CHAPTER 5. OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT

We had killed nine elephants, and it took us two days to cut out the

tusks, and having brought them into camp, to bury them carefully in

the sand under a large tree, which made a conspicuous mark for miles

round. It was a wonderfully fine lot of ivory. I never saw a better,

averaging as it did between forty and fifty pounds a tusk. The tusks

of the great bull that killed poor Khiva scaled one hundred and

seventy pounds the pair, so nearly as we could judge.

As for Khiva himself, we buried what remained of him in an ant-bear

hole, together with an assegai to protect himself with on his journey

to a better world. On the third day we marched again, hoping that we

might live to return to dig up our buried ivory, and in due course,

after a long and wearisome tramp, and many adventures which I have not

space to detail, we reached Sitanda's Kraal, near the Lukanga River,

the real starting-point of our expedition. Very well do I recollect

our arrival at that place. To the right was a scattered native

settlement with a few stone cattle kraals and some cultivated lands

down by the water, where these savages grew their scanty supply of

grain, and beyond it stretched great tracts of waving "veld" covered

with tall grass, over which herds of the smaller game were wandering.

To the left lay the vast desert. This spot appears to be the outpost

of the fertile country, and it would be difficult to say to what

natural causes such an abrupt change in the character of the soil is

due. But so it is.

Just below our encampment flowed a little stream, on the farther side

of which is a stony slope, the same down which, twenty years before, I

had seen poor Silvestre creeping back after his attempt to reach

Solomon's Mines, and beyond that slope begins the waterless desert,

covered with a species of karoo shrub.

It was evening when we pitched our camp, and the great ball of the sun

was sinking into the desert, sending glorious rays of many-coloured

light flying all over its vast expanse. Leaving Good to superintend

the arrangement of our little camp, I took Sir Henry with me, and

walking to the top of the slope opposite, we gazed across the desert.

The air was very clear, and far, far away I could distinguish the

faint blue outlines, here and there capped with white, of the Suliman

Berg.

"There," I said, "there is the wall round Solomon's Mines, but God

knows if we shall ever climb it."

"My brother should be there, and if he is, I shall reach him somehow,"

said Sir Henry, in that tone of quiet confidence which marked the man.

"I hope so," I answered, and turned to go back to the camp, when I saw

that we were not alone. Behind us, also gazing earnestly towards the

far-off mountains, stood the great Kafir Umbopa.

The Zulu spoke when he saw that I had observed him, addressing Sir

Henry, to whom he had attached himself.

"Is it to that land that thou wouldst journey, Incubu?" (a native word

meaning, I believe, an elephant, and the name given to Sir Henry by

the Kafirs), he said, pointing towards the mountain with his broad

assegai.

I asked him sharply what he meant by addressing his master in that

familiar way. It is very well for natives to have a name for one among

themselves, but it is not decent that they should call a white man by

their heathenish appellations to his face. The Zulu laughed a quiet

little laugh which angered me.

"How dost thou know that I am not the equal of the Inkosi whom I

serve?" he said. "He is of a royal house, no doubt; one can see it in

his size and by his mien; so, mayhap, am I. At least, I am as great a

man. Be my mouth, O Macumazahn, and say my words to the Inkoos Incubu,

my master, for I would speak to him and to thee."

I was angry with the man, for I am not accustomed to be talked to in

that way by Kafirs, but somehow he impressed me, and besides I was

curious to know what he had to say. So I translated, expressing my

opinion at the same time that he was an impudent fellow, and that his

swagger was outrageous.

"Yes, Umbopa," answered Sir Henry, "I would journey there."

"The desert is wide and there is no water in it, the mountains are

high and covered with snow, and man cannot say what lies beyond them

behind the place where the sun sets; how shalt thou come thither,

Incubu, and wherefore dost thou go?"

I translated again.

"Tell him," answered Sir Henry, "that I go because I believe that a

man of my blood, my brother, has gone there before me, and I journey

to seek him."

"That is so, Incubu; a Hottentot I met on the road told me that a

white man went out into the desert two years ago towards those

mountains with one servant, a hunter. They never came back."

"How do you know it was my brother?" asked Sir Henry.

"Nay, I know not. But the Hottentot, when I asked what the white man

was like, said that he had thine eyes and a black beard. He said, too,

that the name of the hunter with him was Jim; that he was a Bechuana

hunter and wore clothes."

