XXVIII.
DOWN THE RIVER.
Relieved now of all anxiety as to water, we had merely to make our way downstream. First, however, there remained the interesting task of determining its source.
Accordingly next day we and our gunbearers left the boys to a well-earned rest, and set out upstream. At first we followed the edge of the river jungle, tramping over hard hot earth, winding in and out of growths of thorn scrub and brilliant aloes. We saw a herd of impallas gliding like phantoms; and as we stood in need of meat, I shot at one of them but missed. The air was very hot and moist. At five o'clock in the morning the thermometer had stood at 78 degrees; and by noon it had mounted to 106 degrees. In addition the atmosphere was filled with the humidity that later in the day was to break in extraordinary deluges. We moved slowly, but even then our garments were literally dripping wet.
At the end of three miles the stream bed widened. We came upon beautiful, spacious, open lawns of from eighty to one hundred acres apiece, separated from each other by narrow strips of tall forest trees. The grass was high, and waved in the breeze like planted grain; the boundary trees resembled artificial wind-breaks of eucalyptus or Normandy poplar. One might expect a white ranch house beyond some low clump of trees, and chicken runs, and corrals.
Along these apparent boundaries of forest trees our stream divided, and divided again, so that we were actually looking upon what we had come to seek—the source of the Swanee branch of the Tsavo River. In these peaceful, protected meadows was it cradled. From them it sprang full size out into the African wilderness.
A fine impalla buck grazed in one of these fields. I crept as near him as I could behind one of the wind-break rows of trees. It was not very near, and for the second time I missed. Thereupon we decided two things: that we were not really meat hungry, and that yesterday's hard work was not conducive to to-day's good shooting.
Having thus accomplished the second object of our expedition, we returned to camp. From that time begins a regular sequence of events on which I look back with the keenest of pleasure. The two constant factors were the river and the great dry country on either side. Day after day we followed down the one, and we made brief excursions out into the other. Each night we camped near the sound of the swift running water, where the winds rustled in the palms, the acacias made lacework across the skies, and the jungle crouched in velvet blackness close to earth like a beast.