RETURN OF GENERAL CATHCART FROM BASUTOLAND—END OF THE WAR—SPORTING ADVENTURES—LOVING TORTOISES—EVENING REVERIES—A SUDDEN ATTACK FROM AN UNKNOWN ENEMY—PLANS FOR HIS CAPTURE—UNSUCCESSFUL—ANOTHER ATTEMPT—NIGHT VIGILS—CLOSE QUARTERS—DEATH OF THE LEOPARD—WILD-BOAR HUNTING—BABOONS—MY PACK OF HOUNDS—THEY ARE ATTACKED BY BABOONS—POOR DASH’S FATE—SNAKES.

General Cathcart now returned from his Basutoland expedition, where British soldiers proved once more their many sterling qualities. I shall not, however, attempt to describe the work done, for I had no actual share in it. The war now, so far as active operations were concerned, had virtually come to an end; my own occupation was gone. “Grim-visaged war had smoothed his wrinkled front,” as humpbacked Richard said, and I began to seek for excitement in a quarter which had always possessed attractions for me.

Hitherto my experiences of sport at the Cape had been of a somewhat tame description, consisting of coursing and partridge-shooting, such as I had often enjoyed, though on a larger scale, in Old England. But at that time my thoughts were on larger subjects bent, and I gave myself up thoroughly to these. My battery consisted of a Lancaster double-barrelled, oval-bored rifle, of great precision and length of range, but small in calibre; a Rigby twelve-bored fowling-piece; and a double-barrelled Barnett Minie, also twelve-bored. With these I bowled over lots of fur and feather, mostly pea-fowl, stein and bush buck. Sometimes I went in for bigger game; but as there were no lion, elephant, or buffalo within several days’ journey, I was obliged to content myself with trying my ’prentice hand on some stray leopards, whose tracks I had noticed about, as well as those of wild-boar, or rather, as I believe, of farmers’ pigs run wild during the war, and which in very fair numbers ploughed up the wet kloofs and the abandoned gardens around the farms.

There were plenty of hyenas and jackals about, but I was tired of trying to get up any excitement about them. They were a set of sneaking marauders, who used to prowl about the camp by night for the sake of the offal and scraps to be found, and who would scamper off on the slightest appearance of danger. My English spaniel, “Dash,” would often bow-wow them almost any distance away.

Amongst other traces of game, I had observed the spoor of a leopard, or some other soft-footed member of the feline tribe, around a pool of water at the head of the kloof on which Blakeway’s Farm was situated. It was about two miles off, in a very dank, secluded spot, almost as dark under the big cliffs and heavy foliage as an underground cavern. It was a favourite resort for blue-buck and baboons, whose footprints had stamped and puddled the ground all around. I selected a spot under a boulder of rock that advanced almost to the margin of the pool, where I placed, day after day, as I had seen it done in Algeria, branch after branch of prickly cactus, until I had made quite a porcupine shield, big enough to shelter a man. In the centre of this I dug a small circular hole, for a seat, and ensconced thereon, I one night took my place, awaiting the arrival of my supposed game.

The grandeur of the scenery, huge grey rocks, gigantic trees, and an awe-inspiring stillness which weighed upon one’s spirits, made me feel extremely small in my solitary hole. The only life moving amid these gloomy surroundings was a merry singing cloud of mosquitoes, circling round and round above my head. Had I not remembered the enormous bumps their whispering kisses used to raise on my poor face, I should have felt tempted to let some of them in under the muslin I had spread across the bushes overhead, in order to have something to occupy my attention and break the monotony, were it only these denizens of the insect world.

About three hundred yards lower down in the valley I had left the attendant who usually accompanied me on my shooting expeditions. His name was Napoleon—a name given to him by the men on account of his being a native of St Helena, and from the fact of his bearing a supposed likeness to his illustrious namesake. He held in leash two half-bred Scotch deer-hounds, that were to be slipped on the report of my gun. They were fine, strong-limbed animals, capable of pulling down almost any big game. Napoleon himself was a bold, willing fellow, on whom I knew I could place entire reliance. He was as widely awake to a stray Kaffir as to game. I have seen him more than once, when bush-buck had been brought to bay, go in in the pluckiest manner, and, to save the dogs, often risk his own life. Bush-buck, I may mention, have fearfully pointed, spiral-shaped horns, and have been known to make fatal use of them when driven to desperation.

