Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
Category: Nonfiction
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could not go directly east for he remembered that Mombasa wassituated a few degrees beyond the equator and therefore considerablysouth of that unknown lake. Possessing a few compasses which Lindeleft, he did not fear that he would stray from the proper road.
The first night they lodged upon a wooded hill. With the coming ofdarkness a few scores of camp-fires blazed, at which the negroesroasted dried meat and ate a dough of manioc roots, picking it out ofthe utensils with their fingers. After appeasing their hunger andthirst they were gossiping among themselves as to where the "Bwanakubwa" would lead them and what they would receive from him for it.Some sang, squatting and stirring up the fire, while all talked so longand so loudly that Stas finally had to command silence in order thatNell should sleep.
The night was very cold, but the next day, when the first rays of thesun illuminated the locality, it became warm at once. About sunrise thelittle travelers saw a strange sight. They were just approaching alittle lake over a mile wide, or rather a great slough formed by therains in the mountain valley, when suddenly Stas, sitting with Nell onthe King, and looking about the region through a field-glass, exclaimed:
"Look, Nell! Elephants are going to the water."
In fact, at a distance of about five hundred yards could be seen asmall herd composed of five heads, approaching the little lake slowlyone after the other.
"These are some kind of strange elephants," Stas said, gazing at themwith keen attention; "they are smaller than the King, their ears arefar smaller, and I do not see any tusks at all."
In the meantime the elephants entered the water but did not stop at theshore, as the King usually did, and did not begin to splash with theirtrunks, but going continually ahead they plunged deeper and deeperuntil finally only their backs protruded above the water like bouldersof stone.
"What is this? They are diving!" Stas exclaimed.
The caravan approached considerably towards the shore and finally wasclose by it. Stas halted it and began to stare with extraordinaryastonishment now at Nell, then at the lake.
The elephants could not be seen at all; in the smooth watery pane evenwith the naked eye could be distinguished five spots like round redflowers, jutting above the surface and rocking with a light motion.
"They are standing on the bottom and those are the tips of theirtrunks," Stas said, not believing his own eyes. Then he shouted to Kali:
"Kali, did you see them?"
"Yes, master, Kali sees. Those are water-elephants,"* [* Africacontains many uninvestigated secrets. Rumors of water-elephants reachedthe ears of travelers but were given no credence. Recently M. Le Petit,sent to Africa by the Museum of Natural History, Paris, sawwater-elephants on the shores of Lake Leopold in Congo. An account ofthis can be found in the German periodical "Kosmos," No. 6.] answeredthe young negro quietly.
"Water-elephants?"
"Kali has seen them often."
"And do they live in water?"
"During the night they go to the jungle and feed and during the daythey live in the lake the same as a kiboko (hippopotamus). They do notcome out until after sunset."
Stas for a long time could not recover from his surprise, and were itnot that it was urgent for him to proceed on his way he would havehalted the caravan until night in order to view better these singularanimals. But it occurred to him that the elephants might emerge fromthe water on the opposite side, and even if they came out nearer itwould be difficult to observe them closely in the dusk.
He gave the signal for the departure, but on the road said to Nell:
"Well! We have seen something which the eyes of no European have everseen. And do you know what I think?--that if we reach the ocean safelynobody will believe us when I tell them that there are water-elephantsin Africa."
"But if you caught one and took him along with us to the ocean?" Nellsaid, in the conviction that Stas as usual would be able to accomplisheverything.
XXIII
After ten days' journey the caravan finally crossed the depressions inthe crests of mountains and entered into a different country. It was animmense plain, broken here and there by small hills, but was mainlylevel. The vegetation changed entirely. There were no big trees, risingsingly or in clumps over the wavy surface of the grass. Here and thereprojected at a considerable distance from each other acacias yieldinggum, with coral-hued trunks, umbrella-like, but with scant foliage andaffording but little shade. Among the white-ant hillocks shot upwardshere and there euphorbias, with boughs like the arms of a candle-stick.In the sky vultures soared, and lower there flew from acacia to acaciabirds of the raven species with black and white plumage. The grass wasyellow and, in spike, looked like ripe rye. But, nevertheless, that dryjungle obviously supplied food for a great number of animals, forseveral times each day the travelers met considerable herds ofantelopes, hartbeests, and particularly zebras. The heat on the openand treeless plain became unbearable. The sky was cloudless, the dayswere excessively hot, and the night did not bring any rest.
