22d October.—Water has been scarce for some days, and this morning our one pool was quite dried up, so I struck camp. Marching northwest, over an undulating forest country, we came to a small village, near which was a running stream. The chief, an amiable old gentleman, after an hour spent in suspicious prospecting, came to see the show, and propitiated its leading actor with a present of flour. In return I gave him some cloth and an empty magnesia bottle to hold his snuff. The native snuff-mull is a cylinder of wood profusely carved, and, in the absence of a pocket, hangs tied round the neck with a thong. Snuffing is universal hereabouts.
This is a hotter camp than the last, though the elevation (4500 feet) is nearly the same. Paid the men their fortnight's wage in cloth, and as I threw in an extra fathom they held high revelry till far on in the night.
24th October.—Buffalo fever still on. Sallied forth early with Moolu, a large herd being reported at hand. We struck the trail after a few miles, but the buffaloes had moved away, passing up a steep valley to the north and clearing a hill. I followed, but saw no sign, and after one or two unsuccessful starts gave it up, as the heat had become terrific. Breakfasted off wild honey, which one of the natives managed to lay hands on, and sent for the camp to come up. Moolu went on with one native, T'Shaula—he of the great spear and the black feathers. They returned about two o'clock announcing that they had dropped two bull buffaloes, but not being mortally wounded the quarry had made off. Late in the afternoon two of my men rushed in saying that one of the wounded buffaloes had attacked two of their number, one severely, and that assistance was wanted to carry them back. It seems that five of the men, on hearing Moolu's report about the wounded buffaloes, and tempted by the thought of fresh meat, set off without permission to try to secure them. It was a foolhardy freak, as they had only a spear with them, and a wounded buffalo bull is the most dangerous animal in Africa. It charges blindly at anything, and even after receiving its mortal wound has been known to kill its assailant. The would-be hunters soon overtook one of the creatures, a huge bull, lying in a hollow, and apparently in articulo mortis. They calmly walked up to it—the maddest thing in the world—when the brute suddenly roused itself and charged headlong. They ran for their lives; one was overtaken and trampled down in a moment; the second was caught up a few yards farther on and literally impaled on the animal's horns. The first hobbled into camp little the worse, but the latter was brought in half dead. He had two frightful wounds, the less serious on the back behind the shoulder-blade, the other a yawning gash just under the ribs. I fortunately had a little lint and dressed his wounds as well as I could, but I thought he would die in my hands. He was quite delirious, and I ordered a watch all night in case the bleeding should break out afresh. His nurses unhappily could not take in the philosophy of this, and I had to turn out every hour to see that they were not asleep. The native's conception of pain is that it is the work of an evil spirit, and the approved treatment consists in blowing upon the wound and suspending a wooden charm from the patient's neck to exorcise it. All this was duly done now, and the blowing was repeated at frequent intervals through the night.
25th October.—Kacquia conscious, and suffering much. It is impossible to go on, so the men have rigged up a bower for me on the banks of a stream near the camp. Read, wrote, physicked right and left, and received the Chief of Something-or-other. Bribed some of his retinue to search the district for indiarubber, and bring specimens of the trees. After many hours' absence they brought me back two freshly-made balls, but neglected to bring a branch, which was what I promised to pay them for. From their description I gather the tree is the Landolphia vine. The method of securing the rubber is to make incisions in the stem and smear the exuding milky juice over their arms and necks. After it has dried a little they scrape it off and roll it up into balls.
An instance of what the native will do for a scrap of meat. Near camp this morning Moolu pointed out to me a gray lump on the top of a very high tree, which he assured me was an animal. It was a kind of lemur, and very good to eat. I had only my Winchester with me, and the ball ripped up the animal, which fell at once, but leaving an ounce or two of viscera on the branch. One of the men, Makata, coming up at the sound of the shot, perceived that the animal was not all there—it had been literally "cleaned"—immediately started to climb the tree for the remainder. It was a naked stem for a considerable height and thicker than himself, but he attacked it at once native fashion, i.e., by walking up the trunk, his clasped hands grasping the trunk on the opposite side from his doubled-up body, and literally walking upward on his soles. He soon came down with the precious mess, and in a few minutes it was cooked and eaten.
To-night I thought my hour was come. Our camp was right in the forest; it was pitch dark; and I was sitting late over the smouldering fire with the wounded man. Suddenly a terrific yell rang out from the forest, and a native rushed straight at me brandishing his spear and whooping at the pitch of his voice. Sure that it was an attack, I darted towards the tent for my rifle, and in a second every man in the camp was huddling in it likewise. Some dashed in headlong by the door, others under the canvas, until there was not room to crawl among their bodies. Then followed—nothing. First an awful silence, then a whispering, then a mighty laughter, and then the whole party sneaked out of the fort and yelled with merriment. One of my own men had crept out a few yards for firewood; he had seen a leopard, and lost control of himself—that was all. It was hard to say who was most chaffed about it; but I confess I did not realize before how simple a business it would have been for any one who did not approve of the white man to exterminate him and his caravan.
Sunday, 28th October.—My patient holding on; will now probably pull through. As he has to be fed on liquids, my own fowls have all gone in chicken soup. Fowls are now very scarce, and my men, taking advantage of the high premium and urgent demand, have gone long distances to get them. They will not supply them to the invalid, but sell them to me to give him. Wishing to teach them a lesson in philanthropy, I declined to buy any more on these terms; and after seeing me go three days dinnerless to give Kacquia his chance of life they became ashamed of themselves, and handed me all the fowls they had in a present. This was a prodigious effort for a native, and proves him capable of better things. The whole camp had been watching this byplay for a day or two, and the finish did good all round—more especially as I gave a return present, after a judicious interval, worth five times what had been given me.
Held the usual service in the evening—a piece of very primitive Christianity. Moolu, who had learned much from Dr. Laws, undertook the sermon, and discoursed with great eloquence on the Tower of Babel. The preceding Sunday he had waxed equally warm over the Rich Man and Lazarus; and his description of the Rich Man in terms of native ideas of wealth—"plenty of calico and plenty of beads"—was a thing to remember. "Mission-blacks," in Natal and at the Cape, are a byword among the unsympathetic; but I never saw Moolu do an inconsistent thing. He could neither read nor write; he knew only some dozen words of English; until seven years ago he had never seen a white man; but I could trust him with everything I had. He was not "pious"; he was neither bright nor clever; he was a commonplace black; but he did his duty and never told a lie. The first night of our camp, after all had gone to rest, I remember being roused by a low talking. I looked out of my tent; a flood of moonlight lit up the forest; and there, kneeling upon the ground, was a little group of natives, and Moolu in the centre conducting evening prayers. Every night afterwards this service was repeated, no matter how long the march was nor how tired the men. I make no comment. But this I will say—Moolu's life gave him the right to do it. Mission reports are often said to be valueless; they are less so than anti-mission reports. I believe in missions, for one thing, because I believe in Moolu.
But I need not go on with this itinerary. It is very much the same thing over again. For some time yet you must imagine the curious procession I have described wandering hither and thither among the wooded mountains and valleys of the table-land, and going through the same general programme. You might have seen its chief getting browner and browner in the tropical sun, his clothes getting raggeder and raggeder, his collecting-boxes becoming fuller and fuller, and his desire to get home again growing stronger and stronger. Then you might have seen the summer end and the tropical rains begin, and the whole country suddenly clothe itself with living green. And then, as the season advanced, you might have seen him plodding back to the Lake, between the attacks of fever working his way down the Shiré and Zambesi, and so, after many days, greeting the new spring in England.