Part 3

By 2 P. M., I had come up with them again and turned my face toward camp. On the way thither, I killed two zebras, a waterbuck and a Thomsonii. By the time the meat was cut up and packed on my men's heads the sun had set. The moon was magnificently bright and served to light our road. For one mile our way led across a perfectly level plain. This plain was covered with a kind of salt as white as snow, and with the bright moon every object was as easily distinguished as by day. The fresh meat proved an awkward load for my men, and we frequently were forced to stop while one or the other re-arranged the mass he carried. They were very cheery about it, however, and kept shouting to one another how much they would enjoy the morrow's feast. Their shouts were answered by the mocking wails of many hyenas, who hovered on our flanks and rear like a pursuing enemy. I shot two of these beasts, which kept their friends busy for a while, and enabled us to pursue our way in peace.

This white plain reaches nearly to the shores of Ngiri Swamp on the north, and to the east it is bounded by a wall of densely thick bush. We had approached to within 400 yards of the point where the line of bush joins the swamp, when I noticed a small herd of wildbeest walking slowly toward us, coming from the edge of the swamp. A few moments later, a cry escaped from my gun-bearer, who grasped my arm and whispered eagerly, _simba_. This means lion. He pointed to the wall of bush, and near it, crawling on its belly toward the wildbeest, was the form of a lion. I knelt down and raised the night sight of my .450, and fired at the moving form. The white soil and the bright moon actually enabled me to distinguish the yellow color of its skin. A loud growl answered the report of my rifle, and I could see the white salt of the plain fly as the lion ran round and round in a circle, like a kitten after its tail. I fired my second barrel and the lion disappeared. The wildbeest had made off at the first shot. I tried, in the eagerness of youth, to follow the lion in the bush; but soon common sense came to my rescue, and warned me that in this dark growth the chances were decidedly in favor of the lion's getting me, and so gave up the chase. Now, if I had only waited till the great cat had got one of the wildbeest, I feel pretty sure I should have been able to dispose of it at my leisure. When I returned to camp, I ungratefully lost sight of the good luck I had had, and gnashed my teeth at the thought that I had missed bringing home a lion and an elephant. I was not destined to see a lion again on this journey, but my annoyance at my ill fortune was often whetted by hearing them roar.

However, by good luck and by George's help, I succeeded in securing one elephant. The story of how this happened shall be the last hunting adventure recorded in this article. We had left Ngiri and were camped at the next water, some ten miles to the west. I had been out after giraffes and had not been unsuccessful, and therefore had reached camp in high good humor, when George came to me and said things were going badly in camp--that the men had decided to desert me should I try to push further on into the country; and that both head men seemed to think further progress was useless with the men in such temper. I was puzzled what to do, but wasted no time about making up my mind to do something. I went into the tent and called the two head men to me. After a little delay, they came, greeted me solemnly and at a motion from me crouched on their hams. There is but little use in allowing a negro to state a grievance, particularly if you know it is an imaginary one. The mere act of putting their fancied wrongs into words magnifies them in their own minds, and renders them less likely to listen to reason. My knowledge of Swahili at this time did not permit me to address them in their own language, so I spoke to them in English, knowing that they understood at least a few words of that tongue. I told them that I was determined to push on; that I knew that porters were like sheep and were perfectly under the control of the head men; consequently, should anything happen, I would know on whom to fix the blame. I repeated this several times, and emphasized it with dreadful threats, then motioned for them to leave the tent. I cannot say that I passed a comfortable night. Instead of songs and laughter, an ominous stillness reigned in the camp, and, though my words had been brave, I knew that I was entirely at the mercy of the men.

Before dawn we were under way, keeping a strict watch for any signs of mutiny. But, though the men were sullen, they showed no signs of turning back. Our road lay over a wide plain, everywhere covered thickly with lava, the aspect of which was arid in the extreme.

