From the Cape to Cairo: The First Traverse of Africa from South to North — Story, Setting & Ideas

ers of Dinkas fishing here

*FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO.*

*THE CAPE TO BEIRA AND THE SABI.*

To describe the first stage of the route from the Cape to Cairo, that is to say, as far as the Zambesi, which I accomplished four years ago, would, if time be counted by progress, be reverting to the Middle Ages. The journey to Buluwayo, which meant four dismal days and three yet more dismal nights, in a most dismal train, whose engine occasionally went off on its own account to get a drink, and nine awful days and nine reckless nights in a Gladstone bag on wheels, labelled coach, can now be accomplished in, I believe, two and a half days in trains that rival in comfort the best efforts of our American cousins. When I think of those awful hundreds of miles through dreary wastes of sand and putrefying carcases, the seemingly impossible country that the Buluwayo road passed through, the water-courses, the hills, the waterless stages, and the final oasis, where one could buy a bottle of beer for 10s. 6d., and a cauliflower for 363., and that now men sit down to their fresh fish or pheasant for breakfast, where the old scramble daily took place for a portion of bully beef and rice; and when I think that the fish and pheasant epoch is already old history, then I know that the hand of a mighty wizard is on the country, and that yet one more name will go down to the coming ages which will loom big midst the giants that have built up an Empire such as the world has never seen. When I think, too, of my numerous friends in the country who have given their heave, some a great heave, some a little heave, yet a heave all together, and who toil on unaware of their own heroism, turning aside as a jest the vituperation of their countrymen; and when I think how I have seen the old Viking blood, long time frozen in Piccadilly and the clubs, burst forth in the old irresistible stream, then I know that it is good to be an Englishman, and a great pity fills me for those whose lives are cast in narrow ways, and who never realise the true significance of _Civis Britannicus sum_.

My first experience of Africa was gained in the second Matabele war, when Rhodesia was yet young. The railway had only reached Mafeking, and my experiences were not such as to make me desire a second visit. But the spirit of the veldt was upon me, and in comfortable England these trials sank into the misty oblivion of the past, and a short twelve months after I again started for those inhospitable shores.

However, I will not weary the reader with what he has had dinned into his ears for the last four years, by describing Rhodesia; nor will I dilate on how, at Lisbon, through a Bucellas-induced haze, I noticed that all the men had a patch in their trousers, all the women were ugly, all the food was dirty, and all the friendly-disposed were thieves, nor will I hurt the feelings of the Deutsch Ost Afrika Cie. by telling how badly managed their boats are; how they are perambulating beershops, disguised as liners; how conducive to sleep is a ten-strong brass band at five yards, seized with religious enthusiasm at 7 a.m. on Sunday morning--all these I will pass over, knowing that a _Cicero redivivus_ alone could do justice to the theme.

Beyond this, suffice it to say, that on February 28th of the year of our Lord 1898, Arthur Henry Sharp and Ewart Scott Grogan, in company of sundry German officers and beer enthusiasts, took part in the usual D.O.A.’s Liner manoeuvre of violently charging a sandbank in the bay of Beira on a flood-tide, to the ear-smashing accompaniment of the German National Anthem. In the intervals of waiting to be floated, and finding out how many of our loads had been lost, we amused ourselves by catching sharks, which swarmed round the stern of the vessel. Beira, as every one knows, is mainly composed of galvanized iron, sun-baked sand, drinks, and Portuguese ruffians, and is inhabited by a mixed society of railway employés, excellent fellows, Ohio wags, and German Jews. The Government consists of a triumvirate composed of a "king," who also at odd times imports railways, the British Consul, and the _Beira Post_, and sundry minor Portuguese officials, who provide entertainment for the town, such as volley-firing down the main streets, dredging operations in the lagoon at the back of the town, bugle-blowing, etc., etc. The dredging operations and the subsequent depositing of the mud on the highways were undertaken, I believe, in a friendly spirit of rivalry as to the death-rate with Fontesvilla (a salubrious riverside resort about thirty miles inland); a consequent rise to thirty in one day established a record that, I believe, is still unbeaten. There was a Portuguese corvette in the bay, and I had the pleasure of dining on board; the doctor, a most charming specimen of the Portuguese gentleman (and a Portuguese gentleman is a gentleman), helped me to pass my things through the Custom House, and those who know Beira will understand what that means. At Beira I met many old friends, amongst them the ever-green Mr. Lawley, indefatigable as of yore, and was surprised to see the immense strides that the town had made in fourteen months. If it is not washed away some day, it should become second only in importance to Delagoa Bay. Before starting north, we determined to have a few months’ shooting, and with this end in view took train to Umtali with the necessary kit. The new site of Umtali township is a more commanding position than the old one, and already a large number of fine buildings had been put up, but now that the temporary activity consequent on its being the railway terminus has passed away, I cannot foresee much future for the place, as the pick of the mines appear to be over the new Anglo-Portuguese boundary, and will be worked from Macequece.

