Chapter Twenty Three.
Hippopotamus Hunting.
While the battle with the bees was progressing upon the raft, the same enemy was being fought on the bank by the towers who had stayed there; seven or eight of whom could not swim. Some of these had leaped into the river, where they saw it was not of a depth to drown them, the rest running off over the veldt. Equally ludicrous was the behaviour of both parties. They in the water having waded in, deep as was safe, there stopped. But as the bees followed, and were still buzzing about their heads, they had to keep ducking under water, bobbing up and down, as boys in their first essays at diving. Those who remained on land rushed wildly hither and thither, at intervals bounding up like springboks, all the while sawing the air with their arms to an accompaniment of dolorous cries. It was some time before the towing could be resumed, every one busy doing his best to allay the pain from stings received. But as the raft had now nigh come to a stop, the voice of the head baas was once more raised in command; the hawser fished up out of the water, and again taken ashore; then a detail of fresh hands following to man it, the towage was continued as before.
But the rope was no longer allowed to trail. Heavy though it was, and still hot the sun, care was taken to keep it clear of the ground, with a sharp look-out for bees’ nests; several others that were encountered being given a wide berth.
Fortunately for all, this toilsome trek did not need to be of long duration. At the lower end of the straight reach there was a bend in the river, rounding which they once more caught the current in strength sufficient to carry the raft briskly along. So the towers were called back on board; the hawser drawn on deck, and stowed away in a coil for future service of a similar kind, should it be required.
The rafters were just beginning to congratulate themselves on the smooth, easy gliding again, with a satisfactory rate of speed, when they observed that this last was gradually increasing. But not slowly; instead, with a rapidity to give them cause for apprehension. It was a change from one extreme to the other, a revulsion of feeling sudden as complete. But an hour before they had been chafing at still water; now did they as little like it running—their minds filled with a fear of rapids below.
Just such there proved to be; a chain of them, one succeeding another, for the next twenty leagues of the river’s course. It was where the land surface sloped down from the high plateau of the interior to the low-lying belt of the coast. But luckily by a gentle incline; had there been any abrupt escarpment, a cataract in the stream would have been the consequence, and possibly the raft gone over it, so bringing the adventures of our Vee-Boers, with their lives, to a termination, there and then.