CHAPTER V
OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT
We had killed nine elephants, and it took us two days to cut out thetusks, and having brought them into camp, to bury them carefully in thesand under a large tree, which made a conspicuous mark for miles round.It was a wonderfully fine lot of ivory. I never saw a better, averagingas it did between forty and fifty pounds a tusk. The tusks of the greatbull that killed poor Khiva scaled one hundred and seventy pounds thepair, so nearly as we could judge.
As for Khiva himself, we buried what remained of him in an ant-bearhole, together with an assegai to protect himself with on his journeyto a better world. On the third day we marched again, hoping that wemight live to return to dig up our buried ivory, and in due course,after a long and wearisome tramp, and many adventures which I have notspace to detail, we reached Sitanda's Kraal, near the Lukanga River,the real starting-point of our expedition. Very well do I recollect ourarrival at that place. To the right was a scattered native settlementwith a few stone cattle kraals and some cultivated lands down by thewater, where these savages grew their scanty supply of grain, andbeyond it stretched great tracts of waving "veld" covered with tallgrass, over which herds of the smaller game were wandering. To the leftlay the vast desert. This spot appears to be the outpost of the fertilecountry, and it would be difficult to say to what natural causes suchan abrupt change in the character of the soil is due. But so it is.
Just below our encampment flowed a little stream, on the farther sideof which is a stony slope, the same down which, twenty years before, Ihad seen poor Silvestre creeping back after his attempt to reachSolomon's Mines, and beyond that slope begins the waterless desert,covered with a species of karoo shrub.
It was evening when we pitched our camp, and the great ball of the sunwas sinking into the desert, sending glorious rays of many-colouredlight flying all over its vast expanse. Leaving Good to superintend thearrangement of our little camp, I took Sir Henry with me, and walkingto the top of the slope opposite, we gazed across the desert. The airwas very clear, and far, far away I could distinguish the faint blueoutlines, here and there capped with white, of the Suliman Berg.
"There," I said, "there is the wall round Solomon's Mines, but Godknows if we shall ever climb it."
"My brother should be there, and if he is, I shall reach him somehow,"said Sir Henry, in that tone of quiet confidence which marked the man.
"I hope so," I answered, and turned to go back to the camp, when I sawthat we were not alone. Behind us, also gazing earnestly towards thefar-off mountains, stood the great Kafir Umbopa.
The Zulu spoke when he saw that I had observed him, addressing SirHenry, to whom he had attached himself.
"Is it to that land that thou wouldst journey, Incubu?" (a native wordmeaning, I believe, an elephant, and the name given to Sir Henry by theKafirs), he said, pointing towards the mountain with his broad assegai.
I asked him sharply what he meant by addressing his master in thatfamiliar way. It is very well for natives to have a name for one amongthemselves, but it is not decent that they should call a white man bytheir heathenish appellations to his face. The Zulu laughed a quietlittle laugh which angered me.
"How dost thou know that I am not the equal of the Inkosi whom Iserve?" he said. "He is of a royal house, no doubt; one can see it inhis size and by his mien; so, mayhap, am I. At least, I am as great aman. Be my mouth, O Macumazahn, and say my words to the Inkoos Incubu,my master, for I would speak to him and to thee."
I was angry with the man, for I am not accustomed to be talked to inthat way by Kafirs, but somehow he impressed me, and besides I wascurious to know what he had to say. So I translated, expressing myopinion at the same time that he was an impudent fellow, and that hisswagger was outrageous.
"Yes, Umbopa," answered Sir Henry, "I would journey there."
"The desert is wide and there is no water in it, the mountains are highand covered with snow, and man cannot say what lies beyond them behindthe place where the sun sets; how shalt thou come thither, Incubu, andwherefore dost thou go?"
I translated again.
"Tell him," answered Sir Henry, "that I go because I believe that a manof my blood, my brother, has gone there before me, and I journey toseek him."
"That is so, Incubu; a Hottentot I met on the road told me that a whiteman went out into the desert two years ago towards those mountains withone servant, a hunter. They never came back."
"How do you know it was my brother?" asked Sir Henry.
"Nay, I know not. But the Hottentot, when I asked what the white manwas like, said that he had thine eyes and a black beard. He said, too,that the name of the hunter with him was Jim; that he was a Bechuanahunter and wore clothes."
