African Camp Fires by Stewart Edward White
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Stewart Edward White >> African Camp Fires
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18 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES
BY
STEWART EDWARD WHITE
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS
LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN
AND NEW YORK
CONTENTS.
PART I.--TO THE ISLAND OF WAR.
I. THE OPEN DOOR
II. THE FAREWELL
III. PORT SAID
IV. SUEZ
V. THE RED SEA
VI. ADEN
VII. THE INDIAN OCEAN
VIII. MOMBASA
PART II.--THE SHIMBA HILLS.
IX. A TROPICAL JUNGLE
X. THE SABLE
XI. A MARCH ALONG THE COAST
XII. THE FIRE
PART III.--NAIROBI.
XIII. UP FROM THE COAST
XIV. A TOWN OF CONTRASTS
XV. PEOPLE
XVI. RECRUITING
PART IV.--A LION HUNT ON KAPITI.
XVII. AN OSTRICH FARM AT MACHAKOS
XVIII. THE FIRST LIONESS
XIX. THE DOGS
XX. BONDONI
XXI. RIDING THE PLAINS
XXII. THE SECOND LIONESS
XXIII. THE BIG LION
XXIV. THE FIFTEEN LIONS
PART V.--THE TSAVO RIVER.
XXV. VOI
XXVI. THE FRINGE-EARED ORYX
XXVII. ACROSS THE SERENGETTI
XXVIII. DOWN THE RIVER
XXIX. THE LESSER KUDU
XXX. ADVENTURES BY THE WAY
XXXI. THE LOST SAFARI
XXXII. THE BABU
PART VI.--IN MASAILAND.
XXXIII. OVER THE LIKIPIA ESCARPMENT
XXXIV. TO THE KEDONG
XXXV. THE TEANSPORT RIDER
XXXVI. ACROSS THE THIRST
XXXVII. THE SOUTHERN GUASO NYERO
XXXVIII. THE LOWER BENCHES
XXXIX. NOTES ON THE MASAI
XL. THROUGH THE ENCHANTED FOREST
XLI. NAIOKOTUKU
XLII. SCOUTING IN THE ELEPHANT FOREST
XLIII. THE TOPI CAMP
XLIV. THE UNKNOWN LAND
XLV. THE ROAN
XLVI. THE GREATER KUDU
XLVII. THE MAGIC PORTALS CLOSE
XLVIII. THE LAST TREK
PART I.
TO THE ISLAND OF WAR.
I.
THE OPEN DOOR.
There are many interesting hotels scattered about the world, with a few
of which I am acquainted and with a great many of which I am not. Of
course all hotels are interesting, from one point of view or another. In
fact, the surest way to fix an audience's attention is to introduce your
hero, or to display your opening chorus in the lobby or along the facade
of a hotel. The life, the movement and colour, the drifting
individualities, the pretence, the bluff, the self-consciousness, the
independence, the _ennui_, the darting or lounging servants, the very
fact that of those before your eyes seven out of ten are drawn from
distant and scattered places, are sufficient in themselves to invest the
smallest hostelry with glamour. It is not of this general interest that
I would now speak. Nor is it my intention at present to glance at the
hotels wherein "quaintness" is specialized, whether intentionally or no.
There are thousands of them; and all of them well worth the
discriminating traveller's attention. Concerning some of them--as the
old inns at Dives-sur-Mer and at Mont St. Michel--whole books have been
written. These depend for their charm on a mingled gift of the unusual
and the picturesque. There are, as I have said, thousands of them; and
of their cataloguing, should one embark on so wide a sea, there could be
no end. And, again, I must for convenience exclude the altogether
charming places, like the Tour d'Argent of Paris, Simpson's of the
Strand,[1] and a dozen others that will spring to every traveller's
memory, where the personality of the host, or of a chef, or even a
waiter, is at once a magnet for the attraction of visitors and a reward
for their coming. These, too, are many. In the interest to which I would
draw attention, the hotel as a building or as an institution has little
part. It is indeed a facade, a _mise en scene_before which play the
actors that attract our attention and applause. The set may be as
modernly elaborate as Peacock Alley of the Waldorf or the templed lobby
of the St. Francis; or it may present the severe and Elizabethan
simplicity of the stone-paved veranda of the Norfolk at Nairobi--the
matter is quite inessential to the spectator. His appreciation is only
slightly and indirectly influenced by these things. Sunk in his
arm-chair--of velvet or of canvas--he puffs hard and silently at his
cigar, watching and listening as the pageant and the conversation eddy
by.
