To those who have all their lives been accustomed to live upon the flesh of the ox and the sheep, elephant cutlets may appear revolting; but in the deserts of Africa, where imperious hunger silences the objections of prejudice, and teaches man to regard the whole animal creation as his farmyard, the palate quickly accommodates itself to the viands within its reach, and even learns to discover delicacy in things which, in a fashionable dining-room, it might have loathed. However this may be, Le Vaillant and his Hottentots, whose appetites were grievously sharpened by fatigue, immediately employed themselves in cutting up and cooking their game. For the former, as the most dainty personage of the party, a few slices off the trunk were broiled, and he found them so exquisite that, being as I have already said, to a certain degree, an epicure, they gave him a taste for elephant hunting, which he afterward seized every occasion of indulging. But he was informed by Klaas that by far the greatest delicacy, which would cause him to forget the flavour of the trunk, was yet to come. This consisted of the elephant’s foot, which his people undertook to dress for his breakfast.
The reader who has perused Captain Cook’s “Voyages in the South Seas,” or Ledyard, or the “Histoire Naturelle de l’Homme” of Lesson, will remember the description given by those navigators of the curious subterranean ovens employed by the native islanders in cooking. A large opening is made in the earth, which is filled with red-hot stones or charcoal, and upon these a great fire is kept up for several hours. The hole is then cleared, and the thing which is to be baked inserted in the centre. Then the top is again closed, and a blazing fire once more kindled; which, having burned during a great part of the night, is at length extinguished, when the oven is opened, and the meat taken out, more exquisitely cooked than any man accustomed to the ordinary culinary processes can conceive.
Such was the process by which the elephant’s feet were baked for Le Vaillant. When they presented him one for breakfast, “The cooking,” says he, “had enlarged it prodigiously; I could scarcely recognise the form. But it looked so nice, and exhaled so delicious an odour, that I was impatient to taste it. It was a breakfast for a king. I had heard much of the excellence of bears’ feet, but could not have conceived that an animal so awkward, so material as the elephant, could have afforded so tender, so delicate a meat. Never have our modern Luculluses, thought I, seen any thing comparable upon their tables; it is in vain that they confound and reverse the seasons by the force of gold, and lay all the countries in the world under contribution: there are bounds to their craving sensuality; they have never been able to reach this point.” I do not see, however, what should prevent our rearing elephants, as we rear sheep and oxen, for the slaughter; in which case many persons, not ambitious of rivalling Lucullus in luxury, might enjoy the sight of this ne plus ultra of cooking upon their tables.
In proceeding eastward from this spot they encountered a horde of wandering Hottentots, with whose women our traveller’s followers, now considerably increased in number, contracted connexions with that easy effrontery which, at first consideration, would appear to be an attribute peculiar to civilized man. Le Vaillant is the apologist of the Hottentots; they were the instruments of his pleasure. His imagination associated them with romantic wanderings, with adventures, with dangers, with escapes; and when, after his return to France, he wished to remember and paint them in their true colours, the idea that they had been his companions, that they had suffered privations, and tasted of many enjoyments together, rushed into his mind, and blinded his judgment by interesting his heart. This natural result is not dishonourable to his feelings; but it can have no influence with me. I have received from them neither good nor harm. I must, therefore, confess that in my estimation they rank very low, even in the scale of savage excellence. Timid even to cowardliness, they are not urged by their temperament towards violence and bloodshed: but this induces cringing and dastardly habits, and causes them to desert their dearest friends when in danger. Gratitude is a plant which flourishes only in noble breasts. Among the Hottentots it is feeble and shortlived, unless nourished by a constant stream of benefits. That they have little religion, or superstition, though no proof of immorality, is an incontrovertible evidence of want of capacity and genius; for intellect, wherever it exists, is skilful in the discovery of intellect, and few, even among savage nations, are cursed with perceptions so obtuse that they cannot, if I may venture so to express myself, discover the footsteps of the sovereign intellect among the phenomena of the visible world. How far the profound indifference in which they are said to grovel on this point may exist, however, I will not presume to determine. It is possible that travellers may sometimes make these and similar savages the interpreters of their own thoughts.
On approaching the country of the Kaffers, a brave and warlike people, exceedingly hostile to the Hottentots, whom they regarded as the slaves and spies of the colonists, the most terrible apprehensions were awakened in his camp. Night and day they were on the alert. Every sound which startled the darkness was transformed, by their terror, into the footsteps of a Kaffer; and if they did not at once burst into open mutiny against their chief, it was rather the fear of the dangers to which the loss of him might expose them, than any ideas of discipline or fidelity, that restrained them.
Le Vaillant’s determination, nevertheless, still was to advance into Kaffraria; but finding after repeated endeavours that no argument could prevail upon his attendants, a very small number excepted, to accompany him, he contented himself with despatching an envoy to the Kaffer king, or chief. Meanwhile he continued to roam about on the frontiers, hunting, shooting, and adding to his collections. Here he encountered the fury of an African tempest. “The rain,” he observes, “fell all night in such abundance, that, in spite of all our efforts, it extinguished our fires. Our dogs made an indescribable clamour, and kept us awake all night, though no wild beast appeared. I have observed that during these rainy nights the lion, the tiger, and the hyena are never heard; but the danger is increased twofold; for, as they still roam about, they thus fall suddenly and unexpectedly on their prey. Still further to increase the fright which this unfortunate fact must occasion, the great humidity almost entirely deprives the dogs of the power of smelling, which renders them of little use. Of this danger my people were well aware, and therefore laboured with remarkable energy to keep alive the fires.
