Part 11

Passing through Bukora we were greeted as old friends, a very different reception from our first. Pyjalé immediately joined up, and after taking a few good bull elephants from the Bukora-Kumamma neutral zone we trekked leisurely and heavily laden northwards.

At the last village of Bukora we met commotion and wailing. The occasion was the murder of three young Bukora girls of marriageable age at the hands of some roving band of Jiwé bloods. These affairs were of quite common occurrence, and the natives could never understand the disgust and abhorrence they drew from me. I was eventually able to stop the killing of females, at least while I was in the country.

Pitching camp late one night in the fighting zone between Bukora and Jiwé, lions were sighted leaving the rocky hills for the game-covered plains. Although almost dark I succeeded in killing two within a short distance of camp. I returned and was seated by the camp-fire when I heard alarming shouts from the direction of the dead lions. In this kind of life something is constantly turning up, and one soon learns to be always ready. The occurrences are so simple as to require but simple remedies. Everything seems to demand the presence of a rifle and just an ordinary sense of humour to transform an imminent tragedy into African comedy. Seizing my ·275 I rushed through the darkness towards the shouts, and what I found was that one lion had been skinned and the other half flayed when it had suddenly come to life again. The boys said that as they were removing its skin it suddenly and without warning stood up, opened its mouth and rushed at them. But what I found was a half-skinned lion with its head alive but the rest of it dead or paralysed. It could open its mouth and growl ferociously. Its springing at them must have been supplied by the boys’ imaginations or to excuse their headlong flight. Some nerve must have suffered damage in the lion’s neck, leaving the body paralysed but the head active. One of the boys had been seated on it when it growled, and his account of the affair in camp raised bursts of deep-chested Nyamwezi laughter.

These camps in the wonderful African nights of the dry season linger in my memory as the most enjoyable I have ever experienced. Other nights have been more exciting and more exhilarating, but also more harmful in their after-effects. Poker or flying by night, sitting up for elephant or lion, provide quicker pulse-beats between periods of intense boredom, but for level quiet enjoyment give me the camp-chair by the camp-fire with a crowd of happy and contented natives about and the prospect of good hunting in front and the evidence of good hunting by your side. Looking back on my safaris I can discern that they were quite exceptionally happy little collections of human beings. For one reason, health was simply splendid. Everyone was well and amply tented. All slept warm and dry. Mosquitoes were rare and stomachs full. Fun was of poor calibre, perhaps, but high animal spirits were there to make the most of it. The boys had their women—wives they called them. Tobacco could be traded from the natives or bought at cost price from the safari slop-chest.

Fighting among the men was always settled in the ring and with 4 oz. gloves provided by me. When this was found too slow—and they sometimes pounded each other for an hour on end, rounds being washed out—sticks were provided and the thing brought to a head more rapidly with the letting of a little blood. When the women bickered too persistently a ring would be formed, permission got and the two naggers dragged in. Each would then hitch up short her cloth about her ample hips and, after being provided with a hippo-hide whip, at it they would go with fire almost equal to that of the men. But with this difference. Where the men used their heads and tried to prevent the other from injuring them, the women waited motionless and guardless for each other’s strokes. It was the most extraordinary form of fighting ever seen. A. would catch B. a stinging swinger on the back and stand waiting for B. to give her a frightful cut across the shoulders. And so on it would go—szwip! szwop!—for about ten minutes, when B. would suddenly cast her whip on the ground and flee, A. in hot pursuit, while shouts of laughter greeted the decision, especially strong when either combatant lost her last shred of cloth. I must say the women never bore malice and were always great friends afterwards. Even during the fighting they never showed vice, for they could as easily as not have cut the eye out of their unguarded opponent. Yet I never saw anything approaching an injury inflicted in these affairs.

