THE LIONS OF MAKULULUMI.
How hot it was! September, 1897. I had not shot my first lion then, and many, many months were to pass before my luck came. Dame Fortune doesn't often condescend to glance my way. She smiled broadly once when, with three tickets, I won first, second, and third prize in a sweep on the Grand National; but then I have never drawn a prize in a sweep since.
However, to return to September, 1897. Yes, by Jingo, it was hot. Not a breath of air; not a leaf on any tree. The rains were almost due, but not a shower had fallen. The only shade was in the shadow of the wagon.
But it was not the blazing sun alone with which we had to contend. There thrives in the Kalahari Desert a pestiferous little winged insect called the Mopani bee, named after the hardwood tree in which it sets its hive. It would seem that this creature must have moisture, moisture of any kind—it isn't at all particular. And to think that I used to eat the stuff they call Mopani honey until, one day, I saw a bunch of them lapping up the moisture from a perspiring native runner. Ugh!
These bees will congregate in dozens at the corners of your eyes, try to burrow into them and then collect the tears which the discomfort of their burrowing produces. They will crowd at the corners of your mouth; when you open it to blow the little plagues away, they rush in. Thank Heaven, the Mopani bee doesn't sting.
We were struggling up to the Zambesi from Bulawayo. Our waggons were overloaded, for the Kalahari had taken heavy toll of our cattle and our spans were therefore many oxen short.
We had reached and covered the first ten miles of the thirty-five which separate Makululumi from Kasibi. All those who knew the old Hunter's road will remember that stretch. The first ten miles are not bad going, but the next seven are the heaviest and loosest sand that oxen were ever asked to drag a waggon through.
Between Makululumi and Kasibi there is no water, so the Major who commanded our little party thought it wise to send the oxen back from the ten-mile point to have the best part of a couple of days' rest at Makululumi before calling upon them to tackle the next stage of the journey.
During the afternoon of the second day, by following my chief's example, I got the better of those bees. It is true I was slowly suffocating, but that was better than being tormented. I was lying on my back under the waggon, with my head covered with a blanket, perspiring immoderately. At least three more hours of this before the cattle returned and we resumed our journey.
Presently I heard a conversation going on in Dutch between the Major and one of his boys. I looked out and saw one of the drivers who should have been with the cattle.
"What are you doing here?" the Major asked.
"Lions, baas."
"Where? How many? When?"
"Last night at Makululumi. Yes, many of them, baas."
"Any cattle dead?"
"Four, baas."
"Tell me about it."
The driver told his story. It appeared that the night before, as soon as it was dark, the boys had collected the cattle together and had driven them up to the camp fires. The oxen stood about for a little while and then settled down. Seeing this, the boys had turned in. When the moon set, the cattle moved off to the water holes again to drink and graze.
Presently there was a great commotion at the water, oxen bellowing and stampeding. The boys got up and ran down with lights and a rifle. There they found three of the oxen lying dead within a hundred yards of each other, and a fourth, also dead, some little distance on. Each ox had his neck broken, but was otherwise unmarked. One of the boys thought he heard a lion in the grass, so fired his rifle off.
Collecting the cattle again, they drove them up to the camp fires and kept a strict watch for the remainder of the night.
At daylight they went back to the scene of the killing, and found that the lions had returned to the carcasses and made a heavy meal off two of them, the third was half eaten, the fourth untouched.
This was indeed a disaster; we simply couldn't spare these four oxen.
"Where are the cattle now?"
"At the water holes with the other boys."
"What did you tell the other boys to do?"
"Let the cattle graze until sundown, then water them and bring them along."
"Good. Now let's get busy."
During this conversation I had got out from under the waggon and was now listening.
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"Go back and blot out some of those lions."
"May I come, too?"
"Have you ever shot a lion?"
"No."
"Have you ever seen one?"
"Not outside the Zoo, but I should like to."
"Well, you may come on one condition."
"What's that?"
"Don't shoot unless and until I tell you to."
I promised. Here was adventure indeed!
The Major took an axe and a length of cord. He handed me a billy-can, two cups and some coffee. He selected a double .303 from his battery. I took the only rifle I possessed, namely, a single Martini Metford.
Without more ado we set off to cover the ten miles back to Makululumi. There was no path, of course, merely the overgrown waggon track through the forest. The traffic on that road was insufficient to cope with the suckers which had sprung up round the stump of every tree felled in the cutting of this so-called road. The men who originally made the road had not troubled to stump it. The going was tiresome, and, lightly loaded as I was, I soon found the little I had to carry an increasing burden to me.
About a mile from our destination we met the rest of our natives driving the cattle along. We stopped for a few minutes to question them. They had kept the vultures off the fourth ox, which was still intact, but the birds had eaten up the other three almost entirely. A bushman had arrived shortly before they came away, attracted by the circling vultures. They made him stand guard over the yet untouched ox in case we came back for the lion.
All this was satisfactory, so, telling the boys to inspan the waggons when they reached them, and make as long a trek as they could through the heavy sand, we pushed on.
We had no difficulty in finding the spot where the oxen had been killed. Hundreds of vultures, gorged with meat, sat on the upper branches of a clump of trees. A little further on an unusually tall bushman stood up as we approached.
The Major examined the lie of the land with an experienced eye, and quickly made his plans.
The Makululumi water holes are really a series of pools strung out along the otherwise dry bed of a small river. Of three of the slaughtered oxen little remained but the bones and hide; they had been killed in the bed of the river. The fourth lay on the far bank, where the river made a very sharp hairpin bend and narrowed to not more than a dozen feet.
