“It was a great game country, that. I don’t suppose there’s much game left there now, but in those days it was swarming, all the way from the mountains to the Limpopo. It was a big, lonely country. Those were the two things that got hold of me. I used to ride out there on hunting expeditions with no more company than one boy. I remember sitting there one night after supper with a pipe of Boer tobacco, and then the thought came to me: ‘Good God! as I sit here now there’s probably not another white man within fifty miles.’
“That was the beginning of it. I began to follow out the idea, and I soon realised that my fifty miles was nothing to speak of. North of me it would easily run into thousands . . . thousands of miles of country that no living man knew anything about; where, for all we knew, there might be rivers and lakes and cities even that had never been seen, all waiting for a man who would set out to find them for the love of the thing. It was a big idea, almost too big for one man’s life. But it was the very thing for which my loneliness had been waiting. Africa. . . . Years afterwards—I think it was after the war—I came across a poem by Kipling: a man, one of your amateur settlers, showed it me in the Kenya province. It was about Africa. He called Africa ‘the woman wonderful.’ Yes . . . ‘lived a woman wonderful,’ it began. I’d lost one wonderful woman. Now I found another. I’ve lived with her for thirty years and I have never come anywhere near the end of her wonder, though I know more of her than most men. Why, there is no end. There is always something new. Even in the last week I have stumbled on something new and wonderful. Tonight . . .
“I had three years of it south of the Limpopo. In eighteen ninety I heard that Rhodes was sending an expedition into Mashonaland. There were only five hundred of us in ‘ninety; but I always want to shake a man by the hand if he was with us in those days. The men who rode up to Salisbury . . . men that I’d still give my life for: men like Selous. A great hunter, and a good man!
“From that day to this my life has been much the same. There have been one or two diversions. In ninety-five the Jameson raid, and a few years later the Boer War. Wasted years . . . but I didn’t fully realise the value of time in those days. I was a wild fellow too. God knows how much I drank. A young man thinks that he is going to live for ever. Still, I suppose there was a mess to be cleared up and it had to be done, and after the war I had my own way. I never slept where I couldn’t see the Southern Cross.
“I could tell you a good deal about Africa, all Africa from the Orange River to Lake Chad and the Blue Nile, and the Lorian Swamp. I’ve hunted everywhere—not for the love of hunting, but because a man must live. I’ve not been one of those that make hunting pay. I’ve shot elephants because ivory would keep me in food and porters and ammunition. I’ve poached ivory with a clear conscience for the same reason. I’ve found gold, gold and copper: and I’ve let other men scramble for the fortunes. I didn’t want their fortunes. I wanted to know Africa. And always . . . for my own sake, not for the sake of other people, I have made notes of the things that I saw, of kindly peoples, of good water, and things like that. Some day I might make a book about them; but it would be a big book, and I haven’t any skill in writing. If I could write of all the beauty and strangeness that I’ve seen as I saw them a man would never put down the book that I wrote. That’s the meaning of the notebooks that I carried in my shirt pockets. There are a lot more stored with the Standard Bank. You see, I’ve been at it for thirty years.
“Now it’s not so easy as it used to be. The zest is there. I’m as eager, you might almost say, as a child; but the power isn’t the same. I can’t starve in the same way as I used to. In the old days I could live on a little biltong and coffee and the mealie flour I got from the natives. And I’m handicapped in other ways. Five years ago I lost my left arm. I was lucky not to lose my life, for a wounded elephant charged and got me. I’m glad he didn’t kill me, for in spite of it all I’ve had a good time since. I can shoot straight, thank God, if I have something on which to rest my rifle. German East has always been an unlucky country for me. It was near Meru that the elephant got me. One of the Dutchmen in the Arusha settlement had a down on me, and there’s been a warrant out for my arrest. The other day, if it hadn’t been for you, they would have had me. It’s a good thing they didn’t; for I want to see this country. I’ve heard funny things about the Waluguru. They’re worth more to me than ivory. When this shoulder’s better perhaps I shall find out if the things I’ve heard are true . . . and I’ve never been to Kissaki or the Rufiji Delta . . . .
“I think that is all. It’s strange how little a man can really tell of his life. The things that matter, the wonderful moments, can’t be told at all. What I’ve been able to tell you sounds like . . . like nothing more than what might have happened to any hard case who’s knocked about Africa for thirty years. But for all that life has been precious to me. Perhaps you will think it the kind of life that wasn’t worth saving. You mustn’t think that. Because I’m grateful. I’m grateful even for these last hours. I’m grateful that you’ve allowed me to make this sort of confession. It worried me that I should have started off with a lie to a woman like you. It hadn’t struck me that way ever before. I dare say it was foolish of me; but when one is weak one gets those twinges of . . . of conscience.
“I’m hoping that you’ll forgive me . . .”