Never Mind, It Was A Good Hunt - First-Rate - But Where Was My Camp?
It
was nearly dark, and I could just distinguish the pass in the distance,
by which we had descended the mountain; thus I knew the direction but I
had ridden about three miles, and it would be dark before I could
return.
However, I followed the heel tracks of the herd of giraffes.
Richarn was nowhere. Although I had lost the race, and was disappointed,
I now consoled myself that it was all for the best; had I killed a
giraffe at that hour and distance from camp, what good would it have
been? I was quite alone; thus who could have found it during the night?
and before morning it would have been devoured by lions and hyenas;
inoffensive and beautiful creatures, what a sin it appeared to destroy
them uselessly! With these consoling and practical reflections I
continued my way, until a branch of hooked thorn fixing in my nose
disturbed the train of ideas and persuaded me that it was very dark, and
that I had lost my way, as I could no longer distinguish either the
tracks of the giraffes or the position of the mountains. Accordingly I
fired my rifle as a signal, and soon after I heard a distant report in
reply, and the blaze of a fire shot up suddenly in the distance on the
side of the mountain. With the help of this beacon I reached the spot
where our people were bivouacked; they had lighted the beacon on a rock
about fifty feet above the level, as although some twenty or thirty
fires were blazing, they had been obscured by the intervening jungle. I
found both my wife and my men in an argumentative state as to the
propriety of my remaining alone so late in the jungle; however, I also
found dinner ready; the angareps (stretcher bedsteads) arranged by a
most comfortable blazing fire, and a glance at the star-lit heavens
assured me of a fine night - what more can man wish for? - wife, welcome,
food, fire, and fine weather?
The bivouac in the wilderness has many charms; there is a complete
independence - the sentries are posted, the animals picketed and fed, and
the fires arranged in a complete circle around the entire party - men,
animals, and luggage all within the fiery ring; the sentries alone being
on the outside. There is a species of ironwood that is very inflammable,
and being oily, it burns like a torch; this grew in great quantities,
and the numerous fires fed with this vigorous fuel enlivened the bivouac
with a continual blaze. My men were busy, baking their bread. On such
occasions an oven is dispensed with. A prodigious fire is made while the
dough is being prepared; this, when well moistened, is formed into a
cake about two feet in diameter, but not thicker than two inches. The
fire being in a fit state of glowing ash, a large hole is scraped in the
centre, in which the flat cake is laid, and the red-hot embers are raked
over it; thus buried it will bake in about twenty minutes, but the dough
must be exceedingly moist or it will burn to a cinder.
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