King Solomon's Mines
“Three Winchester repeating rifles (not carbines), spare guns.
“Three single-action Colt’s revolvers, with the heavier, or American
pattern of cartridge.”
This was our total armament, and doubtless the reader will observe that
the weapons of each class were of the same make and calibre, so that
the cartridges were interchangeable, a very important point. I make no
apology for detailing it at length, as every experienced hunter will
know how vital a proper supply of guns and ammunition is to the success
of an expedition.
Now as to the men who were to go with us. After much consultation we
decided that their number should be limited to five, namely, a driver,
a leader, and three servants.
The driver and leader I found without much difficulty, two Zulus, named
respectively Goza and Tom; but to get the servants proved a more
difficult matter. It was necessary that they should be thoroughly
trustworthy and brave men, as in a business of this sort our lives
might depend upon their conduct. At last I secured two, one a Hottentot
named Ventvögel, or “windbird,” and one a little Zulu named Khiva, who
had the merit of speaking English perfectly. Ventvögel I had known
before; he was one of the most perfect “spoorers,” that is, game
trackers, I ever had to do with, and tough as whipcord. He never seemed
to tire. But he had one failing, so common with his race, drink. Put
him within reach of a bottle of gin and you could not trust him.
However, as we were going beyond the region of grog-shops this little
weakness of his did not so much matter.
Having secured these two men I looked in vain for a third to suit my
purpose, so we determined to start without one, trusting to luck to
find a suitable man on our way up country. But, as it happened, on the
evening before the day we had fixed for our departure the Zulu Khiva
informed me that a Kafir was waiting to see me. Accordingly, when we
had done dinner, for we were at table at the time, I told Khiva to
bring him in. Presently a tall, handsome-looking man, somewhere about
thirty years of age, and very light-coloured for a Zulu, entered, and
lifting his knob-stick by way of salute, squatted himself down in the
corner on his haunches, and sat silent. I did not take any notice of
him for a while, for it is a great mistake to do so. If you rush into
conversation at once, a Zulu is apt to think you a person of little
dignity or consequence. I observed, however, that he was a “Keshla” or
ringed man; that is, he wore on his head the black ring, made of a
species of gum polished with fat and worked up in the hair, which is
usually assumed by Zulus on attaining a certain age or dignity. Also it
struck me that his face was familiar to me.
“Well,” I said at last, “What is your name?”
“Umbopa,” answered the man in a slow, deep voice.
“I have seen your face before.”
“Yes; the Inkoosi, the chief, my father, saw my face at the place of
the Little Hand”—that is, Isandhlwana—“on the day before the battle.”
Then I remembered. I was one of Lord Chelmsford’s guides in that
unlucky Zulu War, and had the good fortune to leave the camp in charge
of some wagons on the day before the battle. While I was waiting for
the cattle to be inspanned I fell into conversation with this man, who
held some small command among the native auxiliaries, and he had
expressed to me his doubts as to the safety of the camp. At the time I
told him to hold his tongue, and leave such matters to wiser heads; but
afterwards I thought of his words.
“I remember,” I said; “what is it you want?”
“It is this, ‘Macumazahn.’” That is my Kafir name, and means the man
who gets up in the middle of the night, or, in vulgar English, he who
keeps his eyes open. “I hear that you go on a great expedition far into
the North with the white chiefs from over the water. Is it a true
word?”
“It is.”
“I hear that you go even to the Lukanga River, a moon’s journey beyond
the Manica country. Is this so also, ‘Macumazahn?’”
“Why do you ask whither we go? What is it to you?” I answered
suspiciously, for the objects of our journey had been kept a dead
secret.
“It is this, O white men, that if indeed you travel so far I would
travel with you.”
There was a certain assumption of dignity in the man’s mode of speech,
and especially in his use of the words “O white men,” instead of “O
Inkosis,” or chiefs, which struck me.
“You forget yourself a little,” I said. “Your words run out unawares.
That is not the way to speak. What is your name, and where is your
kraal? Tell us, that we may know with whom we have to deal.”
“My name is Umbopa. I am of the Zulu people, yet not of them. The house
of my tribe is in the far North; it was left behind when the Zulus came
down here a ‘thousand years ago,’ long before Chaka reigned in
Zululand. I have no kraal. I have wandered for many years. I came from
the North as a child to Zululand. I was Cetewayo’s man in the
Nkomabakosi Regiment, serving there under the great Captain,
Umslopogaasi of the Axe,[5] who taught my hands to fight. Afterwards I
ran away from Zululand and came to Natal because I wanted to see the
white man’s ways. Next I fought against Cetewayo in the war. Since then
I have been working in Natal. Now I am tired, and would go North again.
Here is not my place. I want no money, but I am a brave man, and am
worth my place and meat. I have spoken.”
[5] For the history of Umslopogaasi and his Axe, the reader is
referred to the books called “Allan Quatermain” and “Nada the
Lily.”—_Editor_.
I was rather puzzled by this man and his way of speech. It was evident
to me from his manner that in the main he was telling the truth, but
somehow he seemed different from the ordinary run of Zulus, and I
rather mistrusted his offer to come without pay. Being in a difficulty,
I translated his words to Sir Henry and Good, and asked them their
opinion.
