CHAPTER I.

THE CONSUL’S YARN

A week had passed since the funeral of my poor boy Harry, and one

evening I was in my room walking up and down and thinking, when there

was a ring at the outer door. Going down the steps I opened it myself,

and in came my old friends Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good, RN.

They entered the vestibule and sat themselves down before the wide

hearth, where, I remember, a particularly good fire of logs was

burning.

“It is very kind of you to come round,” I said by way of making a

remark; “it must have been heavy walking in the snow.”

They said nothing, but Sir Henry slowly filled his pipe and lit it with

a burning ember. As he leant forward to do so the fire got hold of a

gassy bit of pine and flared up brightly, throwing the whole scene into

strong relief, and I thought, What a splendid-looking man he is! Calm,

powerful face, clear-cut features, large grey eyes, yellow beard and

hair—altogether a magnificent specimen of the higher type of humanity.

Nor did his form belie his face. I have never seen wider shoulders or a

deeper chest. Indeed, Sir Henry’s girth is so great that, though he is

six feet two high, he does not strike one as a tall man. As I looked at

him I could not help thinking what a curious contrast my little

dried-up self presented to his grand face and form. Imagine to yourself

a small, withered, yellow-faced man of sixty-three, with thin hands,

large brown eyes, a head of grizzled hair cut short and standing up

like a half-worn scrubbing-brush—total weight in my clothes, nine stone

six—and you will get a very fair idea of Allan Quatermain, commonly

called Hunter Quatermain, or by the natives “Macumazahn”—Anglicè, he

who keeps a bright look-out at night, or, in vulgar English, a sharp

fellow who is not to be taken in.

Then there was Good, who is not like either of us, being short, dark,

stout—_very_ stout—with twinkling black eyes, in one of which an

eyeglass is everlastingly fixed. I say stout, but it is a mild term; I

regret to state that of late years Good has been running to fat in a

most disgraceful way. Sir Henry tells him that it comes from idleness

and over-feeding, and Good does not like it at all, though he cannot

deny it.

We sat for a while, and then I got a match and lit the lamp that stood

ready on the table, for the half-light began to grow dreary, as it is

apt to do when one has a short week ago buried the hope of one’s life.

Next, I opened a cupboard in the wainscoting and got a bottle of whisky

and some tumblers and water. I always like to do these things for

myself: it is irritating to me to have somebody continually at my

elbow, as though I were an eighteen-month-old baby. All this while

Curtis and Good had been silent, feeling, I suppose, that they had

nothing to say that could do me any good, and content to give me the

comfort of their presence and unspoken sympathy; for it was only their

second visit since the funeral. And it is, by the way, from the

_presence_ of others that we really derive support in our dark hours of

grief, and not from their talk, which often only serves to irritate us.

Before a bad storm the game always herd together, but they cease their

calling.

They sat and smoked and drank whisky and water, and I stood by the fire

also smoking and looking at them.

At last I spoke. “Old friends,” I said, “how long is it since we got

back from Kukuanaland?”

“Three years,” said Good. “Why do you ask?”

“I ask because I think that I have had a long enough spell of

civilization. I am going back to the veldt.”

Sir Henry laid his head back in his arm-chair and laughed one of his

deep laughs. “How very odd,” he said, “eh, Good?”

Good beamed at me mysteriously through his eyeglass and murmured, “Yes,

odd—very odd.”

“I don’t quite understand,” said I, looking from one to the other, for

I dislike mysteries.

“Don’t you, old fellow?” said Sir Henry; “then I will explain. As Good

and I were walking up here we had a talk.”

“If Good was there you probably did,” I put in sarcastically, for Good

is a great hand at talking. “And what may it have been about?”

“What do you think?” asked Sir Henry.

I shook my head. It was not likely that I should know what Good might

be talking about. He talks about so many things.

“Well, it was about a little plan that I have formed—namely, that if

you were willing we should pack up our traps and go off to Africa on

another expedition.”

I fairly jumped at his words. “You don’t say so!” I said.

“Yes I do, though, and so does Good; don’t you, Good?”

“Rather,” said that gentleman.

