Chapter V: The Head of the Ethiopian

At length the heralds and forerunners of the royal sun had done
their work, and, searching out the shadows, had caused them to
flee away. Then up he came in glory from his ocean-bed, and
flooded the earth with warmth and light. I sat there in the boat
listening to the gentle lapping of the water and watched him
rise, till presently the slight drift of the boat brought the
odd-shaped rock, or peak, at the end of the promontory which we
had weathered with so much peril, between me and the majestic
sight, and blotted it from my view. I still continued, however,
to stare at the rock, absently enough, till presently it became
edged with the fire of the growing light behind it, and then I
started, as well I might, for I perceived that the top of the
peak, which was about eighty feet high by one hundred and fifty
feet thick at its base, was shaped like a negro’s head and face,
whereon was stamped a most fiendish and terrifying expression.
There was no doubt about it; there were the thick lips, the fat
cheeks, and the squat nose standing out with startling clearness
against the flaming background. There, too, was the round skull,
washed into shape perhaps by thousands of years of wind and
weather, and, to complete the resemblance, there was a scrubby
growth of weeds or lichen upon it, which against the sun looked
for all the world like the wool on a colossal negro’s head. It
certainly was very odd; so odd that now I believe it is not a
mere freak of nature but a gigantic monument fashioned, like the
well-known Egyptian Sphinx, by a forgotten people out of a pile
of rock that lent itself to their design, perhaps as an emblem of
warning and defiance to any enemies who approached the harbour.
Unfortunately we were never able to ascertain whether or not this
was the case, inasmuch as the rock was difficult of access both
from the land and the waterside, and we had other things to
attend to. Myself, considering the matter by the light of what we
afterwards saw, I believe that it was fashioned by man, but
whether or not this is so, there it stands, and sullenly stares
from age to age out across the changing sea—there it stood two
thousand years and more ago, when Amenartas, the Egyptian
princess, and the wife of Leo’s remote ancestor Kallikrates,
gazed upon its devilish face—and there I have no doubt it will
still stand when as many centuries as are numbered between her
day and our own are added to the year that bore us to oblivion.

“What do you think of that, Job?” I asked of our retainer, who
was sitting on the edge of the boat, trying to get as much
sunshine as possible, and generally looking uncommonly wretched,
and I pointed to the fiery and demoniacal head.

“Oh Lord, sir,” answered Job, who now perceived the object for
the first time, “I think that the old gentleman must have been
sitting for his portrait on them rocks.”

I laughed, and the laugh woke up Leo.

“Hullo,” he said, “what’s the matter with me? I am all
stiff—where is the dhow? Give me some brandy, please.”

“You may be thankful that you are not stiffer, my boy,” I
answered. “The dhow is sunk, everybody on board her is drowned
with the exception of us four, and your own life was only saved
by a miracle”; and whilst Job, now that it was light enough,
searched about in a locker for the brandy for which Leo asked, I
told him the history of our night’s adventure.

“Great Heavens!” he said faintly; “and to think that we should
have been chosen to live through it!”

By this time the brandy was forthcoming, and we all had a good
pull at it, and thankful enough we were for it. Also the sun was
beginning to get strength, and warm our chilled bones, for we had
been wet through for five hours or more.

“Why,” said Leo, with a gasp as he put down the brandy bottle,
“there is the head the writing talks of, the ‘rock carven like
the head of an Ethiopian.’”

“Yes,” I said, “there it is.”

“Well, then,” he answered, “the whole thing is true.”

“I don’t see at all that that follows,” I answered. “We knew this
head was here: your father saw it. Very likely it is not the same
head that the writing talks of; or if it is, it proves nothing.”

Leo smiled at me in a superior way. “You are an unbelieving Jew,
Uncle Horace,” he said. “Those who live will see.”

“Exactly so,” I answered, “and now perhaps you will observe that
we are drifting across a sandbank into the mouth of the river.
Get hold of your oar, Job, and we will row in and see if we can
find a place to land.”

