The Mission

by Frederick Marryat

  CHAPTER XIV.

  They had scarcely gained the wagons before the thunder and lightningbecame incessant, and so loud as to be deafening. It appeared as if theywere in the very center of the contending elements, and the wind roseand blew with terrific force, while the rain poured down as if theflood-gates of heaven were indeed opened. The lightning was so vivid,that for the second that it lasted you could see the country round tothe horizon almost as clear as day; the next moment all was terrificgloom accompanied by the stunning reports of the thunder, which causedevery article in the wagons, and the wagons themselves, to vibrate fromthe concussion. A large tree, not fifty yards from the caravan, wasstruck by the lightning, and came down with an appalling crash. TheCaffres had all roused up, and had sheltered themselves under thewagons.

  The Hottentots had also begun to move, but had not yet recovered theirsenses--indeed, they were again stupefied by the clamor of the elements.The storm lasted about an hour, and then as suddenly cleared up again;the stars again made their appearance in the sky above, and the redtinge of the horizon announced the approach of daylight. When the stormceased, our travelers, who had not taken off their clothes, came outfrom their shelter, and met each other by the side of the extinguishedfire.

  "Well," said Alexander, "I have been made wise on two points thisnight; I now know what an African storm is, and also the roar of anAfrican lion. Have you heard if there is any mischief done, Bremen?"continued Alexander to the Hottentot, who stood by.

  "No, sir; but I am afraid it will take us a long while to collect thecattle; they will be dispersed in all directions, and we may have lostsome of them. It will soon be daylight, and then we must set off afterthem."

  "Are those fellows quite sober now?"

  "Yes, sir," replied Bremen, laughing; "water has washed all the liquorout of them."

  "Well, you may tell them, as a punishment, I shall stop their tobaccofor a week."

  "Better not now, sir," said Bremen, thoughtfully; "the men don't like togo further up the country, and they may be troublesome."

  "I think so too," said Swinton; "you must recollect that the cask wasrunning out, and the temptation was too strong. I should overlook itthis time. Give them a severe reprimand, and let them off."

  "I believe it will be the best way," replied Alexander; "not that I feartheir refusing to go on, for if they do, I will dismiss them, and go onwith the Caffres; they dare not go back by themselves, that is certain."

  "Sir," said Bremen, "that is very true; but you must not trust theCaffres too much--Caffres always try to get guns and ammunition: Caffreking, Hinza, very glad to get the wagons and what is in them: make himrich man, and powerful man, with so many guns. Caffre king will not robin his own country, because he is afraid of the English; but if thewagon's robbed, and you are killed in this country, which is not his,then he make excuses, and say, 'I know nothing about it,' Say that theirpeople do it, not his people."

  "Bremen talks very sensibly," said the Major; "we must keep theHottentots as a check to the Caffres, and the Caffres as a check to theHottentots."

  "That is our policy, depend upon it," replied Swinton.

  "You are right, and we will do so; but the day is breaking; so? Bremen,collect the people together to search for the cattle; and, Omrah, tellMahomed to come here."

  "By the by, Swinton," said Major Henderson, "those elephants' tuskslying by the wagon remind me of a question I want to put to you:--InCeylon, where I have often hunted the elephant, they have no tusks; andin India the tusks are not common, and in general very small. How do youaccount for this variety?"

  "It has been observed before; and it is but a fair surmise, thatProvidence, ever attentive to the wants of the meanest animals, hasfurnished such large tusks to the African elephant for the necessitywhich requires them. In Ceylon there is plenty of grass, and an abundantsupply of water all the year round; and further, in Ceylon, the elephanthas no enemy to defend himself against. Here, in Africa, the rivers areperiodical torrents, which dry up, and the only means which an elephanthas of obtaining water during the dry season is to dig with his tusksinto the bed of the river, till he finds the water, which he draws upwith his trunk. Moreover, he has to defend himself against therhinoceros, which is a formidable antagonist, and often victorious. Herequires tusks also for his food in this country, for the elephant digsup the mimosa here with his tusks, that he may feed upon the succulentroots of the tree. Indeed, an elephant in Africa without his tusks couldnot well exist."

  "Thank you for your explanation, which appears very satisfactory andconclusive; and now let us go to breakfast, for Mahomed, I perceive, isready, and Omrah has displayed our teacups, and is very busy blowinginto the spout of the teapot, a Bushman way of ascertaining if it isstopped up. However, we must not expect to make a London footman out ofa 'Child of the Desert.'"

  "Where is his adversary and antagonist, the valiant Big Adam?"

  "He was among those who indulged in the liquor yesterday afternoon, andI believe was worse than any one of them. The little Bushman did notfail to take advantage of his defenseless state, and has been torturinghim in every way he could imagine during the whole night. I saw himpouring water into the Hottentot's mouth as he lay on his back with hismouth wide open, till he nearly choked him. To get it down faster, Omrahhad taken the big tin funnel, and had inserted one end into his mouth,which he filled till the water ran out; after that he was trying what hecould do with fire, for he began putting hot embers between Big Adam'stoes; I dare say the fellow can not walk to-day."

