We made several excursions to the mines and to the caves, and one morning my wife and myself ascended to the top of the peak or mountain ([Plate IX.]), and breakfasted there.
On the 15th April, 1873, we bade good-bye to Bembe, and to the brothers Grandy and Lieutenant Vital, who accompanied us to the River Luqueia. On the third day we arrived at Quiballa, where we remained four days, employing them, as before, in collecting butterflies and drying some fine plants, amongst others the beautiful large red flowers almost covering a fine tree (Spathodea campanulata—R. de B.?).
The second afternoon we were visited by a terrific thunderstorm; one vivid flash of lightning was followed almost instantaneously by a deafening clap of thunder; the former must have struck the ground very near our hut, as both my wife and myself felt a slight shock pass through our ankles quite distinctly, and on asking the owner of the hut and one of our blacks who were with us, if they had felt anything, they both described having felt the same sensation.
So much rain fell during this storm that we were forced to remain a couple of days longer, as some carriers had been obliged to return to Quiballa, unable to pass the rivers. It was now nearly the end of the rainy season, when the heaviest falls occur, and we had already, after leaving Bembe, found that a lovely bank on the River Lifua, on our journey up the country, had been swept away by a flood, and a high pile of sand covered the beautiful carpet of flowers and ferns.
A small dog that we had taken a fancy to on board the steamer in which we went out, and who had been our constant companion, also accompanied us on this journey, and it was amusing to see her attempts to swim the swift currents, where she generally had to be carried across. The faithful creature seemed to know that there was danger in crossing the swollen streams, and she would yelp and cry on the bank till my wife and myself had been carried over, when she would express her delight by tearing along the banks and paths like mad.
Her solicitude for our safety was sometimes rather embarrassing, as whenever she had passed a swamp, in which her legs generally sank deep into the black mud, she would always insist on jumping up on the hammocks, evidently to ascertain that we were all right, and of course quite unmindful of the dreadful mess she made with her wet paws.
Like all European dogs, she never got over a certain antipathy to the black race, and although on the best terms with our own boys, who delighted in petting her, she always showed her contempt for the natives by making sudden rushes at them, from under her mistress’s hammock, when in passing through a town the women and children came running along cheering and shouting, to see the “white woman.” Though she never bit them, her sudden and fierce-looking attack would generally scatter the crowd, who, however, always took it in good part. At night we always put her under the Madeira chair, which made a very good kind of cage, and which we placed at the foot of our bed under the mosquito curtain, thus saving her from these pests, and also preventing her from rushing out at any noise outside the tent.
The evening before we reached Quingombe, we raced the blackest thunderstorm I have ever witnessed. About four o’clock in the afternoon of the very fierce, hot and sultry day, the wind began to lull and distant thunder was heard behind us. The sky indicated plainly that no ordinary storm was gathering, the clouds deepening in colour till at last they seemed to descend and touch the ground, forming a nearly black curtain, which as it slowly advanced hid hills, trees, and everything behind it; the top part of this thick black curtain seemed to travel at a faster rate than the rest below, and slowly formed a black arch over-head; at about five o’clock it seemed to be only a few hundred yards behind us, like a solid angry night trying to overtake us. Sudden flashes and long streaks of lightning seemed to shoot out of it, up and down and in all directions, with scarcely any intermission of the explosions of thunder that accompanied them.
Our carriers seemed perfectly frightened, and ran us along in our hammocks as if racing for life, till, a little before sunset, we reached a small village near the road, just as the advancing raindrops at last overtook and began pattering down upon us. We hurried with our baggage into a hut, but the wind suddenly seemed to increase in power from the south, and blew the storm away from its path to the westward, so that it only rained for about half an hour, and we had just time to set up our tent before the darkness of night, calm and cool, came on. Some of our carriers, who had remained behind and not been able to keep ahead of the storm, described the rain as coming down on them like a perfect deluge.
Next day we arrived late in the afternoon at Quingombe, and our carriers tried to dissuade us from proceeding on to Ambriz, alleging that the heavy rains had filled the marshes, so that they were impassable in the dark; but disbelieving them, I hurried them on, and reached the swamp that separates the town of Quingombe from the ferry on the River Loge at Quincollo;—sure enough it was one sheet of water, but unwilling to brave another night of mosquitoes we pushed on. Twice we had to get out of our hammocks (which were slung as high as they could possibly be) on to the Madeira chair, to be carried across deep places; and for about two miles there was hardly a dry place, our poor dog swimming and carried most of the time.