Ascension might well be compared to a Brobdignag coal-fire suddenly put out. All is black, or reddish-brown; only one spot of green is seen on the island, and this is distinguished as the Green Mountain. On walking inland, large bits of rock, that apparently weigh 100 pounds, may be kicked along like footballs; they are really but like cinders. The curiosities of the island are gannet and wide-awake fairs, so called from the enormous swarms of these two birds—a species of gull that there build and reside. The whole ground is covered with the eggs and guano of these birds, while they themselves fly around the heads of the visitor in thousands, uttering threatening cries. I found the wide-awakes anything but correctly named, as I knocked over two or three with my stick, and could have done so to many more had I wished. The great thing at Ascension is turtle; swarms are there found, and the commonest sailor has more than he can eat. Two large ponds, of about 100 feet square, are crammed with the fish, lying two and three deep; the turtle are regularly fed and looked after, ships being supplied with them when required. There are two or three lookout stations in the island, where men watch for the turtle to crawl on shore. Immediately that one is seen, a party is sent out who turn the unwieldy gentleman on his back, where he reposes, flapping his finny legs about until a cart takes him to the prison pond. We had about a dozen sent on board, and in a week were surfeited with turtle soup, turtle-steaks, turtle-curry, and turtles’ eggs; a plain bit of salt junk was for a change quite a treat. As we passed the line, I witnessed a strange collection of waterspouts that were gathered on the horizon near sunset; there were about seven of them nearly close together and moving with different velocities; they had the appearance of columns supporting the dark clouds of heaven. Sometimes they would seem to disperse, and then again, gathering solidity, stalk about like ocean genii.
Our voyage was unmarked by sport. We had a strange death occur on board from chloroform—a man who had a disease of the lungs wishing to have his damaged finger taken off during the influence of chloroform. His wish was complied with, and death resulted. We were expecting to run into the channel and make a very rapid voyage, but were unfortunately met by a strong easterly wind that kept us beating about for a fortnight. Having 500 people on board and but a small supply of water, our position became rather critical; for we were reduced from a quart to a pint of water per man, and having no wine or beer to drink, were in doubt what would come next. Several of the women and children suffered severely from thirst, whilst the able-bodied men had to look at the salt provisions with a hungry forbearance, salt beef, tongues, etc., not being very thirst-quenching articles. I used to sit for a long time with my feet in a tub of sea-water, and fancied that I was not so thirsty in consequence. We tried to run for any port for succour, but upon attempting Vigo, were checked by a two days’ calm. A light breeze at length wafted us into the Tagus, and two hours afterwards we dropped anchor opposite Lisbon. I was very shortly up to my neck in a delicious cold bath of the purest fresh water, in one of the most comfortable rooms of the Braganza Hotel, when the buxom Mrs Dyson sent to know whether I would like the champagne iced for dinner. This was rolling in riches of luxury, after nearly starving of privation, and dying from thirst.
We stayed several days at Lisbon, to enable the ship to be set to rights, and us to get fresh provisions; during the delay I visited Cintra, but I was not as much impressed with its glories and grandeur as Byron seems to have been. This I have no doubt arose from having just left Africa, where parts of the scenery are very similar (with the exception that monasteries are there unknown), only on a much larger scale. Cintra, therefore, looked to my eyes like a pocket edition or model of what I had been accustomed to for nearly three years. I was much struck with the beauty of many of the churches in Lisbon, and also interested with the schools at Belem. It struck me however as cruel, that in one large room, filled with boys, a window looked out into an orange-grove where the ripe fruit hung in clusters within six feet of the glass, against which the boys might flatten their noses in hungry imagination but could not approach nearer to the tempting mouthful; the same style of thing may however be frequently seen near a pastrycook’s shop in London.
The opera was amusing—it was “Macbeth,” and the Portuguese were not quite “up” in Highland costume. I was shown over the arsenal by an officer who spoke English; it had very little in it. Feeling, however, that I ought to offer some compliment on its appearance, I remarked “that it was very clean.” He said, “Yes; clean of every thing!”