Of such hotels I number that gaudy and polysyllabic hostelry the Grand
Hotel du Louvre et de la Paix at Marseilles. I am indifferent to the
facts that it is situated on that fine thoroughfare, the Rue de
Cannebiere, which the proud and untravelled native devoutly believes to
be the finest street in the world; that it possesses a dining-room of
gilded and painted _repousse_ work so elaborate and wonderful that it
surely must be intended to represent a tinsmith's dream of heaven; that
its concierge is the most impressive human being on earth except Ludwig
von Kampf (whom I have never seen); that its head waiter is sadder and
more elderly and forgiving than any other head waiter; and that its
hushed and cathedral atmosphere has been undisturbed through immemorial
years. That is to be expected; and elsewhere to be duplicated in
greater or lesser degree. Nor in the lofty courtyard, or the equally
lofty halls and reading-rooms, is there ever much bustle and movement.
People sit quietly, or move with circumspection. Servants glide. The
fall of a book or teaspoon, the sudden closing of a door, are events to
be remarked. Once a day, however, a huge gong sounds, the glass doors of
the inner courtyard are thrown open with a flourish, and enters the huge
bus fairly among those peacefully sitting at the tables, horses' hoofs
striking fire, long lash-cracking volleys, wheels roaring amid hollow
reverberations. From the interior of this bus emerge people; and from
the top, by means of a strangely-constructed hooked ladder, are decanted
boxes, trunks, and appurtenances of various sorts. In these people, and
in these boxes, trunks, and appurtenances, are the real interest of the
Grand Hotel du Louvre et de la Paix of the marvellous Rue Cannebiere of
Marseilles.
For at Marseilles land ships, many ships, from all the scattered ends of
the earth; and from Marseilles depart trains for the North, where is
home, or the way home for many peoples. And since the arrival of ships
is uncertain, and the departure of trains fixed, it follows that
everybody descends for a little or greater period at the Grand Hotel du
Louvre et de la Paix.
They come lean and quiet and a little yellow from hard climates, with
the names of strange places on their lips, and they speak familiarly of
far-off things. Their clothes are generally of ancient cut, and the
wrinkles and camphor aroma of a long packing away are yet discernible.
Often they are still wearing sun helmets or double terai hats, pending a
descent on a Piccadilly hatter two days hence. They move slowly and
languidly; the ordinary piercing and dominant English enunciation has
fallen to modulation; their eyes, while observant and alert, look tired.
It is as though the far countries have sucked something from the pith of
them in exchange for great experiences that nevertheless seem of little
value; as though these men, having met at last face to face the ultimate
of what the earth has to offer in the way of danger, hardship,
difficulty, and the things that try men's souls, having unexpectedly
found them all to fall short of both the importance and the final
significance with which human-kind has always invested them, were now
just a little at a loss. Therefore they stretch their long, lean frames
in the wicker chairs, they sip the long drinks at their elbows, puff
slowly at their long, lean cheroots, and talk spasmodically in short
sentences.
Of quite a different type are those going out--young fellows full of
northern health and energy, full of the eagerness of anticipation, full
of romance skilfully concealed, self-certain, authoritative, clear
voiced. Their exit from the bus is followed by a rain of hold-alls,
bags, new tin boxes, new gun cases, all lettered freshly--an enormous
kit doomed to diminution. They overflow the place, ebb towards their
respective rooms; return scrubbed and ruddy, correctly clad, correctly
unconscious of everybody else; sink into more wicker chairs. The quiet
brown and yellow men continue to puff at their cheroots, quite eclipsed.
After a time one of them picks up his battered old sun helmet and goes
out into the street. The eyes of the newcomers follow him. They fall
silent; and their eyes, under cover of pulled moustache, furtively
glance towards the lean man's companions. Then on that office falls a
great silence, broken only by the occasional rare remarks of the quiet
men with the cheroots. The youngsters are listening with all their ears,
though from their appearance no one would suspect that fact. Not a
syllable escapes them. These quiet men have been there; they have seen
with their own eyes; their lightest word is saturated with the mystery
and romance of the unknown. Their easy, matter-of-fact, everyday
knowledge is richly wonderful. It would seem natural for these
young-young men to question these old-young men of that which they
desire so ardently to know; but that isn't done, you know. So they sit
tight, and pretend they are not listening, and feast their ears on the
wonderful syllables--Ankobar, Kabul, Peshawur, Annam, Nyassaland,
Kerman, Serengetti, Tanganika, and many others. On these beautiful
syllables must their imaginations feed, for that which is told is as
nothing at all. Adventure there is none, romance there is none, mention
of high emprise there is none. Adventure, romance, high emprise have to
these men somehow lost their importance. Perhaps such things have been
to them too common--as well mention the morning egg. Perhaps they have
found that there is no genuine adventure, no real romance except over
the edge of the world where the rainbow stoops.