“Listen, old fellow,” went on Sir Henry, with considerable animation of

manner. “I’m tired of it too, dead-tired of doing nothing more except

play the squire in a country that is sick of squires. For a year or

more I have been getting as restless as an old elephant who scents

danger. I am always dreaming of Kukuanaland and Gagool and King

Solomon’s Mines. I can assure you I have become the victim of an almost

unaccountable craving. I am sick of shooting pheasants and partridges,

and want to have a go at some large game again. There, you know the

feeling—when one has once tasted brandy and water, milk becomes insipid

to the palate. That year we spent together up in Kukuanaland seems to

me worth all the other years of my life put together. I dare say that I

am a fool for my pains, but I can’t help it; I long to go, and, what is

more, I mean to go.” He paused, and then went on again. “And, after

all, why should I not go? I have no wife or parent, no chick or child

to keep me. If anything happens to me the baronetcy will go to my

brother George and his boy, as it would ultimately do in any case. I am

of no importance to any one.”

“Ah!” I said, “I thought you would come to that sooner or later. And

now, Good, what is your reason for wanting to trek; have you got one?”

“I have,” said Good, solemnly. “I never do anything without a reason;

and it isn’t a lady—at least, if it is, it’s several.”

I looked at him again. Good is so overpoweringly frivolous. “What is

it?” I said.

“Well, if you really want to know, though I’d rather not speak of a

delicate and strictly personal matter, I’ll tell you: I’m getting too

fat.”

“Shut up, Good!” said Sir Henry. “And now, Quatermain, tell us, where

do you propose going to?”

I lit my pipe, which had gone out, before answering.

“Have you people ever heard of Mt Kenia?” I asked.

“Don’t know the place,” said Good.

“Did you ever hear of the Island of Lamu?” I asked again.

“No. Stop, though—isn’t it a place about 300 miles north of Zanzibar?”

“Yes. Now listen. What I have to propose is this. That we go to Lamu

and thence make our way about 250 miles inland to Mt Kenia; from Mt

Kenia on inland to Mt Lekakisera, another 200 miles, or thereabouts,

beyond which no white man has to the best of my belief ever been; and

then, if we get so far, right on into the unknown interior. What do you

say to that, my hearties?”

“It’s a big order,” said Sir Henry, reflectively.

“You are right,” I answered, “it is; but I take it that we are all

three of us in search of a big order. We want a change of scene, and we

are likely to get one—a thorough change. All my life I have longed to

visit those parts, and I mean to do it before I die. My poor boy’s

death has broken the last link between me and civilization, and I’m off

to my native wilds. And now I’ll tell you another thing, and that is,

that for years and years I have heard rumours of a great white race

which is supposed to have its home somewhere up in this direction, and

I have a mind to see if there is any truth in them. If you fellows like

to come, well and good; if not, I’ll go alone.”

“I’m your man, though I don’t believe in your white race,” said Sir

Henry Curtis, rising and placing his arm upon my shoulder.

“Ditto,” remarked Good. “I’ll go into training at once. By all means

let’s go to Mt Kenia and the other place with an unpronounceable name,

and look for a white race that does not exist. It’s all one to me.”

“When do you propose to start?” asked Sir Henry.

“This day month,” I answered, “by the British India steamboat; and

don’t you be so certain that things have no existence because you do

not happen to have heard of them. Remember King Solomon’s mines!”

Some fourteen weeks or so had passed since the date of this

conversation, and this history goes on its way in very different

surroundings.

After much deliberation and inquiry we came to the conclusion that our

best starting-point for Mt Kenia would be from the neighbourhood of the

mouth of the Tana River, and not from Mombassa, a place over 100 miles

nearer Zanzibar. This conclusion we arrived at from information given

to us by a German trader whom we met upon the steamer at Aden. I think

that he was the dirtiest German I ever knew; but he was a good fellow,

and gave us a great deal of valuable information. “Lamu,” said he, “you

goes to Lamu—oh ze beautiful place!” and he turned up his fat face and

beamed with mild rapture. “One year and a half I live there and never

change my shirt—never at all.”

And so it came to pass that on arriving at the island we disembarked

with all our goods and chattels, and, not knowing where to go, marched

boldly up to the house of Her Majesty’s Consul, where we were most

hospitably received.

Lamu is a very curious place, but the things which stand out most

clearly in my memory in connection with it are its exceeding dirtiness

and its smells. These last are simply awful. Just below the Consulate

is the beach, or rather a mud bank that is called a beach. It is left

quite bare at low tide, and serves as a repository for all the filth,

offal, and refuse of the town. Here it is, too, that the women come to

bury coconuts in the mud, leaving them there till the outer husk is

quite rotten, when they dig them up again and use the fibres to make

mats with, and for various other purposes. As this process has been

going on for generations, the condition of the shore can be better

imagined than described. I have smelt many evil odours in the course of

my life, but the concentrated essence of stench which arose from that

beach at Lamu as we sat in the moonlit night—not under, but _on_ our

friend the Consul’s hospitable roof—and sniffed it, makes the

remembrance of them very poor and faint. No wonder people get fever at

Lamu. And yet the place was not without a certain quaintness and charm

of its own, though possibly—indeed probably—it was one which would

quickly pall.

