing. Life is all. It is the Hand with which we hold off Death.
It is the glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the
morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the
little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset."
"You are a strange man," said Sir Henry, when he had ceased.
Umbopa laughed. "It seems to me that we are much alike, Incubu.
Perhaps /I/ seek a brother over the mountains."
I looked at him suspiciously. "What dost thou mean?" I asked; "what
dost thou know of those mountains?"
"A little; a very little. There is a strange land yonder, a land of
witchcraft and beautiful things; a land of brave people, and of trees,
and streams, and snowy peaks, and of a great white road. I have heard
of it. But what is the good of talking? It grows dark. Those who live
to see will see."
Again I looked at him doubtfully. The man knew too much.
"You need not fear me, Macumazahn," he said, interpreting my look. "I
dig no holes for you to fall in. I make no plots. If ever we cross
those mountains behind the sun I will tell what I know. But Death sits
upon them. Be wise and turn back. Go and hunt elephants, my masters. I
have spoken."
And without another word he lifted his spear in salutation, and
returned towards the camp, where shortly afterwards we found him
cleaning a gun like any other Kafir.
"That is an odd man," said Sir Henry.
"Yes," answered I, "too odd by half. I don't like his little ways. He
knows something, and will not speak out. But I suppose it is no use
quarrelling with him. We are in for a curious trip, and a mysterious
Zulu won't make much difference one way or another."
Next day we made our arrangements for starting. Of course it was
impossible to drag our heavy elephant rifles and other kit with us
across the desert, so, dismissing our bearers, we made an arrangement
with an old native who had a kraal close by to take care of them till
we returned. It went to my heart to leave such things as those sweet
tools to the tender mercies of an old thief of a savage whose greedy
eyes I could see gloating over them. But I took some precautions.
First of all I loaded all the rifles, placing them at full cock, and
informed him that if he touched them they would go off. He tried the
experiment instantly with my eight-bore, and it did go off, and blew a
hole right through one of his oxen, which were just then being driven
up to the kraal, to say nothing of knocking him head over heels with
the recoil. He got up considerably startled, and not at all pleased at
the loss of the ox, which he had the impudence to ask me to pay for,
and nothing would induce him to touch the guns again.
"Put the live devils out of the way up there in the thatch," he said,
"or they will murder us all."
Then I told him that, when we came back, if one of those things was
missing I would kill him and his people by witchcraft; and if we died
and he tried to steal the rifles I would come and haunt him and turn
his cattle mad and his milk sour till life was a weariness, and would
make the devils in the guns come out and talk to him in a way he did
not like, and generally gave him a good idea of judgment to come.
After that he promised to look after them as though they were his
father's spirit. He was a very superstitious old Kafir and a great
villain.
Having thus disposed of our superfluous gear we arranged the kit we
five--Sir Henry, Good, myself, Umbopa, and the Hottentot Ventvögel--
were to take with us on our journey. It was small enough, but do what
we would we could not get its weight down under about forty pounds a
man. This is what it consisted of:--
The three express rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition.
The two Winchester repeating rifles (for Umbopa and Ventvögel), with
two hundred rounds of cartridge.
Five Cochrane's water-bottles, each holding four pints.
Five blankets.
Twenty-five pounds' weight of biltong--i.e. sun-dried game flesh.
Ten pounds' weight of best mixed beads for gifts.
A selection of medicine, including an ounce of quinine, and one or two
small surgical instruments.
Our knives, a few sundries, such as a compass, matches, a pocket
filter, tobacco, a trowel, a bottle of brandy, and the clothes we
stood in.
This was our total equipment, a small one indeed for such a venture,
but we dared not attempt to carry more. Indeed, that load was a heavy
one per man with which to travel across the burning desert, for in
such places every additional ounce tells. But we could not see our way
to reducing the weight. There was nothing taken but what was
absolutely necessary.
With great difficulty, and by the promise of a present of a good
hunting-knife each, I succeeded in persuading three wretched natives
from the village to come with us for the first stage, twenty miles,
and to carry a large gourd holding a gallon of water apiece. My object
was to enable us to refill our water-bottles after the first night's
march, for we determined to start in the cool of the evening. I gave
out to these natives that we were going to shoot ostriches, with which
the desert abounded. They jabbered and shrugged their shoulders,
saying that we were mad and should perish of thirst, which I must say
seemed probable; but being desirous of obtaining the knives, which
were almost unknown treasures up there, they consented to come, having
probably reflected that, after all, our subsequent extinction would be
no affair of theirs.
