The spoor of buffalo, rhinoceros, sable, and hartebeeste was plentiful, but nothing would satisfy me except eland, and it was not till midday that I found tracks fresh enough to follow. A six-mile burst brought me in sight of a herd of twenty, and I was creeping round under cover of some trees to obtain a good shot at the leading bull when a boy, who had followed me from the village, let off a dozen ear-piercing whistles to inform me that he too had seen them. Away dashed the eland, and any one who has once followed alarmed eland does not eagerly repeat the mistake. They usually keep up a steady trot till they are clear of the obnoxious neighbourhood, and when they do stand are so wary that approach is impossible. The offending native was an ordinary type of the creatures depicted in books as wonderful hunters and trackers. Personally I have never found a native of Africa who was anything but an abominable nuisance out hunting; and after many trials I strictly confined my hunting attendants to one or two gun-bearers whom I trained to act instantly on a definite set of signs, and never used them for any purpose, except to occasionally follow obvious spoor when I wanted to rest my eyes; even then they needed watching, or they would go wrong. The Bushmen are, of course, an exception to this rule.
On my way back to camp I was startled by a deafening report and the shriek of a bullet past my head. The boy who was carrying my 4-bore had slipped the safety-bolt back, and the trigger had caught in a twig. He was, of course, carrying the gun loosely on his shoulder, and the effect of the explosion of fourteen drams of powder was terrific. It knocked him several feet off the path and stunned him, while the gun described a graceful parabola, and landed, muzzle downwards, on a patch of soft soil, fortunately escaping damage.
A messenger arrived in the evening with a note to the effect that the stray baggage had arrived, and the following day I returned to Chiromo after a most enjoyable trip.
CHAPTER V.
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA AND LAKE NYASSA.
At last, on November 28th, I left Chiromo and started up the river once more in the good ship Scott, and again realized the feelings of a pea on a drum. Fortunately the skipper was so ill with fever that we took charge of the boat ourselves, and thus contrived to have something to eat.
We had lost six valuable weeks through our kit having been put on the wrong boat at Beira, and as Mohun's expedition had gone on in front we lost eventually six weeks more, through the transport on the Tanganyika plateau being temporarily demoralized. Thus the carelessness of our agent delayed us in all three months. Such is African travel. I no longer fret when my train is ten minutes late. Even after this wait some of our things never turned up at all. Mr. Commissioner Alfred Sharpe, C.B., the greatest and most reticent of African Nimrods, was on board, but we tried in vain to induce him to tell us some of his experiences. However, he gave me a piece of advice that afterwards stood me in good stead: that, when charged by an elephant, the safest course was to remain quite still till the brute was within four yards, and then to blaze in his face. This almost invariably turns the brute or makes him swerve; my experience has certainly proved its efficacy. Mr. Sharpe has the reputation of being the hardest and most daring shikari who ever followed an elephant; and many amusing tales are current of how in the excitement of the chase he would charge cow elephants to make them get out of his way, in order that he might obtain his shot at the leading bull. In view of the success that attends many of the imaginative literary efforts of missionaries and week-end tourists on the subject of Africa, it is a great pity that the few men like Alfred Sharpe and Lawley of Beira railway fame, who have had gigantic experience of Africa past and present, resolutely refuse to record their invaluable data in a book. Sir Harry Johnston and Selous have set an admirable example, and if a few more men of their stamp would write, much of the misleading balderdash that now passes current as representing the Dark Continent would be happily crushed out of existence.
I was compelled to stoop down and grope.
A slight mishap with the machinery delayed us for several hours, and it was not till noon the following day that we reached Makwira's village. Young Makwira, who is quite the young gentleman, in knickers, stockings, spats, collar, and hard hat, provided us with whiskies and milk, and discussed local politics, displaying no little acumen. I believe that it was his father who used to be a terror to all travellers on the Shiré, and that but a few years ago, when the elephant still roamed in thousands on the Elephant Marsh, undisturbed by the shrill whistle of the stern-wheeler or the bark of the playful 4-bore. It was either old Makwira or another genial darky in the vicinity, who for some time kept a tame Portuguese band, and utilized the bandsmen when off duty as machila-carriers.[#]