“It must be confessed,” he continues, “that the stormy nights of the African deserts are the very image of desolation, and that terror, on such occasions, involuntarily comes over one. When you are overtaken by these deluges, your tents and mats are quickly drenched and overflowed; a continual succession of lightning-flashes causes you twenty times in a minute to pass abruptly and suddenly from the most terrific light to entire darkness: the deafening roarings of the thunder, which burst from every side with horrible din, roll, as it were, against each other, are multiplied by the echoes, and hurled from peak to peak; the howling of the domestic animals; short intervals of fearful silence; every thing concurs to render those moments more melancholy. The danger to be apprehended from wild beasts still further increases the terror; and nothing but day can lessen the alarm, and restore nature to her tranquillity.”
In the interim between the departure and return of his messengers to the Kaffer chief, he fell in with a horde of wild Hottentots whom he denominates Gonaquas. A small party of them arrived at his camp during the night, and on awaking in the morning he saw himself with surprise surrounded by about twenty strange savages. They were accompanied by their chief, who advanced in a polite manner to pay his respects to the traveller, while the women, at once curious and timid, followed close behind, adorned with all their ornaments. Their bodies, the greater part of which was naked, were all newly anointed and sprinkled with red powder, which exhaled an agreeable perfume; while their faces had been painted in a variety of fashions. Each came, in the manner of the East, bringing or bearing a present. From one he received a number of ostrich’s eggs, a lamb from a second, while a third presented him with a quantity of milk in baskets. These baskets, woven with exquisite ingenuity with fine reeds or roots, are of so close a texture, that they may be used in carrying water. The chief’s present consisted of a handful of ostrich feathers of rare beauty, which Le Vaillant, to show how highly he valued them, immediately fixed in his hat, instead of his own plume. He then, in return, laid before the old chief, whose name was Haabas, several pounds of tobacco, which the Gonaqua at once distributed in equal portions among his people, reserving merely his own share, which did not exceed any other person’s, for himself. Other gifts, highly valued by savages, such as tinder-boxes, knives, beads, and bracelets, were added to the tobacco, and diffused universal joy among the tribe.
Among the women there was a girl of sixteen, who, by the pleasure with which she seemed to regard his person, particularly attracted the attention of Le Vaillant. Considered as an African she might be pronounced beautiful, and her form, which would have tempted the pencil of an Albano, possessed all those amorous contours which we admire in the Graces. Our traveller appears to have been in general but little susceptible of the charms of women; but the beautiful Gonaqua quickly caused him to feel that when accompanied by a desire to please, female attractions are everywhere irresistible, and to express his admiration he bestowed upon the savage beauty the name of Narina, which, in the Hottentot idiom, signifies “a flower.” Presents, it may be easily imagined, were not spared in this instance. The riches of his camp were in her power,—shawls, necklaces, girdles, every ornament which his European taste loved to contemplate on the female form, was lavished on Narina, who, in the intoxicating delight of the moment, scarcely knew whether she was in heaven or earth. She felt her arms, her feet, her head; and the touch of her dress and ornaments caused fresh pleasure every moment. He then produced a small mirror, more faithful than the lake or stream which had hitherto served for this purpose, and put the finishing stroke to the picture by showing her her own image reflected from its surface. His days now passed in one uninterrupted series of feasts, visits, dances, amusements of every kind. Nothing could have been more favourable to his views of studying Hottentot manners; but with respect to his ulterior design of penetrating far into the solitudes of the desert, the case was different, for his followers contracted in these Circean bowers a disease from which their chief himself, perhaps, was not altogether exempt; that is, an effeminate aversion to fatigue, a secret repugnance to toil, and, what was still worse, the habit of viewing dangers in the light thrown over them by an enamoured fancy, which distorts even more powerfully than the mirage of the desert.
It was now three weeks since the departure of his messengers for Kaffer-land, and he began to entertain apprehensions for their safety. His attendants, who partook of the same fears, became more than ever averse to advance eastward, and, as he was quickly informed by Klaas, began to concert among themselves various schemes of desertion. The camp at this period was stationed near a river, on the rich banks of which his oxen were turned out to graze, under the care of several Hottentots, who were kept by their fear of the Kaffers in a strict attention to their duty. One day, when Le Vaillant was accidentally detained in his tent, a messenger from the herdsmen arrived in breathless haste, to announce the fearful intelligence that a party of the enemy was approaching, and had already reached the opposite side of the river. Klaas and four fusileers were immediately despatched to reconnoitre, while the traveller called out and examined his forces and his arms, and prepared to give the Kaffers a warm reception should their intentions be found to be hostile; but it was shortly discovered that they had been invited to his camp by his envoys, whom they had accordingly accompanied on their return.