YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM THE COLLECTION MADE BY CHARLES SHELDON B.A. 1890 OF BOOKS ON NATURAL HISTORY EXPLORATION • HUNTING & FISHING GIFT OF FRANCIS P. GARVAN B.A. 1897 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND OR THE TRIALS AND ADVENTURES OF A TENDERFOOT BY C. E. FINLASON. LONDON 'GEORGE VICKERS, ANGEL COURT, 172, STRAND. YALE PREFACE. I AM told that the proper thing in a book of this, or indeed of any other narrative nature, is a Preface. Now, I am most exceedingly anxious to do the proper thing. I apprehend, however, that a preface is only of interest and of value when one has anything to say in it ; and that is just where my difficulty comes in. Anything I have to say has been said in the book itself. I have no egotistic platitudes to offer here: there is nothing I want to apologise for — lam informed that a great many authors make apology the chief function of a preface — nothing I want to explain ; nothing I want to add ; nothing I want to retract. I infer that at the time you are perusing this preface — if you waste your time by perusing it at all — you have already bought the book — or borrowed it. I have therefore nothing to gain by soliciting your sympathy or your patronage. Having bought the book you will make an effort to read it, and if you survive the first few chapters I daresay that PREFACE. you will heroically persevere to the end. But, then, I am naturally of a sanguine disposition. I will not say that once having purchased the book it is a matter of comparative indifference to me whether you read it or not, but I do opine that anything I may say here as to its merits or demerits will not avail me much. If it has either, or both, they will only be made known to you by your reading what I have to tell you. I have no grand, unintelligible message to deliver ; no lofty ideal to build up, and laboriously pull down ; only a prosaic record of facts to narrate. I do not suppose you would care to buy the work at my appreciation of its value and sell it at your own. If I did not think it quite a most excellent and humorous production I should not take the risk of publishing it. The only danger to be feared is that our opinions of excellence and humour may not coincide. I have launched my frail bark — I was instructed that I must drag this dear old phrase in somewhere — and can only hope and pray that it may meet with fair winds to speed it on its buoyant way to the haven of assured success. PREFACE. Naturally, I am assuming all this time that you have bought the book. In the other contingency, if you have only borrowed it, I have nothing to say to you except to be sure not to forget to return it. One serious and most pleasant duty I have still to perform ; to express my deep gratitude and sense of obli gation to my dear friend and esteemed confrere Mr. H. S. Lyons (well known to all South Africans under the familiar name of " Camp Loafer "), who has taken upon himself the entire burden and responsi bility of preparing this book for publication in its present revised guise. The evidences of Mr. Lyons' revising hand will be apparent to all acquainted with " Camp Loafer's " peculiar style, and it is a sincere pleasure to me to be able to render him this inade quate acknowledgment of his valuable aid and practical proof of friendship. And now I can lay down my pen in complacent consciousness that I have done the proper thing ; I have risen equal to the occasion ; I have written a preface. Pretoria, C. E. Finlason. South African Republic, November 1st, 1893. CONTENTS. CHAPTER, I. PAGE The Why and the Wherefore — Particularly the Why — I Apologise with Dignity — And Scorn the Guide-book Insinuation — A Confession of Ignorance — And an Illustration in Top-boots 1 CHAPTER II. A Villagette — Tommy Atkins chez lui — " The One Thing Needful " — I Create a Sensation — Native Toilette de rigueur — Jan Sixpence of Kanya — A Pattern Wife — Horticultural En terprise Discouraged — Chief Batheon — Only Christians Need Apply — Chadband in excelsis 6 CHAPTER III. Time ! — The Delusive Partridge — The [Grass Vir gin — Foresight Rewarded — ;The Postal-ox Style v. Business — An Episode — " Camp- Loafer's " Guide to Wagon-driving ... ... 14 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. PAGE The Lobster Ball— The Baobab Tree— A Gossip about Thorns — A New Embrocation — A Queer Turn-out — A Few Words about Patent Water-Filters 25 CHAPTER V. Fresh from Home Came He — I Take Precautions — And Lose Myself — The Business-like Tele graph Poles — My Compass comes into Play — Very Much Play — I Climb a Tree — Making a Night of It — My First Lion — Home ! and glad to get There ... ... ... ... 34 CHAPTER VI. The " Shashi " — An Alluring Invitation — The Parting of the Ways — Lady Maria the Man- killer — Her Record — My Friend Smith — A Tragic Finale— I Climb a Tree for the Second Time ... ... ... ... ... 43 CHAPTER VII. I Allow Myself to be Convinced— Poor Darby Isaac — Remnants of the Routed Army The Gentle Jones — Picknicking — And the Other Thing — The £7m-Something River — A Trans action in Beads -I Encounter Aristocracy ... 59 CONTENTS. J CHAPTER VIII. PAGE A Chapter of Randy-Pandy — He Knew all About It — Commissariat in exeelsis — Another [ Illu sion Dispelled — Such Charming Candour — An Illustration or Two — The Sound Practical Side — Such a Nice Man too !.. . ... ... 71 CHAPTER IX. A Little Native Army — A MeaHe Diet — King Grime took Possession — Remarkable Kopjes — A Bit of Trading — A Specially Dreadful Afternoon — A Bit for a Painter — A Little Thunderstorm ... ... ... ... ... 84 CHAPTER X. The Pont at Nuanetsi — Why the Telegrams never Reached — A 'Varsity Chum — A Bed in the Mud — A Simple Couple — Scribbling under Difficulties— The Lundi 95 CHAPTER XL A Mashona Stadt — Please do not Lean Against the Walls — Tutoring the Untutored — A Rise in Matches— Thirsty, with a Very Big " T" 108 CHAPTER XII. A Disappointing Reception — Bucks and Guns and Things — The Guileless Mashonette — A Culin ary Experiment — " A Roaring Good Fire " — Mr. Rhodes and Party — The Salvation Army CONTENTS. Contingent — Rocky — A Nut for Anthropo logists — Th e Flight of Romeo 119 CHAPTER XIII. Culinary Nightmares — Along the Big Plateau — A Water Bombardment — A Mistake in Natural History — Fort Charter — Enter and Exit — lmbollo Thickhead — I Disgrace Myself — The History of a Sea-Pie ... ... ... ... 132 CHAPTER XIV. Stranded — No Supper that Night — Knowing " New Chums " — I Try my Hand at Voor- looping — And do not Distinguish Myself — I Try the Long Whip — Another Failure ... 150 CHAPTER XV Moralistic Chestnuts — Which bring us to Salis bury — " Cleanliness and Civility a Speciality " — Something Unique in Billiard Tables — In Two Halves — Editorial Difficulties — Too Much Free Oil — The Company with the Big, Big " C " — Clergymen at a Discount — The Whisky Famine — Not Socially Festive— An Authority on Hymns — " Uf oo " ... ... 160 CHAPTER XVI. An Alluring Prospect — He Wished Me Good-Bye and a Pleasant Journey — Jolly Companions Everyone — Native Coiffure — Tonsorial Eccen- CONTENTS. tricities — Coy Wives and Maidens — I am re garded as a Wonder — Which is Which ... 182 CHAPTER XVII. Embryo Millionaires — -A Stupendous Banquet — Robinson's Lion — And other Lion Stories — The Sad Fate of Poor Billy Jones — Trooper Nesbitt's Narrow Escape — Up a Tree ... 194 CHAPTER XVIII. A Baboon Hunt — Laundry Work — An Aggrava ting Experience — On the Top of Disselboom Mountain — And its Thrilling Descent — A Discouraging Start — We Slumber — A Dread ful Pastime — I am Appointed Mess Orderly — And Make a Mess of it Accordingly — I Sink Lower and Lower — His First Taste of Fire-Water — Those Sharp Corners ! ... 205 CHAPTER XIX. Umtali!— And not Much at That— A " B.S.A. ' Trooper at Home — They Shifted the Camp — A Night Expedition — I Propose Taking my Departure — And Want to Buy an Ox — But am Rudely Dissuaded — A Reinforcement — The First Canteen — The American Took the p00l — An Aggravating Mistake ... 224 CHAPTER XX. The First Day's " Treck "—I go for Water— And • Hark Back Again — Such a getting Down- CONTENTS. stairs ! — Ah, Woe is Me ! — The Blessed Water at Last— No Tea that Night 239 CHAPTER XXI. We Reach Massi-Kessi — Those Portuguese — Hampstead Heath not in It — We Review the Situation — Help at Last ! — Exhausted — Another Swamp — A Novelty in Grub — Pedestrianism Extraordinary — A Jammy Orgie — A Spurt of Despair — The Bees Win the Toss — An Uneven Swimming Contest .. 248 CHAPTER XXII. Too Much Wet— A Shed of Refuge— The Plot Thickens — He Left His Load — Tsetse Fly, Mushrooms, and Honey — A Forty-five Mile Walk — We Dawdle on the Way — A Recital with a Purpose —A Lion at Close Quarters — And a Record Sprint .. . ... ... ... 269 CHAPTER XXIII. Sai'mento — Not Much of a Dinner — I See Ele phants — And Taste Buffalo — A Huge Thirst — A Dismal Prospect — Desolation — Unso phisticated Rudeness — For the Glory of Eng land CHAPTER XXIV I Sit Down and Think — And Change my Mind An Opportune " Dug-Out ' — I arrive at 284 CONTENTS. Mapanda — A Red Ant Attack — We Start for Beira — A Little Disagreement — And the Noble Science a la Matabeles — Beira — A Portuguese Gentleman— Those Dear Portu guese — On the Steamer — Back to Civilisation —Farewell 297 NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. CHAPTER I. The "Why and the Wherefore — Particularly the Why — I Apologise with Dignity — And Scorn the Guide-book Insinuation — A Confession of Ignorance — And an Illustration in Top-boots. My object in undertaking a happy-go-lucky tour through Mashonaland, at a time when that speculative region was vastly more unknown and difficult of access, ingress, or egress, than it is to day, was to supply, through the medium of the newspaper press, and by the epistolary vehicle of a peripatetic correspondent, a fresh, crisp and unvar nished account of things present and prospective, as they presented themselves to a humble nobody un prejudiced by preconceptions, unfettered by interests of any sort, untrammelled by luxurious trappings, and revelling, generally and particularly, in a lively and intense ignorance of the land which was to form the theme of the book now tremulously offered to the public The book is the outcome of the letters, and B A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. the letters were the outcome of bond-fide experiences and keen, though unobtrusive, observation. In re vising the record of these experiences and observa tions for their present complete form, it has been found difficult, and at times impossible, to eliminate from them that element of crudity inalienable from hastily written letters, written under such circum stances and conditions as the inexorable exigences of newspaper correspondence in the wilds of Africa demand. To have remedied this in the present edition would not only have necessitated most elabo rate and iconoclastic revision, but would have de tracted considerably from the scope and intention of the work as a passing record of things Rhodesian. So far as is compatible with the style of the work and its somewhat post-historic character, I have en deavoured in this journalistic sketch to include such facts and data, brought up to the present time, as will enable any adventurous being ambitious of courting the experiences and perils here narrated to " go and do likewise " in the shortest and speediest way. But I do not claim for this narrative the staid and forbidding dignity of a guide-book. As a book of adventure, written with such brightness and humorous capacity as the author may have been en dowed with by a discriminating Providence, must it stand or fall. Aught else is incidental or accidental. JUST A NOBODY Without in any way presuming to belittle the achievements of Lord Randolph Churchill, whose opinions and experiences, at a price of about Is. 9d. per word, have long ago been extensively published to the world, I may, with becoming diffidence, express a belief that the views of an old Colonist are more likely to be valuable to the great army of knowledge-seekers than the views of an eminent English politician who travels through the country with his own cows and goats, his special spring wagon, his private secre taries, his cases of champagne, and his numerous retinue. As the average adventurer who is think ing of Mashonaland would not travel in such magni ficent style, but would go up by ordinary coach, or more ordinary ox- wagon, with just enough plain solid food and et-ceteras to suit his modest require ments, it seemed to me that, if I went through the country in the same fashion as those for whom I am writing will travel, my experiences would be of more service than brilliant views and crushing criticism, which might be inspired by the possession of a good French cook and a total ignorance of Mashonaland, and the requirements and ideas of the Cape Colonist. I had intended here to set forth the different things which it is necessary for travellers in Mashona land to take with them, but it has now occurred to me B 2 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. that I do not know any more about that subject th anybody else. If I had been asked in Kimberh what was essential for a six or nine months' trip Mashonaland, I should have taken the querist to r room and shown him my own outfit. I had consult everybody about that outfit, read travellers' boo. got this tip from Jones, that from Robinson, a another from Brown. These pointers I embellish with my own common sense, and when I left Ki berley I was secretly proud of the result. I ne< left anything behind that a man declared to be i solutely necessary — just took everything along fn paregoric to a bowie knife, and from a mosquito 1 to a cholera belt. Of course if you go from Vrybi by ox-wagon, a few hundred pounds weight more less makes no real difference, but when you go a did by coach, then doth trouble ensue, for the cha per pound from Vryburg to Macloutsie is — or wai two- shillings. As therefore I have not found < yet — and probably never shall — what is really nee sary and what superfluous, I abstain from accept the serious responsibility of advocating anythi To judge from the remarks of men who had travel through the country, the things which I conside the most essential were regarded as superfluous surdities, while despised odds and ends which w thrown in to fill up the corners were held to be CONFLICTING ADVICE. fabulous value " up north." If these free critics had only been unanimous in condemning any given article I could have thrown it away, and departed with a lighter heart and a lighter baggage; but they never were unanimous. What one man con demned with a scornful bitterness another would praise most extravagantly. Take the subject of top- boots, for instance. One would think that there could not be more than one opinion on so simple a subject, but at Mafeking I was in a state of great excitement about my yellow top-boots. The follow ing are some of the remarks made on them : " Fancy taking these things with you ! " " Wear these for a day's walk on the veld and you won't walk for a week afterwards. Nobody ever wears anything but .veldschoens.* Top-boots are simply absurd." " If you leave anything behind you, take these. Take four pairs ; take a dozen if you can. They are fetching ±,'20 at Salisbury this minute." " Always wear top-boots. Indispensable in wet weather and comfortable where the cobras, puff- adders, and night-adders lie about in hundreds." To make things safe I took both top-boots and veldschoens. * Veldt shoes made of coarse undressed leather. CHAPTER II. A Villagette — Tommy Atkins chez lui— "The One Thing Needful"— I Create a Sensation — Native Toilette de riyueui — Jan Sixpence, of Kanya — A Pattern Wife — Horticultural Enterprise Discouraged — Chief Batheor. — Only Christians need Apply — Chadband in Escchh. All South Africans have heard of Mafeking. It is not remarkable for anything, and is, in fact, merely a little village at which is stationed an English regi ment. Time must hang heavily on the hands of both officers and men. I did not think that Tommy Atkins was perfectly well satisfied with his rations, and to the civilian an ounce-and-a-half of tea per diem for eleven men does not appear to give much encouragement for ostentatious magnificence in the way of tea parties. The same number of men were allowed three and two-thirds ounces of coffee between them, and it may therefore be inferred that the nerves of the average British soldier at Mafeking are in no danger of being shattered by undue indul gence in what has been not inaptly described as "the Dutchman's delight." Water, iu fact, is intrusively prominent in the private breakfasts of Tommy JUST LIKE A TENDERFOOT. Atkins, and the red-coated heroes from East York shire frequently congratulate themselves on the little spruit which rushes and tumbles close to the town. On the general rations I have nothing to say, but I may mention that one-sixteenth of an ounce of pepper for a squad of eleven men seems a little meagre on days when mashed turnips or doubtful eggs appear on the regimental mess-table. Before leaving Mafeking I had been authorita tively informed that I must not expect to find food or accommodation on the road to Kanya, so I accor dingly arranged for a week's supply. When the Cape cart that was to convey me turned up at the hotel its cheery proprietor said lightly, " Just throw your things in, and we'll be off." Then it was that my luggage and provender made its appearance. There was a rifle, a shot-gun (in a case full of all sorts of things) a black bag weighing about 40 lbs., 300 cartridges, a handsome bundle of wraps and waterproof sheeting, a big Gruiness's stout-case full of provender, and a small case full of more provender, a kettle, a three-legged pot and other things. A very fair proportion of the Mafeking population sur rounded my little exhibition, and stood around in silent expectation. I had no intention of creating a sensation, but it is easy to do that in Mafeking. My host explained with much politeness that he did A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. not think that all that could go on the cart, " but," he said, " I'm awfully glad you sent on all your heavy luggage ahead." A good deal was left behind, and I specially re member the expression on my friend's face when he gently lifted out a large bag of potatoes and a 5 lb. bag of hard beans. However, he stowed the big beer case away all right, and with management got all my fixings aboard. I have discovered since that he left his own things behind and started for a fortnight's trip in what he stood up in, and a pound of tobacco. "You know," he explained, when we were well out of Mafeking, and bowling merrily along behind his six spanking horses, " you know there is only one place where we don't stop at an hotel of some sort; but," he added apologetically, " I suppose you take a snack between meals." Just before leaving Mafeking, a bystander, who had gravely inspected the contents of the beer case, told a friend, with an air of imparting information which might be useful some day, that " there was enough there to keep ten pioneers a fortnight." Another remarked that he '• supposed the big cake was a present to the Kauya population as a general peace offering from the inhabitants of Mafekin footed foot steps. Twice we saw those awful big eyes — which were different, altogether different, to the eyes of the jackals — and each time the sight kept us awake feeding the fire for another hour. About three o'clock it grew intensely cold, and then it became a question of letting the fire go out, or sacrificing our kraal. We had been picking little bits from the barricade for some time, and we hated the idea of losing our friendly shelter. It had to be done, however, and one side was consumed in an hour. Two other sides were burned two hours at least be fore daybreak. The back wall, though it afforded no real protection, was not sacrificed, for we had not 46 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND the courage to leave ourselves quite bare. When all the wood was on the top we watched the blaze until we both fell asleep. Now and again one or other of us would jump up and pull the wood on to the dull fire until it blazed again. On one of these occasions I heard the unmistakable purr of His Majesty, but even that could not keep us awake. I remember falling off finally with the full belief that the lion would catch me or Jones before morning, but I was so utterly exhausted that I went off quite happy at the thought that the lion would only take one of us, and my chance to be left was as good as Jones' ! Just as day broke we started in the direction where we had heard the gun fired the previous night. En route we came across a bare white tree — my telegraph pole — and iu due course we struck the river, and, subsequently, the road, which runs a mere thread through the country. It was gratifying to find that Peit, one. of the Selous' men, and who was one of the coach-drivers, had also got lost and had not returned. We met him on the road later on. He had been out nearly forty hours, and had struck the road near Tul i — twenty miles from the camp. He had seen two lions, and had spent the night keeping his fire going. As he had my rifle, I was glad to see him again. Peit, it may be mentioned, is an old hunter, well accustomed to the bush. And the old A HINT TO OTHER TENDERFOOTS. 47 hunter, be it observed, or the old stager, is never lost. The camp is sometimes ; he isn't. But this is a delicate distinction which is utterly lost on the Tenderfoot. Whether it's he who is playing hide- and-seek with the camp, or the camp which is playing hide-and-seek with him, he realises the discomforts attaching to the pastime in all their fulness. The day before my adventure a white man was lost for a day and a night. To lose oneself in this deceptive bush is as easy as possible — especially on dull days, when the sun is not seen from daylight to dark. But a man is rarely lost twice. He either dies in the first experi ence, or, if he is so fortunate as to return, he takes especial care to take note of his direction and of the more conspicuous landmarks. When he finds himself getting out of sight of these landmarks he comes back. I am speaking particularly of the sunless days. When the sun is shining ah day, anyone accustomed to the country never gets altogether hopelessly and " fatally " lost. Novices like myself and Jones, how ever, are liable to get lost any time unless tied to the wagon with ropes. 48 CHAPTER VI. The "Shashi" — An Alluring Invitation — The Parting of the Ways- Lady Maria, the Man-killer — Her Record— My Friend Smith— A Tragic Finale — I Olimb a Tree for the Second Time. Tuli can never be called a lively place, and when I was there I found that every hour had at least a hundred and twenty minutes. It is always terribly hot at Tuli, and the men there swore horribly at everything, and no wonder. They swore at the Cape brandy, at the rations, at the work, at the commanding officer, the Commissariat officer, and most of all at the Chartered Company. They had no furniture, poor food, nothing much to read, and led an uncomfortable, shiftless, aimless sort of life. As for the officers, though their mess- table was luxurious — they had real jam and bona, fide condensed milk every day — they were certainly not happy. It was deadly dull work keeping the soldiers and the guns in tip-top trim when there was never the ghost of a chance of a scrimmage. The fort itself was a neat., staring sort of camp, on MORE SAND THAN WATER. 49 top of a desolate kopje.* The sun shone down on it for twelve hours a day, and no shadow was possible. From the look-out you could see the Shashi river, a broad and beautiful channel of bright yellow sand, with tiny threads of glistening water near the far side. When the Shashi is up it is said to present a very magnificent spectacle, but for ten months in the year there is more sand than water — a great deal more sand. The transport riders have to drive their tired oxen and heavy wagons through this sand. It is always a ghastly business, because the sand is everywhere loose, and the wheels sink axle deep therein. There are quicksands too. Often a wagon has to be unloaded and loaded twenty times before this Rubicon of Mashonaland is crossed. On the one side you must know is Bechuanaland, and on the other Mashonaland, or Rhodesia, or the land of Ophir, or whatever one likes to call it. Some times wagons are days and days trying to get across. Just about the time when the rains are due, it is very exciting, because the river may come down at any hour, and sweep the wagon from off the face of the earth. At such times fabulous sums are paid for the temporary loan of a span, or two spans of oxen. Watching these wagons was almost the only amusement of the B. S. A. officer in camp, and it * A small hi]]. E .1 NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. palled after a time. Besides, the river was so far away that the wagons looked like mere beetles, the striving drivers insignificant dots, and were not after all very amusing. One day, when I was so tired of Tuli and the Shashi river that I would have given fifty pounds to see a dog-fight, a sergeant came up to me and said that he and a couple of other fellows were going to hunt for lions, and, if I liked to come with them, I had better be lively, as the cart was waiting. Ten minutes later I was in a Scotch cart with three sergeants, rattling towards the river. The nature of the ground made travelling by cart — sans springs — particularly arduous. The ground itself was as hard as could be, and on the surface were millions of hard, slippery, loose boulders and stones of every size. The cart was drawn by four oxen, and there was no voorlooper. The shaking was terrific, and the man who did not hold on by both hands was the man who was promptly thrown out. The others had ridden in that cart over that same wonderful road before, and he'd on from the very first. I started without holding on, but when I had been once thrown out and had crawled back badly bruised, I held on as tightly as anybody. Thrice was the cart overturned, but we sprang out in different directions by instinct — like frogs springing from a bank — and no one was hurt. We reached A BAD BEGINNING. 51 the river, and then the sergeant in charge, who was driving, explained that it was impossible to go along by the side of the river any mcfre, and consequently it was necessary to go into the river bed, proceed that way for some distance, and then get on to the bank again at a place he knew of. So he drove the cart down the steep bank of the river, through the dense wall of reeds and into the river. He after wards explained that he had made a mistake in the place. The cart upset, of course, along with its four occupants. We were soaked to the skin, and all the blankets were sodden. We had only fallen into a tiny little stream which had found an in dependent course for itself close to the bank. It was not to be seen from the bank owing to the reeds. After that the cart became firmly fixed in a quicksand, but eventually, after infinite trouble, it was dragged out, and in half-an-hour we had got it up the bank again, and at once fixed upon a big green tree as our camping-place for the night. By this time it wanted about half-an-hour to sunset, and Smith, the youngest of the sergeants, suggested that we should beat round for the guinea-fowl which were calling in all directions. The suggestion was carried with acclamation, and Jones and Robinson, two old stagers, went one way, while Smith and myself went another. Smith and T E 2 52 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. made for the river, he with the regulation rifle and myself with a double-barrelled shot-gun. We skirted the river for some time, and saw no birds worth powder and shot. " Let us, " said Smith, " let us go into the river, and see whether we can't get some ducks or geese, or something." So we crushed through the reeds, and came once more upon the Shashi. About five hundred yards off we saw three wild geese, and we at once made a wide detour in order to get to the windward of them. We had not proceeded a hundred yards when Smith cried out, " Lion, by Jove ! " He pointed to an immense spoor in the sand, which at this place was quite wet. The spoor was so fresh that the water had only just begun to drain into it. The animal, in fact, must have passed not five minutes before. Smith examined it with eagerness, and said, " Only one lion could make that spoor — that's Lady Maria, the Man-killer.'' " She's got a name, then ? " I asked, incredulously. " Had it for six months," said Smith, uncon scious of my satire. " She killed Cavanagh in May. MacDougall and Theron went after her, but she killed Theron, and wounded MacDougall so badly that he is a cripple to this day. She has killed four other men besides, and has carried off any quantity of donkeys and oxen. She's a h of a girl, she is." " But why the name Lady Maria ? " / AM TOLD NOT TO BE AFRAID. " Oh, Cockney Bill, he christened her. Bill, you know, is a regular Cockney ; had a most awful she- devil for a wife, twice as big as he. She used to knock him about and generally gave him a devil of a time. She was the best one with her claws of any one in that part of London. Well, Billy ran away, and came here. As soon as the lion had killed the fourth man Billy christened it Lady Maria, which we found out was the name his wife went by. He will be mad when we bring home her skin to-night." " It is getting about sunset," I remarked, "and I have only a shot gun ; I don't think I am anxious to hunt Lady Maria." " Don't you be afraid," said Smith, as he walked on rapidly, keeping his eye on the spoor; "you come along with me, and it will be all right ; I'll shoot mi-lady ; all you will have to do is to look on, and tell people afterwards how I shot her." The spoor had brought us to the river bank again, and without a moment's hesitation Smith pushed his way through the reeds, which were very thick at this point. I had not the remotest idea where the camp was, and my only hope was to keep close to the fool hardy Smith. The track of the lion was plain enough, for the great beast had made a path through the reeds three feet broad at least. The reeds joined the trees ten yards to the left. They were 51 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. big, heavy trees, with overhanging branches. Be hind them were other trees for miles and miles. The sun had sunk behind these trees for some little time, and the situation became very solemn. We were in the middle of the reeds, which were twenty feet high; it was almost dark, and yet we were still following on the track of the most terrible lion in Mashonaland. Smith halted for a second, and lis tened with great iutentness, his body bent forward, his rifle in readiness for instant use. The silence was terrifying. As we waited I saw a reed which had been bent down by the lion slowly raise itself a few inches, and, as I watched, a dead piece of wood fell from a tall tree near by, and, dropping from branch to branch with a rattle, fell noiselessly among the reeds. " We must be d d close now," said Smith in a thrilling whisper to me. He put. his mouth close to my ear, and then it was that. I smelt Cape brandy. In an instant I realised the position. Smith was drunk,, foolhardy drunk, drunk enough to tackle the biggest lion in the world with boxing gloves, and back himself to win. I, poor innocent, had followed him like a child, and with no better weapon than a shot-gun charged with No. 6. I felt that, the lion was within twenty yards. I heard nothing, and saw nothing but the reeds, A CRITICAL POSITION. 55 which were gradually losing their bright green colour in the rapidly advancing darkness, and yet I was absolutely certain that twenty more steps would bring us right on to Her Most Gracious Majesty, Maria. I dared not speak, but reaching forward, I caught Smith by his bandolier, and held him fast. He turned round swiftly and regarded me enquiringly. "Come back," I gasped, "come back, you madman. You will be right upon the beast in two minutes. You can't see anything five yards off now, and every minute it is getting darker. Even if the lion gave you time you couldn't see to shoot, and besides you're as drunk as an owl." " Drunk am I ?" he asked, as he wrenched himseli away, and stumbled forward. " Drunk, you green- headed, bally fool of a civilian. I'll show you to-morrow what a jolly good hammering means. At present I'm after something better which can't wait. You will keep sweet till to-morrow." With that he blundered forward, and was once more trampling through the reeds, which at this place be came mixed up with a thick-set little bush with small dark green leaves. My position was unenviable in the extreme. I was perfectly sober in the first place, and was well able to estimate the chances for and against my coming out alive. I hated to leave 50 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. Smith to his fate, and besides the idea of going back through those reeds, in the dark, all by myself, made me perspire with horror. In addition I was sure that I could not find my way back. Thought does not take long in critical situations, and before Smith had gone fifty yards I had decided on following him. I at once ran forward, and soon came to a circular bit of open space caused by a large tree, under which the reeds and bush did not grow. All round the reeds formed a tall green wall— they were almost black to the sight at that time, because it was nearly dark, and the half-moon shed but little light. As I stepped into the open space, Smith was within five yards of the reeds on the other side, walking on tip-toe, with ears and eyes strained to the utmost. I was on the point of running up to him when a great brown mass seemed to shoot out of the reeds just to the left of Smith, and a little behind him. The mass came right on top of poor Smith. I saw him for a half-second's space of time in the act of falling forward ; his helmet, fell off, but before it had touched the ground Smith's head was crushed in perfectly flat by the descending paw of the lion. The sound was not unlike that which would have been caused by a man striking a ripe melon with all his force with a heavy flat spade. The beast did not roar, or growl, either POOR SMITHS DEATH. before or afterwards, it merely coughed twice. It struck poor Smith across the neck with its paw, and tore his shirt down to his shoulder blades, disclosing his back, which was a mass of blood. Before I could realise what had happened, Maria seized hold of Smith by the thigh and dragged him off at a trot into the reeds. The whole tragedy did not occupy two minutes, one minute he was before me alive and well, in another he was dead and gone. I must have stood dazed where I was for many minutes, for when I regained my wits it was pitch dark, and the only sounds I could hear were the rushing of the reeds by the wood, and the soughing of the forest trees. I admit, right here, that I was scared. The idea of moving was horrible to me. It was an absurd idea, because lions are guided and attracted by smell, and deterred by fire and noise. I lit a fire under the tree with trembling fingers, and when it was fairly alight, and I had gathered all the wood within a radius of four square yards, and put it on the top, I climbed up the tree and spent a night of discomfort and misery which can never be forgotton. People have said since that I ought to have fired my shot gun at Lady Maria when I saw her grapple Smith, and that anyhow I ought to have gone into the reeds after the beast, and tried to get Smith away from her, — to which I answer that from 58 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. the time of the attack, until, at least, twenty minutes afterwards, I did not know that I had a gun. I did not know even that there was an " I." Afterwards it did not occur to me to see Lady Maria about Smith. I confess that it did not occur to me. Would it have occurred to you, oh, gentle reader ? 59 CHAPTER VII. I Allow Myself to be Convinced— Poor Darby Isaac— Remnants of the Routed Army — The Gentle Jones— Picnicking— And the Other Thing— The J7m-something River — A Transaction in Beads — I En counter Aristocracy. It was my intention to go from Tuli to Salisbury by ox-wagon, but after hearing a good deal about the difficulties of transport riding, and the time con sumed in that style of travelling, I hesitated and thought favourably about, the post- cart. While I was thus undecided, a friend came along and said, " You are going by ox-wagon ? " "I guess so," I said, with the air of a man who had not made up his mind, and who is open to conviction. "Well," said he, "of course it's a free country, and if you prefer doing that sort of thing no one will be much put out ; but do you know that the average rate of speed with a loaded wagon up to Salisbury is something under eight miles a day and night ? " I didn't know this thing, and when I came to consider, it seemed to me that I alone, and on foot, could travel through Mashona land at a greater speed than eight miles in twenty- 60 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. four hours. Then someone else dropped into the hut, sat on the dusty floor — for there were no chairs or bed — and said, "I know fellows who have been five months on the road to Salisbury; left here in May and haven't got over the Umzibetsi river yet. Lost four spans of oxen, don't you know, and are spreading themselves over Mashonaland looking for a fifth span." "Yes," chimed in another, "and they'll catch the rainy season before they get to Victoria, and then you know," he said turning to me, "they go a mile a day until all the oxen die." Though I believed that these merry Tuli spirits were filling up a spare hour, I decided to take advantage of an opportunity afforded me of going by post-cart, and left by that conveyance. The post-cart, in this instance, was run by the Chartered Company. There is nothing dashing about the Company's post-carts — no imposing paint, nor flashing gewgaws of shining brass ; no prancing steeds proudly pawing the ground and snorting with impatience ; above all, no springs and no tent. The post-cart, in fact, is just a plain Scotch cart, such as is used for the con veyance of gravel, and even boulders, in England. Attached to this cart are six oxen, and these six, and none others, convey the mail from Tuli to Victoria — a distance of 204 miles. The cart is usually filled with letters and newspapers. Special parcels for the THE INDOMITABLE ISAAC. 61 Company are sent up by this conveyance, when haste is necessary. It is not meant for the conveyance of fastidious travellers, or for passengers at all for that matter; but he who can find room among the mail- bags will find that the travelling is not quite so terrible as he anticipated, and preferable on the whole to the very slow but comfortable ox-wagon. The whole turn-out is, or was, under the charge of a British South African trooper, who had under him a voorlooper and a Kaffir driver. The voorlooper runs or walks in front of the leading oxen, and the driver plies his whip on all the animals in rotation. He hardly ever stops shouting and flogging, and runs round the back of the cart, to and back again, continually. He never rests during a trek of several hours, never seem ing tired, and is in fact a veritable Trojan in tattered knee-breeches on £3 per month and rations. In the daytime when the oxen were feeding and resting, and he, the indomitable Isaac — which was his name — had eaten enough rice, or Boer meal pap, or bully beef, and drunk enough coffee, I have seen him playing his concertina softly to himself. Poor Isaac, I think, was in love, for his tunes were mostly senti mental in tone, and brought tears to his eyes. Joan, I hear, is at Capetown waiting for Darby Isaac, who is driving oxen in Mashonaland for the Company, hoping to make a little fortune somehow. The head 62 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. of the expedition — and every trip is truly an expe dition — the trooper, sits on the top of the cart, directing the voorlooper with a wave of the hand when the going is easy, but chiding him harshly when the cart strikes an unusually large boulder, uncompromising stump, or implacable tree. He has always to be on the alert, because the voorlooper sometimes forgets what he is doing, and on such occasions will walk into the trees, or down the sides of a sluit,* or into a mud-hole, with entire complai sance. Then it is that the trooper comes forth in his glory, and expostulates in lurid words and vivid phrases. Accidents are happily rare, and the special cart which took me up was many times on the outer edge of one wheel. We only came to grief once — the disselboom broke on that occasion, and the cart, tilting back with suddenness, shot me into the mud behind, and the driver on to the near ox. We left. Tuli about five in the afternoon, and it was intended to trek on for ten miles or so ; but the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley, and the excellent programme devised by the Company was set agley by the Shashi river bed, which, though not a mile broad, was broad enough to detain us for an hour and more. The sand is very soft, deep, and heavy, and the oxen were fairly done when they were at last flogged up to the top of the steep bank. * Deep ditch. COMING DOWN IN THE WORLD. 03 In a little canteen close by I met a quondam great and flourishing broker, a director of companies, and a leader of men. He went " bull " at the time of the great gold scrip smash, and disappeared, no one knew whither. I found him serving behind a bar quite happy and contented. He had grown a beard, and through all his misfortunes had stuck to his golden eye glasses. May fortune once more smile on " Molly ! " The grand and brilliant army of brokers, who once drank champagne like water, and made their hundreds a day, have long disappeared from the high places in Johannesburg and Kimberley, and many have asked where they all went to, and what has become of them. There was a leviathan Jack Tar, who made his £40,000 in that spec on Heriot's. What has become of Johnny Dareall, who made such a good thing out of Blue Rocks and Equefas, who built so grand a house out Belgravia way, and cut such a dash in Europe a little while back ? Where, indeed, are the Dicks, Toms, and Harries, the for- tunates and the millionaires of those days ? Nobody, of course, will be able to give a complete answer ; but I came across them bit by bit up in Mashona land or down in the Protectorate. They are in flannel shirts, doing all sorts of hard work, on harder fare, and I met them at every town, almost every out span. How it does change them! Almost my 64 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. first day out from Tuli I met a man who, two years ago, made a terrible fuss one day at Height's Hotel — when Height's Hotel was the hotel of the Golden City — because his champagne glass was a little misty. "You will expect me to lap dirty water out of a pannikin next," he said to the shrinking waiter, and I heard him and admired, for was he not the master of £'200,000 ? Truly he had a right to expect his glass to be like crystal, and his table linen to vie with the driven snow ! WTell, on the day I met him I saw that very same man drink muddy water out of a lobster tin, and eat rice which he dug out of a three-legged pot with a piece of wood picked up from amongst the rubbish on the outspan. About his dress I will say nothing, because everybody was dirty and in rags up there, but he had not washed for six weeks. He had had the fever, and every time he washed he had a relapse. So he gave up washing. I never saw a dirtier face. It is wonderful how the dirt hung on without flaking off. Well, after we had got across that terrible river, we trekked along three or four miles until we came suddenly upon half-a-dozen wagons, before each of which was a cheering fire. Amongst them I saw my old friend Jones, who had been four days getting thus far from Tuli. The heavy clouds which had been rolling up since sunset began to throw down rain in THE FATE OF JONES. 65 windy gushes, promising a deluge any minute, so we accepted Jones's pressing invitation, and had supi er with him, coffee, bread, and potted shrimps. Before going to sleep Jones became very impressive in his kindly-hearted attempts to convince me that the only way to get on in Mashonaland was to chum up with those you are with. In accordance with this policy he called Tom the Kaffir "dear boy," and the herds and other natives he addressed affectionately. My trooper, who is an old Colonial farmer, born in the country, and knows exactly how to treat Kaffir servants, predicted that Jones would be eventually robbed to his shirt. In the meantime Jones's boys were very chummy, and were feeding like fighting cocks. I never met poor Jones again. All his- horses died; and I heard afterwards that he himself fell sick, his pampered servants robbed him of all they could carry, and left him to die on the road. When he was discovered the asvoegels — a kind of vulture — had already commenced their ghastly orgie. Getting up early is a matter-of-course atrocity when travelling in Mashonaland, where travelling cannot be done with oxen in the heat of the day. Getting up early when you are going by post-cart means arising about four o'clock in the mornincr, when it is quite dark, and very dreary and c< 1.1. At K 66 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. such times life is certainly not worth living. The dreary scramble in the dusk for things left out over night, the blind groping for the holes in the rug 6traps, the disgraceful contumacy of a belt over weighted and top-heavy by reason of the bowie knife attachment, and the abominable coffee, sans sugar and milk, never became attractive to me. It is only after hanging on to the cart for an hour after start ing that one relinquishes in despair the attempt to finish the night's rest ; and then, when the glorious sun bounces up over the horizon, and blazes suddenly on the vast expanse of green trees, wild and beauti ful scenery, all the discomfort and the misery are for gotten, and the weary traveller, who is being pitied by his friends in civilisation, finds his heart full of thankfulness. If he thinks at all of his friends in the cities, he regards them and their sordid struggles for bread and butter with the greatest commiseration. There are times when roughing it in Mashonaland might easily be described as glorified picnicking, long and deliciously drawn out. When the sun rises, for instance, or when one sees a guinea fowl and shoots it after an exciting stalk and scramble. Similar bliss, of a different sort, possesses the veld bon vivant when he picks out that guinea fowl from the pot, and cuts long, thick, tender slices with his bowie knife from the snowy breast of that quick- NOT AS IN PICTURE BOOKS. 