The bus rattles in and rattles out again. It takes the fresh-faced young
men down past the inner harbour to where lie the tall ships waiting.
They and their cargo of exuberance, of hope, of energy, of thirst for
the bubble adventure, the rainbow romance, sail away to where these
wares have a market. And the quiet men glide away to the North. Their
wares have been marketed. The sleepy, fierce, passionate, sunny lands
have taken all they had to bring. And have given in exchange?
Indifference, ill-health, a profound realization that the length of days
are as nothing at all; a supreme agnosticism as to the ultimate value of
anything that a single man can do, a sublime faith that it must be done,
the power to concentrate, patience illimitable; contempt for danger,
disregard of death, the intention to live; a final, weary estimate of
the fact that mere things are as unimportant here as there, no matter
how quaintly or fantastically they are dressed or named, and a
corresponding emptiness of anticipation for the future--these items are
only a random few of the price given by the ancient lands for that which
the northern races bring to them. What other alchemical changes have
been wrought only these lean and weary men could know--if they dared
look so far within themselves. And even if they dared, they would not
tell.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In old days before the "improvements."
II.
THE FAREWELL.
We boarded ship, filled with a great, and what seemed to us, an
unappeasable curiosity as to what we were going to see. It was not a
very big ship, in spite of the grandiloquent descriptions in the
advertisements, or the lithograph wherein she cut grandly and evenly
through huge waves to the manifest discomfiture of infinitesimal sailing
craft bobbing alongside. She was manned entirely by Germans. The room
stewards waited at table, cleaned the public saloons, kept the library,
rustled the baggage, and played in the band. That is why we took our
music between meals. Our staterooms were very tiny indeed. Each was
provided with an electric fan; a totally inadequate and rather
aggravating electric fan once we had entered the Red Sea. Just at this
moment we paid it little attention, for we were still in full enjoyment
of sunny France, where, in our own experience, it had rained two months
steadily. Indeed, at this moment it was raining, raining a steady, cold,
sodden drizzle that had not even the grace to pick out the surface of
the harbour in the jolly dancing staccato that goes far to lend
attraction to a genuinely earnest rainstorm.
Down the long quay splashed cabs and omnibuses, their drivers glistening
in wet capes, to discharge under the open shed at the end various hasty
individuals who marshalled long lines of porters with astonishing
impedimenta and drove them up the gang-plank. A half-dozen roughs
lounged aimlessly. A little bent old woman with a shawl over her head
searched here and there. Occasionally she would find a twisted splinter
of wood torn from the piles by a hawser or gouged from the planking by
heavy freight, or kicked from the floor by the hoofs of horses. This she
deposited carefully in a small covered market basket. She was entirely
intent on this minute and rather pathetic task, quite unattending the
greatness of the ship, or the many people the great hulk swallowed or
spat forth.
Near us against the rail leaned a dark-haired young Englishman whom
later every man on that many-nationed ship came to recognize and to
avoid as an insufferable bore. Now, however, the angel of good
inspiration stooped to him. He tossed a copper two-sou piece down to the
bent old woman. She heard the clink of the fall, and looked up
bewildered. One of the waterside roughs slouched forward. The Englishman
shouted a warning and a threat, indicating in pantomime for whom the
coin was intended. To our surprise that evil-looking wharf rat smiled
and waved his hand reassuringly, then took the old woman by the arm to
show her where the coin had fallen. She hobbled to it with a haste
eloquent of the horrible Marseillaise poverty-stricken alleys, picked it
up joyously, turned--and with a delightful grace kissed her finger-tips
towards the ship.
