WHITE MEN AT PLAY.
The white man is superior to the black and must show it in his manners and deportment.
This is an unwritten law, observed in the early days of any of our African settlements.
For the man who breaks this law the punishment is swift and severe: he is shunned by his caste and colour.
It is said, but it is nevertheless generally true, that as the settlement prospers, so does this excellent law fall into abeyance. Men without manners arrive and are soon in the majority.
But in the beginnng, the white man watches himself very carefully. He knows all eyes are upon him. He must not permit himself to unbend. In the observance of the law, a man is very self-conscious and is apt to seem stiff and unsympathetic.
In the very, very early days of Kazungula the natives of the place watched some white men relax, and the spectacle afforded them as much pleasurable interest as the knowledge that they had been seen caused pain to the white men.
For many a day the natives of Kazungula commanded a ready audience anywhere in the country, for had not they, and they alone, seen white men at play?
It came about in this way.
A solitary white man stood on the north bank of the Zambesi river, looking across to the other side.
It was Knight, the Native Commissioner, who had for the last fortnight expected daily the arrival of some waggons which carried his year's provisions and other stores. He had little of anything left. No sugar, very little tea, and a single bottle of gin represented his cellar.
He longed each night for the usual "sundowner," but had determined not to open his one remaining bottle, in case of accident. Just what he meant by accident he could not have said. In answer to a direct question he might have replied: "Oh, anything might happen, one never knows."
To-night, for some reason unknown to himself, he was more impatient of the sluggard waggons than usual. Would the darned things never come?
The sun was setting and small flights of duck were going down stream to the marshy feeding grounds. A goose passed in the same direction.
The reed birds, in large noisy flocks, were choosing their roosting place for the night. It seemed that they could not make up their minds. No sooner had they settled in one patch of reeds than they started up with much twittering in search of a better place. They had done this at least a dozen times, and their indecision irritated the man.
A plump kingfisher, sitting on a log almost at his feet, dived from time to time into the shallow water and returned to his perch again. Knight noticed that the busy bird usually returned with a tiny silver fish in his bill, and mentally commended him for his good fishing.
Well, the waggons hadn't come, and wouldn't come to-night. The sun had set and it was growing dark. A chill wind sprang up and the reed birds had become silent. The watcher turned slowly and walked in the direction of his camp.
He had not gone far when he stopped, for he had caught sight of a queer-looking man hobbling towards him along the path which ran by the river side. In the dying light he saw that the stranger was a white man accompanied by a single native, that he wore a long blonde beard, that he was unusually tall, that his trousers were cut off above the knee, that he had no boots, that he was very lame and had his feet bandaged in rags. In short, he saw a fellow white man in distress.
He forgot his own little troubles and hastened towards the newcomer.
He gave the usual greeting of "Hulloa."
"Hulloa," was the reply.
"Going a bit short, I see."
"Yes, about done in."
"Let me give you a hand to my camp."
"Thanks; I heard I should find you here."
"Come far to-day?"
"Yes, from the Falls."
"A good forty-five miles, by Jove!"
"Yes, quite that, I should think."
The two men relapsed into silence; the taller one because he was very exhausted and felt it acutely now that he had reached his journey's end; the shorter, because he realised his companion's condition and did not wish to bother him with questions which could very well wait.
On reaching the camp Knight shouted to his body servant: "Hot bath and be quick!" Turning to his companion, he said: "You'd like a hot bath, wouldn't you?"
"There is only one thing on earth I should like better, but no doubt you can give me both."
"Oh, I know; you want a drink, of course. I'll get you one in a second. Sit down."
"Curse those waggons," muttered Knight, as he hurried off to get his last bottle of gin. His second impulse was to thank goodness that the bottle was a "baby," that is, one of the largest size.
Returning with his precious "baby," he saw his guest's face clearly for the first time. The natives had lit the camp fire, and the light of it fell upon the strong features of the stranger.
"Good Lord! It's Lindsay!"
