Wild Adventures in Wild Places

Frank rode up to flick him with his whip. The beast backed for a moment, but charged again fiercely and furiously, the dead wood snapped, and, when Chisholm looked up, he saw his friend and horse rolling on the ground. The next to roll on the ground was the huge beast himself, for Chisholm was handy with the rifle. Frank got up smiling, and but little hurt, but, alas! for the poor horse, he was stabbed to the heart. The noble savage had to ride into camp ignominiously perched on the crupper of Chisholm’s saddle.

But perhaps the sport which our friends enjoyed above all others was elephant shooting, either on horseback or on foot, according to the nature of the ground. Of their haunts in the forests around the camp they knew nothing at first, nor did their Zanzibar boys, and the first to lead them on their sport was young ’Mboona, the son of a king of one of the native tribes, who had become servant and guide-in-chief to the camp. His reward was to be a rifle, and well he earned it.

People who have never seen an elephant in his native fastnesses, can have no idea of the strength, the ferocity, ay, and the cunning of the animal. Our sporting party took back with them in the little Bluebell many hundreds of pounds’ worth of valuable ivory, but if they did they had to pay for it with many a hard day’s work, in many a wild ride, and many a hair-breadth escape.

As a rule, the elephants would run when pursued by men and dogs; then, as they passed the spot where the rifles were stationed, they fell easy victims to the hardened bullets. They were not always particular in which way they did run, however, and when they did not run right in the direction of the guns, our friends would rush out in pursuit, when all at once perhaps the herd would be turned, and come crashing back upon them and their people. They were not always angry; perhaps they were thinking more of escape than revenge; but to be run down by even a small herd of cow elephants is no joke. Their feet are terribly heavy, and they are not particular where they place them, so whenever a stampede was checked and rolled back on the pursuers, it was sauve qui peut with a vengeance.

Frank was one day rolled down thus, while on foot, and not only down, but over and over; indeed the herd seemed for a time to be playing at football with him. He was covered from top to toe with blood and earth.

“Eton style of football is all very well,” Frank said afterwards, “but I never had such a doing as that before.”

Chisholm had a worse doing, however. He had fired at, without killing, a gigantic bull. The brute was on him ere he could either reload or escape. He was picked up as one might seize a kitten, and dashed into a tree beyond even the elephant’s reach. The dogs would not tackle this monster. Hearing the terrible screaming, Lyell rode down to attack the foe next, but the wounded animal was careering madly through the forest, and trees that would be thought far from small in a park at home, were snapping before him with the fury and impetus of the rush. Lyell had served in the Crimea, but he confessed himself he had never been nearer to death before, except once. He had been out shooting with a party in the rough and solitary plains, that bound the Zulu land to the north and west. They had come principally for buffalo-shooting, but they soon found out that there was wilder game than these to be found; and on the very first night on which they bivouacked under the stars, they were fain to entrench themselves well, and to keep the fires alight till morning, for every now and then they could hear the peevish scream of the hyena, the shrill bark of the jackal, and the appalling roar of the lion. Next day they found the carcases of the buffaloes they had slain torn and devoured, and even their enormous bones broken and gnawed. Lions are not looked upon by the true sportsman as very brave animals, but a lion at bay, or a man-eating lion, is a terrible foe to encounter.

“One night,” said Captain Lyell, “just as my biggest and strongest Caffre servant was putting the finishing touch to our laager, he was seized by an immense lion and home away, as one might say, from our very midst; borne away, shrieking for help, into the darkness of the adjoining bush. The silence that succeeded the shrieks made our blood run cold, for we knew that the poor boy was dead, and that the man-eater had commenced his revolting feast. We knew well, that having once tasted human flesh, our camp, while he lived, would not be safe from his attacks. We lost no time, you may be sure, in carrying out the execution of our plans. It was a long weary day’s work, and we were about to return to camp, too exhausted by the heat and fatigue to do much more, when suddenly there arose a shout from the party nearest the laager – a shout and a roar – quickly followed by the report of rifles, then more shouting and warning cries. Then I could see the tawny monster appearing suddenly in front of us. I had no time to fire; my comrade did, but I think he missed, and with a howl that seemed to shake the earth, he sprang full upon me, seized me by the side, and bore me almost fainting away, my two hands clutched in his murderous mane. He carried me far off into the jungle, running at first, then walking, finally lying down with his burden under a tree. The terrible moment, then, had arrived, he was about to rend me in pieces, and no power on earth could save me. Overcome by fear and weakness, and by the loss of blood, I fainted, and was found hours after by my comrades in the same condition, with the lion extended by my side – dead of his wounds!”

