The view from the south is more impressive. Here, on our right, the mountains rise in an almost vertical wall to a height of some 3,000 feet, and often look still higher, when their summits are lost in a compact stratum of cloud. Yet the eye always turns back again and again to the Cape itself. It does not indeed appear more lofty than it did from the north, but from this side it presents, even to the least imaginative observer, the shape known to all travellers as the “Sleeping Lion.” I am not in general particularly impressed by the fancied resemblances which as a rule give rise to the bestowal of similar appellations, but here I was struck by the absolute verisimilitude of this piece of natural sculpture. The mighty maned head lies low, seemingly resting on the dark blue line of the Indian Ocean, the right fore-paw drawn up close to it. But the royal beast’s eyes are closed, and what a splendid piece of symbolism is thus lost to us! As it is, the image presented to-day is a somewhat tame one. In old times, while the lion was awake, he watched over the busy maritime traffic which the later period of antiquity and the early Middle Ages kept up before his eyes, when Phœnicians, Himyarites, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Persians sailed eastward and southward, and the mediæval Chinese advanced from the east as far as the Gulf of Aden, and even into the Red Sea. That was a time when it was worth while to keep awake. Then came Islam and the rule of the Turk—and, still later, the circumnavigation of the Cape rendered the Egyptian and Syrian overland routes useless. The Red Sea and the Persian Gulf sank into a stagnation that lasted for centuries—and the Lion grew weary and fell asleep.
Even the enormous traffic brought by the opening of the Suez Canal has not been sufficient to wake him; the world is ruled by vis inertiæ, and a scant forty years is all too short a time for the sounds of life to have penetrated his slumbers. For that, other means will be required.
There is an Italian captain on board, a splendid figure of a man, but suffering sadly from the effects of spear-wounds received from the Abyssinians at Adowa. I asked him the other day why his Government had not placed a lighthouse on Cape Guardafui, which, as rulers of the country they were surely bound to do. He acknowledged that this was so, but pointed out that the attempt to carry out any such project would involve a difficult and expensive campaign against the Somali, who would by no means tamely submit to lose the profits of their trade as wreckers.
No doubt the captain was right, but Italy cannot in the long run refuse to comply with the international obligation of erecting a lighthouse on this exposed spot, where even now may be seen the melancholy black hull of a French steamer, which, coming up the coast on a dark night, took the westerly turn too soon. But from the moment when this lighthouse throws its rays for the first time over the waves of the Indian Ocean, the Lion will awake, and feel that his time has come once more.
The monsoon is a welcome change, after the enervating atmosphere of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, but for any length of time its monotony becomes tedious. Hence the loud rejoicing of passengers on sighting Mombasa and Zanzibar and the speed with which they rush on shore at those ports. At Dar es Salam the first freshness has worn off a little, but the traveller nevertheless sets foot on dry land with an indefinable feeling of relief.
LINDI BAY
CHAPTER II
THE UNEXPECTED
Lindi, End of June, 1906.
Africa! Africa! When, in past years, men told me that in Africa it is no use making plans of any sort beforehand, I always looked on this opinion as the quintessence of stupidity; but after my recent experiences I am quite in a position to appreciate its truth.