Part 8 (1/2)
CHAPTER TWELVE.
AN INLAND LAKE--ENCHANTING SCENERY--THE ENCAMPMENT--TROPICAL STORMS-- HUNTING THE RHINOCEROS--FRANK UNHORSED--LYELL'S ADVENTURE WITH A LION-- ENCOUNTER WITH A GORILLA.
Some degrees south of the Equator, and nearly four hundred miles from the eastern sh.o.r.es of Africa, a tributary of the river up which the saucy little _Bluebell_ was so quietly steaming, suddenly broadened out into a beautiful lake. Here about a week after the events narrated in last chapter, our friends found themselves. Not even Captain Lyell knew the name of this sheet of water. Perhaps it never had one, but Chisholm was equal to the occasion.
”Call it,” he said, ”Loch Row Allan, in honour of my departed friend the lion killer.” [Row Allan Gordon c.u.mming.]
And so, Loch Row Allan it was called.
I hope my young reader has not been taught at school to believe that the interior of Africa is composed _entirely_ of deep, dark forests, entangled bush, and dismal swamp. If he has been, and could catch but one glance at the wild and charming scenery around this inland lake; how speedily he would be undeceived. It is a bold and rugged mountain land, hills above hills towering skywards, cl.u.s.ters of hills, not round but facaded--peaked, and clad to two-thirds of their height with gigantic forest trees and feathery palms. There is many a bosky glen and dell encompa.s.sed by these hills, and many a dark, wide wooded strath, and it did not detract in the least from the charm of the scenery, in our heroes' view, to know that these glens and straths were the home of the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the king of the forest himself--the lordly lion. They determined to make this country their home for two or three months at the least, and with this end they built themselves and their people huts high up on the green side of a swelling hill that overlooked the lake.
The woods and the plains beyond, nature had stocked with herds of deer, the lake teemed with fish, there were patches of pine apples acres in extent, mango-trees, guava trees, oranges, citron, limes and pomolos, with bananas and plantains, and a hundred other delicious fruits they knew not even the names of. Surely in a land like this, there was but little chance of their falling short of the means of subsistence.
But do not imagine they had not to rough it, for that they often had; nor that the sun always shone, for that it did not. Sometimes great dark clouds would roll rapidly up from the horizon, and above them the fast disappearing blue of the sky looked preternaturally deep and intense, and from out these clouds the storm would burst in all its fierce intensity, lightning such as they had never seen before, thunder that seemed to rend the very hills, and rain that soon gathered into cataracts that steamed and foamed down the mountain sides, on their way to the lakes beneath. These storms ended almost as quickly as they had begun, and probably our heroes would have minded them but very little, had it not been for the fact that, a few minutes before the rain began to fall, scorpions, centipedes, and the largest and most loathsome of spiders, came hastily trooping into the hut to seek for shelter. What instinct teaches them to do this I wonder?
Many gigantic specimens of the rhinoceros fell before the fire of their rifles. They afforded good but not always safe sport, as Frank one day found to his cost. He appeared one morning dressed ”after the fas.h.i.+on of the country,” as he termed it, with shoulders, arms, and face well greased and stained, and when he mounted his horse, every one was obliged to admit that, to say the least, he looked ”a n.o.ble savage.”
Frank was greatly pleased at this, and away he rode, in company with his friend Chisholm, determined, he said, to put in a good day. There was a plain not far away from the encampment which Chisholm, who liked to retain Scottish nomenclature wherever he went, used to call the moor.
Here, on this particular occasion, they had the good luck to fall in with several rhinoceroses, and rare sport they had with them. They did not wish to kill, they came out to chase, and rough though the ground was, they had the best of it. Frank slung his rifle behind him, and when he got alongside any of the monsters he used his riding whip, causing them at first to increase their speed, but soon to lose temper and stand at bay, and use their terrible horns. This gave the young man a chance of showing his horsemans.h.i.+p off to perfection.
Several deer were brought down from the saddle, and, on the whole, Chisholm, and the n.o.ble savage Frank, made a glorious day of it, and were returning about four in the afternoon, tired and hungry, when, just on the verge of the forest, lo! and behold, a rhinoceros scratching his chin, and looking as mild as any old cow.
Frank rode up to flick him with his whip. The beast backed for a moment, but charged again fiercely and furiously, the dead wood snapped, and, when Chisholm looked up, he saw his friend and horse rolling on the ground. The next to roll on the ground was the huge beast himself, for Chisholm was handy with the rifle. Frank got up smiling, and but little hurt, but, alas! for the poor horse, he was stabbed to the heart. The n.o.ble savage had to ride into camp ignominiously perched on the crupper of Chisholm's saddle.
But perhaps the sport which our friends enjoyed above all others was elephant shooting, either on horseback or on foot, according to the nature of the ground. Of their haunts in the forests around the camp they knew nothing at first, nor did their Zanzibar boys, and the first to lead them on their sport was young 'Mboona, the son of a king of one of the native tribes, who had become servant and guide-in-chief to the camp. His reward was to be a rifle, and well he earned it.
People who have never seen an elephant in his native fastnesses, can have no idea of the strength, the ferocity, ay, and the cunning of the animal. Our sporting party took back with them in the little _Bluebell_ many hundreds of pounds' worth of valuable ivory, but if they did they had to pay for it with many a hard day's work, in many a wild ride, and many a hair-breadth escape.
