Part 2

There is a glamour about the whole life of the African wonderland that recalls the forgotten fairy tales of childhood’s days, a sense of stillness and loveliness. Every curve of the stream tells of secrets to be unearthed and reveals unsuspected beauties, in the forms and shapes of the Phœnix palms and all the varieties of vegetation; in the indescribable tangle of the creepers; in the ever-changing effects of light and shade; finally in the sudden glimpses into the life of the animals that here make their home. You see the deep, hollowed-out passages down to the river that tell of the coming and going of the hippopotamus and rhinoceros, made use of also by the crocodiles. It is with a shock of surprise that you see a specimen of our own great red deer come hither at midday to quench his thirst--a splendid figure, considerably bigger and stronger than he is to be seen elsewhere. A herd of wallowing wart-hogs or river-swine will sometimes startle you into hasty retreat before you realise what they are. The tree-tops rock under the weight and motion of apes unceasingly scurrying from branch to branch. Every now and again the eye is caught by the sight of groups of crocodiles, now basking contentedly in the sun, now betaking themselves again to the water in that stealthy, sinister, gliding way of theirs.

Not so long ago the African traveller found such scenes as these along the banks of every river. Nowadays, too many have been shorn of all these marvels. Take, for instance, the old descriptions of the Orange River and of the animal life met with along its course. No trace of it now remains.

I should like to give a picture of the animal life still extant along the banks of the Pangani. The time is inevitably approaching when that, too, will be a thing of the past, for it is not to be supposed that advancing civilisation will prove less destructive here.

So recently as the year 1896 the course of the river was for the most part unknown. When I followed it for the second time in 1897, and when in subsequent years I explored both its banks for great distances, people were still so much in the dark about it that several expeditions were sent out to discover whether it was navigable.

That it was not navigable I myself had long known. Its numerous rapids are impracticable for boats even in the rainy season. In the dry season they present insuperable obstacles to navigation of any kind.

The basin of the Djipe Lake in the upper reaches of the Pangani, and the Pangani swamps below its lower reaches, formed a kind of natural preserve for every variety of the marvellous fauna of East Africa. It was a veritable El Dorado for the European sportsman, but one attended by all kinds of perils and difficulties. The explorer found manifold compensation, however, for everything in the unexampled opportunities afforded him for the study of wild life in the midst of these stifling marshes and lagoons. The experience of listening night after night to the myriad voices of the wilderness is beyond description.

Hippopotami were extraordinarily numerous at one time in the comparatively small basin of the Djipe Lake. In all my long sojourn by the banks of the Pangani I only killed two, and I never again went after any. There were such numbers, however, round Djipe Lake ten years ago that you often saw dozens of them together at one time. I fear that by now they have been nearly exterminated.

Here, as everywhere else, the natives have levied but a small tribute upon the numbers of the wild animals, a tribute in keeping with the nature of their primitive weapons. Elephants used regularly to make their way down to the water-side from the Kilimanjaro woods. My old friend Nguruman, the Ndorobo chieftain, used to lie in wait for them, with his followers, concealed in the dense woods along the river. But the time came when the elephants ceased to make their appearance. The old hunter, whose body bore signs of many an encounter with lions as well as elephants, and who used often to hold forth to me beside camp fires on the subject of these adventures, could not make out why his eagerly coveted quarry had become so scarce. Every other species of “big game” was well represented, however, and according to the time of the year I enjoyed ever fresh opportunities for observation. Generally speaking, it would be a case of watching one aspect of wild life one day and another all the next, but now and again my eyes and ears would be surfeited and bewildered by its manifestations. The sketch-plans on which I used to record my day’s doings and seeings serve now to recall to me all the multiform experiences that fell to my lot. What a pity it is that the old explorers of South Africa have left no such memoranda behind them for our benefit! They would enable us to form a better idea of things than we can derive from any kind of pictures or descriptions.

