Part 21

I kept as still as a mouse, knowing well that the slightest movement would betray my presence to the timid, keen-sighted monkeys.

Now a numerous herd of zebras moved through the wood and across the clearing at a slow, careless pace. As they moved there was a bright shimmering of the variegated stripes of the beautiful “tiger-horses,” and again they would often be blurred into one uniform grey. They mingled with the waterbuck, which took very little notice of them, and evidently had known the zebras for a long time. It was wonderful to see the proud waterbuck, with their horns, which are at once weapon and ornament, and the stallion leaders of the zebra herd all continually on the alert watching against their enemies.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

TELEPHOTO STUDIES OF VARIOUS ATTITUDES AND MOVEMENTS OF GRANT’S GAZELLES.]

There is a scuttling over the ground, for the little mongoose family, that live over there among the ant-hills, are making a sally from their fortress. Snake-like in their swift movements, the graceful little animals seem to glide along. Yonder two snake-vultures are looking for reptiles. Numbers of other vultures and marabous have flown down to the margin of the shallow water to bathe and drink.

Into the midst of all this gathering of animals there now come three ostriches, making for the fresh green growth along the marshy edge of the river-bank, and a number of francolins and guinea-fowl that gradually come crowding out of the undergrowth into the clearing to feed there. On the sandbank on which I look down as it extends far along the course of the river, there are some thirty huge crocodiles sunning themselves. I can see several smaller specimens of these mail-clad lizards on a flat part of the river margin not far from the sandbank.

Yesterday, too, six giant hippopotami paid a visit to this sandbank on the primeval river, and left tracks that my eye can plainly see in the glowing sunshine; to-day, however, I have waited in vain for them to show themselves. But suddenly from the reed-beds on the opposite bank of the stream the mighty voice of an old bull comes booming across to me.

Over this most peaceful picture of animal life the tropical sun blazes, casting deep shadows. At this hour of the day even the voices of the birds are generally silent. Only the melodious piping of the organ-shrike sounds somewhere near me, and often, too, the cries of one or other of the baboons which is being corrected with bangs and cuffs by an older member of the pack.

All the various kinds of animals assembled here get on quite peacefully together. They often almost touch each other, without taking the slightest notice of one another. Even the antelope bucks, adorned with dangerously pointed horns, make not the slightest use of their sharp weapons against the other species. All the time that I was looking down from my lofty seat I saw nothing but peace and good-fellowship. And yet how quickly a tragedy might interrupt this stillness and peace! The tracks of lions and leopards down there, the crocodiles on the sandbank, and the vultures hovering in the air told me that.

Often in this, and in other places, I have gained an insight into the life and ways of the animal world, and I have thus passed many enjoyable hours. Now one, now another species presented itself to my observation, but it was seldom that I saw such a large number of different species at the same time. But in all cases I have found that man is a disturbing element in the midst of such pictures of the animal Paradise. Even where I could feel sure that the appearance of a white man, a European, was quite unknown to the animals of the district, even then the very moment I showed myself the immediate result was a panic-stricken flight.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

WHITE-BEARDED GNUS AND ZEBRAS TAKING REFUGE FROM THE MIDDAY SUN UNDER THE SHADE OF THE MSUALLI TREE.]

I have still clearly before my eyes the picture that presented itself to me as I emerged from the over-growth of creepers on the boughs of that uprooted tree. First a shrill cry from the monkeys. In a trice the little young ones were clinging to their mothers, and with long bounds the whole crowd of them galloped away over the level ground, hidden in a cloud of dust, and disappeared on the far side of the clearing. There a good many of them halted to look back. Of all the animals known to me only the baboons and the spotted hyenas take to flight in this way. The spectacle has such a surprisingly strange and unaccustomed, almost uncanny effect, that it always recurs to me when I think of these animals.

The antelopes follow the example of the fugitive baboons, after first rushing hither and thither, right and left, leaping wildly into the air. At this moment the impallah-antelopes, especially, make a splendid picture. Bounding along as if on springs of steel, they shoot up several yards high into the air. Wherever the eye turns it sees the graceful forms of these beautiful animals in all possible positions, making long bounds, some four feet high off the ground, and in every other attitude that one can imagine. But the end of all these splendid pictures, each seen for a moment, is a general stampede. Whirling clouds of dust in the far distance tell for some time longer which way the fugitives have taken.

But it is not every day that such varied pictures, so richly stored with the life of the primitive animal world of the tropics, present themselves to the traveller. And it needs, too, a trained eye to enjoy all the separate impressions in their combined effect, as making up one masterpiece of Nature. But often, too, an almost too great wealth of beauty gathered together in a small space presents itself to our eyes. Thus, more especially, I keep a memory of these small idyllic lakes of the wilderness, that are hidden away here and there in the Nyíka district, and give a home to a wealth of animal life that often seems almost too abundant. We sometimes find one of the most interesting species of the larger mammalia, the hippopotamus, living here in somewhat narrow quarters, but thus more easily accessible to observation than in the great lake basins, where it lives in hundreds or thousands, but where also it can much more easily get away from the sight of the observer. It is true that one can see numerous heads emerging from the water in the distance, one can mark the thin spray of water blown from their nostrils, forming numbers of little fountain jets that glitter in the sun. But the peculiar life and activity of these giants of the animal world goes on chiefly at night, invisible to our eyes. In the smaller lakes it is all different.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