"There is no doubt about it," said I; "I knew Jim well."

Sir Henry nodded. "I was sure of it," he said. "If George set his mind

upon a thing he generally did it. It was always so from his boyhood.

If he meant to cross the Suliman Berg he has crossed it, unless some

accident overtook him, and we must look for him on the other side."

Umbopa understood English, though he rarely spoke it.

"It is a far journey, Incubu," he put in, and I translated his remark.

"Yes," answered Sir Henry, "it is far. But there is no journey upon

this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it. There

is nothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may

not climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain and a

desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he

holds his life in his hands counting it as nothing, ready to keep it

or lose it as Heaven above may order."

I translated.

"Great words, my father," answered the Zulu--I always called him a

Zulu, though he was not really one--"great swelling words fit to fill

the mouth of a man. Thou art right, my father Incubu. Listen! what is

life? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and

thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes

carried away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it

may perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. It is well to

try and journey one's road and to fight with the air. Man must die. At

the worst he can but die a little sooner. I will go with thee across

the desert and over the mountains, unless perchance I fall to the

ground on the way, my father."

He paused awhile, and then went on with one of those strange bursts of

rhetorical eloquence that Zulus sometimes indulge in, which to my

mind, full though they are of vain repetitions, show that the race is

by no means devoid of poetic instinct and of intellectual power.

"What is life? Tell me, O white men, who are wise, who know the

secrets of the world, and of the world of stars, and the world that

lies above and around the stars; who flash your words from afar

without a voice; tell me, white men, the secret of our life--whither

it goes and whence it comes!

"You cannot answer me; you know not. Listen, I will answer. Out of the

dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night

we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the

light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life

is nothing. Life is all. It is the Hand with which we hold off Death.

It is the glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the

morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the

little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset."

"You are a strange man," said Sir Henry, when he had ceased.

Umbopa laughed. "It seems to me that we are much alike, Incubu.

Perhaps /I/ seek a brother over the mountains."

I looked at him suspiciously. "What dost thou mean?" I asked; "what

dost thou know of those mountains?"

"A little; a very little. There is a strange land yonder, a land of

witchcraft and beautiful things; a land of brave people, and of trees,

and streams, and snowy peaks, and of a great white road. I have heard

of it. But what is the good of talking? It grows dark. Those who live

to see will see."

Again I looked at him doubtfully. The man knew too much.

"You need not fear me, Macumazahn," he said, interpreting my look. "I

dig no holes for you to fall in. I make no plots. If ever we cross

those mountains behind the sun I will tell what I know. But Death sits

upon them. Be wise and turn back. Go and hunt elephants, my masters. I

have spoken."

And without another word he lifted his spear in salutation, and

returned towards the camp, where shortly afterwards we found him

cleaning a gun like any other Kafir.

"That is an odd man," said Sir Henry.

"Yes," answered I, "too odd by half. I don't like his little ways. He

knows something, and will not speak out. But I suppose it is no use

quarrelling with him. We are in for a curious trip, and a mysterious

Zulu won't make much difference one way or another."

Next day we made our arrangements for starting. Of course it was

impossible to drag our heavy elephant rifles and other kit with us

across the desert, so, dismissing our bearers, we made an arrangement

with an old native who had a kraal close by to take care of them till

we returned. It went to my heart to leave such things as those sweet

tools to the tender mercies of an old thief of a savage whose greedy

eyes I could see gloating over them. But I took some precautions.

First of all I loaded all the rifles, placing them at full cock, and

informed him that if he touched them they would go off. He tried the

experiment instantly with my eight-bore, and it did go off, and blew a

hole right through one of his oxen, which were just then being driven

up to the kraal, to say nothing of knocking him head over heels with

the recoil. He got up considerably startled, and not at all pleased at

the loss of the ox, which he had the impudence to ask me to pay for,

and nothing would induce him to touch the guns again.

"Put the live devils out of the way up there in the thatch," he said,

"or they will murder us all."

Then I told him that, when we came back, if one of those things was

missing I would kill him and his people by witchcraft; and if we died

and he tried to steal the rifles I would come and haunt him and turn

his cattle mad and his milk sour till life was a weariness, and would

make the devils in the guns come out and talk to him in a way he did

not like, and generally gave him a good idea of judgment to come.

