Part 12

Before me is a miniature mountain-world lighted up by the dazzling sunbeams. There is a mass of precipitous rocks, so characteristic of the Masai-Nyíka district, that stretches away into the distance. The Candelabra Euphorbias spread out their strange forms against the light, in grotesque clumps, and seem to me to make themselves one with the rocks, whose inorganic character and nature appear to be repeated in their characteristic forms.

From out of the midst of this stony wilderness these remarkable notes come sounding in my ears. They seem to be mysterious voices of rock and stone. The eye searching expectantly for the singer that is uttering this bell-like melodious music can discover nothing. And yet the notes come from the throat of a bird. It is once more some hornbills that are making their song of love and wooing resound in this wilderness. I have been able to listen to them for hours, losing myself in dreams, and I cannot say why I seemed to identify precisely _these_ bird-voices with the voice of the African Sphinx, that legendary Sphinx which has sung already to so many, and lured many back again for ever. Thus may the songs and voices of the old sanctuaries of Northern Africa once have been. Again and again, when I heard it, I had to think of those men who, with burning longing in their hearts, went forth into the Dark Continent to wrest from it the secrets of its fauna, but had to pay for the undertaking with their lives.

A burning glow of sunshine, a dazzling light in overwhelming abundance over all the desert waste of rock--and amidst it, again and again, that deep, ghostly, metallic note, that directly impresses the traveller as though it were the language of the wilderness, peculiarly its own. But how can I describe all this in words?

And at a moment like this, as if to heighten the effect, over there the voice of the mightiest bird that the earth bears in this our day sounds forth. I hear in the distance the ringing cry of a hen-ostrich, and I listen to it with attention strained to the highest point.

The strange duet has now long died away. But it often comes up to me again in the midst of the movement of civilised life and takes me back on the wings of fancy to the glorious beauty of the wilderness.

But that uncouth tropical singer is not really needed to conjure up this frame of mind. A little unseen _lark_, all by itself, can evoke for me the charm of the solitudes of Nyíka as with a magic wand.

How this comes to pass, I will tell the reader. We must make a long tour. Now we are in the north, in our native country, in the midst of the spring, amongst spreading fields of our German homeland. The song of the lark fills the air, and our heart expands to its music. We go out upon the open moor. We hear a trilling and quavering of another kind, with a strangely sweet touch of sadness in it, especially at night--the song of the woodlark. But now let the reader follow me to the little island of Heligoland. In the glare from the lighthouse, that sends afar its rays,--in this case rays that bring destruction,--countless numbers of larks flutter and wheel about, bewildered in the darkness of the autumn night, and full of anxiety and fear. On a dark, rainy October night thousands of them fall victims to the death that lies waiting in ambush for them below this tower raised by the hand of man. Their little wings have brought them safe over the ocean to the small island. But there one hears no rejoicing song, No! there resounds only something like an agonised cry for help from weak creatures in the direst peril of death.

Millions of larks fly thus each year southwards and northwards, obedient to that mysterious migratory impulse that guides them on their way.

The song of the lark and the cry of the lark are very different things. To those who know them they mean a song of happy springtime, and a cry for help in the night of death.

How comes it that I thus speak of, and have to think of, sounds uttered by the birds here at home? Simply because over there, in other lands, my fancy so often and so readily imagined the flying bird to be a messenger,--a courier for thoughts of home,--and connected such wishes and longings with its appearance and disappearance.

In autumn, the noblest of our northern songsters makes its way in a few days and nights into the inmost heart of the Dark Continent. It disappears again in spring, to return to the north over velt and desert, morass, mountain and sea. The cuckoo, that only a few days ago could be seen in our northern lands by the eyes of men who knew how to recognise it, I see on the African velt, a wandering, fleeting visitor. Thus it seems to bring me a greeting, like that brought by our oriole, our nightingale, and many other children of the homeland.

No one can be surprised that in these solitudes these birds, and their coming and going, are closely associated with our thoughts. It is the less to be wondered at seeing that they are all such eloquent witnesses to the miracle that these weak creatures with their feeble wings twice each year traverse continents and fly safely over seas.

We cannot help thinking of the lark and its spring song at home, when in the wilds of Africa we hear its voice; and it appeals so impressively to the wanderer in the wilderness, that afterwards it has the power of bringing back by its music a picture of the Nyíka in all its characteristic wildness. It is a song that has a character of its own. When I hear it, if it is in the Nyíka, I cannot help thinking of the songster’s frail, weak brethren of Europe, that, following an irresistible impulse, are perhaps at this moment meeting their death on the little island of Heligoland--obedient to the same instinct that sends myriads of their kind each year towards pole or equator. For even as the northern song of the lark awakens the soft, poetic spell of smiling fields, so, too, the mysterious and still deeply veiled spell of the Nyíka can find expression in its wonderful music.

