In Search of the Okapi

  E-text prepared by Charles Klingman

  IN SEARCH OF THE OKAPI

  A Story of Adventure in Central Africa

  by

  ERNEST GLANVILLE

  Author of "The Diamond Seekers" "The Fossicker" "Tales from theVeld" etc.

  Illustrated by William Rainey, R.I.

  Chicago A. C. McClurg & Co.1904

  CONTENTS

  CHAP.

  I. THE HUNTER

  II. A NOVEL CRAFT

  III. THE CANOE ADRIFT

  IV. THE STORY OF MUATA

  V. TROUBLE BREWING

  VI. THE FLIGHT

  VII. THE THOUSAND ISLANDS

  VIII. THE BULLS AND THE WILD DOGS

  IX. A LION'S CHARGE

  X. A NIGHT IN THE REEDS

  XI. A TRAP

  XII. THE MAN-EATERS

  XIII. THE TREE-LION

  XIV. THE OVERHEAD PATH

  XV. FIGHT WITH A GORILLA

  XVI. ACROSS THE LAGOON

  XVII. THE PLACE OF REST

  XVIII. THE FIGHT IN THE DEFILE

  XIX. THE MAKER OF LAWS

  XX. THE SECRET WAY

  XXI. A VOICE FROM THE DEAD

  XXII. A TERRIBLE NIGHT

  XXIII. THROUGH THE VAULTS

  XXIV. LETTING IN THE RIVER

  XXV. THE CRY IN THE NIGHT

  IN SEARCH OF THE OKAPI

  CHAPTER I

  THE HUNTER

  "Dick, why do you study Arabic so closely?"

  "To understand Arabic."

  "And further?"

  Dick Compton closed his book and placed it carefully in a leathercase.

  "It is a pity you were born curious, Venning, otherwise you wouldhave made an excellent companion for a studious man. 'Why do I wishto understand Arabic?' Why do you stand on one leg watching atadpole shed its tail."

  "Excuse me, I always sit down to watch a tadpole."

  "Yet I have seen you poised on one leg for an hour like a heron,afraid to put down the other foot lest you should scare somewretched pollywog. Why?"

  "I do it for the love of the thing, Dick. What is a page of yourcrooked signs compared with a single green pond and all that itholds?"

  "By Jove! Is that so--and would you find a volume in a caterpillar?"

  "Why not? Listen to me, Dick. Take the silver-spiked caterpillar,with a skin of black satin and a length that runs to four inches. Helives his life in the topmost boughs of an African palm--a feathereddome amid the forest--and there beneath the blue sky he browses tillhe descends into the warm earth to sleep in chrysalis form before heemerges as a splendid moth, with glass windows in his wide wings tosail with the fire-flies through the dark vaults of the silentwoods."

  "All that from a caterpillar?"

  "That and much more, Dicky."

  "And where will this study of the caterpillar lead you, Godfrey? Onecan't live on a caterpillar."

  "Yet there is one kind--fat and creamy--that makes good soup."

  "Ugh, you cormorant! But tell me seriously, what is the end of yourstudies--where will they lead you?"

  "To Central Africa."

  "Do you mean that, Venning?"

  "I do, Dick. There is one spot on the map of Africa that is markedblack. That spot is covered over hundreds of square miles by theunexplored forest. Think what that means to me!"

  "Fever most likely--or three inches of spear-head."

  "A forest big enough to cover England! Just think of the new formsof life--from a new ant to an elephant or hornless giraffe. Theokapi was discovered near that great hunting-ground--and, who is tosay there are not other animals as strange in its untrodden depths?"

  "Is it a wild-fowl, the okapi?"

  "A wild-fowl, you duffer!" exclaimed Venning, indignantly. "Haven'tyou heard of the dwarfed giraffe, part zebra, discovered by SirHarry Johnston? It lost the long neck of the original species whichbrowses in the open veld by the necessity to adapt its habits to thechanged conditions of life within the forest."

  "Your neck is rather long, my boy, from much stretching to watchthings. Look out that you don't have it shortened. And so you intendto visit Central Africa? That is very curious!"

  "I don't see anything curious about it."

  "Nor do I, as to one thing. If a fellow is crazy about butterflies,he may as well roam in Africa as a lunatic with a net as anywhereelse; but the curious part of the matter is, that my study of Arabicis intended to prepare me for a trip to the very same place."