Thus, far from all the world, I mutely sat, communing with the great voice of Nature around, and to the faint promptings of my small nature within. I felt and remained like a log, or rather, like the sober Irishman who entreated somebody to tread on the tail of his coat, if only for the sake of getting up a mild excitement.

I was roused from this stupor by some visitors to the pool, in the shape of two little land-tortoises, that came wabbling down, one after the other, as fast as their small groggy legs would carry them. On arriving at the water’s edge, they launched forth, like boats from a slip, and floated about, side by side, as lovingly as the twin ship the Calais-Douvres on the Channel. They were, no doubt, a newly-married couple. It might even have been their marriage trip, as they seemed as much over head and ears in love as in water. There they were, turtling about at leap-frog, heads up and tails down, in rocking-horse fashion; and now and then, as though ashamed of such mad pranks, they would dive underneath the surface, and shyly begin playing bo-peep with one another among the sedges of the pond. But alas! all things must come to an end, and I have heard it said that even husbands and wives get tired of one another, though Hymen forbid that I should give credence to such a report! And now, at this moment, a huge bat came lazily flapping its wings, like a sea-gull, over the water, and warned, I presume, the innocent creatures that night was approaching, and that it was time for respectable couples to seek the security of their own homes. So they left their luxurious water-couch, and wabbled off, as demurely as Darby and Joan going to evening chapel.

Meanwhile evening was putting up its revolving shutters, leaving me more and more benighted, and my thoughts were turned into another direction by catching at intervals the distant barking of the bush-buck, as they replied to one another, and who, like most swaggering challengers, kept each other at a respectful distance. A distant hum arose from the direction of the camp, as confused as the medley of races it contained—Russian, Swede, French, German, English, and Dutch—men from all climes, held strangely together by the mere force of my frail will. This thought, and other equally dim ones, occupied my mind, when the loud lapping of water close at hand caught my attentive ear, and brought me, with a startling throb, to the realities of my then actual undertaking. Straining my eyes in the direction from whence the sound came, I fancied, in the dusk, I could trace the outline of a beast of some sort on the brink of the pond. Slowly raising my gun in that direction, I was on the point of pulling the trigger, when the sound of lapping ceased.

Grave doubts now arose in my mind as to whether that at which I was levelling my gun was a living object or not, for in the gathering darkness, rocks, reeds, and bushes had assumed the most fantastic shapes. I became confused as to which of them I should direct my aim. At length I resolved to creep from my hiding-place, and for this purpose placed the small leather cushion on which I was seated on my head, and endeavoured to lift the prickly bush above. I was thus engaged when I received a fearful whop upon my head, which knocked me over, bushes and all, while some heavy brute passed over my prostrate form, landing me a prickly cropper upon my own porcupine shield. Off went the gun haphazard, and I scrambled to my feet as best I could. I was just recovering my senses, when up came the dogs, sniffing and scenting the air. They, however, appeared as bewildered as myself, and at last slunk away between my legs. Napoleon followed, blundering as fast as the darkness would permit him through the deep ravine; and on his inquiry as to what I had fired at, I told him to go to the devil and see! He lit a match and looked into the prickly bush from which I had been so ruthlessly turned out. We found, near the edge of the pool, the deeply indented footing where some heavy beast had landed on springing from the rocks overhead. There could be no doubt in our minds that they were made by the leopard I had been waiting for. On Napoleon expressing some doubts as to whether or not the same beast might not be now waiting for us, we left in a most hasty and undignified manner the scene of my late skirmish. The result of my first interview was not of an engaging nature; and I made up my mind that the next time I arranged for a meeting, it should be on terms which, at least, offered more elbow-room.

