IN THE LADO ENCLAVE: WHITE RHINO, LION AND ELEPHANT.
Just when things were at their best tragedy darkened the prospect. Three of my boys launched and loaded with ivory a leaky dug-out. The leaks they stopped in the usual manner with clay, and shoved off. The Nile at this place was about a mile broad, and when about half way the entire end of the canoe fell out; it had been stuck in with clay. Down went everything. Now, here is a curious thing. Out of the three occupants two could swim. These two struck out for the shore and were drawn under by “crocs.,” while the one who could not swim clung to the barely floating canoe, and was presently saved. He kept trying to climb into it from the side, which resulted, of course, in rolling it over and over. It may well be that to this unusual form of canoe manœuvring he owed his life. At any rate, the crocs. never touched him. A gloom settled on the camp that night certainly; but in Africa, death in, to us, strange forms produces but little impression on the native mind, and all was jolly again in a day or two.
After about two months’ hunting it became necessary to bury ivory. The safari could no longer carry it, so a site was chosen close to the river bank and a huge pit dug. Large as it was, it barely took all our beautiful elephant teeth. Ivory has awkward shapes and different curves, and cannot be stowed closely. Consequently there was much earth left over after filling the pit, to show all and sundry where excavating had taken place. Where cattle or donkeys are available, the spot is enclosed by a fence of bushes, and the animals soon obliterate all traces, but here we had nothing. So to guard our precious hoard I erected a symbol which might have been mistaken by a white man for a cross made in a hurry, while its objectless appearance conveyed to the African mind the sure impress of “medicine.” I remember that to one rickety arm I suspended an empty cartridge and the tip of a hippo’s tail. That the medicine was good was shown three or four months later when I sent some boys for the ivory. They found that the soil had been washed away from the top, exposing completely one tusk and parts of the others, but that otherwise the cache was untouched. In spite of my giving to the boy in charge of this party one length of stick for each tusk contained in the pit, he returned with one short of the proper number. To convince him of this fact it was necessary to line out the ivory and then to cover each tusk with one bit of stick, when, of course, there remained one stick over. Straightway that party had a good feed and set off for the pit again, well over a hundred miles away. It never occurred to them that one tusk might have been stolen. They were right. Through just feeling that they themselves would not have touched anything, guarded as our pit was guarded, they judged correctly that no other native man would do so. At the bottom of the open pit and now exposed by the rains was found the missing tusk.
After the hot work of the dry season in the swamps the open bush country, with still short grass, was ideal for the foot-hunter. The country was literally swarming with game of all sorts. I remember in one day seeing six white rhino besides elephant, buffalo and buck of various kinds. Then happened a thing that will sound incredible to most ears. I ran to a standstill, or rather to a walking pace, a herd of elephant. It happened thus. Early one morning I met with a white rhino, carrying a magnificent horn. I killed him for the horn. At the shot I heard the alarm rumble of elephant. Soon I was up to a large herd of bulls, cows, half-growns and calves. They were not yet properly alarmed, and were travelling slowly along. Giving hasty instructions to my boy to find the safari and to then camp it at the water nearest to the white rhino, I tailed on to that elephant herd. The sun then indicated about 8 a.m., and at sundown (6 p.m.) there we were passing the carcase of the dead rhino at a footpace. By pure luck we had described a huge circle, and it was only by finding the dead rhino that I knew where I was. Throughout that broiling day I had run and run, sweating out the moisture I took in at occasional puddles in the bush, sucking it through closed teeth to keep out the wriggling things. At that time I was not familiar with the oblique shot at the brain from behind, and I worked hard for each shot by racing up to a position more or less at right angles to the beast to be shot. Consequently I gave myself a great deal of unnecessary trouble. That I earned each shot will become apparent when I state that although I had the herd well in hand by about 2 p.m., the total bag for the day was but fifteen bulls. To keep behind them was easy, the difficulty was that extra burst of speed necessary to overtake and range alongside them. The curious thing was that they appeared to be genuinely distressed by the sun and the pace. In the latter part of the day, whenever I fired I produced no quickening of the herd’s speed whatever. No heads turned, no flourishing of trunks, and no attempted rushes by cows as in the morning. Just a dull plodding of thoroughly beaten animals. This day’s hunting has always puzzled me. I have attempted the same thing often since, but have never been able to live with them for more than a short distance. Although a large herd, it was not so large but that every individual of it was thoroughly alarmed by each shot. I think that perhaps they committed a fatal mistake in not killing me with a burst of speed at the start. I left them when I recognised the dead rhino, and found camp soon afterwards. The next two days I rested in camp, while the cutting-out gang worked back along the trail of the herd, finding and de-tusking the widely separated bodies of the dead elephants.