After that he promised to look after them as though they were his

father's spirit. He was a very superstitious old Kafir and a great

villain.

Having thus disposed of our superfluous gear we arranged the kit we

five--Sir Henry, Good, myself, Umbopa, and the Hottentot Ventvögel--

were to take with us on our journey. It was small enough, but do what

we would we could not get its weight down under about forty pounds a

man. This is what it consisted of:--

The three express rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition.

The two Winchester repeating rifles (for Umbopa and Ventvögel), with

two hundred rounds of cartridge.

Five Cochrane's water-bottles, each holding four pints.

Five blankets.

Twenty-five pounds' weight of biltong--i.e. sun-dried game flesh.

Ten pounds' weight of best mixed beads for gifts.

A selection of medicine, including an ounce of quinine, and one or two

small surgical instruments.

Our knives, a few sundries, such as a compass, matches, a pocket

filter, tobacco, a trowel, a bottle of brandy, and the clothes we

stood in.

This was our total equipment, a small one indeed for such a venture,

but we dared not attempt to carry more. Indeed, that load was a heavy

one per man with which to travel across the burning desert, for in

such places every additional ounce tells. But we could not see our way

to reducing the weight. There was nothing taken but what was

absolutely necessary.

With great difficulty, and by the promise of a present of a good

hunting-knife each, I succeeded in persuading three wretched natives

from the village to come with us for the first stage, twenty miles,

and to carry a large gourd holding a gallon of water apiece. My object

was to enable us to refill our water-bottles after the first night's

march, for we determined to start in the cool of the evening. I gave

out to these natives that we were going to shoot ostriches, with which

the desert abounded. They jabbered and shrugged their shoulders,

saying that we were mad and should perish of thirst, which I must say

seemed probable; but being desirous of obtaining the knives, which

were almost unknown treasures up there, they consented to come, having

probably reflected that, after all, our subsequent extinction would be

no affair of theirs.

All next day we rested and slept, and at sunset ate a hearty meal of

fresh beef washed down with tea, the last, as Good remarked sadly, we

were likely to drink for many a long day. Then, having made our final

preparations, we lay down and waited for the moon to rise. At last,

about nine o'clock, up she came in all her glory, flooding the wild

country with light, and throwing a silver sheen on the expanse of

rolling desert before us, which looked as solemn and quiet and as

alien to man as the star-studded firmament above. We rose up, and in a

few minutes were ready, and yet we hesitated a little, as human nature

is prone to hesitate on the threshold of an irrevocable step. We three

white men stood by ourselves. Umbopa, assegai in hand and a rifle

across his shoulders, looked out fixedly across the desert a few paces

ahead of us; while the hired natives, with the gourds of water, and

Ventvögel, were gathered in a little knot behind.

"Gentlemen," said Sir Henry presently, in his deep voice, "we are

going on about as strange a journey as men can make in this world. It

is very doubtful if we can succeed in it. But we are three men who

will stand together for good or for evil to the last. Now before we

start let us for a moment pray to the Power who shapes the destinies

of men, and who ages since has marked out our paths, that it may

please Him to direct our steps in accordance with His will."

Taking off his hat, for the space of a minute or so, he covered his

face with his hands, and Good and I did likewise.

I do not say that I am a first-rate praying man, few hunters are, and

as for Sir Henry, I never heard him speak like that before, and only

once since, though deep down in his heart I believe that he is very

religious. Good too is pious, though apt to swear. Anyhow I do not

remember, excepting on one single occasion, ever putting up a better

prayer in my life than I did during that minute, and somehow I felt

the happier for it. Our future was so completely unknown, and I think

that the unknown and the awful always bring a man nearer to his Maker.

"And now," said Sir Henry, "/trek/!"

So we started.

We had nothing to guide ourselves by except the distant mountains and

old José da Silvestre's chart, which, considering that it was drawn by

a dying and half-distraught man on a fragment of linen three centuries

ago, was not a very satisfactory sort of thing with work with. Still,

our sole hope of success depended upon it, such as it was. If we

failed in finding that pool of bad water which the old Dom marked as

being situated in the middle of the desert, about sixty miles from our

starting-point, and as far from the mountains, in all probability we

must perish miserably of thirst. But to my mind the chances of our

finding it in that great sea of sand and karoo scrub seemed almost

infinitesimal. Even supposing that da Silvestra had marked the pool

correctly, what was there to prevent its having been dried up by the

sun generations ago, or trampled in by game, or filled with the

drifting sand?

