The German sportsman knows well the mysterious charm that speaks to the listener, when in the woods in spring he hears the note of the woodcock and the cry of the ptarmigan, and when in autumn he hears the call of the stag to its mate. It must be that the listener is subject to some atavistic influence, some impulse rooted in the dim past now quickening into life.
Let him who understands this charm follow me through the equatorial wilderness, and listen with me to the music of songs and notes that we may call the language of the Nyíka. We shall hear it there on every side, by day and by night. True, fully to understand this language one should have King Solomon’s magic power, which made its possessor understand the speech of animals, or like Siegfried have dipped one’s hand in the blood of the dragon, and thus have acquired the gift of holding converse with the birds.
This much is certain, in the wildernesses of Africa this primeval language is still to be heard. In our hunting grounds at home the voices of the aurochs, the bison, the ibex, the bear, the lynx, and the wolf have been silenced, and many other voices that have belonged to the wild open country since primeval days have all but died away. I have indeed learned to understand only a few words of this language of the wilderness, though I have heard thousands of its sounds. But I may be able to tell something about it.
What a strong and deep impression this world of sound makes upon the traveller at so many hours of the day and night! Every region, every different kind of country has its own characteristic harmony. One does not always hear it—it depends upon the season of the year and the time of the day, on the changes of weather, and much else. But when one has become even to some small extent familiar and conversant with these various voices, one enjoys this music-language Of the Nyíka with a sense of deep delight and ever growing understanding. Sometimes it is most difficult to find out the names of the individual speakers. Often they keep very quiet; they seem to be like great vocalists on tour: they appear suddenly, and then disappear again for a long time, without letting one see any more of them. Then the traveller may often listen long, in vain, for the singer—gone without leaving a trace behind. But it is not only the soloists that charm us. There is also the combined effect of all the voices of nature uniting in one vast impressive chorus. This has made such an impression upon me that I shall try, so far as my limited powers permit, to describe it to the reader. This musical language of the wilderness is in itself powerful, rich and impressive, but all this in a still greater degree for him who, observing things with the eyes of a seer, knows many of the voices that resound in it will not be heard much longer. Although for long, long ages, through hundreds of thousands of years, this tumult of sound has been heard, these voices, or many of them, will soon be silent victims of civilisation! They are going, and with them many of the euphonious names of places with which the natives have distinguished every spot, but which the Europeans, as they penetrate into the country, feel themselves obliged to change.
It may seem that I myself am not quite guiltless of such misdeeds. It is true that I named an island, that resort of the wild buffaloes in the Pangani River, “Heck Island,” in honour of Professor Ludwig Heck. But the island had till then no name whatever. One feels sad, on glancing over the map of Africa, to note the degradation of so many old traditional names, which is in no way justified, and is a sign of the hasty and violent introduction of civilised life. “The Boers are not people who think much about natural history,” says a writer somewhere. And in fact, through their agency, the euphonious names of the various wild species of South Africa are now to a great extent already obsolete. They hastily gave vulgar-sounding names of their own to the wild animals.[39] Thus the oryx antelope became the “gemsbock,” and the cow-antelope, because it was tenacious of life and difficult to kill, the “hartebeest.” The gnu, on account of its wildness, was called the “wildebeest,” the bustard the, “pauw,”[40] the hyena the “wolf,” and the giraffe—incredible though, it may seem—the “kameel”! Hand in hand with this went the changing of place-names: so we read of “Hartebeests Fontein,” “Olifants River,” “Kameeldoorn,” “Zwartkop,” and we have a whole series of unpleasant, and sometimes utterly ugly names by the introduction of which the beautiful aboriginal names of various places have become obsolete. Thus not only do the primitive inhabitants of the land disappear, but their names, too, are blown away upon the wind.
Countless are the voices that resound by day in the Nyíka. But by night these voices speak still more mysteriously and wonderfully to him who listens to them, bringing him into still closer union with nature. From the multitude of these voices I choose a few only.
Old memories come back to me! It is in the year 1896. I have just landed, and am sitting in my night shooting-encampment by an inlet of the sea near Dar-es-Salaam. A concert of the voices of nocturnal birds mingles with the sharp buzz of the mosquitoes. Again and again one hears a strange cry. Unspeakably sad and monotonous, this peculiar sound rings out over the waters of the inlet; in the distance a changing answer comes back in response to it.
C. G. Schillings, phot.
FLIGHT OF SANDFOWL.