Small, invisible almost, it rises in the air. Soon it is lost to sight in the sky. Then suddenly a song that, though so often heard before, is still a marvel, comes distinctly on the ear, its notes sharply accented and emphasised as if it were _close to us_. There is a sharp, rhythmical, clapping sound, as if small laths or pieces of whalebone were being rattled together. It comes from that tree right in front of us. No mistake about it seems possible. But the eye searches in vain for the producer of the sound.

Again and again one is deceived in this way. Who could imagine that that little bird far away over there, a hardly perceptible speck on the horizon, is producing this strange music? “Knáck! knáck! knáck!” again, and yet again, it comes to us ringing out loud and clear. Our little invisible songster does not tire of pouring out its strange misleading song. It is a kind of love-song of a species of lark, which was discovered by Fischer some fifteen years ago and bears the name of the naturalist, now long deceased; _Mirafra fischeri_, Rchw.,[44] is its scientific name. Its clapping and rattling are undoubtedly part of the charm of a journey in certain districts of the Masai-Nyíka.

Even in my tent, in the midst of the comparatively loud noise of the busy camp of my numerous caravan, I can hear the clapping, rattling voice of this lark. Some hundreds of yards away it flies up into the sky, like our own skylark, and hovers about clattering in the air, so loudly and distinctly that if I did not know its character and habits, I would have been continually looking for it close to my tent. It is very hard to quite free oneself from this illusion. One continually thinks that one hears the cry of the bird in one’s immediate neighbourhood, the sound being produced much in the same way as that of the snipe.

And yet another strange voice of a lark resounds in my ears: a melancholy, plaintive, soft sound, till now unknown to me and to most others. All night long its calls and cries resound about my camp. I should never have thought that it was a lark (_Mirafra intercedens_ Rchw.) that thus made itself heard in the night, as our woodlarks do in moonlight nights at home. It was at the cost of much careful research that the discovery was made of what bird produced this song.

And the strange voice of yet another bird is inseparable from my recollections of the wilderness of East Africa. The xerophytic flora of the far-spreading thorny mimosa thickets gives shelter to a privileged member of the bird world, which is thus guarded in safety from all danger amid their thorny boughs and branches. I refer to a peculiar bird, belonging to the group of the Musophagidæ, grey-feathered, green-beaked, long-tailed, and adorned with a crest. This strange fellow roves about restlessly--a bird about as big as a jay, misleading the traveller with his cry in the most curious way. Science calls him _Chizaerhis leucogastra_, Rüpp.; the German language has given him the name “_Lärmvogel_” (“noisy bird”).

And he has a perfect right to bear his name. There resounds somewhere near us, and in a way that completely deceives us, now the barking and snarling of a dog, now the bleating of sheep. Following the direction of the sound we look to see what produces it, and we find our bird hopping about nimbly upon the tops of the thorn-trees and acacias, appearing to have no anxiety about the thorny spikes of the branches, in which he makes his home. With a cleverness that borders on the miraculous he makes his way amongst them, protected by them against the attacks of birds or beasts of prey, and in his conscious reliance on the security of his dwelling-place, so to say, mocking at all enemies. So deceptive are his cries that at first, and especially when I was in the neighbourhood of native settlements, I was continually looking everywhere for sheep and their shepherds.

Many other typical bird-voices live in my memory. I hear the peculiar plaintive cry of the large cormorants that are busy with their fishing by the salt lakes of the wilderness, a cry that seems most fitted for these solitudes. The mysterious chattering and chirping of the little swamp-fowl come to my ear from the shallows and the bushes along the banks of silent rivers of the primeval forest, a bird-language so strange that the natives believe the birds are conversing with the fish in the stream. I hear the cackling of the knowing Nile-geese, that seem to be always engaged in conversation; when on the wing, too, a pair of them, in their affectionate fidelity, have always some warning, some reminder of something or other to call out to each other. Where their cry resounds one hears also frequently that of the wonderful, wailing peewit; it has a plaintive and melancholy effect on the mind of the listener. Far different is the noisy outcry of its brightly coloured cousin, a denizen of the thirsty wilderness (_Stephanibyx coronatus_, Bodd.). Shrill and harsh the voice of the bird rings out, a watch-cry by day and night, and when in bright moonlight nights they fly in flocks over the camp. Swarms of these remarkable birds, the police of the wilderness in feathered uniforms, flutter around the traveller as he approaches. They ruin his attempts to stalk wild animals, and their strident screeches, to which all other animals hearken, haunt him long after, as also the call and cry of the large, yellow-eyed thick-knee, an inhabitant of the loneliest solitudes. But I cannot imagine the low shores of African lakes and the sea-coast without the cry of the widely distributed sandpiper, which has its home in the far north. In winter its low plaintive cry is heard at every step: but even in summer the trained ear can distinguish it here and there. These individual stragglers from the north are thus to be found during all times of the year in this distant country, while the most of their kindred tribe have successfully made their way to the Polar lands, their usual summer breeding-place.