Then in the evenings there was football. When I first introduced this game I tried to teach them rugger. They were born rugger players. Fast, bare-footed, hard, muscular and slippery, they cared not at all for the ant-heaps, boulders, or thorn bushes which littered their day’s playground. After carrying a hundredweight all day, pitching camp, building thorn bomas for the animals and bringing in firewood for the night, they would go to rugger until dark. So bad were some of the injuries sustained, owing to the bad terrain, that a new game had to be evolved more suited to the ground. After various trials a game was settled upon which seemed to suit. It was simply a kind of massed rush in which any number could engage. Goals were marked out at distances one from the other to suit the ground. Then the ball was placed at half-way and the two opposing sides drawn up in line about 15 yds. from it. At a signal both sides charged full tilt at each other, meeting about where the ball was. Then the object was to get the ball by hook or by crook to the goal. No off-side, no boundaries, no penalties, no referee and no half-time. Darkness terminated the game. So hard was the ground and so incessant the wear on the ball that it was seldom one lasted a month. How they could kick it without breaking their toes always puzzled me.

Our reputation had preceded us, and we were welcomed by the Jiwé people. So much so that they wished for blood-brotherhood, but I evaded it. We hunted happily in their country for some time and learnt of an attack on their country by a Nile tribe with numerous guns of muzzle-loading type. The Jiwé with spears alone had not only repulsed the attackers but had massacred most of them. Inadequate supplies of munitions had been their downfall. The firearms which had been picked up by the Jiwé had since been traded off to Swahilis.

While chasing elephant in the Jiwé country one day we happened to start some ostrich running. They took the same line as the fleeing elephant and soon overhauled them. When close up the cock bird suddenly began the fantastic dashes here and there usually seen in the breeding season. One of his speed efforts took him close past a lumbering bull elephant on the outside of the little herd. These elephants had already been severely chased and several of their number had been killed. When, therefore, the black form of the ostrich raced up from behind him the poor old elephant nearly fell over with fright. His trunk shot out and his ears looked like umbrellas turned inside out by a sudden gust. But recovering almost instantly, he settled back to his steady fast retreat.

Our next country northwards was Dodose, where I proposed to establish the base camp. On entering it we found it high-lying country among steep little granite hills. We were well received and soon became friendly. Some wonderful elephant country was reached from Dodose, and it was here that I got my heaviest ivory. Buffalo were also very numerous. It was beautiful hunting country, as elephant could frequently be found, with glasses, from one of the numerous hills.

It was now the dry season; there was, for that reason, only one route to or from Dabossa, where the Swahili raid was on. I therefore put a look-out post on this route to bring me news of anyone coming south on this trail. This post consisted of four of my best Wanyamweze boys with two natives. As soon as any sign of the returning raiders was seen the boys were to send a native with the news while they remained to try to keep any Swahilis until my arrival. I had expected the raiders to have a fore-guard of some sort and that I would have time to arrive on the scene between its arrival and the coming of the main body. Instead of this, up marched the whole body of raiders, cattle and captives, all in charge of my four stalwarts. What they had told the Swahilis lay in store for them I never learnt, but it was evidently something dreadful, judging by the state of panic they were in. I counted their guns and took their captives—all women—and cattle from them, warned them that next time they would land up in prison or be shot, and sent them packing.

After a considerable hunt in and around Dodose, it was now time, the first rains being imminent, to be moving northwards towards Dabossa. In entering new country for elephant it is always best to get there when the first rains are on, as the animals then desert their dry-season thick haunts for the open country.

Before approaching the inhabited part of Dabossa I knew that it would be necessary somehow to get into communication with the natives. They had just recently been raided and would be very nervous and likely to attack any strangers approaching their country. The Dabossan cattle recently taken from the raiders were therefore placed in the charge of some of the Dodose notables, while I and a good little safari headed northwards, taking with us all the captive women.

