The Land of Foam

by Ivan Yefremov

  They frequently came across small herds of yellowish-grey antelopes which the hunters brought down with their arrows; they made excellent and tasty food. On the fourth day the watercourse widened out and then disappeared; the yellow clay earth gave way to strange, bright red soil* that covered the crushed granite in a thin layer. Rounded granite hills formed dark patches on that tiresome red plain. The grass had gone, its place was taken by hard leaves that stuck out of the ground like bunches of sharp narrow sword-blades.** The guides made a wide detour of patches of this strange plant with leaves whose edges were as sharp as razors.

  (* Laterite — a red, ferrous soil, found in southern countries, the product of the erosion of igneous rocks. ** Sansevieria — a strange plant found in dry laterite deposits)

  The red plain spread out in front of them, clouds of dust, all the same size, rose into pillars and shut out the glare of the sun. The heat was overwhelming but the travellers kept going, fearing that this waterless plain might prove very extensive. The watercourse with its subterranean stream of water was far behind them. Who knew when they would find the water that is so essential to man in this country!

  From the summit of one of the granite hills they noticed that ahead of them lay a line of something golden — apparently the red soil came to an end there and the grassy plain began again. This proved to be true and shadows had only lengthened by a half after the midday halt when the travellers were already marching over rustling grass, shorter than before, but much thicker. To one side of their road they saw a huge green cloud, that seemed to be floating in the air over the blue-green patch of its own shadow — the mighty “guest tree” was inviting them to rest in the shade of its branches. The guides turned towards the tree. The tired travellers hastened their steps and soon the litters were standing in the shade beside a tree-trunk, that was divided by longitudinal depressions into separate rounded ribs.

  A number of the Negroes formed a living ladder up which others climbed to reach the huge branches of the tree. Shouts of triumph from above told the others that they had not been mistaken in their assumptions: the tree-trunk, some fifteen cubits in diameter, was hollow and contained water from the recent rains. The jars were filled with cool dark-coloured water. The Negroes threw down some of the fruits of the tree, long fruits, as big as a man’s head and tapering to a point at each end. Under its thin, hard skin, the fruit contained a floury yellow substance, sour-sweet in taste, that was very refreshing to the dry mouths of the travellers. Kidogo broke open two of the fruits, took out a number of small seeds, crushed and mixed them with a small quantity of water and started feeding Pandion with them.

  To the joy of the Negro the young Hellene ate with good appetite and for the first time that day raised his head in an effort to look round (during the march, when he lay on the litter, Pandion’s face was usually kept covered with big leaves plucked from bushes near the water-holes). With an effort Pandion stretched out his hands to Kidogo and his weak fingers pressed the Negro’s hand. But there was something dull and pitiful in the young Hellene’s eyes.

  Kidogo was very excited and asked his young friend how he felt, but got no answer. The wounded man’s eyes again closed as though the feeble spark of returning life had tired him beyond all measure. Kidogo left his friend in peace and hurried to tell Cavius the good news. Cavius, who had grown still more morose since the day of the awful battle, went over to the litter and sat down, peering into his friend’s face. By placing his hand on Pandion’s breast he tried to judge the strength of his heart-beats.

  While he was sitting by Pandion, one of the Nubians, who had climbed to the top of the tree to survey the surrounding land, let out a loud shout. He called out that far ahead of them, almost on the horizon, he could see the dark lines of fences of thorn-bushes such as the nomad herdsmen build to protect their cattle from predatory animals.

  It was decided, to spend the night under the tree and set out at dawn in order to reach the nomad encampment early in the day. By sundown the whole sky was overcast with heavy clouds; the starless night was unusually quiet and dark; the velvet darkness was so intense that they could not see a hand held before the face.