The Bluebell made many a run to different parts of the lake, and it was during one of these excursions that Frank and Chisholm landed, for the purpose of exploring a part of a forest that grew down close to the water’s edge. It was not a likely place for lions – they are fond of more light than this gloomy wood afforded – but they might, they thought, get a chance shot at an elephant. The ground was carpetted with moss, and, with the exception of monkey ropes, so called, the stems of the sturdy creepers, there was but little undergrowth. Chisholm and Frank strolled on and on, fearing nothing.

How silent it is in that dark wood, and how still! Not a leaf moves, not a fern frond quivers, only high over head there is a gentle sighing, and when they gaze upwards they can see the sparkling of the leaves in the sunshine, but that leafy canopy seems very far away.

Chisholm lags behind for a moment, he is looking to his rifle, and sighting it for close quarters. Frank strolls on. Suddenly the silence of the forest is broken by the most terrible yells, and Chisholm rushes forward to find his poor friend in the clutches of a gorilla, with his rifle torn from his grasp, and brandished high in air by the awful beast. But Frank, clutched by the throat, is quite insensible. There is not a moment, not a second, to be lost, and Chisholm fires almost at close quarters, and the gorilla rolls dead at his feet.

It was well for both Frank and him that assistance was close at hand. Dreading some danger, Fred and Lyell had followed them into the forest, and come up just in time, for now the woods all around rang again with the screams of the enraged gorillas, who, it would almost seem, had only allowed Chisholm and Frank to penetrate so far into their domains, with the hopes of encompassing the destruction of both. But all the way back to the boat, it was a close hand-to-hand fight with these wild and terrible apes. Frank, once on board, and laid on deck, with the Bluebell well clear of the wood, and the gentle breeze blowing in his face, revival was a mere question of time; but he never forgot his first and only encounter with the savage pongo.

Chapter Thirteen

Part V – The Indian Jungle

A Tête-à-Tête Dinner – Letters from Home – The Journey Junglewards – The Camp and Scenery around it – A Sportsman’s Paradise – Lost in the Forest

In a large and beautiful room in one of the upper storeys of a Club, on the outskirts of Bombay, four gentlemen are seated at dinner one evening, not long after the events related in the last chapter. It is evidently quite a tête-à-tête affair, for they are all by themselves in a corner, at the extreme end of the spacious apartment, close to the great windows that lead on to the verandah. The balmy evening air, laden with the scent of a thousand flowers, steals in, and is put in motion by an immense punkah which hangs above them, and kept moving by a little nigger-boy, dressed in a jacket of snow apparently, who squats in a far corner like a monkey, and requires the united efforts of the three servants who wait at table to keep him awake. No matter what these men are carrying, they always stop as they pass to give Jumlah a kick, making some such remark as – “Jumlah, you asleep again, you black rascal! I kick ebery bit of skin off you presently?” Or, “Jumlah, you young dog, suppose you go asleep just one oder time, den I break ebery bone in your black body!”

The jalousies are wide open, for the day has been hot, and every breath of air is precious. Although the waiters indignantly refer to the colour of poor Jumlah’s skin, they themselves are black, though dressed in cool white linen.

You have guessed already who the gentlemen are. Let us follow them out to the verandah, where they have gone to sip their fragrant coffee. Stars are twinkling in the bright sky, fireflies flit from bush to bush in the gardens beneath, the distant sound of music falls upon their ear, mingling with the far-off city’s hum, the beating of tom-toms, and shrill screams and yells, which may mean anything from mirth to murder.

Conversation during dinner had been very animated indeed; but sitting out here on the cool verandah no one seemed much inclined to speak. Frank had received letters from home, Fred had received letters from Russia; and very pleasant letters, I ween, they were, for they bore reading over and over and over again. Chisholm’s letters were what he called “jolly enough,” only as soon as he had read them, and laughed over them, he just tore them up and pitched them into the basket.

