speak as others speak, parroting phrases that were half lies when first coined, and smearing unctuous sentimentalities on dagger points; no, not that! Africa's freedom is of the wild and waste places of the earth, where one can be a man and can think his own thoughts and speak truth and live truth and stretch yokeless neck and free arms in God's sunlight.
Towards the end of February, 1896, I came to the conclusion that I understood South Africa, and as Rhodes was still absent in London, I determined to make my way up the country, at any rate as far as the Victoria Falls on the Zambesi, which I had always wanted to compare with Niagara. Accordingly, I organized an expedition and set off with one hundred and fifty carriers. I had as lieutenants two Boers, brothers, whom I had met in the Free State, and so long as they were with me, everything went fairly well. But their cruelty to the Negro carriers was almost diabolic, and one day, when the elder brother kicked a Negro and broke his leg and wanted to leave him to die in misery, I revolted. The end of it was that I paid them both for the entire trip and said 'Goodbye' to them. We parted good friends, and the elder brother told me to keep my eyes skinned and see that the Negroes always boiled the drinking water or I'd get fever and come to grief. He turned out to be right. I thought kindness would be as efficacious as cruelty, but I was mistaken.
Still, I won through to the Zambesi, and one sunlit morning, for the first time, the great Victoria Falls that dwarf Niagara, burst on me, robed in rainbow mists, as if to hide the depths, while the great Zambesi stretched away to the right, a silver pathway to the far-off sea. The solitude, the scenery, the great river, and the falls, the wild animals of all sorts, and above all, the sense of living in the world as it was a hundred thousand years ago, made this experience the chief event in my life, separating the future from the past and giving me a new starting point.
I was two or three days exploring the falls from every point of view, and at night had divine rest in my tent. A day's journey away, fifteen miles or so north of the falls, and perhaps five hundred feet higher, I could still hear the roar and seemed to feel the earth quake.
This trek fagged us all out; the road was bad and the heat intolerable. The hundred and twenty or thirty Negro bearers I had with me put down their loads and threw themselves on the ground, careless of tsetse fly or mosquito, eager only to sleep and rest, even before eating. It was with difficulty that I got my personal servants to put up even my bell-tent. The big one they professed they could not find; three or four of the bearers, it appeared, had not yet come up. At last the tent was fixed and my mattress put down in it. My little table and stool were brought out and they gave me something to eat, fish and deer's meat, washed down with good whisky and water.
I had had the tent placed, as usual, fifty or sixty yards away from the camp of my carriers. The Negroes had not even cut thorn bushes as a Zareeba or fence to protect themselves. Sleep was the one thing we all wanted.
Though within the tropics, we were some thousands of feet above the sea level, so the air was quite cool at night, though the sun in the daytime was scorching. After my meal, I told the head man he could go and sleep. I went into my tent, put on pyjamas and lay down. The tent was small and the cool air so delicious that I left the flap open. In the evening air it waved a little, the elastic that held the square of it back being a little worn. Lying down on my mattress in front of the opening, I could see the great purple vault of sky, and on the right, the edge of the wood, perhaps a hundred yards away.
In a minute I was asleep, plunged into the dreamless slumber of absolute bodily exhaustion.
Suddenly I was annoyed by a noise. I was pulled out of my dreamless sleep by a repetition of it. Very cross, I tried to blink open my eyes. At first I could hardly see anything.
Again the flip! What was the noise?
At the camp everything was in deepest peace and silence. The mosquito netting was all around my head and my hands were gloved. I could hear the insects humming.
Again the flip! At length I was wide awake, more than awake.
The flap of the tent had closed and then opened again. And again the sound.
The flap of the tent, three-quarters closed for a moment, was then pulled back by the elastic. I could have reached it by stretching out my hand, but I was now too full of anxious curiosity.
What could it be that made the flap of the tent go back and forth so regularly?
Suddenly my curiosity was steeped in fear. I did not know why. Instead of getting up and stepping out to see what caused the flap to act so strangely, I put my head to the ground and peered underneath the tent.
Gradually my eyes became accustomed to the dark and I soon could see outlines a bit more clearly.
There was something there against the sky, and as I looked along it I saw a tail with a tuft on the end of it.
What could it be?
All of a sudden the flap of the tent was driven to again and then pulled back by the elastic. I peered more closely at the object, made out the outline, and realized the whole affair.
It was a full grown lion, lying on the ground playing with the flap of my tent, like a big cat. He had evidently crept up to the tent, probably attracted by my odor, seen the flap moving a little in the wind, and struck it with his paw.
It went and came back again, and after a moment or two he had struck it once more.
A lion playing with the flap of my tent, two feet from me!
Quickly I drew up my Westley Richards rule that was always loaded at my side, and lay down to try to get an exact line on his head and ear.
Then I thought: Why should I kill him? The big cat was really doing no harm.
The something cat-like, childish, in his play made me smile. This feeling of pity and friendliness probably saved my life, for just as I was hesitating-Gr- r-r-m-I heard a long, rumbling sort of moan to the left, and as I looked out through the tent, I saw distinctly the outline against the sky, perhaps four yards away, of another lion, or rather a lioness, as she had no mane.
How many were there?
I had seen a dozen together before then. They might be all around my little tent, for all I knew. One blow of one of their paws would carry the tent away and leave me exposed in the center.
It was perhaps wiser to keep quiet and await developments. The lioness moved a few feet forward and then stretched herself, yawning. I could see her as distinctly as possible, not ten feet away now.
Suddenly my lion at the flap joined her, stood opposite her for a moment, then turned his head slowly towards the flap and my humble person.
Again the rifle went to my shoulder, and I wondered, looking straight at the lion, whether he saw me as plainly as I saw him. Then I reflected that against the black of the tent he could not see me at all. That was my solitary advantage over him. Both beasts were uneasy, curiously watchful, especially the lioness.
Suddenly a sound came from the camp, and her head went round at once, turned towards the sound. The next moment she crouched down close to the ground and moved stealthily out of my limited field of vision.
The sound was repeated. Probably a Negro had got up for something in the camp, for at the second sound the lion turned, and walked slowly out of my vision after his mate.
I found it quite impossible to sleep. I tried to, but the proximity of the big beasts was too disquieting. I found myself listening, on the thin edge of expectancy, with nerves stretched for every sound.
I grew more and more wakeful. Again and again I peered along the ground, but could see nothing.
The lions had either gone to the woods or to the camp. I could not tell which.
No sign of them.
Suddenly, I began to see the trees on the right more distinctly. The night was over. Two minutes afterwards long arrows of light: it was day.
I went outside and clapped my hands. A couple of headmen came to me and I pointed to the ground by the flap. They read the signs quite plainly- 'big lion'; and when I pointed a few feet away, they found the spoor of the lioness and followed it down to where the pair had gone into the wood.
The marks of a half-grown cub were with the lioness.
I told them what had happened, that the lion had been playing with the flap, and I still hear their 'Woo-oof' of wonderment.
The second day of our trek I fell ill with malaria, which soon developed into blackwater fever. I treated myself with big doses of quinine and arsenic and went on, but the third day I must have been given another drink of