Shortly after leaving this camp four bull elephants were seen in the distance. As I went for them, and in passing through some thick bush, we came suddenly on two white rhino. They came confusedly barging about at very close range, and then headed straight for the safari. Now, it is usual for all porters familiar with the black rhino to throw down their loads crash bang whenever a rhino appears to be heading in their direction. Much damage then ensues to ivory if the ground be hard, and to crockery and bottles in any case. To prevent this happening I quickly killed the rhino, hoping that the shots would not alarm the elephants. We soon saw that they were still feeding slowly along, but before reaching them we came upon a lion lying down. I did not wish to disturb the elephants, but I did want his skin, which had a nice dark mane. While I hesitated he jumped up and stood broadside on. I fired a careful shot and got him. He humped his back and subsided with a little cough, while the bullet whined away in the distance. At the shot a lioness jumped up and could have been shot, but I let her go. Then on to our main objective.
This morning’s work shows what a perfect game paradise I was then in.
Presently King Leopold of Belgium died, and the evacuation of the Lado began. As I mentioned before, the Belgians had six months in which to carry this out. Instead of six months they were pretty well out of it in six weeks, and now there started a kind of “rush” for the abandoned country. All sorts of men came. Government employees threw up their jobs. Masons, contractors, marine engineers, army men, hotel keepers and others came, attracted by the tales of fabulous quantities of ivory. More than one party was fired with the resolve to find Emin Pasha’s buried store. It might almost have been a gold “rush.”
Into the Enclave then came this horde. At first they were for the most part orderly law-abiding citizens, but soon this restraint was thrown off. Finding themselves in a country where even murder went unpunished, every man became a law unto himself. Uganda could not touch him, the Sudan had no jurisdiction for six months, and the Belgians had gone. Some of the men went utterly bad and behaved atrociously to the natives, but the majority were too decent to do anything but hunt elephants. But the few bad men made it uncommonly uncomfortable for the decent ones. The natives became disturbed, suspicious, shy and treacherous. The game was shot at, missed, wounded or killed by all sorts of people who had not the rudiments of hunter-craft or rifle shooting. The Belgian posts on the new frontier saw with alarm this invasion of heavily armed safaris; in some cases I believe they thought we might be trying some kind of Jameson raid on the Kilo goldfields, or something of that sort. Whatever they thought, I know that in one case their representative was in a highly dangerous state of nerves. He was at Mahagi on Lake Albert Edward. I happened to be passing down the lake in my steel canoe. My boys and gear followed in a large dug-out. With the rising of the sun a breeze sprang up, and with it a lop on the water sufficient to alarm the boys in the dug-out. They happened to be passing Mahagi Port at the moment. I was miles ahead and out of sight. They decided to wait in the sheltered waters of Port Mahagi until the breeze should die down. They did so, and on landing were promptly seized by Belgian soldiery, made to unload my gear, and to carry it up to the fort.
Some hours later I came paddling along shore searching every bay for my lost safari. Crossing the mouth of Mahagi Port, and never dreaming that they would have put in there, what should I see through my glasses but my large dug-out lying on the beach, abandoned. I entered to investigate, but could see none of my boys about. Some natives told me they had been marched up to the fort.
Now, it was my habit when canoeing in those waters to do so with bare feet. It suddenly dawned on me that I had left my shoes with my safari. I thought it would be devilish awkward walking up to a strange frontier post in bare feet, to say nothing of the discomfort of climbing four or five hundred yards of stony path. I sat down and wrote a note on a scrap of paper to the officer in charge of the post, explaining what had happened, and asking him to send my safari on to the English side, only a few miles away. I also mentioned that I was on my way there. I wrote this note in English, as the Belgians usually have an English-speaking officer in their frontier posts. Beckoning a native, I sent my note up to the fort and paddled off. As I was clearing the bay I saw some soldiers issue from the fort, one of them waving a letter. I returned to the beach and waited for them to arrive, much against the advice of my boy, who said there was bad “medicine” about. I took the precaution to remain out a yard or two from the shore. Soon black soldiers were approaching. When a few yards from the canoe the corporal who was carrying the letter, or piece of paper, shoved it quickly into his pouch, slung his rifle to his shoulder, rushed to the bow of my canoe, saying to the others “Kamata M’zungu” in Kiswahili. This means “Catch or seize the white man.”