“Hallo, you fellows!” cried Chisholm suddenly. “Awake from your slumbers.”

“I wasn’t asleep,” said Frank.

“No; but you were dreaming, you young rascal.”

“Do you know how I feel?” said Lyell. “I’m feeling sad at the thoughts of parting with you fellows and going back to England.”

“Then, my dear fellow, don’t go,” said matter-of-fact Chisholm O’Grahame.

“By George, then,” cried Lyell, “and I won’t. I’ll apply for more leave; and while the application is going home, and the reply coming back, I’ll run off with you boys into the jungles. I know a deal more about the country than either of you.”

“Lyell,” said Chisholm, “I knew you were a brick the very first day I clapped eyes upon you.”

They were indeed lucky to have made the acquaintance of such a man as Lyell. He had been pretty much at home in Africa; but in India he was more so; and as soon as he had made up his mind to go with our heroes, he commenced forthwith making preparations for the campaign against big beasts.

He explained everything he did to his three friends, and told them his reasons for acting as he did. Tents were bought in Bombay, and additional rifles – he was very learned on the subject of rifles and rifle-bullets – and Chisholm, being the biggest man, was furnished with a regular bone-smasher. Twenty servants were hired, and a boat was chartered to take their little expedition on to Madras. Just three days were spent in that city.

“If we stay any longer,” Chisholm said to Lyell, “my young confrères will be starting lotus-eating again. Let us be off as soon as we can.”

And so the very next day the journey up country was commenced: by train at first, for a long long way; nobody was sorry when this part of the cruise came to an end at a station near a tall forest, with a name that was worse than Welsh to every one save Captain Lyell and a few of the attendants. By seven o’clock next morning, a start was made in the direction of the south and east.

By the evening of the third day they had left civilisation a long way behind them; they had journeyed on and on through vast tracts of jangle lands, and mighty forests clad in all the rich and varied luxuriance of a tropical summer. They had passed many a strange romantic hamlet; from the doors of the huts of grass and clay, little innocent naked children had waddled forth to stare in wonder at the cavalcade, while the simple owners offered them fruits of many kinds to eat, and water to drink. They were often tempted to get down and spend a few hours shooting, for they came to places where feathered game of many kinds abounded, especially duck and peafowl. But Lyell’s counsel was always taken, and his advice was, “Let us go on as speedily as possible towards the mountain forests, and there encamp.” And so, as the last rays of the setting sun shimmered down through the trees on them, they reached a spot which Lyell thought would do excellently well as a camping-ground.

“Oh, isn’t this a charming sight?” said Chisholm, addressing Frank, who lounged on the howdah by his side.

They were a long way behind the others. They did not mind that, however; indeed, the elephant on which they were seated, pleased the two friends far better than any other could have done. He was slow, but wondrous sure. No fears of Jowser, as Frank baptised him, taking sudden fright and dashing suddenly off and away over the jungle, as elephants sometimes do, and ending by dashing their brains out, or tumbling over some mighty precipice with them. Jowser was somewhat more than a hundred years old – a very experienced matter-of-fact old fellow, who knew better than to hurry himself. He required but little guidance – a gentle touch with a cane on his left ear or his right, as the case might be, was quite enough for him. When he stopped short sometimes, to reach above him for a few leaves to munch, his attendant would gently goad him; but Jowser would turn up the tip of his trunk to him as much as to say, “Put a handful of rice into that. That’s what Jowser wants. Jowser is hungry.”

But it suited Frank and Chisholm to be a little late of an evening, because they found their friends already encamped, probably under the banian-tree, and, better than all, supper ready – a curry of such fragrance, that even a sniff at it would have made them hungry, if they had not, as they always did have, the appetite of hunters.

The master of ceremonies did allow them one day, however, among the peafowl. In a piece of jungle – which Chisholm as usual persisted in calling a moor – they found these beautiful birds in great abundance: they were early astir that morning. They had their own beaters, who were principally Mahratta men, whom they had engaged in Bombay, and whom Lyell had armed with rifles as well as spears. “It is a mean thing,” this gallant officer said to our heroes, “to send a man into the bush unarmed; yet Englishmen constantly do it.”

