Vardon went home to England, I think, and I returned to India to finish my time before taking furlough in 1847. Early in 1849 hearing that Livingstone intended making an attempt to reach Lake ’Ngami, Murray and I again left England to join him. The Doctor had quitted his old missionary station, and was now with Sechélé at Kolobeng. As we neared this place, whilst we were lying at a small spring called Le Mawé, or the needles, from some pointed rocks which overhang it, the Kafirs told me there was a shorter way to Kolobeng through the hills, but they doubted if it would do for the waggons; so I volunteered one afternoon to examine it, and report for the onward move of the next day. I started at 2 p.m. on a good old horse, and had followed a winding track through the stony hills around us for an hour or more, and, as it seemed likely to answer, was thinking of returning to camp. We were at a slow walk when a low grumbling growl woke up man and beast, and on looking back I saw a lion within fifteen yards, coming up at his wicked slouching trot. He was too near to give me a chance of dismounting, and I spurred into a gallop; but he gained on me, and, in the hope of checking him, I fired a shot Parthianwise from the saddle. The bough of a tree swept off my hat, and, as it fell, the lion made a spring at it, giving me a moment’s law. Fifty or sixty yards ahead there was a small, rocky, but otherwise open space, and to this I pressed at best speed. I pulled up, as I could see well around, intending to load the barrel I had fired, and bring my friend to account; but my foot was not out of the stirrup before he was again on me. I was alone, and the horse was so scared I could hardly hold him; but, freeing my foot, I caught the reins over my left arm, faced the oncomer, and threw the gun up to fire; just as I covered him, and my finger began to press the trigger, I was violently pulled back, and my arm jerked up. The lion still came slowly on, with his body sunk between his shoulders, and his brisket nearly touching the ground. When within twelve yards, I shouted at him, instinctively, hoping to stop him. The human voice acted like a charm; he stood, and made as if he would turn away. The horse, seeing that he no longer advanced, left off tugging at the rein, and I snatched the opportunity and fired my remaining barrel. The bullet struck the point of the shoulder, and rolled him off the little rocky plateau into the bush below, where he lay roaring, without my being able to get sight of him. I went forwards to look for and settle him, but had to give it up, for my horse, which I had tied to a tree, did not at all approve of being left alone, and tried to break his riem. I coaxed him, and as long as I stood by him he was quiet, but directly I turned to leave terror seized him. I could not afford to lose him, so I mounted, and attempted to ride him near enough to get a sight and shot; but the tremendous noise was too much for him, and neither spur nor hand had any effect. He stood up on his hind legs, and broke into a white lather of sweat. I persevered for a time, but had to give it up, and, breaking a few twigs and leaves from the trees to make myself a kind of substitute for my lost hat, got back to camp.
THE DROP SCENE
Next morning, after putting the waggons on the path I had looked out the day before, Murray, I, two Kafirs, and three dogs[6] went on ahead to pick up the lion. We had just reached the place where my hat had been torn off by the tree, and I turned round to tell the Kafirs that he must be hard by, when an angry growl to my left and then the shriek of a man told me that something had gone wrong. Jumping off my pony, I ran into the scrub, guided by the sound. I had hardly got fifty yards when, bursting through a thicket in front of me, a man, covered with blood, fell at my feet, crying out that he was killed by the lion, and at the same instant I caught sight of the beast close up on three legs, his mane as if electrified into an Elizabethan collar, with the Kafir’s dog in his mouth. As his head came clear of the bush I put a ball through it, and he dropped dead by the native’s foot. I looked to the yelling victim, and found he was terribly bitten in thigh and arm; so, tearing my shirt into strips, I bound him up as well as I could, never expecting him to live, for large surfaces were mangled, and I had to replace much a good deal at hazard. As I finished the waggons came up, and, lifting the wounded man on a blanket into one of them, I took him home, made him over to his wife, gave her a handful of beads and a yard or two of brass wire to purchase food whilst he was laid up, summoned the chief, said I was very sorry an accident should have happened to one of his men, received his assurance that it was not of the slightest consequence, especially as I had killed the lion, and then, as there was no water for the oxen, I moved on. In seven weeks I returned to this village. The first to meet and welcome me was my wounded friend, quite well and sound, and about to start on a journey. He brought back the blanket on which we had carried him—I had left it at his hut—cleanly washed; and when I told him to keep it his joy was so great that I think he would have had the other leg bitten for a like reward. The recuperative power of the wild man is marvellous. A European must have died of the wounds, or the consequent fever. The native, it appeared, had stopped behind, as we came through the pass, to mend his sandal, and, taking a short cut to rejoin us, had chanced upon the wounded lion, which first seized him by the large back muscles of the thigh, and on his striking him over the head with his fist, shifted his grip to the arm, which was munched up to the elbow, though no bones were broken. I have before said, lions do not attack men in daylight without strong cause. I opened this one, and found the stomach and nearly the whole of the intestines absolutely empty! The beast was starving—he had evidently bled all night, and was very weak, a fact which may account for the man’s getting off easier than one would expect.