67 walking, but truly delightful bird ! Between these times things are different to an English picnic. There are intervals when a long trek in the sun is necessary. Then doth the wayfarer think frequently of once despised comforts of civilisation, such as long cold drinks and plenty of shade. Perched on the top of a Scotch cart, the tropical sun seems to beat you with perceptible blows ; you pant and gasp, drink warm and dirty water, groan at each bump, try in vain to find a new and comfortable position, look with aching eyes on the pulsating veld, and cry for a respite. When on the top of all this come little dancing clouds of flies, which buzz in front of your face with amazing energy, waiting for a chance to sit on the eyelid and suck the moisture therein con tained, then I say the word picnic is a hateful mockery, and you are justified in refusing to be com forted. It was on such a day that the post-cart con veying me crawled up to the shore which stands on the bank oft he Umzingwani river. This name . like most of the names I endeavour to write down is only approximately correct in spelling. This doe& not very much matter, because every map, every book and every traveller spells and pronounces the names of places and things in Mashonaland just as he pleases, and there is no one to say him nay. Notwith standing the delusive and savage nature of its name, F 2 68 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. the Umzingwani river is a very beautiful river, about 400 yards across, with steep banks covered with grass, and big green trees, which reminded me a good deal of some of the larger and more beautiful oaks in merry England. The bed of this river is clean white sand, and in the middle there runs a brisk, smooth stream of crystal water, two feet deep and about thirty yards wide. In these clear waters does the soiled traveller disport himself, and on the green banks under the great trees does he lie on his back smoking his pipe and glorifying God and the country. Like all the rivers I have encountered, the Umzing wani is fringed with tall, strong reeds, vivid green in colour, but discomforting to him who would pass through hastily, by reason of the spikiness of every blade and the stubbornness of every stem. In these reeds pheasants abide in great numbers ; but though you shoot them as they whirr away from you, you can rarely enjoy the fruits of your skill without the as sistance of a strong and well trained dog. Snakes lurk there, and sometimes lions, and as you do not see one or the other until you put your foot thereon, pheasant shooting amongst the reeds is only indulged in by him who hath experience in the ways of the country, and who hath, moreover, a dog in whom he can place trust. There are deep, cool-looking pools all along this river where bathing would be delightful, A LESSON IN BARTERING. 69 but which are nevertheless avoided by bathers, owing to the tradition that crocodiles lurk .therein. On the near side is a neat and comfortable-looking house, built, as are all buildings in this country, entirely of wood and grass. Here may you buy condensed milk at 2s. 6d. a tin ; Cape brandy at 10s. per bottle, and other things at proportionate prices. They bake good bread, and will grind you coffee for a consideration. The proprietor plays whist and chess with all comers, and is cleft of hand in trading with the natives. By dexterous manipulation he would make four yards of limbo* measure from chin to finger-tip of outstretched arm ; and a tablespoon- ful of beads would appear an overflowing handful in his artfully crinkled palm. He showed me how to do these things; and then I bought limbo, cloth, and red beads with white eyes, watching with natural intentness to see that I, at least, got thirty- six inches to the yard. Four blankets at 7s. 6d. each, I was told, would fetch one ox from simple savages in Mashonaland, and so, as oxen are said to be ruling at £14 each at Fort Salisbury, I bought blankets. The limbo cloth and the beads, I was told, were necessary for the purchase of rice, milk, fowls, monkey nuts, &c, on the road, but only blankets would buy oxen. It may here be men tioned that every native I met during the next three * Calico. 711 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. or four hundred miles was offered every opportunity of exchanging oxen for blankets, but never once was the Mashona induced to come forward, chiefly, I believe, because he had no oxen, a fact well known to the storekeeper who sold them to me. Stuck fast in the sand of the river I found Lord Henry Paulet and Mr. Swinburne, with their wagons. The latter is the son of the English baronet of that name ; was two years at the Tati Gold Fields, and is spoken of as a clever engineer. Lord Paulet, when I met him, was bare-legged for the nonce, and looked no more like a lord than I did. He was in charge of the wagon, which served as rear-guard of the Northumberland Syndicate. Judging from what I heard at this point, the Syndi cate had little cause for self-congratulation. The expedition was already a long time behindhand. They had lost a number of oxen, and had to buy fresh lots along the road at high prices. The traders and prospectors I met appeared to be annoyed at the liberal way in which the Northumberland men had been giving away blankets and beads in exchange for food. This, however, is a common complaint against men who are foolishly generous in this country. It is hard, nevertheless, on the common, or garden prospector, who finds his calculations upset by the market being spoiled. 71 CHAPTER VIII. A Chapter of Randy-Pandy — He Knew all About It — Commissariat in excelsis — Another Illusion Dispelled — Such Charming Candour — An Illustration or Two — The Sound Practical Side— Such a Nice Man too ! Lord Randolph Churchill deserves a whole chapter to himself, for he kept Mashon.rland talking for six months, and did many singular things. He was quite as much of a tenderfoot as I was, but while I always went on the principle that the next man knew more about things than I did, he adopted the opposite course. He knew everything better than everybody else. Now, in Mashonaland the newly- imported Englishman knows nothing, and when he pretends to know everything he has manifold ex periences. The South Africans delight in "takino- a rise " out of the new chum, and will take unheard of pains to make a consequential new chum look ridiculous. In South Africa the people are very much Republicans, and nobody much respects any body. It is the generally accepted belief that every- body is as good as his neighbour in theory, and a good deal better in practice ; and the aristocrat or the famous Englishman who comes into the country finds himself treated on terms of equality by every Tom, Dick, and Harry he meets, in a way that benumbs him. When Lord Randolph got fairly into Mashonaland he found that there were few to kow tow to him, while many openly pitied him with naive sincerity. I was always hearing about the mighty lord," but never had the good fortune to meet him. Put Mr. J. Percy Fitzpatrick did, and discourses instructively in his bright little brochure, "Through Mashonaland with Pick and Pen." "Poor Lord Eandolph," said Mr. Fitzpatrick, "is exp?riencing his first difficulties and learning his first lesson at Tuli. The Tory democrat in a Tory democracy is not as happy as one might sup pose. The theory of equality and liberty w. rked out in a snug den at home, and aired before hosts of admirers, and practically illustrated by bait ing the ' Grand Old Man ' (Lord Eandolph says 'there is no hunt like hunting the G.O.M.'), the theory, I say, is fit and admirable, even comfortable, under those circumstances ; but what kills Lord Randolph is the genial assumption of these things in cveryd iy life by so many of the men he meets here. They are stupidly blind to his position, absolutely THE AUTOCRAT BUSINESS A FAILURE. 73 oblivious of the prestige of his name. One has no purchase on them; the lever of a title won't work, because the fulcrum of prejudice, musty tradition and class legislation is not there. When he first tried the autocrat business, and stamped his foot and swore and said, ; It can be done ! it must be done, and it shall be done ! ' he was knocked speechless by getting answer, ' Look here, old man ! It can't be done, it mustn't be done, and it shan't be done, and (with rising voice) it damn wall won't be done ! ' " There is nothing so hopelessly baffling as ignor ance, and these men are absolutely ignorant of the result of differences of birth and station. Their social creed is summed up in two words ' Mutual Civility.' " I am tempted to fill in a chapter of ' My Mashonaland Expedition,' as I feel sure that the Daily Graphic Special will slur over those details which make history entertaining, and an experience, even a wholesome lesson, might be lost to tourists of the future. " When in Pietersburg Lord Randolph expressed a wish to see a Boer Farm, probably with a view to qualify himself as a well-informed ciitic, as he had not seen anything of the ruling class yet. Accord ingly it was arranged that he should visit the house 74 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. of a well-known commandant some twenty-five miles out. The old Boer was away, it may be fortunately so, and his wife came out to welcome the ' English Lord.' His Lordship is impulsive, his friends say. Perhaps that is it. Perhaps the old lady's figure was not up to his ideal of the female form divine. I do not know. Anyway one glance was enough. ' Ugh ! go on, go on, get away ! drive off,' shouted his Lordship, as he thumped the driver in the back. ' Awful people ! drive on ! get along ! I won't stay here. ' " Of course this is only a half-civilised country, and people here know nothing of honoured traditions and noblesse oblige and all that, but we have some primi tive ideas and half-formed prejudices, and it would go against the grain with us to treat a Kaffir woman like that. " Lord Randolph's enormous and cumbersome ex pedition still waited on some odd lots detained by breakdowns, and those who have had the pleasure of meeting the ex-Leader of the House won't need to be told any more ; but for those who have not had that pleasure, I may say that 'the gloom upon his youthful cheek spoke anything but joy.' He went about like the proverbially afflicted bear, or that other animal ' seeking what he may devour.' Ah me ! I wish he had remained as we knew him — KNEW TOO MUCH TO LEARN. 75 part of a picture gallery — pictures are so inoffensive — but these out-of-work politicians are dreadfully trying. " Advice to him was an impertinence ; warning, gross insolence. He wanted to learn his own lesson in his own way, and he is doing it. His favourite plaint was, 'People in this country seem to think I'm a d d fool.' Lord Randolph showed at times a deal of discernment. All that ingenious lumber that went to make up the ton-and-a-half of ' absolute necessaries ' was gradually but surely cast off. The wonderful thing was that they could never buy enough. If a bottle of beer was wanted — they secured a case. If they fancied chipped potatoes they bought a bag ! Weight was nothing. Bulk was a joke ! " They started with a complete outfit ! It must have been complete because it was got from a West- end firm who knew that 'money was no object.' Then they put in some supplementaries at Cape Town, and some " after-thoughts " at Kimberley, and etceteras at Johannesburg, and extras at Pretoria, and replenishments at Pietersburg, till they looked like the commissariat of a continental army. A forty-gallon Kaffir-pot took their fancy — a thing you could boil pigs in— 'Capital notion! Hot baths night and morning ! ' They bought it. There 76 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. seemed to be no security as long as there was a store in the country. " The Erst day of real trekking they bore it patiently, only wondering what was wrong. Next day off went the 'piano' case in the morning trek — - followed quickly by the ' reserve stores ' in the afternoon. Then went two portmanteaux, a box of cooking utensils and some sundries. Then — awful wrench — the paraffin stove went overboard, and the day after, the case of paraffin. Day by day as we went along we overtook transport waggons, with some thing belonging to 'de Lord' as the Dutchmen called him. He was going to run the show his own way, and he meant to break the record or something. He did break something, but it wasn't the record he meant ! He was in a hurry, which is quite useless in the veldt, but he uns in a hurry, so, of course, he broke a disselboom trying to go too fast at night ; as he was still in a hurry, he got it mended and went on, and then he bent an axle. He was not to be beaten, however, so he made a fresh start ; and then something caught in the brake, and they couldn't see in the dark, and the waggonette ran into a donga, and the wheel was shattered and the axle curled up, and the ' fore still ' smashed to smithereens, and the disselboom splintered to matchwood, and the side knocked in, and some other CANDID FRIENDS. 77 things were done which I've forgotten now, but his Lordship went on and sent a waggon back from Tuli to gather up the fragments. We got to Tuli the next day and spent four days there, and they were still waiting to recover jettisoned cargo for two days after we had gone. I suppose that was because they were in a hurry and we weren't. A perverse old dame is Luck ! " I used to have the greatest admiration for Lord Eandolph before he came amongst us in the flesh, and I had his photo stuck up in my den, and whenever it caught my eye I mentally patted him on the back, and in the words of Mr. Pu nch's railway porter mur mured ' Cocky little beggar ! ' I have still got the photo. I keep it for the same reason one ought to keep old diaries and certain letters. Unpleasant, but, oh ! how wholesome and corrective. Candid friends of inestimable value. If you only keep letters, photos, and diaries long enough, a time is sure to come when you yourself will admit that you were a bit of an ass once. " Lord Randolph conceived the idea of going back via Bulawayo, trusting to the mollifying influence of the bath chair which he sent to Lo Ben on his arrival to insure for him pleasant audience and safe exit. It was a happy thought, and would com plete Lord Randolph's South African education; 78 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. as a well-known politician remarked when Sir W. Harcourt proposed to witness an Irish eviction, ' He might be killed, it's true — but Jupiter ! what an advertisement ! ' He did not go, however. He con sidered the pros and cons most carefully, but he was told that Lobengula had an uncertain temper, with curious ideas about his kingly rights in regard to the life and death of strangers within his gates, and so he came back the same way he went. He is very careful of himself in some ways. " Besides his lisp and one or two other attractions, there is one particularly charming trait in Lord Randolph's character — if I may put it that way — and that is his candour. 'Perfectly candid,' 'trans parently open,' these are the terms that his friends apply to him. Other people call it other names, and by degrees it gets tapered off into ' infernally candid,' ' beastly rude,' and so on into the unprint able ; but that, of course, is a matter of individual opinion or experience. It is this trait which im presses his strong personality on one, and prevents one from ever forgetting the fact of having once come in contact with him. " There will never be any need to mark in red ink the route Lord Randolph took through South Africa. There is no doubt that he has left a good strong trail behind him, and from Cape Town to Salisbury RANDOLPH'S CANDOUR. 79 and back one hears of characteristic anecdotes of how the noble Lord maintains his dignity and posi tion, rebukes the too colonial spirit of independence, or lapses unaffectedly into personal details — about the food and liquor, the fit of his pants, or the way mules scratch eash other. To me there is something welcome in the knowledge that a well-cooked dinner can 'mark an epoch,' or make a place 'ever me morable ' ; it makes one feel that after all he is but human, and I own to having picked up with real interest every detail I could about our distinguished _ ' special.' " Too little allowance is made in judging Lord Ran dolph and his opinions — too little allowance, I mean, for the complicate workings and influence of this impulsive candour. No distinction is made between the opinion of the moment which candour prompts him to express, and the deep and abiding conviction which no one has yet been able to discover. I vas warned that you mustn't take him too seriously, he doesn't expect it, and isn't accustomed to it, and wouldn't understand it ; the ' evil of the day ' is quite sufficient in his case. Take him like the serial stories in the Ladies' Journal, don't mind what's in front, and forget what's behind, and you can worry through all right. "Just think now what a waste of enthusiasm there 80 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. was on both sides when Lord Randolph's letter on the Boers and their treatment of natives appeared. People in the Republics and Colonies took his native policy seriously ; a great mistake ! ' Was it not his honest opinion,' you ask ! Of course it was — at the time. Perfectly honest, perfectly candid — but — evanescent ! Why ! up here in Mashonaland Lord Eandolph cursed bis niggers like the best of us. Just a little brusque — you know. Impulsive ! "We — in Mashonaland — understood that perfectly, so when such a thing happened nobody dreamed of taking it seriously, except, perhaps, the niggers, who have no sense of humour whatever ! It is really a pity that such an eminent man should be so much misunderstood by the pubbc generally, but what can one do ? There are thousands of people who can hear a clown in a circus say with the most truculent and bloodthirsty look, ' I will have yuur b — er — lood,' and think it immensely funny, and yet, to see the way they take Lord Randolph, you would think there wasn't a joke in the whole wide world. "So much prominence has been given to Lord Randolph's theories, beliefs, opinions, and supposi tions that some evidence of the sound practical side of bis character might be welcomed by South Afri can admirers of his lordship. Permit me to give it. HE DIDN'T MEAN ANY HARM. 81 It was impressed on Lord Randolph, before he left home, that adventures similar to the above were to be expected on this eventful and perilous journey. Now your true crack-brained theorist — pure and simple — would have recklessly rushed in, confilent that if lost in the bush the inherent monkey instinct would have at once asserted "itself. Not so Lord Randolph. His practical mind at once grasped the advantage of having two strings to his bow. En quiries were made in the right quarters, and, I am told, one of the ex-champion fasters was induced to reveal the secret. However this may be, it is a fact that every man of Lord Randolph's party was fitted out with a small article like a cake of soap — a very small cake of soap — small enough to fit in the waistcoat pocket, and this is somebody's Essence of Life — ' guaranteed to sustain one adult for one month.' Lord Eandolph himself carries three. You are supposed to lick it — as a mule licks rock- salt — three times a day; that's full rations. It may be all right, but it doesn't sound filling. I do not know whether Lord Randolph has given it a fair trial — say a week or so — or whether he has put one of his young men on to test it. I have not heard, either, how it compares with the Amphitryon fr.:e ; nor am I sure that the information, even if obtain able, would be of enthralling interest to the public. G 82 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. " I am told, but cannot guarantee the truth of it, that Lord Randolph and his staff have prepared a new map of the route for use amongst intending tourists, and th it the preponderance of Dutch names on the present route h.is so annoyed him that he has vetied them all, and substituted names that will be un lerstood by, and, in a homely way, appeal to, the English nobility. Klip Spruit is to be ' Grilled Partridge Creek,' and ' Suikerbosch Kopje,' ' Reet- buck-kidney-on-toast Hill ! ' and so on, and halting places will be marked at convenient distances, so that travellers may arrive at reasonable hours for meals, instead of the present hideous practice of the ' cattle first a'id the rest anyhow.' '•' One day some of his oxen strayed away, and he wrote : 'I have lost my oxen. This is a Go J-forsaken, wretched, forgotten, country.' Two days later he came back beaming with triumph. ' Got an eland to-day,' he said, ' this is the finest country in the world.' No malice about him, you see. No vice ! Open as the day ! " Shortly after leaving Pretoria, he went on ahead on horseback when he met a Dutchman coming in with his wagon. ' Can you tell me,' asked the Dutchman, ' when Lord Churchill will pass this way?' 'I am Lord Churchill,' said the parliamen tary free-lance. ' You ? ' asked the Dutchman, THE INCREDULOUS DUTCHMAN. 83 with an incredulous laugh. ' You ! ' he repeated. ' Yes,' replied the noble Lord modestly, touching his breast, 'I am; I myself am Lord Churchill.' The Dutchman was highly dehghtedat the assurance of the stranger, and insisted on his taking coffee with him. The two talked for over an hour over the coffee, when Lord Randolph's party came up and succeeded at last in convincing the Dutch man that Lord Churchill was Lord Churchill. The simple transport. -rider said afterwards that he could have put the rooniek (red neck) in his pocket, but he was too pleasant a man to smother. And this, I think, is enough about Lord Randolph Churchill." o 2 81 CHAPTEE IX. A Little Native Army— A Mealie Diet— King Grime Took Possession — Remarkable Kopjes— A Bit of Trading— A Specially Dreadful Afternoon— A Bit for a Painter — A Little Thunderstorm. We left Umzingwani at about ten in the morning, and trekked on all night with a three hours' interval to rest the oxen. About midnight we suddenly came upon four hundred of Chief Khama's men, who were returning from their work on the telegraph line. Just at this part of the road the bush was unusually thick, and the trees exceptionally high. The scene which burst upon us was therefore a little startling, and all the more effective for that reason. Everywhere were huge fires, blazing and crackling, and throwing the light far up the trees, and making the eight hundred square yards covered by the camp so bright that everything could be seen. Round every fire were a number of natives, most of them asleep, and every one with his rifle — a genuine modern Martini, for the most part — by his side. None of them were burdened with much in the way WAITING FOR LOBENGULA. 85 of clothing, and in the firelight their black, naked bodies, with the legs and arms sprawhng in all directions, made a s'range and savage picture. They had not been successful in shooting many buck, and the little army therefore was a hungry one. The arrival of the post-cart aroused a certain mild interest among the few who were awake, because all being more or less educated, many of them were ex pecting letters. To see a naked Kaffir, armed with his battle-axe and Martini; stride up to the cart and ask for letters, was highly incongruous. To see him open a letter and read it was astonishing, aud to see him stick it into the large slit cut in the lobe of his ear was ridiculous. Many of the men had horses, and the army had come up as much with a view to fight the Matabele, as to work on the telegraph line. When they got past Nuanetsi, and on as far as the Lundi river, they were absolutely sure that Loben- gula would swoop down on them, and they worked with their rifles near them, and had scouts watching day and night. The ten or twelve Europeans who directed the construction of the line, were confident that the Khama men would have stood up against Lobengula's hosts and given a good account of them selves. There was no fight, however, and having erected telegraph poles right up to Victoria accord ing to contract, they were returning to their ploughs, 86 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. well provided with money and ammunition, but longing terribly for fresh buck meat. After a dreadful trek we outspanned at Umsha- batsi, which is, I believe, the hottest and most dreary outspan in the country. The grass all round had been recently burnt. There were no trees, no shade, and the water, under the dry bed of the river, was dirty-looking and repulsive. An oven-like wind blew all day, the flies buzzed and the dust blew in a way that reminded me of Kirhberley in a dust storm in November — and nowhere in the world are there worse dust-storms than in Kimberlej7. Here I met several wagons conveying British South African Chartered Company men, who had obtained their discharge, and were hurrying back to the Colony and the Transvaal. Doleful were the tales I heard of what befel these men during the preceding rainy sea son, and sad was the appearance of one or two of them. Eloquent, indeed, was Mr. Jack Ehlert, the Kimberley football player and cricketer, on what he underwent. I am afraid to put down here how many times he had the fever, or to what exact garment he was reduced after three months of trading his kit for Mashona rice. " We had nothing but mealies," said Mr. Jack to me, with pathos, " hard, actual horse mealies, you had to pick them up with your fingers, so." And he gave with his hand a very fair imita- THE FATAL EFFECTS OF WASHING. 87 tion of a hen dabbing her beak at recumbent grains of Indian corn. But he was, nevertheless, fat and jolly, and his eyes as bright as beads. One man was very pale, pasty, bloated and unhealthy-looking. The fever up here seems to make all its victims look like that. Some had not got quite rid of the fever, and coming down had enervating relapses. They were all afraid to wash — for washing in Mashonaland is said to bring fever. They had been afraid to wash since they left Salisbury, and the result may easily be imagined. The dandy of the party had washed a week ago. He adopted a comparatively safe system of washing — took a dry towel in one hand, and the wet soapy corner of another in the other hand. Dabbing quickly with the wet towel, he instanta neously dried the wet place with the other towel, but he, nevertheless, got a relapse ! " I must have lingered a second over my right leg," he said. Thereafter nobody washed, and King Grime took possession of that party. When I saw them they were playing " tickey "* nap, and though heaven knows the money was hard enough to earn, it seemed to get away with the utmost facility. They had been playing, I heard, since they left Victoria, and expected to keep it up until all were " broke " except the one lucky winner. I was offered fabulous * An African term for a threepenny piece. 88 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. sums for brandy, but I had none with me, an 1 they returned to their black coffee with a groan. Such a lot of scarecrows playing nap I never saw before. All were wearing their very oldest and most ragged clothes — and clothes which are old and ragged in the eyes of the Mashonaland B.S.A. Co. men, would throw a Kimberley Kaffir on to the back of his head. Most of them wore boots sizes and sizes too bio- for o them. Collars and neckties, of course, there were none. Yellow cord breeches, and the red B.S.A. Co. slouch hat were the sole remnant of the once gorgeous uniform. Probably the new suits were in the wagons, waiting to see the light in the towns of the Colony and the Transvaal, where, of course, the maidens were dazzled exceedingly, to the keen chagrin of the boys who stayed at home — who did not think it good enough to follow Kingsley's advice "to go somewhere and do something." I left Umshabatsi with the greatest satisfaction at sunset, and the country we passed through for the first two hours was the worst I had seen since I left Kimberley. The bush was stunted, and the veld dry, and the general aspect of the country unlovely. But after a while we got in amongst some mountains where there were large trees, far apart, without any undergrowth, but plenty of long dry grass. Here the eye was well pleased, mountains of all shapes and TOO CIVILISED FOR BEADS. 89 sizes being visible as far as one could see in all directions. The shapes of some of the kopjes were remarkable. One, with its round white top of bare rock, looked very much like the bald skull of a gigantic fossilised Kaffir. Some were green with syringa-like trees to the very top, while others were green only part of the way, finishing with bare smooth rocks with sides as perpendicular as a wall, rising for a hundred feet and mare. Some of these strange-looking tops were quite round, some had been round, but a convulsion of nature had split them in half, tumbling the great fragments of one part into an enormous heap beneath, and leaving the other half standing. Geologists would find much of value and interest in this part of the country, and more still in Mashonaland proper. In all these hills game is said to be very plentiful, but I had no opportunity of seeing for myself. I noted, however, that two men who had been hunting in hills a mile or so from the road came back without anything. On arriving at Sitsoutsi, which is in Banjailand, we were visited by the first native we had yet seen with anything to sell. He brought a little bucket full of reddish-looking rice, and, sitting down on his hams, demanded one shilling. We had heard that the unsophisticated denizens of these wilds did not know what money was, and yet the only English SO A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. word known to the first native who had accosted us was " shilling ! " I offered him red beads with white eyes, likewise blue calico — i.e., limbo — but he refused the one and the other with stolid disdain. We pre tended to take no more notice of him, and proceeded with our preparations for breakfast, expecting him to tire at last, and make overtures, but, after half-an- hour, he rose with a guttural exclamation and was marching with speed towards a wagon in the dis tance when I gave in, and handed him the coveted shilling. There were about two pounds in the bucket. In a little while several more natives came, each with his little bucket of rice. I obtained about five pounds for a tablespoonful of beads, which appears to be the regular rate. Native number one had, it would appear, an unusual and " leery " appreciation for hard cash. In all, we purchased about fifteen pounds of rice, and then I think we must have cleared out that impoverished stadt — or village — for we saw no more natives, though we waited all day. Apparently none of theni had ever heard of milk, or fowls, or monkey nuts. They live like rock-rabbits, in among rocks on the hills. Their habitations are invisible, and the residents — espe cially the women — can fly up the mountains and dodge away among the boulders with as much snap and go as is shown by the American jack-rabbit A BIT OF SOLID REALITY. 91 when a young and foolish greyhound tries to run it down. As the day wore on, the heat became intense, and though we only trekked during the early morning, and got under a tree about ten o'clock, we were completely exhausted by midday. The air was so still that a pigeon feather thrown up, fell straight to the ground without deviating a hair's-breadth. The sun seemed to come close to the earth, sur rounded by a sort of dusty halo, and scorched like a hot iron. There were no really shady trees about ; the Scotch cart only gave two square yards of shade, and the best tree not being in full leaf so early in the season, was but a poor protection against fiery King Sol on the war-path, as he was that afternoon. Trooper John and myself tried bard to sleep, but we could never remain in one spot for more than five minutes, because the sun would get round the tree which shaded us, and burn us like a focussed magnifying glass. There was no water, and only salt bully beef, or bacon, or Boer meal pap to eat. AU these could have been endured had it not been for certain little shiny blue-black, hard-bodied flies. They came and attended each member of the party. Every man had his own detachment to look after him. They were especially irritating that awful hot clay because we were fagged out with the 92 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. heat and easily annoyed. If they had bitten and gone about their business I think I might have managed my portion, but they buzzed round the head, up and down, in a sort of horizontal bobbing devil's dance, watching for a chance to sit on the eye-lids and drink, or, failing that, to get into our ears. As long as they were watched, they only danced in front of the dazed and weary eyes up and down in solid, sharply defined globular clouds — ¦ always up and down, never from side to side — and attempted nothing; but directly attention was diverted from them they would be on to the eyes, and into the ears in a second. The worry of watch ing these malignant insects, being added to the horrible heat, the thirst, and the salt beef, made that special afternoon something to be remembered. We stood it somehow, and I had just succeeded in getting off to sleep by covering my head with a handker chief when a scorpion ran down my back and stung me between the shoulder blades. I turned on to my back and ground the venomous abomination to death. When I had run round in a circle like a cat shot in one eye, and got my shirt off, Trooper John picked out the sting and part of the tail which had remained in the wound. Then it was that we in- spanned and left the accursed spot. The mountainous scenery round about Siloutsi is SOMETHING FOR POETS. 93 quite beyond my power to describe. There is a little post station perched on a hill near by, and he who toils thereto will see from the summit, when he looks northwards, miles and miles of level ground shaded by trees that are so close together and so green, that the whole vast expanse resembles a sea of mealie fields in the spring-time. Far away in the dim dis- tanc3 is a ring of mountains — distant masses of misty blue. On all the other sides there are moun tains, beginning not a thousand yards away, and continuing with their verdure-clad sides and tops — marked here and there with scars of naked rock — further and further away, until only dim, fairy peaks of the highest mountains, sixty and seventy miles off, can be discovered. Sitting up on the moun tain overlooking this beautiful scenery causes ninny curious sensations. The intense silence, the weird stillness, and the superb scenery must have an effect on the most callous, while those of a poetic tempera ment must go into raptures and rush into gushing poetry. Leaving Siloutsi we crossed without difficulty, during the night, the Bobjani and Bobi rivers. I do not remember much more about these streams than that I was tipped backwards into the mud of the Bobjani, and my gun slipped off the cart as it went up the steep banks of the Bobi, and getting under 94 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. the wheel emerged with a broken stock. Iu the evening we outspanned in a hurry, for there was every sign of one of those tropical thunderstorms which we have all read about. The sail-cloth was thrown over the Scotch cart, and we threw our blankets underneath and climbed in ourselves, just as the tail-end of the storm burst. The lightning played continuously, and every minute heavy gusts came rushing at the cart with a whirr and a scream. The rain, while it lasted, was very heavy, and the wind blew enough water under the cart and on to Trooper John and myself to wet the blankets and our shoulders thoroughly. The disturbance kept me awake for some little time, and then I glided off into slumber and dreamed about naval battles, where the sound of the cannonading was vieing with the hiss of the raging waters and the furious flapping of the doomed sails. You can get very good effects out of a Scotch cart, a sail cloth, and a thunderstorm, under such circumstances. In the morning, at daybreak, the ground was soaked, the atmosphere clear, keen, invigorating, and the grass and trees seemed to have grown inches during the night. It was the first ran, which every bud and every hidden sprout of grass had been waiting for for weeks past, and accepting it, when it came, as a signal of summer, they jumped out with a rush. 96 CHAPTER X. The Pont at Nuanetsi— AVhy the Telegrams never Reached — A 'Var sity Chum— A Bed in the Mud— A Simple Couple— Scribbling under Difficulties — The Lundi. As we trekked on, the country became more and more picturesque, the many hills surrounding us being adorned all the way up with trees, the branches of which spread like those of the syringa. The leaves, however, are small, bright, and shiny, and look like being green all the year round. In one place we came to a sort of amphitheatre, the floor of which was about two thousand yards in diameter. It was girdled all round by six towering hills; at equal distances apart — a strange freak of nature. All that day and night, the roads were soft and muddy owing to the recent thunderstorms. We outspanned and slept for a few hours, and awoke to find the sky overcast and a fine penetrating drizzle descending. All through the live-long day did the rain continue, making a seat on the uncovered Scotch cart anything but pleasant. We were in a horrid state of dampness when we came to the 96 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. Nuanetsi river, which is a quick-running stream, remarkable for its excessive rockiness. Crossing is a little exciting, because the water is deep, strong, and swift, and you have to be deft of foot, and blessed with good nerves, to jump from one half-submerged rocky, slippery stepstone to another. There is one place where a regular mill-race rushes between two big boulders, and you have to cross by means of a thin pole. This pole is not fixed in any way, so that when you are straddling across in the middle. on all-fours, it turns round sometimes and puts a good deal of you under water. There is no other way of crossing with dry clothes, unless you undress and get across in Mashona costume, and carry your appirel in a bundle on the top of your head. On the near side of the river was a spring wagon in which was a gentleman who had come to see Mashonaland. During the week his driver ran away ; then his oxen strayed and got lost in the bush ; later on his other Kaffirs got up and went ; then he fell sick, and crawled into the wagon without anyone to look after him. Travelling alone by private conveyance is risky work in Mashonaland, because you can never depend on your servants or your oxen. It drizzled all day until it was time to inspan. Then the driver came in and reported that the oxen were lost. There were two wagons close alongside, so we A UNIQUE POST-OFFICR. 97 got underneath them, and I had my first square night's rest since I left Tuli. All the next day all hands were out in the drizzle, hunting painfully for the cattle. Romeo, the little twelve-year-old voorlooper, who had lost these animals owing to an untimely nap, was especially active, because he was told, and fully believed, that his throat would be cut if the oxen were not found. The poor boy had been fear fully mauled by the native driver who is responsible to the Company for the oxen — the trooper has only to watch the post-cart and the mails — and limped about with one eye totally closed. While he was thus handicapped he got into the habit of looking at things with his head cocked on one side, and so continually reminded me of an old black crow I knew once upon a time. While the ox hunt was proceeding I had plenty of opportunity to see nearly everything of interest in Nuanetsi. On the top of an almost inaccessible hill is the telegraph station, where two miserable clerks drag out a life which would cause a callous light house-keeper to gib. They have nothing to do all day — nothing worth speaking of. Once a week a post-cart stops in the road by the drift a mile away. They always climb down and ask if there are any parcels or rations for them, but they do not bring any telegrams or letters. No, the trooper in charge H 98 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. or the visitor must climb that rocky mountain him self, and personally ask for, and, if necessary, receive any telegrams that have been sent for people at Victoria, Charter, or Salisbury. Trooper John sent up his Colonial driver, who returned in an hour, covered with perspiration, with the message that Trooper John must come himself. Surprising to relate, John, in the natural hurry consequent on inspanning the long missing oxen, forgot to go up that bill. Perhaps the trooper in charge of the next post-cart had a better memory ; if not, perhaps the next or the next. One never knows. It is even possible that one of those overworked clerks will bring down the telegrams himself one fine day and take a receipt from the driver on the spot. The office, it may be mentioned, is placed so high lip and so far away on account of the healthiness of the site. A good part of the time I was there, the top of the hill was quite lost in the clouds. In the evening when I was busy trying to keep three pots boiling with green wood, and in defiance of the rain which never stopped, I was assisted by a rough-looking trooper, who would have passed easily as a navvy at home, and a badly dressed navvy at that. It was rather a surprise to hear him talk like a refined and well-educated man of the world. He had all the manner and style of a 'Varsity man, and SOMETHING FOR QUID A. 99 had travelled all over the world. He had been tea planter and railway contractor in Ceylon, and bad been something in India. Many and interesting must have been his ups and downs. I found him stranded at Nuanetsi a plain trooper, but with am bitious desires about growing tea in the country, and quite confident of returning home with a moderate fortune in three years. Two years ago he left home, where he was made much of as a dis tinguished traveller. On leaving he said he would return in five years with a little money, D.V. Two of the five have slipped away, but he is by no means cast down. " I'm really getting more in earnest about it," he said. I heard that he ran in the first flight in London when he was young, and held a high position in India. He confessed that the life of a B.S.A. trooper was not so romantic, active, or entertaining as he had expected when he joined, but he didn't grumble, and stuck to his bargain — having made it — like a man. The histories of some of these B.S.A. men would be thrilling reading. Many were of the highest class, and here and there, I dare say, there is a plain Jones or Smith who has put away his right name, along with the glittering handle thereto, until better times come round. The chance of fighting natives, the certainty of a farm in far-away Mashonaland, and, perhaps, a rich H 2 100 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. gold reef, would be just the sort of programme to attract the best class of young home-born men adventurously inclined. A wild, free life in a coun try where there are plenty of Kaffirs, gold, lions, and game, is what thousands of sleek young Englishmen are always sighing for. Such of these as joined the British South African Company's Police a year ago, have known what it is to be there, and will for the most part be highly delighted to get back to com monplace England and pose as daring heroes for evermore. Some of them will never see Indian corn (mealies) thrown to the fowls without a shudder, for during the wet season after the first occupation by the Pioneers, the B.S.A. men lived almost exclusively on that diet. I must confess that I left Nuanetsi without regret. Feeling unusually energetic, I walked on ahead for some miles on the look out for game, and with the hope of getting rid of a splitting headache. Thanks to a good waterproof and top boots I did not get wet. It was a remarkable walk, and I linger over trivial details connected with it, because I actually saw a live buck. It was the second I had seen since 1 left Kimberley, and, of course, I had not my rifle with me. When I left Kimberley I heard many entrancing stories about the abundance of big game, and naturally took with me a large supply of cart- HOUGHING IT IN EARNEST. 101 ridges and a rifle. Well, I have no desire to hastily condemn the country as a fraud, but I will place it on record that I only saw five buck between Kim berley and Salisbury, and only tasted venison once. I put a lot of bullets into trees and ant-heaps though. Towards sunset the rain came down in earnest, and I got into the cart again with a head that opened and shut. "Take some quinine," said Trooper John, and then I said to myself, " Here is the fever, and how lucky that I have got, all that medicine on board ! " We trekked dreamily along- through the black slush for several hours more, and then Trooper John suddenly turned off the road and stopped for the night under a large rock. Owing to bushes and loose boulders we were not able to get close enough to the rock to make it much more than a partial cover from the wind, and when I under stood that I should have to make my bed in the mud, I felt that roughing it had its disadvantages. I was getting really ill too, and was in the humour to expect fever and a grave by the roadside. Grop ing about in the wet grass for comparatively dry twigs was exceedingly doleful work, and when at last, after infinite pains and the expenditure of a whole box of matches, a blaze was secured, I crawled into bed hoping that I should die before morning. The bed was rather an ingenious make-shift. On the 102 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. mud came the water-proof sheet, then a blanket; getting on that I tucked myself in a kaross and blanket ; over this Trooper John fastened a little bit of sail cloth to the wheel of the Scotch cart and at tached the other end to a couple of twelve inch stakes by the foot of the bed. When once we had wriggled our way in — dressed in top-boots, hat, and waterproof — we were really nearly comfortable. Not quite, because the rock made a kind of boomerang wind, which drove in the rain from all four quarters of the compass. I slept through most of it, however, being awakened now and again when an exceptionally heavy gush of rain came on to my face, and flapped the wet sackcloth with stinging force on my cheek. At daybreak, I was quite sorry to get up, but, to my astonishment, found myself in perfect health again. Health is at all times a great and underrated blessing everywhere, but the difference between being well and being ill in the veld, far away from any comfort, or medical man, cannot be brought home to anyone who has not learnt it by personal experience. Throwing our sodden blankets on to the cart, and inspanning, we trekked on again in the rain, which showed no signs of giving over. The scenery was as pretty as a pic ture, but on this occasion Paradise itself would not have attracted my attention. Poor Romeo, the voorlooper, had made a combination garment out of ENGLAND WITH A DIFFERENCE. 