She
out into a roar of laughter. Job’s fat and comfortable
countenance was swollen out to nearly twice its natural size from
mosquito bites, and Leo’s condition was not much better. Indeed,
of the three I had come off much the best, probably owing to the
toughness of my dark skin, and to the fact that a good deal of it
was covered by hair, for since we had started from England I had
allowed my naturally luxuriant beard to grow at its own sweet
will. But the other two were, comparatively speaking, clean
shaved, which of course gave the enemy a larger extent of open
country to operate on, though in Mahomed’s case the mosquitoes,
recognising the taste of a true believer, would not touch him at
any price. How often, I wonder, during the next week or so did we
wish that we were flavoured like an Arab!
By the time that we had done laughing as heartily as our swollen
lips would allow, it was daylight, and the morning breeze was
coming up from the sea, cutting lanes through the dense marsh
mists, and here and there rolling them before it in great balls
of fleecy vapour. So we set our sail, and having first taken a
look at the two dead lions and the alligator, which we were of
course unable to skin, being destitute of means of curing the
pelts, we started, and, sailing through the lagoon, followed the
course of the river on the farther side. At midday, when the
breeze dropped, we were fortunate enough to find a convenient
piece of dry land on which to camp and light a fire, and here we
cooked two wild-ducks and some of the waterbuck’s flesh—not in a
very appetising way, it is true, but still sufficiently. The rest
of the buck’s flesh we cut into strips and hung in the sun to dry
into “biltong,” as, I believe, the South African Dutch call flesh
thus prepared. On this welcome patch of dry land we stopped till
the following dawn, and, as before, spent the night in warfare
with the mosquitoes, but without other troubles. The next day or
two passed in similar fashion, and without noticeable adventures,
except that we shot a specimen of a peculiarly graceful hornless
buck, and saw many varieties of water-lily in full bloom, some of
them blue and of exquisite beauty, though few of the flowers were
perfect, owing to the prevalence of a white water-maggot with a
green head that fed upon them.
It was on the fifth day of our journey, when we had travelled, so
far as we could reckon, about one hundred and thirty-five to a
hundred and forty miles westwards from the coast, that the first
event of any real importance occurred. On that morning the usual
wind failed us about eleven o’clock, and after pulling a little
way we were forced to halt, more or less exhausted, at what
appeared to be the junction of our stream with another of a
uniform width of about fifty feet. Some trees grew near at
hand—the only trees in all this country were along the banks of
the river, and under these we rested, and then, the land being
fairly dry just here, walked a little way along the edge of the
river to prospect, and shoot a few waterfowl for food. Before we
had gone fifty yards we perceived that all hopes of getting
further up the stream in the whale-boat were at an end, for not
two hundred yards above where we had stopped were a succession of
shallows and mudbanks, with not six inches of water over them. It
was a watery _cul de sac_.
Turning back, we walked some way along the banks of the other
river, and soon came to the conclusion, from various indications,
that it was not a river at all, but an ancient canal, like the
one which is to be seen above Mombasa, on the Zanzibar coast,
connecting the Tana River with the Ozy, in such a way as to
enable the shipping coming down the Tana to cross to the Ozy, and
reach the sea by it, and thus avoid the very dangerous bar that
blocks the mouth of the Tana. The canal before us had evidently
been dug out by man at some remote period of the world’s history,
and the results of his digging still remained in the shape of the
raised banks that had no doubt once formed towing-paths. Except
here and there, where they had been hollowed out by the water or
fallen in, these banks of stiff binding clay were at a uniform
distance from each other, and the depth of the stream also
appeared to be uniform. Current there was little or none, and, as
a consequence, the surface of the canal was choked with vegetable
growth, intersected by little paths of clear water, made, I
suppose, by the constant passage of waterfowl, iguanas, and other
vermin. Now, as it was evident that we could not proceed up the
river, it became equally evident that we must either try the
canal or else return to the sea. We could not stop where we were,
to be baked by the sun and eaten up by the mosquitoes, till we
died of fever in that dreary marsh.
“Well, I suppose that we must try it,” I said; and the others
assented in their various ways—Leo, as though it were the best
joke in the world; Job, in respectful disgust; and Mahomed, with
an invocation to the Prophet, and a comprehensive curse upon all
unbelievers and their ways of thought and travel.
