Black Ivory, R. M. Ballantyne [reading like a writer txt] 📗

Mindful of Chimbolo’s previous warning, neither Harold nor Disco sought to advance, but both looked at their savage friend for advice.

Now, in some parts of Africa there exists a popular belief that the souls of departed chiefs enter into lions and render them sacred, and several members of Harold Seadrift’s party entertained this notion. Chimbolo was one of these. From the sounds of growling and rending which issued from the thicket, he knew that the lion in question was devouring part of their buffalo-meat which had been hung on the branch of a neighbouring tree, not, however, near enough to the fires to be visible. Believing that the beast was a chief in disguise, Chimbolo advanced a little towards the place where he was, and, much to our traveller’s amusement, gave him a good scolding.

“You call yourself a chief, do you—eh?” he said sternly. “What kind of a chief can you be, to come sneaking about in the dark like this, trying to steal our buffalo-meat! Are you not ashamed of yourself? A pretty chief, truly; you are like the scavenger-beetle, and think of yourself only; you have not the heart of a chief. Why don’t you kill your own beef? You must have a stone in your chest, and no heart at all.”

“That’s werry flowery lingo, but it don’t seem to convince him,” said Disco, with a quiet smile, as the lion, which had been growling continuously over its meal all the time, wound up Chimbolo’s speech with another terrific roar.

At this point another believer in transmigration of souls, a quiet man who seldom volunteered remarks on any subject, stepped forward and began seriously to expostulate with the lion.

“It is very wrong of you,” he said, “to treat strangers in this fashion. You might have more respect for Englishmen who have come to see your land, and never did you any harm. We are travelling peaceably through the country; we never kill anybody, and never steal anything; the buffalo-meat is ours, not yours, and it ill becomes a great chief like you to be prowling about in the dark, like a hyena, trying to steal the meat of strangers. Surely you can hunt for yourself—there is plenty of meat in the forest.” (See Livingstone’s Zambesi and its Tributaries, page 160.)

As the lion was equally deaf to this man’s reasoning, Harold thought it right to try a more persuasive plan. He drew up in a line all the men who had guns, and at a word of command they fired a volley of balls into the jungle, in the direction whence the sounds issued. A dead silence followed, but it was deemed advisable not to venture in to see the effect, as men had frequently lost their lives by so doing. A watch, however, was kept during the night, and the fires were well replenished, for they knew that the king of the forest usually shrinks from doing his evil deeds in the light of a strong camp-fire. We say usually—because they are not always thus shy. Authentic instances are on record of lions having leaped into the centre of a bivouac, and carried off one of the men in spite of being smitten in the face with flaming firebrands. Fortunately the lion of which we write thought “discretion the better part of valour.” He retired peaceably, nevertheless Disco and his friend continued to dream of him all night so vividly that they started up several times, and seized their rifles, under the impression that he had roared his loudest into their very ears, and after each of these occasions they crept back into their sleeping bags to re-dream of the lion!

The “bag” which formed each man’s couch was made simply of two mats sewed together, and left open, not at one of the ends but at one of the sides, so that a man could roll out of or into it more easily than he could have slid, feet first, into a sack. It was large enough also for two to sleep inside together, always supposing that the two were of accommodating dispositions!

That they had now reached a land which swarmed with wild animals was intimated to some extent by the running past, within fifty yards of their bivouac, of a troop of elephants. It was daybreak at the time, so that, having been thus rudely aroused, they did not deem it necessary to return to rest but after taking a hasty mouthful of food, set forth on their journey.

The usual mode of proceeding on the march was as follows:— They rose about five o’clock, or soon after the appearance of dawn, and swallowed a cup of tea, with a bit of biscuit, then some of the men folded up the blankets and stowed them away in the bags, others tied up the cooking utensils, etcetera, in bundles, and hung them at the ends of carrying-sticks, which they bore upon their shoulders. The process did not take long. They were soon on the march, either in single file, if the path were narrow, or in groups, according to fancy, where the ground admitted of their spreading out. About nine, a convenient spot was chosen for a halt to breakfast, which meat, although not “eaten the night before in order to save time in the morning,” was at all events cooked on the previous evening for the same end, so that it only needed warming up. Then the march was resumed; a short rest was allowed in the heat of the day, when, of course, Disco had a pipe and much sagacious intercourse with his fellows, and they finally encamped for the remainder of the day and night early in the afternoon. Thus they travelled five or six hours at a stretch, and averaged from twelve to fifteen miles a day, which is about as much as Europeans can stand in a hot climate without being oppressed. This Disco called “taking it easy,” and so it was when compared with the custom of some travellers, whose chief end would appear to be the getting over as much ground as possible in a given time, in order that they may afterwards boast of the same, and for the accomplishment of which they are obliged to abuse and look ferocious at the blacks, cock their pistols, and flourish their whips, in a manner which is only worthy of being styled contemptible and cowardly. We need not say that our friends Harold and Disco had no such propensities. They had kindly consideration for the feelings of their “niggers,” coupled with great firmness; became very sociable with them, and thus got hearty, willing work out of them. But to return from this digression.