IN THE MIDST OF THE VELT IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE GREAT NATRON LAKE I FOUND A SOLITARY OLD ACACIA. THE DISTRICT WAS NEARLY WATERLESS. THE TRUNK OF THE TREE SHOWED THE MARKS OF ELEPHANTS THAT HAD RUBBED THEMSELVES AGAINST IT.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A TYPICAL LANDSCAPE WITH ACACIAS AND SCATTERED BOULDERS--THE CAMPING PLACE OF MARAGO-KANGA NOT FAR FROM THE EASTERN ‘NJIRI SWAMPS. NEAR THIS CAMPING PLACE MY PEOPLE SHOWED ME THE ALMOST UNRECOGNISABLE GRAVE OF AN ENGLISH HUNTER WHO HAD BEEN KILLED BY A BUFFALO. I HAD IT PUT IN ORDER, AND MY ASKARI (ARMED FOLLOWERS) FIRED A VOLLEY OVER IT.]

I remember with pleasure a certain gathering of hippopotami in one of the lakes that lie hidden away between Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru, and which were discovered some years ago by Captain Merker. When I saw them there were still living in them some hundreds of hippopotami, and it was easy to watch their doings in the water. Gathered in herds they played about in the water under the bright sunlight, showing little sign of timidity. Especially the young ones, that were still going about with their mothers, had so little fear that I sometimes saw them rising almost completely out of the water. They were also sometimes to be seen resting in the sunshine on the sandbanks by the lake margin. Some of these lakes were of such small extent that the animals had to come up to breathe at a distance of at most only some twenty yards from the observer. But all the same they were generally inhabited by quite a number of hippopotami. It was then a great pleasure to watch these beasts for hours at a time, from the lofty look-out place provided by the surrounding heights that rose steeply from the edge of the lake. They kept up good fellowship with the crowds of water and marsh fowl that give life to these lakes. All these animals displayed themselves to the spectator at as close quarters and as plainly as in a zoological garden. The rosy red pelicans fishing in flocks of hundreds at a time presented the most charming contrast to the uncouth quadrupeds. Even now in fancy these lakes come before my sight, lakes that lie far from all human ways and doings in a silent solitude. Dark clouds float over it. The proximity of the massive and dark Mount Meru often causes a cloudy veil to hang over that volcanic plateau with its crater lakes. Again I climb the steep cliffs that ring them round, and again my gaze sweeps over the level surface of the water. But though there has been no decrease in the numbers of the waterfowl that enliven the lakes, the hippopotami have, alas! disappeared. I found on the occasion of my last journey a small number still there, but I hear from Professor Sjöstedt, the Swedish naturalist, who lately visited these lakes, that the hippopotami, who had made the lakes their home since dim far-off times, have almost disappeared. The Boers have killed everything. I came upon one here some years ago who was killing a lot of the hippopotami; others have followed up the work of this forerunner with more serious results. Attempts to make settlers at home in primitive regions are almost always inconsistent with a protection of the primitive animal world, even though these animals inhabit lonely upland lakes, hidden away in the wilderness, far from human settlements.

* * * * *

Thus in memory picture follows picture.

Besides the harmonies of the wilderness, the impressions of the eye are always those that come back alluringly in my recollections. However truly the artist may be able to reproduce all these various impressions, there is one kind that will always be missing from his pictures, namely, all the fleeting movement. To take as an instance only one out of an abundance of forms, who can reproduce in pictures the endless variety of birds, the world of winged life! Every day added to my knowledge of these multitudinous flocks, through the increase day by day of my bird collection, which I obtained at the cost of much labour, and which has been the means of giving to science many hitherto unknown species. As I added each new bird to it, I added also to my knowledge of these beautiful creatures, as yet so little known, and slowly, very slowly I became familiar with them. What splendour of forms and colours! In what enormous flocks does the feathered race inhabit the wilderness and the primeval forest! The Biblical account of the flocks of quails in the desert sounds to us like a legend, and yet it is no legend. At times when we too were marching across the same kind of ground, there flew past us with a whirr of many wings huge flocks of quails, that sought and found their safety in flight. At times I have also seen similar flocks of snipe. How long has it been since both these kinds of birds appeared in such flocks in our country at home?

C. G. Schillings, phot.

HUNGRY VULTURES NEAR MY TENT ON THE TREELESS VELT.]

The endless variety of form and colour, the movements of the animals which the eye perceives under the ever-changing tropical light, that shows everything brilliantly and sharply defined, all this taken together makes up memory-pictures of a charm that nothing can surpass. But he only can picture them to himself who has gone forth and made them his own.

The huge sea-turtle comes creeping along, emerges from the waters of the Indian Ocean, and makes for the sandhills to lay its eggs there. Its giant track on the sand leads me to its nest. To my astonished eyes this peculiar track looks as if a ploughshare had torn through the ground.

The Indian Ocean, which is the home of this huge sea-turtle, shelters also in quiet bays the strange Dugong or sea-cow, and great is the surprise of even the natives themselves when from time to time they capture in their nets this remarkable creature, which is becoming rarer every year.