"Yes, why not? Didn't you recognise me at once?"
"No. Will you have water or a sparklet with your gin?" asked Knight, pouring out about half a glass of the spirit—a quantity known to travellers as a "three-finger tot."
"I'll chase it," said Lindsay, who, having gulped down the gin, held out his glass for some water.
"Bath ready, Morena," a black boy called from an adjoining hut.
"Have another?" said his host.
"No, thanks. I can face your hot bath now."
The tired man entered the hut, followed by the native who had reached the camp with him.
Knight called his cook and took stock. What was there for dinner? Soup. Oh, yes, there was always soup, made by boiling down bones and meat, throwing in a few dried vegetables and thickening with peaflour.
Fish? Good man; so he had caught some that very evening? Then there was that cold bush-pig's head. Yes, they would like that. What else was there? Remembering the leathery thing his cook called an omelette, he discouraged a suggestion of eggs.
To be sure, there were chickens. They had just gone to roost, and were now quiet after a noisy bed-going. Yes, two very young ones spatchcocked, and with plenty of black pepper and a little salt. And there was one tinned plum pudding in the store; they would have that.
This plum pudding had been suggested daily by the cook, and always rejected because it might be wanted. It was wanted now. Yes, they would have the plum pudding.
And then there was the gin. Well, they wouldn't do so badly after all. Soup, fish, chickens, the cold pig's head and a hot plum pudding; what more could two men want?
By this time Lindsay had splashed to his heart's content, and the generous qualities of the gin were having their effect. He felt a new man.
"Are you out of your bath?"
"Yes; can you give me some clean kit?"
"Certainly, but will it fit you?"
"Oh, near enough. It will be clean, which is the main thing."
Much chaff ensued as Lindsay, who stood six feet three in his socks, got into some of his host's clothes, for Knight was the shorter of the two by some six inches, but fortunately broad in the shoulders.
"Can't do you in boots."
"Oh, that's all right. Give me some limbo[B] to tie up my feet."
During the bandaging the camp dogs began to bark loudly, and both men paused to listen.
"By the way," said Lindsay, "that must be Hobday. I walked on ahead of him; he is so deuced slow. Do you know Hobday? He's 'pills' to our expedition. Not a bad fellow, as doctors go."
"No, I don't know him and you haven't told me what the expedition is or anything about anything yet."
"Well, we've walked across country from Zanzibar, or rather Mombasa, looking for minerals."
"Found anything?"
"No."
"Well, I'd better go and look out for—what did you say his name was?"
"Hobday, quite a little fellow."
Knight went out of the hut and, as he passed the kitchen, ordered another bath and told the cook that as a second white man was arriving he must kill another chicken.
Almost immediately Hobday arrived. He was a short, precise little man, inclined to tubbiness.
"How do you do? My name is Mr. Hobday. I am the medical man attached to an important expedition headed by Mr. J.G. Lindsay, who may not be unknown to you."
To this long-winded greeting Knight replied: "Well, come along and have a drink and a hot bath and a change, and by that time dinner will be ready. Lindsay's here."
"I do not often indulge in alcoholic beverages and never in the daytime, but after a very tiring day——"
"Say when. Will you have a sparklet with it or do you prefer water?"
"Er, thanks, a sparklet if you please. I am of opinion that the sparklet is a very useful invention. What would not that great traveller and hunter, Gordon Cumming, have given for what amounts to a portable soda-water factory? Ah, thank you, that is ample. And, as I always tell my patients, if they must drink alcohol, they will find in gin its least harmful form."
"What a queer little devil," thought Knight.
"I am greatly obliged to you for this stimulant, and now I shall be further and deeply indebted to you if I may have a bath. I always say that a hot bath, when one is tired, revives one more quickly and effectually than anything else."
Knight found it difficult to reply suitably to this, and was relieved when the bath was announced and the doctor disappeared into the hut.
Lindsay looked extremely funny in Knight's clothes. The old shooting jacket was a little short in the skirt and sleeves. The trousers reached half way down the tall man's shins, but he felt clean and comfortable and appearances didn't matter.