103 a mealie sack, and splashed through the mud, a one- eyed, miserable Kaffir. Isaac, the driver, was the only one of the party who rose to the situation. He took off his trousers and marched along bare-legged, cracking his whip, and swearing at the oxen with undiminished spirit, until his only whipstick broke. Then, when he had to be content with a springless pole, he succumbed and lost all interest in the pro ceedings. Before the rain the grass was brown and withered- looking in many places, and a number of trees were destitute of foliage. The two days of rain, however, had a magical effect, and changed everything like a fairy's wand. It seemed inconceivable that such a transformation scene should have taken place in so short a time anywhere but on boards in London sacred to pantomime. The green grass, and trees thick with new foliage, the distant verdant moun tains, seen through the soaking fine rain, and helped by the low-lying misty clouds, reminded me more forcibly of good, wet Old England than anything I had seen for eight years. The whole surroundings were thoroughly English, except that one looked in vain for houses, the everlasting hedges, and notices to trespassers. After a time our longing for the sun became almost too acute to be borne, and when at last, late in the afternoon, he struggled out, we 104 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. greeted him with a grateful cheer. It takes a home- born man long resident in this country three solid days and nights of drizzle to remind him that there is a good deal to be said for the African climate. On the road that afternoon we meet a Mashona and his wife marching along with the utmost serenity. The wife had a sort of battle-axe hoe hitched over her shoulder, and round her middle she had a flap of dirty calico, about twelve inches square. On her head was a heavy basket full of rice, and on the top of that was a neatly bound bundle of poles, weighing, perhaps, a hundred pounds. Slung behind her back, in a sort of skin hammock, was a little naked baby. Directly behind came her lord and master. He had no more clothes than she had, and contented himself with carrying a bow, two arrows and a knobkerrie ; but then the lady had all the beads and bracelets. He evidently went in for comfort, and let his wife maintain the social status of the family to the top notch at her own cost. In one place I saw extensive cultivated fields, but nothing had been planted. The ground was being broken up by the women, whose sole implement was a short-handled broad-bladed adze. When the rainy season starts they will plant extra stuff to supply the Europeans. On a dead tree, used to fence off the lands from the road, I saw millions of blue- the Troubles of a correspondent, los bottles. No part of the trunk or branches, or even a single half-inch of twig was visible owing to these flies, who had flown to this harbour of refuge when the rain started, and clung there, cold and numb, in solid masses. A scribbler, who travels through Mashonaland by post-cart, and endeavours to send communications by each post, soon finds himself beset with difficul ties. The cart starts at all hours — at any and every hour. The travelling is by no means luxurious, and is only one degree less exhausting than donkey riding. When the cart does stop, the traveller is usually thankful to throw his blanket out, get under the cart, and go to sleep. Such work as writing long letters with a stylus is simply abhorrent. Of course, chairs and tables are unknown conveniences, and he who would write must crouch down under the cart and write upon his knees, or lie down and write the best way he can. Any position under a Scotch cart on a hot day, with plenty of flies, becomes extremely irksome in five minutes, and impossible to maintain for ten. If a good strong wind is blowing the diffi culty of keeping the thin tissue paper in position cannot be understood by outsiders. Still, while I remained only a passenger, I was able to keep my end up fairly well. But in Mashonaland one never knows what may happen, and after I left Fort 106 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. Charter I acted as a sort of fancy voorlooper-cook and driver, and thus had no time to waste in mere scribbling. As a voorlooper I was absurd, as a cook a ghastly failure, and as a driver I was, to quote Trooper John, "Bally awful." But I am anticipating. The Lundi river is one of the chief difficulties of the overland route. It is always a deep and swift river, even at the end of the driest season, and during the rain becomes impassable. Transport- drivers have been stuck for weeks on one side or the other of the Lundi, and the first year much privation was occasioned to prospectors, troopers, and trans port drivers by the terrible barrier ; but this is old history. When I crossed, the river was low, but the post -cart, nevertheless, took over half an hour to get over. Trooper John had hoped that the voorlooper and driver would have managed to get the cart across without his having to get into the river, but he had to jump into the stream just where it was deepest with all his clothes on. When the river is the least ' bit up, crossing with transport wagons is very tedious work. The goods have sometimes to be off loaded and taken over in boats ; the empty wagon is then towed across and the oxen swim over. Of course things get lost, occasionally a boat overturns, and that load is immediately booked to the debit side. If no other route than the overland were HERE BE CROCODILES! 107 possible, the Lundi, Shashi, and Nuanetsi rivers would have to be bridged sooner or later, and the expense would be enormous. The Beira railway, however, has led to the practical abandonment of the overland route. The Lundi is the deepest river between Vryburg and Salisbury, and has pools twenty and thirty feet deep. The water is very clear, and quantities of small fish can be seen. The silver fish and the barbel are said to be plentiful, and arc caught with any sort of hook almost, with any kind" of bait — practically speaking, of course. I tried a little fishing with a whip and a bent nail tied on to the end of the lash, with dough as a bait. I lost all the dough, but did not catch anything. But I have not much patience for fishing, and others no better provided may have better luck. To those who can really bring themselves to deride the possibility of crocodiles, bathing in the deepest pools of the Lundi is very enjoyable. Mem: The crocodiles are there. 108 CHAPTER XL A Mashona Stadt— Please do not Lean Against the "Walls — Tutoring the Untutored — A Rise in Matches — Thirsty, with a Very Big T. On arriving at a place called Masunda's Kraal, I could see no trace of a habitation of any sort. About two miles from the road were some rocky kopjes, and amongst the boulders I subsequently discovered was the stadt or kraal. These kraals, or stadts, as they are generally called, have been repeatedly de scribed in the Home and Colonial papers, but no description will give anyone more than a faint idea of what a Mashona stadt looks like. Until you are within a few hundred yards of some of them, nothing indicating the presence of human beings can be discerned, except the footpaths leading up to the mountains. They take great care to hide themselves away from the dreaded Matabeles, but leave the footpaths to stare all passers-by in the face — foolish ness quite consistent with the wooden-headed cun ning of the Mashonas. When, after following one of these footpaths some distance, you are close to the foot of the kopje, you notice with a kind of ABSURDLY UNSUBSTANTIAL. 109 j ump that what you took to be a lot of small round boulders on the top of larger boulders, are so many heads, belonging to furtive and entirely naked Kaffirs, who have been noting your approach ever since you started. As you get in among the stones you come upon a collection of queer little huts, which are stuck upon high rocks in all sorts of impossible situations. Different stadts have different sized huts, but the Masunda's may be taken as a fair sample, and one stadt is so much like another, that to describe one is, practically speaking, to describe all. At Masunda the huts are quite round, and are not more than six feet across. The wall is about five feet high, and from the top of the wall thin strong poles radiate in an upward direction, ending at the apex in a bunch. These poles are thatched in with grass. In some cases the huts are perched on the slope of a rock. There is no centre pole, and there is no attempt at drilling into the rocks. It looked to me as if the existence of the structure depended mainly on the strength of the mud round the bottom, which I am informed, is in fact the case. Visitors to the.se huts are expected to know enough not to lean against the wall. Some of these absurdly unsubstantial residences seem at a little distance to have a curiously drunken and disreputable appearance, and reminded me of a 110 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. drunken Capetown Malay cab-driver, permanently frozen into position, in the middle of a lurch, on to the back of his head. The lop-sided, thatched, peaked roof, tilted towards the slope, helps this idea. Round about are other huts built on the ground between rocks. In these miserable huts, and amongst the rocks, naked Kaffirs of all ages and both sexes swarm. Every stadt has a few small goats, and perhaps a cow, and several oxen. The live stock are nearly always kept on the hills, and are very small, very agile, and very poor. There are always plenty of fowls, but they are never much bigger than pigeons, and do not weigh much more than partridges. The eggs are about the size of those given by the English game poultry, but vastly inferior in flavour. Rice seems plentiful enough, and there appears to be no lack of mealies, monkey nuts (pea nuts), and sweet potatoes. The inhabi tants are a miserable race, living in constant dread of the Matabeles, who make periodical raids on them, and steal as many oxen and women as they can catch. Though the Matabeles are always liable to come, the Mashonas do not brood over their hard lot, and regard a visit from their powerful tyrants with just the same feelings as do the poorer classes in England when the School Board Inspector or the Tax Collector comes round for arrear rates. The THE PHILOSOPHICAL MASHONA. Ill Mashonas, indeed, do not seem to think that they are particularly badly treated by the Matabeles. " The Matabeles take what they can, which is right," they say in effect, " and we keep what we can, which is also right." In the meantime they take things as they come, and are happy and cheerful as long as they are not hungry. Give a Mashona plenty of Kaffir beer, plenty of rice, several wives, and an odd fowl or two, and he wants nothing more. He has then all he wants, and is, therefore, contented. It follows that he makes a poor labourer, and it is, in deed, a fact that the Mashona, judged from a Euro pean standpoint, is the most lazy, the most worth less, the most unreliable, the most shiftless of negroes — and that, you know, is saying a good deal. A Mashona will contract to work for you for a month, in return for a blanket. He will begin to do what you tell him, and do it with as much intelli gence as an ox, but a good deal slower. He knows absolutely nothing about anything. A patient man can spend twenty minutes in teaching a raw Mashona that a plate has to be cleaned : then he may spend another hour in making him do it. It is very difficult to make him understand that the operation of cleaning a pot in which porridge has been cooked, is anything more than the scooping out the wet part with his finger, and eating the 112 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. same. It often happens that a painstaking European spends hours every day in drilling his Mashona ser vant into some glimmering perception of what is required of servants by the white man. Very often, after the first few days, the patient, mild-eyed, smiling Mashona. slips away very early in the morn ing, with such blankets and other trifles as are easily gathered and easily carried away. " Why," asks the Mashona, " should I sweat for a moon to get a blanket, when I can get the blanket and other things without sweating ? " And so he flits with the blanket and other things. Between the heathen Chinee of Bret Harte and the Mashonas the differ ence is not worth mentioning. The Chinee has had a better education, but the Mashona has a larger stock of innate depravity. When it is developed by contact with the South African trader, the result will be terrifying to those who have the interests of the Caucasian at heart. In the meantime the Mashona, as a simple, unsophisticated savage, is sublime. The post-cart stopped about two miles from Ma sunda's Kraal, and about half an hour afterwards the inhabitants came trooping down, in single file, each with something to sell to the white man for blue limbo, red beads, or cartridge cases. When they arrived, they promptly squatted down without A FIRST ATTEMPT AT TRADING. 113 saying a word, or making any attempt to sell their goods. This is their way, for they consider that words used in trading are wasted words. The goods in the little baskets speak for themselves. If the white man, who can eat up the terrible Matabeles, requires these goods, he will offer beads, or limbo, or cartridge cases. If he does not offer enough at first, a shake of the head will make him increase his offers until the full market price is reached, then the white man gets his rice or what not, the Kaffir his beads, and all are satisfied. What use, then, are words ? I knew nothing about their cus toms; and chancing to be alone with the cart (everybody else was looking after the ever-straying oxen and cursing Romeo, who had once more slept on duty with the usual consequences) — being alone, I say, I went on writing, with my manifold book against a tree, and took no notice of my dusky visitors. In half an hour, when I looked up, there must have been a hundred men, boys, girls, and women seated in a half-circle round me and the post-cart. Some had a fowl tucked under the arm, some whipsticks, some sweet potatoes, but most of them had little circular baskets placed on the ground between their legs, containing red rice in grain, rice meal, monkey nuts, beans, and Kaffir beer in calabashes. There were also two calabashes of I 114 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. milk, two men had some whipsticks, and there were eleven little boys, each of whom had one single egg in his hand. Five of these eggs, it may be remarked en passant, were bad, and all were unpleasantly warm. I fancy the whole consignment must have been raided from under some outraged hen. As none of them spoke, and looked, every one of them, at me with an air of calm and solid satisfaction, I began to feel a little embarrassed. I wanted a good many of the things spread before me, especially Kaffir beer, which is a thick, sour, semi-fermented beverage made from Kaffir corn and water, and for which I quickly contracted a rabid and degrading fondness. Fortunately, Trooper John came up just when the situation was becoming strained, and was soon bu-y exchanging beads for the things we longed for. The natives had evidently been missed by the liberal handed syndicates, and a tablespoonful of small, red beads — English price threepence per lb. — with white eyes, was sufficient in each case to buy — 31bs. sweet po tatoes, or 51bs. rice, or 31bs. rice meal, or 31bs. shelled monkey nuts, or a quart of small green tomatoes, or a quart of milk, or four eggs. The whipsticks ruled at one shilling each. There were only two boys with whipsticks, and they insisted on a shilling. Trooper John tried to make them understand that " the woman who made the shillings was dead," but T BUY EGGS WITH MATCHES. 115 his knowledge of the language was apparently im perfect, and a shilling had to be paid for every whip- stick we bought. For each fowl we had to give nearly a yard of blue limbo. When it was plainly seen that we had bought all we wanted, most of the natives left. A number, who had not succeeded in doing business, seemed obstinately bent on remain- ing. I offered five beads for a fowl at last, and then they went away with a very low opinion of me. Later on, other natives from more distant kraals came in with similar supplies, but the market for foodstuffs was glutted, and beads had risen. I got some eggs — bought them one at a time — -for matches. Six matches bought an egg at the beginning, but the last two fetched but four tandstickors. Such is the natural depravity of man, that we. tried to palm off on them a broken match without a head. The attempt was detected with a howl of derision, and Trooper John had to substitute a good match some what confusedly, and with a blush which was natural under the circumstances. For weeks after that each grudged the other a match, and during the day time pipss were lit by a magnifying glass. We might have saved ourselves the trouble, however, for we did not meet any more Kaffirs on our journey up who cared anything at all for the white man's fire sticks. Salt was much esteemer], and is, perhaps, I 2 116 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. the best all-round "truck" to trade with, and by far the most economical. On the road up I met a transport rider who was running up telegraph poles to the different stations. He had three wagons, and employed altogether twenty men, mostly coloured. He had kept them all for some weeks on produce exchanged on the road for salt, and he had not used up more than half a bag, the original cost of which was 30s. The Mashonas will sell anything they have for salt. Empty cartridge cases are still eagerly taken in some parts of the road, but there are many places where they are of no account. All along the route the natives are rapidly getting spoiled, i.e., becoming more and more sophisticated, and it will not be very long before they will insist on hard cash. I duly arrived at the Tukwe river. From there to Fern Spruit was a long, hot, and dreary trek.* It was so abominably hot on the tentless cart that a walk was suggested. "When you walk," said Trooper John, sententiously, "you at least create a sort of breeze." So we did a number of miles up and down long dusty stretches of up-hill and down hill road — chiefly up-hill. There was not a drop of water in the cart, and as we walked, we became more and more thirsty. In time it seemed to me that my tongue had become distinctly larger, and I * Journey. A PORTENTOUS THIRST. 117 recalled gruesome stories of shipwrecked mariners, and hapless travellers in the great Thirst Land, who had suffered appalling tortures from thirst. Oddly enough I could think of nothing but iced drinks of portentous length. For some unexplained reason I was haunted by the ghost of a brimming bumper of champagne and claret which I had in front of me most of the evening at a certain banquet I had attended months previous. That special bumper was full of ice, and the glass had a beady mist outside. It was deliciously cold, and every step I took along that dry road under the pitiless sun I could see it, and hear the soft tinkle, tinkle of the broken ice against the glass. It was, I expect, a judgment for leaving it when it was ready to my hand. In the meantime, John was arguing that he was much cooler walking than sitting on the cart. I tojk the other side, which aggravated John, who said, " Experience will soon teach you." When a man's tongue is so dry and hard that it actually rattles against his teeth when his foot strikes a stone, he is in no condition to argue, and I remember falling under a tree with the mumbled remark that I would " give experience a chance." One is never sure of anything in this world, but I am, nevertheless, almost sure that I shall never forget how glad I was to crawl up on to the despised Scotch cart. John's pride took him 118 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. another mile, and then he got on to the wagon, and we sat up in the sun, slowly drying up. About twenty minutes before we should have died of thirst we came across a pool of dirty water, just off the road. It was quite the worst water I had seen so far, and I had the presence of mind, and self-control enough, to take out my pocket filter, but it was clogged with filth in less than five seconds, and then I drank great gulps in comfort, and with a clear conscience. Filters, while travelling in Africa, are delusive humbugs. 119- CHAPTER XII. A Disappointing Reception — Bucks and Guns and Things — The Guile less Mashonette— A Culinary Experiment — "A Roaring Good Fire " — Mr. Rhodes and Party — The Salvation Army Contingent — Rocky — A Nut for Anthropologists — The Flight of Romeo. When a man has got as far as Victoria, it seems to him that he has arrived ,at the end of the world. Civilisation looks thousands of miles away, and it is only when he refers to the date that he finds he has not been away several years. Coming by ox-trans port wagon he feels like a Rip Van Winkel, and is somewhat surprised to find that the human beings in Victoria accept his appearance not only without astonishment, but with complete indifference. Feel ing like a Rip Van Winkel, or a Robinson Crusoe, it seems strange that the little community at Victoria do not gather round him, arnd make much of him. A tiny, isolated place like that, one would think, would hail the advent of a fresh face with frantic enthu siasm, whereas they do not take any notice at ah of anybody — especially if he be " a bally civilian." I don't think they are wrong in any way, but it strikes 120 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. the man emerging from the wilderness — naturally, but, of course, wrongly — that such cool indifference. is not exactly what he expected. To be gushingly hospitable, however, to every stranger, cannot be done on limited rations, with dop* at 13s. 6d. per bottle, and not over-exuberant pay, unsupplemented by a private income. It is one thing to see a buck, and another to hit it. The difficulty of judging the distance even by expert shots seems to be very pronounced. Volunteers and crack shots who practise at the butts, and grow satiated with frequent bull's-eyes, made at 200, 400, 600, 900, and 1,000 yards, will miss an ordinary buck standing about 300 yards away, three times out of five. A buck does not wait for more than your " sighting shot," and when you have fixed that and satisfied yourself that you are a "bit short," or a " trifle high," or a " little to the left," the buck is bounding away to the horizon, or crashing through thick bushes, in great terror, but in absolute safety. Speaking strictly as an ignorant amateur, I consider the Martini as a sporting rifle, at any distance over a hundred yards, a distinct fraud. On the butts, with the distances measured to an inch, with half-a- dozen flags showing the force and direction of the wind, with exact wind gauges, plenty of time to take aim, and starting with a preliminary canter in the Cape brandy. THE RIFLE FOR ME. 121 shape, of a " sighter," which does not count, the Martini is a lovely weapon, well worth the trouble of cleaning every five shots ; but what / require is a gun which will shoot dead straight up to 250 yards, with no trajectory worth mentioning, and above all, no step ladder sights. I want, in fact, a gun which will shoot a buck anywhere between 20 yards and 200 yards, as long as I aim straight and do not " pull off." When a buck is lifting its head and sniffing enquiringly in my direction, with poised foot, I do not want to be worried with guess work calculations about distances. Leave that to the surveyors, and give me the Magazine rifle. When you have that gun resting on a rock, with a bead drawn dead on a buck 200 yards away, you have got it just as certainly as if you had it tied up by the leg, whereas .with a Martini the bullet will curl over, or drop short of the buck. Selous, the famous lion hunter, uses a Metford, which has a broad, flat rifling, like the Winchester. His gun is only sighted up to 300 yards. Sir John Willoughby declares that shooting at a greater distance" than 30 yards is cruel and wasteful. / never got nearer than 200 yards to a buck. Selous can shoot anything with a gun he is used to, but Selous is not an amateur sportsman, who has to be over particular about his weapon. Owing to long practice, he can judge distances to a 122 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. nicety, but even he shrinks at the exceedingly clumsy, stiff- working sighting bar of the Martini. His rifle has just three little flaps, which can be pulled up in a second without taking the eye off the game. The Martini, on the other hand, has a kind of sliding trombone arrangement, which has to be ground up and down a double bar, on which certain minute lines and figures are engraved with infinite neatness, but with little regard for the eyes or the patience of the unhappy marksman in Mashonaland, who often goes for weeks without any other meat than cooked corned beef, and has to depend entirely on his rifle for fresh meat. Leaving Victoria, and after proceeding for days without seeing a human being, we were visited by another string of Mashonas anxious to trade. The women came in rather strong force, and though still shy and inclined to run at the least movement on the part of a white man, they were evidently getting over their first feeling of intense fear. Seeing that they have hardly anything on, and are almost the ugliest female human beings made by God, it seems natural that they should be diffident when standing in tho presence of the strange white man who covers everything but his face and hands. On enquiry, however, it will be found that their bashfulness is not caused by lack of USED TO ABDUCTION. 123 clothes, or a perception of their squalid ugliness, but for fear that the white man may make a grab at them and carry them off for ever. The Mashonas are so long accustomed to have their women and goods taken from them by force, that if a European were to abduct a dusky maiden, her departure would be considered as rather hard lines on her husband, or owner. The action of the white man, I fancy, would hardly be condemned, or openly complained of, but the abduction being made by a white man would be considered as peculiar — white men hitherto hav ing apparently disdained to notice the Mashona women. It would, however, be a quick man who caught one of these small women, because, in the first place they are always kept well in the rear rank, and in the second, they can run like grey hounds. On this occasion we bought some decent pumpkins, about a gallon of milk, three eggs, some sweet potatoes, and 31bs. weight of the native tobacco, which is, apparently, first made into a paste, and then rolled into a solid hard cone.. After that, as I fully anticipated, the unfortunate Romeo went to sleep and lost the oxen again. I was left in charge of the post-cart while the rest, with the exception of Romeo, went scouring over the veld in search of the animals. Romeo would have gone too but he had been so unmercifully beaten 124 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. by the sentimental Isaac that he could do little else but bathe his sore body with hot water and a bunch of grass. I made this day additionally remarkable by making a delicacy, which was called " Charlotte a la Russe." It was made of maizena, sugar, and Van Houten's cocoa, and was cooked in a corned beef-tin. Something must have been wrong with the ingredients, because all who partook thereof were ill for some time after. Trooper John said it was a " paralysing concoction, which he wouldn't hit a dog with." It was very stiff, and bits thrown against a tree bounded back at unexpected angles just like chips of india-rubber. The oxen were eventually found by Isaac, who had walked hard in circles for fourteen hours. He came across a Mashona kraal at last, and asked the chief if he had seen any stray oxen. " No," said the heathen chieftain in his language, " I have seen no oxen." The unbelieving Isaac went to a ridge twenty yards away, and in the plain below, in comfortable proximity to the chieftain's stronghold, were the missing oxen. Isaac had a great deal of difficulty in getting away with them, because the ingenious chieftain wanted baksheesh,* first for keeping the oxen, and secondly, for pointing them out. While we were trekking through the country during the night, we were treated to a grand sight Recompense. .1 SEA OF FIRE. 125 in the way of fires. For miles around in all directions the whole veld was on fire. There was a strong wind blowing, and the grass was high, dry, and rank. The flames rushed along in sohd masses of dazzling blaze. The wind constantly veering round, the fire would take all sorts of sudden and unexpected ex cursions. Sometimes an isolated gust of wind would send a wedge of flame into a part which had hitherto been dark, and instantly that wedge would broaden out, and broaden out, until in an incredibly short time what had been a space of silent darkness, became a roaring sea of fire. From the cart I could see across the undulating, comparatively open country for a great many miles. There were great plains of fire, long sloping hills with the grass flaring, and the valleys beyond again all blazing and assisting in the stupendous conflagration. Close by where we passed was a large clump of trees, with dry under growth, bound together for six feet or more from the ground with grass and dead creepers. For a mile around this clump the grass had somehow escaped being burnt. Suddenly at the east end I noticed a little flare, and then the wind coming with a swirl, the grass was devoured in a twinkling. When the fire reached the clump of trees the flames seized hold of the undergrowth and climbed up the trees with a blinding rush to a height of sixty feet 126 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. or more, with a tremendous roar. In all directions were similar clumps, some burning, some still smoking, and others waiting for their, turn. For fifty miles or more the whole veld was as bright as day, and when the wind blew our way the heat was terrifying. A fire like that burns for weeks some times, and travels for hundreds of miles. In the daytime the smoke hangs like a pall over the earth. The vultures, hawks, and other birds of prey have gay times during the fire season, and get fat and lazy with good living. It is a curious sight to see hundreds of birds wheeling close to the edge of the fire and swooping down at quick intervals at the birds, mice, and snakes, which are driven out of cover by the flames. For the next day or two after this in spiring spectacle the country on one side of the road was black, dreary, and desolate, while the other side was as green and bright as an English lawn on a summer's clay. The next, day, while we were preparing breakfast, a Cape cart, drawn by six mules, came bowling along in fine style. Dr. Jameson, the then recently appointed Chief Magistrate of Mashonaland, Mr. Selous, and Mr. De Waal, M.L.A., were in the cart. Dr. Jameson and Selous were going on to Victoria to inspect the Fern Spruit Gold Fields. Ten minutes afterwards Mr. Rhodes came trotting up on a pony. / MEET THE CHEAT CECIL. 127 Mr. Rhodes, in his white flannel trousers, slouch hat, and old pepper and salt tweed coat, looked anything but the great man that he is — the great man of South Africa — and would possibly have passed along the whole road without being recognised by any body who did not know him well by sight had he not been clean shaven, which is in itself a certain sign of great rank in Mashonaland on the road. Mr. Rhodes never goes about in state, and is as free from " side " as one of his own miners. The " side " he has a right to carry seems to have been divided amongst some of his subordinates. Judging by results, " side " must be a rapidly-growing fungus, analogous to the diphtheria membrane. Later on, on the same day, we came upon two fine-looking wagons, gorgeously painted, drawn up alongside a bye-path under a tree. White women were flitting about, and, wonder of wonders, white children ! By the side of the wagons was a little bell tent. In one of the wagons was the symbol of the Salvation Army, the big drum, and by its side a couple of cornets and the inevitable tambourine. It was the Mashonaland contingent of the Salvation Army, who had travelled thus far on their mission to convert the Mashona, and the godless people of Salisbury. The party was a small one, and included two married couples — officers. Being Sunday, they 128 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. were not trekking, and had been holding service in the tent. There were numbers of fowls pecking about. One man was baking bread, and the ladies of the party were busying themselves in getting the evening meal ready. All were well, the children being in the best condition. There had been no real sick ness; but they had lost several oxen, which had been the only mishap. Trekking through the beau tiful country, easily and comfortably in a good wagon well provided, these soldiers of General Booth had experienced so far a prolonged picnic. Travelling as they travel is simply delightful, and would delight the heart of the talented author of the "Strange Adventures of a Phaeton." Let us hope that they will be able in time to disgust the Mashona with the wickedness of his ways. Just before arriving at Fort Charter, the country changes from undulating plains of intense greenness with scattered groups of trees, to open veld country, which greatly resembles the prairies in the Far West of the United States. Instead of trees our eyes rested on immense rocks, which were lying together in widely separated clusters. These rocks presented a curious appearance, being quite bare, and as clean as if they had just been sand-papered. In some instances two or three boulders on the ground would form a pedestal for a straight stone which reared up as HANDSOME BUT GREEDY. 12'9 clearly defined, and as conspicuous an object in the limitless and silent landscape, as an ancient mono lith shaped by the cunning chisel of those who fashioned Cleopatra's Needle. These curious stones, seen at a little distance, appeared to be so distinctly and undoubtedly the work of human hands, that I was many times seduced into running across the veld in order to take a closer view. There is one queer landmark which is especially remarkable. It consists of a stone thirty feet high, with a thin wedge-shaped base, squeezed between two square white boulders half buried in the ground. On the top is a long black rock twenty feet from end to end, and resem bling a gigantic coffin in shape. It is balanced on the apex of the upstanding stone, exactly in the middle, and one expects it to tilt off every minute. This giant "T" is waiting for the advertising tea merchant. At the Umyali Post Station, which is two police huts hidden away between rocks forty and fifty feet high, we were visited by a number of natives, who were unusually interesting. They are, for the most part, tall and slim, with gentle and even dignified ways. Their skins are as dark as any of the natives I had yet met with, but their noses are straight, and. not flattened out at the base like those of the true Ethiopian. Their lips, too, though broader than K 130 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. those of the European, are quite Caucasian when compared to the blubber excrescences carried about by the ordinary Zulu, or Basuto. The Umyali boys have rather long crinkly hair, very soft looking, well shaped eyes, and looking at their physiognomies as a whole, and, leaving out the question of colour, it was easy to believe that they were descended from some scattered remnant of the great Hebrew race. Their every day salutation, though it is used by most of the Mashonas north of the Lundi, seemed to me to be more gracefully performed by the Kaffirs at Umyali. On one meeting another the two put palm to palm without clasping or shaking. Then each clasps his hands softly and scrapes the ground with his feet. It is a handsome, graceful tribe, but the greediest and most difficult to please on the road. They want beads by the double handful and limbo by the acre. Some high-souled manager of a big prospecting syndicate stopped there for a little while and demoralised the market. Up to the time I had arrived at Umyali two tablespoon sful of beads, or a yard of limbo, would buy a fowl with the greatest ease, but at Umyali a tall, handsome, gentlemanly Kaffir in beads and a yard of blue limbo, quietly inti mated that he wanted my cord knickerbockers and shirt for a fowl that did not weigh four ounces. If I had complied with his request, and continued my journey in my hat and boots, he would have been in ROMEO RETIRES FROM THE CONTRACT. 131 no way surprised. He had no intention of being im pertinent or grasping. He had enough empty cart ridge cases, enough limbo, and enough beads. He had his own Tower musket, with a bore like a modern seven-pounder, and what he wanted noiu was a suit of European clothes. So he loitsrs about the station all day with his fowl. At this station I noticed for the first time a species of cork tree. It is, however, a bastard species, and an hour's work was wasted in an attempt to cut a cork for a water-bottle. The bark has all the ap pearance of cork, but it is too brittle to be of the slightest use for anything except packing grapes or burning. When we left in the evening it was discovered that the cheerful Romeo had taken his clothes and retired from his contract. The deadly "voorslag" of the implacable Isaac had nearly cut his arm off the day before — figuratively speaking, of course — and fear ing a repetition, he threw up his situation, which was worth twenty shillings a month and his food. This desertion, of course, threw a good deal of extra work on Isaac and Trooper John, who became somewhat gloomy at the prospect. The grazing of the cattle, which had hitherto been undertaken by Romeo, now devolved upon Isaac, who, until he got to Charter, was unable to obtain any sleep worth speaking about. K 2 132 CHAPTER XIII. Culinary Nightmares — Along the Big Plateau — A Water Bombard ment — A Mistake in Natural History— Fort Charter — Enter and Exit — Imbollo Thickhead — I Disgrace Myself — The History of a Sea- Pie. As I have before remarked, John did the cooking, and having no baking powder or sour dough, his cookies are something I shall always remember. He used to get two or three handfuls of the un sifted Boer meal, and, putting in plenty of water, knead up a mass of paste. Then he pulled off a lump as big as a cricket ball, held it aloft in his left hand, while he knocked it flat with his right in one slap. He threw this on to the top of the red-hot and dusty ashes, and often got three on to the fire all at the same time. When the fourth lump was flattened, and ready, those on the fire had to be ready too, and came off to make room. Of course, these cookies — these slabs of dough — never rose and were never done. There was a film of hard crust on top, and inside there was a paste which was some times almost warm. But this was on rare occasions, when John was not in a hurry. When I was eating SCENERY WHICH T DON'T DESCRIBE. 133 one of these things I used to think of my dear old grandmother, who brought me up to believe that new bread was only one shade less dangerous than prussic acid or unfiltered water. John was very proud of his cookies, and said that nobody in his troop, or Mashonaland, could make such good ones. He learnt to make them from a lady when he was in the Colony. " Anybody can make them," said John, diffidently, "after watching how it is done several times. It's just a knack." On several occa sions we had to make a meal off these culinary night mares, and nothing else. My dreams afterwards used to be terrifying, while even John himself was fain to confess that his last attack of fever had played " Harry " with his liver and digestive functions. During the whole of the day preceding our arrival at Fort Charter we travelled along the top of the watershed, and every now and then we would come to a point where miles of beautiful country lay be neath us. The views cannot be described in pen and ink. Ruskin might give a glimmering idea of it if he put his heart into it and wrote for a year ; but 1 doubt it. Scenery like that has to be seen. A man who has looked down on the fairest parts of England from a mountain, or a balloon, on a fine day, may be able to imagine what is seen by him who traverses the plateau between Umyali and ten miles south of 134 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. Fort Charter. He who hath ascended Table Moun tain, and seen the lovely country there spread below him, has had his eyes filled with a view which is beautiful, but compared to what can be seen on the plateau aforesaid, it is as the first part of a transfor mation scene at Drury Lane, and the spectacle of the gorgeous finale when the curtain drops. In the evening a few drops of rain fell from the heavy black clouds which had been slowly gathering all the afternoon, and descending nearer and nearer to the earth until they hid the tops of the kopjes near by, and seemed to touch the very trees. We instantly outspanned, and fell to making some sort of a shelter for the night. The trees about were easily cut and broken, and in less than half an hour quite a respectable-looking hut had been built with green boughs and sail-cloth and the Scotch cart. The storm held up for some little time, and when John and I bad crept under the sail-cloth, which had been stretched from the cart to an adjacent tree, we exchanged mutual congratulations on our clever improvisation. About nine o'clock there came a sudden wild sweep of cold wind, followed by a tre mendous thunder clap and a blinding flash of light ning; ten seconds after that the bottom came out of the clouds, and a sort of impromptu Niagara Falls commenced. To call it rain would, perhaps, be tech- NO GOOD UPSIDE DOWN. 135 nically correct, but it would not give an idea of what really occurred. When one speaks of rain to the multitude they think of numerous slanting lines of water, which strike the earth in drops more or less rapidly, and with more or less force ; but on this especial night the water came down solid. There was no pattering of rain-drops on the leaves, or the tarpaulin overhead. It was just one long, terrifying roar — a water bombardment of hundred-ton guns at short range. Our pitiful contrivance of Scotch cart, tree, tarpaulin and blankets, was, of course, a drivel ling absurdity. The water came down the incline like a river, got under the waterproof sheet, floated us along for a yard or so, turned us round broadside, and while the torrent rushed over us, the rain was busy with its superfluous assistance. I had on, I remember, a patent ulster waterproof, with patent collar all complete, and a pair of field boots. Theo retically, clad thus, no rain could wet me, but theory goes for little in Mashonaland. The costume was all very fine and large when I stood up, but when I rolled down the incline in four inches of water I found out the weak places. The field boots were all right while I was not upside down, but the water ran up the coat, and the patent collar was only useful in preventing the water coming out by the neck. But it came through the buttons and arms. It w^s a 136 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. dreary night, and when morning came at last, our clothes and our blankets were just as sodden as the ground and the rotten leaves. All the next day we travelled over dreary flats. There was a nasty cold wind blowing, and our clothes being damp, travelling was by no means delightful. At mid-day we outspanned in the plain. There was no water, no wood, no anything to light a fire with. The " Bully Beef" was " finished," as was everything else, except a damp pastie cookie. We divided that — John and I — and continued our journey in oppres sive silence. Soon we saw some animal lumbering' across the plain, and for about twenty minutes we enjoyed much pleasurable excitement in firing at the beast, with the 1,500 yards sight up. We were both proud at firing away at a lion like that, and were proportionately disgusted when a Dutchman rode up, and told us we had been firing at a harte beeste. He proved it, too. It did not hurt my pride any ; but John, who poses as an experienced hunter, was galled so badly that he was sore for days afterwards. In due course we arrived at Fort Charter, and as I had expected nothing imposing, I was not disap pointed. There is the usual neat little fort, and about ten little huts. The place appeared to be in a very depressed condition ; but the population was FORT CHARTER. 