The Major selected a point as near as possible to the bank and immediately opposite the dead ox. He didn't waste much time in explanation, but, taking the axe, told me to follow him. The sun was just beginning to set. He hurried to the nearest clump of small trees and felled them rapidly, trimming off the branches and cutting them into poles about six feet long.
My part of the work was to carry the poles to the hairpin bend. Twenty in all were cut, varying in thickness from two to five inches in diameter. Then we built our moral support, for it was no more. I held the tops of three poles while the Major tied them together with the piece of cord which he had brought from the waggon. Then, standing them on end, he spread them to form a tripod. This he reinforced with additional poles, which he made fast with strips of bark. The finished shelter looked like a skeleton bell-tent. It had neither strength nor stability, for we had no time to sink the ends of the poles in the sun-baked ground.
By that time the sun had set, and the bushman, who had been watching us silently all this time, said something in that strange clicking language of his and hurried off, presumably to a place of safety.
The Major thought a meal would do us good, and, going back along the river until we came to a dry place where the banks were high, he lit a fire. At the sight of a blaze I realised that I was cold. We did not think of our coats in the heat of the midday sun. However, there was nothing for it but to see the matter through.
I felt quite comfortable after some bully-beef and bread, washed down with two or three cups of hot coffee.
At eight o'clock we returned to our fort as quietly as possible, surprising on the way a hyena in the act of dragging off the hide of one of the oxen. We had to crawl very carefully into our shelter for fear of disturbing a pole and bringing the whole thing down about our ears.
Once inside, I had ample time for reflection. We sat within three yards of the bank of the river, which was but four yards wide at this point. A yard from the opposite bank lay the dead ox; beyond the ox, for about a hundred yards, the grass had been burnt short; beyond that again was long grass and thick bush.
The moon, which was three-quarter full, would not set for another five hours; everything was almost as clear as daylight between the river and the thick bush; we could see up and down the river bed. The ox, much distended by a day's exposure to the blazing African sun, was too near to be pleasant, and, being on a level with us, blotted out much of the landscape on the other side of the river. We could distinctly hear the hyenas, jackals, and the lesser scavengers quarrelling over the scraps of bone, hide, and offal left by the lions and the vultures.
We sat facing the ox. The Major thought that if the lions came at all it would be from the thick bush ahead, for immediately behind us was open country for a considerable distance.
Strangely enough, I felt extremely sleepy. We held a short whispered consultation, and it was agreed that I should sleep while I could. The Major promised to wake me if things became interesting. He wasn't sleepy.
I lay down with my rifle by my side, my head touching one pole and my feet another. I slept almost immediately, in spite of the cold and the hardness of the ground. Not only was the air at night cold by contrast with the hot day, but the evaporation from the water holes lowered the temperature.
The sound of my companion's rifle woke me. Sitting up, I saw a lion in the air, descending upon us. The Major fired again, and the lion fell into the water-course, literally at our feet. I could see his rump and tail quite plainly. His rage was terrific as he tried to reach us. His bellowing must have been heard for miles around, and doubtless many a bushman and many a beast quaked at the sound of it.
I remember shouting at the top of my voice: "I can see his rump. Shall I shoot?"
The reply, I must admit, disconcerted me: "Rump's the wrong end, but if he shows his head shoot it off."
I watched the struggling beast so intently that I did not see that a second lion had approached. He made his presence known to me by a roar which sounded loud and clear above the thunder of his wounded fellow. He was standing broadside on to us, just behind the ox. The Major fired and the lion sprang forward. The noise was deafening. A chorus of two wounded lions is something not often heard.
I now watched the second lion. He dashed off towards the bush, changed his mind and charged us. He came in great leaps, roaring as he came, then thought better of it, for he stopped sharply, throwing up clouds of dust as he did so, and pulled up almost on the ox. All I could see was his head, and that very indistinctly because of the dust which now enveloped both the lion and the dead ox.
Again a steadying warning: "Don't shoot until you can see more of him than that."
As the Major spoke the lion veered off and trotted back towards the bush, grunting savagely as he went.
"Here he comes again!" And so he did, bounding along as before and bellowing so that I wondered whether our home of poles could stand the vibration of sound.
Again the lion hesitated, again he sheered off, this time entering the bush. We heard him crashing through it until there was silence once more, for the first lion had now ceased to show any signs of life.
I must admit to feeling decidedly uncomfortable then. My heart thumped like a sledge hammer. I longed to get out and stretch my legs. A great deal of action had been compressed into a short space of time, probably not more than ten minutes. To the Major's suggestion that we should have a look at the dead fellow I responded with alacrity—too much alacrity—my foot catching in one of the poles, the whole structure came crashing down upon his head.
After extricating himself he climbed down into the river bed and stood looking at the lion. I followed him.
I don't know why I did it—some sudden impulse for which I cannot account—but I stepped forward and raising the lion's head in my two hands, looked into his eyes.
I certainly heard the Major talking, and I distinctly heard what he said.
"What the devil are you doing, you damned young fool? Drop that head and come away. How do you know he's dead?"
I took no notice. I couldn't. I was terrified, hypnotised. I could do nothing but stare and stare.
No doubt the lion was dead, but the light in his eyes was not. It was dying, not dead. It was a blazing, vivid, blinding light—as it were, the light of an untamed spirit reluctantly taking leave of a mighty body.
When at length I let that rugged head fall, the light had faded; I stood shivering, feeling little and mean, as one who had looked upon something not meant for him to see.