The river mouth which we were entering did not appear to be a very wide one, though as yet the long banks of steaming mist that clung about its shores had not lifted sufficiently to enable us to see its exact measure. There was, as is the case with nearly every East African river, a considerable bar at the mouth, which, no doubt, when the wind was on shore and the tide running out, was absolutely impassable even for a boat drawing only a few inches. But as things were it was manageable enough, and we did not ship a cupful of water. In twenty minutes we were well across it, with but slight assistance from ourselves, and being carried by a strong though somewhat variable breeze well up the harbour. By this time the mist was being sucked up by the sun, which was getting uncomfortably hot, and we saw that the mouth of the little estuary was here about half a mile across, and that the banks were very marshy, and crowded with crocodiles lying about on the mud like logs. About a mile ahead of us, however, was what appeared to be a strip of firm land, and for this we steered. In another quarter of an hour we were there, and making the boat fast to a beautiful tree with broad shining leaves, and flowers of the magnolia species, only they were rose-coloured and not white,[1] which hung over the water, we disembarked. This done we undressed, washed ourselves, and spread our clothes, together with the contents of the boat, in the sun to dry, which they very quickly did. Then, taking shelter from the sun under some trees, we made a hearty breakfast off a “Paysandu” potted tongue, of which we had brought a good quantity with us, congratulating ourselves loudly on our good fortune in having loaded and provisioned the boat on the previous day before the hurricane destroyed the dhow. By the time that we had finished our meal our clothes were quite dry, and we hastened to get into them, feeling not a little refreshed. Indeed, with the exception of weariness and a few bruises, none of us were the worse for the terrifying adventure which had been fatal to all our companions. Leo, it is true, had been half-drowned, but that is no great matter to a vigorous young athlete of five-and-twenty.

[1] There is a known species of magnolia with pink flowers. It is indigenous in Sikkim, and known as _Magnolia Campbellii_.—Editor.

After breakfast we started to look about us. We were on a strip
of dry land about two hundred yards broad by five hundred long,
bordered on one side by the river, and on the other three by
endless desolate swamps, that stretched as far as the eye could
reach. This strip of land was raised about twenty-five feet above
the plain of the surrounding swamps and the river level: indeed
it had every appearance of having been made by the hand of man.

“This place has been a wharf,” said Leo, dogmatically.

“Nonsense,” I answered. “Who would be stupid enough to build a
wharf in the middle of these dreadful marshes in a country
inhabited by savages—that is, if it is inhabited at all?”

“Perhaps it was not always marsh, and perhaps the people were not
always savage,” he said drily, looking down the steep bank, for
we were standing by the river. “Look there,” he went on, pointing
to a spot where the hurricane of the previous night had torn up
one of the magnolia trees by the roots, which had grown on the
extreme edge of the bank just where it sloped down to the water,
and lifted a large cake of earth with them. “Is not that
stonework? If not, it is very like it.”

“Nonsense,” I said again, but we clambered down to the spot, and
got between the upturned roots and the bank.

“Well?” he said.

But I did not answer this time. I only whistled. For there, laid
bare by the removal of the earth, was an undoubted facing of
solid stone laid in large blocks and bound together with brown
cement, so hard that I could make no impression on it with the
file in my shooting-knife. Nor was this all; seeing something
projecting through the soil at the bottom of the bared patch of
walling, I removed the loose earth with my hands, and revealed a
huge stone ring, a foot or more in diameter, and about three
inches thick. This fairly staggered me.

“Looks rather like a wharf where good-sized vessels have been
moored, does it not, Uncle Horace?” said Leo, with an excited
grin.

I tried to say “Nonsense” again, but the word stuck in my
throat—the ring spoke for itself. In some past age vessels _had_
been moored there, and this stone wall was undoubtedly the
remnant of a solidly constructed wharf. Probably the city to
which it had belonged lay buried beneath the swamp behind it.

“Begins to look as though there were something in the story after
all, Uncle Horace,” said the exultant Leo; and reflecting on the
mysterious negro’s head and the equally mysterious stonework, I
made no direct reply.