We decided to try the Sabi, a river running parallel to, and south of, the Pungwe, having heard great accounts of the lions in that part; and with this end in view, hired a wagon, which after many days landed us and ours at Mtambara’s Kraal on the Umvumvumvu, a nice stream running into the Udzi, which is a tributary of the Sabi. Mtambara was formerly a chief of considerable importance, but the advent of the white man has reduced him to the position of a mere figurehead; he is a phthisical old gentleman of no physique, decked out in a dirty patch of cloth and a bandolier of leather and white beads; he squats and takes snuff, takes snuff and squats, and had not yet joined the Blue Ribbon Army. There being no road to the Udzi, we had to send the wagon back and collect carriers for our loads. Two days’ hard walking brought us to the edge of the high veldt, whence the path dived down the most fantastic limestone valley, between high cliffs thickly clothed with foliage, and topped by rows of square rock pillars, splashed with the warm tints of the moss and lichens that festooned their sides. At our feet lay the bush-clad plain of the Udzi, a carpet of green picked out with the occasional silver of the river itself, and in the hazy distance stretched an unbroken range of purple hills, backed by the silvery green and dull smoke-red of sunset. On the third day we camped on the Udzi, about six miles above its junction with the Sabi. The whole country is covered with low black scrub, and though there are many impala[#] and small buck, there are very few large antelopes, so after a few days’ inspection we came to the conclusion that it was not good enough, and decided to return to Umtali and risk the climate of my old shooting grounds on the Pungwe.

[#] A small antelope (_Æpyceros melampus_).

Sharp went back by the road to pick up the loads and sick men at Mtambara’s, while I followed up the Udzi for about twenty miles, and then struck across country to reach Umtali quickly in order to send out a wagon. After leaving the river-basin, I camped on a kopje about 1,000 ft. high, where I had one of the finest views it has ever been my fortune to see.

Beyond the valley lay range upon range of hills, stretching far as the eye could reach; fleecy clouds covered the sun, bursting with every conceivable shade, from delicate rose to deepest purple, backed by that wondrous green (or is it blue?) that so often in the tropics accompanies Phoebus to his rest; rarely one may see it at home in summer-time, as intangible as it is delicate, and, permeating the whole landscape, a sinuous mesh of molten red, a ghostly sea from which the peaks reared their purple silhouettes, until they faded into the uncertainty of lilac mists, like some billowy sea nestling to the bosom of the storm-cloud. From here I walked to Umtali, a distance of sixty miles, in nineteen hours, as I was anxious about the sick men at Mtambara’s, and long will the ripple of the ensuing brandy-and-soda linger in my memory. After securing the services of a wagon, I had to lay up for a couple of days with fever and a bad foot, but turned out for a concert given as a house-warming by the latest hotel. It was a typical South African orgie, in a long, low, wooden room, plainly furnished with deal tables, packed to overflowing with the most cosmopolitan crowd imaginable, well-bred ’Varsity men rubbing shoulders with animal-faced Boers, leavened with Jews, parasites, bummers, nondescripts, and every type of civilized savage. Faces yellow with fever, faces coppered by the sun, faces roseate with drink, and faces scarred, keen, money-lustful, and stamped with every vice and some of the virtues; a substratum of bluff, business advertisement, pat-on-the-back-kick-you-when-you’re-not-looking air permeated everything, and keen appreciation of both musical garbage and real talent.

Starting for Salisbury, where I wanted to look up some old friends, I was made the victim of one of those subtle little jests so much appreciated by many of the petty officials in South Africa, who are for ever reminding one of their importance. I turned up at three, the advertised time for the coach’s departure, and, finding no mules or signs of activity, learned that (being an official case) three meant three Cape time, or four Umtali time. So I went back to my hotel, and again turning up at ten to four, found that the coach had left at a quarter to four without blowing the bugle, and knowing that there was one passenger short; this necessitated a nine-mile walk to old Umtali in the rain, which, after three days’ fever, was very enjoyable. The company, a pleasant one, was somewhat marred by the presence of a fat Jew of the most revolting type; unkempt curly black hair, lobster-like, bloodshot eyes with the glazed expression peculiar to tipplers and stale fish, a vast nose pronouncedly Bacchanalian, the hues of which varied from yellow through green to livid purple, and lips that would shame any negro, purple as the extremity of the nose, a small, straggling moustache and a runaway chin, the whole plentifully smeared with an unpleasant exudation, kept perpetually simmering by his anxiety lest some one should steal a march on him, made a loathsome _tout ensemble_ that is by no means rare in South Africa. The way that creature fought for food! Well! I have seen hyænas and negroes fighting for food, but never such hopelessly abandoned coarseness as he displayed at every meal on the road, and for no apparent reason, as there was plenty for all, and by general consent he had the monopoly of any dish that he touched.