The great sportsman at the camp was a man called Watson. He had been a keeper in England. He was master of all sorts of dodges for trapping, shooting, and stuffing of game. He had observed, near an abandoned cattle-kraal at a neighbouring farm, a large pool of stagnant water, around which he had made out, amid the many marks of wild animals, the spoor of a leopard, which he pretended was the same brute that had given me such a boxing-lesson in the kloof. Dix, Watson, and Nap now set to work to sink a hole not far from the pond, around which they placed a circle of bushes. They made, however, such a dense turret, that it was impossible to obtain an entrance into it. I explained to them that the only way for me to gain admittance would be for one of them to be tied with a rope, and then, bodkin-fashion, to be pushed through the prickly bush to make an entrance. This plan, however, did not quite satisfy them.

The only other method of proceeding was to throw their leather jackets on the top of the turret, and to place myself thereon. This pin-cushion was not, however, stout enough, and let the thorns through; so, after several attempts, in which I got severely pricked somewhere for my pains, I gave the setting dodge up. It was finally decided that the turret was to be removed; that we were to station ourselves at various parts of the building, a couple of goats being attached in a prominent place to attract the leopard to the spot, and a volley from us all was to settle the question. In accordance with this suggestion, the next day the goats were brought, and pegged down, as we had previously determined. Dix had also brought some fowls, which he pretended, by their crowing, would greatly enhance the chance of attracting the leopard’s attention. We persisted in this plan for several days, but with so little promise of success, that I thought the odds were more in favour of attracting stray Kaffirs towards us, and being made game of ourselves. This not answering my sporting programme, I returned to the original plan of placing myself in the hole, which was sufficiently deep to conceal me; and there, without covering of any sort, to await the advent of any four-footed beast that would kindly come to the rendezvous.

On the night of the fourth day of kneeling attention I really saw a leopard slowly approaching the pond. I had an undeniable proof of his nature by the scampering away of several heads of antelope that had been near the pond, and by the loud quacking of a flock of wild-duck then swimming thereon. The brute walked leisurely round the pond until he came to within about twenty yards of the spot where I was lying concealed, when he suddenly disappeared as if by magic. In vain I strove to discover any signs of his whereabouts. I then partly got out of my hole, and there, kneeling on the edge, I could dimly see his flattened form. Now, what was to be done? He offered no fair mark for my rifle. I was afraid, in that uncertain light, to go nearer him; and he, on his side, decided on not coming nearer me. I passed what seemed to me a very long and trÈs mauvais quart d’heure in this anxious state; the night was closing in fast, the moon would not be up until very late, and I really knew not what to do. In this uncertainty I crept backwards towards the bushes, thrown on one side, that had been lately employed in the construction of the before-mentioned turret.

Once arrived there, the same habit of protecting myself, which no doubt I had acquired by imitation from French sportsmen in Algeria, led me to try and cover my rear as safely as possible. With this view I went to work most energetically, but found the task, from the nature of the obstacles I had to overcome, very disagreeable; for, as hard as I had pushed my way in, the prickly thorns seemed to combine as strongly to spur me out. This kicking against pricks once decided in my favour, by finding that I had succeeded, after all, in making room for concealment, my courage rose in the same proportion towards the foe to my front. I not only got so excited as to make all sorts of unearthly yells to challenge the brute to stand up, to come on, &c., but actually finished by throwing bits of stick and brushwood at him, in the hopes of bringing the sulky brute to the scratch. But he was not going to be made game of, so, in despair, I left off hallooing, and called out to Dix (who, I afterwards found out, was at that moment soundly snoozing with Napoleon at the farm) to come to the rescue. These heavy-headed sleepers were not even dreaming of my state of funk, and, of course, did not stir.

At length, thoroughly exhausted, I laid myself flat on the ground to get a lower-level view of the horizon, and there, with my gun pointed to the front, and a stout assegai at my side, I awaited what might happen.