“A country like Africa,” I said, “is sure to be full of the relics of long dead and forgotten civilisations. Nobody knows the age of the Egyptian civilisation, and very likely it had offshoots. Then there were the Babylonians and the Phœnicians, and the Persians, and all manner of people, all more or less civilised, to say nothing of the Jews whom everybody ‘wants’ nowadays. It is possible that they, or any one of them, may have had colonies or trading stations about here. Remember those buried Persian cities that the consul showed us at Kilwa.”[2]

[2] Near Kilwa, on the East Coast of Africa, about 400 miles south of Zanzibar, is a cliff which has been recently washed by the waves. On the top of this cliff are Persian tombs known to be at least seven centuries old by the dates still legible upon them. Beneath these tombs is a layer of _débris_ representing a city. Farther down the cliff is a second layer representing an older city, and farther down still a third layer, the remains of yet another city of vast and unknown antiquity. Beneath the bottom city were recently found some specimens of glazed earthenware, such as are occasionally to be met with on that coast to this day. I believe that they are now in the possession of Sir John Kirk.—Editor.

“Quite so,” said Leo, “but that is not what you said before.”

“Well, what is to be done now?” I asked, turning the
conversation.

As no answer was forthcoming we walked to the edge of the swamp,
and looked over it. It was apparently boundless, and vast flocks
of every sort of waterfowl flew from its recesses, till it was
sometimes difficult to see the sky. Now that the sun was getting
high it drew thin sickly looking clouds of poisonous vapour from
the surface of the marsh and from the scummy pools of stagnant
water.

“Two things are clear to me,” I said, addressing my three
companions, who stared at this spectacle in dismay: “first, that
we can’t go across there” (I pointed to the swamp), “and,
secondly, that if we stop here we shall certainly die of fever.”

“That’s as clear as a haystack, sir,” said Job.

“Very well, then; there are two alternatives before us. One is to
‘bout ship, and try and run for some port in the whale-boat,
which would be a sufficiently risky proceeding, and the other to
sail or row on up the river, and see where we come to.”

“I don’t know what you are going to do,” said Leo, setting his
mouth, “but I am going up that river.”

Job turned up the whites of his eyes and groaned, and the Arab
murmured “Allah,” and groaned also. As for me, I remarked sweetly
that as we seemed to be between the devil and the deep sea, it
did not much matter where we went. But in reality I was as
anxious to proceed as Leo. The colossal negro’s head and the
stone wharf had excited my curiosity to an extent of which I was
secretly ashamed, and I was prepared to gratify it at any cost.
Accordingly, having carefully fitted the mast, restowed the boat,
and got out our rifles, we embarked. Fortunately the wind was
blowing on shore from the ocean, so we were able to hoist the
sail. Indeed, we afterwards found out that as a general rule the
wind set on shore from daybreak for some hours, and off shore
again at sunset, and the explanation that I offer of this is,
that when the earth is cooled by the dew and the night the hot
air rises, and the draught rushes in from the sea till the sun
has once more heated it through. At least that appeared to be the
rule here.

Taking advantage of this favouring wind, we sailed merrily up the
river for three or four hours. Once we came across a school of
hippopotami, which rose, and bellowed dreadfully at us within ten
or a dozen fathoms of the boat, much to Job’s alarm, and, I will
confess, to my own. These were the first hippopotami that we had
ever seen, and, to judge by their insatiable curiosity, I should
judge that we were the first white men that they had ever seen.
Upon my word, I once or twice thought that they were coming into
the boat to gratify it. Leo wanted to fire at them, but I
dissuaded him, fearing the consequences. Also, we saw hundreds of
crocodiles basking on the muddy banks, and thousands upon
thousands of water-fowl. Some of these we shot, and among them
was a wild goose, which, in addition to the sharp-curved spurs on
its wings, had a spur about three-quarters of an inch long
growing from the skull just between the eyes. We never shot
another like it, so I do not know if it was a “sport” or a
distinct species. In the latter case this incident may interest
naturalists. Job named it the Unicorn Goose.

