The heated air was full of the sounds of insects; some of
them comfortable, like the buzzing of bees, some of them strange
and unusual to us. One cicada had a sustained note, in quality
about like that of our own August-day's friend, but in quantity
and duration as the roar of a train to the gentle hum of a good
motor car. Like all cicada noises it did not usurp the sound
world, but constituted itself an underlying basis, so to speak.
And when it stopped the silence seemed to rush in as into a
vacuum!
We had likewise the aeroplane beetle. He was so big that he would
have made good wing-shooting. His manner of flight was the
straight-ahead, heap-of-buzz, plenty-busy,
don't-stop-a-minute-or-you'll-come-down method of the aeroplane;
and he made the same sort of a hum. His first-cousin,
mechanically, was what we called the wind-up-the-watch insect.
This specimen possessed a watch-an old-fashioned Waterbury,
evidently-that he was continually winding. It must have been
hard work for the poor chap, for it sounded like a very big
watch.
All these things were amusing. So were the birds. The African
bird is quite inclined to be didactic. He believes you need
advice, and he means to give it. To this end he repeats the same
thing over and over until he thinks you surely cannot
misunderstand. One chap especially whom we called the lawyer
bird, and who lived in the treetops, had four phrases to impart.
He said them very deliberately, with due pause between each; then
he repeated them rapidly; finally he said them all over again
with an exasperated bearing-down emphasis. The joke of it is I
cannot now remember just how they went! Another feathered
pedagogue was continually warning us to go slow; very good advice
near an African jungle. "Poley-poley! Poley-poley!" he warned
again and again; which is good Swahili for "slowly! slowly!" We
always minded him. There were many others, equally impressed with
their own wisdom, but the one I remember with most amusement was
a dilatory person who apparently never got around to his job
until near sunset. Evidently he had contracted to deliver just so
many warnings per diem; and invariably he got so busy chasing
insects, enjoying the sun, gossiping with a friend and generally
footling about that the late afternoon caught him unawares with
never a chirp accomplished. So he sat in a bush and said his say
over and over just as fast as he could without pause for breath
or recreation. It was really quite a feat. Just at dusk, after
two hours of gabbling, he would reach the end of his contracted
number. With final relieved chirp he ended.
It has been said that African birds are "songless." This is a
careless statement that can easily be read to mean that African
birds are silent. The writer evidently must have had in mind as a
criterion some of our own or the English great feathered
soloists. Certainly the African jungle seems to produce no
individual performers as sustained as our own bob-o-link, our
hermit thrush, or even our common robin. But the African birds
are vocal enough, for all that. Some of them have a richness and
depth of timbre perhaps unequalled elsewhere. Of such is the
chime-bird with his deep double note; or the bell-bird tolling
like a cathedral in the blackness of the forest; or the bottle
bird that apparently pours gurgling liquid gold from a silver
jug. As the jungle is exceedingly populous of these feathered
specialists, it follows that the early morning chorus is
wonderful. Africa may not possess the soloists, but its full
orchestrial effects are superb.
Naturally under the equator one expects and demands the "gorgeous
tropical plumage" of the books. He is not disappointed. The
sun-birds of fifty odd species, the brilliant blue starlings, the
various parrots, the variegated hornbills, the widower-birds, and
dozens of others whose names would mean nothing flash here and
there in the shadow and in the open. With them are hundreds of
quiet little bodies just as interesting to one who likes birds.
>From the trees and bushes hang pear-shaped nests plaited
beautifully of long grasses, hard and smooth as hand-made
baskets, the work of the various sorts of weaver-birds. In the
tops of the trees roosted tall marabout storks like dissipated,
hairless old club-men in well-groomed, correct evening dress.
And around camp gathered the swift brown kites. They were robbers
and villains, but we could not hate them. All day long they
sailed back and forth spying sharply. When they thought they saw
their chance, they stooped with incredible swiftness to seize a
piece of meat. Sometimes they would snatch their prize almost
from the hands of its rightful owner, and would swoop
triumphantly upward again pursued by polyglot maledictions and a
throwing stick. They were very skilful on their wings. I have
many times seen them, while flying, tear up and devour large
chunks of meat. It seems to my inexperience as an aviator rather
a nice feat to keep your balance while tearing with your beak at
meat held in your talons. Regardless of other landmarks, we
always knew when we were nearing camp, after one of our strolls,
by the gracefully wheeling figures of our kites.
IX. THE FIRST LION
One day we all set out to make our discoveries: F., B., and I with
our gunbearers, Memba Sasa, Mavrouki, and Simba, and ten porters
to bring in the trophies, which we wanted very much, and the
meat, which the men wanted still more. We rode our horses, and
the syces followed. This made quite a field force-nineteen men
all told.
