[42] In Africa there are many unraveled mysteries. Tales of water-elephants had repeatedly reached the ears of explorers, but no one credited them. Lately the Paris Museum of Natural History commissioned Monsieur Le Petit, who had seen water-elephants on the shores of Lake Leopold in the Congo, to write on the subject. This report can be seen in the German Magazine “Kosmos.”
[43] Hippopotamus.

CHAPTER XXIII

After traveling ten days the caravan issued from the mountain pass and entered a very different region, an extended plain, mostly level, but broken here and there by small, wave-like hillocks. The vegetation was completely changed. No large trees towered above the waving, grassy plain. Only here and there, quite far apart, there sprang up rubber-acacias, with coral-colored and umbrella-shaped stems, but scanty foliage, and therefore furnishing but little shade. In some places between the ant-hills a species of euphorbia, with branches resembling the arms of a candlestick, grew taller than the grass. Hawks soared high in the air, and lower down black and white feathered crow-like birds flew from one acacia bush to the other. The grass was yellow and had ears like ripe corn. The dried-up jungle seemed to furnish abundant food for many different kinds of animals, for during the day the travelers often met large herds of antelope and a great many zebras. The heat on the open and treeless plain became unbearable. The sky was cloudless, the days were fiery hot, and the night did not bring much relief.

Day by day the journey grew more arduous. The small villages through which the caravan passed were inhabited by the wildest savages, who were so terror-stricken that they received the travelers very reluctantly, and if it had not been for the numerous armed men and the sight of white faces, and King and Saba, great danger would have threatened them.

Stasch, aided by Kali, learned that there were no more villages farther on, and that they were coming to a waterless district. The tales they heard were hard to believe, for the numerous animals they saw must have found some watering-place. But these stories of a desert in which there was rumored to be neither stream nor puddle frightened the negroes, and some of them deserted the party, and M’Kunji and M’Pua set the example. Fortunately, their flight was quickly perceived, and the mounted troupe which accompanied the travelers discovered them before they had gotten far from the camp. When they were brought back Kali, by the aid of a bamboo rod, convinced them of the inadvisability of such a course. Stasch assembled the whole company and gave them a lecture, which the young negro translated into their native language. Dwelling on the fact that at their last headquarters they had heard lions roaring around the camp all night, Stasch did his best to convince his people that any one attempting to run away would certainly become their prey, or if he were to pass the night in an acacia tree the still more terrible wobos would lie in wait for him. He also said that where there are antelope there must also be water, and that if in the course of their journey they were to strike waterless regions, they could take with them enough water for two or three days in bags of antelope skin. The negroes paid strict attention to what he said, and continually repeated:

“Oh, mother, how true it is!” but the following night five Samburus and two Wa-himas deserted, and from that time some one was missing every night. But M’Kunji and M’Pua did not make a second attempt to escape for the simple reason that Kali had them bound at sundown every night.

The country became drier and drier, the sun beat down mercilessly on the jungle, and not a single acacia could now be seen. They still came across herds of antelope, though fewer than they had seen previously. The donkey and the horses so far had enough food, for beneath the high dried grass they found in many places short, green grass only slightly scorched by the sun. But King, although he was not fastidious, became much thinner. On approaching an acacia he would break it apart with his head and trunk and fill himself with young leaves and pods. Until now the caravan had always been able to strike water, though it was often bad and had to be filtered, or so salty that it was not fit to drink. Then it often happened that the men Stasch sent out in advance under Kali’s guidance would return without having found a single puddle or even a tiny brook in the hollows of the ground, and Kali would proclaim in troubled tones, “Madi apana”—“There is no water there.”

Stasch was soon convinced that this long, final journey would certainly not be easier than the ones they had accomplished before, and he began to worry about Nell, for a great change had also come over her. Her face, instead of being tanned by the sun and wind, had become paler and paler day by day and her eyes had lost their accustomed brilliancy. Fortunately, on these dry plains there were no flies nor danger of fever, but it was very evident that the unbearable heat was wasting away the girl’s strength. Even now the boy looked sadly and apprehensively at her little hands, which had become as white as paper, and he bitterly reproached himself for having lost so much time in making preparations and in instructing the negroes how to shoot that he had to continue the journey in the hottest time of the year.