No more green buffalo bush, no more acacias, tall and beautiful, but in their place rose columns of dust, whirled hither and thither by the vagrant wind. Two of my men had been over this part of the road before, but they professed to be ignorant of the whereabouts of the next water place. Any hesitation on my part would have been the signal for a general retreat, so there was nothing for it but to assume a look of the utmost indifference, and to assure them calmly that we should find water. At noon the appearance of the country had not changed. My men, who had incautiously neglected to fill their water bottles in the morning, were beginning to show signs of distress.

Suddenly my gun-bearer, pointing to the left, showed me two herds of elephants approaching us. The larger herd, composed principally of bulls, was nearer to us, and probably got our wind; for they at once turned sharply to their right and increased their pace. The other herd moved on undisturbed. I halted the caravan, told the men to sit down and went forward to meet the elephants, with my servant and two gun-bearers. I carried a .577, my servant carried the old 12-bore by Lang, his cartridges crammed to the muzzle with powder. We were careful to avoid giving the elephants our wind, so we advanced parallel to them, but in a direction opposite to that in which they were going. As they passed us we crouched, and they seemed unconscious of our presence. They went about 400 yards past us, and then halted at right angles to the route they had been pursuing. There were five elephants in this herd--four large, and one small one, bringing up the rear. Some 60 yards on their right flank was a small skeleton bush, and, making a slight detour, we directed our course toward that. The leading animal was the largest, so I decided to devote our attention to that one. I told George to fire at the leg and I would try for the heart. We fired simultaneously, George missing and my shot taking effect altogether too high.

Two things resulted from the discharge of our rifles: the gun-bearers bolted with their weapons and the elephants charged toward us in line of battle. As far as I can calculate, an elephant at full speed moves 100 yards in about ten seconds, so my readers can judge how much time elapsed before the elephants were upon us. We fired again. My shot did no execution, but George, who had remained in a kneeling position, broke the off foreleg of the leading animal at the knee. It fell, and the others at once stopped. We then made off, and watched from a little distance a most interesting sight.

The condition of the wounded elephant seemed to be known to the others, for they crowded about her and apparently offered her assistance. She placed her trunk on the back of one standing in front of her and raised herself to her feet, assisted by those standing around. They actually moved her for some distance, but soon got tired of their kindly efforts. We fired several shots at them, which only had the effect of making two of the band charge in our direction and then return to their stricken comrade. Cover there was none, and with our bad marksmanship it would have been (to say the least) brutal to blaze away at the gallant little herd. Besides, cries of "water!" "water!" were heard coming from my thirsty caravan. So there was nothing for it but to leave the elephant, take the people to water, if we could find it, and then return and put the wounded animal out of its misery.

An hour and a half later we reached water, beautiful and clear, welling up from the side of a small hill. This is called Masimani. On reaching the water, all signs of discontent among my people vanished, and those among them who were not Mahomedans, and therefore had no scruples about eating elephant meat, raised a cheerful cry of _tembo tamu_--elephant is sweet. I did not need a second hint, but returned, and, finding the poor elephant deserted by its companions, put it out of its misery. It was a cow with a fine pair of tusks. The sun was setting, and my men, knowing that activity was the only means of saving their beloved elephant meat from hyenas, attacked the body with fury--some with axes, others with knives and one or two with sword bayonets. It was a terrible sight, and I was glad to leave them at it and return to camp, well satisfied with my day's work.

From Masimani, for the next four days, the road had never been trodden by even an Arab caravan. I had no idea of the whereabouts of water, nor had my men; but, having made a success of the first day's march, the men followed me cheerfully, believing me possessed of magic power and certain to lead them over a well-watered path. A kind providence did actually bring us to water each night. The country was so dry that it was absolutely deserted by the inhabitants, the Masai, and great was the surprise of the Kibonoto people when we reached there on the fourth day. They thought that we had dropped from the clouds, and said there could not have been any water over the road we had just come. These Kibonoto people had never been visited by an European, but received us kindly. The people of Kibonoto are the westernmost inhabitants on the slopes of Kilimanjaro.

