________________________________________________
_ A week had passed since the funeral of my poor boy Harry, and one
evening I was in my room walking up and down and thinking, when
there was a ring at the outer door. Going down the steps I
opened it myself, and in came my old friends Sir Henry Curtis and
Captain John Good, RN. They entered the vestibule and sat
themselves down before the wide hearth, where, I remember, a
particularly good fire of logs was burning.
'It is very kind of you to come round,' I said by way of making a
remark; 'it must have been heavy walking in the snow.'
They said nothing, but Sir Henry slowly filled his pipe and lit
it with a burning ember. As he leant forward to do so the fire
got hold of a gassy bit of pine and flared up brightly, throwing
the whole scene into strong relief, and I thought, What a
splendid-looking man he is! Calm, powerful face, clear-cut
features, large grey eyes, yellow beard and hair--altogether a
magnificent specimen of the higher type of humanity. Nor did his
form belie his face. I have never seen wider shoulders or a
deeper chest. Indeed, Sir Henry's girth is so great that, though
he is six feet two high, he does not strike one as a tall man.
As I looked at him I could not help thinking what a curious
contrast my little dried-up self presented to his grand face and
form. Imagine to yourself a small, withered, yellow-faced man of
sixty-three, with thin hands, large brown eyes, a head of
grizzled hair cut short and standing up like a half-worn
scrubbing-brush--total weight in my clothes, nine stone six--and
you will get a very fair idea of Allan Quatermain, commonly
called Hunter Quatermain, or by the natives Macumazahn'--Anglice,
he who keeps a bright look-out at night, or, in vulgar English, a
sharp fellow who is not to be taken in.
Then there was Good, who is not like either of us, being short,
dark, stout--VERY stout--with twinkling black eyes, in one of
which an eyeglass is everlastingly fixed. I say stout, but it is
a mild term; I regret to state that of late years Good has been
running to fat in a most disgraceful way. Sir Henry tells him
that it comes from idleness and over-feeding, and Good does not
like it at all, though he cannot deny it.
We sat for a while, and then I got a match and lit the lamp that
stood ready on the table, for the half-light began to grow
dreary, as it is apt to do when one has a short week ago buried
the hope of one's life. Next, I opened a cupboard in the
wainscoting and got a bottle of whisky and some tumblers and
water. I always like to do these things for myself: it is
irritating to me to have somebody continually at my elbow, as
though I were an eighteen-month-old baby. All this while Curtis
and Good had been silent, feeling, I suppose, that they had
nothing to say that could do me any good, and content to give me
the comfort of their presence and unspoken sympathy; for it was
only their second visit since the funeral. And it is, by the
way, from the PRESENCE of others that we really derive support in
our dark hours of grief, and not from their talk, which often
only serves to irritate us. Before a bad storm the game always
herd together, but they cease their calling.
They sat and smoked and drank whisky and water, and I stood by
the fire also smoking and looking at them.
At last I spoke. 'Old friends,' I said, 'how long is it since we
got back from Kukuanaland?'
'Three years,' said Good. 'Why do you ask?'
'I ask because I think that I have had a long enough spell of
civilization. I am going back to the veldt.'
Sir Henry laid his head back in his arm-chair and laughed one of
his deep laughs. 'How very odd,' he said, 'eh, Good?'
Good beamed at me mysteriously through his eyeglass and murmured,
'Yes, odd--very odd.'
'I don't quite understand,' said I, looking from one to the
other, for I dislike mysteries.
'Don't you, old fellow?' said Sir Henry; 'then I will explain.
As Good and I were walking up here we had a talk.'
'If Good was there you probably did,' I put in sarcastically, for
Good is a great hand at talking. 'And what may it have been
about?'
'What do you think?' asked Sir Henry.
I shook my head. It was not likely that I should know what Good
might be talking about. He talks about so many things.
'Well, it was about a little plan that I have formed--namely,
that if you were willing we should pack up our traps and go off
to Africa on another expedition.'
I fairly jumped at his words. 'You don't say so!' I said.
'Yes I do, though, and so does Good; don't you, Good?'
'Rather,' said that gentleman.
'Listen, old fellow,' went on Sir Henry, with considerable
animation of manner. 'I'm tired of it too, dead-tired of doing
nothing more except play the squire in a country that is sick of
squires. For a year or more I have been getting as restless as
an old elephant who scents danger. I am always dreaming of
Kukuanaland and Gagool and King Solomon's Mines. I can assure
you I have become the victim of an almost unaccountable craving.
