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