As a rule, the elephants would run when pursued by men and dogs; then, as they pa.s.sed the spot where the rifles were stationed, they fell easy victims to the hardened bullets. They were not always particular in which way they did run, however, and when they did not run right in the direction of the guns, our friends would rush out in pursuit, when all at once perhaps the herd would be turned, and come cras.h.i.+ng back upon them and their people. They were not always angry; perhaps they were thinking more of escape than revenge; but to be run down by even a small herd of cow elephants is no joke. Their feet are terribly heavy, and they are not particular where they place them, so whenever a stampede was checked and rolled back on the pursuers, it was _sauve qui peut_ with a vengeance.
Frank was one day rolled down thus, while on foot, and not only down, but over and over; indeed the herd seemed for a time to be playing at football with him. He was covered from top to toe with blood and earth.
”Eton style of football is all very well,” Frank said afterwards, ”but I never had such a doing as that before.”
Chisholm had a worse doing, however. He had fired at, without killing, a gigantic bull. The brute was on him ere he could either reload or escape. He was picked up as one might seize a kitten, and dashed into a tree beyond even the elephant's reach. The dogs would not tackle this monster. Hearing the terrible screaming, Lyell rode down to attack the foe next, but the wounded animal was careering madly through the forest, and trees that would be thought far from small in a park at home, were snapping before him with the fury and impetus of the rush. Lyell had served in the Crimea, but he confessed himself he had never been nearer to death before, except once. He had been out shooting with a party in the rough and solitary plains, that bound the Zulu land to the north and west. They had come princ.i.p.ally for buffalo-shooting, but they soon found out that there was wilder game than these to be found; and on the very first night on which they bivouacked under the stars, they were fain to entrench themselves well, and to keep the fires alight till morning, for every now and then they could hear the peevish scream of the hyena, the shrill bark of the jackal, and the appalling roar of the lion. Next day they found the carcases of the buffaloes they had slain torn and devoured, and even their enormous bones broken and gnawed.
Lions are not looked upon by the true sportsman as very brave animals, but a lion at bay, or a man-eating lion, is a terrible foe to encounter.
”One night,” said Captain Lyell, ”just as my biggest and strongest Caffre servant was putting the finis.h.i.+ng touch to our laager, he was seized by an immense lion and home away, as one might say, from our very midst; borne away, shrieking for help, into the darkness of the adjoining bush. The silence that succeeded the shrieks made our blood run cold, for we knew that the poor boy was dead, and that the man-eater had commenced his revolting feast. We knew well, that having once tasted human flesh, our camp, while he lived, would not be safe from his attacks. We lost no time, you may be sure, in carrying out the execution of our plans. It was a long weary day's work, and we were about to return to camp, too exhausted by the heat and fatigue to do much more, when suddenly there arose a shout from the party nearest the laager--a shout and a roar--quickly followed by the report of rifles, then more shouting and warning cries. Then I could see the tawny monster appearing suddenly in front of us. I had no time to fire; my comrade did, but I think he missed, and with a howl that seemed to shake the earth, he sprang full upon me, seized me by the side, and bore me almost fainting away, my two hands clutched in his murderous mane. He carried me far off into the jungle, running at first, then walking, finally lying down with his burden under a tree. The terrible moment, then, had arrived, he was about to rend me in pieces, and no power on earth could save me. Overcome by fear and weakness, and by the loss of blood, I fainted, and was found hours after by my comrades in the same condition, with the lion extended by my side--dead of his wounds!”
The _Bluebell_ made many a run to different parts of the lake, and it was during one of these excursions that Frank and Chisholm landed, for the purpose of exploring a part of a forest that grew down close to the water's edge. It was not a likely place for lions--they are fond of more light than this gloomy wood afforded--but they might, they thought, get a chance shot at an elephant. The ground was carpetted with moss, and, with the exception of monkey ropes, so called, the stems of the st.u.r.dy creepers, there was but little undergrowth. Chisholm and Frank strolled on and on, fearing nothing.
How silent it is in that dark wood, and how still! Not a leaf moves, not a fern frond quivers, only high over head there is a gentle sighing, and when they gaze upwards they can see the sparkling of the leaves in the suns.h.i.+ne, but that leafy canopy seems very far away.
Chisholm lags behind for a moment, he is looking to his rifle, and sighting it for close quarters. Frank strolls on. Suddenly the silence of the forest is broken by the most terrible yells, and Chisholm rushes forward to find his poor friend in the clutches of a gorilla, with his rifle torn from his grasp, and brandished high in air by the awful beast. But Frank, clutched by the throat, is quite insensible. There is not a moment, not a second, to be lost, and Chisholm fires almost at close quarters, and the gorilla rolls dead at his feet.
It was well for both Frank and him that a.s.sistance was close at hand.
Dreading some danger, Fred and Lyell had followed them into the forest, and come up just in time, for now the woods all around rang again with the screams of the enraged gorillas, who, it would almost seem, had only allowed Chisholm and Frank to penetrate so far into their domains, with the hopes of encompa.s.sing the destruction of both. But all the way back to the boat, it was a close hand-to-hand fight with these wild and terrible apes. Frank, once on board, and laid on deck, with the _Bluebell_ well clear of the wood, and the gentle breeze blowing in his face, revival was a mere question of time; but he never forgot his first and only encounter with the savage pongo.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.