How long I remained I never knew, but it must have been a long time, for I was getting intensely cold lying on the ground covered with a heavy dew,—when, more by sound than by sight, I felt the gradual creeping of something towards me. However unmoved I might have remained until now, the loud thumping of my heart against the ground at this juncture became intolerable; so, with a loud shout, I jumped up, and, with an ominous growl, the animal bounded into the bush a few yards on my right. I at once sent a shot in that direction, which caused a fearful uproar and scattering of bushes. Without stopping to consider, I at once sent another shot towards the same spot, and suddenly all was silent. This not being reassuring, and as I had now no positive sign to show where the brute was, I fell back, loading, towards the farm. Here I met the men coming towards me; and after hastily explaining to them the position of affairs, we proceeded, torches in hand, towards the spot, to make a fuller investigation of what had taken place.

Here we found a fine male leopard lying dead. The first bullet I fired had broken the spine, near his hind quarters; and the second shot, composed of slugs, had taken effect in the head, and proved a speedy quietus. I believe this to have been the only leopard in the district, as neither the men nor I ever saw the spoor of one afterwards.

My experience of wild-boar shooting was more profitable in the shape of hams and chine than as to actual enjoyment of what is called real sport. I could never get them to charge home; and although I have shot little porkers that have raised an awful amount of squealing, yet even the sow-mother, and the rest of the herd, would start off in the opposite direction. Once or twice it happened that they came towards me within about twenty yards, but then they would invariably be off to the right or the left. If, however, they showed so little pluck when facing the gun, they had plenty of it when opposed to dogs alone.

I have often seen them chasing mine (and they were a stout pack) for a long distance. Upon one occasion a “souzer” of pigs chased my dogs almost into the camp, and the men had to turn out to drive them off.

I never took any pleasure in shooting baboons or monkeys; and, except to defend myself on two different occasions, never fired a shot at them. On the first occasion, I had been gathering bulbs of those red-pennoned, lance-shaped flowers, which are much admired in some parts of South Africa. I had been so intent on my task that I had forgotten my dogs, that always accompanied me, now the war was virtually over, in my strolls through the country.

The dogs were a very scratched pack. They were in all about twenty, mostly of Kaffir origin, of various sizes, from a huge Danish mastiff, called Woden, to my little Sussex spaniel Dash. The ruling spirits were four Scotch deer-hounds, three of which I had purchased from Mr Andersen, my Norwegian friend at Cape Town. The other had been given to me by P——r of the Commissariat. Dhula, the biggest and bravest of Andersen’s Scotch leash, would not only pull down the largest bush-buck, but would also keep guard afterwards, and prevent my Kaffir dogs eating it. Many an antelope had he thus saved to grace our frugal board, and to afford a display of Dix’s culinary art. Poor Dhula! his life was embittered by his jealousy of Woden. The latter, although a heavy dog, ran well; and often, while chasing, when the chance offered, he would run at Dhula, and, striking him under the shoulder as he would a deer, bowl the astonished Scotch giant over and over, much to the latter’s disgust.

Woden evidently could never quite understand the humour of his Scotch congener. He generally gave in to Dhula, but often after several sharp bouts, in which he always carried off the worst of the biting in the heavy folds of his shaggy throat. My Kaffir greyhounds would run anything and eat anything they caught, from a startled quail to a porcupine. They were as crafty as they were cruel and fleet, and in the woods ran as much by scent as by sight. They were not, however, equal in speed to my English dogs. My plucky little friend Dash was (considering his small offensive powers) the bravest of the brave; for his winning way of bringing stones or anything else he could pick up to you, whenever he wanted a caress, or some little tit-bit to eat, had completely ground down his teeth to an unbrushable size. If it came to a regular go-in with some struggling beast brought to bay, Dash would lie down, and, twisting his knowing head about as the various ups and downs of the fight took place, looked like an old amateur boxer observing professional gluttons at work. Dash was buried on Blakeway’s kloof, which had so often echoed to his lively tongue. A blue-faced baboon, as I am now going to relate, was the malevolent spirit which loosened all his worldly ties between his much-attached master and his love for all sports—for Dash was as much alive to the pleasure of hunting rats at a farm-rick in Old England as in chasing jackals and hyenas round our camp at the Cape.