137 not extensive, and consisted of two troopers, one civilian, one sergeant, and one lieutenant. One trooper acted as cook to the lieutenant, one looked after the Post Office, and one— the sergeant — who was in charge, superintended the astronomical and other details. The lieutenant, I was informed, had been ordered to Victoria some time ago, but it was said that he stopped at Charter because he preferred that place to Victoria, which is very much more unhealthy, although it is at the present moment the most important and most promising centre in Mashonaland. The commissariat store was started on somewhat heroic lines, and would, if finished ac cording to the original plans, have made an excellent log fort in itself, but something intervened, and it was not finished. Part of it is of solid timber, but the roof and some part of the walls are of canvas. Most of the stores, however, had been removed to Hartley Hills, for the inhabitants there during the rainy season. They had only one bag of sugar left, and it was only after much pleading that two pounds were borrowed by John in his capacity of trooper, on the strict understanding that he gave it back on his return. There was a little fresh meat in camp, the price of which was one shilling per pound. When the post-cart left Charter, after a stoppage. of sixteen hours, it was evident we had not improved 138 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. our condition. Kaffir driver there was none, for Isaac had gone back with the down post-cart, and there was nobody to take his place. Still we had a voor looper, a full-grown six-footer, and that, at least, was something. It was, however, his first appearance in that capacity, and a more egregious fool at his pro fession could not, I think, be found anywhere. He knew nothing. This is usually a fanciful figure of speech, but Thickhead — I gave him that name five minutes after we started, and he was greatly pleased — Thickhead, I say, knew literally and truly nothing. He had as much natural sense as a bucket without a bottom, and had about as much in him. All he was required to know was to follow John's wave of the hand to the right or left, and stop himself and the oxen when John said "Hannow!" When John motioned to the left Thickhead would smile with cheerful good nature, and go straight along over a boulder or a nasty place. A motion to the right was received with the same smile, and followed with the usual dis locating bump aud the usual language from John. At the word "Hannow!" this beast of a boy would go on for a hundred yards or so. We tried him all ways for two hours, and then made him get into the cart alongside of me, where he perspired and snored with great abandon. At the first outspan he was ordered to go and fetch some wood. He was ten minutes TIMELY DIFFIDENCE. 139 getting at our meaning, and then his intelligence made an unexpected jump, and he started off for some bushes to the right. We never saw him again. He probably took our expressive pantomime for wood collecting for instructions to go home, and he went. The establishment, was thus reduced to Trooper John, for the passenger didn't count — at least I supposed so at the time. After a little while John said, thought fully, " I wonder how I am going to fill this con tract ? " " Oh, it will be all right," I said, consol ingly ; " you'll pull through." " Well, you see," said John, " I shall have to do the driving and leading, and looking after the oxen, and the cooking, and the mail. I don't see how I can sleep anywhere in between. There doesn't seem to be any sort of a gap for that." Here John paused, and waited while I followed the example of the illustrious Huckleberry Finn, and lay low. " Do you think," asked John, with a kind of off-handed deference, " do you think you would mind looking after the oxen ? Just keep your eye on them, and see they don't stray." Fortunately for myself, I knew what looking after oxen in the bush meant. It would kill a greyhound in a week, and I had sufficient presence of mind to say that I guessed I didn't know enough. It was finally arranged that I should do the cooking and scullery work, besides watching the mail while 140 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. John was away herding the oxen. It was a fair arrangement under the circumstances, but it was not a success, chiefly because I knew nothing about veld or any other kind of cooking. I began on some native beans, and as it was my maiden effort I took a great deal of pains. After four hours' boiling, during which I must have travelled a really great distance in search of wood, I found the beans as hard as ever. To make sure of a meal I threw in some compressed vegetables, and the last piece of fresh meat. Ten minutes after wards John arrived with the oxen, somewhat eager for supper. He went at once to the "billy," and stirred its contents for a minute without saying a word. Dis guising my apprehensions, I said in a tone of hearty good fellowship, " That's the sort of stew to greet, a man after a hard day's work." He turned round with a flushed face, and said, with constrained politeness, " Don't you know that those beans take twelve hours' boiling ; that they have to have three lots of water, the first two lots being deadly poison ? Has no one ever told you that compressed vegetables take three hours, and give a man dysentery anyhow? You've poisoned," he continued, in a voice tremulous with anger, "the only piece of fresh meat we shall get for a fortnight." I BEGIN TO FIND MY LEVEL. 141 The tea wasafailure too, because I had left the coffee grounds in. It was as much tea as coffee, and John sipped away a pannikin with the patient and absorbed attention of an expert " taster" in a tea warehouse. When he had finished he looked at the bottom of his pannikin in a thoughtful way, and said with a de ferential smile, " Would you mind telling me about this ? One minute it seems coffee, another taste reminds me of tea, while the last mouthful struck me as being a mix ture of both plus Transvaal tobacco and mottled soap. lam not grousing," he explained, cheerfully, "I only want to know — maybe my palate has gone wrong, and I've got the fever." I suppose the soap and tobacco taste came from the sugar which I had gathered from the bottom of the commissariat box. In that box we kept all the groceries, tobacco, candles, dubbing, meal, and axle-grease, and some of the bags leaked. This failure of mine led to my being dismissed as cook, and being taken on as dish washer, water fetcher, and voorlooper. There was nothing high falutin' about any of these departments. I took them, how ever, in good part, and bowed to imperious neces sity with a cheerful heart, except when it came to cleaning out the porridge billy. This utensil re quired an hour's tedious scraping, and in time I got 142 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. into the habit of calling it vile names, just as if it were an animate and hated enemy. I have reason to believe, however, that in the capacity of cook, bad as I am told I was, I was not quite so bad as many of those who have essayed a similar function under similar circumstances. Veld- cooking is a unique art, the measure of which is not to be gauged by the ordinary standard of picnic ex periences. It is an art which sometimes rises to the terrible, like the Italian poet's portrayal of Hell and Purgatory in the " Divine Comedy." Culinary Dantes are indigenous to the veld, and their works are a comedy, divine or otherwise, with a pretty broad vein of tragedy running through them. I should say that bad cooking has a great many more deaths to answer for than starvation. Nothing can better illustrate the danger of trusting to culinary di- lettanteism than " Camp Loafer's " account of his solitary experiment with a Sea-Pie. Reading cer tain extracts of his, as yet, unpublished "Diary of an Amateur Prospector," I came upon a passage relating to this eventful incident, and I have his per mission to reproduce it here. " We had all become pretty sick," says Camp Loafer, "of the ordinary routine of camp grub. Grilled bread, of a wet sponge-like consistency, and its proportionate weight ; tinned butter which, in a CULINARY EMULATION. 143 temperature of 110 degrees in the shade, became an oleaginous fluid of rancid odour and garlicky taste ; bully beef and potted curried cod, Columbian salmon and Dundee marmalade figuring from Sunday till Saturday as our daily fare, for breakfast, for dinner, for supper, and for occasional odd snacks in the bar gain, had ceased to have an attraction for us. Fami liarity had bred contempt, and we longed for a change of diet. It was in the very height of our discontent that somebody — we were five, not taking into account the black retinue — made a suggestion. Why not take a day apiece, drawing lots for the odd days out, and devote it to the production of a prandial novelty ? The idea was hailed with accla mation. It was the evening hour, and we were seated round the cheery fire (for the evenings were cold, despite the heat of the day) and the cheerier whisky bottle, engaged in the recreative occupation significantly denominated 'swapping lies.' This was the hour, the happiest of the whole twenty-four, set apart for the interchange of experiences and the narration of yarns, and the way we all ' spread our selves out ' to excel the others, under the genial in fluence of that glowing fire, was a revelation in the doctrine of expansion by heat. Consequently, when we all began to tell what we had done, and what we could do, in the cooking line, we were surprised to 144 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. discover what a wonderful lot of cuisinary prodigies we all were, and to regret that we had not long since mutually availed ourselves of our respective accom plishments. I think I was the most modest of the five, but I gave them to understand that, although I had never said very much about it, I was a perfect 'dab' at a sea-pie. They none of them seemed to know precisely what a sea-pie was, till I explained that it was a cross between a beefsteak pudding and an Irish stew, with a strain of cabbage-brady on the pudding side. Then they all declared ¦ they doated on ' sea-pie,' and wondered I had never volunteered to make them one before. I apologised for my remissness, and having, incidentally, asked them in my turn why we had not been favoured with the lobster 'mayonnaise ; the pork and beans; the fillet de bcevf, au fond d'artichauts, and the Pre sale d'agneau, in the creation of which I understood them to be such past-masters, I offered to give them a sample of my sea-pies on the morrow. The whisky bottle was forthwith passed up my vay, and I was affectionately entreated to ' take a good stiff tot, old fellow!' I was the hero of the hour, and we talked of nothing else but sea-pie for the remaii.der of that night. When we parted it was with the understanding that I was to stay in camp next day, with Mathie as a stud of scullery-maid assistant, and MAKING A CHEF-D'(EUVRE. 145 have dinner served at half-past four, by which time the other chaps would roll up. PersonaUy, I went to bed apprehensive, but hopeful and determined. I had eaten lots of sea-pies, but I had never made one or seen one made in my life, and I felt certain misgivings about my ability to manufacture that wonderful pasty about which I had talked so confi dently. It seemed easy though. All you had to do was to throw in the meat, and the potatoes, and the cabbage, with water for the gravy, and cover it all up with dough, and there you were ! We had been so fortunate as to kill a stembok that morning, so I knew I was all right as to the pudding part of the pie ; sweet potatoes would have to do duty for the Irish stew division, and I thought I might contrive, with the help of a few shalot tops, to worry through the cabbage-brady portion fairly enough. " I started in at the business pretty early the next morning, and while Mathie carefully, but with rather too great a regard for mathematical precision, I thought, cut up the stembok steaks into nice little neat square blocks, and the voorlooper peeled the sweet potatoes, I mixed the dough and rolled it flat (with the barrel of my shot gun) on the drawing- board, which had hitherto lain neglected among other odds and ends of lumber in the baggage- wagon. Then I got the cooking-pot, seal led it out L 146 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. clean, flattened the dough against the sides and at the bottom of the pot, and left nice little flabby lumps hanging over the rim to be subsequently brought into play in the creation of crust. By this time the green shalot ends had all been chopped up, the little blocks of meat, all of a uniform size, were lying in a seductive row, and the sweet potatoes had been peeled and geometrically sliced. These we tumbled into the pot, and then set ourselves to the consideration of gravy. The question of gravy seemed to present unconsidered difficulties. In the first place we didn't know whether we should have put the pie in first and then the gravy, or the gravy first and then the pie. Finally we decided to let things stand as they were, but then another diffi culty arose. Should the water be hot or cold, and how was the necessary flavouring to be accomplished? We compromised the first difficulty by making the water tepid before sending it to join the meat and the other components, and made up a thick sauce of equal mixtures of cayenne pepper, salt, mustard, Lea & Perrin's, and olive oil by way of flavouring. Then we pulled the two ears of dough lovingly round the top of the pot, joined them in wedlock, and our pie was ready to be cooked. Mathie wanted to ornament the outer surface of the dough with some chaste, devices illustrative of prospecting life, but I A FAILURE IN SEA-PIES. 147 dissuaded him from this, and we set to work instead digging a fairish deep hole in the ground, which was to serve as our oven. When we had got down about five feet, I suggested we had got deep enough. We then built a dry wood fire at the bottom of this shaft, and when the flames had subsided we tenderly let down the pot, piling up the smouldering wood ad round it. We then built another fire on top of the pot, and on this again piled up loose earth until we reached the surface. We erected a beacon to show exactly where the pie was located, and drew out a chart and section plan to assist its discovery. Then we cleared, leaving a note for the other fellows to say that we had gone to prospect the Mokolotsie River, and not to wait dinner for us if we weren't quite up to time. " We weren't quite up to time ; but somehow when we did get back our welcome was not such a cheery one as we anticipated. When we entered the tent we sniffed up gloom and melancholy, and some other unattractive odour, which I vaguely connected with sea-pie. But we did not pretend to notice anything out of the common until, in reply to our usual hearty salutation, ' Well, boys, what luck ? ' we were gruffly but distinctly told to ' Go to h , and take our b sea-pie along with us.' Then the three of them got up, and throwing us a withering L 2 148 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. glance, stalked out of the tent. We had a shot at that sea-pie though. There were a lot of tools, includ ing a gimlet, a 6 lb. hammer, a screw-driver, and a newly-sharpened drill lying near the Captain's plate, and with the help of these Mathie did succeed in mak ing an incision, about an inch long, into that seem ingly invulnerable crust. But he couldn't make any further headway, and after vainly endeavouring, by turning the pie on its side, to pour out the gravy through the drill-hole he gave the thing up in des pair, and we settled down, as the other fellows were doing outside on the wagon-box, to a repast of pulpy grilled bread and wild honey. Then we joined the rest of the party, and tearfully tendered our apologies. Mathie was received back into favour, and though, for the sake of harmony, I was nominally forgiven, I was never quite reinstated in my companions' good books, and was ever after re garded with a certain degree of suspicion The subsequent history of that sea-pie was a melancholy one. We carried it out between us and set the niggers at it with a pestle and mortar. After break ing the pestle handle three times, and disabling one of our boys, we did have the satisfaction of seeing that pie reduced to a certain degree of chippiness. Then one of the chaps loaded up some No. 16 cartridge shells with the powdered crust and took a SPOILT BY THE DRAWING-BOARD. 149 shot at a coffee tin at thirty yards. He converted that coffee tin into a four-sided nutmeg-grater, killed two of our best oxen, and burst his gun. Then we buried that pie. We buried it deep, but the dogs — a thoroughbred fox terrier and a bull worth fifteen pounds — dug up its remains and tried to consume them. Next morning both those dogs were found dead, and we had the melancholy satis faction of burying them along with the balance of that sea-pie, and erecting a suitably-inscribed tomb stone over their graves. A few days later some chap happened to want the drawing-board, and it was only after we had occupied six hours in looking for it, and had turned out the lumber-wagon three times without success, that we arrived at the conclu sion that I had somehow, by an oversight, forgotten to detach it from my dough, and that it had thus formed the outer barricade of my never-to-be-for gotten sea-pie." 150 CHAPTER XIV. Stranded — No Supper that Night — Knowing " New Chums " — I Try my Hand at Voorlooping — And do not Distinguish Myself — I Try the Long Whip — Another Failure. When we arrived at the Hanyani River we found a poor German in a hut. He had been left there by his partner, who had gone on to Salisbury with the intention of obtaining goods for a store to be started at Hanyani. The German had waited for some weeks, or months — I forget which — in that solitary hut, and had been for the last week sitting on his boxes ready for the first wagon to convey him away either to Salisbury or Tuli. He did not care which as long as he got away. He was standing in the middle of the road when we came along, and he said, casually, that he would be grateful if John would take him along to Salisbury. " Any luggage ? " asked John, and the Teuton, with a deprecating shrug of his shoulders, said that " he had a leedle." When we came to survey the luggage we found it sufficient, by itself, to fill the cart. He refused to SORDID REALITY. 151 come on without his luggage, so we had to go away without him. After leaving Charter the night dews were very heavy, and a blanket left out over night would be wet through in the morning. In the afternoon we came in for another heavy thunderstorm. It arrived two minutes before the kettle boiled, and just when the loathsome cookies were brown on one sides In three seconds the fire was out, and in two minutes a few pieces of charred wood floating in the water were all that was left of it. We crawled into the cart, put on our waterproofs, and sat up, with knees against our chins, for three hours. The water came through the tattered hood, in persistent little streams — the sort of streams that come from a bucket with several quarter-inch holes in the sides and bottom. It got down our collars, underneath the blankets, and put out our pipes. Outside the wind howled, and the rain came down for hours in true tropical fashion. Towards evening it cleared up, and then it was dis covered that the oxen had disappeared. Long search with the field glasses failed to find them, and for some little time it seemed certain that they had been driven before the storm for miles into the bush. John was for walking on to Salisbury, and leaving me in charge of the mail, and the odd lions in the yiciuity, until he returned with fresh oxen, but 152 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. I scouted this arrangement with great and natural energy. Shortly after sunset, the animals were found behind a clump of bushes, not four hundred yards away. We had walked the country a radius of twelve miles too, and never thought of that especial clump. Of course, there was no fire, and no supper that night, for no means that we could devise would get the saturated wood into a blaze. We had a cold collation consisting of dry and uncooked maizena, and dreamed terrific dreams during the night in consequence. The next morning we came upon a party of pros pectors who had come all the way from New Mexico. The accounts that had reached that far country of the glories of Mashonaland were so alluring that this little band made up their minds one day to pack up and have, what the leader described as, a " Go at Cecil Rhodes' shop." Experienced are they in the ways of roughing it, and learned about the hiding- places of gold and silver. They had their own little wagonette, Scotch cart, and span of donkeys, with everything that was necessary for a two years' sojourn in a savage country, and nothing that was not necessary. They baked bread in an iron pot, bread which would have been creditable to a London baker, and had a dozen rough self-made little con trivances which were evidently of tie greatest value, HE BELIEVED IN THE COUNTRY. 153 but which were striking novelties to those who 1 ad seen nothing but what was South African. They left New York in May, and though here was Novem ber they had been travelling ever since and were still a fortnight from Salisbury. Rough were they all, but of the right stuff for the work before them. Though they had had losses, privations, and vexa tious stoppages, they had no idea of complaining of their luck, running down the country, or black guarding the Chartered Company. " I never saw a better looking country, " said the grizzled leader, " and I've seen a many. I doan't know nuffink 'bout the gold, except what I've been told on, but that aint of much account, 'cause them as runs it down aint done no manner of work, and them as has cracked it up to me don't seem to know a reef from the roof of a house, an' none of them know where to look for gold. One feller who knows nothink, it appears to me, sticks in his pegs some where, anywheres, and a hundred others stick in their pegs alongside, in what they think is a likely line." Here he gave a derisive snort, and declined to say anything more on the subject. He was an ex perienced Californian digger, prepared to prospect around until he struck something ; he gave himself two years. I should like to have a share in that little syndicate of solid, strong, hard-workers. i54 .1 NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. A little while back I made an allusion to my undertaking, amongst other things, the duties and responsibilities of voorlooping. This is a pastime which almost any amateur would tackle, with the light heart begotten of complete self-confidence. 1 here appears to be nothing in the art, and for my part it never once occurred to me that there was any thing to learn in that. It was just catching hold of the reim attached to the horns of the leading oxen, and walking on ahead. Any little Kaffir or Hot tentot boy was able to do it. But when i" took that reim and started, I found that even in voorlooping there is something to learn. A good deal of dex terity, for instance, is required in getting hold of the reim without being gouged by one or other of the leading oxen. The action of catching at the reim invariably causes the animal nearest to make an upward and resentful sweep at you — and a very ugly sweep it is when you are missed by half-an- inch ; not by any means half so slow as it looks, while there is a terrifying power in their great necks. Very sharp are the horns, heavy and deadly. Poor Percy Howard, whose grave I saw at the Lundi, was killed by one of these heavy passes from an ugly-tempered ox. Natural quick ness, gained at tennis, boxing, and cricket, saved me from being disembowelled half-a-dozen times during I TURN VOORLOOPER. 155 my first attempt at voorlooping, I verily believe. On one or two occasions the big, ugly-tempered brown beast on the off-side got in so dexterous and dangerous a stroke that I felt the wind brush my face. Of course, when the amateur voorlooper advances he has to keep his eyes well in front, and forget as much as possible all about the horns lehind him. To so guide those clumsy brutes as to miss every boulder, tree stump, or hole, requires more nerve and practise than I ever thought possible. To run them down the steep banks of a river, through the river, and up again without a mishap to the cart, the oxen or yourself, requires infinite dexterity, and no incon siderable degree of pluck. The banks of the average river in Mashonaland are, without fanciful exaggera tion, as steep as the roof of a house. When I — in my capacity as voorlooper — arrived at the verge of one of these startling precipices, I always had to screw up as much courage as if I had been set the task of stroking the nose of a rampant lion. The operation of crossing could not be done circumspectly — it had to be done in two thrilling dashes. Dash No. 1 was from the top to the bottom, and as far through the river as possible. Dash No. 2 (and 3 perhaps) was from the stoppage up to the summit again on the other side. The river might have been twenty feet deep, and alive with crocodiles, There might 156 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. have been a boulder under the water as big as a lighthouse, or a hole like the commencement of Rider Haggard's wonderful lake. It was always a sort of toss-up. It was uncommonly creepy work, rushing down one of these sides, with four oxen and a heavy Scotch cart behind. Going too slow meant an even chance of being impaled, and going too fast over the rough ground meant level money on a stumble and the speedy flattening of the voorlooper. Running down at full speed, with John vehemently shouting and cracking his whip, the cart crushing and bounding over rocks, or into dangerous pits, and the oxen coming along at top speed right into a river of unknown possibilities, may be monotonous and easy work to the unimaginative Kaffir, but it was hair-standing work for me. Going up the other side again, with Trooper John plying his whip and cursing me and the oxen with infinite abandon in the excite ment of the moment, was not very good fun either, though it was, in its way, exhilarating. Going up was almost as bad as going down, to everything behind the voorlooper, because there was always an awful second of suspense at some critical point of the ascent, when it was a moot point whether the oxen would overcome the cart, or the cart overcome the oxen. In the latter case the voorlooper lets go, and the cart rolls backwards down the incline into NOT TO BE LEARNT IN A DAY. 157 the river, and on the top thereof fall a tangled mass of kicking oxen, loose reims, tow chain, yokeskeys, and disselboom. Somewhere in the middle, amongst the mail bags, the driver would be found. For acci dents of that sort the voorlooper is always held responsible. There were times, in sane moments, when I re fused to proceed at the head of the procession, and then John would do the voorlooping, while I would try my 'prentice hand at driving. Now to the super ficial observer there is nothing in driving a span of oxen with a long whip of the country. It is only when the tyro takes the whip in his hand, with the full consciousness that there is nobody to help him, or to save him from the consequences of a mistake, that he sees that he has innocently signed for a con tract that is streets too big for him. About cracking one of these scaffold-pole whips I will say nothing, because nearly everybody in South Africa knows that to smack a whip, do the upper slash, the cross cut, and -the double thong stroke with any degree of neatness, require from five to twenty years' practise. But to merely deliver any sort of a stroke at all is wonderfully difficult : the stick is so cumbersome, the lash so thick and long, and the whole contrivance such a stupendous handful, that a stroke which would be unheeded by baby trek oxen, requires sufficient 158 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. momentum to pull the beginner on to his face. It was a long time before I could keep the lash from twining round the wheels, or becoming locked in the yokes, or round the horns of the oxen. Nor is the mere wielding of the whip all that has to be mas tered. Too hard a cut on one ox would make the beast slew round with bewildering Suddenness, and even a gentle touch sometimes would start one animal out of line, twist all the others into a knot, and bring everything to a dead standstill. This happened several times when I was driving, and on such occasions when three of the four oxen would be looking at me in the cart, I would climb down and go on ahead for a time, merely leaving John to pick up the broken yokeskeys, mend the broken reims, rearrange the span, and empty himself of all he knew in the way of adjectives in the English and Dutch languages, to say nothing of Latin and Greek, at which he was almost equally proficient. There were times when a chance cut of my whip would set the whole team off in a trot in a half circle. Then when John had to leave go, the animals would go all over the veld in a series of curls, and rarely stop before a tree got in between the two leaders, or fair and square on one of the cart wheels. In such circumstances the driver is merely a feather on the stream — an egg in a basket — for though the talented artists on the London Graphic EXCUSABLE APPREHENSION. 159 have provided transport oxe 1 in Mashonaland with bits and traces, such paraphernalia is not in general use, and when the oxen start off as I have described, sans voorlooper, and with a duffing whip at the helm, there is no means of checking them. When I could nob tumble over the back of the cart at the starting of a game of that sort, I would wait for a tree, a bush, a river, or a shaft of an old working. I used to pray for a bush without thorns, but I was always most afraid of flying down a forty or fifty foot shaft, dug out ages ago by the ancients. 160 CHAPTER XV. Moralistic Chestnuts — Which bring us to Salisbury — "Cleanliness and Civility a Speciality " — Something Unique in Billiard Tables — In Two Halves — Editorial Difficulties — Too Much Free Oil — The Company with the Big Big " C " — Clergymen at a Discount — The Whisky Famine — Not Socially Festive — An Authority on Hymns — "Ufoo." Everything in this world is comparative, and things are big or small, good or bad, pretty or ugly, accord ing to what our eyes and minds have been recently fed upon. I say recently, because to the home-born man who arrives in this country for the first time, Capetown is a squat, squalid, disappointing village; Kimberley an insignificant, desolate place, where people live in tin houses, and traverse the same few hundred yards — and none other— every day for years ; Johannesburg — the golden city — a promising, evil- smelling town, but. by no means the eighth wonder of the world, and so on. Let that man from home, however, live in South Africa for five or ten years without leaving it, and he will gradually come to believe that Capetown is a great city, Kimberley a THE EFFECT OF COMPARISON. 161 very important and wonderful town ; Port Elizabeth almost a Liverpool (especially if he has become a Bayonian), and Johannesburg a dazzling brick and mortar wonder — a nineteenth century marvel, which all the world may be expected to admire with respect ful eyes and praise with awe-struck voices. His eye has, in a measure, lost its sense of proportion, the glory and magnificence of the things at home have become dimmed to him, and he will never, never admit it. Therefore it is that objects which were once insignificant, and even contemptible to him, are now great and admirable. It is surprising how quickly the eye is influenced by its immediate surroundings. Ask any old Kimberley man, who, after a long sojourn at Johannesburg, pays a visit to the once loved town of dust and diamonds, whether the streets have not become narrower, the houses smaller, and everything shrunk somehow. If you take to playing exclusively on the 5 by 8 billiard table, and then come upon a table of the usual size, the cloth seems like a field, in which are three marbles. The distances seem im mense to the eye accustomed to the smaller table. So, when a man comes fresh from one of the leading towns in the Cape Colony, Transvaal, or Natal, upon Mafeking, he cannot be brought to consider it more than a frontier hamlet. Later he comes upon Tuli, which is even smaller, much smaller than even M 162 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. Mafeking. After long weeks without seeing a house of any sort he arrives at Victoria, which can easily be encircled many times with a penny reel of N.M.T. cotton. Another long journey and he comes upon Fort Charter, with its impregnable fort, its four in habited huts, and its half-finished Commissariat log hut stores. As he proceeds he finds that places marked with a big and solid black bull's eye in the map are so many post stations consisting of two Kaffir huts inhabited by ruminating B.S.A. troopers. The farther he goes the smaller are the evidences of the white man's presence, and by the time he enters Salisbury his mind regards Victoria as rather an im portant place, Tuli a town, and Mafeking almost a city. To pursue my little metaphor, he has every day been playing on a smaller and smaller table. Thus it is that his mind is prepared to do full justice to the size and importance of Salisbury, the capital of Mashonaland. I, who had read the glowing ac counts which have appeared in the English and South African journals, descriptive of Salisbury, ex pected much. Had I not read of English, Wesleyan, Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian churches ? Of great hotels, a hospital, library, and many stores ? Of a sur veyed township, with its stands ruling at high figures, of the Government buildings, the Sanitary Board, and a teeming population ? All these things, and FORT SALISBURY. 163 more, very much more, had I read, and, therefore, did I foohshly, and in my innermost heart, expect to find a place such as was Baby Johannesburg on or about its first birthday. But there is only one Koh-i-nor and one Johannesburg. What Johannesburg did in miraculous bounds — hardly touching the earth as it sped — thanks surely to some fairy godmother, less fortunate Salisbury has had to do on its hands and knees : sore are the finger tips, and scarred the knee caps. Some day, perhaps, Salisbury will rival Johan nesburg, but not next year, or the next. At. present the population is estimated roughly at 400. Those who once believed that the great Mashonaland boom would start a year from the beginning of the Char tered Company's operations, now understand that suc cess, though visible to the eyes of the sanguine, and to many who have delved and dug in the country, is still high up; a cocoanut on the top of a seventy-foot tree: and only hard climbing will bring it within reach. But I can, of course, only speak of Salisbury as it is — or as it appeared to me in November, 1 892. It is situated by a long kopje, which forms a conspicuous landmark for miles around. I saw it, indeed, thirty miles — a day and a half — before I reached it. It is a pretty hill, covered from top to bottom with syringa- like trees. Irom the top a magnificent view is ob- M 2 164 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. tained. Running along at the bottom of this kopje is the township of Salisbury, consisting at present of a street about a thousand feet long. There are many vacant stands, but the houses and stores are fairly close together, and make an encouraging show. As might have been expected, there are very few at tempts at architectural magnificence. There is one two-storey mansion, with four gables, which is, I believe, generally admitted by the Salisbury com munity to be the show place of the town. The walls are of horizontal poles stuck firmly in the ground, covered with mud, and painted red, so as to resemble brick-work when viewed at a distance of several miles. The roof is well thatched after the European fashion. There are windows in this mansion — red American windows. The contour of the poles shows through the mud and paint, like the ribs of a thin trek ox through its hide, but the mansion looks roomy and comfortable, and the owner is envied by everybody. Messrs. Heany, Johnson, and Co. — the millionaire firm — were building a house with burnt brick (at £4 per 100), deal boards, etc., after the pattern familiar to civilisation; and there is also Slater's Hotel, a burnt brick, grass-thatched building about 50 by 20. It is firmly believed by Salisburyites — who grin at the notion — that an attempt is being made to float this concern into a company with a capital of £'10,000. SOME FUNNY HOTELS. 165 The rest of the stores, for the most part, are the ordinary round Kaffir huts, or the ordinary square building made of the same materials. There is, how ever, no slavish adherence to any one model. It is not what a man would like in Salisbury, but what he can get. One store, with signboard and all com plete, consisted of a transport wagon, over which had been thrown the usual sailcloth. Underneath, on the wagon, and on cases on the ground, was spread the usual assortment, of goods common to an up- country store. Close by was an hotel rejoicing in the name of "Tommy's Rest: or the Salisbury Hotel." It was an ancient, weather-worn marquee, with an extra canvas roof, which flapped drearily at every gust, like the sail of a deserted ship. Outside was the alluring intimation : " Cleanliness and civility a speciality. Single meals 2s. 6d." The floor of course was mud, uncovered, and not aggressively level. There was one little American table — table d'hSte — which was spread for the next meal, or the last. It does not matter, because the cloth was always laid. The cloth was of thin ceiling lining, known throughout Mashonaland by European and Mashona as " limbo." The plates were of tin — not porcelain iron — the salt-cellar was a tobacco tin, the mustard-pot once held an ounce of Liebig's 166 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. extract of beef. The forks were iron, two pronged, and the knives were such as you would expect. The menu was not extensive, nor was the waiting beyond reproach. At this place you pay your half-a-crown, and take what is given you, in the manner provided, and you grumble at your peril. Nobody, however, does grumble. The habit of grousing leaves every body long before they reach Salisbury. Some of the square huts are of a good size, and they are not waterproof; but this is because they are new. During the first rains the owner in his macintosh and top boots, umbrella in hand, marks the worst places — as many as he can remember — and when the weather clears for an hour or so, he hastens to make those places good, either with more grass, or pieces of canvas. Long before it has done raining (it begins, they tell me, in December and finishes in April or May) the average Salisburyite, of an evening, can keep a candle alight without an umbrella over it, and if be has a bedstead can sleep the night through sometimes, though it rain all night, and wake up quite dry. Along the main street are several con spicuous auctioneers' signboards, and for some time past this business has been the most profitable — for nearly everybody who could get away in time to escape the wet season, got away, and in the majority of cases sold all their superfluous belongings by THE PRIDE OF SALISBURY. 167 auction. There are other hotels in the main street such as I have described, some a little better than Tommy's Rest, some rather worse. Slater's, however, is about the only one which an English horse would not cock his ears at. The main, and only street of the township proper, faintly resembles the Dutoit- span Main Road (Kimberley) in the early days, but I noticed only three canteens in the Salisbury street, whereas it will be remembered, it was different in the good old days of the Pan, when honest diggers used to thin the Illicit Diamond Buyer, or liquor shops — almost synonymous terms in those times — by elaborately arranged bonfires — quite illegal, but extremely effective. There is also a billiard room, which is regarded with some pride by the inhabitants. It is made almost entirely of logs and grass. It was difficult to build owing to the impossibility of supporting the roof by pillars in the middle. Thanks, however, to big trees, four and five feet in diameter, the ingenious carpenter and architect succeeded in making a chamber where billiards can be played without the cue striking the wall in any one place — an engineer ing feat justly regarded with great admiration. The table itself is a good deal better than might have been anticipated, and considering the table rests on a mud floor, the roll to one side is not too marked. 168 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. A ball struck smartly will go right up the centre of the table to the top cushion and back again with out falling against the left side cushion, if the bias of the slightly warped ball happens to work against the slant of the table. The lighting at night is a little ingenious. A platform or shelf hangs over the middle of the table, and on this platform are lamps or candles, I am not sure which, never having been there in the evening. The shelf comes down very low, and the player, if he would see from end to end of the table, must have his eye very close to the cushion indeed, and aim along the cue as if it were a rifle. Strangers generally find that it takes a good deal of practice to get " used to the table." They get, I should fancy, cramp in the back, and ricks in the neck. When the stranger first gazes upon Salisbury he wonders why one half of the town should be by the kopje, while the other half, with the fort and adminis trative offices, should be on a little rise nearly a mile away. Greater still is his wonder when he is informed that the hollow, which lies between the two halves, is a disgusting and aggravating swamp during the rainy season which for days together makes intercourse between the two sections impossible. The kopje part of the town, too, is lower than that part where the fort is constructed, and probably less healthy. THE LATEST ELDORADO. 169 From what can be gathered there was a bit of a muddle over the choosing of the site. The new settlers were sick unto death of moving on — had as much of it as poor Joe of Bleak House — and wanted the site chosen and the stands given out without delay. The rainy season was coming, and they were anxious to start building. The high officials of the Company on the other hand were rightly anxious to obtain the best site possible, and disinclined to make a hasty decision on so momentous a point. So they deliberated and compared the advantages of this site with those of that, but before they had come to any definite decision, the inhabitants took matters into their own hands and started building under the kopje. The Company thereupon built its fort upon the rise ; many of the residents built their houses and started business on that side, and thus it was, I am told, Salisbury came to be divided by a swamp. Salisbury certainly struck me at that time as one of the oddest places; it is in the heart of Mashonaland, the Land of Ophir, the Queen of Sheba's country, Rhodesia, the very latest thing in the way of El- dorados, yet one had to look hard to see a Mashona, there was no sign of any digging operations, and gold, even in the form of coinage, was a great and revered rarity, for the currency was cheques, and small change was an unknown thing. Salisbury is an English town, 170 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. the centre of one of the vastest commercial enter prises undertaken by man during this present cen tury, but it is the most un-English place in appear ance that ever British flag waved over. At the time of which I write it was more like a neat section of Kanya or Palapswi than anything else. With a few rare exceptions there were no square buildings, no burnt brick, no corrugated iron, no doors, no windows, no vegetables, and only half-a-dozen ladies. Deal boards were unknown, iron stoves were forgotten things, as were also white shirts, cuffs and collars. Passenger cabs or carriages, of course, there were none. The troopers and officers of the Company — with a great big C — had, at the time I write of, a few poor animals which had survived the sickness, but there were not half-a-dozen civilians who could boast of a horse, and therefore it was that everybody walked at Salisbury. But the residents, to do them justice, did not wear out many boots, and were content to wait for the hardy prospector, in the Hartley Hills or Umtali, to find the money for them. The metropolis of Mashonaland boasts its own paper — The Mashonaland Herald and Zambesian Times. It is edited, written, and printed by Mr. Fairbridge, of Cape Town. He was once a flourish ing sharebroker in Kimberley in the good old days. He is now, amongst other things, the accredited THE SALISBURY EDITOR. 171 representative of the Argus Publishing Company. His Mashonaland Herald, etc., was a wonderful production. Type, at the time of my visit, there was none, the whole plant consisting of what is called, I fancy, the "cryptograph," or "stylograph" machine. The talented editor — and I say this in no jeering spirit — wrote all that he had to say on a piece of waxed paper, with a special pen which cut through the wax and made a number of microscopic holes at each stroke. When the sheet was finished, and placed in position, a smudge with the ink brush, or roller, made a fair copy. About 700 copies could be taken from each sheet. After that the minute holes became caverns, and then the subsequent copies were all ink and smudge. At the very beginning Mr. Fair- bridge started with two pens, one he lost early, and the other had been his sole and only implement. It was worn out months ago, and made a broader and more lurid stroke at every edition. Many had been sent to him, but none reached him, for the Chartered Company mails were not altogether to be relied upon. A month or two before I arrived his ink failed him, and since then he had been experimenting with lamp black, oil, and turpentine. The lamp black he made fresh for every edition, by lighting a little turpentine and letting the smoke gather on the bottom of the kettle, but the exact proportions of the 172 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. oil and lamp black had still to be discovered. When I was there, there had been a little too much " free oil." Too much free oil, it may be explained, resulted in letters with yellow borders spreading all over the paper, and sometimes, on bad days, the leader came out like a slab of butterscotch, while the advertise ments seemed to resemble almond rock. Those editions were, of course, suppressed, and the editor with raw nerves had to try and try again until he at last succeeded in striking off a legible edition. A copy consisted of either two or four full sheets of foolscap printed or " cryptographed " on both sides. When it was a four-sheet edition the price was a shilling ; the smaller edition went at sixpence. The writing was good, crisp, and readable, when it was legible, and there were as many sheets devoted to advertisements as to news. After the edition had been printed the editor pinned the separate sheets together, and with the whole edition under his arm sallied forth to distribute the copies to the subscribers, who received " the paper " not only with gravity, but with eagerness. The editor had to be his own can vasser for subscriptions and advertisements, his own newspaper boy, his own compositor, his own collector, his own leader writer and reporter. It came out once a week, " which," said the editor to me one day, as he gloomily pushed his fingers through his A VEILED INSULT. 