In the course of the next day’s trek we passed close to the scene of the combat, and, for the satisfaction of my curiosity, I made a point of carefully examining the tree into which the body of the vanquished had been thrown. The leaves were still bunched tightly together; but I observed that the mass thus formed was distinctly smaller than it had been when I last looked upon it, and I believed I could guess pretty accurately at the process which was going on within it. I felt very strongly disposed to have the tree cut down and subjected to examination; but there were two strong arguments against this, one being the overpowering carrion-like effluvium which the tree exhaled, while the other was Piet’s point-blank refusal to have anything to do with such an attempt.
On this day we saw two new species of animals, one being a hyena nearly twice as big as any that I had hitherto seen, and of quite different marking, the ground colour of its skin being very similar to that of the lion, while it had a black head, a distinct black mane, a broad black line running along its spine from the base of the skull to the tail, and an alternation of black stripes and irregular blotches upon the whole of its body except the under part, which was white. We came rather suddenly upon a pack of eleven of these creatures disputing possession of the carcass of a buffalo with a flock of vultures, and were therefore afforded an excellent opportunity to note carefully their peculiarities before they made off, which they did slowly and unwillingly, uttering the most dreadful maniacal laughs as they went. The other creature was a kind of jackal, as big as a full-grown leopard, with a splendid coat of long, fine, glossy black fur. This beast broke cover about fifty yards away from us, and, unlike the rest of his species, instead of beating a hasty retreat upon seeing us, turned promptly and attacked us with indescribable fury. Luckily, I had my rifle ready, and shot the brute dead as he was in the very act of leaping at Prince’s throat; and it was well that I did so, for upon examining him we found that he was possessed of a set of terrible fangs, capable of inflicting dreadful injuries had he been afforded the chance. We stripped off his hide, and left the carcass to the vultures to dispose of, which they did with commendable promptitude, as Jan subsequently informed us when we rejoined him at the next outspan. We also saw in the distance, on that same day, a herd of about thirty elephants; but I did not attempt to interfere with them, as I hoped that before long I should have something even more valuable than ivory with which to load the wagon.
As we proceeded, the country steadily became more broken and irregular, the hills higher and more precipitous, with frequent outcrops of enormous granite boulders and towering cliffs of felspar, from the interstices of which sprang strange and beautiful ferns, interspersed with bushes bearing flowers of remarkable shapes and the most splendid colours. The trees, too, grew more closely together: the streams increased in number, many of them pouring down the face of the cliffs in the form of waterfalls, which dissolved into spray and mist long before they reached the bottom, veiling the dark and rugged rocks in soft clouds of delicate vapour reflecting every hue of the rainbow. In short, with every mile of our advance the scenery grew more wildly and romantically beautiful, yet withal there were spots, deep narrow glens and ravines shut in by towering cliffs and overshadowing trees, where the effect was as weird as a scene copied from Dante’s Inferno, and in the midst of which one felt that the strangest happenings would have excited no surprise.
It was in the midst of such a scene that we again encountered the gigantic man-like monkeys, which, I subsequently learned, formed part of the fauna peculiar to this remarkable country. There were two of them this time, a male and a female, and they were coming toward us when we sighted them. The instant that they caught sight of us, the female turned and ran for the face of the nearest cliff, which she scaled with incredible agility; but the male halted and stood his ground, evidently prepared to dispute our passage, if necessary, and to cover his companion’s retreat. But I had no fancy for engaging in a fight with a creature which was such a strange and unnatural compound of man and beast. I therefore spoke a word to Piet, and we reined up; whereupon the creature, after much snarling, growling, and baring of teeth, slowly retreated, following his mate, but keeping a wary eye upon us meanwhile, until he too reached the foot of the cliff, when, with a parting snarl of defiance, he climbed the vertical face of the rock with an agility no less extraordinary than that displayed by his mate.
Chapter Fifteen.
I learn some interesting Particulars concerning the Queen.
It was a little after ten o’clock on the following morning when Piet and I, mounted as usual, and riding about a mile ahead of the wagon, emerged from a narrow, winding gorge, hemmed in on either hand by stupendous, almost vertical, cliffs, drawn so closely together that, riding though we were beside the margin of the river, there was little more than bare room for us to travel abreast. It was not until we rounded a bend in the gorge that we knew how near we were to the end of it; and the sight which then greeted our eyes caused me to utter a shout of delight: for before us, at a distance of a short quarter of a mile, was the extremity of the gorge, a mere narrow slit between two mighty walls of overhanging sandstone, through which we caught a glimpse of an open, grassy, sun-bathed plain, the long rich grass billowing to the sweep of a fresh breeze, and its wide stretches of level surface darkened here and there with the rich purple shadows of slow-moving clouds, promising a welcome change from the close, suffocating, enervating, insect-haunted atmosphere of the gorge. And as a background to this breezy, sunlit scene, there towered high into the air, at a distance of some ten miles, a magnificent sweep of lofty mountains, rugged and broken of outline, tree-clad to their summits, and gleaming like emeralds in the strong blaze of the morning sun.
With another shout of delight I pressed my heels to Prince’s ribs, and three minutes later Piet and I trotted gaily out through the mouth of the gorge into the sunlit plain—to find ourselves confronted by a troop of some fifty of the most extraordinary-looking warriors I had ever seen, who had evidently been lying perdu in waiting for us behind the screen of towering rocks that formed the gateway, as it were, of the gorge.