But if the Countess was amusing and original, so was the Count in his way. He had been a great elephant hunter in Central Africa. Used to hunt, like Selous, in only a shirt, belt, and hat; no shoes. Killed 103 elephants in one season. Ever charged by an elephant? No, but an elephant was charged by him. Following up a wounded elephant, it took down a steep hillside in thick bush. He tore after it,—an elephant goes very slowly down a steep place,—so he rushed right on to it before he saw it. However, he put up his heavy rifle and fired up into its head and killed it, but the angle of the gun was so great as to knock him down, the stock in its recoil cutting his cheek all open, and leaving him senseless. His boys went back and told his friends in camp that both he and the elephant were killed, the elephant having put his tusk through his cheek.
“Srough my cheek! The elephant had a tusk so long as my body, and so thick as my leg, how can he put it through my cheek? I should have no face left.”
The Count, upon coming into laager at Salisbury after the loss of his donkey–waggon, was made a trooper. He an ex–captain of the navy, with four war medals, while his commanding officer was a barman at one of the public–houses! The excuse for this apparent anomaly was that he had known what it was to be an officer, and he might now let the others have a chance of trying. The troop consisted of 120, but of these only 50 were available for duty, the rest were nearly all officers.
In spite of having lost everything, the Count and Countess seemed very cheery and hopeful, and are longing to get to work again on their farm. They deserve to prosper.
29th November.—Part of the mounted infantry and the invalids were at last to start down towards Beira for embarkation. The General was to inspect the corps before they started. We went over to the camp (I, being an invalid, owing to my broken knees, was kindly taken by Lady Grey in her Cape cart). Just as we got there, a black wall of cloud arrived from the opposite direction. A roar of thunder warned us off, a sharp volley of rain followed. The General dismissed the parade, and we all scampered for home as hard as we could go, pursued by a drenching downpour. All the afternoon and all the night it came down in sheets; the rains had begun. Now comes the anxiety of learning whether we shall be able to get out of the country at all for the next four months.
The rivers rise, the ground becomes a bog, and mules can’t work if their coats are wet, as the harness rubs them raw. It rather shows the danger of working to order at the end of a long telegraph line. Every thunderstorm (and they have been plentiful of late) breaks down the telegraph line somewhere, so that messages take many days to come and go, and we have already wasted a week here merely waiting for replies.
1st December.—For two days it has been fine, as far as actual rain goes, but dead still and hot—boiling hot, banking up for more rain. Very little work and very little play, for Salisbury is, to say the least of it, a little triste just now. No news from the outside world at all. The club has a pile of old newspapers (none newer than September 12th) lying on the table, and we go and read these over again like dogs at a bone, hoping yet to find a scrap of interesting matter somewhere in them, even though it be among the advertisements.
We had hoped to start to–morrow, but now as I go to bed another thunderstorm is on us—the roar of the rain is deafening as it falls in a heavy mass on the roof (glad I am to be under a roof, too!). One hardly hears the thunder through, but the lightning is incessant and beautiful; but I wish we were well over the road that lies between us and the sea!