High over my head the voice of the pretty avocet (_Recurvirostra avocetta_, L.), one of the most charming forms of the bird world known to us, transports me by magic to the distant and mournful lakes of the Masailand wilderness. What the dwarf bustards (_Otis gindiana_, Oust.) keep calling out to each other with their continually repeated “Rágga-ga-rágga” is not to be discovered. But their cry, which has kept the fancy of the natives busy since olden days, is as inseparably associated with regions on which the grass grows high, as the voices and cries of the sandfowl, the francolins, and, above all, the jarring outcries of the guinea-fowl, on the velt. All the manifold voices of doves, cuckoos, parrots, hornbills, bee-eaters, shrikes, orioles, starlings, finches, weaver-birds, sylvians, and the rest, calling, exulting, rejoicing, uttering cries of alarm or complaint, have woven themselves into my recollections of happy days and days of toil.

Thus there still rings in my ear the triple note of the yellowish green bulbul (_Pycnonotus layardi_, Gurn.), which, like our sparrow, is present everywhere, till one almost tires of it. Most curious is the friendly play which the handsomely coloured glossy starling (_Spreo superbus_, Rüpp.) carries on with a weaver-bird (_Dinemellia dinemelli_, [Hartl.] Rüpp) in flights like those of our sparrows. It comes back to me all the more vividly when I recall the notes uttered by these two birds, which, though such close friends and taking such delight in each other’s company, are so distantly related. The curious warbling of the honey-finder (_Indicator indicator_, Gm.), which often guides the man who follows it to a wild bees’ nest, also easily makes a permanent impression on the ear of the traveller.

And there are many other bird-voices that delight any one who takes pleasure in sound. When silvery moonbeams streamed over the camp, the night-jars (especially _Caprimulgus fossei_ [Verr.] Hartl.) buzzed and hummed forth their strange song everywhere around. No matter how remote and desolate the wilderness in which the traveller laid down his head to rest, these goat-suckers were to be heard. Their voice makes a strong impression on us even in our own country in the lonely woods, but its effect is much more striking, on the far-off equatorial velt. With noiseless soft beating of its wings the bird comes gliding past us; its wings almost touch us. When it pours forth its song, its monotonous sleepy song, I could listen to it for hours. In the daytime it starts up suddenly from the ground here and there in front of you, uttering the feeblest of cries, that it is impossible to represent. In the next instant it vanishes like some huge moth, and even the sharpest eye cannot distinguish it amongst the dry branches and leaves, or clinging close to the rocky ground. The song of the night-jar is among my most vivid recollections of the bird-voices of Africa.

In the neighbourhood of water, wherever it may be, and in the thick undergrowth, wherever the African wilderness extends, you hear the call and cry of a peculiar bird-voice. It rings out through the stillness with a deep double piping note, that impresses itself in a lasting way on the ear. It is the voice of the handsome organ-shrike (_Laniarius æthiopicus_, Gm.). These shrikes, which mate permanently, always utter this note in such quick succession, one of the pair after the other, that at first you think you are listening to only a single bird. This beautiful bird-note indicates the proximity of water, and thus it has acquired quite a special significance in these countries.

Finally there is no sound from the throat of a bird that I call to mind so plainly, or so continually, as the song of the African nightingale (_Erithacus africanus_, [Fschr.] Rchw.). I have very frequently heard this beautiful song during the months of our winter, in many districts round Kilimanjaro. When I heard it unexpectedly for the first time, I was most deeply moved by it. Ten years ago I heard it during a day’s march in the wooded gullies of the great volcanic mountain, and it was most clear and full and beautiful. I never expected thus to hear this northern bird-voice in the tropics. Later on, when I was camped at a considerable altitude in the primeval forests of Kilimanjaro, I was saluted with the cries of northern migratory birds, that, wheeling round the mountain, seemed to be flying over its everlasting snowfields. It was a strange coincidence in those Christmas days, the song of the northern nightingale, and those northern birds of passage on the wing under the equatorial sun! It is worth noting that this voice of the nightingale was the only genuine northern bird-song that I ever heard in Africa. That our nightingale also sometimes breeds there is indicated by the discovery of its nest by the late Dr. Fischer. But the problem of the extraordinary identity in character of this nightingale with its northern sister still awaits solution. Many difficult observations will have to be made in order to investigate it thoroughly.