The experimental squadron came into the Tagus while we were there, and caused great consternation in Lisbon by anchoring opposite Black Horse-square instead of lower down the river, thus committing some breach of etiquette or breaking a rule. I was sorry to leave Lisbon, for it was a nice place with a very fine climate, which after all is more than half the battle in this life. One is obliged to seek artificial amusements when every other day is wet, where a few hours of daylight are not regularly supplied, but frequently become mere black, foggy sort of things that are neither days nor nights. If we do get a little fine weather in England we are miserable from knowing that it will not last long, and any change must be for the worse. I am no grumbler, but I do like to see the sun at least 300 days out of the 365. I am fond of green trees, green fields, and even green men. I like to have room to move my elbows without digging them into somebody else’s ribs, and I like to be able to open my mouth and shout and have no hearers, instead of having an army jump down one’s throat if one merely opens his lips. It is a great comfort to be in a barbarous land where you shake hands with every man you meet (not often troubled by the bye), and can ask this man, blacker white, to do you a favour, and meet kindness from him, and probably receive an invitation to shoot or dine with him. It is better than residing in civilised countries, where your most intimate friend will only sometimes know you, near corners, because, perhaps, you don’t wear peg-top breeches or Noah’s ark coats. I know I am wrong in thinking so; but it all results from having lived with savages.
In the sketches I have written, and the different sporting events that I have recorded, I have endeavoured to give to a novice some information that may be useful to him when he commences his career of sport in South Africa. It has always appeared to me that there was more detail required by people generally than is found in many of the high sporting works already written on South Africa. To fill in this detail has been my endeavour.
I must impress upon all those who purpose a campaign against the ferae of Africa the necessity there is for using weapons of a large calibre; a gun with the common sixteen or fourteen-bore is a disheartening weapon when used against large game.
It is difficult to say what causes instantaneous death—whether the hole that the bullet makes and the vessels it cuts in its course, or the shock that is given to the stricken animal by its momentum. I am disposed to think it is as much the latter cause as the former, having so frequently witnessed cases in which an ounce ball striking an animal has merely served to increase its pace, while a two-ounce bullet striking in the same part a similar animal would drop it dead. With elephants the size of the bullet is even more essential—the small ones as Gordon Cumming describes it, “merely telling on their constitutions.” It is almost useless to recommend a particular sort of gun, as people generally choose for themselves after all. Were I again to visit Africa, I would take a double-barrelled smooth bore of ten or eight to the pound, having strength and plain good workmanship as its only recommendations. A double-barrelled rifle of about the same calibre would be useful, taking care to have two stocks for each gun, and that the barrels could fit into either stock. I have more than once suffered from smashed stocks, and they are not easily replaced in Africa. A Colt’s revolver would also be a very useful weapon, especially when used in the saddle against elands. It might be fired when going at speed, and with greater accuracy than could be attained, under similar conditions, by an ordinary gun.
When I speak of the game in the immediate vicinity of the two towns of D’Urban and Pietermaritzburg, I refer to 1849 and ’50, but I am given to understand that there has not been very much decrease since that time. The emigrant has other work to accomplish, and cannot be always shooting. A great deal of hard work must also be gone through before success in sport is certain, and sportsmen therefore are more scarce than would be at first considered probable. During the first three months that I tried my hand at buck shooting, I shot only five. After twelve months’ experience, my bag, during ten weeks, was forty-seven; and I had refused several certain shots at antelopes during that time, as I was on the fresh spoor of buffaloes and elephants, and did not wish to disturb the bush.
Far in the interior the game is unlimited in quantity, and the numbers are quite correctly spoken of by Harris, Cumming, and other sportsmen. Any one anxious for pure slaughter may there indulge his fancy to any extent; but I think that the amount of slain is no criterion of the amount of sport.