Apparently we all of us had a few remaining French coins; and certainly
we were all grateful to the young Englishman for his happy thought. The
sous descended as fast as the woman could get to where they fell. So
numerous were they that she had no time to express her gratitude except
in broken snatches or gesture, in interrupted attitudes of the most
complete thanksgiving. The day of miracles for her had come; and from
the humble poverty that valued tiny and infrequent splinters of wood she
had suddenly come into great wealth. Everybody was laughing, but in a
very kindly sort of way it seemed to me; and the very wharf rats and
gamins, wolfish and fierce in their everyday life of the water-front,
seemed to take a genuine pleasure in pointing out to her the
resting-place of those her dim old eyes had not seen. Silver pieces
followed. These were too wonderful. She grew more and more excited,
until several of the passengers leaning over the rail began to murmur
warningly, fearing harm. After picking up each of these silver pieces,
she bowed and gestured very gracefully, waving both hands outward,
lifting eyes and hands to heaven, kissing her fingers, trying by every
means in her power to express the dazzling wonder and joy that this
unexpected marvel was bringing her. When she had done all these things
many times, she hugged herself ecstatically. A very well-dressed and
prosperous-looking Frenchman standing near seemed to be a little afraid
she might hug him. His fear had, perhaps, some grounds, for she shook
hands with everybody all around, and showed them her wealth in her
kerchief, explaining eagerly, the tears running down her face.
Now the gang-plank was drawn aboard, and the band struck up the usual
lively air. At the first notes the old woman executed a few feeble
little jig steps in sheer exuberance. Then the solemnity of the
situation sobered her. Her great, wealthy, powerful, kind friends were
departing on their long voyage over mysterious seas. Again and again,
very earnestly, she repeated the graceful, slow pantomime--the wave of
the arms outward, the eyes raised to heaven, the hands clasped finally
over her head. As the brown strip of water silently widened between us
it was strangely like a stage scene--the roofed sheds of the quay, the
motionless groups, the central figure of the old woman depicting
emotion.
Suddenly she dropped her hands and hobbled away at a great rate,
disappearing finally into the maze of the street beyond. Concluding that
she had decided to get quickly home with her great treasure, we
commended her discretion and gave our attention to other things.
The drizzle fell uninterruptedly. We had edged sidewise the requisite
distance, and were now gathering headway in our long voyage. The quail
was beginning to recede and to diminish. Back from the street hastened
the figure of the little old woman. She carried a large white cloth, of
which she had evidently been in quest. This she unfolded and waved
vigorously with both hands. Until we had passed quite from sight she
stood there signalling her farewell. Long after we were beyond
distinguishing her figure we could catch the flutter of white. Thus that
ship's company, embarking each on his Great Adventure, far from home and
friends, received their farewell, a very genuine farewell, from one poor
old woman. B. ventured the opinion that it was the best thing we had
bought with our French money.
III.
PORT SAID.
The time of times to approach Port Said is just at the fall of dusk.
Then the sea lies in opalescent patches, and the low shores fade away
into the gathering night. The slanting masts and yards of the dhows
silhouette against a sky of the deepest translucent green; and the
heroic statue of De Lesseps, standing for ever at the Gateway he opened,
points always to the mysterious East.
The rhythmical, accustomed chug of the engines had fallen to quarter
speed, leaving an uncanny stillness throughout the ship. Silently we
slipped between the long piers, drew up on the waterside town, seized
the buoy, and came to rest. All around us lay other ships of all sizes,
motionless on the inky water. The reflections from their lights seemed
to be thrust into the depths, like stilts; and the few lights from the
town reflected shiveringly across. Along the water-front all was dark
and silent. We caught the loom of buildings; and behind them a dull glow
as from a fire, and guessed tall minarets, and heard the rising and
falling of chanting. Numerous small boats hovered near, floating in and
out of the patches of light we ourselves cast, waiting for permission to
swarm at the gang-plank for our patronage.
We went ashore, passed through a wicket gate, and across the dark
buildings to the heart of the town, whence came the dull glow and the
sounds of people.
Here were two streets running across one another, both brilliantly
lighted, both thronged, both lined with little shops. In the latter one
could buy anything, in any language, with any money. In them we saw
cheap straw hats made in Germany hung side by side with gorgeous and
beautiful stuffs from the Orient; shoddy European garments and Eastern
jewels; cheap celluloid combs and curious embroideries. The crowd of
passers-by in the streets were compounded in the same curiously mixed
fashion; a few Europeans, generally in white, and then a variety of
Arabs, Egyptians, Somalis, Berbers, East Indians and the like, each in
his own gaudy or graceful costume. It speaks well for the accuracy of
feeling, anyway, of our various "Midways," "Pikes," and the like of our
world's expositions that the streets of Port Said looked like Midways
raised to the nth power. Along them we sauntered with a pleasing feeling
of self-importance. On all sides we were gently and humbly besought--by
the shopkeepers, by the sidewalk vendors, by would-be guides, by
fortune-tellers, by jugglers, by magicians; all soft-voiced and
respectful; all yielding as water to rebuff, but as quick as water to
glide back again. The vendors were of the colours of the rainbow, and
were heavily hung with long necklaces of coral or amber, with scarves,
with strings of silver coins, with sequinned veils and silks, girt with
many dirks and knives, furnished out in concealed pockets with scarabs,
bracelets, sandalwood boxes or anything else under the broad canopy of
heaven one might or might not desire. Their voices were soft and
pleasing, their eyes had the beseeching quality of a good dog's, their
anxious and deprecating faces were ready at the slightest encouragement
to break out into the friendliest and most intimate of smiles. Wherever
we went we were accompanied by a retinue straight out of the Arabian
Nights, patiently awaiting the moment when we should tire; should seek
out the table of a sidewalk cafe; and should, in our relaxed mood, be
ready to unbend to our royal purchases.