I am sick of shooting pheasants and partridges, and want to have
a go at some large game again. There, you know the feeling--when
one has once tasted brandy and water, milk becomes insipid to the
palate. That year we spent together up in Kukuanaland seems to
me worth all the other years of my life put together. I dare say
that I am a fool for my pains, but I can't help it; I long to go,
and, what is more, I mean to go.' He paused, and then went on
again. 'And, after all, why should I not go? I have no wife or
parent, no chick or child to keep me. If anything happens to me
the baronetcy will go to my brother George and his boy, as it
would ultimately do in any case. I am of no importance to any
one.'
'Ah!' I said, 'I thought you would come to that sooner or later.
And now, Good, what is your reason for wanting to trek; have you
got one?'
'I have,' said Good, solemnly. 'I never do anything without a
reason; and it isn't a lady--at least, if it is, it's several.'
I looked at him again. Good is so overpoweringly frivolous.
'What is it?' I said.
'Well, if you really want to know, though I'd rather not speak of
a delicate and strictly personal matter, I'll tell you: I'm
getting too fat.'
'Shut up, Good!' said Sir Henry. 'And now, Quatermain, tell us,
where do you propose going to?'
I lit my pipe, which had gone out, before answering.
'Have you people ever heard of Mt Kenia?' I asked.
'Don't know the place,' said Good.
'Did you ever hear of the Island of Lamu?' I asked again.
'No. Stop, though--isn't it a place about 300 miles north of
Zanzibar?'
'Yes. Now listen. What I have to propose is this. That we go
to Lamu and thence make our way about 250 miles inland to Mt
Kenia; from Mt Kenia on inland to Mt Lekakisera, another 200
miles, or thereabouts, beyond which no white man has to the best
of my belief ever been; and then, if we get so far, right on into
the unknown interior. What do you say to that, my hearties?'
'It's a big order,' said Sir Henry, reflectively.
'You are right,' I answered, 'it is; but I take it that we are
all three of us in search of a big order. We want a change of
scene, and we are likely to get one--a thorough change. All my
life I have longed to visit those parts, and I mean to do it
before I die. My poor boy's death has broken the last link
between me and civilization, and I'm off to my native wilds. And
now I'll tell you another thing, and that is, that for years and
years I have heard rumours of a great white race which is
supposed to have its home somewhere up in this direction, and I
have a mind to see if there is any truth in them. If you fellows
like to come, well and good; if not, I'll go alone.'
'I'm your man, though I don't believe in your white race,' said
Sir Henry Curtis, rising and placing his arm upon my shoulder.
'Ditto,' remarked Good. 'I'll go into training at once. By all
means let's go to Mt Kenia and the other place with an
unpronounceable name, and look for a white race that does not
exist. It's all one to me.'
'When do you propose to start?' asked Sir Henry.
'This day month,' I answered, 'by the British India steamboat;
and don't you be so certain that things have no existence because
you do not happen to have heard of them. Remember King Solomon's
mines!'
Some fourteen weeks or so had passed since the date of this
conversation, and this history goes on its way in very different
surroundings.
After much deliberation and inquiry we came to the conclusion
that our best starting-point for Mt Kenia would be from the
neighbourhood of the mouth of the Tana River, and not from
Mombassa, a place over 100 miles nearer Zanzibar. This
conclusion we arrived at from information given to us by a German
trader whom we met upon the steamer at Aden. I think that he was
the dirtiest German I ever knew; but he was a good fellow, and
gave us a great deal of valuable information. 'Lamu,' said he,
'you goes to Lamu--oh ze beautiful place!' and he turned up his
fat face and beamed with mild rapture. 'One year and a half I
live there and never change my shirt--never at all.'
And so it came to pass that on arriving at the island we
disembarked with all our goods and chattels, and, not knowing
where to go, marched boldly up to the house of Her Majesty's
Consul, where we were most hospitably received.
Lamu is a very curious place, but the things which stand out most
clearly in my memory in connection with it are its exceeding
dirtiness and its smells. These last are simply awful. Just
below the Consulate is the beach, or rather a mud bank that is
called a beach. It is left quite bare at low tide, and serves as
a repository for all the filth, offal, and refuse of the town.
Here it is, too, that the women come to bury coconuts in the mud,
leaving them there till the outer husk is quite rotten, when they
dig them up again and use the fibres to make mats with, and for
various other purposes. As this process has been going on for
generations, the condition of the shore can be better imagined
than described. I have smelt many evil odours in the course of
my life, but the concentrated essence of stench which arose from
that beach at Lamu as we sat in the moonlit night--not under, but
ON our friend the Consul's hospitable roof--and sniffed it, makes
the remembrance of them very poor and faint. No wonder people
get fever at Lamu. And yet the place was not without a certain
quaintness and charm of its own, though possibly--indeed
probably--it was one which would quickly pall.