The journey became each day more and more burdensome. In the villageswhich the caravan encountered, the extremely savage populace receivedit with fear, but principally with reluctance, and if it were not forthe large number of armed guards as well as the sight of the whitefaces, the King, and Saba, great danger would have threatened thetravelers.
With Kali's assistance Stas was able to ascertain that farther on therewere no villages and that the country was waterless. This was hard tobelieve, for the numerous herds which they encountered must have drunksomewhere. Nevertheless, the account of the desert, in which there wereno rivers nor sloughs, frightened the negroes and desertions began. Thefirst example was set by M'Kunje and M'Pua. Fortunately their escapewas detected early, and pursuers on horseback caught them not far fromthe camp; when they were brought back Kali, with the aid of the bamboosticks, impressed upon them the impropriety of their conduct. Stas,assembling all the guards, delivered a speech to them, which the youngnegro interpreted into the native language. Taking advantage of thefact that at the last stopping place lions roared all night about thecamp, Stas endeavored to convince his men that whoever ran away wouldunavoidably become their prey, and even if he passed the night onacacia boughs the still more terrible "wobo" would find him there. Hesaid afterwards that wherever the antelopes live there must be water,and if in the further course of their journey they should chance upon aregion entirely destitute of water, they could take enough of it withthem in bags of antelope skin for two or three days' journey. Thenegroes, hearing his words, repeated every little while, one afteranother: "Oh, mother, how true that is, how true!" but the followingnight five Samburus and two Wahimas ran away, and after that everynight somebody was missing.
M'Kunje and M'Pua did not, however, try their fortune a second time forthe simple reason that Kali at sunset ordered them to be bound.
Nevertheless, the country became drier and drier, and the sun scorchedthe jungle unmercifully. Even acacias could not be seen. Herds ofantelopes appeared continually but in smaller numbers. The donkey andthe horses yet found sufficient food, as under the high, dry grass washidden in many places lower grass, greener and less dry. But the King,though he was not fastidious, grew lean. When they chanced upon anacacia he broke it with his head, and nibbled diligently its leaves andeven the pods of the previous year. The caravan indeed came upon waterevery day, but frequently it was so bad that it had to be filtered orelse it was unfit even for the elephant to drink. Afterwards ithappened several times that the men, sent in advance, returned underKali's command, not finding a slough nor a stream hidden in the earth'sfissures, and Kali with troubled face would announce: "Madi apana" (nowater).
Stas understood that this last journey would not be any easier than theprevious ones and began to worry about Nell, as changes were takingplace in her. Her little face, instead of tanning from the sun andwind, became each day paler and her eyes lost their usual luster. Onthe dry plain, free from mosquitoes, she was not threatened with fever,but it was apparent that the terrible heat wa
s wasting the littlemaid's strength. The boy, with compassion and with fear, now gazed ather little hands, which became as white as paper, and bitterlyreproached himself because, having lost so much time in the preparationand in drilling the negroes to shoot, he had exposed her to a journeyin a season of the year so parching.
Amid these fears day after day passed. The sun drank up the moistureand the life out of the soil more and more greedily and unmercifully.The grass shriveled and dried up to such a degree that it crumbledunder the hoofs of the antelopes, and herds, rushing by, though notnumerous, raised clouds of dust. Nevertheless, the travelers chancedonce more upon a little river, which they recognized by a long row oftrees growing on its banks. The negroes ran in a race towards the treesand, reaching the bank, lay flat on it, dipping their heads anddrinking so greedily that they stopped only when a