Through Veld and Forest: An African Story

by Harry Collingwood

There were several varieties of animals in this great migrating army which was being so disastrously wiped out, some of them being of a kind that set me wondering by what extraordinary accident they could have become entangled among such incongruous companions. For example, tightly wedged in among a herd of blesbok I saw a full-grown lion forced over the cliff; and the only way in which I could possibly account for the presence of the beast was upon the assumption that he had been following the herd, and in springing upon some victim had become so closely involved that he had found it impossible to make his way out again.

I have always stoutly maintained that animals possess the power of communicating with each other, and what I witnessed now only tended to confirm me in my belief: for after the thing which I have been attempting to describe had continued for some ten minutes it suddenly came to an end; the remainder of the army had evidently halted, for although the cries from above still created a tremendous volume of sound, indicating that an innumerable multitude of animals survived up there on the top of the cliff, the thunder of the trampling hoofs had died down to almost nothing, while the animals, instead of being thrust helplessly over the edge, advanced thereto in little groups, gazed down into the ravine, and then retired again. When this had continued for some few minutes the sound of hoofs again became audible; but now the hoofs were retiring instead of advancing, and in the space of ten minutes had become inaudible. The creatures had retired to seek a safer road elsewhere.

Then, emerging into the open, and beckoning Piet, who also had quitted cover, to join me, I walked over to the foot of the fatal cliff to examine more closely the ghastly pile of carcasses that lay there, and by the time that I arrived the air was already darkening with the vast flock of vultures which was gathering to the feast thus bountifully provided for them.

The lion that I had seen come hurtling over the precipice in company with the herd of blesbok happened to be lying in such a position that I could get at him without very much difficulty, and I determined to have his hide if upon examination it should prove worth taking. Accordingly, upon the arrival of Piet, we both clambered up on the mound of dead and dying animals until we reached the spot where the lion lay doubled up in a heap and partially buried beneath the carcasses of the animals that had fallen on top of him. He was quite dead, his spine, and almost every other bone in his body apparently, being broken; but his skin was uninjured, so far as we could see. Piet and I therefore each seized one of his great fore paws, and, with a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together, contrived to drag him clear and roll him down to the bottom of the heap, to which we quickly followed him. He proved to be a magnificent beast, quite young but full-grown, in perfect condition, with a most formidable set of claws and fangs, a smooth, glossy hide of a rich deep tawny hue, and a splendid mane, of so deep a tint as to be almost black; altogether he was a specimen well worth having, and we quickly stripped him of his hide, taking also the head, which we deposited in close proximity to an ants’ nest in the full assurance that the industrious little creatures would clear the skull of every particle of flesh in the course of a few hours. Then, leaving Piet to clean the skin and prepare it for packing, I sprang into the saddle and, taking my rifle, cantered off down the ravine to explore the remaining portion of it and ascertain whether, as I conjectured, there was a means of egress at the far end.

I found that, as I had anticipated, the ravine, or gorge, passed right through the range of hills, and gave access to the open country beyond; that the route was quite practicable for a wagon throughout its entire length; and that by making use of it I should save a distance of about forty miles, or the equivalent of two days’ trek: and having satisfied myself upon these points, I turned my horse’s head and proceeded to ride leisurely back to the wagon, intending to pick up Piet and the lion’s skin on the way.

I had returned about three miles along the ravine, allowing Prince to proceed at his own pace, with the bridle hanging loose upon his neck, when I was aroused from a reverie into which I had fallen by a low whinny from my horse as he suddenly flung up his head, twitched his ears forward, and directed his glances toward a point some distance ahead and to the left. I knew at once that he had either sighted or scented something, or both; and, glancing in the direction indicated, I became aware that we were approaching an enormous flat boulder, which had attracted my attention some two hours earlier on my outward journey because of its immense size and the impossibility of accounting satisfactorily for its presence just where it was.

But now the boulder was remarkable for quite another reason; for whereas when I first passed it its flat top was perfectly bare, I perceived that in the interim it had become a scene of feverish activity, a troop of quite a hundred monkeys seeming to have taken possession of it. There was of course nothing very extraordinary in that; the strangeness of the matter consisted in the fact that they were all hard at work, apparently in concert with another troop of their brethren down below who seemed to be rushing to and fro between the rock and an adjacent clump of thorn bush. A touch on the bridle brought Prince to a halt, and I then produced my telescope and brought it to bear upon the busy party, when I perceived, to my amazement, that the gang of monkeys who were rushing to and fro between the clump of bush and the boulder were engaged in collecting and dragging to the rock a great number of branches of thorns, which they were passing up to their comrades upon the surface of the rock; and that these, in their turn, as it seemed to me, were constructing a scherm, or hedge of thorns, working in such feverish haste that their lives might have been depending upon its speedy completion.

