We felt quite regretful to leave this fairy place and turn back to the blistering hot red sand. But time was flying, and we were rather out of the way of big game here.
We struck camp and marched, seeing dibitag and oryx, which we vainly stalked, and as we progressed we passed through extraordinary changes. Every two or three miles or so we came on similar oases to Galadi and then, in between, burnt up patches of familiar country. In one of these green gardens Cecily bagged a lesser koodoo, somewhat rare in these parts, and an exceedingly beautiful trophy.
Nearing another oasis, some two miles in extent, Clarence manifested the greatest desire for me to penetrate the place with him and see something that was bound to interest me. He was like a woman with a secret, longing to tell, telling a little, then feeling if he showed his hand entirely I might not trouble to go at all. Whatever could the mystery be? Animal, vegetable, or mineral? “Curiouser and curiouser.”
None of these things! So, following the shikari, his face all alight with eager interest and desire to surprise me, we pushed our way through the density of the foliage until we reached about the centre of the place. It was a Titania’s bower, carpeted with green and shaded by lofty trees. I sat down and gazed upon the wonders of it, though it would have taken me hours to take in the many beauties in detail. They were so infinite in variety, the etchings, the colour and the rainbow effects as the sun glinted through the lustrous fresh verdure. I sat on and marvelled. To think that outside of this there existed only a waste of red sand, ugly and monotonous, and here—but it is ridiculous on my part to try and describe it. I should like some Shakespeare to see it and try his art.
This did not please Clarence at all, who has no love for the beauties of nature. We must push on. Then, of a sudden, he turned and running to a tree, proudly patted its trunk. I looked and there I saw in indistinct letters—my uncle’s initials. Clarence had evidently seen the deed of vandalism committed. I could not have believed my relative would do such a thing had I not seen the result with my own eyes. Not that I mean to say my uncle is anything but truly British to the backbone, but I thought he would have been the man to rise above the habits of his countrymen. I never looked on the stern old shikari as a man likely to give the lighter side of life the upper hand. Ex pede Herculem!
We turned to get back to the caravan, taking a different route and found it stiffish going. In a little shady dingle I came on the remains of a jungle king dead and turned to dust. The oasis had been his sepulchre these many years, and there was little of him left to tell us of long passed monarchy. His skull, which I looked at, was practically eaten away, and was not worth taking.
A venomous snake struck at me here, but was turned by the top of my shooting boot. It was a near shave, and I was off and out of the place in quick time after that.
I missed a fine lion in this thick forest that evening, and followed him in fear and trembling without getting him. On the way back to camp however, disconsolate, I bagged a small oryx for the pot, which turned a somersault like a hare does when shot in the head. I thought I had lost him when I saw him leap about seven feet into the air, and then again and again until I despatched him.
On another early morning here, having only a collector’s gun with me, I put a charge into an old wart-hog, but failed to do more than prick him into a great annoyance and send him off into the wilderness without getting him. I was vexed with myself for hurting him.
Just here, too, we came on a kill which had been a jungle tragedy indeed: the spoor of two oryx all about the outskirts of a green oasis, where succulent bushes flourished, and confused pugs of a large lion. The pugs had no beginning, only an ending, and a return path. Therefore the devastator leaped from out his lair and struck down his prey all suddenly. We measured the spring from where it is certain the great cat must have taken off to the spot where lay the half-consumed oryx, lying as he fell, and it came out at nineteen feet.