Adventures in Many Lands - - (phonics reader TXT) 📗

id="Page_221" class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 221]"> quite keeping it out of sight. When I had gone what I had deemed a sufficient distance I took it up and swung it over my back, and beat a hasty retreat, keeping a sharp eye open in case the parents should lay claim to the body, for I should not have been dishonest enough not to let them have it had they really come to ask for it!

"I soon found the cub was heavier than I bargained for, being about the size of a South Down sheep, so I shouted for my boy. It was a long time, however, before I could make him hear. I began to be afraid I must abandon my spoil. At length I saw him in the far distance. Fortunately for me he did not know his way back to the camp, otherwise his intention was to return to the camp, and ask the men to come and look for my remains.

"The arrival of the cub caused a tremendous sensation among the natives; dozens of men came to see it, nor would they believe until they had seen the skin that I had dared to kill a 'child of the lioness,' it being more dangerous than killing a lion itself. I do not think that I was wise in shooting; but the fact was it was done, and I was in the scrape before I knew where I was, and having got into trouble, of course the question then was how best to get out of it."

"In some of the places I passed through they had never seen a white man before. They would gather round me in dozens, and gaze upon me in the utmost astonishment. One would suggest that I was not beautiful—in plainer language, that I was amazingly ugly. Fancy a set of hideous savages regarding a white man, regarding your uncle, as a strange outlandish creature frightful to behold. You little boys that run after a black man in the park and laugh at him, think what you may come to when you grow old! The tables may be turned on you if you take to travelling, just as they were with me.

"As with other travellers, my boots hardly ever failed to attract attention.

"'Are those your feet, white man?'

"'No, gentlemen, they are not. They are my sandals.'

"'But do they grow to your feet?'

"'No, gentlemen, they do not, I will show you.'

"So forthwith I would proceed to unlace a boot. A roar of astonishment followed when they beheld my blue sock, as they generally surmised that my feet were blue and toeless. Greater astonishment still followed the withdrawal of the sock, and the revelation of a white five-toed foot. I frequently found that they considered that only the visible parts of me were white, namely, my face and hands, and that the rest of me was as black as they were. An almost endless source of amusement was the immense amount of clothing, according to their calculation, that I possessed. That I should have waistcoat and shirt and jersey underneath a coat, seemed almost incredible, and the more so when I told them that it was chiefly on account of the sun I wore so much.

"My watch, too, was an unfailing attraction: 'There's a man in it,' 'It is Lubari; it is witch-craft,' they would cry.' He talks; he says, Teek, teek, teek,' My nose they would compare to a spear; it struck them as so sharp and thin compared to the African production, and ofttimes one bolder than the rest would give my hair and my beard a sharp pull, imagining them to be wigs worn for ornament. Many of them had a potent horror for this white ghost, and a snap of the fingers or a stamp of the foot was enough to send them flying helter-skelter from my tent, which they generally crowded round in ranks five deep. For once in a way this was amusing enough; but when it came to be repeated every day and all day, one had really a little too much of a good thing."

Of the discomforts of an African march the Bishop made light, his sense of humour often enabling him to enjoy a good laugh at occurrences which would have irritated some men almost beyond endurance. Of some of the hardships, however, his letters and diary give glimpses—

"Our first experience in this region was not a pleasant one. We had sent our men on before while we dallied with our friends at Mpwapwa. When we reached the summit of the pass we could see various villages with their fires in the plains below, but nowhere was the camp to be discerned. It was a weary time before we could alight on it, and when we did, what a scene presented itself to our gaze!

"The wind was so high that the camp fires were extinguished, and the men had betaken themselves to a deep trench cut through the sandy plain by a mountain torrent, but now perfectly dry; hence our difficulty in making out where the camp was. Two of the tents were in a prostrate condition, while the others were fast getting adrift. Volumes of dust were swamping beds, blankets, boxes, buckets, and in fact everything; and a more miserable scene could scarcely be beheld by a party of benighted pilgrims. It was no use staring at it. I seized a hammer and tent pegs, forgot I was tired, and before very long had things fairly to rights; but I slept that night in a dust-heap.

"Nor did the morning mend matters, and to encourage us the Mpwapwa brethren prophesied this state of things all through Ugogo. It is bad enough in a hot climate to have dust in your hair and down your neck, and filling your boxes; but when it comes to food, and every mouthful you take grates your teeth, I leave you to imagine the pleasure of tent-life in a sandy plain.