On we tramped silently as shades through the night and in the heavy

sand. The karoo bushes caught our feet and retarded us, and the sand

worked into our veldtschoons and Good's shooting-boots, so that every

few miles we had to stop and empty them; but still the night kept

fairly cool, though the atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a sort

of creamy feel to the air, and we made fair progress. It was very

silent and lonely there in the desert, oppressively so indeed. Good

felt this, and once began to whistle "The Girl I left behind me," but

the notes sounded lugubrious in that vast place, and he gave it up.

Shortly afterwards a little incident occurred which, though it

startled us at the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good was leading, as

the holder of the compass, which, being a sailor, of course he

understood thoroughly, and we were toiling along in single file behind

him, when suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he

vanished. Next second there arose all around us a most extraordinary

hubbub, snorts, groans, and wild sounds of rushing feet. In the faint

light, too, we could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths

of sand. The natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, but

remembering that there was nowhere to run to, they cast themselves

upon the ground and howled out that it was ghosts. As for Sir Henry

and myself, we stood amazed; nor was our amazement lessened when we

perceived the form of Good careering off in the direction of the

mountains, apparently mounted on the back of a horse and halloaing

wildly. In another second he threw up his arms, and we heard him come

to the earth with a thud.

Then I saw what had happened; we had stumbled upon a herd of sleeping

quagga, on to the back of one of which Good actually had fallen, and

the brute naturally enough got up and made off with him. Calling out

to the others that it was all right, I ran towards Good, much afraid

lest he should be hurt, but to my great relief I found him sitting in

the sand, his eye-glass still fixed firmly in his eye, rather shaken

and very much frightened, but not in any way injured.

After this we travelled on without any further misadventure till about

one o'clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little water,

not much, for water was precious, and rested for half an hour, we

started again.

On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of

a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changed

presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across the

desert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last they

vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out

against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man.

Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across the

boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the

desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.

Still we did not halt, though by this time we should have been glad

enough to do so, for we knew that when once the sun was fully up it

would be almost impossible for us to travel. At length, about an hour

later, we spied a little pile of boulders rising out of the plain, and

to this we dragged ourselves. As luck would have it, here we found an

overhanging slab of rock carpeted beneath with smooth sand, which

afforded a most grateful shelter from the heat. Underneath this we

crept, and each of us having drunk some water and eaten a bit of

biltong, we lay down and soon were sound asleep.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find our

bearers preparing to return. They had seen enough of the desert

already, and no number of knives would have tempted them to come a

step farther. So we took a hearty drink, and having emptied our water-

bottles, filled them up again from the gourds that they had brought

with them, and then watched them depart on their twenty miles' tramp

home.

At half-past four we also started. It was lonely and desolate work,

for with the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single

living creature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain.

Evidently it was too dry for game, and with the exception of a deadly-

looking cobra or two we saw no reptiles. One insect, however, we found

abundant, and that was the common or house fly. There they came, "not

as single spies, but in battalions," as I think the Old Testament[*]

says somewhere. He is an extraordinary insect is the house fly. Go

where you will you find him, and so it must have been always. I have

seen him enclosed in amber, which is, I was told, quite half a million

years old, looking exactly like his descendant of to-day, and I have

little doubt but that when the last man lies dying on the earth he

will be buzzing round--if this event happens to occur in summer--

watching for an opportunity to settle on his nose.

[*] Readers must beware of accepting Mr. Quatermain's references as

accurate, as, it has been found, some are prone to do. Although

his reading evidently was limited, the impression produced by it

upon his mind was mixed. Thus to him the Old Testament and

Shakespeare were interchangeable authorities.--Editor.

