With the acquisition of the hunting permit and the hiring of some lads from the interior, I was soon ready for the road. For ten miles or so we passed through lazily-kept coffee plantations, mostly worked by slave labour. The coffee is excellent, but produced without system. After this we began to rise gradually through virgin forests, with no inhabitants. Our road was a mere footpath. There were no flies, which was pleasant. Throughout the forest country there were neither flies nor mosquitoes, in spite of the dampness.
The first night we camped in the bush, where there were three huts. In one of these huts there lived a sort of “medicine” man. I got hold of him and asked him about my prospects of finding elephant. He was the most wide-awake business man I had met since leaving London, for he at once offered to make such “medicine” as would lead to my killing elephant with large tusks in great numbers. I told him to fire away, but before doing so he asked what I would give him. I promised that if I got large tusks I would give him a case of gin. He was delighted, but wanted a few heads of tobacco added. This was also agreed to. He said I might consider the whole thing arranged. Then he asked me if I would care to buy gold dust. I said yes. He then produced a tiny skin bag of the stuff. I scoffed and said that I could not be troubled with quantities so small. Turning indifferently away, I was about to leave him, when he said he had some more. He produced more of it, little by little, until there was perhaps £80 worth. Then I became more interested and asked him what he wanted for it. Gunpowder came the answer at once. I told him I had none. When he had brought himself to believe this he said he would exchange it for an equal weight of golden sovereigns. Had his stuff been pure this “trade” might have shown a small profit; but as it was obviously not so I, of course, refused to buy. As a matter of curiosity I bought a pinch of his dust and subsequently found that it contained about 25 per cent. of brass filings. There were certainly no flies on that magic-monger.
To his business of making medicine this hoary old rascal added the, perhaps, more lucrative one of slave dealing; for when I had retired to my camp-bed my boy came to tell me that the medicine man wished to see me. I told the boy to tell him to go now and come in the morning. The answer came that he wanted to see me very particularly. He was let in and came with a pleasant-looking young native girl following. She carried a small calabash, which the old man took from her and gave it to me, saying it was a present of honey. The girl remained kneeling and sitting on her heels. The old ruffian kept leering at her and then leering at me. He wished to sell her.
As we expected to reach the first village of the bush people that day, we were off early in the morning. As a rule, in forest country it is as well not to start too early. Until ten or eleven o’clock the bush bordering the narrow native trails is saturated with moisture and remains wet even after the passage of several people; then there is no sun to contend with, as in open country.
On the way we saw monkeys of several kinds and tracks of bush-buck and bush-cow. Hornbills were common and various kinds of forest birds. The country was in ridges, heavily wooded, with running streams of clear cold water in the hollows. Here and there could be seen scratchings where natives had been looking for gold. The whole of this country is auriferous, I believe. The gold is alluvial, and the particles widely separated by dirt; too widely for Europeans, I expect.
Late in the afternoon we arrived at the village. They knew of our coming, and the headman met us with a crowd of his people, and jolly independent in manner they were. Among the crowd there was quite a sprinkling of trade guns of the percussion cap type. Almost immediately I was shown to the hut allocated to travellers, and very grateful its shade and coolness were after the long and hilly march. Water and firewood were brought, and the cook got busy. The construction of the huts was new to me and quite excellent. The floor of the hut was raised some four feet off the ground and consisted of stout bamboo mats tightly stretched over poles. As the mats were rather loosely woven, all dirt and water simply fell through to the ground. If a bath is required you squat on the floor and dash the water over yourself; it all runs through and soon dries up again. Then the mats, being springy, make a most excellent bed. Vermin are absent. One is obliged to have one of the huts, as the bush runs close up to the villages, leaving no room for a tent, besides which the ground is so damp as to make a floor well off the ground desirable.
