第16章 Various Incidents

By the end of September the astronomers had gone a degree farther northwards.The portion of the meridian already measured by thirty-two triangles extended over four degrees—half their task was done.The three savants were heart and soul in their work;but reduced as they were to three,they were at times so worn out by fatigue that they were obliged to suspend their labours for some days.The heat was so great as to be overwelming.The October of the southern hemisphere corresponds to the April of the northern,and under the twenty-fourth parallel south there exists a high temperature like that of Algeria.For several hours during the afternoon no work could be done;trigonometrical operations were delayed and this made the bushman uneasy.

To the north of the meridian,about a hundred miles from the last station determined by the observers,the arc intersected a singular region,called in the native language a karrou.During the rainy season this region everywhere displays signs of a most astonishing fertility;after a few days’rain the soil is covered with the thickest herbage,flowers spring up in all directions,plants shoot out of the ground very quickly,pastures grow visibly,water-courses appear,and troops of antelopes come down from the highlands to take possession of these improvised prairies.But this curious freak of Nature is very brief;scarcely a month,or six weeks at most,elapses before all the moisture in the ground,evaporated in the sun’s rays,is lost in the air as a vapour.The soil hardens and chokes the young shoots,in a few days all vegetation disappears,the animals fly the country now rendered uninhabitable,and a desert spreads where a short time before was a rich and fertile country.

Such was this karrou which Colonel Everest’s little troop had to cross before reaching the true desert,bordering on Lake Ngami.The bushman’s anxiety to reach this wonderful region before an extreme drought had quenched its productive powers may be imagined.He communicated his opinion to Colonel Everest,who understood him perfectly,and promised to do his best to hasten his operations.

But haste could not be allowed to interfere with accuracy;angular measurements are not always either easy or practicable;observations can be taken only under certain atmospheric conditions,so that notwithstanding the bushman’s urgent remonstrances they did not make any very perceptible progress,and Mokoum realised that when they reached the karrou the fertile region would probably have disappeared under the rays of the sun.

Until their progress brought the astronomers to the edge of karrou,where they had the opportunity of contemplating the beauties which Nature displayed before their wondering eyes;the chances of the expedition had never exposed a lovelier scene to their view.In spite of the high temperature the rivulets were full and cool;thousands of head of cattle would have found an inexhaustible pasture;a few green woods studded the extensive plain,which seemed like an English park.All that was missing was the gas-lighting.

Colonel Everest seemed little conscious of these natural beauties,but Sir John Murray and William Emery felt acutely the sentiment of poetry with which this district,lost among the deserts of Africa,was invested.The young savant often regretted the absence of Zorn,and the sympathetic confidence so often exchanged between them.He,too,would have been deeply moved.

As the caravan made its way through this magnificent country flocks of birds enlivened the prairies and greeted them with their song.The hunters of the troop shot several korans,a bustard peculiar to the African plains,and some dikkops,a very delicate game bird whose flesh is highly esteemed.Other birds attracted the attention of the Europeans but not from a culinary point of view.On the banks of the streams some large birds were continually chasing the voracious jackdaws which were always trying to steal the eggs from the nests they had made in the sands.Blue cranes with white collars,red flamingoes stalking like flames through the thin coverts;herons,curlews,snipe,kalas which perched on the backs of the oxen;plovers,ibis which seemed to have flown down from some Egyptian obelisk;and enormous pelicans waddling along by hundreds in single file,filled these regions with life.Man alone was absent.

Of all the feathered tribe,however,the strangest were the ingenious weaver birds,whose greenish nests of plaited rushes and blades of grass hung like large pears from the branches of the weeping willow.Mistaking them for some new sort of fruit,William Emery gathered one or two;and what was his astonishment when he heard these supposed fruit begin to twitter like a swallow?He might well have thought,like the old travellers in Africa of former days,that the trees in these regions bore fruits which produced live birds.

Yes,the karrou then seemed to be enchanted.It was a paradise for ruminants.Gnus with their pointed hoofs,elks,chamois,gazelles abounded.What a variety of game,what splendid shooting for a true sportsman!The temptation was too strong for Sir John Murray,and when Colonel Everest allowed him two days’rest,he employed them in fatiguing himself remarkably.But what success he and his fellow bushmen enjoyed,while William Emery followed them as an amateur!How many brilliant shots to enter in his notebook,and how many trophies of African sport to carry back to his Highland castle!How oblivious he then was of trigonometry,triangulation,and meridian measurements!Who would ever have thought that a hand which could ever grasp a rifle so ably could handle the delicate lenses of a theodolite,or that the eyes which could bring down an antelope in its spring had ever practised observing the heavenly bodies,or marked down the position of some star of the thirteenth magnitude!Yes,Sir John Murray was a hunter,and nothing buta hunter,during these two days’enjoyment,and the astronomer disappeared so completely that one might almost fear it was for ever.

Among other incidents which occurred during these hunting expeditions one had a most unexpected result,and did not at all reassure the bushman as to the future security of the expedition.This incident fully justified the uneasiness which the farseeing hunter had already imparted to Colonel Everest.

It was on 15th October.For the last two days Sir John had given himself up entirely to his ruling passion.A herd of twenty deer had been reported about two miles to the right of the caravan.Mokoum discovered that they belonged to that beautiful species of antelope called the oryx;to shoot one of these is the ambition of every African hunter,as they are extremely shy and difficult to approach.

The bushman pressed Sir John to take advantage of the opportunity.He told him that these oryx were extremely difficult to ride down,for they outstripped the fleetest horse.