To resume my narrative, however. As above stated, in the ardour of digging bulbs, I had forgotten my dogs, when Napoleon called my attention to their baying far down in the recesses of the kloof. Hastily picking up my gun, lying close at hand, and he hurriedly cramming without mercy into a sack my green-grocery-looking bunches of roots, we started off in hot haste to the spot to which the dogs were calling our attention. On our way we met them coming back; they were, however, eagerly enough disposed to return, so that we knew by that sign the object of their late rencontre was not supposed by them to be very far off.

And so it was, for we soon found ourselves amidst a grinning lot of large, brown, Cape baboons. They were clinging up aloft to the graceful creepers that festoon so beautifully the trees in South African woods, and looking like so many hideous, hairy-bellied spiders on a beautiful lace-work of Nature’s weaving. I felt inclined to give some of them, who looked particularly out of place in that sylvan retreat, a peppering of shot; but their wonderful performances on the tight-ropes around them soon smoothed the wrinkles of my indignation. These acrobats performed extraordinary feats. They shot from branch to branch, from wave to wave, like flying-fish, or as pantless Zazel shoots from the cannon’s mouth to her swinging rope.

This performance created intense excitement, and the barking of the dogs seemed to applaud this aerial description of St Vitus’s Dance. It was really affecting to see the solicitude of the parents as their little progeny hopped from tree to tree after them, now holding out their arms to receive them as they landed, now thrusting back a creeper to bring it nearer within their reach. It was a real exhibition of baboon agility, of which we see but a faint parody in the Westminster Aquarium, by the Darwinian selections among the human bipeds.

An accident befalling a clumsy little fellow as he stumbled on the branch of an iron-wood tree, he came to the ground with a thud. In one minute the poor chap was torn to pieces by the dogs. This was more than his parents could stand; down they came to the ground, followed closely by the rest of the tribe, and a real battle ensued between them and the dogs.

The baboons got the best of the fight,—poor Woden was ridden off the field by two jabbering jockeys on his back, who laboured his sides most unmercifully with tooth and nail. Dhula was too nimble and clever with his teeth to be caught, nevertheless he had to submit from his many persecutors with the loss of several inches of his tail. Fly, a remarkably fine red Kaffir bitch, which I afterwards took home and gave to the Zoological Gardens, was ripped up and her sides laid bare. But the worst of all occurred to poor Dash: he was carried of by a huge baboon almost as big as a totty, and I arrived to his rescue too late. I saw that he was dead, and forthwith shot his destroyer upon him. Napoleon made good use of his assegai and my spade; and after a fight far more exciting than glorious, we remained masters of the field.

I am thoroughly convinced, had the baboons shown any unity of action, I should not have been relating this incident to-day.

These are about the only events in my sporting life at the Cape worthy of narration; many milder incidents occurred which I pass over, judging them insufficient to be of interest to the reader.

I know but little about snakes—they were of almost everyday acquaintance; but as neither my men nor I were ever bitten by one, I have nothing sensational to write about them. One short episode I may perhaps relate. In creeping over some rocks to have a shot at a stein-buck, I cautiously looked over a ledge of stone, and fancying there was a curious garlic smell about the place, I looked down, and there, lazily stretched out at full length, almost touching my throat, was a huge cobra di capello. I drew back much less hesitatingly than I had peeped, and, retiring a few feet, shot it as it was rearing its head in the act of preparing to strike. This little event gave the hitherto slight attention I had paid them a more repulsive form, and ever afterwards I destroyed all that came in my way. Up to that day I had handled them as I had seen others do—henceforth their touch became too loathsome. Kaffirs believe that after a puff-adder, whip-snake, or cobra has bitten, it must within a short space of time wash out its mouth with water (which these snakes invariably do, if it is at hand), else it would die from the poison that oozes afterwards from its fangs. They also think that white men, if bitten by snakes, invariably cause the death of the snake itself—for they say the white man’s blood is poisonous to all serpents.