"If I were as selfish as you seem to believe, Inkoosi, should I advise

you to stop with your wagons, and thereby lose the good gun with two

mouths that you have promised me? Still, it is true that I should like

well enough to stay at Umbezi's kraal with Mameena, especially if Umbezi

were away."

Now, as there is nothing more uninteresting than to listen to

other people's love affairs, and as I saw that with the slightest

encouragement Saduko was ready to tell me all the history of his

courtship over again, I did not continue the argument. So we finished

our journey in silence, and arrived at Umbezi's kraal a little after

sundown, to find, to the disappointment of both of us, that Mameena was

still away.

Upon the following morning we started on our shooting expedition, the

party consisting of myself, my servant Scowl, who, as I think I said,

hailed from the Cape and was half a Hottentot; Saduko; the merry old

Zulu, Umbezi, and a number of his men to serve as bearers and beaters.

It proved a very successful trip--that is, until the end of it--for in

those days the game in this part of the country was extremely plentiful.

Before the end of the second week I killed four elephants, two of them

with large tusks, while Saduko, who soon developed into a very fair

shot, bagged another with the double-barrelled gun that I had promised

him. Also, Umbezi--how, I have never discovered, for the thing partook

of the nature of a miracle--managed to slay an elephant cow with fair

ivories, using the old rifle that went off at half-cock.

Never have I seen a man, black or white, so delighted as was that

vainglorious Kafir. For whole hours he danced and sang and took snuff

and saluted with his hand, telling me the story of his deed over and

over again, no single version of which tale agreed with the other. He

took a new title also, that meant "Eater-up-of-Elephants"; he allowed

one of his men to "bonga"--that is, praise--him all through the night,

preventing us from getting a wink of sleep, until at last the poor

fellow dropped in a kind of fit from exhaustion, and so forth. It really

was very amusing until it became a bore.

Besides the elephants we killed lots of other things, including two

lions, which I got almost with a right and left, and three white

rhinoceroses, that now, alas! are nearly extinct. At last, towards the

end of the third week, we had as much as our men could carry in the

shape of ivory, rhinoceros horns, skins and sun-dried buckflesh, or

biltong, and determined to start back for Umbezi's kraal next day.

Indeed, this could not be long delayed, as our powder and lead were

running low; for in those days, it will be remembered, breechloaders had

not come in, and ammunition, therefore, had to be carried in bulk.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024