During the voyage that had ended so disastrously, I had noticed some trees on the river-bank with a whitish bark, growing from twenty to forty feet in height. What was most remarkable about them was the way in which, from the boughs that overhung the river, masses of red-brown roots descended like a beard, sometimes as much as six feet in length.
The rain fell heavily all the next morning, and in the afternoon the wind blew so icy cold, that although the servants did all they could to cover up the front of my hut with mats, my body suffered from repeated chills. My illness increased so much that I was quite unable to turn myself without assistance. I had a sort of couch extemporized out of some packing-cases, on which I reclined and got what rest I could. While I was lounging in this way, I heard a conversation going on outside the hut amongst my servants, who supposed that I was asleep. One of them, Borili, was saying that it was a lucky thing that Nyaka (the doctor) was sick, and proposed that they should all make off with my property to the southern bank of the Chobe. The rest of them did not seem altogether inclined to acquiesce, but I made up my mind to nip anything like a conspiracy in the bud. Calling them all in, I made each of them a present of beads, except Borili, whom I asked whether he expected a gun from me when we parted, as a remuneration for his services. Of course he told me he should reckon on his gun; but he looked somewhat surprised when I replied that he was much mistaken, and that having found out that he was a bad servant and a thief, I should keep my eye on him, and that if he repeated his misconduct, I should send him back to Sesheke for Sepopo to punish. He knew what that meant.
Towards evening, the fever having slightly abated, I made the servants lift me on to the ground, where I sat with my back supported against the bed. In this position I received a visit from some Mabundas, from whom I obtained various specimens of their handicraft. To one of the boatmen I was able, out of the very limited stock of drugs that I had left, to give an emetic that proved very effectual. He had made himself ill by eating too freely of the fruit of a shrub called ki-mokononga; the symptoms of the man and the smell of the fruit made me inclined to believe that he was suffering from the effects of prussic acid. The fruit itself was about an inch long, and half-an-inch thick; it had a yellowish pulp, an oval kernel, and in flavour was not unlike bitter almonds. The emetic soon relieved the sufferer, and next day he was ready for work again.
The Mabunda chief from Sioma came to see me, and in the intervals between the attacks of fever I took the opportunity to ask him, as well as the guides and boatmen, all the questions I could about the land and population of the Marutse empire. Our conversation generally turned upon the Livangas, Libele, and Luyanas, the tribes between the Chobe and the Zambesi, and upon the independent Bamashi, on the lower Chobe, who are also called Luyanas, and are subject to three princes of their own, Kukonganena, Kukalelwa, and Molombe.
Our experience at night proved that the Mabundas had not exaggerated much in what they told us about the lions. After sunset we heard their chorus begin, and it did not cease till dawn. I should not think the animals were more than 150 yards away from us. Up in the little village the people had to be on the watch to keep them at bay, and kept on shouting and beating a drum, while nearly every enclosure was illumined by a fire. My own boatmen sat up, spear in hand, nearly all night, and weird enough their shadows were as they fell upon the fence. No lions, however, ventured to attack us.
For the next two days I was worse rather than better, and vain were my efforts to amuse myself with either my diary or my sketch-book. My disorder was aggravated by the ungenial weather, and even in the most violent fits of fever I was conscious of a feeling of shivering under the keen north-east blast. I endeavoured to keep up my spirits, but writing, which was my sole resource, was a painful trial to me, and the lines danced before my eyes.
I could not bear the thought of going back to Sesheke, and determined to make a vigorous endeavour once again to go ahead. Accordingly on the 8th we started, but the exertion was too much for me, and in the evening I had to be carried ashore. Scarcely had I been laid down in a grass-hut left by some previous passengers, when I was seized with such an attack of sickness and diarrhœa, that I really began to fear that I should not live till morning.
Page 280.
NIGHT VISIT FROM LIONS AT SIOMA.