  "I fear that some day he will kill Omrah, or do him some serious injury;the boy must be cautioned," said Alexander.

  "I am afraid it will be of no use, and Omrah must take his chance: he isaware of Big Adam's enmity as well as you are, and is always on hisguard; but as for persuading him to leave off his tricks, or toreconcile them to each other, it is impossible," said Swinton--"youdon't know a Bushman."

  "Then pray tell us something about them," said the Major, "as soon asyou have finished that elephant-steak, which you appear to approve of.Of what race are the Bushmen?"

  "I will tell you when I have finished my breakfast," replied Swinton,"and not before: if I begin to talk, you will eat all the steak, andthat won't do."

  "I suspect that we shall not leave this to-day," said Alexander. "If, asBremen says, the cattle have strayed very far, it will be too late to goin the afternoon, and to-morrow you recollect is Sunday, and that, wehave agreed, shall be kept as it ought to be."

  "Very true," said the Major; "then we must make Swinton entertain us bytelling us more about the lions, for he had not finished when the stormcame on."

  "No," replied Swinton; "I had a great deal more to say, and I shall bevery happy at any seasonable time, Major, to tell you what I know--butnot just now."

  "My dear fellow," said the Major, putting another piece ofelephant-steak upon Swinton's plate, "pray don't entertain the idea thatI want you to talk on purpose that I may eat your share and my own too;only ascribe my impatience to the true cause--the delight I have inreceiving instruction and amusement from you."

  "Well, Swinton, you have extorted a compliment from the Major."

  "Yes, and an extra allowance of steak, which is a better thing," repliedSwinton, laughing. "Now I have finished my breakfast, I will tell what Iknow about Omrah's people.

  "The Bushmen are originally a Hottentot race--of that I think there islittle doubt; but I believe they are a race of people produced bycircumstances, if I may use the expression. The Hottentot on the plainslives a nomad life, pasturing and living upon his herds. The Bushman maybe considered as the Hottentot driven out of his fertile plains,deprived of his cattle, and compelled to resort to the hills for hissafety and subsistence--in short, a Hill Hottentot: impelled by hungerand by injuries, he has committed depredations upon the property ofothers until he has had a mark set upon him; his hand has been againstevery man, and he has been hunted like a wild beast, and compelled tohide himself in the caves of almost i
naccessible rocks and hills.

  "Thus, generation after generation, he has suffered privation andhunger, till the race has dwindled down to the small size which it is atpresent. Unable to contend against force, his only weapons have been hiscunning and his poisoned arrows, and with them he has obtained hislivelihood--or rather, it may be said, has contrived to support life,and no more. There are, however, many races mixed up with the Bushmen;for runaway slaves, brought from Madagascar, Malays, and even those ofthe mixed white breed, when they have committed murder or other penalcrimes, have added to the race and incorporated themselves with them;they are called the Children of the Desert, and they are literallysuch."

  "Have you seen much of them?"

  "Yes, when I was in the Namaqua-land and in the Bechuana territory I sawa great deal of them. I do not think that they are insensible tokindness, and moreover, I believe that they may often be trusted; butyou run a great risk."

  "Have they ever shown any gratitude?"

  "Yes; when I have killed game for them, they have followed me onpurpose to show me the pools of waters without which we should havesuffered severely, if we had not perished. We were talking about lions;it is an old-received opinion, that the jackal is the lion's provider;it would be a more correct one to say that the lion is the Bushman'sprovider."

  "Indeed!"

  "I once asked a Bushman, 'How do you live?' His reply was, 'I live by thelions.' I asked him to explain to me. He said, 'I will show what I do: Ilet the lions follow the game and kill it and eat till they have theirbellies full, then I go up to where the lion is sitting down by thecarcass, and I go pretty near to him; I cry out, What have you gotthere, can not you spare me some of it? Go away and let me have somemeat, or I'll do you some harm. Then I dance and jump about and shake myskin-dress, and the lion looks at me, and he turns round and walks away;he growls very much, but he don't stay, and then I eat the rest.'"

  "And is that true?"

  "Yes, I believe it, as I have had it confessed by many others. The factis, the lion is only dangerous when he is hungry--that is, if he is notattacked; and if, as the Bushman said, the lion has eaten sufficiently,probably not wishing to be disturbed, after his repast, by the presenceand shouts of the Bushman, the animal retires to some other spot. I wasinformed that a very short time afterward, this Bushman, who told mewhat I have detailed to you, was killed by a lioness, when attempting todrive it away from its prey by shouting as he was used to do. The factwas, that he perceived a lioness devouring a wild horse, and went up toher as usual; but he did not observe that she had her whelps with her:he shouted; she growled savagely, and before he had time to retreat, shesprang upon him and tore him to pieces."

  "The lion does not prey upon men, then, although he destroys them?"

  "Not generally; but the Namaqua people told me that, if a lion oncetakes a fancy to men's flesh--and they do, after they have in theirhunger devoured one or two--they become doubly dangerous, as they willleave all other game and hunt man only; but this I can not vouch forbeing the truth, although it is very probable."

