In Africa Part 24

One day we stopped at the edge of the Molo River. A little bridge crossed the stream and I remembered that the equator is supposed to pa.s.s directly across the middle of this bridge. It struck me as being quite noteworthy, so I tried to tell Ha.s.san all about it. I was hampered somewhat because he didn't know that the world was round, but after some time I got him to agree to that fact. Then by many ill.u.s.trations I endeavored to describe the equator and told him it crossed the bridge.

He got up and looked, but seemed unconvinced as well as unimpressed.

Then I told him that it was an imaginary line that ran around the world right where it was fullest--half way between the north pole and the south pole. He brightened up at this and hastened to tell me that he had heard of the north pole from a man on a French s.h.i.+p. As I persevered in my geographical lecture he gradually became detached from my point of view, and when we finished I was talking equator and he was talking about a friend of his who had once been to Rotterdam.

The lecture was a "draw." But I noticed with satisfaction that when we walked across the bridge he looked furtively between each crack as if expecting to see something.

It was rather a curious thing, speaking of Ha.s.san, to observe the respect with which the other natives treated his daily religious devotions. He was the only one in camp who prayed--at least openly--and as he knelt and bowed and went through the customary form of a Mohammedan prayer there was never the slightest disposition to make fun of him. In a camp of one hundred white men I feel sure that one of them who prayed aloud three times a day would hardly have escaped a good deal of irreverent ridicule from those about him. The natives in our camp never dreamed of questioning Ha.s.san's right to wors.h.i.+p in any way he pleased and the life and activities of the camp flowed along smoothly as if unconscious of the white-robed figure whose voice sang out his praises of Allah. The whole camp seemed to have a deep respect for Ha.s.san.

Abdi, our head-man, was also a Somali, but of a different tribe. He was from Jubaland and had lived many years with white men. In all save color he was more white than black. He was handsome, good-tempered, efficient, and so kind to his men that sometimes the discipline of the camp suffered because of it. It was Abdi's duty to direct the porters in their work of moving camp, distributing loads, pitching camp, getting wood for the big camp-fires, punis.h.i.+ng delinquents and, in fact, to see that the work of the _safari_ was done.

One night after we had been most successful in a big lion hunt during the day Abdi came to the mess tent, where we were lingering over a particularly good dinner. Abdi asked for his orders for the following day and then, seeing that we were in a talkative mood, he stopped a while to join in the stories of lion hunting.

After a time he told two of his own that he had brought from his boyhood home in Jubaland. They were so remarkable that you don't have to believe them unless you want to.

[Drawing: _Abdi's Uncle and the Man-Eaters_]

ABDI'S STORY ABOUT HIS UNCLE AND THE LIONS

"Once upon a time my uncle, who was a great runner, encountered six man-eating lions sitting in the road. He took his spear and tried to kill them, but they divided, three on each side of the road. So he took to his heels. To the next town it was twelve hours' march, but he ran it in ten hours, the lions in hot pursuit every minute of the time. When he reached the town he jumped over the thorn bush zareba, and the lions, close behind him, jumped over after him and were killed by his spear, one after the other."

ABDI'S STORY ABOUT THE WILY SOMALI AND THE LION

"Once upon a time there was a Somali who was warned not to go down a certain road on account of the man-eating lions. But he started out, armed with knife and spear. For a week he marched, sleeping in the trees at night and marching during the day. One day he suddenly came upon a big lion sitting in the road. He stopped, sharpening a little stick which he held in his left hand. Then he wrapped his 'tobe' or blanket around his left hand and arm. He then advanced to the lion and when it opened its mouth to bite him he thrust the sharp stick inside, up and down, thus gagging the lion. Then with his two hands he held the lion by its ears for three days. He couldn't let go because the lion would maul him with its heavy paws. He was thus in quite a fix.

[Drawing: _He Hastily Cut a Stick_]

"Finally another Somali came along and he asked the new-comer to hold the lion while he killed it with his spear. The other Somali consented and seized the lion by the ears. Then the first Somali laughed long and loud and said, 'I've held him three days, now you hold him three days.' Then he strolled down the road and disappeared. For seven days the second Somali held the lion and then by the same subterfuge turned it over to a third Somali. By this time the lion was pretty tired, so after one day the Somali shook the lion hard and then took out his knife and stabbed it to death."