"A day or two after this we arrived at a camp where the water was excessively bad. We had to draw it for everybody from one deep hole, and probably rats, mice, lizards, and other small animals had fallen in and been drowned, and allowed to remain and putrefy. The water smelt most dreadfully, no filtering or boiling seemed to have any effect upon it, and soup, coffee, and all food were flavoured by it.

"That afternoon I went for a stroll with my boy and two guns to endeavour to supply the table with a little better meat than tough goat. I soon struck on the dry bed of a masika (wet season) torrent. Following this up a little way I saw a fine troop of monkeys, and wanting the skin of one of them for my collection I sent a bullet flying amongst them, without, however, producing any effect beyond a tremendous scamper. My boy then said to me, 'If you want to kill monkey, master, you should try buck-shot'; so returning him my rifle I took my fowling-piece.

"Perhaps it was fortunate I did so, for about a hundred yards farther on the river bed took a sharp turn, and coming round the corner I lighted on three fine tawny lions. They were quite close to me, and had I had my rifle my first impulse might have been too strong for me to resist speeding the parting guest with a bullet. As it was, I came to a sudden halt, and they ran away. In vain my boy begged me to retreat. I seized the rifle and ran after them as fast as my legs would carry me; but they were soon hid in the dense jungle that lines the river banks; and although I could hear one growling and breathing hard about ten yards from me, I could not get a shot."

Like Moses of old, Bishop Hannington did not enter the land he had come so far to reach. The people of Uganda were alarmed and angry at his approaching their country from the north-east, which they called the back door to their land. Worn out with fever he was seized, dragged backwards over stony ground, and kept a prisoner for some days. On October 29, 1885, he was conducted to an open space outside the village and placed among his followers, having been falsely told on the previous day that King Mwanga had sent word that the party was to be allowed to proceed.

But he was soon undeceived. With a wild shout the savage warriors fell upon the Bishop's enfeebled followers, and their flashing spears speedily covered the ground with dead and dying. As the natives told off to murder him closed round, Hannington drew himself up and bade them tell the king that he was about to die for the people of Uganda, and that he had purchased the road to their country with his life. Then as they still hesitated he pointed to his own gun, which one of them fired and Hannington fell dead.

His last words to his friends—scribbled by the light of some camp-fire—were—

"If this is the last chapter of my earthly history, then the next will be the first page of the heavenly—no blots and smudges, no incoherence, but sweet converse in the presence of the Lamb!"

XV KEEPING THE TRYST

Maharaj was a very big elephant and Alec was a half-grown boy—an insignificant human pigmy—in spite of which disparity they were great pals, for Alec admired that mountain of strength as only an imaginative boy can, and elephants can appreciate admiration.

When Alec came across Maharaj he had taken up his quarters temporarily in the mango tope opposite the bungalow. He was pouring dust upon his head and blowing it over his back, both because he enjoyed a dust bath and because it helped to keep off the flies. With the quick perception of a boy, Alec noticed he had used up all the dust within reach, so he got him a few hatfuls from the roadside, for which he was very grateful, and immediately sent a sand blast over his back that annihilated quite a colony of mosquitoes. Then he admitted Alec to his friendship, and they became pals.

Hard by the mahout was cooking his dinner under a tamarind-tree.

"Did the Sahib ask if he was clever? Wait, and the Sahib shall see. Here are his six chapaties of flour that I am baking. Out of one only I shall keep back a handful of meal. How should he detect so small a quantity missing? But we shall see."

The elephant driver put on the cakes to bake—pancake-shaped things, eighteen inches across and an inch thick. They took their time to cook, for the fireplace was small, being only three bricks standing on the ground. When they were ready he placed the cakes before Maharaj, who eyed them suspiciously.

"He has been listening," explained the driver. "Those big ears of his can hear talk a mile away. Go on, my son, eat. What is there wrong with the food?"

Maharaj slowly took up a chapatie in his trunk, carefully weighed it and put it on one side, took up another and did the same. The fourth chapatie was the light one; this he found out at once and indignantly threw it at the feet of the mahout, grumbling and gurgling and swinging his head from side to side and stamping his forefoot in anger.

"What! son of a pig! is not the flour I eat good enough for thee also? Well, starve then, for there is no better in the bazaar."

They walked away; the small restless eyes followed anxiously; yet the elephant made no attempt to eat, but swung angrily from side to side in his pickets. Presently they returned, but he had not touched a chapatie.

"It is no use,