Part 6

The boys who had stayed behind had nothing to report except the loss of three of our sheep by theft. Now it was essential to nip this kind of thing in the bud. I did nothing that day, merely sending Pyjalé to his home with a handsome present. I knew he would put it round as to the kind of people we were. Natives always exaggerate enormously when back from a scurry in the bush, and his account of our doings would probably have made me blush had I heard it.

Next day when Pyjalé came with a pot of fresh cow’s milk as a present, I asked him if he had heard anything about our sheep. He said no. I asked him to point me out the village which had stolen them. He said they would kill him if he did so. Therefore he knew. I then said that he need not go with me, if only he would indicate it. He said the village with the three tamarind trees was where the thieves lived.

I went over quietly, as if looking for guinea-fowl, in the evening. The village was quite close to our camp. When their stock began to come in I signalled up some boys. We walked up deliberately to the herds, no one taking any great notice of us. I separated out a mob of sheep and goats and we started driving them towards camp, but very quietly and calmly. It is wonderful how imitative Africans are. If you are excited they at once become so. If you are calm and deliberate, so are they.

A more dramatic thing would have been to take the cattle. But these native cattle are not used to boys wearing clothes, as mine did, and we found at Mani-Mani that they became excited and difficult to handle unless they see their black naked owners about. Pyjalé I had carefully left out of this business.

As soon as our object dawned upon the Karamojans there was the usual commotion. Women wha! wha! wha-ed while rushing from the huts with shields; warriors seized these and rushed with prodigious speed directly away from us; while we pushed our two or three hundred hostages slowly along.

Arrived at camp we just managed to squeeze them all into the bullock boma. There were noises all round us now. The boys were uneasy; there is always something in the alarm note when issued by hundreds of human throats. Dark was soon on us and we sat up by the camp fires till fairly late. Nothing happened, as I anticipated. Discretion had won. They hated that little bom-bom so.

What I wanted now was that they should come. I wanted to tell them why I had taken their sheep. No one appeared, but I consoled myself with the thought that they jolly well knew why I had taken them.

Presently there appeared to be great signs of activity in one of the nearer villages. Native men kept coming from all directions. My boys were all eyes for this, to them, impending attack. I thought they must be born fools to try anything of that sort in broad daylight. Night was their best chance.

Pyjalé had been absent, so I hoped that he was at the meeting. Presently he appeared. He said they had had a discussion and had concluded not to attack us. I told him to go straight back and invite them all to come; I wanted to be attacked. And moreover, if my sheep were not instantly brought I would proceed to kill the hostage sheep we held, and that then I would proceed to hunt the thieves.

This acted like magic; I suppose they thought that as I had known the village of the thieves, I also probably knew the actual men themselves. Our sheep were very soon brought and the hostages released.

I took the opportunity when the natives were there to impress upon them that we did not want anything from them. All we wanted was to hunt elephant in peace, but at the same time I hinted that we could be very terrible indeed. I got some of the older men to dry up and sit down, in a friendly way, and we had a good talk together. I now brought out the card to which I owed all my success in killing elephant in Karamojo. I offered a cow as reward for information leading to my killing five or more bull elephant. This was an unheard of reward. There a cow of breeding age is simply priceless. Normally natives never kill or sell she-stock of any kind and cows could only be obtained by successful raiding. Now among Africans there are numbers of young men who just lack the quality which brings success to its lucky owner, just as there are in every community, and to these young men my offer appealed tremendously. That they believed in my promise from the very start was, I thought, a great compliment, not only to me, but to their astuteness in perceiving that there was a difference between white men and Swahilis.

When my offer had gone the rounds the whole country for many miles round was scoured for elephant, with the result that I never could have a day’s rest. Everyone was looking for elephant. But had the reward been trade goods scarcely a soul would have bothered about it.

The first man to come was remarkable looking enough to satisfy anybody. A terrible looking man. A grotesquely hideous face above a very broad and deep chest, all mounted on the spindliest of knock-kneed legs. Chest, arms, shoulders, stomach and back heavily tattooed, denoting much killing. By reputation a terrific fighter, and very wealthy.

At first I thought that he was come to show me elephant. That was his intention, he said, but first he wanted to become my blood-brother. He said he could see that I was a kindred spirit and that we two should be friends. He said he had no friends. How was that? I asked. Pyjalé answered in a whisper that the lion never made friends of jackals and hyenas. And so we became friends. I was not going through the blood-brotherhood business, with its eating of bits of toasted meat smeared with each other’s blood, sawing in two of living dogs or nonsense of that kind. I took his hand and wrung it hard, and had it explained to him that among us that was an extraordinarily potent way of doing it. That seemed to satisfy the old boy, for the act of shaking hands was as strange to him as the act of eating each other’s blood is to us.

