Chapter Five.
The Beginning of the Adventure.
The second breakfast over, farewells were spoken—with, in some cases, the promise to meet again speedily—and the voyagers separated, some to make their way home to their sugar or coffee estates in the neighbourhood, others to take train to more distant localities, some three or four being bound as far afield as Johannesburg or Pretoria—and Dick, with his friend Grosvenor, set out to wander about the town of Durban, inspect the shops, pass through the aristocratic quarter of the Berea, per tram, and finally, on a couple of horses hired from the hotel stable, to ride out to the River Umgeni, and thence to Sea Cow Lake, in the vain hope of getting a sight of a few of the hippopotami that were said to still haunt that piece of water; finally returning to the hotel in time for dinner, hot, tired, but supremely happy, and delighted with everything that they had seen.
During the progress of the meal they made the acquaintance of a Mr Gerald Muspratt, a coffee planter, whose estate was situate some twelve miles distant, in the adjoining county of Victoria; and, the acquaintance ripening over the after-dinner coffee, with that breathless celerity which is one of the most charming characteristics of the Colonies, before retiring for the night the two friends had accepted Muspratt’s very pressing invitation to ride out with him to his place next morning, and spend a couple of days there with him to look round the estate and be introduced to Muspratt’s two or three neighbours. This they did in due course, the two days’ visit lengthening itself into four, and ending by the acceptance of another invitation, this time from a sugar planter whose estate, Mount Pleasant, was situate some fourteen miles farther up the coast, on the other side of the Umhloti River. This invitation Dick would fain have declined, for he was impatient to begin the real business that lay before them; but Grosvenor was so charmed with the country and everything that he saw in it, and especially with the spontaneous kindness, friendliness, and hospitality of its people, that he seemed in no hurry to rush away from it all and bury himself in the wilderness. As it happened, neither of the young men had any reason to regret the time thus spent, for their host, an old-time transport rider, named Mitchell, had penetrated far beyond the Zambezi in his younger days, was an experienced hunter, knew the interior, its inhabitants, and their peculiarities as well as, if not better than, any other man living, and was brimful of information and hints absolutely invaluable to the new arrivals, which he freely imparted. When told of the nature and scope of the young men’s projected adventure, however, he shook his head dubiously, and strongly urged them to abandon the idea of attempting more than just a few months’ big-game shooting.
“Mind you,” he said, “I strongly sympathise with you in your very ambitious aims, ridiculous as many men would pronounce them, for I was animated by precisely the same desire myself when I was a youngster of about your age,” turning to Grosvenor.
“By Jove! you don’t say so?” ejaculated Grosvenor, surprised and delighted to meet a man of such wide experience as Mitchell who did not pronounce his plans chimerical; for it must be stated that thus far the enunciation of those plans had been almost invariably received with either covert or open ridicule. “Then,” he continued, “do I understand that you believe in the possibility of finding the site of ancient Ophir?”
“Well—yes—you may understand me to mean that—in a general way,” was Mitchell’s somewhat guarded admission. “But,” he continued, “if you ask whether I think it probable that you will discover either Ophir or the mysterious white race which rumour has asserted to exist somewhere in the far interior, I answer: Certainly not.”
“The dickens!” exclaimed Grosvenor. “But why, my dear sir, why?”
“Well—if you will not be offended by my exceeding candour—chiefly because I think you both much too young and too inexperienced to have any chance of succeeding in so very formidable an undertaking,” was the somewhat discouraging reply.