  Very soon zigzag shafts of lightning made a ring round the whole sky and peals of thunder came rolling from afar. The lightning flashes grew in number, hundreds of fiery snakes twisted across the sky like the huge dry branches of some gigantic tree. The roar of the thunder deafened them and the lightning blinded those who sought to leave their refuge. From a great distance came a noise that steadily increased to a fierce roar. This was an approaching wall of violent rain. The tree shook as an entire ocean of water poured down from the heavens. Cascades of cool rain beat on the earth with an awful noise and a lake formed around the tree that hid its thick roots. In the light of the solid walls of fire that alternated with absolute darkness it seemed that the whole plain would be flooded by the great mass of rainwater that kept pouring down on it. The flashes of lightning, however, soon stopped, the rain died down and a starlit sky spread over the plain; a slight breeze brought with it the odours of grasses and flowers invisible in the darkness. The Libyans and the Etruscan were dumbfounded at a storm which seemed like a terrible catastrophe to them, but the Negroes laughed gleefully, telling them that it was an ordinary shower, such as are common in the rainy season, and not a very heavy one at that. Cavius could only shake his head, telling himself that if such rains were considered ordinary in these parts they were likely to meet with many strange adventures in the Land of the Black People.

  And he guessed right.

  Next day their journey was suddenly interrupted by the barking of dogs. Long thorn hedges appeared through the mist, caused by the evaporation of the previous day’s rain-water, and behind the hedges they saw the low huts of the herdsmen.

  A crowd of men wearing leather aprons surrounded the travellers. Their high-cheekboned faces were inscrutable, their narrow eyes looked with suspicion at the Egyptian weapons carried by the former slaves. The symbol they had received from the Nubian, however, produced a most favourable impression. Out of the crowd stepped five men wearing black and white feathers, their hair dressed high on their heads and held in place by plaited twigs with green leaves.

  The Nubians could understand the language of the nomads and soon the newcomers were seated sipping sour milk within a close circle of listeners. The Nubian slaves told their story. Interrupting each other they jumped up and down in their excitement and their tale was greeted by a chorus of exclamations of astonishment. The feather-bedecked chieftains merely slapped their thighs.

  The nomads provided six guides and ten asses to help the strangers on their way. The guides were to take the travellers some seven days journey to the south-west to the big village of a settled tribe that stood on the banks of a river that always contained water.

  The litters were remade and fixed to four asses, the other animals carried water, sour milk and hard cheese in strong leather bags. As the men now had no loads to carry, they could make longer journeys, covering no less than a hundred and twenty thousand cubits a day.

  Day followed day. The endless plain lay under the broiling sun, at times silent and languid in the heat, at others swept by winds that made the grass billow like the waves of the sea. The travellers penetrated farther and farther into the wild lands of the south where there were countless herds of savage beasts. Their unaccustomed eyes did not at first notice herds of animals that flashed by in the tall grass — only their backs could be seen above the grass or sometimes their horns, short and curved, long and straight or twisted into a spiral. Later they learned to distinguish the different kinds — the long-antlered oryx, the reddish bull antelope, heavy and short in the body, the hairy gnu, with its ugly humped nose, and the long-eared antelopes, no bigger than a small calf, that danced on their hind-legs under the trees. (The gerenuk or Waller’s antelope — a long-necked animal that stands on its hind-legs to reach the leaves of the trees on which it feeds.)

  Coarse,
hard-stemmed grass, the height of a man, waved round them on all sides like a boundless field of corn. This expanse of grass, turned golden in the sunlight, was broken by patches of fresh green along the wadies and holes that were now filled with water. The blue and purple spurs of mountains piled up beyond the horizon cut deep into the grassy plain.

  At times the trees grew close together, forming a darker island in the yellow grass, then again they would be scattered far from each other like a flock of frightened birds. They were mostly the umbrella-shaped trees that had so astonished Cavius when he first made the acquaintance of the golden plain — their thorny trunks spread upwards and outwards from the roots to form a funnel so that they looked like inverted cones. Some of the trees had thicker and shorter trunks that also divided into a huge number of branches — the thick, dark foliage of these latter looked like green domes. The palms were visible from a great distance on account of their double, forked branches with the dishevelled, knife-like feathery leaves bunched at the ends of them.

