As we had now been two days at the “Swamp Camp,” and had seen no natives, and consequently had no news of the Rendili, we thought it unlikely that they were encamped down-stream as we had supposed. We decided, therefore, to retrace our steps to the “Green Camp,” and from thence try up the river in the direction of Lololokwe and Wargasse, and thence onwards to Koma and Seran. Having once been over the ground between our present camp and the “Green Camp,” we were to some extent familiar with the topographical aspect of the intervening country. We calculated, therefore, to be able to make several short cuts, thereby making the return journey in a day or perhaps two days less than we had taken on our journey hither.
The next morning we started very early, being encouraged thereto by our implacable little foes, the midges. They made matters very unpleasant for a while, and we were quite half a mile on our road before finally getting rid of them. Taking a short cut across the mouth of a big curve made by the river hereabouts, we travelled to our camp of July 31st, missing the one of August 1st, passing on the way the remains of a vast Rendili encampment several years old.
Soon afterwards our men were gladdened by the sight of a rhinoceros accompanied by a m’toto (young one), and El Hakim and George immediately set off in chase of her. Suddenly, to our astonishment, we heard the sound of a shot from the other side of a ridge in front. The chase of the rhinoceros was at once abandoned, and we raced up the slope, expecting we knew not what. Nothing! absolutely nothing! met our eager gaze; the country stretched at our feet was the usual gravelly, stony abomination studded with the thorn trees we were so accustomed to; the course of the river showing in the distance as a darker green line in the brown landscape. Strain our gaze as we might, nothing in the way of a safari met our eyes. It was inexplicable. We could have sworn we heard a shot, and so also could the men; but nevertheless the landscape appeared absolutely deserted. I fired a shot from my own rifle, but, beyond the multitudinous echoes, there was no response. We treated the occurrence as we would any other riddle, and gave it up, and once more proceeded on our way.
Presently another rhinoceros hove in sight, and El Hakim started for him. He had almost got within comfortable range of the brute, which, unconscious of its danger, was busily feeding, when the men, discovering what he was after, raised yells of delight at the prospect of a feed at last, and to El Hakim’s intense annoyance startled his quarry, which made off at a gallop. He returned in a towering passion—“Wewe Kula mejani sassa” (You can eat grass now), said he. “I’m not going to be made a fool of when I am trying to shoot meat for you,” and mounting his mule he resumed his place at the head of the safari.
Towards evening we reached our old camp of July 31st, and on arrival we immediately sent men back to try to discover if there were any signs of another safari in the neighbourhood. One of the men also was missing, together with his rifle and a valuable load of cloth. We thought that he might have sat down to rest and fallen asleep, and let the safari pass on, so we sent Jumbi up the summit of a lofty hill near the camp, with a gamekeeper’s flare which burnt for five minutes with a brilliant blue light, and would be visible in that clear atmosphere and at that height for several miles. As he did not turn up that night or the next morning in spite of the most diligent search by the parties of men we sent out, we concluded that he had deserted and gone back to M’thara. The other men whom we had sent to look for and report on the possible presence of another safari in the neighbourhood returned, stating that they had seen no signs of a safari whatever. We questioned the men as to whether any of them had fired the shot, but they each and all denied it; besides, the shot had seemed to come from the front. It was a mystery which we never solved.
Next morning I left camp half an hour before the safari, in order to try to shoot some meat before the caravan, with its varied noises, frightened the game away. A mile or so out of camp I saw a solitary oryx (Oryx beisa) feeding in the open. There was no cover, and the need was urgent, so I sank my scruples about shooting at a long range, and crawling to just within two hundred yards I let drive at it with the ·303. My bullet struck it in the ribs, but failed to knock the beast over. A second shot clean through the shoulder did the business, however. I waited till the safari came up with me, and joined them. The flesh of the oryx is tough and tasteless, and when dried the hide is extraordinarily hard, and as stiff as a board.
At the end of a two and a half hours’ march we reached the camp at which we had such a narrow escape from destruction by fire on July 30th. It was now completely burnt out, having evidently caught fire again after our departure. The fire had spread very much, the palms for over two miles along the bank being reduced to a collection of mere blackened poles, in many places still smouldering. Camping was out of the question, so we went on again for another hour and a half. As we were crossing a small sand river which ran across our path, a herd of water-buck dashed out from among the palms forty yards ahead, racing across our front in fine style. It was a chance not to be missed, and raising my ·303 I took a snapshot and brought one down with a bullet through the shoulder. Two or three hundred yards further on I unexpectedly came upon a small herd of grantei, and another lucky shot laid low a fine buck; not at all a bad morning’s work in a district so devoid of game as that through which we were passing.
Soon after I shot the water-buck we deviated to the right, and, entering the belt of palms, selected a shady spot a few yards from the river and halted for a meal which we called breakfast, though it was past midday. At three o’clock in the afternoon we were again on the road, and remembering the “cinder-heap,” kept close to the river-bank. It was no use, however, as we discovered to our intense disgust that the lava came right down to the river, and there ended abruptly, as there were no traces of it on the opposite bank. Its difficulties, were, however, modified to a great extent by the fact that it was possible at intervals to descend to the water’s edge, and march for sometimes a quarter or even half a mile along the smooth sand.
After more than two hours’ wearisome tramp, we got into the open plains stretching away to the “Green Camp.” It was then growing dusk, and as we had still some miles to go, we hurried forward. Presently a solitary rhinoceros appeared, quietly feeding, about three hundred yards away to our right. El Hakim inquired if I would shoot it, but as I was hot, tired, and perhaps a little short-tempered, I declined, hinting that I was anxious to see him put his precepts on short-range shooting into practice. It was an ungracious speech, and El Hakim would have been quite right to have ignored my remark. As it was, he merely sniffed, but dismounted, and taking his ·577 from Juma pointedly asked George if he would like to accompany him, an offer George accepted with alacrity. El Hakim walked down, followed by George, and, then advanced cautiously to within twenty yards of the unsuspecting rhinoceros. He then raised his rifle, and, pausing a moment to aim, pulled the trigger. A puff of dense white smoke appeared, followed an instant later by a heavy report. The stricken rhinoceros jumped, then galloped madly away, with a bullet through the lungs, falling dead before it had gone fifty yards.
It was a pretty exhibition, and it looked so absurdly simple that when, on the report of El Hakim’s rifle, a second rhinoceros jumped up from the grass between us, where it had been lying unobserved, I snatched the Martini from Ramathani, and slipping a cartridge into the breech, ran up to within sixty yards of it, and kneeling down banged off at its shoulder. I admit that sixty yards was a long and unsportsmanlike range, but I was anxious to bag the beast before El Hakim, who was approaching it on his return from the dead rhinoceros, in a direction at right angles to my line of fire, could get within range. Of course my rhino, when hit, behaved quite differently to El Hakim’s. It galloped madly, it is true, but in my direction. It came straight for me, its head lowered and tail up, and I slipped another cartridge into my rifle, fully expecting to see fireworks within a very few seconds. Nearer and nearer it came, but just as I braced myself up for the shot that should decide my fate, my antagonist swerved aside and commenced what Neumann calls the rhino’s death-waltz, which consists of backing round and round with its head in the air, until it succumbs. In another moment he was down, and as I surveyed my prostrate quarry I mentally patted myself on the back for what I considered a good performance.