The old Arab seemed to understand I was going to make myself comfortable for the night, and he went and fetched two others, younger ones, and by signs and saying the word Gindar, I made them understand that I was lost. They said they would show me the way home if I gave backsheesh. I showed them the empty lining of my pockets; one does not generally take out small change when going shooting in Africa, but this only shows how useful it is. At last they agreed to show me the way for a dollar, and the Galla boy and myself started for home; about half-way we met a Greek that Kirkham had sent out to look for me, carrying a lantern, accompanied by some native servants. I soon reached home, and Kirkham congratulated me that my first adventure in Abyssinia had not ended worse.
Our little dinner was a pleasant one, as it was increased in number by the presence of an ex-French navy captain who had joined the Commune and now was an exile in Abyssinia. He was a wild-looking old fellow, but a wonderful talker; and he and I chatted away gaily. He had come from Adowa, and, having very little money, was nearly starved on the road. He looked very pinched, and certainly disposed of a wonderful amount of our preserved provisions with great gusto.
Jan. 8.-This morning I went out to look for pigs. I was wandering about the jungle, when I saw an animal on some rising ground, quite the size of a donkey. Whether it was the position of the ground or that the old boar-for such it turned out to be-was very large, I do not know; at all events I mistook him for a donkey, and did not fire. He whisked up his little curly tail and trotted off, followed by his spouses and some squeakers. I ran up, but they were soon lost in the thick bushes. Naturally, I was dreadfully annoyed, and resolved to let fly at everything in future.
I saw no end of guinea-fowl, but did not fire, being on the look-out for larger game. After wandering about for an hour or so, I came to the little vale in which the cattle station was, the scene of my adventure of the night before.
An old sow and two squeakers were there, enjoying the green grass. I came on them rather suddenly, and the squeakers trotted off, but as the old sow moved after them, I broke her back with a ball from my little 16-bore Purdey; she was a very old lady, with good tusks. Both the boars and sows in this part of the world have fine tusks; the boars' tusks only differing by being larger. She died very game; and as I twice drove my knife into her throat, she was very quick with her tusks and once nearly caught my shin. I lost the rest of the afternoon's shooting, having to send back the only boy I had with me to camp, to ask for people to carry the game home. We had liver and bacon for breakfast the next morning, and it was excellent; also pork chops.
Jan. 9.-This morning, after breakfast, I went out shooting, accompanied by Brou, and saw some dik-dik, but did not fire at them, as I had already killed three specimens. We came to a large hole in a bank, not unlike a fox-earth, and I heard some beasts running about inside, which Brou said were pigs. I never heard of pigs going to ground before, but he assured me they did so in Abyssinia.
He and I set to work to stop the hole, and we put a boy over it to watch. I retired to a shady spot, and told Brou to go home and send me out some lunch, and bring people (some of our bullock-drivers and donkey-men) to try to dig out and unearth the pigs, or whatever they were. In due course of time the lunch appeared, and, shortly after, Brou, with some Shoho Arabs, our drivers. We tried very hard to get at the animals, but they beat us; the earth was too deep, and ran in among roots; the soil also was very hard for digging with such wretched tools as the Arabs brought. I longed for an English ferreter with his spade.
A Greek, named Aristides, who is engaged here for cutting wild olives for the Khedive of Egypt, came to see Kirkham. This Greek employs Abyssinians to cut the wood and send it to Egypt, where, I am told, his Highness uses it for parquet floors. I induced him to mount a spear-head I had brought out with me, on a stout stick, and it looked very well and serviceable. He said he would go out shooting with me next morning; and, as he knew every inch of the ground round Gindar, I was delighted.
The following morning we both started off at cock-crow, while the dew was on the ground, for a hill lying behind Kirkham's shanty, which he had built here. It was rather steep walking, but a lovely morning and as fresh as possible.
The Greek was in front of me tracking up a herd of Hagazin or Koodoo, when he suddenly stopped and aimed at something with my rifle that he was carrying for me. I stepped up as gently and quickly as I could, took the rifle and fired at a red-looking deer; the animal dropped like a stone. I rushed down the steep bank, and found the bullet had gone right through its head between the horns. I could not account for this, as I had aimed behind the shoulder. The Greek said that at the moment I fired, the deer turned its head round and looked at me; as the animal was standing a good deal below me, this must have been the case.