Sir Henry told me to ask him to stand up. Umbopa did so, at the same
time slipping off the long military great coat which he wore, and
revealing himself naked except for the moocha round his centre and a
necklace of lions’ claws. Certainly he was a magnificent-looking man; I
never saw a finer native. Standing about six foot three high he was
broad in proportion, and very shapely. In that light, too, his skin
looked scarcely more than dark, except here and there where deep black
scars marked old assegai wounds. Sir Henry walked up to him and looked
into his proud, handsome face.
“They make a good pair, don’t they?” said Good; “one as big as the
other.”
“I like your looks, Mr. Umbopa, and I will take you as my servant,”
said Sir Henry in English.
Umbopa evidently understood him, for he answered in Zulu, “It is well”;
and then added, with a glance at the white man’s great stature and
breadth, “We are men, thou and I.”
CHAPTER IV.
AN ELEPHANT HUNT
Now I do not propose to narrate at full length all the incidents of our
long travel up to Sitanda’s Kraal, near the junction of the Lukanga and
Kalukwe Rivers. It was a journey of more than a thousand miles from
Durban, the last three hundred or so of which we had to make on foot,
owing to the frequent presence of the dreadful “tsetse” fly, whose bite
is fatal to all animals except donkeys and men.
We left Durban at the end of January, and it was in the second week of
May that we camped near Sitanda’s Kraal. Our adventures on the way were
many and various, but as they are of the sort which befall every
African hunter—with one exception to be presently detailed—I shall not
set them down here, lest I should render this history too wearisome.
At Inyati, the outlying trading station in the Matabele country, of
which Lobengula (a great and cruel scoundrel) is king, with many
regrets we parted from our comfortable wagon. Only twelve oxen remained
to us out of the beautiful span of twenty which I had bought at Durban.
One we lost from the bite of a cobra, three had perished from “poverty”
and the want of water, one strayed, and the other three died from
eating the poisonous herb called “tulip.” Five more sickened from this
cause, but we managed to cure them with doses of an infusion made by
boiling down the tulip leaves. If administered in time this is a very
effective antidote.
The wagon and the oxen we left in the immediate charge of Goza and Tom,
our driver and leader, both trustworthy boys, requesting a worthy
Scotch missionary who lived in this distant place to keep an eye on
them. Then, accompanied by Umbopa, Khiva, Ventvögel, and half a dozen
bearers whom we hired on the spot, we started off on foot upon our wild
quest. I remember we were all a little silent on the occasion of this
departure, and I think that each of us was wondering if we should ever
see our wagon again; for my part I never expected to do so. For a while
we tramped on in silence, till Umbopa, who was marching in front, broke
into a Zulu chant about how some brave men, tired of life and the
tameness of things, started off into a vast wilderness to find new
things or die, and how, lo and behold! when they had travelled far into
the wilderness they found that it was not a wilderness at all, but a
beautiful place full of young wives and fat cattle, of game to hunt and
enemies to kill.
Then we all laughed and took it for a good omen. Umbopa was a cheerful
savage, in a dignified sort of way, when he was not suffering from one
of his fits of brooding, and he had a wonderful knack of keeping up our
spirits. We all grew very fond of him.
And now for the one adventure to which I am going to treat myself, for
I do dearly love a hunting yarn.
About a fortnight’s march from Inyati we came across a peculiarly
beautiful bit of well-watered woodland country. The kloofs in the hills
were covered with dense bush, “idoro” bush as the natives call it, and
in some places, with the “wacht-een-beche,” or “wait-a-little thorn,”
and there were great quantities of the lovely “machabell” tree, laden
with refreshing yellow fruit having enormous stones. This tree is the
elephant’s favourite food, and there were not wanting signs that the
great brutes had been about, for not only was their spoor frequent, but
in many places the trees were broken down and even uprooted. The
elephant is a destructive feeder.
One evening, after a long day’s march, we came to a spot of great
loveliness. At the foot of a bush-clad hill lay a dry river-bed, in
which, however, were to be found pools of crystal water all trodden
round with the hoof-prints of game. Facing this hill was a park-like
plain, where grew clumps of flat-topped mimosa, varied with occasional
glossy-leaved machabells, and all round stretched the sea of pathless,
silent bush.
As we emerged into this river-bed path suddenly we started a troop of
tall giraffes, who galloped, or rather sailed off, in their strange
gait, their tails screwed up over their backs, and their hoofs rattling
like castanets. They were about three hundred yards from us, and
therefore practically out of shot, but Good, who was walking ahead, and
who had an express loaded with solid ball in his hand, could not resist
temptation. Lifting his gun, he let drive at the last, a young cow. By
some extraordinary chance the ball struck it full on the back of the
neck, shattering the spinal column, and that giraffe went rolling head
over heels just like a rabbit. I never saw a more curious thing.
“Curse it!” said Good—for I am sorry to say he had a habit of using
strong language when excited—contracted, no doubt, in the course of his
nautical career; “curse it! I’ve killed him.”
“_Ou_, Bougwan,” ejaculated the Kafirs; “_ou! ou!_”
They called Good “Bougwan,” or Glass Eye, because of his eye-glass.
“Oh, ‘Bougwan!’” re-echoed Sir Henry and I, and from that day Good’s