"Have another?"
"Thanks."
The two men sat and talked whilst the third bathed.
The rest of the expedition had remained at the Victoria Falls. There were a dozen white men altogether, and about a hundred and fifty natives. Lindsay heard that Knight was at Kazungula and came on to see him. The pair had been through the Matabele rebellion together, and had had other experiences in common. Hobday had insisted on coming too. His devotion to "The Head of the Expedition" rather embarrassed Lindsay. He was not a bad fellow on the whole, and a very capable doctor. The rest of the men with the exception of Gray—Knight knew Gray—were professional prospectors, good enough men at their particular job but a troublesome lot on an expedition.
No, they hadn't found anything really worth while, Lindsay thought, but some indications of oil might turn out a big thing.
Yes, they were going straight home from the Falls by way of Bulawayo, Salisbury and Beira, and if any of them came back to have another look, it would be this way and not in from Mombasa.
The question "Have another?" had been asked and satisfactorily answered before Hobday reappeared. He looked quite as funny in his host's clothes as Lindsay did. The only difference was that the coat and trousers supplied to him were as much too big for him as they were too small for Lindsay.
Hobday began to apologise for his appearance, but the announcement that dinner was ready cut short the unnecessary speech.
All three were hungry, the two visitors especially so.
If, during dinner, Hobday noticed that a native replenished his glass whenever it was empty, he made no protest.
The conversation almost at once turned to England, to London, and what each man had seen and done when last there. Towards the end of the meal dancing was the topic. These new dances, the jazz, the hesitation, the two-step, the fox-trot, and the rest; all agreed that they were impossible, that there was little difference, if any, between them and the average Kaffir dance. Hobday became quite eloquent on the subject, and, as they moved to chairs set ready for them round a camp fire, gravely stepped a measure which he was pleased to call the stately waltz, and then proceeded to contrast it with what he termed the ridiculous prancings of the present day.
Although the uncomplimentary terms which he applied to modern dancing could with equal justice have been applied to the waltz as danced by him, his companions agreed and fell to talking again of dances they had been to when last at home.
Suddenly Lindsay said: "Why shouldn't we have a dance? One could hum the tune while the other two dance. We can take it turn and turn about to him. You and Hobday dance first and I'll hum. Why not?"
And thus began the dance which is talked of to this day by the natives who saw it.
Lindsay hummed the "Eton Boating Song" whilst Knight and Hobday waltzed round and round the fire. Although he bobbed about in an unnecessarily energetic manner, it was clear to Knight that Hobday had been inside a ballroom.
Then Knight sat down and hummed the "Blue Danube," but very badly, and with many notes strange to the tune, for Lindsay was six foot three and Hobday only five foot four!
Then Knight and Lindsay danced to the "Merry Widow," hummed by Hobday. They really got on very well together in spite of Lindsay's bandaged feet, for both, in civilisation, were adjudged good dancing men.
After that they each had some light refreshment in the shape of another tot of gin, and it was then that Hobday showed himself to be a man of imagination.
"Let's all dance now," he said. "Let's dance the Lancers."
"How?" said Lindsay, "we are only three and there should be at least eight for the Lancers."
"That don't matter," replied Hobday, "you two fellows take sides, I'll do top and bottom; our partners—well, they're in England, don't you see?"
And so it came about that in the heart of Africa, under the star-lit sky, three sane and more or less sober Englishmen danced right through the Lancers from beginning to end, one taking top and bottom, the other two the sides, whilst their partners were present only in the mind of each.
After the dance they stood silently round the dying fire, gazing into the embers.
Who can say what fair forms and faces they saw there?
It was Knight who kicked the logs of the fire together and so brought about a sudden blaze.
"What's that?" asked Lindsay, peering into the darkness.
All looked and saw the whites of innumerable black men's eyes reflecting the camp firelight. Then there was a patter of many feet as the silent witnesses to the dance hurried away.