Independently of these they had volunteers from among the simple Hindoo folks in whose country they were. Brave, fool-hardy in fact, but as a rule indolent, these men would work all day, for the sake of earning a morsel of tobacco.

It was a glorious day’s shooting our sportsmen, had, and it was but one of many such days they enjoyed, after their encampment at the foot of the mountains had been fairly formed. Neither of them were fond of what is called battue shooting, deeming it, as every true sportsman must, somewhat unjust to the birds; but here there were very many mouths to fill, and four guns to do all the work of filling them. So they had to make good bags.

And they did too. It was always their custom to be early astir, but they did not start on an empty stomach you may be well sure; and they were quite ready for luncheon at twelve. Then would come the hour for siesta; for during the time of day when the sun is at its highest and its hottest, it is neither pleasant nor safe to be out of the shade in India.

“Why, Lyell,” Fred Freeman said on the evening of the first day’s big shoot, “you have brought us to a perfect paradise, and a sportsman’s paradise too.”

A sportsman’s paradise? Yes, surely the contents of those lordly bags testified to that. And what was it that was wanting in that bag, I wonder? Nothing you could wish to see. Here were pigeons by the dozen, and peafowls and jungle-fowls, to shoot which they had threaded the dark mazes of the forest. Here were ducks and geese, ay, and snipe and teal, which they had waded neck-deep in paddy fields to find, to say nothing of big fat bustards, and grouse and red-legged partridge, that had fallen to their guns while crossing the moor; and last, but certainly not least, a hare or two as well.

Now, when I say that there were growing around them, everywhere, the most luscious fruits that can be imagined; when I say that the earth yielded its turmeric (the basis of curry powder), and its deliciously esculent roots; that spices of all kinds could be had for the gathering, that the cocoa-nut palms held high aloft their tempting fruits, and that the river abounded with fish, will you wonder when I tell you that our friends lived like fighting-cocks. Would they not have been fools if they hadn’t?

Chisholm and Frank occupied one sleeping tent, Fred Freeman and Captain Lyell another. Very comfortably too those tents were furnished, and each canvas bed had its own mosquito curtain. One night, however, Frank found it impossible to sleep, so he got up quietly, dressed, and went out. What a heavenly night! Never, except in the far-off sea of ice, had he seen stars so bright and large. There was light enough almost to read by. He could see everything around him – the men lying asleep at the foot of the snow-white dining tent, the elephants and the picketed horses, and, farther away, jungle and plain, forest and hills, all bathed in starlight. Frank could hear, high over the loud hum of insect life, the distant yelp of the jackal, the gibber of the striped hyaena, and the unearthly yell of the jungle cat.

“If there is nothing more terrible than that about,” he said to himself, “I shall go for a walk, just a little way. Jooma,” he continued, addressing the sentinel, “I’m going to the banks of the river.”

“Take care, sahib, take care,” was the sentinel’s warning.

When two whole hours passed away, and there were no signs of Frank’s return, Jooma became alarmed, and roused Chisholm, and Chisholm aroused the whole camp. Frank must be found, and that right speedily; but where were they to seek him? While they were deliberating which way to go, the report of a rifle fell on their ears, coming from the forest behind the camp. Meanwhile clouds had banked up and obscured a great portion of the sky.

“Now, hurry men, hurry, get your torches and come, there isn’t a moment to be lost if you would save my friend.”

In ten minutes more they were on his track: by bent grass by a single footprint, by a broken twig, and a hundred little signs that the eye of a European would never have noticed, these men followed the trail by torchlight, till far into the deepest and darkest part of the great forest. But now a pause ensued. The trackers were puzzled. The truth is, that it was just at this spot that the disagreeable truth flashed upon poor Frank that he was lost. He had felt sure he could easily retrace his steps, but trying to do so only led to a series of useless wanderings up and down and round and round, often coming back again to the same spot, though he knew it not, until the starlight forsook him, and he found himself at last in the terrible position presently to be described.