  "If we judge from analogy, it is," replied the Major. "The Bengal tigersin India, it is well known, if they once taste human flesh, prefer it toall other, and they are well known to the natives, who term themman-eaters. Strange to say, it appears that human flesh is not wholesomefor them; for their skins become mangy after they have taken to eatingthat alone. I have shot a 'man-eater' from the back of an elephant, andI found that the skin was not worth taking."

  "The Namaquas," replied Swinton, "told me that a lion, once enamored ofhuman flesh, would, in order to obtain it so far overcome his caution,that he would leap through a fire to seize a man. I once went to visit aNamaqua chief, who had been severely wounded by a lion of thisdescription--a man-eater, as the Major terms them,--and he gave me thefollowing dreadful narrative, which certainly corroborates what theyassert of the lion who had once taken a fancy to human flesh.

  "The chief told me that he had gone out with a party of his men to hunt:they had guns, bows and arrows, and assaguays. On the first day, as theywere pursuing an elephant, they came across some lions, who attackedthem and they were obliged to save their lives by abandoning a horse,which the lions devoured. They then made hiding-places of thick bushesby a pool, where they knew the elephant and rhinoceros would come todrink.

  "As they fired at a rhinoceros, a lion leaped into their inclosure, tookup one of the men in his mouth and carried him off, and all that theyafterward could find of him the next day was one of the bones of hisleg. The next night, as they were sitting by a fire inside of theirinclosure of bushes, a lion came, seized one of the men, dragged himthrough the fire, and tore out his back. One of the party fired, butmissed; upon which, the lion, dropping his dying victim, growled at themen across the fire, and they durst not repeat the shot; the lion thentook up his prey in his mouth, and went off with it.

  "Alarmed at such disasters, the Namaquas collected together in onestrong inclosure, and at night sent out one of the slaves for water. Hehad no sooner reached the pool than he was seized by a lion; he calledin vain for help, but was dragged off through the woods, and the nextday his skull only was found, clean licked by the rough tongue of thelion.

  "Having now lost three men in three days, the chief and his whole partyturned out to hunt and destroy lions only. They followed the spoor ortrack of the one which had taken the slave, and they soon found twolions, one of which, the smallest, they shot; and then, having takentheir breakfast, they went after the other, and largest, which wasrecognized as the one which had devoured the man.

  "They followed the animal to a patch of reeds, where it had intrencheditself; they set fire to the reeds and forced it out, and as it waswalking off it was severely wounded by one of the party, when itimmediately turned back, and, with a loud roar, charged right throughthe smoke and the burning reeds. The monster dashed in among them andseized the chief's brother by the back, tearing out his ribs andexposing his lungs.

  "The chief rushed to the assistance of his expiring brother; his gunburned priming. He dashed it down, and in his desperation seized thelion by the tail. The lion let go the body, and turned upon the chief,and with a stroke of his fore-paw tore a large piece of flesh off thechief's arm; then struck him again and threw him on the ground. Thechief rose instantly, but the lion then seized him by the knee, threwhim down again, and there held him, mangling his left arm.

  "Torn and bleeding, the chief in a feeble voice called to his men toshoot the animal from behind, which was at last done with a ball whichpassed through the lion's brain. After this destruction of four men infour days, the hunting was given over; the body of the chief's brotherwas buried, and the party went home, bearing with them their woundedchief."

  "Well, that is the most horrible lion-adventure I have yet heard," saidthe Major. "Heaven preserve us from a man-eating lion!"

  "It really has almost taken away my breath," said Alexander.

  "Well, then, I will tell you one more amusing, and not so fatal in itsresults; I was told it by a Bushman," said Swinton. "A Bushman wasfollowing a herd of zebras, and had just succeeded in wounding one withhis arrow, when he discovered that he had been interfering with a lion,who was also in chase of the same animals. As the lion appeared veryangry at this interference with his rights as lord of the manor, andevidently inclined to punish the Bushman as a poacher upon hispreserves, the latter, perceiving a tree convenient, climbed up into itas fast as he could. The lion allowed the herd of zebras to go away, andturned his attention to the Bushman. He walked round and round the tree,and every now and then he growled as he looked up at the Bushman.

  "At last the lion lay down at the foot of the tree, and there he keptwatch all night. The Bushman kept watch also, but toward morning,feeling very tired, he was overcome by sleep, and as he slept, hedreamed, and what do you think that he dreamed?--he dreamed that he fellfrom the tree into the jaws of the lion. Starting up in horror from theeffects of his dream, he lost his hold, and falling from the
branch,down he came with all his weight right on the back of the lion. Thelion, so unexpectedly saluted, sprang up with a loud roar, tossing offthe Bushman, and running away as fast as he could; and the Bushman,recovering his legs and his senses, also took to his heels in adifferent direction; and thus were the 'sleepers awakened,' and thedream became true."

  "Besiegers retreating and fort evacuated both at the same time," criedthe Major, laughing.

  "Well, I think you have had enough of the lion now," said Swinton.

  "No, we had quite enough of him last night, if you choose," repliedAlexander. "But your lions are not quite so near as he was."