  As the days passed Cavius noticed that the Negroes and the Nubians who had been so clumsy and slow-witted in Tha-Quem and on the Great River had now become stronger, more resolute and confident in themselves. And although his authority as leader was still undisputed, he began to lose confidence in himself in this strange land with laws of life that he could not understand.

  The Libyans who had shown themselves so well in the desert were helpless here. They were afraid of the grassy plain, inhabited by thousands of animals; they imagined countless dangers in the grass and thought they were threatened with unknowable calamities at every step.

  It was certainly no easy road to travel. They came across growths of grass with heads containing millions of needle-like thorns* that penetrated the skin, causing great pain and suppuration. During the hottest hours of the day many of the beasts of prey lay hidden under the trees. The lithe spotted body of a leopard would sometimes appear out of a patch of black shadow that looked like a cave amongst the brightly sunlit tufts of grass.

  With astonishing agility the Negroes stalked the red antelopes and there was always an abundance of their succulent and tasty meat so that former slaves grew strong from the nourishing food. When a herd of enormous grey-black bulls** with long horns curving downwards appeared in the distance, the Negroes sounded the alarm and the whole party sought cover amongst the trees to escape the most terrible animal that inhabits the African plains.

  (* The thorny heads of ascanite grass.

  **The African buffalo.)

  The guides had apparently misjudged the distance: the travellers had been on their way for nine days and there was still no sign of any human habitation. The Libyan’s arm had healed. The Negro with the broken leg had so far recovered as to sit up in his litter and at night he hopped and crawled around the fire to the delight of his companions who shared the joy of his convalescence. Only Pandion still lay silent and indifferent, although Kidogo and Cavius forced him to take more nourishment.

  This being the period of the rains, the abundant life of the plains was at its peak.

  Millions of insects sang and hummed noisily in the grass; brightly-hued birds flashed like blue, yellow, emerald-green and black-velvet apparitions through the tangle of gnarled grey branches. The resonant cries of diminutive bustards became more and more frequent in the heat of the day — “mac-har, mac-har,” they cried.

  For the first time in his life Cavius saw the giants of Africa close at hand.

  Noiselessly and serenely the huge grey bulk of the elephants was frequently to be seen sailing over the grass, their leathery ears extended like sails in the direction of the travellers and the brilliant white of their tusks contrasting sharply with the snaky black trunks that waved above them. Cavius liked the look of the elephants, the calm wisdom of their behaviour made them so different from the fussy antelopes, the malicious rhinoceroses and the lithesome beasts of prey that seemed like coiled springs. On several occasions the men had an opportunity to observe the majestic beasts at rest: the herd stood closely packed in the shade of the trees. The huge old bull elephants bowed their domed heads, heavy with great tusks, while the cows, whose heads were flatter, held them high as they stood sleeping. Once they came across a lonely old bull. The giant was standing fast asleep in the sun. He had apparently dozed off in the shade but the sun had moved on in its course and the old elephant, deep in slumber, did not feel the heat. Cavius stood still for some time admiring the mighty giant of the plains.

  The elephant stood like a statue, its hind-legs somewhat apart. The lowered trunk was coiled, the tiny eyes closed and the thin tail hung over the sloping rump. The thick curved tusks projected menacingly in front of him, their points far apart on either side.

  In places where trees were scanty, they saw animals of strange shape. Their long legs carried short bodies with steeply sloping backs, the forelegs being much longer than the hinds. From their massive shoulders and broad chests stretched an extremely long neck, which sloped forward, surmounted by a very small head with short horns and tubular ears — giraffes that travelled in groups from five up to a hundred. A big herd of giraffes in the open plain was a sight never to be forgotten: it was as though a forest of trees, inclined in one direction by the strength of the wind, was moving from place to place in the bright sunlight, casting patches of fantastic shadow as it went. The giraffes would move at times at a trot, at times they galloped with a peculiar gait, bending their forelegs under them and stretching their hinds out far behind. The bright yellow network of fine lines on their skins, separated by big irregular black patehes, was so much like the shadows cast by the trees that the animals were quite invisible under them. Carefully they plucked leaves from the branches with their lips, eating their fill, without any show of greed, their big sensitive ears turning from side to side.

