By Veldt and Kopje

by W. C. Scully

Near the Komati I had the only narrow escape from death I ever experienced in the hunting-field, and the occasion thereof was a buck not much bigger than a “duiker.” The incident occurred as follows:—

I went out one morning to shoot impala. Now the impala is a small red antelope which used to frequent river banks in immense herds. The does are hornless, but the bucks have sharp horns over eighteen inches long. The proportion of the sexes is about one buck to a hundred does. I stood in a thicket watching a herd pass, waiting for an opportunity to shoot a buck. At length I got a shot, and put a bullet through an animal with particularly fine horns, just behind the shoulder. The buck turned out of the herd, bleeding profusely, and I followed on the spoor. When I overtook my quarry he was standing under a tree, apparently almost at the last gasp. I laid down my rifle, drew my knife and approached. The buck sprang at me like an arrow, head down. I just managed to leap out of the way; he grazed my leg in passing and fell over, helpless. It was only by the merest chance that I escaped being transfixed.

The first notable incident occurred after we had crossed the Komati and were approaching the Lebombo Range. Early one morning we were astonished to find a tent-wagon standing in a somewhat thickly-wooded hollow. Around it lay the putrefying carcases of several oxen. A few low mounds were also visible. Under the wagon lay four white men in the last stage of exhaustion from fever. All were raving in delirium. There were no signs of water in the vicinity. The surrounding trees were thickly encrusted with bright yellow lichen, which gave them a ghastly and fever-stricken look.

We camped close to the spot, wondering what could be the explanation of the strange phenomenon. Hours passed, but we could discover no clue. The unhappy creatures under the wagon mowed at us and raved in French. We gave them water, which they greedily drank. The stench was frightful; the mounds we had noticed were human graves. But no excavations had been made, the sand being simply heaped over the bodies.

Then a gigantic, bearded man emerged from the bush and approached, carrying a small demijohn in each hand. I recognised him as one Alexandre, a Frenchman I had known on the diamond fields. He explained matters. The expedition, originally eight strong, had started from Lydenburg some six weeks previously. The whole team of oxen succumbed more quickly than usual to tsetse bite. All his companions went down with fever. Three died and had been laid to their rest under the mounds. But even there rest had been denied them, for the lions used to come at night and tear open the graves; they had actually rooted out one of the bodies. Owing to prodigality of ammunition when the big game was most plentiful, only very few cartridges were left. Every night jackals and hyenas used to snarl and fight over the carcases of the oxen, which lay only a few yards from the wagon. But it was the lions that were the chief source of terror. A lioness had carried off a dog from the fireside immediately behind the wagon. As though aware of the helplessness of the stricken party, the great brutes became bolder and bolder, walking round and round the camp in an ever-narrowing circle. All this was corroborated by the fact that not a hand’s-breadth of ground anywhere near the camp was without a lion’s spoor. The nearest water lay ten miles away, and to the spring Alexandre wended, with his two demijohns, every day. We loaded the sick men up—leaving the wagon in the waste like a stranded ship—and took them on to Delagoa Bay.

The road had been cut by the Transvaal authorities to near the inland base of the Lebombo, and by the Portuguese to the seaward base. It fell to our lot to clear a passage over the mountain itself. This entailed a great deal of crowbar work, in rolling out of the way huge boulders. My clearest remembrance in connection with the enterprise is of a scorpion sting which I received in the hand.

We reached Lourenço Marques in due course. The inhabitants turned out en masse to meet us. For several miles along the road approaching the town, the trees were loaded with children gaping in dumb curiosity. The town lay between the bay and a crescent-shaped swamp. This was crossed by several causeways. Between the swamp and the houses stood a fortified wall, from which projected many poles bearing mouldering human heads. The town was from the seaward side dominated by a wicked-looking fortress.

The principal inhabitants appeared to be Banyans who, surrounded by members of their dusky harems and clad in picturesque Eastern dress, occupied the stoeps on the shady side of every street. All the houses had closely latticed windows, but these were thrown open when the shades of evening fell.

There was a very high time in the old town that night. Our party took possession of the only hotel—a large, cool and comfortable house kept by a Portuguese named Fernandez, who had an English wife. With our arrival respectability fled shrieking from the premises. I trust I may be acquitted of self-righteousness in recording the circumstance that I was the only sober one among the strangers. We acted more or less like an army which has taken a city by assault.

One of the larger stores stocked a quantity of obsolete fire brigade uniforms. These, in most details suggestive of the burlesque stage, included enormous helmets, which had massive burnished metal guards extending down the wearer’s back. Mild hints towards a realisation of these monstrosities may be found in Flaxman’s illustrations to the Iliad. We dressed in the uniforms and proceeded to paint the settlement red.