* * * * *

I shall try now to give some notion of all the different sights I would sometimes come upon in a single day. It would often happen that, as I was making my way down the Pangani in my light folding craft, or else was setting out for the velt which generally lay beyond its girdle of brushwood, showers of rain would have drawn herds of elephants down from the mountains.[1] Even when I did not actually come within sight of them, it was always an intense enjoyment to me to trace the immense footsteps of these nocturnal visitors. Perhaps the cunning animals would have already put several miles between my camp and their momentary stopping place. But their tracks afforded me always most interesting clues to their habits, all the more valuable by reason of the rare chances one has of observing them in daylight, when they almost always hide away in impenetrable thickets. What excitement there is in the stifled cry “Tembo!” In a moment your own eye perceives the unmistakable traces of the giant’s progress. The next thing to do is to examine into the tracks and ascertain as far as possible the number, age and sex of the animals. Then you follow them up, though generally, as I have said, in vain.

The hunter, however, who without real hope of overtaking the elephants themselves yet persists in following up their tracks just because they have so much to tell him, will be all the readier to turn aside presently, enticed in another direction by the scarcely less notable traces of a herd of buffaloes. Follow these now and you will soon discover that they too have found safety, having made their way into an impenetrable morass. To make sure of this you must perhaps clamber up a thorny old mimosa tree, all alive with ants--not a very comfortable method of getting a bird’s-eye view. Numbers of snow-white ox-peckers flying about over one particular point in the great wilderness of reeds and rushes betray the spot in which the buffaloes have taken refuge.

The great green expanse stretches out before you monotonously, and even in the bright sunlight you can see no other sign of the animal life of various kinds concealed beneath the sea of rushes waving gently in the breeze. Myriads of insects, especially mosquitoes and ixodides, attack the invaders; the animals are few that do not fight shy of these morasses. They are the province of the elephants, which here enjoy complete security; of the hippopotami, whose mighty voice often resounds over them by day as by night; of the buffaloes, which wallow in the mud and pools of water to escape from their enemies the gadflies; and finally of the waterbuck, which are also able to make their way through even the deeper regions of the swamp. Wart-hogs also--the African equivalent of our own wild boars--contrive to penetrate into these regions, so inhospitable to mankind. We shall find no other representatives, however, of the big game of Africa. It is only in Central Africa and in the west that certain species of antelope frequent the swamps. In the daytime the elephant and the buffalo are seldom actually to be seen in them, nor does one often catch sight of the hippopotami, though they are so numerous and their voices are to be heard. As we grope through the borders of the swamp, curlew (_Glarcola fusca_, L.) flying hither and thither all around us, we are startled ever and anon by a sudden rush of bush and reed buck plunging out from their resting-places and speeding away from us for their life. Even when quite small antelopes are thus started up by the sound of our advance, so violent is their flight that for the moment we imagine that we have to deal with some huge and perhaps dangerous beast.

In those spots where large pools, adorned with wonderful water-lilies, give a kind of symmetry to the wilderness, we come upon such a wealth of bird-life as enables us to form some notion of what this may have been in Europe long ago under similar conditions. The splendid great white heron (_Herodias alba_, L., and _garzetta_, L.) and great flocks of the active little cow-herons (_Bubulcus ibis_, L.) make their appearance in company with sacred ibises and form a splendid picture in the landscape. Some species of those birds with their snow-white feathers stand out picturesquely against the rich green vegetation of the swamp. When, startled by our approach, these birds take to flight, and the whole air is filled by them and by the curlews (_Glareola fusca_, L.) that have hovered over us, keeping up continually their soft call, when in every direction we see all the swarms of other birds--sea-swallows (_Gelochelidon nilotica_, Hasselg.), lapwings, plovers (_Charadriidæ_), Egyptian geese, herons, pelicans, crested cranes and storks--the effect upon our eyes and ears is almost overpowering.

How mortal lives are intertwined and interwoven! The ox-peckers swarm round the buffaloes and protect them from their pests, the ticks and other parasites. The small species of marsh-fowl rely upon the warning cry of the Egyptian geese or on the sharpness of the herons, ever on the alert and signalling always the lightning-like approach of their enemy the falcons (_Falco biarmicus_, Tem., and _F. minor_, Bp.). All alike have sense enough to steer clear of the crocodiles, which have to look to fish chiefly for their nourishment, like almost all the frequenters of these marshy regions.