It was a wonderfully lucky shot; as, if the deer had bounded a few yards away wounded, the bushes in this part were so dense that it would have been rather hard to find the game. This antelope turned out to be a bush-buck, called in Abyssinia Doucoula.
The Greek and I then went to the top of the hill, having cut up and skinned the deer and sent a boy home with it; it was a heavy load for him. My companion showed me a little bird, the honey-bird, that kept flying backwards and forwards in front of us, seemingly to lead us on. Aristides explained to me that this little bird not only leads on sportsmen to the nest of the wild bee, but also to the lairs of wild animals. Shortly afterwards the Greek stopped, and I noticed he had seen something; they were the koodoo we had been tracking up, though I did not see them myself.
When we got to the top of the hill the view was lovely. The valley of Sabargouma lay in the distance, and beyond it the low hills between us and the sea-coast. We then returned to camp, and on the way back I took a shot at a pig with my little 16-bore gun. We had a haunch of the venison for dinner; it was very good, but without fat.
The rain poured down the best part of the night; and, unluckily, we had put our beds at that end of the shanty which was most leaky. I woke up and found myself enjoying a shower-bath from the roof. H. was much in the same plight, and we were both glad when morning broke.
Jan. 12.-A good breakfast and some hot cocoa soon warmed us up, and we started for Beatmohar, the place where General Kirkham has a house. This is the first table-land of Abyssinia that one comes to, travelling by this route. Our luggage was now carried by mules, donkeys, and bullocks, driven by Shoho Arabs. It rained the whole day, so the view of the hills was spoilt, which I regretted very much. At the sides of the hills at the feet of which the path wound, it was covered with a gigantic Euphorbia, called Qualqual in Abyssinia; it is a sort of cactus, or grows like cactus, to the height of forty feet or more. When its branches are wounded, a milky juice oozes out, which is highly poisonous; if the least drop gets into one's eye it nearly blinds one. In India, in 1870, when shooting in the Himalayas, I was amusing myself with my hunting-knife by slashing at a plant, very much like this one; a drop of the juice squirted into my eye. One of the hunters, a native, brought me a sort of creeper with a leaf much like a vine. He screwed up the stalk of it, and catching the juice in the palm of his hand, offered me some, and told me to put it in my eye; it afforded instantaneous relief. I do not think this cure is known to the Abyssinians, as their woodcutters sometimes lose their eyesight. Later in the day, as we reached a higher altitude, we saw no more of this poisonous plant. We travelled on slowly through the mist and rain, the bullocks slipping about over the rocks, and frequently having to be reloaded, or the leather thongs which bound their baggage tightened up.
At last we came to an open dell in the hills, one of the camping-places on this road, called Mehdet. Kirkham and myself with great difficulty, and after wasting a number of matches, managed to light a fire, and we warmed up some cold venison, frying it in oil that Kirkham produced. H. did not like the dish, saying that it tasted like hair grease; he preferred the venison au naturel: we ate a box of sardines, and then started again. The road became very steep; at four in the afternoon we reached the top of the pass, a narrow gully between high rocks: there would be just room for two men to walk abreast.
The road after this for a short way was very good, like a good hill-road in the Himalayas. At the bottom of this road was a small valley, called Maihenzee: this was to be our camping-place for the night, and one of the stages between Asmarra and Gindar. This was the place where merchants from the interior generally stop on their way to Massowah.
There was good water in the valley; we pitched our tents, but everything was wet and miserable. Kirkham told us that to-morrow we should be out of these rains, which I was very thankful to hear.
The cook Ali, a Cairo man, who, like all his species, did not relish this sort of life, but wished himself on board a comfortable diabeha navigating the Nile and smoking cigarettes in the sun, made a bad fire, and I saw very little prospect of dinner. I had to take his place; and I concocted some soup with the help of Liebig's extract, and I made a venison stew. We ate this and then turned in as quickly as we could, before our blankets got...