173 thick curly hair, " is enough for me, if it isn't for the community." It was not always that he succeeded in getting cash from his supporters, and frequently he had to accept payment in kind — biscuits, dried fruit, sugar, coffee, etc. Sometimes this system worked well, but occasionally there were hitches — ¦ for instance, where two clients struck on baking powder. On one occasion an advertisement was paid for by a new shovel. It was worth more in the open market than the price of the advertisement — shovels being scarce just then — but the editor had a haunting suspicion that there was some black meaning in that presentation, which was made after the issuing of an edition rather more remarkable than usual for free oil. All that is changed now, and the editor has a compositor and real type. But he is not, I think, altogether happy, because the people of Salisbury, for the most part, have migrated to the Victoria Gold Fields. Of course the great B.S.A. Company is paramount in Salisbury, as it is throughout Mashonaland. The Company says, " Do this," and he or they who are thus commanded straightway go forth and do that thing. "Go there!" says the secretary, and they go there. As much back-talk as they like, but they must obey. Against the Company there is no appeal. The Company, in fact, is an absolute 174 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. monarchy, with the Doctors Jameson and Harris co kings, responsible to the great Sultan Rhodes and his Council at the Board. The power vested in the hands of these two men is great, and will increase or diminish with time — depends on circumstances — but the power at present is, I believe, conscien tiously used solely for the benefit of the community. It must be confessed that the average Salisburyite is by no means given to church-going. They boast, indeed, that they got on for many months without any clergyman at all, and many regard the inevitable invasion of the clergy with dislike. There are others — the majority let us hope — who take quite a different view, and do not grudge the money necessary to keep the little church of their own denomination going. One is accustomed to find the churches in every city and town the handsomest buildings in the place. In Salisbury the churches have to be looked for carefully, and might be missed over and over again by the superficial passer-by. Each church is merely a Kaffir hut capable of holding from thirty to seventy worshippers, and every denomination is represented. During the never-to-be-forgotten summer which marked the commencement of the B.S.A. Co.'s operations at Salisbury, everything went up to awful prices, and amongst those things that partici- WHISKY AT £76 PER DOZEN. 175 pated in the upward movement were quinine and whisky. About the quinine famine I will not say more than that it was worth at one time £100 an ounce ; it was worth anything, for it was not to be had for love or money, and men died for the want of it. But the scarcity of whisky, brandy, dop, and indeed all spirituous liquors, was regarded by the average Salisbury man as being far more serious and a great deal more noticeable than the scarcity of, or even the total absence of, quinine. " Qay-nyne," said a prospector to me ; " quy-nyne is all very well with them as believes in doctors' stuff. Take things az yer finds 'em. My stomick ¦ won't hold quy-nyne, but it sucks up whisky like a sponge. Give me a bottle of whisky a day and I'll defy the fever." He was so affected that his face quite flushed with excitement. It was easy to see that he had been a hard drinker in his time, but since he had come to Mashonaland he had — with rare and expensive inter ludes — been as sober as a glass of water, and as cheer ful. People had to drop liquor at that time. Why, it is on record that on one occasion a single case of whisky — that is to say one dozen quart bottles — was sold by auction for £76. It is said — only said, mind you — that an intending buyer, who arrived five minutes after the lot had been knocked down, had 176 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. to be held by five men, and closely watched there after night and day for a week. You see there was not another drop of spirit in the whole camp, and he was in that awful stage when a man would cheerfully murder his mother for a whole bottle of whisky. During the famine men occasionally made an intoxi cating beverage out of Kaffir corn, but they had not the proper recipe, and the attempts were failures for the most part. For a long, long time afterwards liquor was dear in Salisbury, and in Mashonaland generally. The inhabitants got such a thirst then that subse quent attempts to meet the demand failed for many months. When I arrived, in the beginning of November, nine out of the ten men who shook hands with me asked if I had brought any liquor up. Whisky was ruling at £'40 a case then, and dop at 25s. a bottle. The day before I left there was great excitement. A canteen keeper had got a few cases of whisky by native carriers via Umtali, and hung outside his place a great placard announcing "Whisky! Whisky!! Whisky!!! Great and frantic reduction ! Only 40s. (forty shillings) a bottle ! " Lots of men went in at once to see if it was a hoax. Whisky was 4s. a " tot," even when I was there. On the road, any distance from a store, a bottle of " Cape Smoke," which sells for 5s. a gallon in Kimberley, and lis. in Johannesburg, NO LADIES AND NO SCANDAL. 177 fetched from £3 to £5 the bottle. Those were dreadful times ! There was not much society in Salisbury — not society in the ordinary sense of the term. You can't very well entertain in a Kaffir hut. There were no chairs to begin with, and even tables were not to be found everywhere. The cooking was usually done inside, and there was no chimney. A fire in a Salis bury hut is not a cheerful thing. On a wet day the smoke from the wet wood is very pungent, and the accumulated ashes of many previous fires have a depressing effect when acting in conjunction with damp floors, wet boots and soaking clothes. Men, however, used to visit one another sometimes. They lounged in with grave faces, smoked pensively for an hour, exchanging a few uninteresting remarks, and then lounged out again. Visitor and visited' alike made no attempt at entertaining or being entertained. Even the ordinary hospitable offering of a " tot " was not made in those days. There was, in fact, very little to talk about in Salisbury, for there was nothing doing, and as there were not half-a-dozeri ladies in the whole community there was no scandal. It must be confessed that men by themselves do not constitute a lively community. Without the women we are very dull dogs indeed, and therefore it is that Salisbury was as dull as a rusty knife. If the N 178 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. residents had plenty of books and newspapers to read it would have helped them a good deal, but the library was limited, newspapers came only in fits and starts, and sooner or later the man with literary tastes was reduced to the dictionary or to working out sums from an arithmetic book. I met one man who used to husband his reading. He once got a hymn book which he read from beginning to end, slowly and deliberately. Then he began at the beginning again, but with the book upside down. Afterwards he learnt it all word for word by heart ; he said that he also learnt it backwards. He is an authority on hymns anyhow. You see, where there is nothing to do but watch the rain — and I am only speaking of the past rainy season and the one now on — when there is no business, no work, no social intercourse, no cricket or tennis, or sport of any kind, no theatre, or public entertainments for months together, a mau may even be glad to learn a hymn book — -backwards. The gentle reader will naturally take out his lead -pencil at this place and write on the margin, " Why didn't the beggars set to and work; a new town like Salisbury is not a place for loafing ! " There is much in thy pencilling, oh gentle one ; but the fact was, there were many in Salisbury who went up in anticipation of a boom, and a share market. " Actual demnition work," to AWKWARD CURRENCY. 179 quote Mr. Mantalini, with prosaic blister-raising picks and shovels, was not what they expected. Hitherto, in all previous beginnings in South Africa, there were always people to do the work — the actual wrestle with Mother Earth — and others to reap the fruits thereof; but in Mashonaland every man must dig his own shaft, and a good deal more, too. So it is that the speculative bee, who would be so busy in a boom, is a very disconsolate drone indeed just now. The real workers, on whom the success of the country and the Company depend, go digging outside, miles away from the capital, during the dry season, and only come into Salisbury or Umtali, or go out of the. country during the rains, when mining work must stand still, and bees and drones alike must loaf. Money in the shape of gold or notes there was none at the time of which I write. The currency might be described as consisting almost entirely of B.S.A. Company's cheques, many of which were for unwieldy amounts. They were endorsed, and passed from hand to hand like bank notes. You can easily imagine how troublesome it was to pass a cheque for £17 4s. 7d. or £6 4s. 3d. You got other cheques in change, and unless you were like the wanted office boy always being advertised for, " quick and correct at figures," you were soon badly muddled. N 2 180 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. There is an ever-flowing river (wherein are crocodiles) close to the town. Those who fetch their own water find it a long way off, and those who bathe avoid with care the deeper holes. Kaffirs were cheap, a blanket worth 5s. in Kimberley would keep them working for a month, but they were difficult to get, and very hard to keep, for a Mashona is easily offended with his work, and when he is offended it is his custom to di sappear with what he can lay his hands on. Those who employ him have to feed him as well, of course, but "ufoo" is nearly always cheap, even at Salisbury, and the Mashona is satisfied with " ufoo," if he has it often and plenty of it. "Ufoo," it may be explained, is Kaffir corn or millet seed, ground between stones by the natives. It is reddish in colour, and is hated with fervour by every pioneer in the land. During the famine the pioneers in Salisbury, and at most of the out-stations, had, for some time, to be content with " ufoo," without salt, sugar, or honey. If you want to shake up the bile of an "A"or "B" Company man you must ask him how he likes " ufoo." If he is of a placid temperament he will find words to con vey to you some glimmering idea of what he thinks of it. Nearly always he will fail, because words are inadequate, even when helped out by his own peculiar adjective. You who listen will only learn that "ufoo " is a sort of meal which, when cooked, makes a por- BRITTLELY NOURISHMENT. 181 ridge with properties analagous to powdered glass, in asmuch as it has no nourishment, aud cuts the inside to pieces. It has a sickly, hardly perceptible taste. I have said before no words can give one any idea of how Tommy Atkins of the B.S.A. regards this savage food. I hope no one will accuse me of running down the capital of Mashonaland. To find fault with the place in earnest, in its second year, would really be ridicu lous. It is a brand new town, arising under very ex ceptional and adverse circumstances; and, considering all things, the progress made is highly creditable to all concerned. One has to make the long and tedious journey oneself to fully understand what it must have cost in time, worry, and labour to bring Salisbury to its present stage. The Beira railway, now approach ing completion, will make all the difference in the world. . ¦¦ 182 CHAPTER XVI. An Alluring Prospect — He Wished Me Good-bye and a Pleasant Journey — Jolly Companions Every One — Native Coiffure — Ton- sorial Eccentricities — Coy Wives and Maidens — I am Regarded as a Wonder — Which is Which ? After I had sojourned in Salisbury for a week I became anxious to get away, but day after day slipped by and found me still there. To go back over the same terrifying road was always simple and easy, because empty wagons were always going that way, every day almost, until the rivers rose and petri fied all transport. But the idea of again crawling and bumping over the thousand miles which separate Salisbury from civilisation is often too much for most men to contemplate, and it was certainly too much for me. There was another way out, via Beira. Much had I heard of the East Coast route. I had been told of luxuriant tropical vegetation, banana trees alongside the road, bending with the slender fruit. The country had been described to me over and over again as being beautiful far beyond the wildest dreams of the unsophisticated and poorly I AM WARNED. 188 clad Adam and Eve of Eden. The stories too, that I had heard about game ! Buck in droves, zebras in flocks, buffaloes, cheetahs, and, above all, lions galore ! Not a beggarly sample lion here and there, but lions in quartettes everywhere. The picture, be came additionally attractive when I learned that the big game had acquired the pleasant habit of staying near enough to the road to be shot with ease by the casual and appreciative wayfarer. No wonder then that I decided to get out via the Pungwe, and rashly allowed the post-cart and Trooper John to go back by the overland route without me before I had been able to make any arrangements the other way. When the cart had fairly gone, and it became generally known what I proposed doing, sympathising friends, acquaintances, and good-hearted strangers made, a point of coming round to tell me that to go by the Pungwe route at that time of the year was simply courting death. Said one : "You aint going by the East Coast route, are you? Well, it aint none of my business, but I can advise you to change your mind. In the first place you won't be able to get a wagon to Umtali, and when you do reach Umtali there is no means of reaching Mapanda except on foot. There are no bearers to be had, no donkeys. You will have to convey your own grub and your own blankets. In some 184 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. parts the lions are simply awful, and scoff* 50 per cent, of the men who have gone down, and 90 per cent, of the donkeys." I thanked him for his advice, and he continued : "If it was only that, I should say go, and take your chance. But lions and walking with a heavy swagf is simply nothing. Just nothing. It's — it's, the other things. You meet flies down there in mil lions, who stick eggs into you, and turn you into a flesh column of maggots and sores. They lay the eggs in the blankets when you are full up, and the blankets crawl about the ground at the rate of a yard an hour. On hot days you have to run to catch them and save 'em from being lost in the bush." " That's bad," I remarked, with an air of heroism. " Yes," he replied cheerfully, " I just suppose you will find it so. But you will be thankful to get the tip ! " " Y— e— s." "I always like to know what's ahead of me," he went on kindly. "Then there's the fly sick ness ; you've heard of that, I suppose ? " " No." " Oh ! they come upon you in buzzing masses. They keep the sun off you, but they get into your mouth and ears and eyes until you wish you were dead, They drop into your tea by the hundred. Eat. f Baggage. A JOB'S COMFORTER. 185 You can't keep them out, so you swallow table- spoonsful of 'em and get the fly sickness, which is a sort of perpetual vomit and fever." " Go on." " Oh ! that's about all," he said, " unless," he con tinued reflectively, " I need mention to an old tra veller like you the dead certainty of your catching the fever — and the consequences when you are on foot, without shelter and without medical attendance or nursing of any sort. Then you know the rainy season has commenced, and will be in full swing long before you get to Mapanda. The country becomes one vast swamp then, and you have to wade through black stinking mud up to your arm pits. After a bit you have to make for some bit of high ground, and camp for three months surrounded by swamps. I don't see how you are going to carry enough grub to risk that contingency. But the fever will have you in a week, so that don't matter." I thanked him, and after he had shaken hands with great heartiness, he went away with a de pressing air of sadness. Other visitors of the same sort kept on dropping round until I felt that, after all, the Pungwe route had better be abandoned. I found, however, that the chance of getting back by the overland route now, with the rain coming down solid every day, was considered extremely remote. 186 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. "You'll get stuck by the Lundi, or Nuanetsi river for certain, and you can't hope to escape the fever," said an old acquaintance, " while you may get through via the Pungwe." Day after day went by without anything definite •being decided, and I began to fear that I should be in Salisbury for six months. At last, on the thirteenth day, I heard that the Chartered Company were sending their last wagon of supplies for the season to Umtali. With it were going a detachment of the police, some of whom were to be stationed at Umtali, while one or two were going to make a reck less dash for Beira. I joined that party, with fourteen days' rations, two shirts, a suit of pyjamas, cord knickerbockers, some socks, quinine, and War burg's fever tincture. They were a rough lot, those troopers ! Drunk almost to a man, and in possession of enough dop to keep them "merry" for some days. Those who had taken their discharge were uproarious, and used language which would have shocked the Heathen Chinee, and shamed a Californian digger of '49. Tommy Atkins has his own peculiar adjective, The Chartered Company's policeman has his, plus Tommy's pet. These two words are used in every sentence ; they come into the middle of a sentence and balance it, and they come in at the end and round it. No assertion, exclamation, enquiry, sug- MASHONA WOMEN. 187 gestion or command is considered harmonious with out these two words, and the sickened stranger who drops into their midst is regarded with surprised concern because he neglects these comprehensive adjectives. Being discreet, I was able to get along very well with these gentle spirits. That is to say, I succeeded in saving my head from being damaged by eager fists, which were always in readiness. On the second day it rained hard all day, but in the evening we came upon a little hut, where there was a fire. The party, consisting of ten men, promptly undressed, and dried their saturated garments before the fire. It was a funny sight, but I was the only one who saw anything ludicrous in the scene. After wards there was rice and bully beef and cocoa. Later there was dop and songs; then sleep. The rain came through the grass roof, and wetted most of us to the skin, and when we awoke in the morning we were stiff and miserable. During the course of the day we came across some natives. There was the usual absence of clothes, but the women dressed their hair with much ingenuity, It seems to grow to a length of seven or eight inches, and they plait it round and round the head, and into the very roots again, making a solid hat like a plate or a circular door-mat. This head-gear lasts for life, once made, and the greatest pleasure experienced by 188 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. the wearer is holding the head in water, for the head does not itch on such occasions. One of the troopers, who was taking a little black and tan pup, bought the only calabash of milk. The puppy had the first drink, and the rest was put into the coffee. The average B.S.A. trooper is not particular. Limbo was the great thing there, a yard being the unit. Some of the poor creatures brought mealies in calabashes holding no more than a pint. It was their day's allowance, and if they sold it would have nothing to eat for that day. The next day, accompanied by the sergeant in charge — an Eton boy, thrice ploughed for his Civil Service examinations — I paid a visit to Morettella's Kraal, which looks like an uninhabited pyramidical kopje from the road. On getting close I found that the kopje consisted of great rocks piled one on top of the other. On these rocks were a number of huts, about fifty in all. Seated on a rock by the entrance to the stadt was the old chief Morettella all by him self. He had a good deal of natural dignity, but no clothes, and accepted an empty cartridge case with becoming condescension. Beneath him, on other rocks close by, were the minor chiefs, the headmen — the " mashers " — of the stadt. They always get up as soon as the sun gets warm, and go to these rocks. They shave each other all day long with razors of CAUDLE LECTURES DISCOURAGED. 189 native wrought iron. They leave a goatee and mous tache, but are careful to keep the cheeks clean. The head is shaved too, in curious patterns, the wool being trimmed into three lines an inch broad, and half-an- inch high. The shaving is done, without soap, of course, and without the aid of water. The barber takes a little knot of wool between his fingers and thumb, and gently saws till the tuft is cut through. All day long they sit thus, while the women work in the fields. The Mashona male never does any work while there are enough women about to do all that is necessary. The heir presumptive to the kingdom was a fine handsome-looking savage, fat, sleek, greasy and good-tempered. He made it understood that he was prepared to accept a cartridge-case, aud took it without any unseemly demonstrations of joy. Having paid our footing, the sergeant and I wandered over the stadt, greatly to the interest of the little naked boys and girls, and the maids and wives, who fairly swarmed. It was impossible to get near the women, for on our approach they fled, shrieking in terror, to their huts. These huts have very small doors, through which only one can crawl at a time. We turned a corner rather unexpectedly, and came upon a bevy of naked damsels — about twenty of them. We approached smilingly, but the timid creatures rushed 190 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. for the only hut near with such frantic haste that it was evident they expected dreadful things from us. About ten tumbled through successfully, but the eleventh was a fat old thing, and wanted more time than slim and comely No. twelve was disposed to give her. So while the unwieldy old woman was gasping through the hole like a big pig, the little maiden tried to dash in over her back, and a very complete jam was the consequence. We approached with the intention of offering assistance, but the women outside crouched down and raised such an ear-splitting outcry, that we stood back. Several of the Mashona warriors came prancing up with their assegais, and as we were unarmed I was for a moment a little apprehensive. They found, however, that we were innocent of any outrage, and one of them ad vancing towards the two women, who were stiU jammed in the doorway, coolly prodded them with his assegai, and spurred them to such heroic efforts that they squirmed through. A Mashona man always treats his womankind with great firmness, and cur tain lectures of the Caudle, or any other pattern, are quite unknown. Round about, perched on odd little eminences, were little storehouses or granaries. They were built of mud, and looked like short, thick chimney pots. At harvest-time these receptacles are filled and sealed up, and only one is opened at a time. A MAIDEN FOR A BURNING GLASS. 191 They are not more than five feet high, and hold about two hundredweight. When I was there the last harvest was a dreary long way off, and only four little granaries stood between the population and starvation. They were all on half rations, and expected to have a bad time before the crops were ready. With the usual casual improvidence of the African native, they had sold most of their grain for limbo. The people were much astonished at a piece of India rubber tubing I had with me. They could not understand how a foot could become a couple of yards, and greeted the miraculous phenomenon by holding their mouths and crying " Wagh ! " in an awe-struck manner. The magnifying glass was another source of wonder, and every native present was keenly desirous of being specially scorched there with. The sergeant, who understood Kaffir, said that I was regarded as a supernatural being, who brought the sun down to the earth when it pleased me. I could have exchanged that five-shilling glass for a valuable Mashona maiden had I been so inclined. Another feat which astonished them greatly was my balancing an assegai on my nose, chin, and lip. They clustered round me in silent, awe-struck groups while this performance was going on; and when I finally made the assegai turn a somersault iu the air; and deftly caught it on my extended finger-tip, the tension became almost pain- 192 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. ful. The witch-doctor and smeller-out slunk away a disgraced impostor, and the children ran from me crying. They were afraid I would exercise my skill to turn them into a blade of grass or a pebble— which is a common superstition among Kaffirs. In the huts I noticed some rather imposing earthen ware jars. They were five feet high, and held, I should say, a hundred gallons. Each hut had three of these monster jars standing side by side. They are used for making Kaffir beer. The household oven is also an imposing affair, being six feet high, circular in shape, and capable of baking a sheep whole. The beds are four feet from the ground, and are made of wood, with some ingenuity. None that I saw were more than four feet long, so it is fair to infer that the Mashona, in that particular stadt at least, sleeps curled up caterpillar fashion. The country we passed through was very green and fresh. The veld was of the best from a farmer's point of view, and streams were constantly met with. Most of the B.S.A. men in the party had chosen this part of the country for their farms, and were always on the look out for the beacons with their names thereon. Not one of them knew within fifty miles where his farm was, for the land had not then been surveyed, and confusion was natural. When I passed things were a bit muddled, owing to men pegging FARM PEGGING. 193 out their own farms, anyhow, anywhere, without the least enquiry as to whether the ground had been pegged before, or if so, where the other man's boun dary ended. This happy-go-lucky system naturally caused complications. Then farms which have been pegged out by A and B, who depart immediately thereafter, are occasionally repegged by C and D, who occupy the ground to the exclusion of the absentees, A and B. Occupiers could always take ground pegged by absentees, unless the absentees were pioneers, who had the special privilege of hold ing their farms, without occupation, against all comers. To peg out a farm in Manicaland was, therefore, very unsatisfactory work. All the best places were pegged out, and owned by absentees. For miles and miles the country was bepegged. The new man coming along with his pegs had to take his chance of choosing a farm pegged off by an absentee civilian. If he did that, and occupied the land, his claim against the original civilian holder would be recognised by the Chartered Company; but if he dropped on a pioneer farm he had to vacate directly the pioneer appeared on the scene, and then when the two met in that lonely land there was fighting and other unpleasantness. But all that is passed and done with now, the farms being carefully surveyed by the Surveyor-General for the Company. 194 CHAPTER XVII. Embryo Millionaires — A Stupendous Banquet — Robinson's Lion — And other Lion Stories — The Sad Fate of Poor Billy Jones — Trooper Nesbitt's Narrow Escape — Up a Tree. After leaving the awe-struck denizens of Moret- tella's kraal the transport wagon continued its leisurely journey over the excellent road made by Selous for Messrs. Johnson, Heany, and Burroughs. Nearly every day we crossed running little streams of clear water, and a dip three times a day was the rule. There were two exceptions — two sturdy troopers — who said that they had enough to do without dressing and undressing — besides, frequent bathing was liable to cause fever. These two never took their clothes off, and when they turned in, contented themselves with taking off their boots. Though it was early discovered that the commissariat had "done" the party in the matter of tinned beef, the life was not at all unpleasant. Several members of the party had one, or even two shares in the " Little B " or " Big B " syndicate at Hartley Hills, and were sub- A GREAT MEAL. 195 limely confident of a future within the next year or two. There was always plenty of time for conversa tion, aud I was frequently amused at the future mapped out by these embyro millionai: es. One big Yorkshireman intended to buy a cottage in his native country, and employ the best cook in York shire to cook for him all day long. He was always thinking of eating, was this man, and entertained us all with fanciful menus. He always barred porridge, honey, and cornel beef. This was the man who organised a stupendous banquet one day. We had been going badly on the usual rations when we came to a pretty place, where Mashonas came in flocks with a superabundance of fowls, eggs, milk, and pea nuts. The Yorkshireman took the first three courses in hand, while I took command of the confectionery department. Cooking commenced at 10 p.m., and we were still toying with the dessert (baked peanuts) at sunset. There was soup, consisting of bully beef, rice, split peas, and eggs. There was an entree of stewed wood-pigeons, followed by roast fowls (three fowls to a man). Then came boiled eggs, each man being provided with six rounds. Afterwards the wonderful pudding appeared. It had been cooked in the largest billy, and consisted of fifty eggs, a packet of maizena, half a tin of cocoa, two quarts of milk, a pinch or two of Boer meal, and a pot of o 2 196 A NOBODY IX MASHONALAND. raspberry jam. It was an enormous success, and was named " The Dare-all Pudding." There was also Kaffir beer without limit. Everybody was ill the next day, but the memory of that exhaustive ban quet will long remain in the memory of all those who partook of it. As we were in a part of the country remarkable for lions, a line was tied to trees parallel with the wagon. The horses were tied to this line, while the men slept between the horses and the wagon. One man got nightmare, and woke us all up with a yell which fairly froze our blood. He declared that a lion had walked soft-foot within a foot of his head, but there was no spoor to bear out his statement, and he narrowly escaped being assaulted by his exas perated comrades, while the sleepy sergeant in charge talked of putting him under arrest for con duct unbecoming a trooper and a gentleman. The next day we came upDn a man who was com placently skinning a lion he had shot the night be fore. It was a big beast, with terrific teeth, and paws as big as a soup plate. Each claw was a curved dagger, and it was easy to imagine what such an animal would do with a man. One blow would crush in the head like an egg shell, without any assistance from the claws. This man told us that he was asleep under his wagon, with a little dog sleep- ROBINSON AND THE LION. 197 ing on his chest, when he was awakened by the dog whining in a peculiar way. For a moment he was unable to realise where he was, and was on the point of springing up. Fortunately he had the presence of mind to smother this natural impulse, and re mained perfectly still. The moon was at its last quarter, but the sky was obscured by drifting clouds, so that the light was fitful and poor, even when the clouds left the moon clear for a second. As it happened, he was just in the position to see the Hon, which was looking through the wheel of the cart at the horror-stricken dog, which remained on the breast of his master, shaking with terror. The man — Robinson, I think, was his name, or Robbins — kept himself from moving even an eye-lid. He did not know for certain whether the Hon was after him or the dog. He dared not throw the dog off, for fear that the movement would precipitate an attack, and he did not like to reach for his rifle lying by his side for the same reason. Presently the lion moved away from that particular wheel and started circling round the wagon with the utmost deliberation, and so softly that the strained ears of the sweating Robin son could only just hear it. His position was of the most unpleasant kind, for he dared not move, and when the lion stopped at the other side, out of his line of vision, he suffered torture sufficient to 198 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. turn his hair grey. The lion might at any moment put in his terrible paw and claw out his supper by the leg. The suspense became unendurable, until, little by little, Robinson was able to obtain posses sion of his rifle, and get into some sort of position. Of course, where he was, under the waggon, he could not see the sights, and if he fired and merely wounded the animal the chances were a hundred to one on the beast getting under the wagon and killing his audacious enemy on the spot. If he had been able to get part of the rifle through the wheels, and so have the sights in the moonlight, he could have made a shot, when a favourable opportunity occurred, with all the chances in his favour. As it was, he did not dare to take the risk, until his position became absolutely desperate. After circling round for half- an-hour, the lion stopped by its old place, but a little to the left of the wheel, so that Robinson's legs were lying within conveniently easy access. The animal crouched down and was in the act of reaching for Robinson, when that gentleman fired with fatal effect. The lion fell in a heap, and after a few convulsive movements lay still. The bullet had entered the brain at the forehead, and came out at the back. " While I am in this country," said Robinson, as he deftly scraped a claw of his late antagonist with a penknife, " I'm going to sleep inside the wagon." GOBBLED UP. 199 While we stood around, the conversation naturally turned on lious. Carter, a member of the party, said: "You never know where you are with those infernal things. Sometimes they run away from you, sometimes they go for you. Sometimes they prefer donkey's meat, sometimes oxen, and some times nothing will satisfy them but a human being. They do say that a hon which has once tasted white man will take no other food. I suppose we have a dainty sort of flavour different to the common nigger. Now you remember poor Billy Jones," he said, looking enquiringly around, "you know how he went ? " Everybody had heard except me. I had heard something about Jones's fate, which was known all over Mashonaland, but had been unable to get the particulars. Seeing I was interested, Carter went on : "I started prospecting in the Manica country about three months ago with two donkeys, and enough grub to last us for six months. There were four of us, and Billy Jones was one. He was a careless, devil-may-care chap, and never knew what it was to be tired. Good shot, too, and always did his whack of work, and more besides. He often used to go ou a-head, miles ahead, shooting game. Though I'm fond enough of fresh meat, I often 200 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. used to warn Billy against going out so far by him self, and sleeping by himself all night as he often did. But he didn't give a curse for lions, and never could be brought to believe that lions were capable of attacking a white man. ' I wish the brutes had the pluck,' he often said, for he had promised his girl in Capetown a necklace of lion's claws, and was keen about killing lions. Well, one day, when we had not had a bit of meat for two days, he started on ahead. In the evening we stopped at a river, and concluded that Billy had camped for the night further on. In the morning we started on again, and we had not gone ten miles when we came across a still smoking fire. ' Hullo,' cried Bryne, ' Billy's left his billy behind.' Just then I found Billy's rifle about twenty yards away from the fire with an ex ploded cartridge in the breech. I felt somehow that something had gone wrong with my old chum, and we all scattered with the idea of finding or following up his spoor. In half a minute Bryne cried out, ' Ouch ! ' just, as if he had stepped upon a snake, and when I got to where he was standing, I saw him glaring at one of Billy's boots. ' What the blazes,' I said roughly, ' do you go screeching like that for over a boot ? ' I was mad with Bryne, do you see, because his screech had sort of curdled my blood. It had such a horrified sort of creepiness about it. NESBITT'S NARROW ESCAPE. 201 ' Boot,' he whispered, ' Boot, why, man, there's the foot in it still ! ' And sure enough the poor fellow's foot was there. There was blood all over the place, and the spoor of a big hon could easily be seen on the soft ground. We followed up the spoor, and found half of poor Billy's head near a tree. The tall green grass all round was crushed down, showing that the lion had been lying there. It was the top of Billy's head that was left, and both the eyes were open and seemed to be looking at something on the ground fifty yards away. We buried the poor rem nants under a big wild plum tree, and spent a week in tracking that lion ; but it must have gone clean out of the country, for we never came up with it. We got dead off prospecting, and started straight back to Salisbury." This narrative, told as it was by Carter with simple directness and genuine feeling, cast a gloom over our little party, and all that day nothing was talked of but lions. Kennedy, a little Canadian, brimful of information, who never swore, said : " You know when I was stationed at Majunda I was sharing the first week with Nesbitt, son of old Major Nesbitt, now at Salisbury. One day I re turned after a long ride and found Nesbitt full of an escape he had just experienced. He told me that he was standing in front of the hut, which you know is 202 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. on a little kopje covered with rocks and grass five feet high. He was thinking more about home than anything else, and must have stood still, absorbed in sweet contemplation, for quite a considerable time. Suddenly he thought he heard a rustle in the grass. He perked up at once and listened with great intent- ness. After a bit he heard a kind of scraping, as if some soft body was being dragged very, very slowly over a flat rock about twenty yards from where he stood, but which was hidden by the long grass. Then he saw the grass move at a spot about fifteen yards off him. He went back into the hut to set his rifle, and as he came out again, saw a lion loping away. It must have become alarmed, and skipped. Nesbitt had a flying shot, but missed. He went to the place where he knew the lion had been, and traced its track for quite a hundred yards. It had evidently been stalking him for a long time, and must have crawled a hundred yards on its belly, inch by inch. If he had stood there another five minutes that lion would have had him as sure as nails. Majunda is an awful place for lions." This brought on Lochner, another trooper, with his little yarn. " Lions," said the trooper, " are not much to be dreaded when you have a wagon, a good big party well armed, and no donkeys. I wouldn't travel HE RUNS FOR A TREE. 203 through this country with donkeys, like some people do, for any money. But you can be worse off than that. You can be a post-rider between Umtali and Salisbury. You are ordered off from Umtali say with a letter for the Salisbury CO., which a naked Kaffir could take just as well, and a good deal more quickly than a trooper can on horseback. However, the trooper has to go. He must ride for days, through a country infested by lions, and sleep, if he is wise, up a tree every night, and trust his horse to Providence. If he loses his horse, as he often does, then he has to foot the rest of the journey, with not enough grub to last him, and then he has a bad time if the lions are about. One day about sunset, when I was post-riding, I had off-saddled, and was cooking some pap in my patrol tin, when I was startled by hearing my horse snort, and looking up, saw him scampering away through the bush, lickyty-split, with a lion bounding after him, forty feet at a bound. The horse was a good deal too quick, and after the lion had pursued the horse a little way, he stopped short, lifted up a front paw, sniffed in the direction of the horse, turned round and came skimming along my way. He came so bally fast that I had only just time to clamber up a little dead tree not thirty feet high. This tree had been dead for years, and its roots had '204 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. all rotted away. A good push would have upset it. There I was, with my rifle on the ground well out of reach, and the lion underneath. The branch I was on was only about twenty feet from the ground, and I was afraid every minute that he would jump at me and knock the tree down. I had my revolver, but didn't dare fire. Couldn't kill the beast with a revolver, not with any certainty, and if I had wounded him, he would have started up my tree, and that would have finished the business. Well, that lion just sat there and waited. The bough on which I was had cracked a little when I first jumped on, and I felt that if I moved the crack would ex tend, and the branch would break off. I had got on in a deucedly uncomfortable position, and the branch cut into the under part of my leg in a way that caused me the most exquisite pain. I had to stop there, or come down, and I stopped. I was there from four the one afternoon until seven o'clock the next morning. Then, as great good luck would have it, another post-rider came along. I shouted ' lion ' to him, but before he could come up the lion bolted. I was so stiff that I couldn't, walk for three days, and the sore on my leg, caused by that cruel branch, kept me on the sick list for a month." They went on talking " lions " all night I believe, but I fell asleep at this point. 205 CHAPTER XVIII. A Baboon Hunt — Laundry Work — An Aggravating Experience — On the Top of Disselboom Mountain — And its Thrilling Descent — A Discouraging Start — We Slumber — A Dreadful Pastime — I am Appointed Mess Orderly — And Make a Mess of it Accordingly — I Sink Lower and Lower — His First Taste of Fire-water — Those Sharp Corners ! One day when we were all more or less in a coma tose condition, owing to prolonged exposure to the sun, we saw in the distance a number of large baboons who came bounding and running towards the wagon at extraordinary speed. As we were about to outspan for the rest of the day several of the keener spirits tumbled off the waggon, each with his rifle and a hastily grabbed handful of Martini cartridges. I have always had a strong desire to kill one of these beasts, and was one of the first to start. We crept along in the hollow made by a river until we were within five hundred yards of a party of five baboons, who were gazing at the wagon and discussing it with considerable interest. The crack shot of the party took careful aim at the biggest one, and I fired at one which was pointing at the wagon just like a 206 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. human being. Both shots fell short, and the way those beasts dropped everything and ran fairly sur prised me. They reached a mountain behind in less than five minutes, and we could see them flying up the rocks like so many squirrels. We immediately started in pursuit, and found en route that we had miscalculated the distance when we fired, owing to a large unperceived hollow having intervened between us and our quarry. There was no bush in this part, simply pretty green grass with a dull purple head, and the effect when the wind ran across was pretty in the extreme. The heat was terrifying, but we were all anxious to bag a baboon, and the hill seemed so close that five of us decided to approach the mountain, surround it, and shoot as many baboons as we wanted. So we spread out and made for the mountain. It was easy going at the beginning, but presently the grass got an emerald green, and before I was able to pull up I was up to my knees in mud. The other members of the party were so widely separated that I could not communicate with them, but, judging from their slow rate of going, I guessed that they were having no better time than I was. As they placidly continued, I decided that I would not turn back, and went on somewhat gingerly, ex pecting every moment to fall into a bog which would swallow me up altogether. I toiled through the A FRUITLESS EXPEDITION. 