At sunset we halted, waiting for the moon to rise. At last she came

up, beautiful and serene as ever, and, with one halt about two o'clock

in the morning, we trudged on wearily through the night, till at last

the welcome sun put a period to our labours. We drank a little and

flung ourselves down on the sand, thoroughly tired out, and soon were

all asleep. There was no need to set a watch, for we had nothing to

fear from anybody or anything in that vast untenanted plain. Our only

enemies were heat, thirst, and flies, but far rather would I have

faced any danger from man or beast than that awful trinity. This time

we were not so lucky as to find a sheltering rock to guard us from the

glare of the sun, with the result that about seven o'clock we woke up

experiencing the exact sensations one would attribute to a beefsteak

on a gridiron. We were literally being baked through and through. The

burning sun seemed to be sucking our very blood out of us. We sat up

and gasped.

"Phew," said I, grabbing at the halo of flies which buzzed cheerfully

round my head. The heat did not affect /them/.

"My word!" said Sir Henry.

"It is hot!" echoed Good.

It was hot, indeed, and there was not a bit of shelter to be found.

Look where we would there was no rock or tree, nothing but an unending

glare, rendered dazzling by the heated air that danced over the

surface of the desert as it dances over a red-hot stove.

"What is to be done?" asked Sir Henry; "we can't stand this for long."

We looked at each other blankly.

"I have it," said Good, "we must dig a hole, get in it, and cover

ourselves with the karoo bushes."

It did not seem a very promising suggestion, but at least it was

better than nothing, so we set to work, and, with the trowel we had

brought with us and the help of our hands, in about an hour we

succeeded in delving out a patch of ground some ten feet long by

twelve wide to the depth of two feet. Then we cut a quantity of low

scrub with our hunting-knives, and creeping into the hole, pulled it

over us all, with the exception of Ventvögel, on whom, being a

Hottentot, the heat had no particular effect. This gave us some slight

shelter from the burning rays of the sun, but the atmosphere in that

amateur grave can be better imagined than described. The Black Hole of

Calcutta must have been a fool to it; indeed, to this moment I do not

know how we lived through the day. There we lay panting, and every now

and again moistening our lips from our scanty supply of water. Had we

followed our inclinations we should have finished all we possessed in

the first two hours, but we were forced to exercise the most rigid

care, for if our water failed us we knew that very soon we must perish

miserably.

But everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it, and

somehow that miserable day wore on towards evening. About three

o'clock in the afternoon we determined that we could bear it no

longer. It would be better to die walking that to be killed slowly by

heat and thirst in this dreadful hole. So taking each of us a little

drink from our fast diminishing supply of water, now warmed to about

the same temperature as a man's blood, we staggered forward.

We had then covered some fifty miles of wilderness. If the reader will

refer to the rough copy and translation of old da Silvestra's map, he

will see that the desert is marked as measuring forty leagues across,

and the "pan bad water" is set down as being about in the middle of

it. Now forty leagues is one hundred and twenty miles, consequently we

ought at the most to be within twelve or fifteen miles of the water if

any should really exist.

Through the afternoon we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcely

doing more than a mile and a half in an hour. At sunset we rested

again, waiting for the moon, and after drinking a little managed to

get some sleep.

Before we lay down, Umbopa pointed out to us a slight and indistinct

hillock on the flat surface of the plain about eight miles away. At

the distance it looked like an ant-hill, and as I was dropping off to

sleep I fell to wondering what it could be.

With the moon we marched again, feeling dreadfully exhausted, and

suffering tortures from thirst and prickly heat. Nobody who has not

felt it can know what we went through. We walked no longer, we

staggered, now and again falling from exhaustion, and being obliged to

call a halt every hour or so. We had scarcely energy left in us to

speak. Up to this Good had chatted and joked, for he is a merry

fellow; but now he had not a joke in him.

At last, about two o'clock, utterly worn out in body and mind, we came

to the foot of the queer hill, or sand koppie, which at first sight

resembled a gigantic ant-heap about a hundred feet high, and covering

at the base nearly two acres of ground.

Here we halted, and driven to it by our desperate thirst, sucked down

our last drops of water. We had but half a pint a head, and each of us

could have drunk a gallon.

Then we lay down. Just as I was dropping off to sleep I heard Umbopa

remark to himself in Zulu--

"If we cannot find water we shall all be dead before the moon rises

to-morrow."

I shuddered, hot as it was. The near prospect of such an awful death

is not pleasant, but even the thought of it could not keep me from

sleeping.

Read next: CHAPTER 6. WATER! WATER!

Read previous: CHAPTER 4. AN ELEPHANT HUNT

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