"There is no doubt about it," said I; "I knew Jim well."
Sir Henry nodded. "I was sure of it," he said. "If George set his mindupon a thing he generally did it. It was always so from his boyhood. Ifhe meant to cross the Suliman Berg he has crossed it, unless someaccident overtook him, and we must look for him on the other side."
Umbopa understood English, though he rarely spoke it.
"It is a far journey, Incubu," he put in, and I translated his remark.
"Yes," answered Sir Henry, "it is far. But there is no journey uponthis earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it. There isnothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may notclimb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain and adesert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and heholds his life in his hands counting it as nothing, ready to keep it orlose it as Heaven above may order."
I translated.
"Great words, my father," answered the Zulu--I always called him aZulu, though he was not really one--"great swelling words fit to fillthe mouth of a man. Thou art right, my father Incubu. Listen! what islife? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither andthither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimescarried away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy itmay perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. It is well totry and journey one's road and to fight with the air. Man must die. Atthe worst he can but die a little sooner. I will go with thee acrossthe desert and over the mountains, unless perchance I fall to theground on the way, my father."
He paused awhile, and then went on with one of those strange bursts ofrhetorical eloquence that Zulus sometimes indulge in, which to my mind,full though they are of vain repetitions, show that the race is by nomeans devoid of poetic instinct and of intellectual power.
"What is life? Tell me, O white men, who are wise, who know the secretsof the world, and of the world of stars, and the world that lies aboveand around the stars; who flash your words from afar without a voice;tell me, white men, the secret of our life--whither it goes and whenceit comes!
"You cannot answer me; you know not. Listen, I will answer. Out of thedark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night wefly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light ofthe fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life is nothing.Life is all. It is the Hand with which we hold off Death. It is theglow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the morning; itis the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the little shadow thatruns across the grass and loses itself at sunset."
"You are a strange man," said Sir Henry, when he had ceased.
Umbopa laughed. "It seems to me that we are much alike, Incubu. Perhaps_I_ seek a brother over the mountains."
I looked at him suspiciously. "What dost thou mean?" I asked; "whatdost thou know of those mountains?"
"A little; a very little. There is a strange land yonder, a land ofwitchcraft and beautiful things; a land of brave people, and of trees,and streams, and snowy peaks, and of a great white road. I have heardof it. But what is the good of talking? It grows dark. Those who liveto see will see."
Again I looked at him doubtfully. The man knew too much.
"You need not fear me, Ma
cumazahn," he said, interpreting my look. "Idig no holes for you to fall in. I make no plots. If ever we crossthose mountains behind the sun I will tell what I know. But Death sitsupon them. Be wise and turn back. Go and hunt elephants, my masters. Ihave spoken."
And without another word he lifted his spear in salutation, andreturned towards the camp, where shortly afterwards we found himcleaning a gun like any other Kafir.
"That is an odd man," said Sir Henry.
"Yes," answered I, "too odd by half. I don't like his little ways. Heknows something, and will not speak out. But I suppose it is no usequarrelling with him. We are in for a curious trip, and a mysteriousZulu won't make much difference one way or another."
Next day we made our arrangements for starting. Of course it wasimpossible to drag our heavy elephant rifles and other kit with usacross the desert, so, dismissing our bearers, we made an arrangementwith an old native who had a kraal close by to take care of them tillwe returned. It went to my heart to leave such things as those sweettools to the tender mercies of an old thief of a savage whose greedyeyes I could see gloating over them. But I took some precautions.
First of all I loaded all the rifles, placing them at full cock, andinformed him that if he touched them they would go off. He tried theexperiment instantly with my eight-bore, and it did go off, and blew ahole right through one of his oxen, which were just then being drivenup to the kraal, to say nothing of knocking him head over heels withthe recoil. He got up considerably startled, and not at all pleased atthe loss of the ox, which he had the impudence to ask me to pay for,and nothing would induce him to touch the guns again.
"Put the live devils out of the way up there in the thatch," he said,"or they will murder us all."