207 swamp for two hours, and the hill seemed almost as far off as ever, while the wagon was just a speck in the distance. It was not until I had proceeded for another hour that I got up to the mountain , where I found the others waiting in an exhausted condition. We surrounded that mountain, tumbling over stones, crawling over huge boulders, and tearing through bushes, but we never saw a baboon. We climbed up the hill, which must have been six hundred feet high, and from the top were able to enjoy an im posing view. I do not like to set down on paper the number of miles we commanded, but we overlooked miles and miles of plains and smaller kopjes. The sun poured down on the silent scene, not a breath of air moved the foliage of the distant trees, not a living thing was to be seen between us and the misty blue mountains miles and miles away. There were no birds, no butterflies, no bucks, no human beings, nor any sign of human habitation. It was as lonely as the sea, but a great deal more depressing and im pressive. We fired off all our cartridges at trees and prominent boulders, and returned whence we came. It was dreary hard work ; my rifle weighed as much as a portmanteau, and I gradually acquired a domineering appetite which was only kept within reasonable bounds by a sensation of thirst, and was in no way alleviated by sucking a stone, which 20S A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. fraudulent recipe is always said to be an unfailing specific. When we arrived at the wagon we found the other members of the party fast asleep in the best places under the wagon, with all the tiffin gone and the fire out. There was no shade in that part, except directly under the wagon, and I remember that I found a bit of shade which was big enough for my head, but no more. The sun burnt the rest of my body like a fire. Later on, when the sleepers awoke, we had to explain why we had brought back no meat. No apologies were made for our share of the midday meal being appropriated. We were not there in time, and that was sufficient. Towards evening we came into a lovely bit of country, and passed a big post and a board on which was painted " Laurencedale Settlement." We out- spanned there, close to a tumbling waterfall, where we had a heavenly bathe, and got through some heavy laundry work. I do not think that I shall ever again begrudge the money demanded by my washerwoman. No one who has not turned to and washed a heavy pair of cord trousers, or a 41b. woollen shirt, can understand what real, grinding, hard work washing is. It makes the arms ache, the back crack, the head ache, and the knuckles raw. If you have only one shirt, which is the rule in Mashonaland, you get terribly blistered, because, you have to stand DRESSING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 209 out in the middle of the stream where there is no shade ; you keep dropping the soap into the water too? and have to run after it and make blind grabs for it in the mud. After all your trouble you never get the article satisfactorily clean, and it is as dirty as ever in a couple of hours. Old stagers in Mashonaland don't wash their clothes. Sleeping under the wagon had its disadvantages as well as its advantages. By sleeping under the wagon I found that I escaped the heavy dew which fell every night like rain, and I had the feeling that while the other men slept outside, the lions would be less bable to go for me ; but I was constantly knocking my head against the cross-beam, and when I had to get up in the dark, as I always had to do, I found it difficult to find the different articles which I had placed in readiness for my hasty toilet. No matter how bright the moon was outside, it was invariably pitch dark under the wagon, and I was always leaving things behind. I never seemed to awake until the oxen were all inspanned and on the ^ery point of starting. Then I would have to huddle on my clothes under the wagon, because it was dry there, and wet outside. No one who has not tried to dress in a stooping position, knows what it means. Then the kaross, waterproof sheet, and two blankets - — all different sizes and requiring nice adjustment P 210 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. — had to be laid out evenly, and rolled up, and strapped. It was a horrid labour. Once when we had only two hours' sleep allowed us, I disregarded the call of a friendly trooper, and obstinately deter mined to have five minutes' doze. I was awakened by hearing a great cracking of whips, and found the wagon moving away. It was heavily loaded with mealie meal, and the wheel just missed going over my leg. It was a very close thing indeed. There was no stopping the wagon once it had started, and I had to gather up as many of my rugs as possible in a bundle and run after the wagon. Running with loose blankets in one's arms over virgin veld in the dark with bare feet, is not at all funny business for the performer. The first run enabled me to- get the heaviest part of my things on the wagon, and then I had to go back and pick up a stray blanket, a mos quito net — which I carried for two thousand miles, and never once used — a pillow, and my rifle. I had to run with that load for a mile at least. Then I had to skip back and dress. After that I was walking and running for two hours before I caught up with the wagon. It is astonishing how difficult it is to catch up with one of these slow-moving lumbering wagons, once it has got a little start. It may be noted by the way that the police on the wagon were in no way interested or amused at my efforts. They were ' ONE OF THE SHOW PLACES. 211 sleepy, and dozed unconcernedly. If I had been left behind that was my look out ; they didn't care either way. " Every man for himself and Providence for us all," is an admired maxim with the B.S.A. man. After that little episode I used to wake up with a dislocat ing start a dozen times in the night. The ground, I remember, used to be very hard and bumpy, and it. was not until I hit upon the simple plan of digging up the ground with a stray shovel found on the wagon that I was able to get up in the morning without uncomfortable dents in the soit parts of my body, and blue bruises on the flesh covering the more prominent bones. After we had crossed the Sheki river, and had been travelling for some miles, we came suddenly upon the end of the plateau. Right below us we could see the country, under the same conditions as if we had ascended a mountain of enormous height. Down below, the mountains were close together, and range upon range stretched away in apparently end less lines from north to south. Some of these mountains were rather considerable affairs ; but from where we stood they appeared little better than insignificant mo'e hills. I should like very much to describe the scenery that was extended beneath me on that evening, because it is said to be the finest bit of scenery in the whole of Africa. 1 have visited r 2 212 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. many countries, and have seen many of nature's show places, but nothing that I have seen could be com pared to the view from Disselboom Mountain. It is incomparable, and as far as my poor pen is concerned, indescribable. It kept me dumb long after the sun had set, and even the most callous of the policemen in the party, a foul-mouthed rough with as much poetry in him as a kettle, and with no more imagina tion, refinement, or culture than a tadpole, spoke in a whisper, and forebore to swear for quite a long time. The conversation that night was confined to religious topics. The two Freethinkers had rather a bad time of it, I remember. We intended going down Disselboom Mountain before the sun set ; but just as the first wagon started it struck fair and square on to a split tree stump with such force that the wheel forced open the split, and became so firmly fixed that it be came a sort of wooden Milo Cretoniensis, and the eighteen oxen strained in vain. When the poor beasts had been lashed into a state of quivering panic, it occurred to one of the party that if the wagon were pulled through the stump it would go flying down the terrible hill at a rate of a hundred miles a minute. It was an extraordinary Steep hill, dipping twenty yards from the stump with all the suddenness of a Swiss roof, and continuing A STEEP DECLINE. 213 for three miles and more. The road down this pre cipice was very narrow, and cut through the forest by men who did not believe in leaving a large margin. Along the edge were ugly stumps capable of overturning any wagon, and most of the way down there were huge loose boulders and startling ridges of rock. There was a river at the bottom, over which was a narrow corduroy bridge. A wagon going down there, at its own sweet will, would go about as quickly as a rock thrown from the summit of the Matterhorn, and it would only be stopped by the bodies of the first four couples of oxen. So the. whip was laid aside, and the stump was laboriously hacked through with a small — a very small — axe, the head of which flew off at frequent intervals. The wheel was released at last, and then it was discovered that the brake-block of the first wagon was worn away. Another had to be cut and fitted, and after the two fore and aft wheels had been comprehensively chained together, and the brake screwed down to the very last turn, the start was made. The full moon was shining brightly, but it was low down in the heavens, and the trees cast great black shadows across the road, adding a good deal to the danger of the descent. Half way down, in the worst place of all, a huge mountain close by inter posed its solid shadow, and then the situation be- 214 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. came thrilling, because the read twisted like a park walk, and we never quite knew when the turning- was coming, and always had the eerie feeling that the front oxen might step into space, and drag over the rest, along with the wagon, to the hind part to which we were clinging, a solid human drag. Not being officially interested, I took care to hold on in such a way that, if everything went over, I, at least, could pose at a later date as the sole survivor, Still, for a mile at least, I held on and pulled back until the heels of my boots were torn off. Then I resigned and took a responsible position in the rear, where 1 could pick up what was jolted off the cart. How that wagon did jolt, grind, crash, and bounce over the boulders ! Over rocks a foot high it sailed like a ship. It struck trees, knocked out great splinters, hung a second dazed, and then ground on again, rattling and banging like a gatling gun. Every board was vibrating like the floor in a building where a hundred stamp battery is working at top speed. Cases and bags of meal were worked off into the road, trunks and light gear of that sort flew into the air and back into the wagon in a way that reminded me a good deal of my games long ago with the cup and ball. Tins, kettles, and kit bags danced together like marbles in a roughly shaken bag. Every minute something fell off, and had to WE GET DOWN AT LAST. 215 be hastily grabbed and thrown on anyhow. I fixed my rifle three times in a safe nook by the driver's seat, but it worked its way down like a needle in water, and slipped off on to the read. I carried it at last, along with the kettle, a mess tin, the York- shireman's puppy dog, and two tins of bully beef, and fervently used up my most lurid adjectives every five steps. We went on like this for over an hour, slowly sliding clown. Then it was discovered that the new brake block had worn right through, and that the frame work of the brake was on one wheel, while the block clamp held fast on the other. This threw the whole contrivance out of gear, and rendered the brake liable to go at any moment. The chain broke soon after ; but we could not stop the wagon, and could merely hang on behind and appeal to Pro vidence to keep the brake until the worst part was passed. The way those troopers hung on to the back of the wagon did them infinite credit. We got down safely, after three hours of the hardest kind of work, and found that the wagon had suffered but little. The strength of those cumbrous arks on wheels is really prodigious. The hill is called " Disselboom Mountain," because the first party going that way with a wagon smashed six disselbooms in making the ascent, which is stiff 216 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. enough to tire a bird. When we reached the bottom I could not at first see the place from which we had started, because all round us were mountains ; but I was shown the highest point of the highest moun tain, a whit3 peak glistening in the moonlight, and there I saw the faint flicker of the fire we had left. I don't know how the path looks in the daylight from below, but in the light I saw it in, it was enough to make my hair stand up. We promptly outspanned after our great achievement. I was just dead with fatigue, and threw myself down on my waterproof sheet without even taking my hat off. Before I fell off to sleep I noticed a Kaffir going to bed. He took off all his clothes (a yard and a-half of limbo) and spread them on the ground close to the fire. Then he crept under, and curled up so as to get as much cover as possible. In a minute he was still and asleep. Kaffirs do not suffer from in somnia, and never catch cold, I believe. The next day the sun bounced up in the east like a huge fire-ball, and in an hour we were all panting with the heat. At 10 o'clock it was simply appalling, and at 11 we had to stop for fear of killing the oxen. I remember being dimly surprised at my clothes not burning. I say dimly because I was so overwhelmed with the heat pouring down on me that I was almost unconscious. For the last hour indeed A SICKLY GAME OF WHIST. 217 I thought I was head-baker in a place which looked like the engine-room of a large steamer. I was making penny buns on a bench that was within a yard of the open door of a glaring roaring furnace. When we stopped I tumbled under the wagon and soon came to myself again in the grate ful shade. Later on, when the monotony of lying dead still suffocating under the wagon had become un bearable, four of us started a dreary game of whist, with thick, sticky, square-cornered cards. Each pliyer had to take up a most constrained atti tude, which became unendurable after a few minutes. We were always shifting about, and everybody saw everybody's cards. The heat all the time was shock ing. Oh ! it was a dreadful pastime. We stopped in the middle of a game because my partner spread his cards on the grass and slid down with the mut tered remark that he supposed I was " good at play ing with dummy." The rest of the party were asleep, or comatose, and the three of us who had been playing sought what places we could find and composed ourselves to slumber. Just when I was almost comfortable, and' nearly asleep, I heard a voice say : " How about grub ? " Presently another voice said : 218 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. "Who is the bally mess orderly to-day ? " — "Ken nedy," shouted somebody in response. " No," remarked Kennedy, with his accustomed ac curacy of expression, " it ain't, it's his turn." And he indicated me. I thought, from the beginning that I was to be exempt from that sort of thing, being a sort of guest, as it were, but the troopers did not hold with playing permanent host to a " bally civilian," and so I was appointed "mess orderly." The time was about one p.m., and there was no shade outside the wagon. When I looked at the white ashes of the almost dead fire I nearly fainted, for there was no wood; no water, the pots all dirty, and the food all over the wagon in inaccessible places. There was no boy, because plain troopers are not allowed servants. Being mess orderly I was the one to clean those pots, cut and carry the wood, fetch the water, keep the fire going, and search all through the wagon, find the bully beef, the sugar, Boer-meal and tea, and when found, prepare the meal, clean the tin plates, the knives and the forks. In that stupefying heat such an undertaking was beyond a joke. I went up to the fire and looked at the big pot, the inside of which was caked with dry pap, which would take half-an -hour's hard and dreary scraping. It was red hot — nearly — owing to its having t)een exposed all the morning to the sun, I ASK SOME QUESTIONS. 219 and the river was five hundred yards away. Every man under the wagon had comfortably composed himself for a little nap, blissfully assured that the new mess orderly would get tiffin ready some time during the day. But I came to the wagon and said: " Where is the kettle ? " " Look for it," grunted the eldest trooper, sleepily and surlily. I waited a minute. Then I came to the wheel again and asked : " How am I to cut wood when there is no head to the axe, and no wood within a million miles ? " " Bushes by the river," said Kennedy. I went to the river, found some wood, but no signs of water. It had evaporated, and I did not know where the nearest pool was. So I came back, and said, " There is no river and no water." " Go to the pools," muttered the Yorkshireman. " i" don't know anything about pools," I said, "How am I to track out their whereabouts ? The bed of the river is as dry as salt." There was a general groan of disgust and con tempt, but each man kept quiet, partly because he could not express his feelings without becoming broad awake, and he hoped to get asleep as soon as I stopped troubling ; and partly because he knew that 220 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. the man who took a prominent part in the discussion would be expected to crawl out and assist me. It was an assistant I was labouring for. So I said : " I don't know where the water is. Where's the sugar ? Who knows where the bully beef is ? Where's the nigger to clean these pots ? Do you wash the rice in cold or hot water? How much water goes to the rice, and how many teaspoonfuls of rice are required for this party ? How long does it take to boil ? I can't open the bully beeT with a penknife, and do you want bully beef on a hot day like this anyhow ? Do you put salt in the rice ? Is an hour enough for split peas ? Do I put them in cold water, and " Well, before this tiffin was prepared, five troopers were engaged besides myself. I was put down as a use less tenderfoot, and "a bally fool" besides. They were very frank always. I had to clean the knives and forks, but I could do that in the shade of the wagon. Afterwards it was decided that as I was no good I was to be exempt from regular mess duty, on condition that I got all the wood I could carry every day. It was humiliating, but they " placed " me correctly. All the little things I could do were of no account, and I was regarded by those troopers in the same light as are the little third form cricketers by the crack men of the first cloven. TRIED AND FOUND WANTING. 221 It was a curious experience being snubbed by those men. I found myself getting proud when one of them forgot himself, and spoke to me as to an equal. I had one or two chances of winning a high place, and a trooper came to me to decide a geographical question. It was something about the latitude of Quebec. Well, I didn't know, and the trooper audibly considered what I was good for. Later on another man wanted to know whether a whale was a fish. I said it was a fish — who wouldn't ? And he proved it was a marine animal. I was given one more chance. I was asked something about astronomy — some ordinary first primer question — and I didn't know anything about it as usual. But I pretended I did, and gave a highly ornate reason for a very ordinary thing. It was accepted, and the loser paid his bet. But he was an obstinate fellow. One clay he hit upon a " Whittaker's Almanack," and therein he found that he was right all the time. It was a dreadful thing to happen, and the man who had paid over his money fought with the other because he refused to refund. You see they both agreed to make me arbi trator, and regard my decision as final. I was after wards asked whether insects had any feeling. I promptly referred to Darwin, and said that they had. Two of the party, however, knew more about Darwin than I did, and they proved that the great scientist 222 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAAD. had declared that insects had no feeling whatever. Therefore I was under a cloud. They never chanced to ask me about anything I did know. One day we came upon a number of reallyunsophist- icated Mashonas. The chief was rather a big and powerful man — for a Mashona— and he was very in quisitive. It occurred to one of the party that he would bestow a tablespoonful of his dop brandy on that chief, and get things from him afterwards at a low figure. He poured it out in the usual iron-porcelain mug, and gave it to the guileless native, who swallowed it in one gulp. The poor man was petrified with astonish ment, and remained for quite a minute in the same position, arm extended, head thrown back, right foot advanced. His eyes stood right out, and it was evi dent that he was in deadly fear. He waited to see if he was struck dead, then he slowly brought his head straight, bent himself forward, and carefully watched his stomach with an air of ludicrous intent- ness. One of the troopers who could talk a little of the language found out that the Mashona thought he had swallowed some fire, and was watching his stomach in the momentary expectation of seeing it burst into flames. He actually ran away when he was offered another tot. Johnny, the sot of the party, almost shed tears about it. The selfishness of the lower class of men living FIRST COME FIRST SERVED. 223 under primitive conditions has often been com mented upon. There are exceptions, of course, but, as a rule, gentlemen, under similar circumstances, show a certain amount of consideration to one another, out of pure habit I daresay, and not because tbey are any better than the common man. We used to start long before day-break, and there would nearly always be a little hot coffee for the first three or four who came, but the late men never got any thing. Then just before the wagon started, the man who got ready first would he on the sacks in a perfectly comfortable position. No. 2 would pick out the next best place, and settle himself with a complete disregard of the exigencies of space and the comfort of those, who came after. Though there was room for all to be comfortable, with a little manage ment, it invariably happened that four continued their sleep in comfort, while the other six sat up on sharp corners shivering with the cold, and suffering badly for sleep. 224 CHAPTER XIX. Umtali !- - And not Much at That— A "B.S.A." Trooper at Home— They Shifted the Camp — A Night Expedition — I Propose Taking my Departure — And Want to Buy an Ox — But am Rudely Dissuaded — A Reinforcement — The First Canteen — The American took the Pool — An Aggravating Mistake. I had heard a good deal of Umtali, but it was just the sort of place that I had been carefully trained to expect. At the time I arrived, it was situated on a steep little kopje which is overlooked on every side by other kopjes of rather imposing altitude, all of which are within easy rifle-shot of the township. Towards the east a grand range of mountains tower, a magnificent spectacle. Close, to the camp, perched on a steep hill, is the fort, which was made with many groans by the much-maligned B.S.A. trooper, It cost a terrible lot of hard work, and was a foolish site, because it was commanded on all sides by other mountains in close proximity. The Portuguese could have blown the fort and the camp to pieces if they had chosen to bring four field guns to bear. As for the camp, it was merely a collection of little round A PRIMITIVE READING-ROOM. 225 log-walled, grass-roofed huts, built by the Mashonas according to the invariable pattern. The only institution was the reading-room — a large square hut. An attempt had been made once upon a time to plaster the logs with mud, but it had all fallen away, and the wind whistled through with out any let or hindrance to speak of. The sky was visible through the roof, and readers had to move about, at intervals in order to keep out of the sun. The floor was of mud. There was one little table on which was spread a disorderly pile of Natal and home papers, the latest of which were seven weeks old. They were torn, frayed, and soiled, and had been read over and over again, advertisements and all. The seats were various, but all singularly uncomfortable ; one was a carpenter's saw-block, another was a 501b. biscuit tin, which was subsiding like a concertina all the time I sat on it ; another disconcerting seat was a full kit-bag stood on end ; but the crack chair was a bully beef case. The room was not used merely for study, for it served also as the officers' kitchen. There were always dirty plates on the ground, and Kaffirs cooking at the fire near the centre. There was an odd rat-eaten boxing-glove on the floor, a bullock's head, some malodorous bones, and a num ber of empty tins littered about. There was no door, and the window was a little square hole par ti 226 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. tially veiled by a dirty piece of white limbo, which flapped desolately in the draught. It was a dirty and cheerless library, destitute of the most ordinary books of reference, but well supplied with fleas, which were always referring to me. I got very tired of Umtali, and turned cold when it looked as if I must spend the rainy season there. Here it was that I obtained my first real idea of what a B.S.A. trooper's life was like in camp. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go. There was the hut, in which were three other men, and there was the reading-room. Down the hill was the veld. I " dossed " down with three other troopers, who took pity on me as a homeless waif. There are no hotels at Umtali, and the commanding officer cares not for the stranger within his gate. Hospitality is not a strong point with the B.S.A. officers. " Dossing " in my case was not very good business. All the other men had their beds, and I was allowed to throw my rugs on the ashes near the fire and sleep there. Cooking was going on all day, and in a short, time I got to loathe the sight of the only pot. On the second day a Mashona was engaged for a yard of limbo per month. He had no clothes whatever, and used to squat down by the fire — on a handful of grass screwed up into a knob, which was his chair — all day and smoke. A BRILLIANT IDEA. When I got to Umtali the camp was being shifted to the new site, which is about seven miles nearer Salisbury. The move was imperative, because the Company had omitted to secure the site of the town ship to themselves, and enterprising prospectors came along and pegged out the whole camp, fort and all. So a new site had to be found. It was as well, because the whole place would have been uninhabitable in another three months, owing to the fleas. They used to drive me out into the night sobbing. It was dreadful. When I was there the rains were expected every day, and some anxiety was felt that the huts in the new township would not be built in time by the Mashonas. Of course, the troopers couldn't be expected to assist, and if the Mashonas failed in their contract the poor, ill-used trooper would be in a nice plight when the rains came and found out the weak places in the leaky huts. One by one the Mashonas engaged on the work flitted away to their distant kraals, and the work of building went on more and more slowly. At last only three boys were left to build thirty huts in two weeks. The thirty officers and men took it in turns, I believe, to watch these three men, but, in spite of every precaution, the shifty rascals escaped, and were seen no more. Then it was that somebody was struck with a brilliant idea. Why not send out and capture enough of the lazy Q 2 228 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. rascals to finish the necessary work? So late one afternoon all the men in Umtali were told to get ready for a night expedition. The B.S.A. man does not like night expeditions for many reasons. The getting ready is always a terrible affair. The three troopers in my hut commenced packing at five o'clock, and were only just finished at twelve. Turning out in full foray order is not the simple affair commonly supposed by civilians. Spurs, curbs, &c, have to be polished with sand and water. Each man is bound to strap his overcoat and blanket on the saddle, and the straps are always too short, badly off for holes, and obstinately stiff. Then there is the patrol tin, the bandolier heavy with cartridges, the bayonet, and the revolver to fix on the body. Last, but by no means least, the warrior has to climb on to his horse without pulling the saddle round, or upsetting the steed ; and when on, he has to hold his carbine, guide his horse, watch his houseful of furniture that it fall not off, and obey orders. Round about Umtali it is liilly, and often a careless trooper, when he is going up or down hill, slides over his horse's head or tail along with his saddle, blanket, overcoat, patrol tin, bandolier, bayonet, and revolver. When this happens at night time the troop proceeds, and the trooper has to saddle up in the dark by himself. It is easy to imagine the language he uses. When he PREPARING FOR A RAID. 229 catches up with his troop he has a bad time with his officer, who promises to attend to his case when head quarters are reached again. Attending to his case is a hackneyed euphemism for a week " confined to barracks" — an awful and dreary punishment. On the occasion in question my three troopers had a specially nasty time of it, because they had only just arrived in camp, and all their accoutrements were in a dreadful state. The straps would not fit the blan kets, and instead of the neat roll demanded by the regulations, ungainly parcels were evolved, which might be stowed away in a cab, but which could not be got on to any ordinary saddle. There was only one guttering candle to light them to their work, and the wind blowing through the hut kept the flame as blue as a sapphire, and melted the wax all one side, exposing six inches of wick. It was all done at last, however, " after a fashion, and when the men were mustered in the darkness they looked very soldierly indeed when the Commanding Officer flashed his lantern down the ranks. The half-starved diminutive ponies could hardly stand under their load, but that did not matter, because the load was in strict accor dance with the Horse Guards regulations. The only thing that was wrong was the size of the chargers, and, of course, the Horse Guards could not be blamed for that. After half an hour's waiting, it was dis- 230 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. covered that the Commanding Officer had changed his mind, and the men were ordered back to their quarters, which was lucky for two out of the three of my comrades, whose furniture could never have held on further than the first hill. Umtali is not a place for a man of leisure, and he who has nothing to do soon tires of the place and sighs for other pastures. The rainy season was already due, and every afternoon there was a roar ing, drenching thunderstorm, frequently followed by twelve or fourteen hours' drizzle. I had decided on throwing in my lot with Yorkshire Bill and Sotty Tyrne, the two troopers who had secured their dis charges, and were making for Beira. We wasted three days waiting for bearers, and though we sent men out all over the country with offers of a bonus of 30s. per bearer brought in, not a single bearer could we obtain. The rainy season was coming on, and no Mashona who respected himself would go into the Low Country at that time. This was some what significant, not to say ominous, for if a Mashona knows anything he knows where to put his finger on the fever season. If it was not good enough for him, it was certainly not good enough for the unacclima- tised European, and I began to feel that I was com mitted to a very desperate undertaking. Everything, you see, was unknown, and the Umtali men were I SHOW MY IGNORANCE. 231 never tired of congratulating themselves on the fact that they hadn't to go. My two companions were also a little inclined to weaken ; but, as Tyrne re marked sententiously, " We can't go back to Salis bury, because we ain't got enough money to last: and we should have to walk there, besides which it is as far as to Mapanda almost : we can't stop here because our 'oof* would give over in a couple of months. We must go on, and if we die on the road, or are skoffed by lions, that's our luck : not our fault. Go we bally well must." This was also the opinion of the Yorkshireman. We accordingly de termined to give up all idea of obtaining bearers, and decided to get donkeys. We walked up and down miles of hills in search of donkeys, but nobody had any for sale. The exodus season had passed, and all who had donkeys, had either sold them or used them for their own flight. All that was offered us was an ox which had never been used for pack purposes. The very first day it was offered, I was delighted with the idea : for it was obvious to me that an ox could carry a good deal more than a donkey ; besides, when you had an ox there was always a reserve of meat. My companions, however, knew more than I did. Said Bill, in his frank way : " You fool, don't you know any- * Money. 232 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. thing at all ? Why, ¦ a blooming - ox is as hard to drive as a house. You can't pack an ox : not with ropes or reims. Its skin is as loose as a girl's petticoat, and the only way to make anything stay on is to nail it on with six-inch bolts. You have to lead it all the way by the nose, and the tsetse fly will kill it before we get twenty miles. Besides, we shall have to travel during the day, and an ox is no good in the sun. Goes too slow for us, anyhow. If we started with that ox, and it lived all the way, we should be a month get ting there, and besides " "Very well," I said, "I don't want the beast. But it's better than nothing, isn't it? Fancy having to carry your own rugs, grub, kettles, rifles, and ammunition on your own individual back, and walking through the hot sun, over awful roads, thirty miles a day. Why, it will give us all the fever in no time ! " " I ain't going to carry no rifle or ammunition. Your's will be enough for the party. There's going to be one rug, one waterproof-sheet, two shirts, two pairs of trousers, and two hats in Bobby's outfit and mine. A tin billy will have to do for the lot. Rations we knock down to ten days' Boer meal. You can carry what you like, of course." This was a truly pleasant programme ; but it was A HUNT FOR PACK-DONKEYS. 233 decided upon, and all that day we were throwing away our superfluous things. I hung on to most of mine, because .1 have always found that there is always time to throw things away. Besides, one trooper who was very anxious to buy my new top- boots (Kimberley price 60s.), had offered me half-a- crown for the same, and, by holding off a bit, he might be induced to spring a little. Snapping at the first offer is always poor policy. We were to have started at daybreak the next morning, but it began to rain at midnight, and at daybreak our little hill seemed to be the only bit of land in the world. The clouds had come right down , covered all the mountains, and filled the valleys be neath us. There was nothing but ghostly mist, and cold, dreary drizzle. We agreed that we would not start that day. In the afternoon it cleared up, and then we heard, quite by chance, that somebody, up somewhere, had two donkeys for sale. We started off in pursuit of that man with beating hearts, and had the huge good fortune to buy two donkeys for i,J12. When we had secured them we had to spend hours in searching for a pack-saddle. I never knew that a pack-saddle was necessary, and suggested that we should start without such a superfluity ; but the suggestion was received with a contempt that I found most galling. 234 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. We got two pack-saddles at last, and then another trooper came along, and said he would pay for his share of the two donkeys and would come along as weU. So the other two consented to this arrange ment without consulting me, and the thing was fixed. In the evening another trooper came pranc ing up to me in a state of great animation, and said: " You're going from this hole of a place to morrow morning?" " Yes." " Got donkeys ? " " Yes, and four men to load them," I said shortly. " Well," said he, cheerily and decisively, " I'll pay a fifth share and come along, too. My pal will pay his share, too. He doesn't care a blow for money. We shall be a very fine company, good enough for any blooming lion." And he flew away to get his things, and tell his pal the news. We got at him at night, and explained that our two donkeys were going to be devoted exclusively to the original four, and that he and his pal must get their own donkeys. " Very well," said he. " I'll get a donkey, if it costs a hundred bally pounds. Stop in this fright ful hole during another rainy season ? I bally well " THIRTY BOB," " MATTHEW," $ " MARY." 235 won't, not if I have to walk all the way on a dozen biscuits." We went to bed that fateful Saturday night full of anxiety about the future, but quite convinced that Thompson and his pal would not come with us. However, when we started they both turned up with a donkey. Such a poor thing, a long-haired, worried- looking, bony little beast, with 36-inch ears, and no more strength apparently than a cat. They had bought it for 30s., because the proprietor knew that it had been bitten by the tsetse fly, and expected it to die next day, or the day after. We promptly christened it " Thirty Bob." Our own big donkey we called " Matthew," and the smaller one was beaten under the name of " Mary." We were hours and hours packing, and at four o'clock we had got to the bottom of the old Umtali Hill, which was about five hundred yards from where - we started. Straps kept on breaking, blankets in sisted on slipping off, the bags of provender shifted in all directions, and " Thirty Bob " kept on going the wrong way and leading the other donkeys astray. To bring them back necessitated a quick rush round to head them off, and then the brutes would break into a trot, which would shake off everything except the pack-saddle. And then the loads had to be pain fully collected and laboriously fastened on again. 236 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. This sort of thing went on all day. Up above the troopers of Umtali looked down on us and jeered all the morning ; at .tiffin time they disappeared for an hour : then they returned and were merry at our expense the rest of the afternoon. It was the jolliest Sunday they had ever spent at Umtali. Gradually we got into the way of fixing things on the donkeys so as to make them stick — a difficult art only learnt after much travail — and yard by yard we drew away, until in time we lost sight of Umtali. We had proceeded three miles when we came upon a very neat Kaffir hut canteen. The hut was a large one, and most beautifully built, the inside being decorated with very neatly-joined strips of thin wood — a novel and very effective style of panelling. The men looked at the canteen, then at the sun ; then at the up-on-end-standing road we had to traverse. " It's a of a mountain : that first one," said MacDerdo, reflectively. " There's two more much worse behind it," said Thompson, who spoke from experience. " Going to rain, too," said Sotty ; " a farewell drink for luck won't do us any harm." So we stopped at that canteen, which is kept by a man who has gold properties all over the place. He was there long before the Chartered Company was AS IN TEXAS. 237 thought of, and stands to make a huge fortune if the Umtali gold district turns out trumps. Well, I had not been away from civilisation long enough to go mad over the sight of common Cape vitriol, at 30s. per bottle ; but the others had. The Yorkshireman was a sober man, and together we cooked the supper for the party, in the hut adjoining the canteen. But we had to eat it alone : dop was enough for the others. They began to play cards with a party of American Hebrews, who were going to Mapanda on donkeys, and dressed in black tail coats, and that sort of thing. Presently one of the strangers, who had somewhat clumsily manipulated a flush, jumped up, revolver in hand, and claimed the pool of £11. " I'm an American, I am," he said, as he flipped his re volver in the face of the others, as if it were a hose and he was sprinkling the whole party; "I guess I'll take this pool," and he did, too. The B.S.A. men had revolvers also, but they were too drunk to use them, and just sensible enough to recognise the futility of trying to " draw " when the other man had the "bead" on them. This high-handed action on the part of the American resulted in the break up of the card party, and at one o'clock there were six of us sleeping in the little hut. We were awakened by Sotty, who got us all up 238 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. and dressed, with blankets rolled ready for departure, before we discovered that he was hopelessly drunk, and had awakened us at 2 a.m. under the honest conviction that it was time to start. A good deal of language was used over this mistake, and the man who had been defrauded by the American said that now he was up " he would go and get that £11, and shoot the swindler besides." He was just drunk enough to do what he proposed, and we had a hard time to keep him back. While the argument was proceeding he persisted in flourishing his fully- cocked and loaded navy revolver about. We got him off to sleep at last, and took away his weapon. We all lay down again, and despite the fact that the place was really, and truly, and literally, alive with great black fleas, we were soon asleep. Soon after, however, I was awakened by Sotty pulling the blankets from off my face. There was a single lighted candle in the room, and by its light I saw that the drunken fool had his long hunting knife in his hand. I do not know to this day whether he actually meant to stab me, but he was too drunk to know what he was doing. I took that knife away from him, and forced him on to his blankets until he fell asleep. Oh, it was a most pleasant night ! 239 CHAPTER XX. The First Day's "Trek" — I go for Water— And Hark Back Again — Such a Getting Downstairs ! — Ah, Woe is Me ! — The Blessed Water at Last — No Tea that Night. In the morning an attempt was made at breakfast, but the Yorkshireman and myself were the only ones who partook of it. The others had tongues as furry as a ratskin, and were unable to eat. Nothing that we could devise could awaken Sotty, so it was decided to leave him. We loaded up the donkeys, and made our first real start. It was raining hard, with every appearance of a long spell of rain. We passed hundreds of little pits made by ancient miners: some had considerable trees growing in them, while all were more or less full of silted ground, on which the grass and bush grew luxuri antly. We kept on the back of the ridge taken by the B.S.A. men on their famous march to Massi- Kessi, and toiled up high hills and down high hills in the rain, until we were wet through. The scenery was magnificent, for we were on mountains 240 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. and surrounded by mountains. The mist and clouds which hung over the mountains above us, and on the deep valleys beneath us, opened, expanded, and contracted in most eerie fashion, causing some very startling scenic effects. There was always one narrow footpath, and one only. Sometimes we were walking along the side of the mountain, where one false step would have sent us to perdition. The path would slant a little, with the mountain, and my boots got sodden and slippery with the wet. Several times I slipped, but I always managed to save myself. Once when the mist closed in like a wall I was walking along full of confidence, and then suddenly a gust of wind blew aside the curtain, and there was 1 walking along with my right hand and rifle hanging over into space ! Had I slipped there I should have been twenty minutes reaching the bottom. While that bit of walking lasted I kept all my attention to my feet, and when the dangerous passages were passed I found myself wet through with perspira tion. At midday we stopped on the top of the first mountain. Every man was dead beat, for the climb ing had been a terrific strain on our unaccustomed muscles. We had no water, and could not cook any thing without it. " Where is the water ? " I asked, with affected jauntiness, as I swung the kettle. AN EXPEDITION THAT FAILED. 241 " Oh, just down there," remarked Thompson, pointing wearily downwards. I went to the edge and looked over, and saw that " down there " meant an expedition entailing im mense fatigue. The side of the hill was very steep, and would have been quite impassable had not the undergrowth been recently destroyed by fire. I went down with the tallest of the American Hebrews, and one of the troopers, each with a kettle or a " billy " in his hand. When we had got down a hundred feet or so we entered a belt of huge ferns ; they had trunks a foot in diameter, and twelve feet from the ground magnificent fronds, thirteen or fourteen feet long, and sixteen inches broad, shot out Prince of Wales'-feather fashion. They were very beautiful, but I was in no mood to admire the beauties of nature. I was dreadfully tired in the first place, and the lower I descended the more intense became the heat. The slow drizzle con tinued, and the decaying vegetation made a soft carpet, in which we sank up to our knees. A sickly- smelling steam exhaled from this dead matter, and the heat was the humid, panting heat of a tropical conservatory in the Kensington Gardens. As we proceeded downward in great exhausting strides, the giant ferns gave place to trees with pale pink- coloured [bark, and very bright dark green leaves. R 242 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. They grew very close together, and were united by strong creepers, most of which had been burnt through. Still, there were enough to make "the going" very heavy, and every now and again a low- lying strand would catch one or the other of us, and drop its victim literally on the top of his head. This may read like an exaggeration, but it is quite true. The hill was tremendously steep, and we were going down at a great rate, twenty feet almost at a stride, and when the sinewy creeper caught one of us by the ankle, the head had to strike ground first. A novelist who had not been there would never have dared to introduce such a thing as a fact. After a while it occurred to me that we had been travelling up mountains ever since we started from Umtali, and that the water must be at the same level. " Down there " assumed significant proportions, and I shouted to the other dunder heads, who were still tumbling downwards, that the water must be so far down that we could not find it, and bring it up to the top, under a day, and " be sides," I said, " I've had enough up and down hill work this morning, and we've got the whole after noon's trek ahead of us." They saw it in that light, and we all started on our return journey. The tall, pale, thin, weedy- looking Hebrew, whom I had despised as a weak- A TERRIBLE TRAMP. 