The behaviour of that active gang of simians was so extraordinary that I determined to wait and see the thing out. I therefore remained where I was, at such a distance that my presence would not be likely to disturb or alarm them, and kept my telescope focused upon them, with the result that I soon began to realise, from their behaviour, that, rapid as were all their movements, the monkeys were nevertheless taking considerable pains to preserve silence. I noticed that none of them attempted to drag the thorns after them through the grass; every branch was carried at arm’s length overhead; and when it was passed up to those on the top of the rock it was not permitted to scrape or grate against the surface of the rock, but was carefully held away from it, although it was evident that some of the monkeys got more or less severely pricked during the process. I also observed that those monkeys who were actually engaged in the construction of the scherm laid the bunches of thorns in place with elaborate care and, as it appeared to me, with quite amazing skill and cunning.

Some ten or twelve minutes after I had come to a halt the scherm was finished, and then came an end to the silence which the monkeys had been at such pains to observe during the progress of the work; for, with its completion, the creatures set up a sudden chattering and howling and shrieking which distinctly reached me even at the distance of a good half-mile. And with the outbreak of the clamour, all hands beat a precipitate retreat from the surface of the rock, and arranged themselves in a circle round it down below, at a sufficient distance away to enable them to see anything that might happen on the top of the boulder. But what, I asked myself, could happen up there; why had those monkeys taken the trouble to construct that fine scherm; and why, in the name of fortune, were they exerting themselves to create such a terrific row? The answer was not long in coming; for, as I sat there intently scanning the scene through my telescope, I saw the head and about six feet of the body of an enormous python upreared from inside the scherm, its appearance being greeted by a yell of delight from the monkeys that caused Prince to snort and stamp with excitement. I saw the huge reptile up-rear itself still further and attempt to get out of the scherm; but it could not do so without crawling over the hedge of thorns, and the moment that its body touched these it recoiled, its immense jaws gaped open, its tongue flickered in and out, and I could in imagination hear its angry hisses as plainly as I could hear the howls of derision and defiance with which the monkeys greeted its appearance.

And then I understood, or believed I understood, the whole thing. The python, doubtless, had its lair somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the boulder, the flat top of which was probably its favourite basking place; the troop of monkeys, perhaps gambolling about on the face of the adjacent cliff, had chanced to see the huge snake lying asleep upon the rock, and, instantly seizing the opportunity to take their enemy at a disadvantage, had, with diabolical ingenuity, hastened to enclose the creature in a circular fence of thorns, from which it now seemed that it would find it impossible to escape—for I saw it make several attempts, at various points around the circumference of the scherm, and upon each occasion, when it essayed to crawl over the thorns, it shrank back, baffled by the innumerable sharp points which everywhere met it. At length, after I had watched its unavailing efforts for about a quarter of an hour, I cantered up to the rock—putting the monkeys to flight amid a chorus of angry protests—and, after a careful survey, proceeded to climb to the top, taking the precaution to carry my rifle with me. I now found that the scherm, constructed of small branches of formidable thorns—each thorn being nearly three inches long, and sharp-pointed as a needle—was about waist high, a yard in thickness, and some ten yards in diameter, completely hemming in the great python, who was now wideawake and rapidly circling the interior of his prison, in an atrociously bad temper, vainly seeking some spot through which he might force his way and escape. But the monkeys had evidently known quite well what they were about; instinct or observation had taught them that, once completely surrounded by a ring of thorns, the creature could not possibly escape, because its every effort would result in the self-infliction of so many severe wounds that it would rather remain a prisoner than persevere. And that was precisely what was happening; the moment that, in attempting to crawl over the barrier, the python’s ponderous weight was thrown upon the encircling fence, the long, sharp thorns pierced it in twenty or thirty places, and already, as it circled inside the enclosure, it was leaving a broad trail of blood behind it and emitting a powerful, sickening, musky odour which I only endured with difficulty. The creature glared at me murderously every time it came opposite me in its frantic circling of the scherm, and once made a determined effort to reach me, but the thorns were too much for it; and finally, when I was at length convinced that it could not possibly escape, I levelled my rifle and sent a bullet crashing through its enormous head, instantly thereafter beating a hasty retreat from the top of the rock, in order to avoid the terrific threshing of its convolutions, which now, in its death agonies, sent the thorns flying in all directions.