After refreshment I called the headman and told him I had come to hunt elephant. He asked to see my rifle. I showed it to him, my ·318. He smiled and said it would not do, peering into the small muzzle. He called for his own to show me, a huge affair, muzzle-loading and shooting a long wooden harpoon with an iron head heavily poisoned. But, he said, my rifle might do for bush-cow, of which there were plenty near at hand. He asked me if I would go after them next morning. I did not wish to a bit, but I thought it might be as well to create a good impression by killing something, so I promised to try. He then left me, and presently a nice present of food, a couple of fowls and eggs, arrived.
On the morrow I left for the bush with some local guides. We soon found fresh bush-cow tracks and took them up. They led through a lot of deadly thick stuff, wet and cold. The guides made such a noise that I thought any bush-cow that allowed us near enough to see them would have to be both sound asleep and deaf; and so it turned out, for presently we heard them stampeding through the bush. I gave it up at once, and consoled the natives by promising to kill some monkeys for them on the way back, which I had no difficulty in doing. Arrived back in the village, I gave the headman a couple of monkeys and some tobacco in return for the hospitality we had enjoyed. Then we set off forward for the hunting grounds. We had a set-back about half way, as our guides deserted us, saying they were at war with the people we were going to. This is always awkward in Africa, for the paths are so misleading. There was nothing for it but to trust to luck and push on.
After some miles of chancing our way along we saw a native on the path. As soon as we saw him he saw us and dived into the bush, trailing his long gun dangerously behind him. The alarm was out, and it was imperative to arrive at the village before anything could be organised. I gave my rifle to a boy to carry and on we went. Luckily the village was handy, and we marched straight into the middle of it and sat down, the natives, who had been having a pow-wow, scattering right and left. This is always a very disconcerting thing for natives; they seemed quite lost to see what they had regarded as an enemy an instant before sitting quietly right in the middle of their town. It is necessary on these occasions to suppress any signs of nervousness on the part of one’s followers, which is not always easy. When this is done and there is no flourishing of lethal weapons I have never known it to fail. In a short time up came the headman, in an awful funk, but outwardly composed. He demanded of me what I wanted. I said, “Sit down!” He continued to stand. I told one of my boys to bring a mat, and beckoned the headman to sit down. He did. Then I told him why we were there, and that if they showed us elephant they should have the meat. He went away and had a talk with some of his men, who had returned from the bush. I noticed that nearly all of them were armed with guns. Presently he came back and led me to a hut. I got the thing made habitable, and the usual procedure of peaceful travellers went on. No notice was taken by us of anyone, and presently the native women began to be once more visible, a pretty fair indication that no hostilities were intended, for the moment, at any rate. In an hour or two the headman came in most cordial mood. He had been pushing enquiries among my boys, I knew. Apparently all was well. He said I could not have come to a better spot for elephant, or to a better man than himself. He presumed that I had heard of him; he seemed to think that London must be ringing with his prowess. I did not tell him I had never heard of him; I merely smiled.
His news was most inspiring, although I knew enough of Africans to discount 75 per cent. of it. He said the bush was full of elephant. I decided to try next day for them, and told the headman so. He laughed and said we would have to sleep some nights in the bush and that food would have to be taken. Therefore, the following day was devoted to preparing food for the journey. In the evening I warned the people that I was going to fire, and showed them the penetration of a modern rifle with solid bullet. I chose for this purpose a certain white-barked tree, the wood of which I knew, from former trials, set up less resistance to the passage of a bullet than that of other trees. This particular tree was very thick, and I hoped the bullet would not fail to come out on the other side. It traversed it easily, to my relief and the astonishment of the natives, who came in crowds to see the exit hole. Of course, none of their guns would have looked at it. It is just this kind of childish little thing that impresses Africans, and when done quietly and indifferently enough is most useful. In this case the effect was doubled by the fact that in their mode of waging war the taking of cover behind trees was more than half the game. Luckily, no one was sufficiently acute to ask me to fire through some of the smaller but much tougher trees. They began to think that my rifle might kill elephant after all.