Then I told him that, when we came back, if one of those things wasmissing I would kill him and his people by witchcraft; and if we diedand he tried to steal the rifles I would come and haunt him and turnhis cattle mad and his milk sour till life was a weariness, and wouldmake the devils in the guns come out and talk to him in a way he didnot like, and generally gave him a good idea of judgment to come. Afterthat he promised to look after them as though they were his father'sspirit. He was a very superstitious old Kafir and a great villain.
Having thus disposed of our superfluous gear we arranged the kit wefive--Sir Henry, Good, myself, Umbopa, and the HottentotVentvoegel--were to take with us on our journey. It was small enough,but do what we would we could not get its weight down under about fortypounds a man. This is what it consisted of:--
The three express rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition.
The two Winchester repeating rifles (for Umbopa and Ventvoegel), withtwo hundred rounds of cartridge.
Five Cochrane's water-bottles, each holding four pints.
Five blankets.
Twenty-five pounds' weight of biltong--i.e. sun-dried game flesh.
Ten pounds' weight of best mixed beads for gifts.
A selection of medicine, including an ounce of quinine, and one or twosmall surgical instruments.
Our knives, a few sundries, such as a compass, matches, a pocketfilter, tobacco, a trowel, a bottle of brandy, and the clothes we stoodin.
This was our total equipment, a small one indeed for such a venture,but we dared not attempt to carry more. Indeed, that load was a heavyone per man with which to travel across the burning desert, for in suchplaces every additional ounce tells. But we could not see our way toreducing the weight. There was nothing taken but what was absolutelynecessary.
With great difficulty, and by the promise of a present of a goodhunting-knife each, I succeeded in persuading three wretched nativesfrom the village to come with us for the first stage, twenty miles, andto carry a large gourd holding a gallon of water apiece. My object wasto enable us to refill our water-bottles after the first night's march,for we determined to start in the cool of the evening. I gave out tothese natives that we were going to shoot ostriches, with which thedesert abounded. They jabbered and shrugged their shoulders, sayingthat we were mad and should perish of thirst, which I must say seemedprobable; but being desirous of obtaining the knives, which were almostunknown treasures up there, they consented to come, having probablyreflected that, after all, our subsequent extinction would be no affairof theirs.
All next day we rested and slept, and at sunset ate a hearty meal offresh beef washed down with tea, the last, as Good remarked sadly, wewere likely to drink for many a long day. Then, having made our finalpreparations, we lay down and waited for the moon to rise. At last,about nine o'clock, up she came in all her glory, flooding the wildcountry with light, and throwing a silver sheen on the expanse ofrolling desert before us, which looked as solemn and quiet and as aliento man as the star-studded firmament above. We rose up, and in a fewminutes were ready, and yet we hesitated a little, as human nature isprone to hesitate on the threshold of an irrevocable step. We threewhite men stood by ourselves. Umbopa, assegai in hand and a rifleacross his shoulders, looked out fixedly across the desert a few pacesahead of us; while the hired natives, with the gourds of water, andVentvoegel, were gathered in a little knot behind.
"Gentlemen," said Sir Henry presently, in his deep voice, "we are goingon about as strange a journey as men can make in this world. It is verydoubtful if we can succeed in it. But we are three men who will standtogether for good or for evil to the last. Now before we start let usfor a moment pray to the Power who shapes the destinies of men, and whoages since has marked out our paths, that it may please Him to directour steps in accordance with His will."
Taking off his hat, for the space of a minute or so, he covered hisface with his hands, and Good and I did likewise.
I do not say that I am a first-rate praying man, few hunters are, andas for Sir Henry, I never heard him speak like that before, and onlyonce since, though deep down in his heart I believe that he is veryreligious. Good too is pious, though apt to swear. Anyhow I do notremember, excepting on one single occasion, ever putting up a betterprayer in my life than I did during that minute, and somehow I felt thehappier for it. Our future was so completely unknown, and I think thatthe unknown and the awful always bring a man nearer to his Maker.
"And now," said Sir Henry, "_trek_!"
So we started.
We had nothing to guide ourselves by except the distant mountains andold Jose da Silvestre's chart, which, considering that it was drawn bya dying and half-distraught man on a fragment of linen three centuriesago, was not a very satisfactory sort of thing to work with. Still,our sole hope of success depended upon it, such as it was. If we failedin finding that pool of bad water which the old Dom marked as beingsituated in the middle of the desert, about sixty miles from ourstarting-point, and as far from the mountains, in all probability wemust perish miserably of thirst. But to my mind the chances of ourfinding it in that great sea of sand and karoo scrub seemed almostinfinitesimal. Even supposing that da Silvestra had marked the poolcorrectly, what was there to prevent its having been dried up by thesun generations ago, or trampled in by game, or filled with thedrifting sand?
