The following day I slew another good bull pookoo, which took more killing than any buck I have ever shot. The pookoo's tenacity of life is proverbial among those who are acquainted with this most beautiful little antelope. They have a curious gland about 4 in. below the head in the side of the neck.
The Wankonde play a curious little musical instrument resembling in conception a zither: the strings (six or seven in number) are stretched on a back of hollow reeds; it is held under the leg when sitting, and fingered like the Maderia machette with the right hand, the strings being stopped with the left. They also play on a bow with a gourd or cocoanut-shell as a sounder, and a species of guitar.
Having received a note to the effect that porters had at last come in, I returned to Karonga to prepare for my final march of two hundred and ten miles west to Tanganyika.
On the way I stopped for a day with Mr. Fox, who was managing the telegraph construction across the plateau. The line was just opened to Karonga from Salisbury, and Mr. Mohun had put up the first telephone seen on Lake Nyassa between Karonga and Mr. Fox's camp. The work of construction up the west coast of Lake Nyassa had been attended with the greatest possible difficulties from the precipitous and densely-wooded nature of the country, and the pestilential climate. These had, however, by superhuman efforts, been overcome in the stipulated time by the handful of men engaged on the work. A wide track, straight as an arrow, up hill, down dale, across abysmal chasms, and through swamps, had been cleared, and iron posts set in iron shoes supported the wire. No one at home can realize the stupendous difficulties that have been overcome. But I from observation know, and take off my hat in awed admiration of that gallant band who, quietly, relentlessly, and without a murmur, have accomplished the seemingly impossible. It stands out in bold relief as a colossal monument of what the Anglo-Saxon can do, and will ever sigh to the African wind the greatness of that master mind which, in spite of the fossilized apathy of the British Government, has raised a British South Africa to be a dominant factor in the world's history of the future. It was instructive to mark the characteristic distinction between Mr. Rhodes' telegraph expedition and the expedition of the King of the Belgians. On the one hand was an unassuming handful of men (without a single armed man), whose very existence might easily have been overlooked by the casual passer-by. Yet behind them lay many hundreds of miles of perfected work which brought the far interior of Africa within a minute of Cape Town; before them stretched an arrow-like clearing to Tanganyika (two hundred miles long), waiting for the transport service to bring poles and wire. Quiet men, rotten with fever, were being carried to and fro--inspecting, measuring, and trenching. Above their base floated a diminutive Union Jack; no pomp, no fuss, not even a bugle; yet all worked like clock-work. On the other hand, a huge camp thundering with the tramp of armed men, uninhabitable from the perpetual blare of bugles, a very wilderness of flags. Gorgeous and fussy Belgians strutting about in uniforms, screaming and gesticulating, with a few sad-visaged Englishmen doing the work--piles and piles of loads--and ever those bugles. It resembled the triumphant march of an army through the land, and the cost must have been appalling. Yet months after they had eventually arrived at Mtowa, nothing had been accomplished. The petty jealousy of the local officials proved an impenetrable barrier, and now if anything has been accomplished, the wire has been merely slung on trees. According to the latest reports, there had been trouble with the natives, and the whole expedition had been broken up, with the loss of most of the plant. There is undoubtedly a quiet something about the Anglo-Saxon that gets there somehow.
Fever overcame me once more, and I was confined to my bed for several days; but at last, on January 24th, I made a start, and marched to Mpata, the first camping-place on the Stevenson Road. The Stevenson Road is a clearing through the bush that covers the greater part of the plateau, and barely deserves the title of road, although in some places a few logs have been thrown across the streams, and the more swampy portions have been trenched.
The second stage brings one to Mkongwés, about twenty-seven miles from Karonga. Chumbu, the next halting-place, is fourteen miles further. The country is very hilly, and the scenery not very attractive. At intervals, intersecting the road, the telegraph clearing sweeps on in its relentless line, looking like a gigantic ride, where one expects every minute to see the white tail of a scared bunny or a gorgeous cock-pheasant bowling along as though on wheels. But one looks in vain; no sign of life breaks that monotonous line stretching away over the far hills till the trees at the side merge together, and it is lost in the far distant horizon.
A very long day's march brought us to Fort Hill, the frontier station of Nyassaland, which is in charge of a few black police. It had been very wet, as the rains had broken, and I was exceedingly thankful to take cover in the substantial house which is in the centre of the stockade. I had a bull-calf with me, and gave it in charge of one of my Askaris, who retaliated in the usual annoying way of natives by coming and asking for some string to lead it by. Asking for string is a common and intangible form of insolence, as they make string from the bark of several kinds of trees, very common all over the country. But this time I scored. I had a large coil of Alpine rope weighing about 20 lbs. I gave him this, and told him on pain of death not to cut it. Then he said, "It did not matter, he would make some." But I was relentless. "He had asked for string, and I never refused a reasonable request." That youth never again asked for string. At Nyala the telegraph people have built a substantial house, which is to be a telegraph station and general depository of material; they have selected an admirable position. A large blood-sucking fly made life rather a burden; they settled so quietly that one never felt them till they had driven a proboscis, like a red-hot bodkin, half an inch into one's neck or face. Amazing downpours every morning added to the joys of life, and for several days I had to live in wet clothes and sleep in wet blankets, while it was almost impossible to start a fire. I had a sou'-wester and an oilskin, but they were of no avail. The rain fell like a wave, and with such force that it splashed up underneath, and one was soon drenched to the neck by capillary attraction. Passing through Mpansa we reached Ikawa on the 31st.
Ikawa is the first station of Northern Charterland, on the Tanganyika Plateau. Mr. Mackinnon, the collector, had gone to the Chambesi district to neutralize the political machinations of a fractious missionary.
Nine miles further on is Fife, the A.L.C. station, and the oldest settlement