When still about forty miles from Dabossa it became evident from signs that Dabossans were about. We therefore camped by water and built a strong thorn boma. Everyone was warned not to leave the boma at night, but one of my personal boys—a brainless Kavirondo—thinking perhaps that orders were not meant for him, broke camp and was promptly speared. His cries effectually roused the camp, but the extent of his hurt bore little resemblance to the volume of his noise. He had a nice little spear thrust in a tender spot.

The boy’s misfortune was promptly turned to account, for, after stilling his cries, we got the Dabossan captives to shout into the night all our news. Our reason for being there, our intentions, how we had their cattle ready to return to their owners—so far had the narrative got when first one voice from the dark and then others began asking for news of such and such a cow or heifer, so-and-so’s bull or bullock. Later women or girl captives were asked after. Eventually men appeared and were persuaded to come to camp. Relations became friendly almost at once. At daybreak it was arranged for some of the natives to go at once to Dabossa and spread the news, while others accompanied some of my boys back to Dodose in order to identify their cattle. This was thought necessary as we did not know the cattle from any others, and also because it was almost certain that the Dodose notables would try to palm off their duds in place of the good Dabossan animals. Meanwhile I remained hunting the surrounding country.

In a few days there arrived a runner from Dodose with the news that my Dodose notables had held a meeting and, courage brewed by numbers and beer, had flatly refused to give up the Dabossan cattle left in their charge. Not knowing my native gentlemen quite as well as I ought to have, and that courage so rapidly got was as rapidly lost, I was on the point of rushing back to Dodose when another runner arrived saying that all was well and that notable after notable had singly and surreptitiously returned the full tally of cattle left with him. I was relieved to hear this, as these constant native palavers were taking up a great deal of my hunting time.

The cattle soon arrived, drank up our small pool of water, and we pushed off all together for Dabossa. The captive women were now, of course, quite free to go or stay and, without exception, they remained with us in idleness until removed by their men folk on our arrival in Dabossa. Had I allowed it, most of them would have remained as “wives” to my men rather than go back to the heavy work of tilling in their home gardens.

We had a huge reception in Dabossa. There must have been close on 5,000 spears assembled in the huge open space where we camped. Pow-wows were the order of one long weary day when the cattle were handed over and the captives returned to their relations. Peace for us at any rate was assured, but when I told the Dabossans that no one would attack them and that they ought to trade peacefully, they swore they would massacre every Swahili who might venture near their country. After I had explained my wish to hunt elephant, an old woman got up and made a long speech to the effect that they owed everything to me and that they ought to give me a pair of tusks. This they did, not particularly large ones. But what was better than tusks was guides to the Murua Akipi (Mountain of Water) country, said to abound in elephant.

This Murua Akipi was the aim of my journey. I had heard of it from native sources. It was a wonderful country where anything might happen. Huge elephant lived there. Bad Abyssinians came there. Elephant cemeteries were to be found there. Water which killed whoever drank it was there and which looked so cold and clear. No white man had ever seen it, although every traveller was supposed to be trying to reach it for the mysterious “thahabu” (gold) it contained. In fact, if one asked for anything under the sun anywhere within a radius of one hundred miles he would be referred to that mysterious blue peak, Murua Akipi.

We trailed along through monotonous cultivated country for several days. Then coming to the end of Dabossa we entered on an exceptionally large deserted zone. Here hardly anyone ventured, as Habashi (Abyssinian) prowlers might be met. For several days the large open cotton-soil plains, with bands of thorn bush, were covered with great numbers of ostrich and topi haartebeeste. Abyssinians had recently raided the outskirts of Dabossa and all the boys were rather nervous, having heard dreadful tales of the Habashi.

We were not long in coming on signs of Habashi methods. Away over the plains some small black objects were seen. Zeiss showed them to be people, apparently women, seated on the ground. At closer range there were seven of them, all young women. Closer still, they appeared to be bound in a sitting posture, and all were in a very bad state. For one thing, their tongues all protruded and were black and fly covered. This was thirst. Their arms were passed inside the knee and were lashed securely to the outside of the ankle, and so used they were abandoned in this shameless fashion to rescue on the one hand or death from thirst on the other.