On we tramped silently as shades through the night and in the heavysand. The karoo bushes caught our feet and retarded us, and the sandworked into our veldtschoons and Good's shooting-boots, so that everyfew miles we had to stop and empty them; but still the night keptfairly cool, though the atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a sortof creamy feel to the air, and we made fair progress. It was verysilent and lonely there in the desert, oppressively so indeed. Goodfelt this, and once began to whistle "The Girl I left behind me," butthe notes sounded lugubrious in that vast place, and he gave it up.
Shortly afterwards a little incident occurred which, though it startledus at the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good was leading, as the holderof the compass, which, being a sailor, of course he understoodthoroughly, and we were toiling along in single file behind him, whensuddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he vanished. Nextsecond there arose all around us a most extraordinary hubbub, snorts,groans, and
wild sounds of rushing feet. In the faint light, too, wecould descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths of sand. Thenatives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, but rememberingthat there was nowhere to run to, they cast themselves upon the groundand howled out that it was ghosts. As for Sir Henry and myself, westood amazed; nor was our amazement lessened when we perceived the formof Good careering off in the direction of the mountains, apparentlymounted on the back of a horse and halloaing wildly. In another secondhe threw up his arms, and we heard him come to the earth with a thud.
Then I saw what had happened; we had stumbled upon a herd of sleepingquagga, on to the back of one of which Good actually had fallen, andthe brute naturally enough got up and made off with him. Calling out tothe others that it was all right, I ran towards Good, much afraid lesthe should be hurt, but to my great relief I found him sitting in thesand, his eye-glass still fixed firmly in his eye, rather shaken andvery much frightened, but not in any way injured.
After this we travelled on without any further misadventure till aboutone o'clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little water,not much, for water was precious, and rested for half an hour, westarted again.
On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek ofa girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changedpresently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across thedesert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last theyvanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood outagainst her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man.Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across theboundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till thedesert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.
Still we did not halt, though by this time we should have been gladenough to do so, for we knew that when once the sun was fully up itwould be almost impossible for us to travel. At length, about an hourlater, we spied a little pile of boulders rising out of the plain, andto this we dragged ourselves. As luck would have it, here we found anoverhanging slab of rock carpeted beneath with smooth sand, whichafforded a most grateful shelter from the heat. Underneath this wecrept, and each of us having drunk some water and eaten a bit ofbiltong, we lay down and soon were sound asleep.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find ourbearers preparing to return. They had seen enough of the desertalready, and no number of knives would have tempted them to come a stepfarther. So we took a hearty drink, and having emptied ourwater-bottles, filled them up again from the gourds that they hadbrought with them, and then watched them depart on their twenty miles'tramp home.
At half-past four we also started. It was lonely and desolate work, forwith the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single livingcreature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain. Evidentlyit was too dry for game, and with the exception of a deadly-lookingcobra or two we saw no reptiles. One insect, however, we foundabundant, and that was the common or house fly. There they came, "notas single spies, but in battalions," as I think the Old Testament[1]says somewhere. He is an extraordinary insect is the house fly. Gowhere you will you find him, and so it must have been always. I haveseen him enclosed in amber, which is, I was told, quite half a millionyears old, looking exactly like his descendant of to-day, and I havelittle doubt but that when the last man lies dying on the earth he willbe buzzing round--if this event happens to occur in summer--watchingfor an opportunity to settle on his nose.
At sunset we halted, waiting for the moon to rise. At last she came up,beautiful and serene as ever, and, with one halt about two o'clock inthe morning, we trudged on wearily through the night, till at last thewelcome sun put a period to our labours. We drank a little and flungourselves down on the sand, thoroughly tired out, and soon were allasleep. There was no need to set a watch, for we had nothing to fearfrom anybody or anything in that vast untenanted plain. Our onlyenemies were heat, thirst, and flies, but far rather would I have facedany danger from man or beast than that awful trinity. This time we werenot so lucky as to find a sheltering rock to guard us from the glare ofthe sun, with the result that about seven o'clock we woke upexperiencing the exact sensations one would attribute to a beefsteak ona gridiron. We were literally being baked through and through. Theburning sun seemed to be sucking our very blood out of us. We sat upand gasped.