My journey with Livingstone to Lake ’Ngami, and my subsequent visit to the Zambesi in the same company, have been fully described by the Doctor himself, and though on both occasions I had to kill game for the camp, they do not fall within the category of shooting expeditions. They were made with other ends in view, and would be out of place in a narrative of this kind; it will be sufficient to say we were successful in introducing two new antelopes[7]—the ’Nakong and the Leché. The latter, of a dark fawn-colour, with horns annulated and curved like the waterbuck’s, only smaller, was found on the flats between the shallow lake Kamadou and the Sesheké plains, west of the Zambesi, the former about Lake ’Ngami, and in the marshy land and pools of one of its affluents, the Teoge River. It is a veritable swamp-liver, about the size of a goat, with long, brownish hair, and horns resembling those of the koodoo in miniature. The abnormal elongation of its hoof enables it to skim over the surface of morasses into which other antelopes would sink. I have one, which I have just measured, very nearly four inches long—if it were in the ratio of the animal’s size, one and a half would be its proportion. On hard ground the ’Nakong runs with difficulty—the swamp shoe is a hindrance. Instead of escaping by flight or concealment in the bush, this antelope, on being disturbed, makes straight for the water, sits down in it, and submerges all but the nostrils until the danger be overpast.
When Murray and I reached Kolobeng in 1849 we found, for some reason or other, Livingstone had already started, but we caught him up beyond the Ba-Mungwato, with the chief of which tribe we had again a little difficulty. By the way, six or seven miles south of his kraals we found a hot, brackish spring, which bubbled up as if laden with gas.
Our trek to the lake was a hard one, and we were very anxious to see some of the dwellers of the desert, that we might gain information of the path and waters in advance; but messengers from Secomi, chief of the Ba-Mungwato, had gone through the land ordering all Bushmen and Balala to keep out of our way, and by no means to give us any assistance. If they happened to be anywhere near our line of march, they had instructions to step heavily on their toes, and, pressing the sand behind them, to make as good an imitation as they could of frightened wildebeest or quagga. We noticed these tracks, but were never able to use them to our advantage, though we saw through them, for in that land of thirst we could not afford time to follow the trail of people hostile to our advance, with perfect knowledge of the country and its hiding places, and likely to lead us in their flight as far from water as they possibly could. That they were often about us, even quite close, we knew; but we never sighted one. A little dog strayed one day into our camp: we caught it, and covered it with rings of beads, brass wire, and tinder boxes, then loosed it with a sudden crack of the waggon whip, in the hope of its running back to its ambushed masters and giving evidence of our friendly intentions; but nothing came of it. Again, I tried to lure our unseen watchers through that most sensitive organ, the stomach. Elephants trooped down one night to drink; in the morning I took up the spoor and shot one immediately, but after wounding a second had much trouble with him in the thick bush, the horse falling before the charging bull, and I only just escaping. Months afterwards, on our return from Lake ’Ngami, when there was no further object to be gained by opposition, we were encamped at the same pool, and were soon surrounded by the children of the wilderness, who recounted and acted the story of the elephant hunt; how they had followed and found number two, which escaped at the time, and eaten him; how they had witnessed it all as invisible spectators; and now, turning actors, they enjoyed the play vastly: trumpeted like the elephant, fell like the horse, and imitated my attack and retreat, and the noise of the gun.
During this journey, when very hard up for water, I offered to sacrifice a pony and ride on in advance of the slow-moving waggons, which were to follow on my spoor, on the chance of finding what we needed so sorely. John and three or four Kafirs accompanied me, and we had travelled I dare say twelve miles when I saw a patch of high grass wave as if something were passing through it. Thinking it might be a lion, and if a lion then water was near, I cantered to the head of the ‘Jheel,’ dismounted, and watched the line of movement. It came to the edge, and some living thing broke from it. I covered it, and only just in time saw it was a woman running, or rather crawling, very fast on all fours. I mounted in an instant, and shouting to the Kafirs to follow, I headed her and made signs to her to stop. She fell upon her knees, and in Sechuana begged me not to kill her. She had never seen horse or white man before, and evidently took me for a hippogriff. I calmed her apprehensions, cut the metal buttons off my waistcoat, presented them to her, and asked where the water was. ‘There is no water,’ she said, ‘I was just making something to drink’ (she was mashing a watery tuber in a wooden bowl) ‘when I saw the pitsi (horse).’ Bushmen—she was of that people—we knew, lived for months without real water, but I thought it worth while trying the experiment of offering her beads and brass wire if she would guide us to some. It succeeded. ‘Well, if you won’t kill me, I’ll show you where the elephants drink,’ she replied; I bade her go ahead, and made her walk just in front. Never did any old lady step out through prickly bush as did my dame. Her bare legs were scratched by the thorns; but what was that to her, expecting instant death if she stopped a moment? On she went. Presently we came upon an elephant. She suggested by signs that I should kill it, but I answered, ‘Water, then elephant.’ We entered a belt of high trees. I pressed even more closely on her, lest she should dodge among them and escape; my pony’s nose nearly touched her, and so we went through two miles of wood.
As we break into the open again, what do I see? The Lake! Can it be that I am the first to catch a glimpse of it? We had voted it mean to stand upon an ant-heap for the chance of a first view, and here was I engaged on a work of love for the public weal. I was the happy discoverer, and under ‘creditable circumstances.’ As far as the eye could reach, without limit rippled the bright blue water. Up went my old wide-awake, and I shouted for joy; down went the old lady on her knees begging for dear life: she feared the hour of sacrifice had struck. The Kafirs who were with me looked astonished, and thought I had gone mad. ‘What is it; what is it, Tlaga?’ ‘The Lake!’ I replied. ‘Where?’ ‘Here—under our feet—close by.’ ‘Why, that’s only a chooi!’ and so it was. The low sun cast a slanting beam over the incrustations of salt, and they looked like ripples—indeed, a moment before I would have sworn it was water. The bush-woman showed us the usual spring by the side of the pan, and we got water enough for the cattle; she was bountifully rewarded, but she bolted during the night.