On we travelled from day to day, meeting with such difficulties anddangers as are common on roadless veld in Africa, but no more, for thegrass was good and there was plenty of game, of which we shot what wewanted for meat. Indeed, here in the back regions of what is known asPortuguese South East Africa, every sort of wild animal was so numerousthat personally I wished we could turn our journey into a shootingexpedition.
But of this Umslopogaas, whom hunting bored, would not hear. In fact,he was much more anxious than myself to carry out our original purpose.When I asked him why, he answered because of something Zikali had toldhim. What this was he would not say, except that in the country whitherwe wandered he would fight a great fight and win much honour.
Now Umslopogaas was by nature a fighting man, one who took a positivejoy in battle, and like an old Norseman, seemed to think that thus onlycould a man decorously die. This amazed me, a peaceful person wholoves quiet and a home. Still, I gave way, partly to please him, partlybecause I hoped that we might discover something of interest, and stillmore because, having once undertaken an enterprise, my pride prompted meto see it through.
Now while he was preparing to draw his map in the ashes, or afterwards,I forget which, Zikali had told me that when we drew near to the greatriver we should come to a place on the edge of bush-veld that ran downto the river, where a white man lived, adding, after casting his bonesand reading from them, that he thought this white man was a "trek-Boer."This, I should explain, means a Dutchman who has travelled away fromwherever he lived and made a home for himself in the wilderness, as somewandering spirit and the desire to be free of authority often promptthese people to do. Also, after another inspection of his enchantedknuckle-bones, he had declared that something remarkable would happen tothis man or his family, while I was visiting him. Lastly in that map hedrew in the ashes, the details of which were impressed so indeliblyupon my memory, he had shown me where I should find the dwelling of thiswhite man, of whom and of whose habitation doubtless he knew throughthe many spies who seemed to be at the service of all witch-doctors, andmore especially of Zikali, the greatest among them.
Travelling by the sun and the compress I had trekked steadily inthe exact direction which he indicated, to find that in this usefulparticular he was well named the "Opener-of-Roads," since always beforeme I found a practicable path, although to the right or to the leftthere would have been none. Thus when we came to mountains, it was at aspot where we discovered a pass; when we came to swamps it was where aridge of high ground ran between, and so forth. Also such tribes as wemet upon our journey always proved of a friendly character, althoughperhaps the aspect of Umslopogaas and his fierce band whom, ratherirreverently, I named his twelve Apostles, had a share in inducing thispeaceful attitude.
So smooth was our progress and so well marked by water at certainintervals, that at last I came to the conclusion that we must befollowing some ancient road which at a forgotten period of history, hadrun from south to north, or _vice versa_. Or rather, to be honest, itwas the observant Hans who made this discovery from various indicationswhich had escaped my notice. I need not stop to detail them, but oneof these was that at certain places the water-holes on a high, ratherbarren land had been dug out, and in one or more instances, lined withstones after the fashion of an ancient well. Evidently we were followingan old trade route made, perhaps, in forgotten ages when Africa was morecivilised than it is now.
Passing over certain high, misty lands during the third week of ourtrek, where frequently at this season of the year the sun never showeditself before ten o'clock and disappeared at three or four in theafternoon, and where twice we were held up for two whole days by densefog, we came across a queer nomadic people who seemed to live in movablegrass huts and to keep great herds of goats and long-tailed sheep.
These folk ran away from us at first, but when they found that we didthem no harm, became friendly and brought us offerings of milk, also ofa kind of slug or caterpillar which they seemed to eat. Hans, who wasa great master of different native dialects, discovered a tongue, or amixture of tongues, in which he could make himself understood to some ofthem.
They told him that in their day they had never seen a white man,although their fathers' fathers (an expression by which they meant theirremote ancestors) had known many of them. They added, however, that ifwe went on steadily towards the north for another seven days' journey,we should come to a place where a white man lived, one, they had heard,who had a long beard and killed animals with guns, as we did.
Encouraged by this intelligence we pushed forward, now travelling downhill out of the mists into a more genial country. Indeed, the veldhere was beautiful, high, rolling plains like those of the East Africanplateau, covered with a deep and fertile chocolate-coloured soil, aswe could see where the rains had washed out dongas. The climate, too,seemed to be cool and very healthful. Altogether it was a pity to seesuch lands lying idle and tenanted only by countless herds of game, forthere were not any native inhabitants, or at least we met none.
On we trekked, our road still sloping slightly down hill, till at lengthwe saw far away a vast sea of bush-veld which, as I guessed correctly,must fringe the great Zambesi River. Moreover we, or rather Hans, whoseeyes were those of a hawk, saw something else, namely buildings of amore or less civilised kind, which stood among trees by the side of astream several miles on this side of the great belt of bush.
"Look, Baas," said Hans, "those wanderers did not lie; there is thehouse of the white man. I wonder if he drinks anything stronger thanwater," he added with a sigh and a kind of reminiscent contraction ofhis yellow throat.
As it happened, he did.