The trackers are at fault, and no wonder, yet not three hundred yards away Frank lies at the bottom of a pit, into which he had stumbled, and pulled after him the large withered branch of a mango-tree, and his rifle had gone off as he fell. He hears his friends firing to attract his attention, he cannot reach his rifle to reply. But there adown the wind at last comes a thrice-welcome shout, “Coo-ee-ee!” He tries to answer, but the branch lies across his chest, and he can hardly breathe. “Coo-ee-ee! Coo-ee-ee!” They hear his muffled tones at last; they look no more for track nor trail. Forward they dash, holding the torches high over head. “Coo-oo-ee!” A gigantic leopard rises from his lair, but with a startled yell disappears in a moment in the darkness. Was that a huge python coiled round the tree? If it was he had no time to strike, so quickly do they speed along. “Coo-ee-ee!” They are close at hand now, and now they are at the very mouth of the pit, and Frank can talk to them and tell them how he is trapped.

Chisholm was so glad to see his friend once more safe and alive, that he forgot entirely that he had resolved to scold him properly for his rashness and folly. But Frank never afterwards cared to have any allusion made to his night ramble, and resented almost warmly Fred Freeman’s attempt to dub him the “somnambulist.”

Chapter Fourteen

Adventure with a Python – Moondah’s House – “The Tiger! The Tiger!” – Panthers – Hunting with the Cheetah – The Panther and the Boar

“Do you really think there are pythons or boa constrictors in the forest?” asked Frank next day at dinner.

“I haven’t a doubt of it,” replied Lyell. “At the same time I cannot quite swallow all the tracker says about the enormity of the serpent he saw when following up your trail in the woods.”

“No,” said Chisholm, “fifty feet of snake is rather more than most men can swallow; but had you seen the tracker’s eyes when he saw the tiger, you’d have been willing to admit that they were big enough to accommodate a very large amount of boa constrictor.”

“It puts me in mind of an adventure I once had in South Africa,” said Lyell. “One doesn’t like speaking much of one’s self, but I think, on the occasion I refer to, I exhibited a fair amount of firmness and presence of mind in a moment of deadly peril to one of my men. I had been out for a fortnight’s shoot, beyond and to the nor’ard of the Natal provinces. There were four of us – our doctor, our purser, marine officer, and myself. Our sport was good, and the fun we had fairish. We were seated at lunch one day in an open glade in the forest, when suddenly we were startled by hearing the most terrific yells; and on looking up beheld one of our Caffres speeding towards us, pursued by an enormous python. There was no time for escape, had escape been honourable, which it was not. I seized the rifle and bayonet from one of our attendant marines, and next moment the python was impaled. Oh, don’t think for a moment that that would have killed him! In half a second he had almost wriggled clear; but in doing so he turned the rifle round so that the muzzle pointed almost down his throat. It was a terrible moment – thank Heaven that rifle was loaded, and that I had the presence of mind to pull the trigger! It was a case of ‘all hands stand clear’ now. The python’s head was shattered, but the convulsions of his body, ere death closed the scene, were fearful to witness. I don’t want to see the like again. His body measured five-and-thirty feet; the gape of his jaws measured over a yard. I can understand a monster like this swallowing a goat or even a deer itself.”

A day or two after this the camp was struck, and a move made nearer to the mountains, the tents being erected close to the river as before, but still on elevated ground. Here they were, then, in the very centre of what might be called the home of the wild beasts, and both sport and adventure might reasonably be expected in any quantity. Herds of elephants roamed in the deep forests, tigers and wild pigs were in the thickets; bears, too, would be found, and birds everywhere. They formed no particular plan of attack upon the denizens of this wilderness; they were bold hunters every one of them; they carried their lives in their hands, but they omitted no precaution to defend and protect them. They always went abroad prepared for anything.

Chisholm called the spot where the camp was now fixed – and where it remained until the commencement of the south-west monsoon warned them it was time for departure – his Highland home. It was indeed a Highland home, and the scenery all around was charming. And yet a walk of some eight or nine miles brought them to what might be called the lowlands. Here were great stretches of open country, interspersed with lakes and streams, immense green fields of rice or paddy and maize, with groves of cocoa-nut palms, and gardens where grew the orange-tree and the citron, and where the giant mango-trees hid completely from view the primitive huts of the villagers.