What a contrast to this song of our northern nightingale is presented by the voices of the hyenas and jackals, the strange cry uttered by the leopard, all the sounds emitted by the antelopes, and finally the indescribably startling, harsh-sounding bellow of the crocodile!

But neither individually nor collectively can the effect of all these voices be expressed in words. They associate themselves with the forms of a flora untouched by the hand of man, and the unceasing throb of animal life. I think of them all together as a theatre of nature now flooded with sunlight, now in the mysterious darkness of night, or with glistening moonbeams playing over it. What impresses one so much is not merely these individual voices, but the way in which all the myriad voices mingle in one mighty chorus.

If this symphony of nature is to be written down, it must be by some master who will combine in one marvellous melody these musical utterances that are so mighty and impressive, so full of mystery and charm, and so often dying away in the deepest and most delicate cadences. None of these tones should be missing, no note of them all should be struck out.

I should like to set in contrast with this mighty primeval harmony of the wilderness the sounds and voices of the modern industrial world, which gradually and unwittingly we take to be something natural. He who would feel all its greatness and perfection must keep himself far away for weeks and months from the screaming whistle he hears on the railway, and the howling siren of a steamship.

Then there is the insect world! Those flower-covered bushes have attracted a multitude of great droning beetles. They hasten to them in heavy flight. On the ground a host of scarabæus beetles are busy with their special work. The ceaseless sharp chirps of the cicadas sing their continual song. Through all its variations there goes on this hum and buzz of the millions and millions of the lower creation. And joined with it there ring out the thousands and thousands of songs of the birds; the powerful voices of the great mammals bellow over plain and bushland, through swamps and primeval forests, over dale and hill. The concert of the feathered songsters is suddenly silent, as, it may be, the harsh cry of the leopard resounds, or the mighty, dull, rumbling roar of the king of the desert thunders over the earth; or the trumpet-like cry of the elephant vibrates through the woods; or harsh war-cries from human lips, battle-songs of primitive men, are heard--but heedless of it all, even at these moments, day and night resound the weak voices of all the myriads of lesser creatures of the animal world. But he who penetrates into this wilderness must have receptive senses to understand the full beauty of it all. For him this harmony exists wherever the primitive animal world lives its life.

Glorious and grand, too, is the language of Nature when she herself raises her primeval voice, associated with no sound of life that we can perceive. Thus it is in the hours of storm by night, when on the plain, or in the primeval forest, or on the hill slopes, the thunder roars round the little camp, and the crackling lightning comes down in zig-zags. Then the rumbling thunder, the rushing downpour of the water-floods, the roar of the storm-wind, speak with an impressiveness that is beyond all description. Then in their hour of death the giants of the primeval forest, the mighty, venerable trees, suddenly themselves find a voice that strikes loudly on the ear: they groan in the embrace of the wind, and under its fury crash thundering to the ground. Then, when the earth and the rocks under our feet seem to shake, when the powers of Nature are let loose in all their might, when weak little man in his small tent, alone in the midst of all this violence, listens to the sounds, alone and abandoned like the sailor on a frail plank in the midst of a raging ocean, then it is that the wilderness sings its greatest, noblest, most wonderful song.

The traveller may yet return to the African wilderness and hear once more the voices of the smaller denizens of the wild. The chirping of cicadas will lull him to rest, or the buzzing of the mosquitoes forbid it. Their chirping and buzzing will bear witness that these waves of life roll on untroubled and uninjured by the incoming of civilisation. But the greater voices will become rarer and rarer. Soon the trumpeting of the elephant, the roar of the lion, the bellow of the hippopotamus will be heard no longer.

But to-day one can still hear all these sounds which I have described, and which our most remote ancestors listened to all day and all night in the ages when there still lived in Europe a fauna very similar to that which we find dying out in East Africa. By day and night they go forth in trees and thickets, by swamp and reed-bed. The song of birds is accompanied by the monotonous deafening chorus of the bullfrogs. Even in the traveller’s tent the crickets chirp, and the night-jar buzzes and buzzes past it, and tells and whispers of the nightly life and movement of the animal world, in its monotonous mysterious song.

A jackal holds a conversation with the evening star. In the dark night the deep bass of the hyena is heard; and then it laughs aloud, in a weird, shrill, shrieking treble. This laugh, seldom uttered, but when heard making one’s heart shudder, is not a thing to forget; on feverish nights it plagues one still in memory. No one need jest about it who has not himself heard it. He who has heard it understands how the Arabs take the hyenas to be wicked men living under a spell.