Leaving the men to arrange camp under the supervision of the gun-bearers, I strolled over to a nearby village where there was a dance in full swing. The men were regaling themselves with cocoanut-wine, an evil-tasting liquid, made from fermented cocoanut-milk, they told me. The moon, almost at full, was rising when I returned to camp, and after supper I sat and smoked and watched “the night and the palms in the moonlight,” until the local chief, or Sultani, as they called him, came up and presented me with some ripe cocoanuts, and sitting down on the ground beside me he puffed away at his long clay pipe, coughing and choking over the strong tobacco I had given him, but apparently enjoying it all immensely. When he left I remained alone, unable for some time to make up my mind to go to bed, such was the spell of the tropic moonlight and the distant half-heard songs of the dancing “children of the wilderness.”
A relic of the Portuguese occupation; an old well beside the trail
Early next morning we were on our way, and that night were camped a few hundred yards from the village of a grizzled old Sultani, whose domains lay in the heart of the sable country, for it was in search of these handsome antelopes that I had come. In southern Africa the adult males of the species are almost black, with white bellies, but here they were not so dark in color, resembling more nearly the southern female sable, which is a dark reddish brown. Both sexes carry long horns that sweep back in a graceful curve over the shoulders, those of the male much heavier and longer, sometimes, in the south, attaining five feet in length. The sable antelope is a savage animal, and when provoked, will attack man or beast. The rapier-like horns prove an effective weapon as many a dog has learned to its cost.
My tent was pitched beneath one of the large shade-trees in which the country abounds. This one was the village council-tree, and when I arrived the old men were seated beneath it on little wooden stools. These were each hacked out of a single log and were only five or six inches high. The owner carried his stool with him wherever he went, slinging it over his shoulder on a bit of rawhide or a chain.
There was trouble in the village, for after the first formal greetings were over the old chief told me that one of his sons had just died. There was about to be held a dance in his memory, and he led me over to watch it. We arrived just as the ceremony was starting. Only small boys were taking part in it, and it was anything but a mournful affair, for each boy had strung round his ankles baskets filled with pebbles that rattled in time with the rhythm of the dance. In piping soprano they sang a lively air which, unlike any native music I had hitherto heard, sounded distinctly European, and would scarcely have been out of place in a comic opera.
The Death Dance of the Wa Nyika children in memory of the chieftain’s little son
When the dance was finished the Sultani came back with me to my tent, and sitting down on his stool beside me, we gossiped until I was ready to go to bed. I had given him a gorgeous green umbrella and a most meritorious knife, promising him further presents should success attend me in the chase. He, in addition to the customary cocoanuts, had presented me with some chickens and a large supply of a carrot-shaped root called mihogo; by no means a bad substitute for potatoes, and eaten either raw or cooked; having in the former state a slight chestnut flavor.
The first day’s hunting was a blank, for although we climbed hill after hill and searched the country with my spy-glasses, we saw nothing but some kongoni (hartebeeste), and I had no intention of risking disturbing the country by shooting at them, much as the men would have liked the meat. It was the rainy season, and we were continually getting drenched by showers, but between times the sun would appear and in an incredibly short time we would be dry again. The Sultani had given me two guides, sturdy, cheerful fellows with no idea of hunting, but knowing the country well, which was all we wanted. We loaded them down with cocoanuts, for in the middle of the day when one was feeling tired and hot it was most refreshing to cut a hole in a cocoanut and drink the milk, eating the meat afterward.