Central African Buffalo (Bubalis centralis).
At last I decided to go to camp and organise a drive. I assembled all the men, and sending them in at the west end, I sat with the two hunters on an old platform from which the boys were accustomed to scare birds from the crops, at the east end, and waited for the buffalo to be driven past me. The platform was a flimsy structure some six feet high, and commanded a good view of the edge of the woods and the reeds bordering the river, through which I hoped the buffalo would break.
The men from the west end of the jungle were extended to form a semicircle, and they moved towards me, firing guns and shouting. The brutes now got into a patch of the thickest bush, near where we had found their lair in the four trees growing together, so to get them out of this stronghold my men set fire to the jungle. Towards evening, when the fire was at its height, the buffalo at last made up their minds, and instead of coming into the reeds they broke back through the line of men, charging into them in spite of a shower of badly-aimed Snider bullets; and escaping from the forest, they cantered over a mile of open grass plain to the dense thorn bush and high grass on the slope leading up towards the Gálla mountains. Of course by the time I had run through the half mile of covert into the open they had disappeared. They never returned to Shendil while we were encamped there, and I have no doubt they left the country altogether.
At dusk on the evening of the 13th I went out to the burnt plain and got up to a herd of waterbuck, shooting a cow in mistake for the bull, and then wounding the bull. He got away into long grass, and night coming on I lost him. Going to follow him up next morning I first made for the body of the cow. I found that a lion had discovered it early in the night, and, eating his fill, had left the remainder to the hyænas. Following up the tracks of the lion, I found the carcase of the wounded bull, which the lion had followed up and struck down, close to a thicket of thorn bush and high grass. Part of the haunches was consumed, and the lion had apparently gone into the patch of grass to sleep or watch over the meat.
Silently sitting down behind a bush close by with my two hunters, I waited from eight o’clock till noon for the lion to come out. Vultures were perched on all the tops of the thorn-trees, and would occasionally swoop to the ground and walk round at a respectful distance from the meat; but they always took alarm again and flew back to their perches, no doubt fearing the lion would come out. Lions often watch meat in this manner by day. So still did we sit behind our screen of bushes watching the dead waterbuck that a large spotted hyæna came up to within two yards of my face without seeing me! I had to cough, otherwise he would have been right on to me, and there is no knowing what even a hyæna would do when so close. He gave one look, and the hair bristling up along his back he rushed away, coming to a halt eighty yards off to look back. Then he cantered through the jungle and I lost sight of him.
Finding the lion did not come out of the grass, we searched it through and through, and discovered that he must have heard us coming when we first found the carcase in the morning, and retired before us. So we gave it up and returned to camp. We had scarcely left the spot twenty yards behind us on our way home, when two Adone women, one of them young, plump, and almost pretty, came up and asked us for meat. We pointed to the carcase of the waterbuck, which had been partly eaten by the lion, and although it had lain under a tropical sun all the morning, they at once set to work to cut off the meat which was left, to take home for their own dinner.
The Dair, or rainy season, now coming on, the river began to rise rapidly. It was long past the time agreed upon for meeting the Gálla chief Dubbi Harré at Karanleh, and Yahia now sent me word that the Gállas had looted several animals from the Karanleh people, and fighting between the Somális and Gállas had broken out, all communication with Gállaland being thus interrupted. Finding that I had not enough leave left to go into Gállaland unless Dubbi Harré came down to Karanleh to help me, I decided to march as quickly as possible through Ogádén and the Habr Gerhajis country to the coast, four hundred miles distant.
On the 15th I went to the burnt plain and shot a very fine lesser koodoo buck, and in the evening, while marching to Yahia’s, I bagged two more waterbuck.
The next day we arrived at the ford at Karanleh, called Maaruf, where we had first crossed the river. The stream was now in flood, the bollards which we had driven into the mud had been carried away, and it took all the evening to stretch the rope across. I had not a fathom of rope to spare, and I feared that unless we could cross next day we might be kept a week or two on the southern bank through the further rising of the river. We, however, crossed with great difficulty on the following day. During the passage a freshet came down, drowning one camel and overturning a raft, with a good deal of valuable kit and a Snider rifle, several documents, amongst which were several maps, going down in thirty feet of water. The loss I felt most was that of my botanical collection. Although my men spent the whole evening diving for the things they were never recovered. I did not care to halt on the northern bank and order another day’s diving, because of the danger from crocodiles. The men had done their best, but in the strong current the efforts of even my Aden Somális, who are superb divers, were in vain.