The quantities of fish I have found in every pool in these swamps defy description--I am anxious to insist upon this point--and this although almost all the countless birds depend on them chiefly for their food. Busy beaks and bills ravage every pool and the whole surface of the lagoon-like swamp for young fish and fry. The herons and darters (_Assingha rufa_, Lacèp. Daud.) manage even to do some successful fishing in the deeper waters of the river. _And yet, in spite of all these fish-eaters, the river harbours almost a superabundance of fish._[2]

Wandering along by the river, we take in all these impressions. For experiences of quite another kind, we have only to make for the neighbouring velt, now arid again and barren, and thence to ascend the steep ridges leading up to the tableland of Nyíka.

Behind us we leave the marshy region of the river and the morass of reeds. Before us rises Nyíka, crudely yellow, and the laterite earth of the velt glowing red under the blazing sun. The contrast is strong between the watery wilderness from which we have emerged and these higher ranges of the velt with their strange vegetation. Here we shall find many species of animals that we should look for in vain down there below, animals that live differently and on scanty food up here, even in the dry season. The buffaloes also know where to go for fresh young grass even when they are in the marshes, and they reject the ripened green grass. The dwellers on the velt are only to be found amidst the lush vegetation of the valley at night time, when they make their way down to the river-side to drink.[3] It is hard to realise, but they find all the food they need on the high velt. When you examine the stomachs of wild animals that you have killed, you note with wonder the amount of fresh grass and nourishing shrubs they have found to eat in what seem the barrenest districts. The natives of these parts show the same kind of resourcefulness. The Masai, for instance, succeeds most wonderfully in providing for the needs of his herds in regions which the European would call a desert. I doubt whether the European could ever acquire this gift. Out here on the velt we shall catch sight of small herds of waterbuck, never to be seen in the marshes. We shall see at midday, under the bare-looking trees, herds of Grant’s gazelles too, and the oryx antelope. Herds of gnus, going through with the strangest antics as they make off in flight, are another feature in the picture, while the fresh tracks of giraffes, eland, and ostriches tell of the presence of all these. Wart-hogs, a herd of zebras in the distance--like a splash of black--two ostrich hens, and a multitude of small game and birds of all descriptions add to the variety. But what delights the ornithologist’s eye more than anything is the charming sight of a golden yellow bird, now mating. Up it flies into the sky from the tree-top, soon to come down again with wings and tail outstretched, recalling our own singing birds. You would almost fancy it was a canary. Only in this one region of the velt have I come upon this exquisite bird (_Tmetothylacus tenellus_, Cal.), nowhere else.

Thus would I spend day after day, getting to know almost all the wild denizens of East Africa, either by seeing them in the flesh or by studying their tracks and traces, cherishing more and more the wish to be able to achieve some record of all these beautiful phases of wild life. I repeat: as a rule you will carry away with you but one or another memory from your too brief day’s wandering, but there come days when a succession of marvellous pictures seem to be unrolled before your gaze, as in an endless panorama. It is the experience of one such day that I have tried here to place on record. Professor Moebius is right in what he says: “Æsthetic views of animals are based not upon knowledge of the physiological causes of their forms, colouring, and methods of motion, but upon the impression made upon the observer by their various features and outward characteristics as parts of a harmonious whole. The more the parts combine to effect this unity and harmony, the more beautiful the animal seems to us.” Similarly, a landscape seems to me most impressive and harmonious when it retains all its original elements. No section of its flora or fauna can be removed without disturbing the harmony of the whole.

Within a few years, if this be not actually the case already, all that I have here described so fully will no longer be in existence along the banks of the Pangani. When I myself first saw these things, often my thoughts went back to those distant ages when in the lands now known as Germany the same description of wild life was extant in the river valleys, when hippopotami made their home in the Rhine and Main, and elephants and rhinoceroses still flourished.... What I saw there before me in the flesh I learnt to see with my mind’s eye in the long-forgotten past. It is the duty of any one whose good fortune it has been to witness such scenes of charm and loveliness to endeavour to leave some record of them as best he may, and by whatever means he has at his command.

