they had yet met with in the valley of the Zambezi.
They rose from the ground to sit thickly upon their legs, and clustered on the backs of their necks and between their shoulder blades, so that he and Jan Cheroot took turns to walk behind each other and brush them off with a freshly cut buffalo tail.
As suddenly as they had entered it, they found themselves out of the fly-belt' and with blessed relief from the torment they settled down to rest in the shade.
Within half an hour they heard distant singing, and as they waited for the caravan to come up, they smoked and chatted in the desultory fashion of the good companions they had become.
During one of the long pauses in their talk Zouga thought he saw vague movement on the far side of the shallow valley in front of them. Probably a herd of kudu or a troop of baboon, both of which were plentiful in the valley, but apart from the buffalo herd the only game they had encountered since leaving Tete.
The approaching caravan would have alarmed whatever it was, Zouga thought, removing his cap and using it to drive away the persistent cloud of tiny black mopani bees which hovered around his head ' attracted by the moisture of his eyes and lips and nostrils. The movement in the forest opposite was not repeated. Whatever it was had probably crossed the ridge. Zouga turned back to listen to Jan Cheroot. The rains only stopped six weeks ago, Jan Cheroot was musing aloud. 'The water-holes and rivers up on the high ground will still be full, not here, of course, this ground drains too steeply. ' He indicated the dry and rocky water course below them. 'So the herds spread out, and follow their old roads. ' He was explaining the complete lack of elephant, or even recent evidence of elephant herds in the valley, and Zouga listened with attention, for here was an expert speaking. 'The old elephant roads, they used to run from the flat mountain of Good Hope to the swamps of the far Sud, he pointed north. But each year they shrink as we, the rasters (hunters), and men like us, follow the herds and drive them deeper and deeper into the interior.'
Jan Cheroot was silent again, and his pipe gurgled noisily as he sucked on it. My father told me that he killed the last elephants south of the Olifants river, the river of elephants when he was still a young man. He boasted that he killed twelve elephants that day, he alone with his old roer (muzzle-loader) that was too heavy to hold to the shoulder. He had to rest it on the crutch of a forked stick he carried for it. Twelve elephants in one day, by one man. That is a feat. ' He gurgled his pipe again, and then spat a little yellow tobacco juice. 'But then my father was even more famous as a liar than he was as a hunter, Jan Cheroot chuckled and shook his head fondly.
Zouga smiled, and then the smile vanished and his head jerked up. He narrowed his eyes, for a tiny dart of reflected sunlight had struck his eye coming from the same place across the valley. Whatever he had seen was still there, and it was neither kudu nor baboon. It had to be a man, for only metal or glass could have shot that reflection. Jan Cheroot had noticed nothing and he was musing on. When I rode with Cornwallis Harris, we found the first elephant on the Cashan mountains, that's a thousand miles further north of where my father killed his herd. There was nothing in between, it had all been hunted bare. Now there are no elephant in the Cashan mountains. My brother Stephan was there two years ago.
He tells me that there are no elephant south of the Limpopo river. The Boers graze their herds where we hunted ivory, perhaps we will find no elephant even up there on the high ground, perhaps there are no elephant left in all the world.'
Zouga was not really listening any more. He was thinking about the man on the opposite side of the valley. It was probably somebody from the caravan, a party sent ahead to cut firewood for the night's bivouac, yet it was still early to think of making camp.
The singing of the bearers was louder now. There was a single voice carrying the marching song. Zouga recognized it. The man was a tall Angoni, with a fine tenor voice, and a poet who improvised his own verses, adding to them and altering them on the march. Zouga, cocking his head, could make out the words.
Have you heard the Fish Eagle cry above Malawi?
Have you seen the setting sun turn the snows of Kilimanjaro to blood?
' And then the chorus coming in after him, those haunting African voices, so beautiful, so moving, Who will lead us to these wonders, my brother?
We will leave the women to weep, We will let their sleeping mats grow cold, If a strong man leads, we will follow him, my brother.'
Zouga smiled at the next verse, as he recognized his name.
Bakela will lead us like a father leads his children, Bakela will give you a khete of sam-sam beadsBakela will feed you upon the fat of the hippopotamus and meat of the buffalo-Zouga closed his mind against the distraction, concentrating on the man across the valley. Here, a hundred miles from the nearest habitations of men, it must have been somebody from the caravan, woodcutter, honeyhunter, deserter, who knew?
Zouga stood up and stretched, and Jan Cheroot knocked out his pipe and stood with him. The head of the column appeared amongst the trees lower down the slope, the red, white and blue banner flapped lazily open and then drooped again dejectedly.
Zouga glanced once more at the opposite slope, it seemed deserted again. He was tired, the soles of his feet felt as though he had marched across burning embers, for they had been going hard since dawn, and the barely healed knife wound in his hip ached dully.
He should really go up that slope to check what he had seen, but it was steep and rocky. It would take another half an hour of scrambling to reach the crest and return. They went down to meet the caravan, and when Zouga saw Robyn striding along with that easy coltish grace of hers behind the standard bearer, he lifted his cap and waved it above his head.
She ran to meet him, laughing like a child with delight. He had been gone three days.
Below a polished face of smooth black rock, that when the river was in spate would be a roaring cascade, there was a bend in the dry water bed filled with pure white sand.
On the banks above it the wild mahogany stood tall and vigorous, its roots in water and the baboon had been scratching in the sand below the bank.
Robyn and Zouga sat together on the edge of the dry waterfall, watching the men that Zouga had set to digging for water. I pray there will be enough. ' Robyn watched them with interest. 'I have not used my bath since we left Tete. ' Her enamelled hip bath was the expedition's single bulkiest item of equipment. I'll be satisfied with enough for a pot of tea, Zouga replied vaguely, but he was clearly distracted.
Something is worrying you? ' she asked. I was thinking of a valley in Kashmir. 'Was it like this? 'Not really, it is