From there to Taveta our road was an easy one, lying through friendly peoples. After a brief rest at Taveta, I returned to the coast, reaching Zanzibar a little over six months after I had set out from it.

Perhaps a word about the climate of the part of the country through which I passed will not be amiss. Both my servant and myself suffered from fever, but not to any serious extent. If a sedentary life is avoided--and this is an easy matter while on a journey--if one avoids morning dews and evening damps, and protects his head and the back of his neck from the sun, I do not think the climate of East Africa would be hurtful to any ordinarily healthy person. For my part, I do not think either my servant or myself have suffered any permanent ill effects from our venture; and yet the ages of twenty-one and seventeen are not those best suited for travels in the tropics.

_W. A. Chanler._

To the Gulf of Cortez

About a year ago, my brother, who is a very sagacious physician, advised me to take the fresh liver of a mountain sheep for certain nervous symptoms which were troublesome. None of the local druggists could fill the prescription, and so it was decided that I should seek the materials in person. With me went my friend J. B., the pearl of companions, and we began the campaign by outfitting at San Diego, with a view to exploring the resources of the sister republic in the peninsula of Lower California. Lower California is very different from Southern California. The latter is--well, a paradise, or something of that kind, if you believe the inhabitants, of whom I am an humble fraction. The former is what you may please to think.

At San Diego we got a man, a wagon, four mules and the needed provisions and kitchen--all hired at reasonable rates, except the provisions and kitchen, which we bought. Then we tried to get a decent map, but were foiled. The Mexican explorer will find the maps of that country a source of curious interest. Many of them are large and elaborately mounted on cloth, spreading to a great distance when unfolded. The political divisions are marked with a tropical profusion of bright colors, which is very fit. A similar sense of fitness and beauty leads the designer to insert mountain ranges, rivers and towns where they best please the eye, and I have had occasion to consult a map which showed purely ideal rivers flowing across a region where nature had put the divide of the highest range in the State.

My furniture contained a hundred cartridges, a belt I always carry, given by a friend, with a bear's head on the buckle (a belt which has held, before I got it, more fatal bullets than any other west of the Rockies), and my usual rifle. J. B. prepared himself in a similar way, except the belt.

Starting south from San Diego, we crossed the line at Tia Juana, and spent an unhappy day waiting on the custom house officials. They, however, did their duty in a courteous manner, and we, with a bundle of stamped papers, went on. The only duties we paid were those levied on our provisions. The team and wagon were entered free under a prospector's license for thirty days, and an obliging stableman signed the necessary bond.

The main difficulty in traveling in Lower California lies in the fact that you can get no feed for your animals. From Tia Juana east to Tecate, where you find half a dozen hovels, there is hardly a house and not a spear of grass for thirty miles. At Tecate there is a little nibbling. Thence south for twenty-five miles we went to the Agua Hechicera, or witching water; thence east twenty-five miles more to Juarez, always without grass; thence south to the ranch house of the Hansen ranch, at El Rayo, twenty-five miles more. There, at last, was a little grass, but after passing that point we camped at Agua Blanca, and were again without grass for thirty miles to the Trinidad Valley, which once had a little grass, now eaten clean. Fortunately we were able to buy hay at Tia Juana, and took some grain. Fortunately, also, we found some corn for sale at Juarez. So, with constant graining, a little hay and a supply of grass, either absent or contemptible, we managed to pull the stock through.

