THE LIONS OF MAKULULUMI.
How hot it was! September, 1897. I had not shot my first lion then, and many, many months were to pass before my luck came. Dame Fortune doesn't often condescend to glance my way. She smiled broadly once when, with three tickets, I won first, second, and third prize in a sweep on the Grand National; but then I have never drawn a prize in a sweep since.
However, to return to September, 1897. Yes, by Jingo, it was hot. Not a breath of air; not a leaf on any tree. The rains were almost due, but not a shower had fallen. The only shade was in the shadow of the wagon.
But it was not the blazing sun alone with which we had to contend. There thrives in the Kalahari Desert a pestiferous little winged insect called the Mopani bee, named after the hardwood tree in which it sets its hive. It would seem that this creature must have moisture, moisture of any kind—it isn't at all particular. And to think that I used to eat the stuff they call Mopani honey until, one day, I saw a bunch of them lapping up the moisture from a perspiring native runner. Ugh!
These bees will congregate in dozens at the corners of your eyes, try to burrow into them and then collect the tears which the discomfort of their burrowing produces. They will crowd at the corners of your mouth; when you open it to blow the little plagues away, they rush in. Thank Heaven, the Mopani bee doesn't sting.
We were struggling up to the Zambesi from Bulawayo. Our waggons were overloaded, for the Kalahari had taken heavy toll of our cattle and our spans were therefore many oxen short.
We had reached and covered the first ten miles of the thirty-five which separate Makululumi from Kasibi. All those who knew the old Hunter's road will remember that stretch. The first ten miles are not bad going, but the next seven are the heaviest and loosest sand that oxen were ever asked to drag a waggon through.
Between Makululumi and Kasibi there is no water, so the Major who commanded our little party thought it wise to send the oxen back from the ten-mile point to have the best part of a couple of days' rest at Makululumi before calling upon them to tackle the next stage of the journey.
During the afternoon of the second day, by following my chief's example, I got the better of those bees. It is true I was slowly suffocating, but that was better than being tormented. I was lying on my back under the waggon, with my head covered with a blanket, perspiring immoderately. At least three more hours of this before the cattle returned and we resumed our journey.