“Well, where are you gentlemen steering for?” asked our friend the

hospitable Consul, as we smoked our pipes after dinner.

“We propose to go to Mt Kenia and then on to Mt Lekakisera,” answered

Sir Henry. “Quatermain has got hold of some yarn about there being a

white race up in the unknown territories beyond.”

The Consul looked interested, and answered that he had heard something

of that, too.

“What have you heard?” I asked.

“Oh, not much. All I know about it is that a year or so ago I got a

letter from Mackenzie, the Scotch missionary, whose station, ‘The

Highlands’, is placed at the highest navigable point of the Tana River,

in which he said something about it.”

“Have you the letter?” I asked.

“No, I destroyed it; but I remember that he said that a man had arrived

at his station who declared that two months’ journey beyond Mt

Lekakisera, which no white man has yet visited—at least, so far as I

know—he found a lake called Laga, and that then he went off to the

north-east, a month’s journey, over desert and thorn veldt and great

mountains, till he came to a country where the people are white and

live in stone houses. Here he was hospitably entertained for a while,

till at last the priests of the country set it about that he was a

devil, and the people drove him away, and he journeyed for eight months

and reached Mackenzie’s place, as I heard, dying. That’s all I know;

and if you ask me, I believe that it is a lie; but if you want to find

out more about it, you had better go up the Tana to Mackenzie’s place

and ask him for information.”

Sir Henry and I looked at each other. Here was something tangible.

“I think that we will go to Mr Mackenzie’s,” I said.

“Well,” answered the Consul, “that is your best way, but I warn you

that you are likely to have a rough journey, for I hear that the Masai

are about, and, as you know, they are not pleasant customers. Your best

plan will be to choose a few picked men for personal servants and

hunters, and to hire bearers from village to village. It will give you

an infinity of trouble, but perhaps on the whole it will prove a

cheaper and more advantageous course than engaging a caravan, and you

will be less liable to desertion.”

Fortunately there were at Lamu at this time a party of Wakwafi Askari

(soldiers). The Wakwafi, who are a cross between the Masai and the

Wataveta, are a fine manly race, possessing many of the good qualities

of the Zulu, and a great capacity for civilization. They are also great

hunters. As it happened, these particular men had recently been on a

long trip with an Englishman named Jutson, who had started from

Mombasa, a port about 150 miles below Lamu, and journeyed right round

Kilimanjaro, one of the highest known mountains in Africa. Poor fellow,

he had died of fever when on his return journey, and within a day’s

march of Mombasa. It does seem hard that he should have gone off thus

when within a few hours of safety, and after having survived so many

perils, but so it was. His hunters buried him, and then came on to Lamu

in a dhow. Our friend the Consul suggested to us that we had better try

and hire these men, and accordingly on the following morning we started

to interview the party, accompanied by an interpreter.

In due course we found them in a mud hut on the outskirts of the town.

Three of the men were sitting outside the hut, and fine frank-looking

fellows they were, having a more or less civilized appearance. To them

we cautiously opened the object of our visit, at first with very scant

success. They declared that they could not entertain any such idea,

that they were worn and weary with long travelling, and that their

hearts were sore at the loss of their master. They meant to go back to

their homes and rest awhile. This did not sound very promising, so by

way of effecting a diversion I asked where the remainder of them were.

I was told there were six, and I saw but three. One of the men said

they slept in the hut, and were yet resting after their labours—“sleep

weighed down their eyelids, and sorrow made their hearts as lead: it

was best to sleep, for with sleep came forgetfulness. But the men

should be awakened.”

Presently they came out of the hut, yawning—the first two men being

evidently of the same race and style as those already before us; but

the appearance of the third and last nearly made me jump out of my

skin. He was a very tall, broad man, quite six foot three, I should

say, but gaunt, with lean, wiry-looking limbs. My first glance at him

told me that he was no Wakwafi: he was a pure bred Zulu. He came out

with his thin aristocratic-looking hand placed before his face to hide

a yawn, so I could only see that he was a “Keshla” or ringed man,[1]

and that he had a great three-cornered hole in his forehead. In another

second he removed his hand, revealing a powerful-looking Zulu face,

with a humorous mouth, a short woolly beard, tinged with grey, and a

pair of brown eyes keen as a hawk’s. I knew my man at once, although I

had not seen him for twelve years. “How do you do, Umslopogaas?” I said

quietly in Zulu.