"Phew," said I, grabbing at the halo of flies which buzzed cheerfullyround my head. The heat did not affect _them_.
"My word!" said Sir Henry.
"It is hot!" echoed Good.
It was hot, indeed, and there was not a bit of shelter to be found.Look where we would there was no rock or tree, nothing but an unendingglare, rendered dazzling by the heated air that danced over the surfaceof the desert as it dances over a red-hot stove.
"What is to be done?" asked Sir Henry; "we can't stand this for long."
We looked at each other blankly.
"I have it," said Good, "we must dig a hole, get in it, and coverourselves with the karoo bushes."
It did not seem a very promising suggestion, but at least it was betterthan nothing, so we set to work, and, with the trowel we had broughtwith us and the help of our hands, in about an hour we succeeded indelving out a patch of ground some ten feet long by twelve wide to thedepth of two feet. Then we cut a quantity of low scrub with ourhunting-knives, and creeping into the hole, pulled it over us all, withthe exception of Ventvoegel, on whom, being a Hottentot, the heat had noparticular effect. This gave us some slight shelter from the burningrays of the sun, but the atmosphere in that amateur grave can be betterimagined than described. The Black Hole of Calcutta must have been afool to it; indeed, to this moment I do not know how we lived throughthe day. There we lay panting, and every now and again moistening ourlips from our scanty supply of water. Had we followed our inclinationswe should have finished all we possessed in the first two hours, but wewere forced to exercise the most rigid care, for if our water failed uswe knew that very soon we must perish miserably.
But everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it, andsomehow that miserable day wore on towards evening. About three o'clockin the afternoon we determined that we could bear it no longer. Itwould be better to die walking that to be killed slowly by heat andthirst in this dreadful hole. So taking each of us a little drink fromour fast diminishing supply of water, now warmed to about the sametemperature as a man's blood, we staggered forward.
We had then covered some fifty miles of wilderness. If the reader willrefer to the rough copy and translation of old da Silvestra's map, hewill see that the desert is marked as measuring forty leagues across,and the "pan bad water" is set down as being about in the middle of it.Now forty leagues is one hundred and twenty miles, consequently weought at the most to be within twelve or fifteen miles of the water ifany should really exist.
Through the afternoon we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcelydoing more than a mile and a half in an hour. At sunset we restedagain, waiting for the moon, and after drinking a little managed to getsome sleep.
Before we lay down, Umbopa pointed out to us a slight and indistincthillock on the flat surface of the plain about eight miles away. At thedistance it looked like an ant-hill, and as I was dropping off to sleepI fell to wondering what it could be.
With the moon we marched again, feeling dreadfully exhausted, andsuffering tortures from thirst and prickly heat. Nobody who has notfelt it can know what we went through. We walked no longer, westaggered, now and again falling from exhaustion, and being obliged tocall a halt every hour or so. We had scarcely energy left in us tospeak. Up to this Good had chatted and joked, for he is a merry fellow;but now he had not a joke in him.
At last, about two o'clock, utterly worn out in body and mind, we cameto the foot of the queer hill, or sand koppie, which at first sightresembled a gigantic ant-heap about a hundred feet high, and coveringat the base nearly two acres of ground.
Here we halted, and driven to it by our desperat
e thirst, sucked downour last drops of water. We had but half a pint a head, and each of uscould have drunk a gallon.
Then we lay down. Just as I was dropping off to sleep I heard Umboparemark to himself in Zulu--
"If we cannot find water we shall all be dead before the moon risesto-morrow."
I shuddered, hot as it was. The near prospect of such an awful death isnot pleasant, but even the thought of it could not keep me fromsleeping.
[1] Readers must beware of accepting Mr. Quatermain's references asaccurate, as, it has been found, some are prone to do. Although hisreading evidently was limited, the impression produced by it upon hismind was mixed. Thus to him the Old Testament and Shakespeare wereinterchangeable authorities.--Editor.