During the day, the number of animals of all sorts that were seen was so great as to induce Disco to protest, with a slap of his thigh, that the whole land, from stem to stern, seemed to him to be one prodigious zoological garden—it did, an’ no mistake about it.

Disco was not far wrong. He and Harold having started ahead of the party, with Chimbolo as their guide, came on a wonderful variety of creatures in rapid succession. First, they fell in with some large flocks of guinea-fowl, and shot a few for dinner. As they advanced, various birds ran across their path, and clouds of turtle-doves filled the air with the blatter of their wings as they rose above the trees. Ducks, geese, and francolins helped to swell the chorus of sounds.

When the sun rose and sent a flood of light over a wide and richly wooded vale, into which they were about to descend, a herd of pallahs stood gazing at the travellers in stupid surprise, and allowed them to approach within sixty yards before trotting leisurely away. These and all other animals were passed unmolested, as the party had sufficient meat at the time, and Harold made it a point not to permit his followers to shoot animals for the mere sake of sport, though several of them were uncommonly anxious to do so. Soon afterwards a herd of waterbucks were passed, and then a herd of koodoos, with two or three magnificently-horned bucks amongst them, which hurried off to the hillsides on seeing the travellers. Antelopes also were seen, and buffaloes, grazing beside their path.

Ere long they came upon a small pond with a couple of elephants standing on its brink, cooling their huge sides by drawing water into their trunks and throwing it all over themselves. Behind these were several herds of zebras and waterbucks, all of which took to flight on “getting the wind” of man. They seemed intuitively to know that he was an enemy. Wild pigs, also, were common, and troops of monkeys, large and small, barked, chattered, grinned, and made faces among the trees.

After pitching the camp each afternoon, and having had a mouthful of biscuit, the two Englishmen were in the habit of going off to hunt for the daily supply of fresh meat accompanied by Chimbolo as their guide and game-carrier, Antonio as their interpreter, and Mokompa as their poet and jester. They did not indeed, appoint Mokompa to that post of honour, but the little worthy took it upon himself, for the express purpose of noting the deeds of the white men, in order to throw his black comrades into convulsions over supper by a poetic recital of the same.

“It pleases them, an’ it don’t hurt us,” was Disco’s observation on this head.

On the afternoon, then, of which we write, the party of four went out to hunt, while the encampment was being prepared under the superintendence of Jumbo, who had already proved himself to be an able manager and cook, as also had his countrymen Masiko and Zombo.

“What a rich country!” exclaimed Harold, looking round in admiration from the top of a small hillock on as fine a scene as one could wish to behold, “and what a splendid cotton country it might be if properly cultivated!”

“So it is,” said Disco, “an’ I shouldn’t wonder if there wos lots of gold too, if we only knew where to look for it.”

“Gold!” exclaimed Antonio, who sat winking placidly on the stump of a fallen tree; “dere be lots ob gold near Zambesi—an’ oder ting too.”

“Let’s hear wot are some of the other things,” said Disco.

“What are dere?—oh, let me see: der be coal, lots ob coal on Zambesi, any amount ob it, an’ it burn fuss-rate, too. Dere be iron-ore, very much, an’ indigo, an’ sugar-cane, an ivory; you hab hear an’ see yooself about de elephants an’ de cottin, an’ tobacco. (See Livingstone’s Zambesi and its Tributaries, page 52.) Oh! great plenty ob eberyting eberywhere in dis yere country, but,” said Antonio, with a shrug of his shoulders, “no can make noting out ob it on account ob de slave-trade.”

“Then I ’spose ’ee don’t approve of the slave-trade?” said Disco.

“No, dat am true,” replied Antonio; “de country very good for slave-trader, but no good for man like me what want to trade proper.”

“H’m! I’ve more respect for ’ee than I had,” said Disco. “I ’spose you’ve bin up in these parts before now, have ’ee?”

“No, nevah, but I hab sister what marry one nigger, one slave, what sold himself, an’ him tell me much ’bout it. Hims bin up here many time.”

“Sold himself!” repeated Harold in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Mean dat,” returned Antonio. “Him was a black free-man—call him Chibanti; him was all alone in de world, lose fader, moder, broder, sister, wife, eberyting by slave-trader, who steal dem all away or murder dem. So Chibanti him say, ‘What de use of be free?’ So him go to one master, who berry good to hims niggers—gib dem plenty to eat an’ little to do—an’ sole hisself to him.”

“An’ wot did he get for himself?” asked Disco.

“Got ninety yard ob cottin cloth.”

“Did he consider himself cheap or dear at that?”