Little more was wanted to excite Sir John’s ambition;he declared he was ready to start at once after the oryx.He chose his best horse,his best rifle,his best dogs,and in his ardour he set off for the skirts of a copse bordering an extensive plain near which these animals were reported to be feeding,a little ahead of the more patient bushman.After an hour’s ride they stopped.Mokoum,from behind a clump of sycamores,pointed out the herd grazing to windward a few hundred yards distant.The suspicious animals had not as yet noticed them and went on browsing,one seeming to keep rather apart from the others.

‘That’s their sentinel.He’s a buck,no doubt,and he keeps a look out while they feed.At the least alarm he will give a sharp cry,and the herd he leads will be out of shot in an instant.You must fire at long range and bring him down with the first shot.’

Sir John’s only reply was a nod,and he took up a good position for watching them.

The oryx went on grazing unsuspiciously.Their sentinel,who perhaps had sniffed danger in the wind,occasionally raised his head and showed signs of uneasiness.But he was too far from the hunters for them to shoot at him with any chance of success.It was useless to think of riding them down on an extensive plain,as this was so much more favourable to them than to horsemen.Perhaps the herd would come nearer the wood,and then Sir John and the bushman would have the chance of getting a better shot.

Fortune seemed to favour the hunters;under the old male’s guidance the animals gradually drew nearer the wood.No doubt they felt they were not safe in the open plain,and they wanted to take shelter under the thick foilage.When he saw this the bushman suggested that they should dismount.The horses were secured to the foot of a sycamore,and their heads enveloped in a cloth,a precaution which kept them silent and motionless.Then,followed by the dogs,Mokoum and Sir John crept through the bushes,crawling along the long weeds at the edge of the wood,so as to gain the last trees,the furthest of which was not three hundred yards from the herd.

There the two hunters crouched down,cocked their rifles,and waited.

From where they were they could see and admire the oryx.There was little to distinguish the male from the female,except that by some freak of nature the latter carried larger horns than the males;these bent backwards in a curve,tapering away to a point.No antelope is more elegant than this,not one so delicately marked with black.A tuft of hair grows from the throat,the mane is stiff,and the thick white tail touches the ground.

The herd,which consisted of about twenty,came to a halt,after drawing nearer the wood;the sentry was evidently trying to induce them to leave the plain.He moved about through the high grass,and tried to bring them together in a compact group as the dog does the sheep entrusted to his care.But the oryx were quite content to enjoy the luxuriant herbage of the plain,and after a few gambols they again began to browse further off.

This behaviour perplexed the bushman.He called Sir John’s attention to it,but could not explain it The obstinacy of the old buck was something the bushman quite failed to understand,nor its repeated efforts to lead the herd into the copse.

An hour was thus spent in watching them,and they might have waited several more had not one of the dogs,probably as impatient as Sir John,began to bark loudly and run forward to the plain.The bushman in his rage would willingly have sent a bullet after him,for the herd was already in full flight,and Sir John saw that no horse could possibly reach them.In a few moments the oryx were only some black specks bounding through the high grass.

But to the bushman’s intense astonishment the old male had given no warning to the others.Contrary to all their usual habits,this strange sentinel stayed in the same place without attempting to pursue his fellows.When they had gone he even tried to conceal himself in the long grass,perhaps with the idea of getting into the woods.

‘That’s very queer’commented the bushman;‘what is the matter with the old oryx?His movements,are very queer.Can he be wounded,or crippled by old age?’

‘We’ll soon find out,’replied Sir John,hurrying up ready to fire.The oryx,at the hunter’s approach,had crouched down closer than ever in the long grass;they could only see its long horns,whose sharp points rose above the green surface of the plain;it was trying not to escape but to hide.Sir John was thus able to get quite close to it.When within a hundred yards he fired;the bullet evidently struck the animal in the head,for the horns,hitherto raised,collapsed into the grass.

Sir John and Mokoum ran up to the beast;the bushman had his knife in his hand,ready to cut its throat if it were not already dead.But this precaution was useless for the oryx was dead—quite dead—so dead that when Sir John took it by the horns he dragged away only an empty skin without even a bone in it.

‘By St.Patrick,this sort of thing only happens to me,’he cried in so comical a tone that it would have made anyone but the bushman smile.

But Mokoum did not smile;his tightly-closed mouth and contracted eyebrows showed how seriously disquieted he was;he stood with his arms folded,looking round him in every direction.Suddenly something attracted his attention;it was a little leather bag,ornamented with red arabesques,lying on the ground.He picked it up and carefully examined it.

‘What’s that?’asked Sir John.

‘That,’replied Mokoum,‘is a Makololo’s bag.’

‘And what’s it doing here?’

‘Because the owner let it drop when he ran away just now.’

‘And the Makololo?’

‘Your honour must not be annoyed,’the bushman clenched his fists angrily,‘but that Makololo was in that oryx skin,and it was him you fired at.’

Sir John had not time to express his surprise,for Mokoum,noticing some movement in the grass about five hundred yards away,immediately open fire in that direction;then Sir John and he ran to the place where he had seen it.

But the place was empty;they could see by the flattening down of the grass that something had been there.The Makololo had disappeared,and it was useless to think of pursuing him over an immense prairie to the utmost limits of the horizon.

So the hunters returned to their horses much disquieted at this incident,which was certainly well calculated to excite uneasiness.The presence of a Makololo at the cairn in the burnt forest,the present disguise—often adopted by oryx hunters—betrayed how persistently the natives had followed Colonel Everest’s troop across these desert regions.It was not without a motive that a native belonging to the plundering tribe of the Makololos was acting as a spy on the Europeans and their escort,and the farther they advanced northward the greater would be the danger of being attacked by these robbers of the desert.

Sir John returned to camp with Mokoum,and he was so disappointed that he could not refrain from saying to William Emery‘Really,my dear William,I’ve had no luck at all.The first oryx I shot was dead before I hit him!’