Salisbury, which is quite the aristocratic resort of Rhodesia, had made very little progress during my eighteen months’ absence, though there had been some activity in the mining districts. The business of ferreting out the murderers in the late rebellion was still proceeding, and I saw about thirty condemned negroes in the gaol, and more were daily added. I went to one of the sittings and saw so many gruesome relics, burnt pipes, charred bones, skulls, etc., that I did not repeat my visit. I was forcibly struck by the absolute justice meted out: the merest technicality of law or the faintest shade of doubt sufficing for acquittal. Many of the natives in custody thus escaped, although their guilt was certain and well known. My return journey to Umtali was enlivened by the company of one of the civic dignitaries of Salisbury, who was going to "give it hot to Rhodes," shake him up a bit, and generally put things straight. In one day I had the whole future policy of Rhodesia and all outstanding difficulties like labour, etc., disposed of as though they were the merest bagatelles. So struck was I with the masterly grasp of gigantic questions that I fell into a profound slumber, whereupon, realizing that after all I was but an ordinary mortal, and consequently possessed of but ordinary intelligence, he roused me, and in five minutes sketched out a plan that would make my intended trip north a certain success; this, with more personal advice on a score of points, lasted till Umtali, where we found so-called celebrations in full swing. These celebrations (or barmen’s benefits, as they should more appropriately be called) are of common occurrence, and are invariably got up on any sort of excuse; they take the outward form of a few pieces of bunting, and result in every one but the licensed few finding themselves next morning considerably poorer, and in an abnormal demand for Seidlitz powders. Society at Umtali groups itself into two classes, those who have liquor and those who have not, and each class into three divisions: first, a small number who have killed lions and say very little about it; secondly, a large number of persons who have not killed lions, but tell you they have, and say much about it; and thirdly, a very large number who have not killed lions, but think it necessary to apologize for the fact by telling you that they have not lost any.

*THE PUNGWE AND GORONGOZA’S PLAIN.*

"The bulky, good-natured lion, whose only means of defence are the natural ones of tooth and claw, has no chance against the jumping little rascal, who pops behind a bush and pokes a gun straight at the bigger brute’s heart."--MARIE CORELLI.

Instead of following the Urema as on a previous trip, we marched up the Pungwe almost as far as Sarmento, an old Portuguese settlement, and then struck off north to a long lagoon that lies on the western extremity of Gorongoza’s plain. Here we found enormous quantities of game, thousands of wildebeeste and zebra, and many impala, waterbuck, and hartebeeste. At night a hyæna came and woke us up by drinking the soapy water in our indiarubber bath, which was lying just outside our tent. We turned out and drove him away, but had no sooner climbed into our beds again than he returned and bolted with the bath, and, before we could make him drop it, had mauled it to such an extent that it was of no further use.

As after the first night we heard no lions, we decided to move across to the Urema. On the way we sighted three eland, but though Sharp and I chased them for about eight miles we were unsuccessful.

Towards the Urema the plain opens out to a great width and becomes very swampy, and as the water had just subsided, it was covered with short sweet grass. Here we saw between 40,000 and 50,000 head of game, mostly wildebeeste, which opened out to let us pass and then closed in again behind. It was a wonderful sight; vast moving masses of life, as far as the eye could reach. A fortnight later they had eaten up the grass, and most of them were scattered about the surrounding country. Some of the swamps were very bad, and we were finally compelled to camp in the middle far from any wood.

The next day we struck camp and marched up the Urema to a belt of trees which we could see in the distance. Several good streams, the most important being the Umkulumadzi, flow down from the mountains, and meandering across the plain, empty themselves into the Urema. Sharp and I went on ahead of our caravan, and keeping well to the south-west to avoid swamps, came on a nice herd of buffalo which we stalked. At our shots a few turned off into some long tufts of grass, while the main body went straight away. One, evidently sick, came edging towards us, and I gave him two barrels, Sharp doing likewise; I then gave him two more and dropped him. I kept my eye on where he lay as we advanced to get a shot at the others, who had again stood about 100 yards farther on, and he suddenly rose at thirty yards and charged hard, nose in air, foaming with blood, and looking very nasty. I put both barrels in his chest without the slightest effect, and then started for the river, doing level time and shouting to Sharp to do likewise; all the crocodiles in the universe seemed preferable to that incarnation of hell. But Sharp had not yet learnt his buffalo, and waited for him. I heard a shot, and stopped in time to see the beast stagger for a second with a broken jaw, then come on in irresistible frenzy; but still Sharp stood as though to receive a cavalry charge, crack rang out the rifle, and the great brute came pitching forward on to its nose, and rolled within three yards of Sharp’s feet with a broken fetlock. It was a magnificent sight, and the odd chance in a hundred turned up. Now Sharp knows his buffalo, and is prepared to back himself, when one turns nasty, to do his hundred in 9-4/5 seconds.