He started off then and I said: “What about those elephant?” “Wait,” was the answer, and off he went, to return shortly with a fat bullock. And then I found that my friend was the wealthiest cattle owner anywhere about—a kind of multi-millionaire. I thought to myself, well, he will not look for elephant. Nor did he; but he had sons without number, being much married, whom he scattered far and wide to look for them. He had arranged the thing most perfectly. We went with food for a few days and returned laden with ivory. Besides which we had some of the jolliest nights in the bush.

This great man being now my friend, our troubles were at an end. Wherever we went we were followed by scores of the young unmarried girls and one old maid—the only one I have come across in Karamojo. She was so outstandingly above the average in good looks, so beautifully made and so obviously still quite young, that I often asked why she should remain a spinster. They told me that no man would marry her because she was so beautiful. But why should that be a bar? we white men like our wives to be beautiful. They thought this strange, even for white men. They said they never married very beautiful women as all men wanted them. They also gave as another reason that these very attractive women wanted all men. And I must say that our camp beauty gave decided colour to this latter statement.

No sooner were we arrived back with our imposing line of beautiful tusks than other natives clamoured to take us to elephant. They wanted me to go there and then, but I needed a rest.

In the evening I presented my friend with a heifer, when to my astonishment he refused it. He said he wanted nothing from his friend. I was rather suspicious about this at first, but I need not have been, as I subsequently found this man to be thoroughly genuine. I am convinced that he would have given me anything. It is a big affair in their lives, this blood-brotherhood. Apparently we now owned everything in common. He offered me any of his daughters in marriage, and, thank goodness, never asked me for my rifle. From now on he followed me about like a faithful dog, some of his young wives attending to his commissariat arrangements wherever he was. He even took my name, which was Longelly-nymung or Red Man. And he began now to call his young male children, of whom he was very fond, by the same name. He was a delightfully simple fellow at heart and as courageous as a lion, as I had proof later.

After a few more journeys to the bush lasting from four to ten days, I found suddenly that I had as much ivory as I could possibly move. And this, while still on the fringe of Karamojo. I decided to return to Mumias, sell my ivory, fit out a real good expedition capable of moving several tons of ivory, and return to Karamojo fitted out for several years in the bush.

VI

DABOSSA

Having now the wherewithal to fit out a real good safari from the sale of my ivory, I proceeded to discharge my Baganda porters and to engage in their place Wanyamweze. Bagandas being banana-eaters had shown themselves to be good lads enough, but poor “doers” on ground millet, flour and elephant meat. Dysentery was their trouble. Whereas Wanyamweze seemed capable of keeping their condition indefinitely under severe safari conditions. All my former boys had a good pay-day coming to them, as, of course, they had been unable to spend anything while in Karamojo. Consequently they one and all went on the burst. A few new clothes from the Indian shops and the rest on native beer was the rule. When drinking largely of native beer no other food is required as the whole grain is contained in it. My two Nandi cowherds spent hardly anything of their wages. The only things I ever saw them buy were a fat sheep and two tins of sweet condensed milk. They rendered down about two quarts of fat from the tail of the sheep, poured in the contents of the milk tins, stirred it well and drank it off.

This time bullocks were not employed, donkeys taking their place. It was in connection with the buying of these donkeys that a remarkable feat of foot-travelling came to my notice. A trader wished to sell to me some donkeys—probably raided—which he had left at Mani-Mani, about 150 miles away. He offered a Karamojan a cow as reward for bringing them down in time for me to buy, and the boy had them there at the end of the fourth day. As nearly as I could ascertain he had covered 300 miles in 100 hours.

We crossed the Turkwell about 102 strong, this number not including women and camp followers. At Mani-Mani and Bukora some of our cows were exchanged for sheep, goats and donkeys. A decent cow would bring sixty sheep or goats. A donkey was the equivalent of ten sheep or goats. Having now so many mouths to feed it was necessary to buy many donkeys. I raised our donkey strength to 160. This meant that I could have constantly loaded about eighty. They were chiefly employed in carrying grain to our base camp in Dodose, sometimes from Mt. Elgon, where banana flour could be got, over 200 miles away, or from the country near the Nile, 150 to 200 miles distant. Throughout all this trekking, with two donkeys to one saddle, they never had a sore back.

On our arrival at Mani-Mani we found the Swahili village almost deserted. Everyone was out on a raid. They had reckoned that no one in their senses would return to the wilderness so soon as I had. They could not conceive how I had spent the proceeds of all that ivory in so short a time. I learnt that they were out against the Dabossans in whose country I meant to hunt. I therefore laid out my route so as to intercept the returning raiders.

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.