[1] Among the Zulus a man assumes the ring, which is made of a species

of black gum twisted in with the hair, and polished a brilliant black,

when he has reached a certain dignity and age, or is the husband of a

sufficient number of wives. Till he is in a position to wear a ring he

is looked on as a boy, though he may be thirty-five years of age, or

even more.—A. Q.

The tall man (who among his own people was commonly known as the

“Woodpecker”, and also as the “Slaughterer”) started, and almost let

the long-handled battleaxe he held in his hand fall in his

astonishment. Next second he had recognized me, and was saluting me in

an outburst of sonorous language which made his companions the Wakwafi

stare.

“Koos” (chief), he began, “Koos-y-Pagete! Koos-y-umcool! (Chief from of

old—mighty chief) Koos! Baba! (father) Macumazahn, old hunter, slayer

of elephants, eater up of lions, clever one! watchful one! brave one!

quick one! whose shot never misses, who strikes straight home, who

grasps a hand and holds it to the death (i.e. is a true friend) Koos!

Baba! Wise is the voice of our people that says, ‘Mountain never meets

with mountain, but at daybreak or at even man shall meet again with

man.’ Behold! a messenger came up from Natal, ‘Macumazahn is dead!’

cried he. ‘The land knows Macumazahn no more.’ That is years ago. And

now, behold, now in this strange place of stinks I find Macumazahn, my

friend. There is no room for doubt. The brush of the old jackal has

gone a little grey; but is not his eye as keen, and are not his teeth

as sharp? Ha! ha! Macumazahn, mindest thou how thou didst plant the

ball in the eye of the charging buffalo—mindest thou—”

I had let him run on thus because I saw that his enthusiasm was

producing a marked effect upon the minds of the five Wakwafi, who

appeared to understand something of his talk; but now I thought it time

to put a stop to it, for there is nothing that I hate so much as this

Zulu system of extravagant praising—“bongering” as they call it.

“Silence!” I said. “Has all thy noisy talk been stopped up since last I

saw thee that it breaks out thus, and sweeps us away? What doest thou

here with these men—thou whom I left a chief in Zululand? How is it

that thou art far from thine own place, and gathered together with

strangers?”

Umslopogaas leant himself upon the head of his long battleaxe (which

was nothing else but a pole-axe, with a beautiful handle of rhinoceros

horn), and his grim face grew sad.

“My Father,” he answered, “I have a word to tell thee, but I cannot

speak it before these low people (umfagozana),” and he glanced at the

Wakwafi Askari; “it is for thine own ear. My Father, this will I say,”

and here his face grew stern again, “a woman betrayed me to the death,

and covered my name with shame—ay, my own wife, a round-faced girl,

betrayed me; but I escaped from death; ay, I broke from the very hands

of those who came to slay me. I struck but three blows with this mine

axe Inkosikaas—surely my Father will remember it—one to the right, one

to the left, and one in front, and yet I left three men dead. And then

I fled, and, as my Father knows, even now that I am old my feet are as

the feet of the Sassaby,[2] and there breathes not the man who, by

running, can touch me again when once I have bounded from his side. On

I sped, and after me came the messengers of death, and their voice was

as the voice of dogs that hunt. From my own kraal I flew, and, as I

passed, she who had betrayed me was drawing water from the spring. I

fleeted by her like the shadow of Death, and as I went I smote with

mine axe, and lo! her head fell: it fell into the water pan. Then I

fled north. Day after day I journeyed on; for three moons I journeyed,

resting not, stopping not, but running on towards forgetfulness, till I

met the party of the white hunter who is now dead, and am come hither

with his servants. And nought have I brought with me. I who was

high-born, ay, of the blood of Chaka, the great king—a chief, and a

captain of the regiment of the Nkomabakosi—am a wanderer in strange

places, a man without a kraal. Nought have I brought save this mine

axe; of all my belongings this remains alone. They have divided my

cattle; they have taken my wives; and my children know my face no more.

Yet with this axe”—and he swung the formidable weapon round his head,

making the air hiss as he clove it—“will I cut another path to fortune.

I have spoken.”

[2] One of the fleetest of the African antelopes.—A. Q.

