On these open plains we were more or less pestered with ticks of various sizes. These clung to the grass blades; but with no invincible preference for that habitat; trousers did them just as well. Then they ascended looking for openings. They ranged in size from little red ones as small as the period of a printed page to big patterned fellows the size of a pea. The little ones were much the most abundant. At times I have had the front of my breeches so covered with them that their numbers actually imparted a reddish tinge to the surface of the cloth. This sounds like exaggeration, but it is a measured statement. The process of de-ticking (new and valuable word) can then be done only by scraping with the back of a hunting knife.
Some people, of tender skin, are driven nearly frantic by these pests. Others, of whom I am thankful to say I am one, get off comparatively easy. In a particularly bad tick country, one generally appoints one of the youngsters as “tick toto.” It is then his job in life to de-tick any person or domestic animal requiring his services. His is a busy existence. But though at first the nuisance is excessive, one becomes accustomed to it in a remarkably short space of time. The adaptability of the human being is nowhere better exemplified. After a time one gets so that at night he can remove a marauding tick and cast it forth into the darkness without even waking up. Fortunately ticks are local in distribution. Often one may travel weeks or months without this infliction.
I was always interested and impressed to observe how indifferent the wild animals seem to be to these insects. Zebra, rhinoceros and giraffe seem to be especially good hosts. The loathsome creatures fasten themselves in clusters wherever they can grip their fangs. Thus in a tick country a zebra's ears, the lids and corners of his eyes, his nostrils and lips, the soft skin between his legs and body, and between his hind legs, and under his tail are always crusted with ticks as thick as they can cling. One would think the drain on vitality would be enormous, but the animals are always plump and in condition. The same state of affairs obtains with the other two beasts named. The hartebeeste also carries ticks but not nearly in the same abundance; while such creatures as the waterbuck, impalla, gazelles and the smaller bucks seem either to be absolutely free from the pests, or to have a very few. Whether this is because such animals take the trouble to rid themselves, or because they are more immune from attack it would be difficult to say. I have found ticks clinging to the hair of lions, but never fastened to the flesh. It is probable that they had been brushed off from the grass in passing. Perhaps ticks do not like lions, waterbuck, Tommies, et al., or perhaps only big coarse-grained common brutes like zebra and rhinos will stand them at all.
XX. DIVERS ADVENTURES ALONG THE TANA
Late one afternoon I shot a wart-hog in the tall grass. The beast was an unusually fine specimen, so I instructed Fundi and the porters to take the head, and myself started for camp with Memba Sasa. I had gone not over a hundred yards when I was recalled by wild and agonized appeals of “Bwana! bwana!” The long-legged Fundi was repeatedly leaping straight up in the air to an astonishing height above the long grass, curling his legs up under him at each jump, and yelling like a steam-engine. Returning promptly, I found that the wart-hog had come to life at the first prick of the knife. He was engaged in charging back and forth in an earnest effort to tusk Fundi, and the latter was jumping high in an equally earnest effort to keep out of the way. Fortunately he proved agile enough to do so until I planted another bullet in the aggressor.
These wart-hogs are most comical brutes from whatever angle one views them. They have a patriarchal, self-satisfied, suburban manner of complete importance. The old gentleman bosses his harem outrageously, and each and every member of the tribe walks about with short steps and a stuffy parvenu small-town self-sufficiency. One is quite certain that it is only by accident that they have long tusks and live in Africa, instead of rubber-plants and self-made business and a pug-dog within commuters' distance of New York. But at the slightest alarm this swollen and puffy importance breaks down completely. Away they scurry, their tails held stiffly and straightly perpendicular, their short legs scrabbling the small stones in a frantic effort to go faster than nature had intended them to go. Nor do they cease their flight at a reasonable distance, but keep on going over hill and dale, until they fairly vanish in the blue. I used to like starting them off this way, just for the sake of contrast, and also for the sake of the delicious but impossible vision of seeing their human prototypes do likewise.
When a wart-hog is at home, he lives down a hole. Of course it has to be a particularly large hole. He turns around and backs down it. No more peculiar sight can be imagined than the sardonically toothsome countenance of a wart-hog fading slowly in the dimness of a deep burrow, a good deal like Alice's Cheshire Cat. Firing a revolver, preferably with smoky black powder, just in front of the hole annoys the wart-hog exceedingly. Out he comes full tilt, bent on damaging some one, and it takes quick shooting to prevent his doing so.
Once, many hundreds of miles south of the Tana, and many months later, we were riding quite peaceably through the country, when we were startled by the sound of a deep and continuous roaring in a small brush patch to our left. We advanced cautiously to a prospective lion, only to discover that the roaring proceeded from the depths of a wart-hog burrow. The reverberation of our footsteps on the hollow ground had alarmed him. He was a very nervous wart-hog.
On another occasion, when returning to camp from a solitary walk, I saw two wart-hogs before they saw me. I made no attempt to conceal myself, but stood absolutely motionless. They fed slowly nearer and nearer until at last they were not over twenty yards away. When finally they made me out, their indignation and amazement and utter incredulity were very funny. In fact, they did not believe in me at all for some few snorty moments. Finally they departed, their absurd tails stiff upright.