Besides our four hired mules there was another, belonging to our man, Oscar, which we towed behind to pack later. The animal was small in size, but pulled back from 200 pounds to a ton at every step. Its sex was female, but its name was Lazarus, for the overwhelming necessity of naming animals of the ass tribe either Lazarus or Balaam tramples on all distinctions of mere sex. We started, prepared for a possible, though improbable, season of rain; but we did not count on extreme cold, yet the first night out the water in our bucket froze, and almost every night it froze from a mere skin to several inches thick. To give an idea of the country, I will transcribe from a brief diary a few descriptions. Starting from Tia Juana, we drove or packed for nearly 200 miles in a southeasterly direction, until we finally sighted the Gulf and the mountains of Sonora in the distance. At first our road lay through low mountains, in valleys abounding in cholla cactus. From Tecate southward, the country was rolling and clotted with brushwood, until you reach Juarez. Juarez is an abandoned, or almost abandoned, placer camp. Here, amid the countless pits of the miners, the pinons begin, and then, after a short distance, the pine barrens stretch for forty miles. Beyond again you pass into hills of low brush, and plains covered with sage and buckweed, until finally you cross a divide into the broad basin of the Trinidad Valley. This is a depression some twenty miles long and perhaps five miles wide on the average, with a hot spring and a house at the southwestern end, walled on the southeast by the grim frowning rampart of the San Pedro Martir range, and on the other sides by mountains of lesser height, but equal desolation.

We had intended at first to strike for the Cocopah range, near the mouth of the Colorado River, and there do our hunting. Several reasons induced us to change our plan and make for the Hansen ranch, where deer were said to be plenty and sheep not distant; so we turned from Tecate southward, made one dry camp and one camp near Juarez, and on the fifth day of our journeying reached a long meadow, called the Bajio Largo, on the Hansen ranch. We turned from the road and followed the narrow park-like opening for four miles, camping in high pines, with water near, and enough remnants of grass to amuse the animals. This region of pine barrens occurs at quite an elevation, and the nights were cold. The granite core of the country crops out all along in low broken hills, the intervening mesas consisting of granite sand and gravel, and bearing beside the pines a good deal of brush. Thickets of manzanita twisted their blood-colored trunks over the ground, and the tawny stems of the red-shank covered the country for miles. The red-shank is a lovely shrub, growing about six or eight feet high, with broom-like foliage of a yellowish green, possessing great fragrance. If you simply smell the uncrushed shoots, they give a faint perfume, somewhat suggestive of violets; and if you crush the leaves you get a more pungent odor, sweet and a little smoky. Also, the gnarled roots of the red-shank make an excellent cooking fire, if you can wait a few hours to have them burn to coals. All things considered, the pine barren country is very attractive, and if there were grass, water and game, it would be a fine place for a hunter.

From our camp at Bajio Largo, J. B. and I went hunting for deer, which were said to be plentiful. We hunted from early morning till noon, seeing only one little fellow, about the size of a jack rabbit, scuttle off in the brush. Then we decided to go home. This, however, turned out to be a large business. The lofty trees prevented our getting any extended view, and the stony gulches resembled each other to an annoying degree. At last even the water seemed to flow the wrong way. So we gave up the attempt to identify landmarks, and, following our sense of direction and taking our course from the sun, we finally came again to the long meadow, and, traveling down that, we came to camp. Here we violated all rules by shooting at a mark--our excuse was that we had decided to leave the vicinity without further hunting; and, at all events, we spoiled a sardine box, to Oscar's great admiration.

In order to get a fair day's journey out of a fair day, we had to rise at 4 or 5 o'clock. Oscar once or twice borrowed my watch to wake by, but the result was only that I had to borrow J. B.'s watch to wake Oscar by; so I afterwards retained the timepiece, and got up early enough to start Oscar well on his duties.