Sulimani was my second gunbearer. His name wasn't Sulimani, but some one gave him that name because his own Kikuyu name was too hard to p.r.o.nounce and impossible to remember. Sulimani was quite a study. He had the savage's love of snuff, and when not eating or sleeping he was taking pinches of that narcotic from an old kodak tin. In consequence he had the chronic appearance of being full of dope. He walked along as though in a trance. He never seemed to be looking anywhere except at the stretch of trail directly in front of him. His thoughts were far away, or else there were no thoughts at all. I often watched him and wondered what he was thinking about.

Sulimani was really one of the best natural hunters in the whole _safari_. He had a native instinct for tracking that was wonderful; he had courage that was fatalistic, and he seemed to know what an animal would do and where it would go under certain conditions. Beneath that dopy somnolence of manner his senses were alert and his eyes were usually the first to see distant game.

He had originally been a porter when we started out, but I gave him a new suit of khaki and promoted him to the position of second gunbearer.

As long as we were in touch with civilization he kept that khaki suit in a condition of spotlessness, but when we got out in the wilds, away from the girls, it soon became stiff with blood-stains and dirt. The natural savage instinct became predominant; he reverted to type.

His jaunty red fez was replaced by a headgear made of the beautiful skin of a Uganda cob. Ostrich and maribou feathers stuck out from the top, while upon his feet were sandals made from the thick skin of a waterbuck. A zebra tail was fas.h.i.+oned into a sheath for his skinning-knife, so that, little by little, he resolved himself back into a condition of savage splendor. He usually did most of my skinning, and that being dirty work, I was disposed to be tolerant with the disgraceful condition of his khaki suit.

Finally we approached civilization once more, and I told Sulimani that he'd have to clean up, otherwise the girls wouldn't like him. I gave him half a day off to wash his clothes, and he dutifully disappeared from society for that period. When he once more turned up he was resplendent in his clean clothes. As we marched along toward Nairobi he broke his long silence by bursting into song. For a day or two it was the wonder of the camp, but he was quite unconscious of it. Music was in his soul and the germ of love was churning it up. And so he sang as he marched along, and his thoughts were racing ahead of him to the "sing sing"

girls who wait in Nairobi for returning porters with rupees to spend.

The general average of health in the _safari_ was high. Only one porter died in the four months or more that we were out. But in spite of the low mortality there were many cases that came up for treatment. Akeley, with his long experience as a hunter and explorer, acted as the health department of the camp. His three or four remedies for all ills were quinine, calomel, witch-hazel, and zinc oxide adhesive plaster. And it was simply amazing what those four things could do when applied to the naturally healthy const.i.tutions of the blacks. He cured a bowed tendon with witch-hazel and adhesive plaster in three or four days. A white man would have gone to a hospital for weeks.

There were two common complaints. One was fever, but the fiercest fever took to its heels when charged by General Quinine and General Calomel.

The other and more common complaint rose from abrasions and cuts. There was always a string of porters lined up for treatment and each went away happy with large pieces of adhesive plaster decorating his ebony skin. A simple piece of this plaster cured the worst and most inflamed cut, and it was seldom that a man came back for a second treatment. The plaster remained on until, weeks afterward, it fell off from sheer weariness.

And once in a while there would be knife wounds, for whenever we killed a zebra as meat for the porters there would be a frenzied fight over the body. Each man, with knife out, was fighting for the choice pieces. It was like a scrimmage of human vultures--fighting, clawing, slas.h.i.+ng and rending, with blood and meat flying about in a horrifying manner. I used to marvel that many were not killed, because each one was armed with a knife and each one was frenzied with savage greed. However, only once in a while did we have to treat the injured from this cause. Two men could fight for ten minutes over a piece of meat or a bone, but when finally the owners.h.i.+p was settled the victor could toss his meat to the ground with the certainty that no one else would take it.

Jumma was my tent boy--a Wakamba with filed teeth. Jumma is the Swahili word for Friday and is about as common a name in East Africa as John is in white communities. I suppose I ought to call him "my man Friday," but he was so dignified that no one would dream of taking such a liberty with him. Jumma's thoughts ran to clothes. He wore a neat khaki suit--blouse and "shorts," a pair of blue puttees, a pair of stout shoes, and a dazzling red fez, from which sprang a long waving ostrich feather. My key ring hung at his belt, while around his wrist a neat watch was fastened. The longest march, through mud and rain and wind and sun, would find him as trim and clean at the finish as though he had just stepped out of a bandbox. Jumma had the happy faculty of never looking rumpled, a trick which I tried hard to learn, but all in vain.

