The Jungle Became Thicker, And
Although I Was In The Middle Of The Herd And Within Ten Yards Of Several
Giraffes, I Could Do Nothing.
A mass of thick and tangled thorns now
received them, and closed over the hardly-contested race - I was beaten.
Never mind, it was a good hunt - first-rate - but where was my camp? It
was nearly dark, and I could just distinguish the pass in the distance,
by which we had descended the mountain; thus I knew the direction but I
had ridden about three miles, and it would be dark before I could
return. However, I followed the heel tracks of the herd of giraffes.
Richarn was nowhere. Although I had lost the race, and was disappointed,
I now consoled myself that it was all for the best; had I killed a
giraffe at that hour and distance from camp, what good would it have
been? I was quite alone; thus who could have found it during the night?
and before morning it would have been devoured by lions and hyenas;
inoffensive and beautiful creatures, what a sin it appeared to destroy
them uselessly! With these consoling and practical reflections I
continued my way, until a branch of hooked thorn fixing in my nose
disturbed the train of ideas and persuaded me that it was very dark, and
that I had lost my way, as I could no longer distinguish either the
tracks of the giraffes or the position of the mountains. Accordingly I
fired my rifle as a signal, and soon after I heard a distant report in
reply, and the blaze of a fire shot up suddenly in the distance on the
side of the mountain. With the help of this beacon I reached the spot
where our people were bivouacked; they had lighted the beacon on a rock
about fifty feet above the level, as although some twenty or thirty
fires were blazing, they had been obscured by the intervening jungle. I
found both my wife and my men in an argumentative state as to the
propriety of my remaining alone so late in the jungle; however, I also
found dinner ready; the angareps (stretcher bedsteads) arranged by a
most comfortable blazing fire, and a glance at the star-lit heavens
assured me of a fine night - what more can man wish for? - wife, welcome,
food, fire, and fine weather?
The bivouac in the wilderness has many charms; there is a complete
independence - the sentries are posted, the animals picketed and fed, and
the fires arranged in a complete circle around the entire party - men,
animals, and luggage all within the fiery ring; the sentries alone being
on the outside. There is a species of ironwood that is very inflammable,
and being oily, it burns like a torch; this grew in great quantities,
and the numerous fires fed with this vigorous fuel enlivened the bivouac
with a continual blaze. My men were busy, baking their bread. On such
occasions an oven is dispensed with. A prodigious fire is made while the
dough is being prepared; this, when well moistened, is formed into a
cake about two feet in diameter, but not thicker than two inches. The
fire being in a fit state of glowing ash, a large hole is scraped in the
centre, in which the flat cake is laid, and the red-hot embers are raked
over it; thus buried it will bake in about twenty minutes, but the dough
must be exceedingly moist or it will burn to a cinder.
On the following day we arrived at Latooka, where I found everything in
good order at the depot, and the European vegetables that I had sown
were all above ground. Commoro and a number of people came to meet us.
There had been but little rain at Latooka since we left, although it had
been raining heavily at Obbo daily, and there was no difference in the
dry sandy plain that surrounded the town, neither was there any
pasturage for the animals except at a great distance.
The day after my arrival, Filfil was taken ill and died in a few hours.
Tetel had been out of condition ever since the day of his failure during
the elephant hunt, and he now refused his food. Sickness rapidly spread
through my animals; five donkeys died within a few days, and the
remainder looked poor. Two of my camels died suddenly, having eaten the
poison-bush. Within a few days of this disaster my good old hunter and
companion of all my former sports in the Base country, Tetel, died.
These terrible blows to my expedition were most satisfactory to the
Latookas, who ate the donkeys and other animals the moment they died. It
was a race between the natives and the vultures as to who should be
first to profit by my losses.
Not only were the animals sick, but my wife was laid up with a violent
attack of gastric fever, and I was also suffering from daily attacks of
ague. The small-pox broke out among the Turks. Several people died; and,
to make matters worse, they insisted upon inoculating themselves and all
their slaves; thus the whole camp was reeking with this horrible
disease.
Fortunately my camp was separate and to windward. I strictly forbade my
men to inoculate themselves, and no case of the disease occurred among
my people, but it spread throughout the country. Small-pox is a scourge
among the tribes of Central Africa, and it occasionally sweeps through
the country and decimates the population.
Among the natives of Obbo, who had accompanied us to Latooka, was a man
named Wani, who had formerly travelled far to the south, and had offered
to conduct Ibrahim to a country rich in ivory that had never been
visited by a trader: this man had accordingly been engaged as guide arid
interpreter. In an examination of Wani I discovered that the
cowrie-shells were brought from a place called "Magungo." This name I
had previously heard mentioned by the natives, but I could obtain no
clue to its position.
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