I shook my head at him. “Umslopogaas,” I said, “I know thee from of

old. Ever ambitious, ever plotting to be great, I fear me that thou

hast overreached thyself at last. Years ago, when thou wouldst have

plotted against Cetywayo, son of Panda, I warned thee, and thou didst

listen. But now, when I was not by thee to stay thy hand, thou hast dug

a pit for thine own feet to fall in. Is it not so? But what is done is

done. Who can make the dead tree green, or gaze again upon last year’s

light? Who can recall the spoken word, or bring back the spirit of the

fallen? That which Time swallows comes not up again. Let it be

forgotten!

“And now, behold, Umslopogaas, I know thee for a great warrior and a

brave man, faithful to the death. Even in Zululand, where all the men

are brave, they called thee the ‘Slaughterer’, and at night told

stories round the fire of thy strength and deeds. Hear me now. Thou

seest this great man, my friend”—and I pointed to Sir Henry; “he also

is a warrior as great as thou, and, strong as thou art, he could throw

thee over his shoulder. Incubu is his name. And thou seest this one

also; him with the round stomach, the shining eye, and the pleasant

face. Bougwan (glass eye) is his name, and a good man is he and a true,

being of a curious tribe who pass their life upon the water, and live

in floating kraals.

“Now, we three whom thou seest would travel inland, past Dongo Egere,

the great white mountain (Mt Kenia), and far into the unknown beyond.

We know not what we shall find there; we go to hunt and seek

adventures, and new places, being tired of sitting still, with the same

old things around us. Wilt thou come with us? To thee shall be given

command of all our servants; but what shall befall thee, that I know

not. Once before we three journeyed thus, in search of adventure, and

we took with us a man such as thou—one Umbopa; and, behold, we left him

the king of a great country, with twenty Impis (regiments), each of

3,000 plumed warriors, waiting on his word. How it shall go with thee,

I know not; mayhap death awaits thee and us. Wilt thou throw thyself to

Fortune and come, or fearest thou, Umslopogaas?”

The great man smiled. “Thou art not altogether right, Macumazahn,” he

said; “I have plotted in my time, but it was not ambition that led me

to my fall; but, shame on me that I should have to say it, a fair

woman’s face. Let it pass. So we are going to see something like the

old times again, Macumazahn, when we fought and hunted in Zululand? Ay,

I will come. Come life, come death, what care I, so that the blows fall

fast and the blood runs red? I grow old, I grow old, and I have not

fought enough! And yet am I a warrior among warriors; see my scars”—and

he pointed to countless cicatrices, stabs and cuts, that marked the

skin of his chest and legs and arms. “See the hole in my head; the

brains gushed out therefrom, yet did I slay him who smote, and live.

Knowest thou how many men I have slain, in fair hand-to-hand combat,

Macumazahn? See, here is the tale of them”—and he pointed to long rows

of notches cut in the rhinoceros-horn handle of his axe. “Number them,

Macumazahn—one hundred and three—and I have never counted but those

whom I have ripped open,[3] nor have I reckoned those whom another man

had struck.”

[3] Alluding to the Zulu custom of opening the stomach of a dead foe.

They have a superstition that, if this is not done, as the body of

their enemy swells up so will the bodies of those who killed him swell

up.—A. Q.

“Be silent,” I said, for I saw that he was getting the blood-fever on

him; “be silent; well art thou called the ‘Slaughterer’. We would not

hear of thy deeds of blood. Remember, if thou comest with us, we fight

not save in self-defence. Listen, we need servants. These men,” and I

pointed to the Wakwafi, who had retired a little way during our

“indaba” (talk), “say they will not come.”

“Will not come!” shouted Umslopogaas; “where is the dog who says he

will not come when my Father orders? Here, thou”—and with a single

bound he sprang upon the Wakwafi with whom I had first spoken, and,

seizing him by the arm, dragged him towards us. “Thou dog!” he said,

giving the terrified man a shake, “didst thou say that thou wouldst not

go with my Father? Say it once more and I will choke thee”—and his long

fingers closed round his throat as he said it—“thee, and those with

thee. Hast thou forgotten how I served thy brother?”

“Nay, we will come with the white man,” gasped the man.

“White man!” went on Umslopogaas, in simulated fury, which a very

little provocation would have made real enough; “of whom speakest thou,

insolent dog?”

“Nay, we will go with the great chief.”

“So!” said Umslopogaas, in a quiet voice, as he suddenly released his

hold, so that the man fell backward. “I thought you would.”

“That man Umslopogaas seems to have a curious moral ascendency over his

companions,” Good afterwards remarked thoughtfully.