243 ling, took the lead at once, and climbed up like a long-legged goat, but he had been riding all the morning. The trooper and myself crawled up ten yards at a time, and fell down and gasped. It was murderous hard labour, and towards the end our strength gave out entirely. I never really knew before what it was to feel as if each of my legs was bigger than my body. I could not only feel every bone, but I could feel the marrow throbbing. Lots of times we said we could never get up that day, but after every rest we made a few more yards, and so at last we got to the edge, and crawled up on to the plateau, just like two burglars getting on to the top of a wall. We found the other members of the party lying down on the wet grass, too tired to eat, but just alive enough to smile feebly at our green horn expedition, to find water in that particular spot. We packed the donkeys again at about two o'clock, and resumed our journey along the ridge, in the old order, the donkeys first, the rest of us in single file. The path was never more than nine inches wide, and wound round and round, and up and down in a very trying manner. Having top-boots and an ulster mackintosh I had a harder time than the other men, who trekked on in ammunition boots, with their trousers cut off at the knees. If I could • have done this journey at my own pace, I should R 2 244 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. have enjoyed it, because we looked down on the world, and the mountains and kopjes beneath looked like those maps where all the mountains of the world are gathered together. I mentioned this to one of the troopers, who said that the " heaps " reminded him of " a petrified feather bed," and may he "be blanky blank blanked if he ever wanted to see anything bigger than a molehill again." About four o'clock in the afternoon, when every man and donkey was tuckered out to the last tuck, we came upon a place where the path branched off into a fork. One went down towards the plain where the Revue river was, and the other went straight on along the ledge. We could see it miles ahead climb ing other mountains in the distance. We paused and considered, and it was resolved to go down the hill and get water. We were suffering terribly from thirst, for the trek had been one of the greatest severity. So we started the donkeys down. This hill was a very long one, with a gradient of about one in two. There was a thin little path cut through, but if you stuck out your elbows you struck a tree on each side. The path was slimy and slippery with rain, and falls were of momentary occurrence. I do not quite know how the donkeys managed to keep their footing, but they did. Everything on their HOW I GOT DOWN. 245 backs would keep on falling off, no straps or reims, no matter how tightly tied, could keep them on. The blankets fell first, then my little black bag, then the kits of the other men, followed by the kettle. After this had happened over and over again, we fastened everything so tightly that the donkeys were nearly cut in half and went down a hundred yards without mishap. Then the pack saddle slipped up to the head of the first donkey, and before we could release it the brute was nearly strangled. For the next half-hour everybody in our party picked up such things as he could, as they fell off. Long before we reached the bottom of that interminable hill the donkeys were prancing down burdenless, and each man was loaded to his fullest capacity. When we reached the bottom I had a heavy stifling sheepskin kaross over my head, a rifle, and a black bag in my right hand, a blanket over my left arm, and hanging on to my fingers of that hand were a mess tin, a wooden water bottle, and two satchels full of cartridges, &c. The kaross prevented me from breathing, the rifle pulled at my arm and shoulder-blade until the pain became almost unbear able, while the over-weighted fingers throbbed at every joint. We had hoped to find water at the foot of the hill, but no water was there. We skirted round the foot of the mountain, crushed through 246 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. bushes, and went up and down numberless steep little hills, at the bottom of which we always hoped to find water, but never did. The sun came out, and still we staggered on; I the worse off, because of the kaross over my head, my top-boots, and mackintosh- ulster. We went on and on until at last one man threw himself on the ground, and said he would die here more comfortably than farther on. No one spoke to biin, or persuaded him to come along. We just passed on, dazed, thinking only of water. In times like that, men only think of themselves. At last we struck a little running stream. Every body dropped everything, lay down in the mud and drank, and drank, until they could drink no more. Curiously enough, I noticed that, though my stomach became full of water, my throat remained dry, and I was still thirsty. We rested at that place for an hour ; had some biscuits, and then continued our journey. Fortunately, we had no more hills to climb — we had crossed that awful range — but it was still up and down work, which tested our endurance to the uttermost limit. We walked on for hours and hours, until the sun went down, and then we came upon a native who told us that we had come seven miles out of our way. We took the wrong path when we came down that never-to-be-forgotten mountain, which we ought A MEMORABLE TREK. 247 never to have descended at all. We stopped on the spot, and throwing our waterproof sheets on the tall wet grass Jay down for twenty minutes without a single word being exchanged. Then I got up and tried to light a fire in the dark. There were no trees about, only little bushes. The little bits of wood that I could get were sodden, or green, and while groping for them I fell into an ancient working. I suffered no damage, and as I was dying for hot tea I persevered. I put a box of matches in a heap on the ground, and with the aid of leaves from my pocket-book, and splints of wood shaved from a pack saddle, got a nice little blaze started, which was eat ing bravely into the wet wood. Then a trooper pulled at a branch and put it out, and we went with out tea. We ought to have struck Massi-Kessi that night. The distance from Umtali to that place, as the bird flies, is only sixteen miles — but counting the actual distance, up hill and down dale, it must be nearer forty. Thus ended my first day's trek, which I shall never, never forget while I live. Never! 248 CHAPTER XXI. We reach Massi-Kessi — Those Portuguese — Hampstead Heath not in it — We Review the Situation — Help at Last! — Exhausted — Another Swamp — A Novelty in Grub — Pedestrianism Extraordinary — A Jammy Orgie — A Spurt of Despair — The Bees Win the Toss— An Uneven Swimming Contest. It was a damp, stiff, and miserable-looking crowd which arose the morning after the mountain trek. It is always — I am told — the second day which is the worst, and when I got up and rolled up my blanket I was as stiff as a board, and could not imagine how I was going to keep up for another nine days. The men who had been drinking at the first canteen, already referred to, were in an even worse condition, for their heads pained them exceedingly, and at first they could only move along very slowly, and lagged far behind. Massi-Kessi was supposed to be only four miles ahead, but we walked for three hours, through the most beautiful country, before we came in sight of the Portuguese stronghold. Though the stiffness in a measure wore off, I found myself getting NO CURIOSITY. 249 more and more languid and tired. We had started without breakfast, and on the previous day we had not been able to eat anything worth mentioning. We were well in the unhealthy district too, and an empty stomach, combined with heavy exertion in the hot sun, is said to be a most alluring attraction to King Fever. One of the topers cast a gloom over the pro cession by saying positively that he had the fever, but hoped to reach Massi-Kessi before he lost all his strength. Fever was in all our minds, it was our secret bugbear, and each man thought gloomily that a large proportion of us were bound to be struck down before we got to the end of the journey, and we knew that to be struck down meant death. We arrived within sight of Massi-Kessi at last, but before enter ing we stopped by the magnificent swift-running river which is within a thousand yards of the place, and had breakfast. After breakfast we did not go straight on to visit the town, as one would have supposed. Curiosity is dead with those who travel the way we did, and we all went to sleep under the poor shade of some sickly little trees. At midday I made my way to the place, and found little worth seeing. There is a fort, with high mud and stone walls, which could be knocked to pieces by a fifteen pounder in twenty minutes. There was no ditch, and, on the whole, it was not surprising that the 250 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. Portuguese garrison promptly ran away at the first sight of the B.S.A. troopers. Within the enclosure was one very large single-storied building of mud bricks, whitewashed over. I went on to the veran dah in my walking costume, and came suddenly upon the Commandant and three officers, who were discus sing their 11 o'clock breakfast. I enquired courteously for the store, and was told in the " 'ortiest " fashion that it was on the other corner. I bowed and departed, wickedly burning with a desire to punch the head of those poor men, with their pinchbeck ideas of dignity and their two penny gentility. The store was closed, but I ham mered with determination, and presently an under sized, scowling, sallow-complexioned little Portuguese came shuffling along with boots too big for him, and with the key in his hand. He disdained to return my salutation, and met my cheery smile with a sour blankness of visage which exasperated me exceedingly. He could not speak much English, and all he knew of our beautiful language were the numerals up to 20 and the word " shillings." He did not even know the names of the few things he had for sale. It did not matter, because he only had one pot of jam, and some liquor at fairly moderate prices. Gin 15s. a bottle, whisky ditto, and so on. He took the money I gave him, and looked his hate THE ARRIVAL OF SOTTY. 251 with so gifted an expression that I had to hold my self tightly in hand. The Portuguese there hated the very sight of an Englishman. The poor little chaps had been badly hustled by the B.S.A. troopers, and were very bitter at their defeat. They were about to depart, leaving the town and the district in the hands of the Mozambique Company, whose repre sentative had just arrived to " take over." The change should be for the better. During all the long time the district has been in the hands of the Portuguese hardly any sign of improvement can be discovered. Ah„well, I suppose the poor men I saw there must not be blamed for being insignificant in stature, ugly in face, dirty-looking, mean, despicable, and monkey-like. They are only bad specimens of a degenerate race, and act according to their lights. Pity should be their portion, not scorn. They could not help being born. Sotty turning up at last in an exhausted condi tion, we started at once for the afternoon's trek. Passing through Massi-Kessi we followed the grass- grown road which had been made by the proprietors of the ill-fated coach line some months back. The country was as pretty as could be, but there was nothing foreign or tropical about it. The path led up and down sharp little hills, and after an hour's steady walking the great heat began to tell upon us, 252 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. but we kept on doggedly. At last we came upon the first crossing of the Revue river. It was only a little stream, .but the banks were steep and the donkeys firmly refused to cross. The obstinate animals were beaten, and cursed ; shoved, and kicked ; until they suddenly turned right round and charged the party, who were closely packed together, and in such a position that we could not scatter. The donkeys with their loads bulging out on each side, became very effective chargers. I was knocked into the river, and two others were butted into an ancient working, which fortunately had silted up to within six feet of the surface. None of us were hurt. At last we went lower down and got hold of each donkey separately and fairly heaved him into the water. At this especial point the water was very shallow, but there was black horrid-smelling mud at the bottom, and into this foul mass the donkeys sank up to their stomachs. They all made a tremendous struggle, failed to extricate themselves, and then patiently waited for developments. There they lay, the three of them, with their loads slewed round, half-embedded in the mud. We had to undress and get into the mud and lift each donkey out of the slough on to the bank. The beasts refused to assist themselves in any way, and when they were lifted up, and their legs spread out, they refused to stand, and BEGINNING TO GET SERIOUS. 253 comfortably sank into the mud again. The meal was damaged, while the rugs and everything else were freely bespattered. A number of things were lost at this place. Two or three of us vomited owing to the awful smell emanating from the mud. It is said that if a drop of this muck gets into the mouth or nostrils, fever of a most deadly character follows with certainty. Of course it took us a long time to get the things passably clean, and on to the donkeys again. The Yorkshireman, who has a sweet tooth, announced with tears in his eyes that the sugar was melting. This was a disaster which cast a gloom over the whole party, for sugar, when you have only Boer meal and coffee without milk, is something more than a luxury. After a ten-mile trek we stopped at a very lovely place — a green glade shut in on all sides but one by fine trees — and in the one open side a great tree-clad mountain towered high up into the sky. We were all terribly tired, and we felt that if we were to proceed further, we must throw away half our loads. As we had already limited ourselves to the barest necessities, this was a serious matter. We had hardly enough food to last the journey, even if no delays occurred, and delays were almost inevitable. Said MacDerdo : " We've got now enough grub 251 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. to last us seven days, and we have enough to load four donkeys. If the rains come, and we get shut in by the swamps, or any of us get the fever — as some of us will — then we shall probably starve to death in the first case, and in the second the sick ones must be left to do as they best can. We can't carry them. We may get game on the road, but we have no time to go off the road and hunt for it, and we can't rely much on that. The nearest place is Sarmento, about 190 miles, say seven days' hard walking. We haven't got enough blankets as it is, and without them we cannot sleep in the open with out getting a chill, which means fever for some, which means being left behind, which means death." "What the blankety blank," asked the Yorkshire- man, with an air of gloomy despair, "are we to chuck away ? If we take off some of the load, and carry it ourselves, we can't do twelve miles a day in the sun : and we don't dare travel by night through a country alive with lions. And if we do twelve miles a day we shall be without food for the last five days." " Supposing," I said, " we throw off everything except a blanket apiece and five days' grub, and rush through at a rate of thirty-five miles a day ? " " Can't do it, unless you chuck the donkeys," said MacDerdo, from the depths of his experience. COMMON DISCOMFORTS. 255 " They'll get killed anyhow, before we are half through, by lions and the tsetse fly," said another trooper. Then we got up and sized the loads, looked at the heavy meal bags, the coffee, and the other things, thought of what each man's portion would be, and how it would fare with us carrying weight through the hothouse heat ten hours every day on short rations. Just then four coast natives came out of the wood and squatted down before our fire. They were pro fessional bearers, who would carry each a load of 501bs. to Mapanda for 30s. per man. Their appear ance was truly a heavenly stroke of fortune, and we went to sleep under the trees in excellent spirits. None of us, however, slept, that night, because of the great heat and the immense black mosquitoes, who buzzed about us in millions and drove us into a fever. The stings of those mosquitoes were like the stings of bees. Relief could only be obtained by diving under the blanket, but the remedy was worse than the disease. Tired as we- were, we had to keep fanning ourselves with the branch of a tree. Unrefreshed, we arose for the third day's trek, but we stepped out bravely, for we had nothing to carry. I had my rifle, but at the time I thought nothing of that. We passed through sweet-scented, flower- 256 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. strewn woods, and during the first two hours I found myself actually enjoying the scenery. We passed one tall mountain, the top of which was lost in a dense bank of white clouds : lower down the sun shone on the green trees : beneath that again came a sharply- defined bar of shadow, then the sunshine continued all the way to the bottom. That mountain was a sight worth seeing. During that day we crossed the Revue three times, and each time we had the old tiresome difficulty with the donkeys, who always jibbed, were always thrown in head first, and always dipped their load in the water. Towards evening the meal they carried was a pudding, and the sugar had utterly disap peared. The last time we crossed this winding river it had broadened to a width, from bank to bank, of a couple of hundred feet, and the bank was very nearly as straight as a wall. The water was clean, and ran very swiftly. As we waded through we had great difficulty in keeping our feet, while the donkeys had to swim for a few yards, and were carried down a considerable distance. This river ought to give the engineers of the Beira Railway Company a great deal of trouble. We rested on the other side for an hour, and then at half-past two started off once again. The sun seemed to suck out our vitality, and as we walked along that interminable path we IN THE SWAMPS. 25? never spoke to one another, nor thought of anything beyond putting one step before another. Presently we came upon some low ground, where the rank grass, reeds, and undergrowth were four feet over our heads. All at once the donkeys' legs disappeared in soft, black mud, such as one sees at Southampton at low water. It was absolutely putrid, and for miles a white steam exhaled. Here was malaria made visible. We all had to get into that mud and help lift the donkeys out. Some undressed, while others sailed in cursing, clothes and all, and we were an hour splashing and heaving in that dreadful place. Then we proceeded, and came upon very soft, treacherous ground, where the grass was very green and " soshed " at every step. We came upon a little ditch full of clear water. with soft, black banks. The donkeys tumbled in as usual, but got out almost without assistance. One by one we took flying leaps, and got soused up to our middles in the filthy mud the other side. We got through at last, and though as tired as men could be, we crushed through the tall, coarse grass until we came upon a mountain. My knee began to pain me exceedingly, but I bound it up with a handker chief and proceeded limping. Round and round that hill we went, following the spiral footpath. Towards the end I felt that I must throw myself s 258 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. down ; but to rest then would be to ensure rest for good, and so I kept up with the others. A number of bearers passed us on the way to Umtali : each had a case of whisky on his head, and, though perspiring terribly, stalked on without any appearance of ex haustion. Just when the sun was disappearing be hind a mountain we came upon a gigantic tree, where millions of hairy caterpillars were crawhng up and down in single file, each having its head close to the tail of the one iu front. Here one of the men fell down and said he wasn't going another blankety blank inch, and the others could go on and leave him if they liked. " Dying," said he, " ain't such a bad business after all." I dropped down while I listened, and said that I would stop with him anyhow. This was not heroism on my part. I simply could not go another step : my knee, too, had swollen greatly, and I indulged in mournful contemplation in consequence. The others only wanted an excuse, and gladly stopped for the night. Most of that night I was awake, for the ants were many and voracious, though there were few mos quitoes. However, a hundred or so red ants who mean business are quite sufficient for the night thereof. Long before daybreak we were up and stirring in the ghostly forest. Learning wisdom by experience, TIRED OUT. 259 we had a couple of biscuits a-piece — the last of the stock — -and some coffee. We had not proceeded for more than half an hour when we came upon another swamp. " Thirty Bob," the smallest donkey, sank into the bog until only his nose and absurd ears were visible. That special donkey had nothing to do with our particular party, and we left the two owners in the mud, naked and unashamed, but swearing dreadfully, because the old miner (who had joined us the day before with his one bearer) refused to render any assistance, and shouted, " Pull him out by the tail; he won't bite." Our own donkeys were driven through a better spot, and got out with a few flounders. We went on walking- through the beautiful woods, with the tall wet grass, which bent over the narrow footpath, wetting us up to the knees. The dew in these parts was sufficient to wet the ground half an inch deep. I had no sense of enjoyment, for I was tired all the way through, and my knee gave me a separate pang every time I put foot to ground. As the morning wore on the sun became almost unbearable, and at twelve, though we kept up a brisk pace, we were one and all com pletely finished when we arrived at a stream at which we had our midday — and practically our first — meal. There were only a few stunted bushes at this place, not sufficient to give us shade, and the S 2 260 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. heat being the heat of Hades, none of us could eat. We were weak and exhausted, and no one spoke to the other. There we sat, with heads bowed down, baking in the sun. I had for some time been curious as to how our bearers managed to live : for they got very little from us, as may be imagined, and they carried nothing in the way of food. Here it was that I became enlightened. Directly they had got the fire fairly alight they disappeared among the under growth, and in half an hour returned, each with a double handful of big hairy caterpillars. One had a leaf on which was a little honey, and in his black body were many stings, for he had attempted to rob the bees of their store without taking due pre cautions, and had been dreadfully treated. The pain did not seem to be much. Then they put their caterpillars, all hairy and quivering, on to the red hot embers, and when they had done twisting, lo, they were done ! Tenderly were they lifted, and tenderly were they anointed with honey, and gladly were they "skoffed!"* I should now be glad to tell how that entree tasted, but at the time I had not the courage to try. I had not the spirit to rise and ask for a sample. On that meal they travelled all day, in the awful sun, each with a 601b. load. * Anglicised, Kaffir — eaten. WONDERFUL BEARERS. 261 These bearers are generally Coast natives, and have been trained by the Portuguese to carry loads for long distances, from the age of ten or thereabouts. Along the road I constantly met with long strings of boarers, the men carrying full loads, and the boys half loads. They can travel thus loaded twenty-five and thirty miles a day — a wonderful example of what can be done by long training. The loads are usually carried on the head, but often on an assegai resting on the bare shoulder. The load rests partly on the assegai and partly on the shoulder, but the handle of the weapon sinks deep into the flesh. These men walk for hours and hours all day long without stop ping, and what is more extraordinary, without shift ing their load. Once started, they continue without change. They are not of powerful physique, or of large stature, or possessed of any special strength. I could throw the best of them down with ease ; and they cannot throw a stone eighty yards, nor lift a heavy weight. Their legs are thin, and without any visible calf, and their ribs stand out. Any average Englishman could knock a dozen of them about; yet when it comes to walking he will be unto the Englishman, proud of his pedestrianism, what a ja?k rabbit is to a fat pug dog. Never believe a man who says he can outwalk a professional East Coast bearer. For one mile, or ten, or even thirty 262 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. miles in a day back the European, but for a fortnight steady go-as-you-please contest, through the wilds of Africa, on no food to speak of, put all your money, and your very boots, on the bearer. You will often meet with travellers in Mashonaland who will tell you that a European in good condition can always beat the professional bearer at his own game ; but never, never believe him, for he lies as travellers lie. A native runner will go twice as far in a fortnight as a white man on horseback ; an East Coast bearer with his case of whisky on his head and his blanket, his rifle, and his food on the top of the case, will beat the average European, though the white man carry nothing but his pipe and his conceit. Start the European on equal terms with the Kaffir, and at the end of a week the Kaffir would be three days' journey ahead. Even the little boys will keep up with the men, and carry their half-load of 40 lbs. or so. Forty pounds is distinctly 40 lbs. when you are committed to a big walking trek. My rifle weighed but 13 lbs., and yet during the first two days I tried thirteen hundred different ways of carrying it, and every way made my muscles ache until I thought of nothing but that weapon. Then I handed it over to a bearer, and was at peace. He demanded an extra 10s., and got it. I would have given him £!100 rather than have had to carry that MAKING THE BEST OF IT. 263 rifle myself. We went on, and during the afternoon crossed at least seven streams of running water. At first we all took off our shoes and stockings, but to wards the end we just waded through as we were, and dried as we walked. Top-boots, or " Field " boots, it may be mentioned, are dreary frauds on such journeys. It is not possible to walk day after day long distances in them. About four o'clock we came upon a Kaffir kraal built in a clearing. The women, sans clothes, were pounding Kaffir corn in large wooden mortars, while the men lolled about at their ease. They had nothing to sell, and after a ten-minutes' rest we proceeded until we came on to a transport wagon drawn up alongside some trees. The owner was sitting there alone in his glory, and had come thus far from Umtali. The tsetse fly had swooped down upon his oxen, and of his goodly span not one was left. I forget how he proposed to get his wagon back, but he had turned it into a wayside inn, and was getting rid of his stock, at fair prices, with reasonable expedition. We bought all his jam — six tins — and that night every man opened and finished his own pot. Mine was raspberry, and never before had I been aware of it being so delicious. Some natives came up shortly afterwards, and from them we bought — for two-shilling pieces — beads 264 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. they disdained — sundry fowls and eggs. Great, was the banquet that night. Afterwards we went to rest under the wagon, but not to sleep, because of the lice and the fleas which abounded. The next day we started early at a tremendous pace, and I, who had been lagging behind ever since we left Umtali, electrified the company by spurting on ahead, and walking the proudest of the vanguard to a standstill. It was a spurt of despair, and, seizing a stick, I run the donkeys along until I was miles ahead. The others had to follow, and when at length I pulled up, and they arrived, they groaned aloud ; but no reproach was made, because it was the recognised rule that the man who could make the pace was the man to be followed. It was in fact a serious game of follow my leader without any fun to speak of. At the camping place we were greeted by a queer little bird, which kept on calling to us, and flying a little way and stopping in a most peculiar way. " That," said MacDerdo, " is a honey bird ; let's go and get some honey." So we followed, we two, where the bird led, and after a ten-minutes' walk through the woods, which were scented strongly with the lovely scent of honey, our little guide perched on the first branch of a big tree, and called out with an unmistakable cry of MACDERDO'S MISTAKE. 265 triumph. Round by the branch were bees flying in and out. " There ! " said my companion with enthusiasm, " There is enough honey to last us all for a month." Now we had not tasted sugar for days, and we rejoiced exceedingly at this gift from Heaven. MacDerdo it was who volunteered to climb up and win the honey, for I was a greenhorn, and knew nothing of these things. Painfully he won his way up to the branch, and, getting well up, cried that in the hollow which was before him were many gallons of honey. He took off his hat and boldly dipped in his hand for the first handful. Suddenly he cried aloud and fell shrieking to the ground, for though most of the bees were away, there were a few hundred at home, and they went for poor MacDerdo in a way it was painful to see. One. enraged little bee in its haste did me grievous wrong, and planted so shrewd a sting on the back of the neck that I fled as cowards flee, shouting as I fled. As for MacDerdo, he had exactly twenty-nine stings, and all the honey he brought he carried on his fingers. The old miner grinned at the plight of the Scotch man, and said to him, " Well, I thought as you knew better, really I did. Been in the country two years, and don't know that you've got to smoke bees before you get their honey. Leading that poor young feller, who aint had no sort 266 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. of experience about anything whatsoever, into danger too. Why, yer a dashed fool ! " The gentle Scotchman was worried by his wounds, and in a mood which made a fight delightful to him. And a glorious fight it was too. I stood umpire, and encouraged them both. It only lasted ten minutes, and ended in a draw. It was understood at the tima that the final should come off at Beira, but the next day both apologised, and were chums thereafter. After that I continued at the head of the proces sion, and after a while came upon eight wagons drawn up neatly into line, with their poles pointing to Umtali. The grass had grown up nearly as high as the wheels, the iron was rusty, and the paint was beginning to moulder. There was no one in charge, and they were there for anyone to take. Thus far had the enterprising Heany, Borroughes and John son brought the wagons at the enormous cost of forty spans of oxen. The tsetse fly lasted longer than the firm, who were eventually compelled to abandon the wagons. They looked dreary and desolate enough. Directly after this we came upon a river, the name unknown as far as I am concerned, and a nasty swift- running stream too, for a man who could not swim It was not very broad, and in one place there was an enormous fallen tree, on the wet slippery trunk of I ESCAPE FROM THE CROCODILE. 267 which I had to spring, and without stopping jump on to another prone tree, and from there on to the bank. It had to be done in one quick rush, and to hesitate anywhere was fatal. I made a splendid spring, but slipped, and went head first into the river. I came up groping blindly, unable to see anything for a little while. Then I heard a peculiar sort of swishing sound in the water like the noise of a sail ing boat cleaving the water. I turned round with a start, and there, not fifty yards away, was the head of a large— an unpleasantly large — crocodile, making straight for me. It was a curious sensation, and for quite a couple of seconds I watched the reptile com ing. Then my benumbed faculties became suffi ciently thawed to understand that the crocodile was coming for me, being in want of meat. I remember being struck with the staring injustice of the pro ceeding as I made for the bank at my very best pace. I was only ten yards from the bank, but the stream ran quickly, and for the first five yards it was up to my chest. I pulled myself along by the tree, but my progress was horribly slow, while the snout of that ravenous monster fairly made the water foam. I looked over my shoulder every half second, and till the very last second I was not sure of landing in safety. Fortunately a branch stood over the water, and I was able to seize it and pull myself up on to the bank. 268 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. How, I do not quite know. I got my legs up with great quickness, and then I heard a great snap like a rele ised mouse-trap of gigantic dimensions. I seemed to feel the wind caused by the monster's jaws as they clashed together. There was a gurgle and a splash, and when I looked round the beast had gone, and only the muddy water near the bank and rapidly diminishing ripples met my gaze. I lost some patent meat tablets,a cake of soap, and some precious tobacco, lout I did not seem to mind a bit. The fact was I was dazed, and, in fancy, could hear that thrilling snap over and over again. By the way, it is a com mon belief that the feeling of fear is felt in the heart. This is quite erroneous; pure, genuine, un mistakable funk is felt somewhere in the stomach. 2C9 CHAPTER XXII. Too Much Wet— A Shed of Refuge— The Plot Thickens— He Left His Load — Tsetse Fly, Mushrooms, and Honey — A Forty-five Mile Walk — We Dawdle on the Way — A Recital with a Purpose — A Lion at Close Quarters — And a Record Sprint. After my little adventure with the crocodile I hur ried on to rejoin my companions, who had gone on far ahead. It was getting dark, there were lions, I was wet through, and might possibly be misled by a kraal footpath, and so be diverted from the main footpath. I ran for a good solid mile, but could see no trace of my party. I kept a very close eye on the spoor, and the donkeys' hoof marks being very fresh and distinct, I was able to miss a couple of misleading paths. Then all of a sudden the rain came down with a roaring swoop, and in three minutes the ground was two inches deep in water, and the rain was so heavy that I could not see twenty yards ahead of me. My faithful mackintosh ulster was on ahead, but it did not matter, for my ducking in the river had made my clothes as wet as 270 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. they could be. I proceeded in this fashion for an hour, and then came upon a large shed, which had been constructed by the Portuguese. The shed was open on all sides. The roof was leaky, and the floor soft black mud in most places. There I found my party, together with another party who were bringing up whisky to Umtali, and another party of traders going our way, who had started two days ahead of us. Altogether there must have been a hundred natives and twenty Europeans huddled together in the shed. Little camp fires were burn ing everywhere, and the chatter of the natives as they cooked could be heard above the roar of the descending rain. Undressing under such circum stances was not nice work, but I got a comparatively dry change, and secured some hot coffee and some Boer-meal pap. When it became quite dark the scene made visible in the shed by the flickering fires was worthy of an artist's brush. Being the last man in, I had the worst place, and threw my waterproof sheet on to the mud, right under a regular little water-spout. But my mackin tosh round me, and the sheet under me, prevented me from getting very wet. It rained all night, and the heat towards midnight became so oppressive that I could hardly bear to keep the mackintosh on. As I lay awake listening to the rain, tired to death, IN THE LION COUNTRY. 271 I became conscious of the attention of thousands of living parasites. They filled every instant with misery, for they had long, active legs and a horrid bite. At daybreak I jumped up, and found that the whole place was alive with bush ticks and hideous lice, such as I have seen on pigs. The lice were repulsive, and bit with cruel voracity, but the ticks were simple horrors. They have elastic, leathern bodies, which cannot be injured with the fingers, and they bury their heads right into the flesh. The greatest care has to be exercised in extracting them; a hasty scratch may tear the body from the head, and then the head putrifies in the flesh and causes a very painful sore. The regulation mode of dealing with these pests is to paint them with nicotine from a pipe. Treated thus they curl up, and fall out of their own accord. Before we started, the Europeans, who came from Mapanda, told us to be very careful at night, as the lions were very plentiful and very troublesome. We were advised that we could never hope to get our donkeys through. The rain turned into a steady, penetrating drizzle. I found, by the way, on rising, that my right foot was in a very bad state. In my struggles to leave the crocodile I had knocked the nail of my big toe back, and in the morning it had swollen so that I could not get the boot on, but cut off 272 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. the top part of the boot, and made a sort of sandal of it. I poulticed the injured member, and, handi capped thus, started once again. The pain was great; the ground was sodden, soft, and difficult to walk on; we were on short rations, and we had been assured by the men we had met that the last boat of the season had left Beira a fortnight since. To stop at Beira through the unhealthy season was to court death; besides, we had not enough actual cash to maintain ourselves for so long a period, and, of course, could obtain no fresh supplies. Some even thought of turning back, and cutting across to Fort Charter, and from there to Tuli, but there was not enough food to last, and so we decided to go on and take our chance. If the worst came to the worst we thought we could charter a dhow and hug the coast to Delagoa Bay — a desperate expedient, because the dhow cannot float in bad weather. Besides, we were not sure of get ting a dhow. Naturally we slopp.d off through the drizzle in anything but good spirits. I went on limp ing for four miles, and then getting warm I was able to keep up somehow. At the next stopping place I was very glad indeed to rest. I found my unfortunate toe as big as a beet, throbbing like an artery, and festering like a whitlow. We came upon a lot of boys here, and I tried to get them to carry me for the rest of the journey — 70 miles — but they would not be tempted. MUSHROOMS AND HONEY. 273 We had lost one of the bearers here, but he did not steal anything, and as most of the food was gone, his disappearance mattered little. The other natives said that their comrade had gone a little way for water, and that a lion must have eaten him. A couple had been following us for the last two days ; as indeed was proved by the natives going back a hundred yards or so one morning at daybreak, and pointing to the lion's spoor, which was very distinct. The spoor had in places defaced the spoor made by our party. The lost bearer left all his things behind, so it is probable that the lions had finished him. We were all a little gloomy about the business, and though the path led through the most beautiful woods, and over the softest and sweetest grass be spangled with flowers and butterflies of strange hues, we took no heed. Most of us in fact were so tired that when, towards the end of the afternoon's trek, we came upon a large snake wriggling across our path, no one stopped to strike at it. We were travelling as usual in Indian file, and one by one we stepped over the snake, and went on without turning our heads, or even passing a remark. With one consent we decided to make that after noon's trek a short one, and at about five o'clock we came upon some natives who were cooking some im mense mushrooms in a wooden calabash. There we 274 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. stopped. For a shilling I obtained a good lot of the mushrooms cooked, which " the same " were not at all bad eating. For half-a-crown I was fortunate enough to buy a calabash containing at least 20 pounds of fresh honey. We fell upon it ravenously, and for half-an-hour we surrounded the calabash, each with his spoon or knife, and sucked the honey until we could not bear the sight of it. We had some coffee too, which was made sweet with the honey. This stuff had been gathered that day from a tree, and contained quantities of dead bees, bits of stick, and odd bits of black comb. Until the very end of our journey we had honey in our tea, in our coffee, and in our pap. The donkeys and the blankets got sticky with honey, attracting flies and ants from all the sur rounding districts. Towards the end I hated the smell of honey with an intensity which was sur prising. Never again shall I be able to partake of honey. That same evening the donkeys came running into camp, and stood close to us in the strangest way. They would not eat, and seemed to be very uneasy. At last the mystery was solved by one of us detecting the presence of the tsetse fly. The next morning, Sunday, we got up a little before daybreak, and walked hard until eleven o'clock. We began to think about breakfast then, and looked about us for water. Of course we always BAMBOOS GALORE. 275 had to follow the footpath, and trust to water being found at decent intervals. We could not carry any, having no utensils. At about mid-day we met Jen nings, an old crack bowler in the Cape Colony. He was striding along, rifle in hand, with his string of bearers, each of whom had on his head the regulation case of whisky. He was perfectly happy, and revelled in the life. He told us that, the lions for the next sixty miles were awful, and that we should find water " about seven or ten miles on." I remember that I was very thirsty at the time, and the seven or ten miles trek through the sun at mid-day without water, on top of what I had already done, seemed to be an impossibility. Fresh hope, however, was put into us by Jennings assuring us that when we reached Beira it would be all right about the boats. This was a great relief, because we had all along had the fear that Beira would tun out a " no thoroughfare." We went on sturdily therefore through the grass, which was six feet high and more. Every now and again we would come upon a deep dry river bed, with steep banks, and there we always came upon bamboo copses. The slender sticks grew in the forest luxuriantly, and in many cases were sixty, seventy, and even a hundred feet high. We each of us cut a handsome walking-stick, and found it of considerable assistance in walking. We came T 2 276 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. upon water at last, and after an hour's rest started with the hope of reaching Sarmento that night. Well I remember that trek ! My foot was a bit bad, and a tendon in the calf of my leg seemed strained, and I was tired anyhow. So I strolled on behind taking it easy. The man who made the pace started on with the donkeys, and was soon a very long way ahead. Some followed more or less closely, but the majority lagged, and before we had gone any great distance each man was alone. A foolish way to travel ; especially for me, seeing that I was the last on the string, and my rifle was with the bearers ahead. However, I .had heard so much about lions that I had come to regard an attack from them as beyond the bounds of practical politics. I remember being much struck with the beauty of the scenery, and I won dered whether the fatigue I felt would make a deeper impression on my mind than the lovely surroundings. I knew I would have given much for a ten hours' rest. Well, as the afternoon wore on the man in front of me went slower and slower until at last I caught him up. The footpath was rather broad at this place, and so we two walked together for a while. Then we came upon a tree with a most inviting shade, and Yorkshire Bill proposed that we should rest there for awhile. We had already done twenty- three miles or so that clay, and the rest in the cool KAFFIR BUTCHERS. 277 shade was so delightful that we dawdled and talked for over an hour. It was a beautiful place too, and we gazed straight before us, and marked with pleasure how the sun, striking slantwise, threw shadows, and lit up the foliage with every tint of green. A zebra trotted across a glade not a hundred yards away, and stopped and regarded us with sniffing nostrils and lovely melting dark eyes before it dashed into the undergrowth and disappeared for ever. This inci dent aroused Us both, and we became conscious sud denly of the flight of time. " The sun will be down in half-an-hour " said the Yorkshireman, " and we will have to walk to catch up to the other fellows." We stepped out briskly, but we had not gone far when we heard a tremendous chattering of natives a little way off the road. We went to see what was the matter, and saw about fifty naked, blood-stained Kaffirs engaged in stripping the flesh off a buffalo. They had nearly finished, and the meat lay about in gory masses. A native in these parts goes almost mad at the sight of meat, and those Kaffirs were in the highest state of excitement. They hacked the meat out with their battle-axes, and pulled and tore at it like wild beasts. They wallowed in the blood, and were red with it from top to toe. They were in a great hurry too, for it was nearly sunset, and car- 278 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. rying meat through that country was very dangerous indeed. We watched them until the chief shouted for them to stop. Instantly the carcase was left and the meat was slung on poles. The surplus meat was carted off on the shoulders of the men, who staggered away in ludicrous haste. It was a queer procession, which caused us to forget our own situation. The gathering darkness warned us of our foolishness, and, getting once more on the footpath, we. ran for a good two miles, when we came up with two of the most heavily laden bearers, who had stopped to gather a piece of meat from the buffalo. We gathered from their signs that the others were far ahead, and, for the first time, we began to feel a little uneasy. We strode at a great pace, with the bearers following close behind. I walked my very best, but could not shake off these over-burdened bearers, who trotted along with the manifest determination of not being left behind. It got darker, and we were passing through very tall grass, which grew up between stems of giant trees, the branches of which hung right over the pathway. There was no moon: we were thirsty — dreadfully thirsty — and tired. Great Caesar, I was tired ! Said the Yorkshireman : " This is a very serious business. We are getting YORKSHIRE BILL GETS FRIGHTENED. 