'Well, where are you gentlemen steering for?' asked our friend
the hospitable Consul, as we smoked our pipes after dinner.
'We propose to go to Mt Kenia and then on to Mt Lekakisera,'
answered Sir Henry. 'Quatermain has got hold of some yarn about
there being a white race up in the unknown territories beyond.'
The Consul looked interested, and answered that he had heard
something of that, too.
'What have you heard?' I asked.
'Oh, not much. All I know about it is that a year or so ago I
got a letter from Mackenzie, the Scotch missionary, whose
station, "The Highlands", is placed at the highest navigable
point of the Tana River, in which he said something about it.'
'Have you the letter?' I asked.
'No, I destroyed it; but I remember that he said that a man had
arrived at his station who declared that two months' journey
beyond Mt Lekakisera, which no white man has yet visited--at
least, so far as I know--he found a lake called Laga, and that
then he went off to the north-east, a month's journey, over
desert and thorn veldt and great mountains, till he came to a
country where the people are white and live in stone houses.
Here he was hospitably entertained for a while, till at last the
priests of the country set it about that he was a devil, and the
people drove him away, and he journeyed for eight months and
reached Mackenzie's place, as I heard, dying. That's all I know;
and if you ask me, I believe that it is a lie; but if you want to
find out more about it, you had better go up the Tana to
Mackenzie's place and ask him for information.'
Sir Henry and I looked at each other. Here was something
tangible.
'I think that we will go to Mr Mackenzie's,' I said.
'Well,' answered the Consul, 'that is your best way, but I warn
you that you are likely to have a rough journey, for I hear that
the Masai are about, and, as you know, they are not pleasant
customers. Your best plan will be to choose a few picked men for
personal servants and hunters, and to hire bearers from village
to village. It will give you an infinity of trouble, but perhaps
on the whole it will prove a cheaper and more advantageous course
than engaging a caravan, and you will be less liable to
desertion.'
Fortunately there were at Lamu at this time a part of Wakwafi
Askari (soldiers). The Wakwafi, who are a cross between the
Masai and the Wataveta, are a fine manly race, possessing many of
the good qualities of the Zulu, and a great capacity for
civilization. They are also great hunters. As it happened,
these particular men had recently been on a long trip with an
Englishman named Jutson, who had started from Mombasa, a port
about 150 miles below Lamu, and journeyed right rough
Kilimanjaro, one of the highest known mountains in Africa. Poor
fellow, he had died of fever when on his return journey, and
within a day's march of Mombasa. It does seem hard that he
should have gone off thus when within a few hours of safety, and
after having survived so many perils, but so it was. His hunters
buried him, and then came on to Lamu in a dhow. Our friend the
Consul suggested to us that we had better try and hire these men,
and accordingly on the following morning we started to interview
the party, accompanied by an interpreter.
In due course we found them in a mud hut on the outskirts of the
town. Three of the men were sitting outside the hut, and fine
frank-looking fellows they were, having a more or less civilized
appearance. To them we cautiously opened the object of our
visit, at first with very scant success. They declared that they
could not entertain any such idea, that they were worn and weary
with long travelling, and that their hearts were sore at the loss
of their master. They meant to go back to their homes and rest
awhile. This did not sound very promising, so by way of
effecting a diversion I asked where the remainder of them were.
I was told there were six, and I saw but three. One of the men
said they slept in the hut, and were yet resting after their
labours--'sleep weighed down their eyelids, and sorrow made their
hearts as lead: it was best to sleep, for with sleep came
forgetfulness. But the men should be awakened.'
Presently they came out of the hut, yawning--the first two men
being evidently of the same race and style as those already
before us; but the appearance of the third and last nearly made
me jump out of my skin. He was a very tall, broad man, quite six
foot three, I should say, but gaunt, with lean, wiry-looking
limbs. My first glance at him told me that he was no Wakwafi:
he was a pure bred Zulu. He came out with his thin
aristocratic-looking hand placed before his face to hide a yawn,
so I could only see that he was a 'Keshla' or ringed man, *{Among
the Zulus a man assumes the ring, which is made of a species of
black gum twisted in with the hair, and polished a brilliant
black, when he has reached a certain dignity and age, or is the
husband of a sufficient number of wives. Till he is in a
position to wear a ring he is looked on as a boy, though he may
be thirty-five years of age, or even more. --A. Q.} and that he
had a great three-cornered hole in his forehead. In another
second he removed his hand, revealing a powerful-looking Zulu
face, with a humorous mouth, a short woolly beard, tinged with
grey, and a pair of brown eyes keen as a hawk's. I knew my man
at once, although I had not seen him for twelve years. 'How do
you do, Umslopogaas?' I said quietly in Zulu.