At that moment we were too much interested in the town itself. The tiny
shops, with their smiling and insinuating Oriental keepers, were
fascinating in their displays of carved woods, jewellery, perfumes,
silks, tapestries, silversmiths' work, ostrich feathers, and the like.
To either side the main street lay long narrow dark alleys, in which
flared single lights, across which flitted mysterious long-robed
figures, from which floated stray snatches of music either palpitatingly
barbaric or ridiculously modern. There the authority of the straight,
soldierly-looking Soudanese policemen ceased, and it was not safe to
wander unarmed or alone.
Besides these motley variegations of the East and West, the main feature
of the town was the street car. It was an open-air structure of spacious
dimensions, as though benches and a canopy had been erected rather
haphazard on a small dancing platform. The track is absurdly narrow in
gauge; and as a consequence the edifice swayed and swung from side to
side. A single mule was attached to it loosely by about ten feet of
rope. It was driven by a gaudy ragamuffin in a turban. Various other
gaudy ragamuffins lounged largely and picturesquely on the widely spaced
benches. Whence it came or whither it went I do not know. Its orbit
swung into the main street, turned a corner, and disappeared. Apparently
Europeans did not patronize this picturesque wreck, but drove elegantly
but mysteriously in small open cabs conducted by totally incongruous
turbaned drivers.
We ended finally at an imposing corner hotel, where we dined by an open
window just above the level of the street. A dozen upturned faces
besought us silently during the meal. At a glance of even the mildest
interest a dozen long brown arms thrust the spoils of the East upon our
consideration. With us sat a large benign Swedish professor whose
erudition was encyclopaedic, but whose kindly humanity was greater.
Uttering deep, cavernous chuckles, the professor bargained. A red coral
necklace for the moment was the matter of interest. The professor
inspected it carefully, and handed it back.
"I doubt if id iss coral," said he simply.
The present owner of the beads went frantic with rapid-fire proof and
vociferation. With the swiftness and precision of much repetition he
fished out a match, struck it, applied the flame to the alleged coral,
and blew out the match; cast the necklace on the pavement, produced
mysteriously a small hammer, and with it proceeded frantically to pound
the beads. Evidently he was accustomed to being doubted, and carried his
materials for proof around with him. Then, in one motion, the hammer
disappeared, the beads were snatched up, and again offered, unharmed,
for inspection.
"Are those good tests for genuineness?" we asked the professor, aside.
"As to that," he replied regretfully, "I do not know. I know of coral
only that is the hard calcareous skeleton of the marine coelenterate
polyps; and that this red coral iss called of a sclerobasic group; and
other facts of the kind; but I do not know if it iss supposed to resist
impact and heat. Possibly," he ended shrewdly, "it is the common
imitation which does _not_ resist impact and heat. At any rate they are
pretty. How much?" he demanded of the vendor, a bright-eyed Egyptian
waiting patiently until our conference should cease.
"Twenty shillings," he replied promptly.
The professor shook with one of his cavernous chuckles.
"Too much," he observed, and handed the necklace back through the
window.
The Egyptian would by no means receive it.
"Keep! keep!" he implored, thrusting the mass of red upon the professor
with both hands. "How much you give?"
"One shilling," announced the professor firmly.
The coral necklace lay on the edge of the table throughout most of our
leisurely meal. The vendor argued, pleaded, gave it up, disappeared in
the crowd, returned dramatically after an interval. The professor ate
calmly, chuckled much, and from time to time repeated firmly the words,
"One shilling." Finally, at the cheese, he reached out, swept the coral
into his pocket, and laid down two shillings. The Egyptian deftly
gathered the coin, smiled cheerfully, and produced a glittering veil, in
which he tried in vain to enlist Billy's interest.
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