All next day we rested and slept, and at sunset ate a hearty meal of
fresh beef washed down with tea, the last, as Good remarked sadly, we
were likely to drink for many a long day. Then, having made our final
preparations, we lay down and waited for the moon to rise. At last,
about nine o'clock, up she came in all her glory, flooding the wild
country with light, and throwing a silver sheen on the expanse of
rolling desert before us, which looked as solemn and quiet and as
alien to man as the star-studded firmament above. We rose up, and in a
few minutes were ready, and yet we hesitated a little, as human nature
is prone to hesitate on the threshold of an irrevocable step. We three
white men stood by ourselves. Umbopa, assegai in hand and a rifle
across his shoulders, looked out fixedly across the desert a few paces
ahead of us; while the hired natives, with the gourds of water, and
Ventvögel, were gathered in a little knot behind.
"Gentlemen," said Sir Henry presently, in his deep voice, "we are
going on about as strange a journey as men can make in this world. It
is very doubtful if we can succeed in it. But we are three men who
will stand together for good or for evil to the last. Now before we
start let us for a moment pray to the Power who shapes the destinies
of men, and who ages since has marked out our paths, that it may
please Him to direct our steps in accordance with His will."
Taking off his hat, for the space of a minute or so, he covered his
face with his hands, and Good and I did likewise.
I do not say that I am a first-rate praying man, few hunters are, and
as for Sir Henry, I never heard him speak like that before, and only
once since, though deep down in his heart I believe that he is very
religious. Good too is pious, though apt to swear. Anyhow I do not
remember, excepting on one single occasion, ever putting up a better
prayer in my life than I did during that minute, and somehow I felt
the happier for it. Our future was so completely unknown, and I think
that the unknown and the awful always bring a man nearer to his Maker.
"And now," said Sir Henry, "/trek/!"
So we started.
We had nothing to guide ourselves by except the distant mountains and
old José da Silvestre's chart, which, considering that it was drawn by
a dying and half-distraught man on a fragment of linen three centuries
ago, was not a very satisfactory sort of thing with work with. Still,
our sole hope of success depended upon it, such as it was. If we
failed in finding that pool of bad water which the old Dom marked as
being situated in the middle of the desert, about sixty miles from our
starting-point, and as far from the mountains, in all probability we
must perish miserably of thirst. But to my mind the chances of our
finding it in that great sea of sand and karoo scrub seemed almost
infinitesimal. Even supposing that da Silvestra had marked the pool
correctly, what was there to prevent its having been dried up by the
sun generations ago, or trampled in by game, or filled with the
drifting sand?
On we tramped silently as shades through the night and in the heavy
sand. The karoo bushes caught our feet and retarded us, and the sand
worked into our veldtschoons and Good's shooting-boots, so that every
few miles we had to stop and empty them; but still the night kept
fairly cool, though the atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a sort
of creamy feel to the air, and we made fair progress. It was very
silent and lonely there in the desert, oppressively so indeed. Good
felt this, and once began to whistle "The Girl I left behind me," but
the notes sounded lugubrious in that vast place, and he gave it up.
Shortly afterwards a little incident occurred which, though it
startled us at the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good was leading, as
the holder of the compass, which, being a sailor, of course he
understood thoroughly, and we were toiling along in single file behind
him, when suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he
vanished. Next second there arose all around us a most extraordinary
hubbub, snorts, groans, and wild sounds of rushing feet. In the faint
light, too, we could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths
of sand. The natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, but
remembering that there was nowhere to run to, they cast themselves
upon the ground and howled out that it was ghosts. As for Sir Henry
and myself, we stood amazed; nor was our amazement lessened when we
perceived the form of Good careering off in the direction of the
mountains, apparently mounted on the back of a horse and halloaing
wildly. In another second he threw up his arms, and we heard him come
to the earth with a thud.
Then I saw what had happened; we had stumbled upon a herd of sleeping
quagga, on to the back of one of which Good actually had fallen, and
the brute naturally enough got up and made off with him. Calling out
to the others that it was all right, I ran towards Good, much afraid
lest he should be hurt, but to my great relief I found him sitting in
the sand, his eye-glass still fixed firmly in his eye, rather shaken
and very much frightened, but not in any way injured.
After this we travelled on without any further misadventure till about
Back to Full Books
|