About midday the sun grew intensely hot, and the stench drawn up
by it from the marshes which the river drains was something too
awful, and caused us instantly to swallow precautionary doses of
quinine. Shortly afterwards the breeze died away altogether, and
as rowing our heavy boat against stream in the heat was out of
the question, we were thankful enough to get under the shade of a
group of trees—a species of willow—that grew by the edge of the
river, and lie there and gasp till at length the approach of
sunset put a period to our miseries. Seeing what appeared to be
an open space of water straight ahead of us, we determined to row
there before settling what to do for the night. Just as we were
about to loosen the boat, however, a beautiful waterbuck, with
great horns curving forward, and a white stripe across the rump,
came down to the river to drink, without perceiving us hidden
away within fifty yards under the willows. Leo was the first to
catch sight of it, and, being an ardent sportsman, thirsting for
the blood of big game, about which he had been dreaming for
months, he instantly stiffened all over, and pointed like a
setter dog. Seeing what was the matter, I handed him his express
rifle, at the same time taking my own.

“Now then,” I whispered, “mind you don’t miss.”

“Miss!” he whispered back contemptuously; “I could not miss it if
I tried.”

He lifted the rifle, and the roan-coloured buck, having drunk his
fill, raised his head and looked out across the river. He was
standing right against the sunset sky on a little eminence, or
ridge of ground, which ran across the swamp, evidently a
favourite path for game, and there was something very beautiful
about him. Indeed, I do not think that if I live to a hundred I
shall ever forget that desolate and yet most fascinating scene;
it is stamped upon my memory. To the right and left were wide
stretches of lonely death-breeding swamp, unbroken and unrelieved
so far as the eye could reach, except here and there by ponds of
black and peaty water that, mirror-like, flashed up the red rays
of the setting sun. Behind us and before stretched the vista of
the sluggish river, ending in glimpses of a reed-fringed lagoon,
on the surface of which the long lights of the evening played as
the faint breeze stirred the shadows. To the west loomed the huge
red ball of the sinking sun, now vanishing down the vapoury
horizon, and filling the great heaven, high across whose arch the
cranes and wildfowl streamed in line, square, and triangle, with
flashes of flying gold and the lurid stain of blood. And then
ourselves—three modern Englishmen in a modern English
boat—seeming to jar upon and look out of tone with that
measureless desolation; and in front of us the noble buck limned
out upon a background of ruddy sky.

_Bang!_ Away he goes with a mighty bound. Leo has missed him.
_Bang!_ right under him again. Now for a shot. I must have one,
though he is going like an arrow, and a hundred yards away and
more. By Jove! over and over and over! “Well, I think I’ve wiped
your eye there, Master Leo,” I say, struggling against the
ungenerous exultation that in such a supreme moment of one’s
existence will rise in the best-mannered sportsman’s breast.

“Confound you, yes,” growled Leo; and then, with that quick smile
that is one of his charms lighting up his handsome face like a
ray of light, “I beg your pardon, old fellow. I congratulate you;
it was a lovely shot, and mine were vile.”

We got out of the boat and ran to the buck, which was shot
through the spine and stone dead. It took us a quarter of an hour
or more to clean it and cut off as much of the best meat as we
could carry, and, having packed this away, we had barely light
enough to row up into the lagoon-like space, into which, there
being a hollow in the swamp, the river here expanded. Just as the
light vanished we cast anchor about thirty fathoms from the edge
of the lake. We did not dare to go ashore, not knowing if we
should find dry ground to camp on, and greatly fearing the
poisonous exhalations from the marsh, from which we thought we
should be freer on the water. So we lighted a lantern, and made
our evening meal off another potted tongue in the best fashion
that we could, and then prepared to go to sleep, only, however,
to find that sleep was impossible. For, whether they were
attracted by the lantern, or by the unaccustomed smell of a white
man for which they had been waiting for the last thousand years
or so, I know not; but certainly we were presently attacked by
tens of thousands of the most blood-thirsty, pertinacious, and
huge mosquitoes that I ever saw or read of. In clouds they came,
and pinged and buzzed and bit till we were nearly mad. Tobacco
smoke only seemed to stir them into a merrier and more active
life, till at length we were driven to covering ourselves with
blankets, head and all, and sitting to slowly stew and
continually scratch and swear beneath them. And as we sat,
suddenly rolling out like thunder through the silence came the
deep roar of a lion, and then of a second lion, moving among the
reeds within sixty yards of us.