279 on to Sarmento, and you know that only yesterday a man was killed by a lion right in the town, and Lord Headley lost four out of five of his donkeys here abouts. The place swarms with lions — oush, what's that ? " He grabbed me by the arm, and whispered: " Heard something rustle to the right, sounded like a soft-footed big cat." "Don't, you be afraid," I said lightly, with my heart thumping like a steam-engine piston. " There are no lions looking for us. All we have got to do is to sail on right ahead, and take no notice of anybody. Just skin through." I started singing all the songs I knew, and gave " Nancy Lee " in a style which fairly astonished me. I never knew I could sing before. I called upon the Yorkshireman to come alongside and sing too. But he was in a dreadful state. Said he, quaver- " You g-go first, and sing. You s-sing lovely. Don't you m-mind me. Sing loud, sing as loudly as you bally can. Lions, I've heard tell, hate the sound of the human voice." The man was really scared. The singing had ex hilarated me ; I lost all sense of fatigue : my thirst went, and I marched through those woods shouting out "The Old Brigade," and every rollicking song I 280 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. had ever caught a bar of, in the very brightest spirits. When I could sing no more I began, out of sheer devilment, to pick bloodthirsty bits out of Shakespeare, and recite the thrilling parts with the very best declamatory effects. Shakespeare failing me at last, I started improvising the maddest non sense, and shouted it out at the top of my voice. Whenever I stopped Yorkshire Bill would say : " What the d-deuce are you s-stopping for ? Go on. They may be waiting for us all the time : and ach ing to jump as soon as you stop. Och, there he goes ! " And he would hear something move in the wood, and gasp with terror. I tried to get him to assist in the concert, but his throat was dry, and the best sound he got out was a gurgle. I kept up my end until I could not do more than hoarsely croak, and we slipped along that grisly path, with ears cocked, and no other weapon than a revolver between us. Just as we came to a very nasty place, where the path dipped suddenly and the trees grew very near together, we heard, quite close, a sort of deep-chested cough. No one said anything, but the Yorkshireman gripped me by the arm, with a power which held me motionless. For a breathless second we stood thus, and then I firmly levered my friend's fingers off my arm with my blunt hunting knife, and I RUN AWAY FROM THE LION. 281 slid on to that side of an adjacent tree which was furthest away from the spot were that dreadful cough was heard. I tried to climb up the tree, but the stem was smooth and slippery, and the nearest branch was thirty feet from the ground. An English boy, accustomed to birdnesting, might have got up with climbing irons : a cat could have scrambled up with ease, but it was useless for me to make the attempt. If it had been a nice slim tree I might have swarmed up, but it was six feet wide at the base, and you cannot climb up that sort of tree. So I laid low, staring into the darkness. I am not gifted with good hearing, and I knew that I could not hear any ordinary rustle of the grass, nor the soft footfall of the lion. I had the unpleasant feeling that the hon had worked round, and might be within a yard, smiling at me, while he made up his mind where to strike. That was horrible ! I waited and waited, and then I heard a genuine roar three hun dred yards off, and later on, five hundred yards away. That gentle beast just roared itself away. When I got on to the pathway again nobody was there. " Well," said I to myself, " the lion's got somebody, but it isn't me, and here's off for Sarmento ! " And I scurried along that footpath at my very best pace. I came full tilt against a tree once or twice : bounded back, and flew on : fell over tree stumps, bounced up 282 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. like a tennis ball, and raced with open mouth. Sud denly I stumbled upon something soft, hairy, alive, and warm. It was only a trembling flying bearer, whom I had caught up and knocked down, but I had fallen against his kaross, and at the moment thought I had started leap-frog with a lion. For one half second I felt — well, never mind. The bearer lay where he fell and never moved until I kicked him. He had stuck to his load ! I caught up the other bearer, and with him was the Yorkshireman, who, it appears, had " lit out " with the idea that I had been eaten up. After that we went along breathing more freely, and though lions were heard all around at a considerable distance off, we were no more molested. We went on walking until nearly midnight, and then at last we came upon the glint of a camp fire under an enormous tree. There we found the party all intact, and they raised a hearty cheer when we appeared, because they thought we had been finished by the lions. We got a pail full of dirty water and drank gallons. Never did a camp fire look more delightfully cheering ! We must have done nearly fifty miles that day, and it was the longest day I ever spent. We were all too tired to eat, besides, we were full — quite full — of water. We built up an enormous fire, got very close, and went to sleep. But a lion roared within a thousand yards of us and NEARING THE END. 283 the men all stood up except me, and waited with my rifle and their own revolvers. I was too tired to feel any interest about the matter, and in my mind greatly admired my own blase indifference. Then a lion roared within twenty yards of us — it seemed to be within a yard — and I jumped up white-faced along with the rest. A general volley caused him to retire, but we were constantly disturbed, for the place was simply alive with lions. The next morning we accomplished a three-mile trek, and came upon Sarmento and the Pungwe river. 284 CHAPTER XXIII. Sarmento — Not Much of a Dinner — I See Elephants — And Taste Buffalo — A Huge Thirst — A Dismal Prospect — Desolation — Un sophisticated Rudeness — For the Glory of England. Sarmento, though it is marked big on the maps, is a very little place after all. When I came upon it the town consisted of about twenty huts, mostly deserted, a 100 by 50ft. square fort, a commandant, a Portuguese flag, and a summer-house. The fort had low log walls, a shallow ditch, no guns, and four empty but well-built huts. It had been built with the object of commanding the river, but an enemy might have come up the Pungwe, disembarked lower down, made a circuit, and come upon the fort from behind. The forest came within ten yards of the rear of the fort, affording excellent shelter for an enemy. The place could have been taken with ease by a hundred determined natives. The summer-house was built on the river, and commanded a fine view of the river Pungwe, which was a hundred and fifty yards across, even at that time, when it was at its lowest. WITHIN SIGHT OF CIVILISATION. 285 At this point, however, it was nowhere deeper than five feet, but the current was tremendously strong. We all marched into the summer-house, and im mediately became objects for the attention of the commandant, and a little man who acted as cook and waiter. Having had such a prolonged experience of pap and honey, we were naturally desirous of enjoying a meal worthy of the occasion. Personally, I expected it as a right; so when we ordered a sumptuous banquet we were almost indignant when we were told that all we could obtain were fowls and beans, washed down with Vino Tinto, which is a Portuguese wine something like bad claret, and something like very dreggy pontac (a species of Cape port). We were informed that there were no vegetables, no sugar, and no milk. It took us some time to discover this, because the waiter only understood a few words of French, and the commandant a few words of German. No one knew anything of either language except myself, and my knowledge, though abominably meagre, exceeded in extent the united attainments of our two hosts in English. I remember that I could find no word in either French or German for " fowl," but one of the troopers flapped his hands and crowed, while another made a rough drawing of the bird on the sand, and so we were understood. The 286 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. waiter held up two fingers and nodded smilingly, and from that we comprehended that our party of seven were to have two fowls between us. We waited two hours, and eventually two birds, each the size of a pigeon, appeared, and disappeared about the same time as the plate touched the table. They were torn to pieces with forks and hunting knives. Afterwards there was Vino Tinto — a great deal of Vino Tinto — so that by four o'clock, every man, except myself and the Yorkshireman, was roaring drunk. The little commandant with his short pointed beard, his cheap, dirty and gaudy starched shirt, with one stud, and his large check trousers, was treated most disrespectfully. He tried to get on the high horse at first, but he and the waiter were the only officials, and so he wisely accepted the situation. Before we left he bought two of our revolvers and our three donkeys. I went round the town in search of food, and came upon the only store in the place. It was kept by a disconsolate Portuguese, who received us with in difference. When we asked what he had to sell, he opened a little cupboard and disclosed his whole stock, which consisted of one case of corned beef at 6s. per lb., some tins of Portuguese tomatoes, one tin of Oswego biscuits, and one tin of butter weighing a pound. I bought the butter for 6s., but I could not ELEPHANTS. 287 buy more than fifteen -Oswego's at one penny each. I offered 15s. for the half-pound remaining, but he declined decisively. Those biscuits and the bully beef were all he had to live on during the impending rains. All that day the majority of our party were paralysed by Vino Tinto. At night time I crawled under one of the two coaches belonging to Messrs. Heany, Borroughes, & Johnson, which were carefully covered with tarpaulins, and resplendent with rare paints, pictured panels and gold letters, but which were doomed to go no further on that road. At about one o'clock I was awakened by a tre mendous snorting and splashing. The Yorkshireman was aroused also, and thought that a storm had broken, and, half awake, gathered up his blankets, and ran fifty yards towards a hut. When he found out his mistake he cursed to himself, and throwing down his rug went to sleep on the spot ; but I was more curious, and on going down to the river saw a large number of elephants having a real good time in the water. They played about in the most frolic some manner, and spurted water over each other. The stream of water propelled from their trunks was as strong, while it lasted, as the stream coming from the hose of a fire manual. It was an imposing sight in the moonlight, which I much enjoyed. I had stretched myself down close to the water in the tall 288 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. grass, more because I was tired than from any idea of precaution. On turning my head I saw a large lion standing within fifteen yards of me. His fair mate ranged up alongside of him as I looked. The magnificent male walked slowly to the edge of the river, fol lowed by the female ; drank quietly, turned round, came back quite close to me, and disappeared in the grass. A lion by moonlight under these circum stances is not as amusing as a panorama, and I here confess with frankness that I was terribly afraid. I waited for five minutes, and then skipped back to the friendly coach. I do not expect to forget how I felt while I ran through one little place where the trees made a deep shadow, and the tall grass on each side was as dense as a wall, and five feet high. It was thrilling work flying past nasty little bushes, expecting every minute to be jumped upon by a lion. A man must be blase indeed if he is not deeply interested under such circumstances. Well, I got back, and for the rest of the night listened to the trumpeting of the elephants, the cruel bark of the jackals, the howl of the wolves, and the inspiring roar of the lions. It was a regular menagerie with out the cages. Late next morning we began our last day's trek but one. The victims to Vino Tinto started mere THE TREK ACROSS THE FLATS. 289 wrecks, and suffered for their folly severely. We passed an elephant's skull and a decaying crocodile, and at tiffin time we came upon a freshly-killed buffalo, and after the Europeans had hacked off what they required with their clasp and hunting knives, the bearers fell to, and cut off huge hunks of the juicy meat. They laughed and jumped and behaved like very children, for what brandy is to the sot, meat is to the savage. They threw the meat on the fire, and before it was more than warm dragged it out with sticks, and ate it almost without chewing. They went on eating until their stomachs bulged out. As for myself, I was greatly disappointed. I had heard that buffalo meat was a sort of glori fied English beef, tender and juicy beyond compare. I put my slab of meat on the embers, and in due time scraped it out, all black and covered with ashes and sand. Very gritty it was, and tough. The water at this place was nearly putrid, but we drank it and were glad. At two o'clock we started on our afternoon's trek. We were coming to the worst part of our journey, for we had miles of shadeless, cheerless flats to traverse, with the chance of suffering badly for the want of water. That afternoon was something to remember for ever. We had reached the very low country, being by that time quite close to the coast. 290 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. The sun had terrible power : there was not a breath of air : the ground we trod was sandy, and as hot as a newly-baked loaf: and there were no trees, unless the little ten-foot high palm trees could be so called. These stunted freaks of nature were everywhere, and extended for many miles. They look dry, and helped much to make the landscape a desolation and a horror. The sun that afternoon seemed to stand still, and as it slowly fell towards the west it struck us square on the back, with an effect which cannot be described in writing, nor described at all. Our thirst kept on growing in intensity until we could think of nothing else. A lion might have sprung into our midst, and taken away one of us, without the others taking any sort of heed. Our pace, which had been four miles at the beginning, had degenerated into a crawl of less than two miles an hour. At last we came upon a sort of pond, which contained such terrifying water that we actually had to leave it untouched. It was the last drop of moisture of a great swamp. Everywhere else it had dried up, but here, where it was deepest, enough remained to make a little oasis, which was refreshing enough to the eyes. One desperate man rushed to the water, fell down on his face, and was about to drink, when he was pulled up by his own especial chum. He did not take the interference of ANYTHING FOR WATER. 291 his friend kindly, and cursed and swore and strug gled, until at last the other was obliged to release him. He went back to the water, and drank the festering muck, and when he arose his face was black with the noisome mud. The fever laid hold of this poor fellow at Beira, and it was only the other day I learnt that the frequent relapses he has had since his return to Natal have worn him to a shadow ; and if he lives, he lives as a confirmed invalid. His thirst was a madness brought on by Vino Tinto, and he would have drunk the blood from the heart of his best friend. Now do I believe those stories that I have read about shipwrecked mariners, and lost travellers in the desert. I had to tear myself away from that place, and for an hour or more we walked looking everywhere for water and finding none. At last we came upon some odd little stagnant pools, and though the water therein was as thick as thin pea-soup, and the same colour, it had no smell, and no decaying vegetation. We all drank sparingly, and continued for another hour, when I met two white men marching briskly the other way. One had a cloth-covered water-bottle strung by his side, and I asked for a drink, in the same way that a starving man would ask for bread. I drank a life- giving draught, which, alas, was given unwillingly, for water was precious indeed; but if he had re- V2 292 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. fused outright, I should have fought him for it. These men told me that water was about two hours away. A couple of hours ! And for the last three hours I had been asking myself whether it was possible to hold on for another five minutes. Our party by this time had strung out to a great length, and the Yorkshireman and myself were quite alone. We went on together, exchanging no word until the sun, low down on the horizon, warned us that we had better hurry and catch the others. We hurried on, and in a little while began to feel that we had taken the wrong path. We walked on, how ever, hesitatingly, when we came upon a herd of buffaloes, and further off were some zebras, and all kinds of buck, but no giraffe. The buffaloes, when we came upon them, were not two hundred yards off, and as soon as they became aware of our presence turned tail, and ran away in a body, startling all the other animals, who made off at their best speed. At another time such a sight would have aroused my hunter's instinct to burning point. But on this occasion I said : " If the fellows had gone on ahead these things would have been frightened away. We are on the wrong path." Without a word we turned and retraced our foot steps for a couple of miles. until we came. upon the WATER AT LAST ! 293 place where the two paths forked. We anxiously looked for the spoor of our party, but could see no signs of footsteps going the right way. Close by was a tree, and there we went for shelter and rest while we considered the position. I remember that I bound up my knee a new way while I wondered whether I should have to undergo amputation later on. I felt too, with my companion, that we were lost, and that was a most unpleasant feeling. The night was coming on, we had nothing to eat, and no matches to light a fire with. Without a fire, what were we to do about the lions ? And supposing we found no water in the morning, and wandered about in the sun until we dropped? Our unpleasant re flections were broken into by the sound of voices behind, and in a minute the four leaders of our party came upon us. Instead of being behind, as we thought, we had been leading for the last few hours. The others had been led by the bearers to some beautiful water, and been resting and drinking under the cool, green trees, and bathing in the water. They had not brought a drop with them. I found no language equal to the occasion, and even York shire Bill, the champion swearer in that company of swearers, merely opened his mouth and shut it again without uttering a word. We all proceeded together, and half an hour after 294 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. sunset came upon a rushing little stream, which was a small branch of the great Pungwe. Long were the drinks, and delightful the bathe, though it gave one of the party a chill which subsequently de veloped into fever. We slept that night on the banks of the river close to a deadly-smelling swamp. The heat all night was so oppressive, and the mos quitoes so venomous, that I do not think any of us slept. When we could see each other next morning we were hardly recognisable, so much had our faces swollen in the night. This new day was a great day, because it was to be the last of our long walk. We all stepped out in fairly good spirits, myself proudly leading, but after the first half mile a tendon went wrong in the lower part of my leg and I at once fell to the rear. Right up to this point we had never been out of sight of a tree of some sort ; they had been getting scarcer every day, but on this last day there was nothing but a rank, reedy grass, which had been partially burnt. The fire had burnt most of it black, but here and there it had only been scorched brown. I could see, for miles around, nothing but the black or brown grass, and misty clouds of smoke arising from smouldering vegetation in the distance. It was a desolate sight in the hot sun. We were out of food, and had to reach Mapanda that day. There SENT EMPTY AWAY. 295 was no fear of our suffering any more for water, because we had to come upon a branch of the Pungwe river every few miles. This branch curled like a snake, making great detours, and in order to save as much distance as possible we cut across in a straight line. We had not been walking more than an hour when we saw two lions standing within nine hundred yards of us. I had the satisfaction of putting two bullets very close to them ; but they did not come tearing along my way, and merely walked away. I never saw a lion run away ; it is, perhaps, beneath their dignity, except on very special occasions. We came upon a little Kaffir kraal at about 1 1 o'clock. We were all hungry, and approached an old woman, who was crushing mealies on a flat stone, with a view to purchasing enough for a meal. She was hideously ugly, and took no sort of notice of us after she had once said " Ikona."* We entreated that hag, stormed at her, and jeered at her, but she went on crushing without being in any way moved, and when she had finished she took up the calabash containing the coarse flour, turned round to the little hole in the hut which did for a door, put the calabash in first, and then crawled in on her knees, carefully closing the hole afterwards. It was the most perfect * Anglice, "I haven't any (to sell)." 296 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. piece of unsophisticated rudeness I ever remember seeing. I think if we had been a little more hungry we should have taken the mealie meal, and perhaps in a week or so all Europe would have been informed of another high-handed outrage by Englishmen in Portuguese territory. This reminds me, by the way, that m}' newspaper enterprise nearly resulted in a great outrage to the majesty of Portugal at Sarmento. I said jokingly that I should like to get a subject for a "meaty telegram," and wondered whether anyone had the pluck to pull down the Portuguese flag which was bravely flaunting the breeze over the deserted fort. One of the men, inflamed by Vinto Tinto, volun teered to oblige me for ten shillings, but I remem bered that we had still to get into and out of Beira, and forbore to encourage his ambition. Then he wanted to do it for the glory of England, and had to be held by main force. 297 CHAPTER XXIV. I Sit Down and Think— And Change my Mind — An Opportune " Dug- Out " — I Arrive at Mapanda — A Red Ant Attack — We Start for Beira — A Little Disagreement — And the Noble Science d la Matabeles — Beira — A Portuguese Gentleman— Those Dear Portuguese — On the Steamer !— Back to Civilisation— Farewell. After leaving the kraal, the others dragged along at the rate of two miles an hour ; it was their very best speed, for with the exception of MacDerdo they were all dead beat. A tendon in my unfortunate right leg, which had been troubling me a good deal during the preceding two days, now stood out like a cord, and my progress was the progress of a snail. I tried every way of bandaging, but every step added to the pain. Two or three miles off I saw another bend in the river, and across that, fifteen miles away, I saw the trees which were growing on the river near Mapanda. I felt that Mapanda was as far away as heaven, but the near branch was close enough to encourage me. I had perspired until I had no moisture left, and then I felt the heat more than ever, and became more and more exhausted. Several 298 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. times I fell down from sheer weakness, but at last, after four hours' steady perseverance, I got to the river bank. The river was broad here, and delight fully cool and refreshing did it seem to me. It was my intention to drink, bathe, and rest until my leg was a little less painful, but I could not go so far. The necessary ten yards was beyond me. So I sat down and weakly watched the river, wondering how I was going to cover the next twelve miles, and whether those lions I had fired at in the morning would come upon me at night. I suppose I was in a rather bad plight, but it did not strike me in that light. When a man gets into a hole or into a diffi culty I do not think he pities himself. He accepts things as they are, and sets about devising ways and means to get out of the fix. Hope rarely deserts a man in the most desperate straits, and my case was little more than a mishap which might, or might not, have serious consequences. . After I had come to myself it occurred to me that the river was running past Mapanda, and if I got hold of a log, sat astride it, and went down the stream, I should reach my • destination sooner or later. I got up with much cheerfulness in order to inspect a log which was lying close to the bank. When I got to the water's edge I saw with a shudder that I had mistaken a crocodile for a log. The idea TEN SHILLINGS WELL INVESTED. 299 of drifting slowly down the stream astride of a log, with both legs in the water, became at once repug nant to me, because I had forgotton all about croco diles. I looked about me somewhat disconsolately, for the notion of doing any more walking could not be contemplated with comfort, and then I noticed on the other bank a little kraal which had been hidden from me by a tree at the point I first stopped at. The Portuguese flag was waving there of course — the Portuguese apparently put new cotton flags every where. It was tied to a bamboo, which was stuck in the roof of the biggest hut ; it fell over a little on one side, but I was very pleased to see it. From the flag my eye was diverted to a big ant-heap near the hut, on which were clustered a number of naked Kaffir boys and girls. At the water's edge was a dug-out. I made the motion of punting a canoe, and in a few minutes a native ran down to the dug-out, got in, and pushed himself across by means of a bamboo pole. I showed him a ten-shilling piece and said " Mapanda ! " He had never seen a gold coin before, only rupees, or two-shilling pieces. He insisted on taking the coin, and I stepped into the canoe, determined to capture it if the boy ran away with the money. He left me at the other side and went to the kraal, where he was engaged, I suppose, for an hour testing the 300 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. value of the half-sovereign. While I was waiting, a pretty Kaffir woman came along and offered me a bottle of Kaffir beer, for which I paid threepence. It was the only silver coin I had, and she would have taken a sovereign and attached the same value to it I daresay. Eventually the first boy turned up along with another, and, on their getting into the canoe, I was soon being propelled at a fair rate down the stream en route for Mapanda. I found it very pleasant sitting in the canoe. A man has to go walking for many days with a crip pled leg to understand the joy of proceeding on his journey sitting down. The canoe was the most primitive affair in the world. Merely the trunk of an old tree hollowed out. The tree, of course, curled in by the thwarts, and the sides came so nearly together that my sides were pinched. Of course, there were no seats. The river at this place, though sixty yards broad, was nowhere deeper than five feet, and on each side the trees and undergrowth came right to the water's edge, a dense and beauti ful green wall. As we proceeded I noticed that the man at the bow continually drove his spear into the water. The dug-out was steered close to the bank, and for some little time I was at a loss to under stand the object of his monotonous spearing. Sud denly he gave vent to an exclamation and pressed CASUAL FISHING. 301 hard at his spear. The boat was at once stopped, and, after a little trouble, the spear was withdrawn with a large fish safely impaled thereon. As it floundered at the bottom of the canoe I put my hand on it, but received so severe a shock that my arm from wrist to shoulder was paralysed. I had come unaware upon a species of electric fish. At intervals the men would stop the boat at a break in the undergrowth, where there was always an inge nious fish-trap in the water tied fast. They gathered two or three fish in this way, and went on their way, rejoicing like the thieves they were. We passed many little kraals, each with four or five huts of grass and bamboo, and the naked in habitants came out to gaze and shout at the white man. In these places were banana trees, but no bananas. On one occasion the men stopped at a kraal and went up the bank to confer with a friend. While we waited I wondered whether it had occurred to him how easy and profitable it would be to rob and slay the European wayfarer. I was quite unarmed, for of all my arsenal with which I set out from Kimberley, I had only my rifle left, and. that was ahead with, my party. However, the boy had no evil intentions, and soon got into the boat again. * At last the boys suddenly- shot into a little break into the trees, where a European boat 302 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. was riding. Just on the bank was a little square hut. " Mapanda," cried the boys, and then I knew that though I had still far to go, the worst and the most interesting part of my journey was over. I climbed up the steep river bank, and entered the hut. Strange indeed seemed the table, the chairs, the books, and the different familiar odds and ends of a European house. It seemed to me that I had been away from civilisation for years. There was- a store next door, but the storekeeper was placidly sitting in his arm-chair reading a paper, and at his side was a bottle of English beer. Beer! and English beer, and Bass at that ! Here, indeed, was Paradise ! Biscuits and beer I partook of, and then hied me away to the store. There were tins of salmon, sar dines, and all other tinned things, and I read every word on the labels, and gloated lovingly on the gaudy pictures. I had a great meal, the miscellaneous sort of meal that might have been expected under the circumstances, for I had not had food of any sort since nine the previous night, and not a square meal for days. After I had been resting, surfeited for some time, happy as happy could be, MacDerdo came strid ing in, and saw me with surprise, for he had thought "something had happened to me," and to see me there quite cool and comfortable was a little galling. He lost no time in opening the tins, and late in tl).« LIONS AND RED ANTS. 303 afternoon two more weary tramps crawled in. By sunset all had arrived, and never was there a more thankful group. We were in rags, without boots, dirty, unkempt, footsore, but we could have put down £500 in cash on the spot, and had at last come into civilisation, where money was of value. Mapanda was merely a little village where hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness flourished. The store keeper I first came across tried to get as many pas sengers to stay with him as possible, while the store keepers across the way tried all they knew to do the same thing. Rival boarding-bousekeeper business, you know. There were not a dozen buildings alto gether, and the inhabitants did little business, at cut throat prices, in the intervals they were well enough to stand up. Fever is rampant at Mapanda, and no one who values his health should stop there. Better break stones in a workhouse in England than make £200 per . month at Mapanda ! We waited about Mapanda for a couple of days because our German storekeeper told us that the ship did not leave until the Monday, and he would get us a boat in. time to take us down to Beira comfortably. And in those two days of restful, if impatient, waiting, we heard wonderful yarns about lions which came into the camp every night. The last night we spent at Mapanda was enlivened 304 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. a little by lions, and a great deal by red ants. I woke up in the middle of the night itching like one possessed. Striking a light, I found the wall, against which I placed my head, red with ants ; the blankets were simply invisible, and the faces of my sleeping companions were covered with the insects. I had never seen so many ants together; they coated every thing as completely as red paint. My shout aroused the party, and in less than a minute we had thrown our clothes off and were scampering about like so many Adams on the very spot where the lions met their fate the next night. We were terribly bitten, and the following day were speckled all over with little scabs. The next morning, having chartered a neat little sailing boat to take us down to Beira at 30s. per head, we started down the river, twenty natives and eight white men seeing us off. We were delayed by Sotty, who, of course, turned up drunk, and as we started, fell overboard and was very nearly drowned ; but he could swim, and got near enough to the boat" to be hauled in. We arrived at Nevis Ferreira at midday. It consisted of a handsome house, made beautiful by tropical vegetation and a sweet little Coolie housekeeper or wife, decked out in beads and gay limbo. She was seated in an easy-chair under the verandah, and regarded us ruffians with an air THE PUNGWE TIDE. wr, of fine disdain. The bananas were green, and the bread a rupee per ounce. A little Portuguese money changer was there, and gave us a multitude of rupees and reis for our good English money. Sotty insisted on having a swim in the river, despite all remonstrances. The current was so strong that he was nearly a quarter of an hour making the four yards which separated him from the landing-place. It was rather exciting work watching him, because any minute might have seen him seized by a croco dile. After stopping an hour we got into the boat again and proceeded. The Pungwe appeared to me to be a somewhat singular river in the matter of tides. We were going at a fair pace after leaving Nevis Ferreira, and being all interested in conversation, we thought at five o'clock that we were still going along. Suddenly one of the men said, " We aint moving ; we've been opposite that tree for the last ten minutes." The idea was scouted with scorn at first, because on look ing at the water it seemed apparent that we were going very quickly. On watching the tree, how ever, we found that though the two native oarsmen were straining their hardest, they could not get the boat past the tree. The current had turned, and all that could be done was to cast anchor. We had in tended to stop at the regular landing-place further X 306 A. NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. on, but that was now impossible. We anchored close to the edge of the water, though a hundred yards from the true bank. Four of the troopers in sisted on getting out, and it was arranged that we should light a fire, and have supper on the bank. The quartette were carried pick-a-back by the oars men, and deposited dry-footed on the sand. They went towards the bank, and we were all about to follow, when it was noticed that the water between the boat and the sand had stretched by a yard, and as we looked it widened with extraordinary rapidity. We called to the stragglers, who at once came running back, but when they had reached the water's edge they were separated from the boat by fifteen yards. The first one dashed into the water and got in easily enough, the second had more difficulty, while the last just reached the boat. In fifteen minutes the water had reached the distant banks, and we were in the middle of the river, which at this place must have been quite six hundred yards across. The tide came in with a thrilling rush, and the waters gurgled and swirled in a way that made our little boat rock violently, and strain hard at the anchor. Of course there was nothing to be done but wait until the turning of the tide. There was a strong headwind blowing at the time. The boat was so crowded that it W'as impossible for anyone to DOWN THE RIVER. 307 be comfortable. We whiled away the first part of the night by singing and talking, but one cannot sing and talk all night, and we crouched for hours in silence, in the most uncomfortable positions. The night appeared to be without end, and it oc curred to me, amongst other silly things, how easy it would be to make a very effective Hades, with very simple and cheap materials. Towards morning the tide slackened enough to allow of an attempt being made to proceed, but in five minutes we were stuck in the mud. The boys tumbled out into the water, and after immense difficulty shoved the boat off. There were shoals everywhere. We were con tinually hitting mud-banks that night, and continu ally jumping out and shoving. When day broke we were in the middle of a vast sheet of water. The trees on the banks on either side appeared to be a low line of bushes ; the miasma came up from the water in a thick mist, and curled up into the clear air above in fantastic wreaths. The yellow beams from the rising sun, just peeping over the horizon behind, turned this mist into a golden halo, which was inexpressibly beautiful. There was not a breath of air at the time, and the great sheet of water was like a mirror ; and when I looked back, there was a dazzling bar of gold on the water, reaching from the sun to the boat. x2 308 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. We went on for six hours, the river continuing to widen out until the farther bank was a mere line. We saw numbers of hippopotami swimming in the river. Their curious heads were continually rising and disappearing in unexpected places. I had several snap shots, and succeeded in putting a bullet through the head of one of the monsters, but it promptly disappeared, and as it would not rise for many hours, and we could not wait, I had to forego the pleasure of securing a trophy. We hugged the left bank, where there was a number of slim trees growing very close together. Amongst these trees were many monkeys, who followed us and watched our progress with the greatest interest. The banks became more and more beautiful as we proceeded, and reminded me of sundry picturesque parks in the Old Country. About two in the afternoon we got round a big bend, and came full upon a regular gale. The waves were high and capped with foam. For miles in front we could see nothing but these tumbling waves, and when I tasted the water I found that it was salt. From this point right up to Beira the water was of unknown depth, and as wide as the widest part of the Mississippi. We at length got in sight of Beira, and made desperate efforts to reach it before the tide turned, but without avail. The tide turned slowly at first, and then came in with the A NOVEL ENCOUNTER. 309 old imposing rush. There was nothing for it but to make for the bank. We landed on the mud, and while we made our tea two of the native oarsmen proceeded to prepare for combat. They had quarrelled in the boat, and with the greatest deliberation made their arrangements for the fray. They each went into the wood in different directions, and cut a half-dozen or so thin green sticks, and, when they had secured enough, returned. They were without clothes, and their manner of fighting was somewhat curious. The bundle of sticks was held in the left hand, and used as a shield, while the right hand held but one stick. The two foes approached each other with great fury, and slashed away until the younger man had broken his last stick. That was the first round, and both departed for more sticks. When a fresh supply had been gathered the fight recommenced, until one of them was again out of sticks. About nine rounds were fought: then we separated them. The younger man was terribly cut about, weals an inch high cross ing and recrossing on every part of his body. His head was covered with blood, and altogether he pre sented a pitiable sight. The elder man had hardly been touched, being better of fence. The younger man, however, contended that he had got the best of it, and it was amusing to see each gravely 310 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. pointing out the wounds of the other in the most friendly manner. The discussion nearly ended in another fight, but we again intervened, and the two sat down together at the same pot, and amicably divided the contents between them, while they laughed and joked at each other in the happiest manner possible. When the tide turned we at once set out for Beira, and, after a tremendous row, in which we all took part in turns, at last reached the very worst town in the world. The town of Beira is a place to get away from as quickly as possible. In addition to other discom forts, the accommodation was at the time of my arrival most unsatisfactory. Shake-downs were made on the floor and under the verandah : sitting- room there was none, nor attendance, nor cold drinks. We used to sit in the bar, trying to play cards, and I had to change my shirt every hour, for I perspired like a new water bag, and wherever I placed my hand or back there was a wet mark. There were no papers, no books, no society; no where to go to, nothing to see, and nothing to do. There was not a newspaper of any description in all Beira, and nobody — not even the Steamship Company agent — could tell us when the steamer would come. We waited day after day, but the steamer did not arrive* and while we waited, man FEVER-STRICKEN BEIRA. 311 after man sickened with the fever, until at the end of the fifth day, out of our party of seven, and the Busi party of five, MacDerdo and myself were the only ones who escaped. It was pitiful to see the poor fellows lying on the floor, or on the beds in that stifling iron shell, without nursing,and without comforts. The very cook, a big German, with a salary, I think, of £40 per month and all found, had the fever quite regularly every day. He dragged himself up in the morning, got breakfast ready, took a big dose of quinine, and went to bed again. He arose in time to prepare tiffin, took another handful of quinine, and went once more to bed. He had splendid pluck, and was master of the place. The proprietor deferred to him, and if the cook objected to a guest on personal grounds, the guest was at once told to take away his things and go elsewhere, which meant anywhere and nowhere. The charge was 12s. 6d. per day, and the table was fairly good ; better than one might expect. I do not want it to be thought that I am running down the Beira Hotel. The proprietor is an old B.S.A. trooper, and does not know much about hotel-keeping ; but he stops there at the risk of his fife, and with the certainty of ruin ing his health for ever and one day, so what he does provide ought to be accepted with a grateful heart. If he charged' £5 a day he would be badly paid. 312 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. One evening a polite, dark-faced Portuguese gentleman, dressed in dark clothes, with a flannel shirt, and vulcanite collar, turned up and suggested cards. The troopers all had plenty of money, and, craving for excitement, called for the pasteboards with enthusiasm. The Portuguese gentleman placed a huge roll of notes on the table, and a kind of Portuguese faro was started. The luck of the stranger was really extraordinary, and the way he turned up the ace was surprising to see. At mid night the troopers were down to their very last cheque, and things looked so dreadful that I went to bed, after privately intimating that the Portuguese gentleman was an accomplished swindler. He shuffled the cards with such exceeding dexterity, and was so lucky with the ace, that I felt sure that my poor troopers would be fleeced of their last sixpence, and left to rot at Beira. The next morning, how ever, I learned that the luck turned soon after I had retired, and at daybreak when accounts were squared, the stranger had lost £50 in cash and had to give a promissory note for two hundred thousand reis— which being interpreted means about £40. You get an idea of Portugal when you consider that 20 reis go to a penny, and the national debt is counted in reis. While I was waiting for the steamer I wandered GOOD-BYE TO BEIRA. 313 about Beira, and saw what was to be seen, but nobody seemed to speak English, French, or German, and one day I wandered innocently into the barracks, and was very nearly bayoneted by an irate sentry, who lurked in a hidden sentry box. I suppose he had ordered me to stop and I did not hear him. Had I not been smart at breaking ground I think I should have got more of that bayonet in my stomach than I could have digested. The sanitary arrange ments of that barrack — well, phew ! The Portu guese soldiers were all very small, very sallow, very dirty, ill-dressed, and malevolent looking. At night time they wandered about with heavy staves in gangs, waiting, we believed, to pick a quarrel with our party. Sotty, who of course was drunk, nearly precipitated a collision, but MacDerdo seized him by the collar and threw him unceremoniously into the bedroom. If there had been a row, somebody — Portuguese — would have been killed, because every body on our side had revolvers but me — and I had a rifle. We were all playing cards one hot afternoon when a shout " The steamer ! the steamer ! ! " was heard outside, and everybody stood up and frantically cheered. We ran out and saw the smoke of a steamer on the horizon, and in time the Norseman came into view and anchored about a thousand yards from the 314 A NOBODY IN MASHONALAND. shore. It had been set round specially to bring a hundred or so natives employed by the Chartered Company. The Norseman was not a clean-looking ship by any means ; the liquors were always hot and the table very ordinary, but luxurious in comparison with what we had been recently accustomed to. We started early on Wednesday morning, and as we did not stop at Delagoa Bay or anywhere, we were able to reach Durban on the following Saturday at mid day. The sudden return to civilisation had a most curious effect, and the stately buildings of Durban, the tramcars, and the well-dressed men and women walking and driving about on the level, hard, clean streets, struck me as being something wonderful. I noticed people staring at me somewhat curiously ; turned round, you know, when I had passed, and looking back at me. Then it was I became suddenly conscious that I was marching along, rifle in hand, dressed in cord knickerbockers, flannel shirt, a ragged coat, a villainous slouch hat, one top boot, and one ordinary boot — badly stained — cut off at the foie part. I had a beard reaching to my chest, and looked more like a Pirate out of luck than anything else I can call to mind. the end. WYMAN AND SONS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, LONDON AND REDHILL. YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 04209 1570 YALE