IX

After Elephants with Wandorobo

“Big game hunting is a fine education!” With this opinion of Mr. H. A. Bryden I am in entire agreement, but I cannot assent to the dictum so often cited of some of the most experienced African hunters, to the effect that Equatorial East Africa offers the sportsman no adequate compensation for all the difficulties and dangers there to be faced.

I cannot subscribe to this view, because to my mind these very difficulties and dangers impart to the sport of this region a fascination scarcely to be equalled in any other part of the world. It is only in tropical Africa that you will find the last splendid specimens of an order of wild creation surviving from other eras of the earth’s history. It is not to be denied that you must pay a high price for the joy of hunting them. That goes without saying in a country where your every requisite, great and small, has to be carried on men’s shoulders--no other form of transport being available--from the moment you set foot within the wilderness. I am not now talking of quite short expeditions, but of the bigger enterprises which take the traveller into the interior for a period of months. I hold that this breaking away from all the resources of civilised life should be one of the sportsman’s chief incentives, and one of his chief enjoyments. I can, of course, quite understand experienced hunters taking another view. Many have had such serious encounters with the big game they have shot, and above all such unfortunate experiences of African climates, that they may well have had enough of such drawbacks.

Their assertions, in any case, tend to make it clear that sport in this East African wilderness is no child’s play. In reality, all depends upon the character and equipment of the man who goes in for it. The apparently difficult game of tennis presents no difficulties to the expert tennis-player. With an inferior player it is otherwise. So it is in regard to hunting in the tropics. It is obvious that experience in sport here at home is of the greatest possible use out there--is, in fact, absolutely essential to one’s success. Only those should attempt it who are prepared to do everything and cope with all obstacles for themselves, who do not need to rely on others, and whose nerves are proof against the extraordinary excitements and strains which out there are your daily experience.

I myself am conscious of a steadily increasing distaste for face-to-face encounters with rhinoceroses, and with elephants still more. There are indeed other denizens of the East African jungle whose defensive and offensive capabilities it would be no less a mistake to under estimate. The most experienced and most authoritative Anglo-Saxon sportsmen are, in fact, agreed that, whether it be a question of going-after lions or leopards or African buffaloes, sooner or later the luck goes against the hunter. Of recent years a large number of good shots have lost their lives in Africa. If one of these animals once gets at you, you are as good as dead. To be chased by an African elephant is as exciting a sensation as a man could wish for. The fierceness of his on-rush passes description. He makes for you suddenly, unexpectedly. The overpowering proportions of the enraged beast--the grotesque aspect of his immense flapping ears, which make his huge head look more formidable than ever--the incredible pace at which he thunders along--all combine with his shrill trumpeting to produce an effect upon the mind of the hunter, now turned quarry, which he will never shake himself rid of as long as life lasts. When--as happened once to me--it is a case not of one single elephant, but of an entire herd giving chase in the open plain (as described in _With Flashlight and Rifle_), the reader will have no difficulty in understanding that even now I sometimes live the whole situation over again in my dreams and that I have more than once awoke from them in a frenzy of terror.

Of course, a man becomes hardened in regard to hunting accidents in course of time, especially if all his adventures have had fortunate issues. When, however, a man has repeatedly escaped destruction by a hairs-breadth only, and when incidents of this kind have been heaped up one on another within a brief space of time, the effects upon the nervous system become so great that even with the utmost self-mastery a man ceases to be able to bear them. As I have already said, the total number of casualties in the ranks of African sportsmen is not inconsiderable.

In Germany, of course, we have time-honoured sports of a dangerous nature too, but these are exceptions--for instance, killing the wild boar with a spear, and mountain-climbing and stalking.

In order to understand fully the mental condition of the sportsman in dangerous circumstances such as I have described, it is necessary to realise the way in which he is affected by his loneliness, his complete severance from the rest of mankind. There is all the difference in the world between the situation of a number of men taking up a post of danger side by side, and that of the man who stands by himself, either at the call of duty or impelled by a sense of daring. He has to struggle with thoughts and fears against which the others are sustained by mutual example and encouragement.