How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley
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On the 22nd, after a march of four hours and a half, we came to the
beautiful stream of Mtambu - the water of which was sweet, and clear
as crystal, and flowed northward.
We saw for the first time the
home of the lion and the leopard. Hear what Freiligrath says of
the place:
Where the thorny brake and thicket
Densely fill the interspace
Of the trees, through whose thick branches
Never sunshine lights the place,
There the lion dwells, a monarch,
Mightiest among the brutes;
There his right to reign supremest
Never one his claim disputes.
There he layeth down to slumber,
Having slain and ta'en his fill;
There he roameth, there be croucheth,
As it suits his lordly will.
We camped but a few yards from just such a place as the poet
describes. The herd-keeper who attended the goats and donkeys,
soon after our arrival in camp, drove the animals to water, and
in order to obtain it they travelled through a tunnel in the brake,
caused by elephants and rhinoceros. They had barely entered the
dark cavernous passage, when a black-spotted leopard sprang, and
fastened its fangs in the neck of one of the donkeys, causing it,
from the pain, to bray hideously. Its companions set up such a
frightful chorus, and so lashed their heels in the air at the
feline marauder, that the leopard bounded away through the brake,
as if in sheer dismay at the noisy cries which the attack had
provoked. The donkey's neck exhibited some frightful wounds, but
the animal was not dangerously hurt.
Thinking that possibly I might meet with an adventure with a
lion or a leopard in that dark belt of tall trees, under whose
impenetrable shade grew the dense thicket that formed such
admirable coverts for the carnivorous species, I took a stroll
along the awesome place with the gunbearer, Kalulu, carrying an
extra gun, and a further supply of ammunition. We crept
cautiously along, looking keenly into the deep dark dens, the
entrances of which were revealed to us, as we journeyed, expectant
every moment to behold the reputed monarch of the brake and
thicket, bound forward to meet us, and I took a special delight
in picturing, in my imagination, the splendor and majesty of the
wrathful brute, as he might stand before me. I peered closely
into every dark opening, hoping to see the deadly glitter of the
great angry eyes, and the glowering menacing front of the lion as
he would regard me. But, alas! after an hour's search for adventure,
I had encountered nothing, and I accordingly waxed courageous, and
crept into one of these leafy, thorny caverns, and found myself
shortly standing under a canopy of foliage that was held above my
head fully a hundred feet by the shapely and towering stems of the
royal mvule. Who can imagine the position? A smooth lawn-like glade;
a dense and awful growth of impenetrable jungle around us; those
stately natural pillars - a glorious phalanx of royal trees, bearing
at such sublime heights vivid green masses of foliage, through which
no single sun-ray penetrated, while at our feet babbled the primeval
brook, over smooth pebbles, in soft tones befitting the sacred quiet
of the scene!
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