African Camp Fires eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 275 pages of information about African Camp Fires.

African Camp Fires eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 275 pages of information about African Camp Fires.

Along these apparent boundaries of forest trees our stream divided, and divided again, so that we were actually looking upon what we had come to seek—­the source of the Swanee branch of the Tsavo River.  In these peaceful, protected meadows was it cradled.  From them it sprang full size out into the African wilderness.

A fine impalla buck grazed in one of these fields.  I crept as near him as I could behind one of the wind-break rows of trees.  It was not very near, and for the second time I missed.  Thereupon we decided two things:  that we were not really meat hungry, and that yesterday’s hard work was not conducive to to-day’s good shooting.

Having thus accomplished the second object of our expedition, we returned to camp.  From that time begins a regular sequence of events on which I look back with the keenest of pleasure.  The two constant factors were the river and the great dry country on either side.  Day after day we followed down the one, and we made brief excursions out into the other.  Each night we camped near the sound of the swift running water, where the winds rustled in the palms, the acacias made lacework across the skies, and the jungle crouched in velvet blackness close to earth like a beast.

Our life in its routine was regular; in its details bizarre and full of the unexpected.  Every morning we arose an hour before day, and ate by lantern light and the gleam of fires.  At the first gray we were afoot and on the march.  F. and I, with our gunbearers, then pushed ahead down the river, leaving the men to come along as fast or as slowly as they pleased.  After about six hours or so of marching, we picked out a good camp site, and lay down to await the safari.  By two o’clock in the afternoon camp was made.  Also it was very hot.  After a light lunch we stripped to the skin, lay on our cots underneath the mosquito canopies, and tried to doze or read.  The heat at this time of day was blighting.  About four o’clock, if we happened to be inspired by energy, one or the other of us strolled out at right angles to the stream to see what we could see.  The evening was tepid and beautiful.  Bathed and pyjama-clad we lolled in our canvas chairs, smoking, chatting or listening to the innumerable voices of the night.

Such was the simple and almost invariable routine of our days.  But enriching it, varying it, disguising it even—­as rain-squalls, sunshine cloud shadow, and unexpected winds modify the landscape so well known from a study window—­were the incredible incidents and petty adventures of African travel.

The topography of the river itself might be divided very roughly into three:  the headwater country down to its junction with the Tsavo the palm-elephant-grass stretch, and the gorge and hill district just before it crosses the rail road.

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Project Gutenberg
African Camp Fires from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.