Accordingly, as soon as the sun got low, having little or nothing
more to hope for from our friendly wind, we started. For the
first hour or so we managed to row the boat, though with great
labour; but after that the weeds got too thick to allow of it,
and we were obliged to resort to the primitive and most
exhausting resource of towing her. For two hours we laboured,
Mahomed, Job, and I, who was supposed to be strong enough to pull
against the two of them, on the bank, while Leo sat in the bow of
the boat, and brushed away the weeds which collected round the
cutwater with Mahomed’s sword. At dark we halted for some hours
to rest and enjoy the mosquitoes, but about midnight we went on
again, taking advantage of the comparative cool of the night. At
dawn we rested for three hours, and then started once more, and
laboured on till about ten o’clock, when a thunderstorm,
accompanied by a deluge of rain, overtook us, and we spent the
next six hours practically under water.
I do not know that there is any necessity for me to describe the
next four days of our voyage in detail, further than to say that
they were, on the whole, the most miserable that I ever spent in
my life, forming one monotonous record of heavy labour, heat,
misery, and mosquitoes. All that dreary way we passed through a
region of almost endless swamp, and I can only attribute our
escape from fever and death to the constant doses of quinine and
purgatives which we took, and the unceasing toil which we were
forced to undergo. On the third day of our journey up the canal
we had sighted a round hill that loomed dimly through the vapours
of the marsh, and on the evening of the fourth night, when we
camped, this hill seemed to be within five-and-twenty or thirty
miles of us. We were by now utterly exhausted, and felt as though
our blistered hands could not pull the boat a yard farther, and
that the best thing that we could do would be to lie down and die
in that dreadful wilderness of swamp. It was an awful position,
and one in which I trust no other white man will ever be placed;
and as I threw myself down in the boat to sleep the sleep of
utter exhaustion, I bitterly cursed my folly in ever having been
a party to such a mad undertaking, which could, I saw, only end
in our death in this ghastly land. I thought, I remember, as I
slowly sank into a doze, of what the appearance of the boat and
her unhappy crew would be in two or three months’ time from that
night. There she would lie, with gaping seams and half filled
with fœtid water, which, when the mist-laden wind stirred her,
would wash backwards and forwards through our mouldering bones,
and that would be the end of her, and of those in her who would
follow after myths and seek out the secrets of Nature.
Already I seemed to hear the water rippling against the
desiccated bones and rattling them together, rolling my skull
against Mahomed’s, and his against mine, till at last Mahomed’s
stood straight up upon its vertebræ, and glared at me through its
empty eyeholes, and cursed me with its grinning jaws, because I,
a dog of a Christian, disturbed the last sleep of a true
believer. I opened my eyes, and shuddered at the horrid dream,
and then shuddered again at something that was not a dream, for
two great eyes were gleaming down at me through the misty
darkness. I struggled up, and in my terror and confusion
shrieked, and shrieked again, so that the others sprang up too,
reeling, and drunken with sleep and fear. And then all of a
sudden there was a flash of cold steel, and a great spear was
held against my throat, and behind it other spears gleamed
cruelly.
“Peace,” said a voice, speaking in Arabic, or rather in some
dialect into which Arabic entered very largely; “who are ye who
come hither swimming on the water? Speak or ye die,” and the
steel pressed sharply against my throat, sending a cold chill
through me.
“We are travellers, and have come hither by chance,” I answered
in my best Arabic, which appeared to be understood, for the man
turned his head, and, addressing a tall form that towered up in
the background, said, “Father, shall we slay?”
“What is the colour of the men?” said a deep voice in answer.
“White is their colour.”
“Slay not,” was the reply. “Four suns since was the word brought
to me from ‘_She-who-must-be-obeyed_,’ ‘White men come; if white
men come, slay them not.’ Let them be brought to the house of
‘_She-who-must-be-obeyed_.’ Bring forth the men, and let that
which they have with them be brought forth also.”
“Come,” said the man, half leading and half dragging me from the
boat, and as he did so I perceived other men doing the same kind
office to my companions.
On the bank were gathered a company of some fifty men. In that
light all I could make out was that they were armed with huge
spears, were very tall, and strongly built, comparatively light
in colour, and nude, save for a leopard skin tied round the
middle.
Presently Leo and Job were bundled out and placed beside me.
“What on earth is up?” said Leo, rubbing his eyes.
“Oh, Lord! sir, here’s a rum go,” ejaculated Job; and just at
that moment a disturbance ensued, and Mahomed came tumbling
between us, followed by a shadowy form with an uplifted spear.
“Allah! Allah!” howled Mahomed, feeling that he had little to
hope from man, “protect me! protect me!”
“Father, it is a black one,” said a voice. “What said
‘_She-who-must-be-obeyed_’ about the black one?”
“She said naught; but slay him not. Come hither, my son.”
The man advanced, and the tall shadowy form bent forward and
whispered something.