The tall man (who among his own people was commonly known as the
'Woodpecker', and also as the 'Slaughterer') started, and almost
let the long-handled battleaxe he held in his hand fall in his
astonishment. Next second he had recognized me, and was saluting
me in an outburst of sonorous language which made his companions
the Wakwafi stare.
'Koos' (chief), he began, 'Koos-y-Pagete! Koos-y-umcool! (Chief
from of old--mighty chief) Koos! Baba! (father) Macumazahn,
old hunter, slayer of elephants, eater up of lions, clever one!
watchful one! brave one! quick one! whose shot never misses, who
strikes straight home, who grasps a hand and holds it to the
death (i.e. is a true friend) Koos! Baba! Wise is the voice of
our people that says, "Mountain never meets with mountain, but at
daybreak or at even man shall meet again with man." Behold! a
messenger came up from Natal, "Macumazahn is dead!" cried he.
"The land knows Macumazahn no more." That is years ago. And
now, behold, now in this strange place of stinks I find
Macumazahn, my friend. There is no room for doubt. The brush of
the old jackal has gone a little grey; but is not his eye as
keen, and are not his teeth as sharp? Ha! ha! Macumazahn,
mindest thou how thou didst plant the ball in the eye of the
charging buffalo--mindest thou--'
I had let him run on thus because I saw that his enthusiasm was
producing a marked effect upon the minds of the five Wakwafi, who
appeared to understand something of his talk; but now I thought
it time to put a stop to it, for there is nothing that I hate so
much as this Zulu system of extravagant praising--'bongering' as
they call it. 'Silence!' I said. 'Has all thy noisy talk been
stopped up since last I saw thee that it breaks out thus, and
sweeps us away? What doest thou here with these men--thou whom I
left a chief in Zululand? How is it that thou art far from thine
own place, and gathered together with strangers?'
Umslopogaas leant himself upon the head of his long battleaxe
(which was nothing else but a pole-axe, with a beautiful handle
of rhinoceros horn), and his grim face grew sad.
'My Father,' he answered, 'I have a word to tell thee, but I
cannot speak it before these low people (umfagozana),' and he
glanced at the Wakwafi Askari; 'it is for thine own ear. My
Father, this will I say,' and here his face grew stern again, 'a
woman betrayed me to the death, and covered my name with
shame--ay, my own wife, a round-faced girl, betrayed me; but I
escaped from death; ay, I broke from the very hands of those who
came to slay me. I struck but three blows with this mine axe
Inkosikaas--surely my Father will remember it--one to the right,
one to the left, and one in front, and yet I left three men dead.
And then I fled, and, as my Father knows, even now that I am old
my feet are as the feet of the Sassaby, *{One of the fleetest of
the African antelopes. --A. Q.} and there breathes not the man
who, by running, can touch me again when once I have bounded from
his side. On I sped, and after me came the messengers of death,
and their voice was as the voice of dogs that hunt. From my own
kraal I flew, and, as I passed, she who had betrayed me was
drawing water from the spring. I fleeted by her like the shadow
of Death, and as I went I smote with mine axe, and lo! her head
fell: it fell into the water pan. Then I fled north. Day after
day I journeyed on; for three moons I journeyed, resting not,
stopping not, but running on towards forgetfulness, till I met
the party of the white hunter who is now dead, and am come hither
with his servants. And nought have I brought with me. I who was
high-born, ay, of the blood of Chaka, the great king--a chief,
and a captain of the regiment of the Nkomabakosi--am a wanderer
in strange places, a man without a kraal. Nought have I brought
save this mine axe; of all my belongings this remains alone.
They have divided my cattle; they have taken my wives; and my
children know my face no more. Yet with this axe'--and he swung
the formidable weapon round his head, making the air hiss as he
clove it--'will I cut another path to fortune. I have spoken.'
