The monotony of this night was broken by one of those events that must, and do, frequently take place everywhere, and in many cases without the natural excuse that could be pleaded here, “it was the weak oppressed and crushed by the strong.”
A red bush-buck had gone out into an open glade, and was quietly taking its dew-refreshed grass supper. I had noticed for some time the innocent way in which it had continued grazing, quite unconscious that a deadly enemy was near, who only refrained from slaying it in the hope that larger game would, by patience, be soon substituted. Suddenly a black looking sort of shadow with a bound was upon it—a shriek, an instant struggle, and all was quiet. My Kaffir whispered to me that he thought we should fire, as leopards’ skins were valuable for making tails (the Kaffirs’ waist-dress is thus called by the colonists). This whisper was not sufficient to cause alarm, but while moving a little to cock his gun, the Kaffir shook a branch, and the representative of the feline race, taking up his capture, bounded away. We inspected the ground on the following morning and found that there had scarcely been a struggle.
One is frequently curiously attended in Africa by strange followers, and I found myself one night with a footman behind me that might have struck terror into a lady’s heart were John Thomas to be thus suddenly transformed. Happening to be at the house famous for the leopard’s visit, and going out at about ten o’clock to saddle my horse that I had tied to a tree in the garden, I found him absent; and upon inquiring at the Kaffirs’ kraal near, they told me that he had broken his halter and levanted for some time. This was the second trick of the kind that he had played me; on the former occasion, a friend, whose horse had behaved better, accompanied me, and we shared the saddle, turn and turn about, for the four miles that constituted the journey home. On this evening I had to trudge it alone, and what was worse, without my gun; for, having merely gone out to take tea, I had left my usual gun at home. I borrowed an assagy from the Kaffirs and trotted off. The road for great part of the way was lined with bush. A river about three feet deep had to be crossed, and then the flat sands of the Congella, famous for the battle between the Boers and the English troops.
I went on with caution, listening occasionally, as the elephants were near the edge of the bush I had passed in the afternoon, their feeding being clearly heard from the smashing of the large branches. It was not advisable to rub shoulders with these gentlemen unarmed, and in the night, if it could be avoided.
I had passed the little river Umbilo about two hundred yards, when, upon suddenly stopping to listen, I heard something behind me; so dropping to the ground, I placed my head low, and made out the shambling figure of a cowardly hyaena in relief against the sky. I flung a stone at him and he shuffled away. Soon after I heard him behind me again, and he followed at a respectable distance until I reached the village of D’Urban. These brutes, although possessing a strength of jaw capable of grinding an ox’s leg-bone to powder, are still such curs as to fly before a dog; and on one occasion, near Pietermaritzburg, four of them were chased for a couple of miles by my old dog, and made such good use of their legs that I could not get near enough for a shot. During two or three evenings we had great fun near the town of Pietermaritzburg in blocking out porcupines. I nearly ran over one on horseback one day, and narrowly escaped getting his quills in my horse’s legs. They spread their quills wide, and run backwards very fast, thus presenting a chevaux-de-frise anything but agreeable. This one dodged about round me, now running through the grass quite fast, then stopping and backing, so that I could with difficulty keep my usually well-behaved shooting-pony from actually turning tail, and in consequence fired both bullets without any satisfactory result. In a few minutes he came to his hole, a place big enough for a man to live in near the entrance, that had evidently formerly been occupied by some able excavator, probably an ant-bear. I could not get at the “fretful” in this retreat, but on arriving at home consulted with my Kaffirs, who agreed that we would get some dogs, and go out soon after the moon rose. We did so, armed with knob-kerries and assagies; and placing two sentries over the hole, we sent the dogs on the traces, having discovered that he was out for the night. We soon heard the yelping of the curs, and ran to the spot. The porcupine was coming along in a great fuss with the dogs all round him; assagies and sticks were hurled at him, while he dodged amongst the Kaffirs’ naked legs, who jumped about with wonderful activity. A blow on the nose at last finished him.
At this place two gentleman attempted to play on me a very silly trick, that might have led to very serious consequences, had it not been for the greatest caution on the part of myself and another individual.
A party of five had been dining together, when, at about 10 p.m., a commissariat officer and I, who were two of the five, left the others, and mounted our horses for the purpose of riding round the edge of the Berea, on the chance of finding an elephant outside it, as I had heard several feeding in the bush as I returned from shooting in the afternoon of this day.
We were much ridiculed by two gentlemen of the party on announcing our intended proceedings, for they seemed to think no elephants were near, and that we were a couple of blockheads for troubling ourselves to go out. Not regarding these remarks, we started, and having been careful to select saddles that did not creak and curb-chains that did not jingle, we advanced with tolerable silence to the part of the forest from whence emanated the sounds that had shown me in the afternoon the presence of a troop of elephants. We halted at about two hundred yards from the tall trees that fringed this part, and listened for any indications. Our patience was not severely tried, as we heard one or two branches smashed as none but an elephant could have smashed them. We immediately took up our position a little nearer, and behind some bushes, so that we might not be seen by any elephants when they came to drink at the pools of water near. We waited for nearly half an hour, plainly hearing the troop feeding at about one hundred yards inside the bush, and apparently coming towards us. Our horses stood like rocks, merely pricking up their ears a little when a louder smash of a branch than usual was heard. It was getting rather exciting, as the elephants were blowing and grumbling very distinctly; and by their moving about a good deal they seemed meditating a march on to the open flat to drink. Suddenly they all became silent, and the finest ear could not discover a sound indicative of a large animal being near. I whispered to my companion, and asked what he thought was the cause. We were not long uncertain, for close under the bush we saw in the gloom two tall objects moving, so there was no doubt that the elephants had come out of the bush, and therefore could now walk silently. We whispered that we would fire together, and both barrels as quickly as possible one after the other. The two objects were little more than eighty yards from us, when we quietly cocked our guns, and were going to deliver our fire.
As I was straining my eyes to catch a glimpse of the glittering ivories, and thereby to judge the position of the elephant’s shoulder, I fancied that the step did not appear like an elephant’s. The moon was not yet up, consequently we could see but indistinctly. Somehow the thought came across me that perhaps other sportsmen had also come out to try for a shot, and I called immediately to F. “For God’s sake don’t fire—it is a man on horseback.” He said something about “nonsense, it can’t be.” I called again, rather louder, for him not to fire; and as I did so a roar of laughter came from one of the supposed elephants, find “Sold, old fellow,” was facetiously remarked by the other. I was very angry at being thus disturbed, and still more so when I found out the real state of the case. It seemed that, after we left the dinner-table, the first glass of brandy and water (which generally supplies the place of claret or port in Africa) had caused these two gentlemen to decide that our night-ride was ridiculous; the second had proved us two absolute donkeys; the third that we ought to be sold. I don’t know how many, more or less, it had taken to decide the plan, which was, that they would mount their horses, and ride out to where we were waiting, and discover our hiding-place without our knowing of their approach, and then commence imitating noises that were to make us think they were elephants! Upon my assuring these gentlemen that a large troop of elephants was really in the bush close by, they either could not or would not believe it, and easily satisfied themselves that their opinion was right; as, after listening a minute or so, and riding round a little way, they declared they only heard a crack of some sort in the bush, and had not seen a single elephant, and that the noises we said we had heard must have been caused by our imagination.
Our opinion had been formed from half an hour’s careful listening, theirs from two minutes noisy looking round. Is there any self-sufficiency in this sort of conclusions I wonder? I may here relate a ridiculous mistake that I made, and a narrow escape of Kaffir slaughter, both caused by my eagerness for a fine specimen of the black bush-buck.