  A long line of their necks was frequently to be seen above the waving sea of tall grass — they moved slowly, their heads with their flashing black eyes held proudly at a height of ten cubits from the ground.

  The restrained movements of the giraffes were so beautiful that the harmless animals called forth involuntary admiration.

  Through the thick wall of grass the travellers sometimes heard the malicious snorts of a rhinoceros but they had already learned how to avoid this short-sighted animal and the possibility of meeting the monster no longer filled the former slaves with fear.

  The travellers marched in single file, treading in each other’s footsteps, only their spears and the tops of their heads, shielded from the sun by rags and leaves, being visible above the grass on either side of the narrow lane. The monotonous grassy plain stretched away on all sides, seemingly endless. Grass and the burning sky followed the travellers by day, grass came to them in their dreams at night and they began to feel that they were lost for ever in that stifling, rustling, never-ending-vegetation. Not until the tenth day did they see ahead of them a ridge of rocks over which spread a bluish haze. Ascending the rocks the travellers found themselves on a stony plateau overgrown with bushes and leafless trees whose branches stretched up towards the sky like outstretched arms. (Euphorbia candelabrum — a plant related to the European euphorbia but outwardly resembling a cactus.) Their trunks and branches were of the same venomous green colour; the trees looked like round brushes, the bristles trimmed on top, placed on short poles. Growths of these trees gave off a sharp, acrid smell, their fragile branches were easily broken by the wind and from the places where they snapped off there flowed abundant sap like thick milk, that congealed quickly into long grey drops. The guides hurried through these thickets since they believed that if the wind grew fresher it might blow down these strange trees and crush anybody near them.

  The plain began again beyond the thickets, but this time it was undulating country with fresh, green grass. When the travellers reached the summit of a hill, they were unexpectedly confronted by wide expanses of tilled land stretching right up to a dense forest of high trees. In an opening deep in the for
est a large group of conical huts occupied a low hill, surrounded by a massive stockade. Heavy gates, built of irregular logs and decorated with garlands of lions’ skulls hanging from the. top, stared straight at the newcomers.

  Tall, stern-looking warriors came out of the gates to meet the group of former slaves slowly climbing the hill. The local inhabitants resembled Nubians except that their skin was of a somewhat lighter bronze colour.

  The warriors carried spears with huge heads like short swords and big shields decorated with a black and white ornament. War clubs of ebony, very hard and heavy, hung from their giraffe-hide girdles.

  The view from the hill-top was very picturesque. Out of the golden grass of the plain rose the abundant emerald-green vegetation of the river-banks between which flashed the blue ribbon of the river. Bushes surmounted by fluffy pink balls were vaguely trembling; bunches of yellow and white flowers hung down from the trees.

  Preliminary talks between the natives and the newcomers lasted a long time. The Negro with the broken leg, who had said he belonged to this people, served as interpreter. With the aid of a stick he hobbled over to the warriors, making a sign to his companions to remain behind.

  Cavius, the Negro with the broken leg, Kidogo, one of the Nubians and one of the nomad guides were allowed. to enter the gates and were taken to the house of the chief.

  Those who remained without the gates waited with impatience, tormented by uncertainty. Only Pandion was motionless and apathetic as he lay on the litter that had been removed from the pack animals. It seemed to them all that a long time had elapsed before the Etruscan reappeared in the gateway accompanied by a crowd of men, women and children. The inhabitants of the village smiled in welcoming manner, waving broad leaves and speaking incomprehensible but friendly-sounding words.

  The gates were opened and the former slaves passed between rows of big houses whose mud walls, built in the form of a circle, were surmounted by steep conical roofs thatched with coarse grass.