I shook my head at him. 'Umslopogaas,' I said, 'I know thee from
of old. Ever ambitious, ever plotting to be great, I fear me
that thou hast overreached thyself at last. Years ago, when thou
wouldst have plotted against Cetywayo, son of Panda, I warned
thee, and thou didst listen. But now, when I was not by thee to
stay thy hand, thou hast dug a pit for thine own feet to fall in.
Is it not so? But what is done is done. Who can make the dead
tree green, or gaze again upon last year's light? Who can recall
the spoken word, or bring back the spirit of the fallen? That
which Time swallows comes not up again. Let it be forgotten!
'And now, behold, Umslopogaas, I know thee for a great warrior
and a brave man, faithful to the death. Even in Zululand, where
all the men are brave, they called thee the "Slaughterer", and at
night told stories round the fire of thy strength and deeds.
Hear me now. Thou seest this great man, my friend'--and I
pointed to Sir Henry; 'he also is a warrior as great as thou,
and, strong as thou art, he could throw thee over his shoulder.
Incubu is his name. And thou seest this one also; him with the
round stomach, the shining eye, and the pleasant face. Bougwan
(glass eye) is his name, and a good man is he and a true, being
of a curious tribe who pass their life upon the water, and live
in floating kraals.
'Now, we three whom thou seest would travel inland, past Dongo
Egere, the great white mountain (Mt Kenia), and far into the
unknown beyond. We know not what we shall find there; we go to
hunt and seek adventures, and new places, being tired of sitting
still, with the same old things around us. Wilt thou come with
us? To thee shall be given command of all our servants; but what
shall befall thee, that I know not. Once before we three
journeyed thus, in search of adventure, and we took with us a man
such as thou--one Umbopa; and, behold, we left him the king of a
great country, with twenty Impis (regiments), each of 3,000
plumed warriors, waiting on his word. How it shall go with thee,
I know not; mayhap death awaits thee and us. Wilt thou throw
thyself to Fortune and come, or fearest thou, Umslopogaas?'
The great man smiled. 'Thou art not altogether right,
Macumazahn,' he said; 'I have plotted in my time, but it was not
ambition that led me to my fall; but, shame on me that I should
have to say it, a fair woman's face. Let it pass. So we are
going to see something like the old times again, Macumazahn, when
we fought and hunted in Zululand? Ay, I will come. Come life,
come death, what care I, so that the blows fall fast and the
blood runs red? I grow old, I grow old, and I have not fought
enough! And yet am I a warrior among warriors; see my
scars'--and he pointed to countless cicatrices, stabs and cuts,
that marked the skin of his chest and legs and arms. 'See the
hole in my head; the brains gushed out therefrom, yet did I slay
him who smote, and live. Knowest thou how many men I have slain,
in fair hand-to-hand combat, Macumazahn? See, here is the tale
of them'--and he pointed to long rows of notches cut in the
rhinoceros-horn handle of his axe. 'Number them, Macumazahn--one
hundred and three--and I have never counted but those whom I have
ripped open, *{Alluding to the Zulu custom of opening the stomach
of a dead foe. They have a superstition that, if this is not
done, as the body of their enemy swells up so will the bodies of
those who killed him swell up. --A. Q.} nor have I reckoned those
whom another man had struck.'
'Be silent,' I said, for I saw that he was getting the
blood-fever on him; 'be silent; well art thou called the
"Slaughterer". We would not hear of thy deeds of blood.
Remember, if thou comest with us, we fight not save in
self-defence. Listen, we need servants. These men,' and I
pointed to the Wakwafi, who had retired a little way during our
'indaba' (talk), 'say they will not come.'
'Will not come!' shouted Umslopogaas; 'where is the dog who says
he will not come when my Father orders? Here, thou'--and with a
single bound he sprang upon the Wakwafi with whom I had first
spoken, and, seizing him by the arm, dragged him towards us.
'Thou dog!' he said, giving the terrified man a shake, 'didst
thou say that thou wouldst not go with my Father? Say it once
more and I will choke thee'--and his long fingers closed round
his throat as he said it--'thee, and those with thee. Hast thou
forgotten how I served thy brother?'
'Nay, we will come with the white man,' gasped the man.
'White man!' went on Umslopogaas, in simulated fury, which a very
little provocation would have made real enough; 'of whom speakest
thou, insolent dog?'
'Nay, we will go with the great chief.'
'So!' said Umslopogaas, in a quiet voice, as he suddenly released
his hold, so that the man fell backward. 'I thought you would.'
'That man Umslopogaas seems to have a curious MORAL ascendency
over his companions,' Good afterwards remarked thoughtfully. _
Read next: CHAPTER II - THE BLACK HAND
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