“I say,” said Leo, sticking his head out from under his blanket,
“lucky we ain’t on the bank, eh, Avuncular?” (Leo sometimes
addressed me in this disrespectful way.) “Curse it! a mosquito
has bitten me on the nose,” and the head vanished again.

Shortly after this the moon came up, and notwithstanding every
variety of roar that echoed over the water to us from the lions
on the banks, we began, thinking ourselves perfectly secure, to
gradually doze off.

I do not quite know what it was that made me poke my head out of
the friendly shelter of the blanket, perhaps because I found that
the mosquitoes were biting right through it. Anyhow, as I did so
I heard Job whisper, in a frightened voice—

“Oh, my stars, look there!”

Instantly we all of us looked, and this was what we saw in the
moonlight. Near the shore were two wide and ever-widening circles
of concentric rings rippling away across the surface of the
water, and in the heart and centre of the circles were two dark
moving objects.

“What is it?” asked I.

“It is those damned lions, sir,” answered Job, in a tone which
was an odd mixture of a sense of personal injury, habitual
respect, and acknowledged fear, “and they are swimming here to
_heat_ us,” he added, nervously picking up an “h” in his
agitation.

I looked again: there was no doubt about it; I could catch the
glare of their ferocious eyes. Attracted either by the smell of
the newly killed waterbuck meat or of ourselves, the hungry
beasts were actually storming our position.

Leo already had his rifle in his hand. I called to him to wait
till they were nearer, and meanwhile grabbed my own. Some fifteen
feet from us the water shallowed on a bank to the depth of about
fifteen inches, and presently the first of them—it was the
lioness—got on to it, shook herself, and roared. At that moment
Leo fired, the bullet went right down her open mouth and out at
the back of her neck, and down she dropped, with a splash, dead.
The other lion—a full-grown male—was some two paces behind her.
At this second he got his forepaws on to the bank, when a strange
thing happened. There was a rush and disturbance of the water,
such as one sees in a pond in England when a pike takes a little
fish, only a thousand times fiercer and larger, and suddenly the
lion gave a most terrific snarling roar and sprang forward on to
the bank, dragging something black with him.

“Allah!” shouted Mahomed, “a crocodile has got him by the leg!”
and sure enough he had. We could see the long snout with its
gleaming lines of teeth and the reptile body behind it.

And then followed an extraordinary scene indeed. The lion managed
to get well on to the bank, the crocodile half standing and half
swimming, still nipping his hind leg. He roared till the air
quivered with the sound, and then, with a savage, shrieking
snarl, turned round and clawed hold of the crocodile’s head. The
crocodile shifted his grip, having, as we afterwards discovered,
had one of his eyes torn out, and slightly turned over; instantly
the lion got him by the throat and held on, and then over and
over they rolled upon the bank struggling hideously. It was
impossible to follow their movements, but when next we got a
clear view the tables had turned, for the crocodile, whose head
seemed to be a mass of gore, had got the lion’s body in his iron
jaws just above the hips, and was squeezing him and shaking him
to and fro. For his part, the tortured brute, roaring in agony,
was clawing and biting madly at his enemy’s scaly head, and
fixing his great hind claws in the crocodile’s, comparatively
speaking, soft throat, ripping it open as one would rip a glove.

Then, all of a sudden, the end came. The lion’s head fell forward
on the crocodile’s back, and with an awful groan he died, and the
crocodile, after standing for a minute motionless, slowly rolled
over on to his side, his jaws still fixed across the carcase of
the lion, which, we afterwards found, he had bitten almost in
halves.

This duel to the death was a wonderful and a shocking sight, and
one that I suppose few men have seen—and thus it ended.

When it was all over, leaving Mahomed to keep a look out, we
managed to spend the rest of the night as quietly as the
mosquitoes would allow.