Having water with us we soon released them and gradually forced sufficient moisture between tongue and teeth. Contrasted with those dreadful tongues how perfectly beautiful primitive man’s teeth appeared. Small, regular and widely set apart from each other, nothing seems to tarnish their whiteness.

These hardy creatures soon recovered sufficiently to stand up, and we packed each on a donkey to our next camp, where sufficient water for all was got. The next day we sent them off to their homes, feeling pretty certain there could be no Abyssinians between us and Dabossa, as water was still scarce.

We now sighted Murua Akipi as a minute tooth of pale blue just cutting the horizon. I thought we would reach it in two days, but it required four days of long marching to reach a small kopje a few miles from its base. That tiny tooth grew larger and larger each day until it looked an enormous size. I daresay it is not more than 2,000 or 3,000 ft., but being surrounded by huge plains it shows to great advantage.

One day while crossing the plains we had a smart shower which turned the black powdery soil into very tenacious mud. Walking became a trial for anything but naked feet, and I asked Pyjalé if the conditions were right for running down antelope. He assured me they were, and I urged him and the Dabossans to try it when opportunity arose. This was not long, for as we came out of a thorn belt we surprised a herd of eland and topi. Off went Pyjalé and the Dabossans, taking off their spear-guards as they ran. Off went the antelope, too, and for some time Pyjalé and Co. lost ground. Through my glasses I could see that the eland threw up much more mud than the topi and the topi much more than the natives. These latter hardly ever lifted a clod, whereas the galloping eland hove great masses into the air at every lurch. Consummate runners as all the natives were, Pyjalé was easily best. He could probably have closed with his beast sooner than he did but for his running it in a circle for my benefit. The heavy and fat eland were soon blown, and Pyjalé presently ranged alongside and with a neat and lightning dart of his spear thrust it to the heart. The movement was barely perceptible through the glass.

While on the subject of native runners I would like to tell what took place at Kampala, the capital of Uganda, in the year when Dorando won the marathon in England. Everyone was marathon mad, and the fever spread to Uganda. A marathon for native runners was organised as part of the attractions of the Show. Native chiefs were warned to seek out and train any likely talent they might have. The training consisted of feeding the runners largely on beef.

The course was from Enteble to Kampala show ground with one complete circuit of the ground. The course was carefully marked and two whites on bicycles were told off to ride with the runners. The distance, I believe, was almost exactly the same as the English course. About thirty runners started in the hottest part of the day, experienced heavy rain en route, which turned the road to mud and washed out the bicycles, and thirty runners arrived together at the show ground, tore round the ground singing and leaping in the air, fresh as paint, completed the course still all together, and went on circling the ground, thinking they were giving their lady friends a treat I suppose. They had to be stopped eventually, but the most astonishing thing was that their time for the course was almost exactly Dorando’s time, if I remember rightly. They thought it was better fun to come in all together than by ones and twos.

Camp was pitched at the foot of the kopje, sufficient rain water being found in the elephant baths for all our requirements. The next morning I climbed the little hill in pouring rain. From its top I had a good view of the Murua to the south, while to the north a river was visible flowing northwards. On its banks were large verdant green flats which might have been as smooth as tennis lawns but for the fact that they were thickly speckled with black dots which the glasses and then the telescope showed to be the backs and heads of scores of bull elephant. The grass consequently was young swamp grass and about six or seven feet high. The big tripod telescope showed some wonderful ivory, and I have never seen before or since so many old bull elephant in one place. Bunches of young herd bulls were comparatively common, but here were numbers of aged bulls.

Knowing how all naked men hate rain, I left Pyjalé in camp and took instead a well-clad boy whose feet had worn off earlier in the journey, and who had since been recuperating at the base camp. Nothing takes condition off a naked African like heavy rain. Strong as their constitutions are they wilt when constantly wet once the natural oil of the skin is pierced.