He was as black as ebony, yet his features were like those of a Caucasian; in fact, he strikingly resembled an old Chicago friend.

[Photograph: Sulimani--Second Gunbearer]

[Photograph: The Mess Tent]

[Photograph: Where the Equator Crosses the Molo]

Among our porters there were many types of features, and in a curious way many of them resembled people we had known at home. One porter had the eyes and expression of a young north-side girl; another had the walk and features of a prominent young Chicago man; and so on.

Saa Sitaa was one of our brightest porters. His name means "Six O'clock"

in Swahili, six o'clock in the native reckoning being our noon and our midnight. Just why he was given this significant name I never discovered. Perhaps he was born at that hour. It always used to amuse me to hear Abdi calling out, "_Enjani hapa, Saa Sitaa_"--"Come here, Six O'clock."

Baa Baa was a porter who always used to sing a queer native chant in which those words were predominant. He would sing it by the hour while on the march, and before long his real name was replaced by the new one.

Henceforth he will, no doubt, continue to be Baa Baa. He was promoted from porter to camera-bearer, but one day he could not be found when most needed, and he was reduced back to the ranks. I never heard him sing again. His heart was broken.

CHAPTER XXI

BACK HOME FROM AFRICA. NINETY DAYS ON THE WAY THROUGH INDIA, JAVA, CHINA, MANILA AND j.a.pAN. THREE CHOW DOGS AND A FINAL SERIES OF AMUSING ADVENTURES

At last the day came for us to say good-by to the happy hunting grounds and return to the perils and dangers of civilization. Occasional newspapers had filtered into the wild places and in the peaceful security of our tents we had read of frightful mining disasters in America, of unparalleled floods in France, of the clash and jangle of rival polar explorers, of disasters at sea, of rioting and lynching in Illinois. Automobile accidents were chronicled with staggering frequency, and there were murmurs of impending rebellions in India, political crises in England, feverish war talk in Germany, volcanic threats from Mount Etna, and a bewildering lot of other dreadful things.

In contrast to this dire picture of life in civilized places, our pleasant days among the lions and wild beasts of Africa seemed curiously peaceful and orderly. Now we were to leave--to go back into the maelstrom of the busy places and bid farewell to our friendly savages and genial camp-fires. The Akeleys were remaining some months longer, but Stephenson and I were scheduled to leave.

[Photograph: Just Before Saying Good-by to My Horse]

[Photograph: Manila Bay]

[Photograph: The Boro Boedoer Ruins]

There were a few busy days in Nairobi. The horses were sold, the porters were paid off, the trophies were prepared for s.h.i.+pment, and our camp outfits and guns were either sold or packed for their journey homeward.

There were affectionate and rather tearful partings from good friends, then a quick railway trip to the coast and a day or two of waiting in Mombasa. The hunting was over. Now it was a mere matter of getting home in ninety days, and for variety's sake we elected to go home through India, Java, China, and j.a.pan. I was curious to note the changes that those countries had undergone since I had last seen them years before.

We had some mild adventures. The first occurred in Mombasa, and concerns the strange conduct of two little white dogs that flashed in and out of our lives.

One day when I returned to my room in the hotel at Mombasa I was surprised to find that two small dogs had established themselves therein. The room boy knew nothing about them; the people around the hotel did not remember having ever seen them before. No clue to their owner was obtainable, and we regarded their advent as something of a mild kind of miracle. They played about the room as if they had long been there. When we went out they were at our heels and in the course of our wanderings through the old streets of the town the two dogs were always close at hand, or, rather, close at feet. When I worked in the room at the hotel they lay on the floor or played near my table and made no effort to rush away to the many temptations of the warm suns.h.i.+ne outside. I became much attached to them. Such steadfast devotion from strange dogs is always flattering.

Then our s.h.i.+p, the _Umzumbi_, South Africa to Bombay, came into the harbor and anch.o.r.ed a quarter of a mile out from the custom-house dock.

We decided to go out and visit her and accordingly shut the door to prevent the two little dogs from joining us. Before we reached the dock they were with us, however, having escaped some way or other. And when we got into the rowboat to go out they looked appealingly after us from the dripping steps of the boat landing. We were sorry, but really we couldn't take them to the s.h.i.+p.

[Drawing: _The Two Dogs of Mombasa_]