Perils in the Transvaal and Zululand

by H. C. Adams

“I was obliged to remain quite passive, but my condition was getting very uncomfortable. My arms and feet were bare, and the leaves of the mootjeeri afforded me a very insufficient shade from the blazing heat of the sun overhead. I also became very hungry as the evening came on. What food I had had with me was all in the bags attached to my saddle. My only chance, I felt, was that the lion might get tired of waiting for me and go off to seek food elsewhere. But I was sensible that this was not worth much. It was clear that he wanted me, or he would have sprung on my horse when he first made his attack; and I knew how eager the craving of the man-eater is for human flesh. He would wait as long as nature would allow him to hold out, in the hope of making his meal on me, and he would probably be able to last out much longer than I could.

“Presently he left the foot of the tree and went back to the spring, where he took a long draught, and then lay down on the grass under the shrubs, keeping his red and angry eye still fixed on me, and every now and then displaying his terrible teeth. The whole afternoon passed thus. I was in hopes that some of the Hottentots might pass that way, and repeatedly shouted at the top of my voice for help.

“By and by it grew dark, and some of the smaller animals which were accustomed to resort to the fountain to drink made their appearance in the distance, and again I hoped that he would pursue and make his supper on one of them. But no, it was quite plain that he had made up his mind to have me and nothing else. At last it grew quite dark, only a few stars being visible in the sky, and the lion, so far as I could make out, was sound asleep. I attempted to creep stealthily down from the branch, but the moment I moved he started up with a short roar, and rushed up to the tree so quickly that I had only just time to regain my former position.

“Daybreak came at last. I was worn out for want of sleep and ravenous with hunger. I foresaw that I should soon get weak and dizzy and drop from my perch into the jaws of my enemy. Suddenly it occurred to me, that although my supply of tobacco, was in my saddle-bags, I might have a small quantity in my belt, which would for the moment relieve my hunger. I felt accordingly, and drew out—not, alas! any tobacco, but my match-box. I usually carried this in my coat pocket, but by good luck I had thrust it into my belt at starting. The matches were of an unusually good kind, and when once ignited would burn for two or three minutes quite to the very end. The moment I saw them, I felt I had found a mode of deliverance if I could only accomplish it. I took my powder-flask, which was fortunately quite full, and dropped some loose powder on the ground. I then took one of the matches and fastened it to the end of the long stick by which I had endeavoured to hook up my coat and shoes. Having firmly secured it, I lighted it, and then dropped the flask on the heap of powder which I had scattered below. The lion, as before, rushed instantly up and put his head down to lay hold of the flask. Quick as lightning I thrust the stick down and applied it to the powder. The flask exploded directly in the lion’s face, setting his mane and whiskers on fire and severely scorching his mouth and nose. With a yell of terror and pain, he galloped off at the top of his speed, while I crawled down so exhausted that a long draught from the fountain and a feast of some wild medlars, which I fortunately found growing by the fountain, only restored me so far as to enable me with a great effort to get back to the Hottentot village, where I had to rest several days before I was fit to resume my journey.”

“What became of the lion?” asked Redgy.

“Nothing more was, I believe, ever heard of him. I inquired about him on my way back, but the Hottentots said he had entirely disappeared from the neighbourhood. They fancied that the fright he had had prevented his returning to his old haunts. But my opinion is that his eyesight had been completely destroyed by the explosion, and that, being rendered unable to provide himself with food, he had soon died of hunger.”

“Well, sir, that was a near touch, certainly,” said Hardy. “But I think what happened to my old comrade Robson may match it. He and I were in the same regiment in the war with the Ashantees. He told me the story, I remember, one night on our march to Coomassie, when the mosquitoes and the heat made it impossible to sleep. Robson had been servant to an officer who was very fond of field sports. He and two or three others who had got a short leave were resolved to pass it in some genuine African hunting, as they called it, going quite beyond the usual resorts of white men. They started from Graham’s Town, and travelled northwards across what is now the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, till they came within a short distance of the Limpopo. The country was wild enough even for them. They fell in with a number of savage tribes, and here and there a Dutch settler. But there had been nothing to scare away the wild beasts. When they encamped for the night, Robson said they could hear the lions roaring about them to their heart’s content. They were obliged at night to light two large fires, one on each side of the space enclosed by their waggons. The oxen were all placed in the middle, so that they couldn’t get out, or the lions get in, otherwise they would certainly have been seized and devoured. Sometimes the lions were so bold, that they were obliged to cut long stout poles and lash them to the spokes of the wheels to prevent the animals creeping in under the waggons. One or two always kept watch, and the others slept with their loaded rifles by their sides. Robson said that if any of the oxen had contrived to slip out, they would have been seized and devoured in no time. By the light of the moon, he had sometimes seen three or four lions stalking about, trying to find some way in. Till he got used to it, their roaring was the most terrible sound to him that could be imagined, and he used to lie quaking with terror. It seemed to fill the whole air in all directions, he said.”

“Ay,” remarked Prestcott; “that is because the lion when he roars puts his head close to the earth, so that his voice rolls along the ground and echoes among the rocks. Go on with your story.”

“Well,” resumed Hardy, “what the party wanted above all things was to fall in with a herd of elephants. They had been told how they went about everywhere in that country in large herds, breaking their way through the thick forests like a fleet of men-of-war through the waves. They were a good deal disappointed that several weeks passed without their meeting so much as a single elephant. Robson said that he was as much disappointed as the rest. But one day he had his wish, and something over, as the saying is. There had been a great hunt among the Matabeles to the north, and a large herd had been driven some way south of the Limpopo. One evening the scouts came hurrying in with the information that the whole forest a few miles to the north of them was full of elephants. They were resting for the night, the blackies said, but in the morning they would be pretty sure to make for a piece of water which lay about a mile to the south of us. They would pass through the very glade where we now were, in which there were some very large trees. If we climbed up into these, we should get some capital shots as they passed. But not a moment was to be lost in placing the waggons and oxen in some secure spot. The elephants would pass down the middle of the glade, trampling everything to powder that came in their way.