The question of fresh meat had now become important. We left Bajio Largo and drove to Hansen's Laguna, a shallow pond over a mile long, much haunted by ducks. Here we made a bad mistake, driving six or eight miles into the mountains, only to reach nowhere and be forced to retrace our steps. Night, however, found us at El Rayo, the Hansen ranch house, and, as it turned out, the real base of our hunting campaign. The Hansen ranch is an extensive tract, named after an old Swede, who brought a few cattle into the country years ago. The cattle multiplied exceedingly, to the number, indeed, of several thousand, and can be seen at long range by the passer-by. They are very wild and gaunt at present, and will prance off among the rocks at a surprising rate before a man can get within 200 yards of them. Ex-Governor Ryerson now owns these cattle, and his major-domo, Don Manuel Murillo, a fine gray-haired veteran, learning that I had known the Governor, gave me much friendly advice, and sent his son to guide us well on the road to the Trinidad Valley and the sheep land. He also provided us with potatoes and fresh meat, so that we lived fatly thenceforth.

Our track lay past an abandoned saw-mill, built by the International Company. Thence we were to go to Agua Blanca, the last water to be had on the road; for the next thirty miles are dry. The saw-mill was built to supply timber to the mining town of Alamo, some twenty-five miles south. The camp is now in an expiring state and needs no timber, but is said to shelter some rough and violent men. The road from the mill was deep in sand, and our pace was slow. The darkness was coming cold and fast when we finally drove on to the water and halted to camp.

Two men were there before us, with a saddle-horse each, and no other apparent equipment. When we arrived, the men were watering their animals, and at once turned their backs, so as not to be recognized. Then they retired to the brush. We supped and staked out the mules, and then sent Oscar to look up our neighbors. Oscar went and shouted, but got no answer, and could find no men. We thought that our mules were in some danger, and J. B., who is a yachtsman, proposed to keep anchor watch. So Oscar remained awake till midnight, when he awoke me and retired freezing, saying that he had seen the enemy prowling around. I took my gun and visited the mules in rotation till 2:30. Then J. B. awoke, chattering with cold, but determined, and kept faithful guard until 5, when we began our day with a water-bucket frozen solid.

All our property remained safe, and a distant fire twinkling in the brush showed that our neighbors were still there. After breakfast Oscar again sought the hostile camp, and finally found a scared and innocent Frenchman, who cried out, on recognizing his visitor:

"Holy Mary! I took you for American robbers from the line, and I have lain awake all night, watching my horses."

From Agua Blanca we drove across the Santa Catarina ranch, for the most part plain and mesa, covered with greasewood and buckbrush. This latter shrub looks much like sage, except that its leaves are of a yellow-green instead of a blue-green. It is said to furnish the chief nutrition for stock on several great ranches. Certainly there was no visible grass, but buckbrush can hardly be fattening. Toward night, we crossed the pass into the Trinidad Valley and drove down a grade not steep only, but sidelong, where the wagons both went tobogganing down and slid rapidly toward the gulch. The mules held well, however, and before dark we were camped near the hot spring at the house of Alvarez.

Our friend, Don Manuel Murillo, had recommended us both to Alvarez and to his sister, Senora Paula, but both of these were absent. Don Manuel had also urged us to get the Indian Anastasio for a guide.

"For heaven's sake," he said, "don't venture without a guide. You may perish from thirst, as others have done before you."

We tried at first to hire burros and let our mules rest, but the Indian who owned the burros stated that his terms were "one burro, one day, one dollar"--an impudent attempt at robbery, which we resented.

We interviewed Anastasio, however, who said he would start at any moment; and, leaving Oscar to guard the wagon, we packed two mules, saddled two more for J. B. and myself, and, giving Anastasio the tow-rope of a pack-mule, we started after him. Anastasio was the most interesting figure of the trip, and I must be pardoned if I go into some detail about him. He spoke some Spanish and understood a good deal. When he did not understand, he never stated that fact, but either assumed a stony look or answered at cross-purposes; so that we did not get to know a great deal about each other for some time.

He had, too, a lingering remnant of the distrust of horses and mules that his ancestors must have felt in Spanish times, and when his pack-mule got a stone in her hoof, he observed it with anxiety from a distance, but could not summon resolution to meddle with so serious a matter.