  "Compton, you don't mean it," said the other, jumping from his seat.

  "I do, most decidedly."

  "But what has Arabic got to do with the Central African Forest?"

  "Quite as much as your short-nosed elephant or long-tailedhippopotamus. I also wish to discover something that has been lost.Don't open your mouth so wide."

  "Is it an animal, Dick?"

  "Good gracious, no! I don't care twopence about an animal, except itis for the pot, or unless it wants me for dinner. No; mine isanother search. It is connected with my father."

  "Yes," said Venning, quietly; for his friend had suddenly growngrave.

  "When I was a little chap, about seventeen years ago, my motherreceived a letter dated from the 'great forest.'"

  "It contained only these words, 'Good-bye.' With it there was aletter in Arabic, written by my father's headman. That letter wasseven months on its travels, and since then no other word have Iheard."

  Venning muttered something in sympathy.

  "My mother," continued the other, "died five years ago, withouthaving learnt the meaning of the message in Arabic. She had a wishthat no one but I should read the letter, and often she told me thatif it contained any instructions or directions, I was to carry themout. Well, I have interpreted the Arabic signs."

  "Yes, Dick; and----"

  "And I can't quite make out the meaning. There is a reference to thejournal my father kept, with the statement that it was safelyhidden; but then follows a reference to a Garden of Rest, to certainpeople who protected him, and to a slave-trader who did him aninjury. These references to me are a mystery; but what is clear ishis desire to have his journal recovered from the Arab slave-dealer,described merely as 'The Wolf.'"

  "And that is why you wish to go to Central Africa?"

  "That is why, Venning. I must recover my father's journal if itexists; I must, if it is not too late, find out how he died; I mustfind out who are the wild people, and what is the Garden of Rest."

  "The Garden of Rest! That sounds peaceful, but it is very vague,Dick, as a direction. A garden in a forest hundreds of miles inlength will take some finding."

  "I have a clue."

  "So."

  "There is mention of the 'gates' to the garden, whose summits 'arein the clouds'--twin mountains, I take it."

  "Even so, Dick, I think I should have more chance of finding my newanimal than you would have of hitting off your garden."

  "Well, you know now why I have been studying Arabic. I have a littlemoney, and no ties."

  "Like me. By Jove! why shouldn't we go out together?"

  "Because we have some sense, I suppose," said Compton, coolly. "Haveyou ever roughed it?"

  "I have slept out in the New Forest--often."

  "Oh, that's picnicking, with the bark of the fox in place of thelion's roar, and good food in place of 'hard tack,' and perhaps theattentions of a suspicious keeper instead of a surprise attack bywild men of the woods. An explorer needs experience."

  "Yes, and he must buy his own experience; but tell me how he can,unless he makes a beginning."

  "Now we come to the point, Venning. He should
begin with some onewho already has experience."

  "I see. And you will wait till some seasoned explorer kindly asksyou to join him? You'll have to wait a precious long time."

  "I'm not so sure," said Dick Compton, with a knowing smile.

  "Have you found your explorer, Dick?" shouted Venning, eagerly.

  Compton produced a leather purse and extracted a slip of paper cutfrom an advertisement column, and passed it to his friend.

  "By Jove! eh, that's splendid!" spluttered Venning, in hisexcitement as he glanced at the paper.

  "Read it over."

  Venning read the notice--

  "A GENTLEMAN, who is an experienced traveler, being about to enterupon an expedition into Central Africa, would like to makearrangements with two young men of education and of means to bear ashare of the expenses to accompany him.--Apply, for furtherparticulars, to D. H., No. 109 Box, Office of this paper."

  "Let us write at once to D. H.," he said eagerly.

  "I have seen him."

  Venning took a deep breath and stared at his friend.

  "I saw him this very morning," said Compton, quietly.

  "And----------"

  "He said you were too young! Eh? Go on--go on!"

  "And I told him I thought I could find a friend who would join me."

  "You mean to say that he agreed to take you?" cried Venning, jumpingup.

  Compton nodded.

  "Oh, splendid! And you will take me to him? You're a brick. What ishe like, eh? Is he old or young, eh?"

  Compton kept cool outwardly, but he could not subdue the glitter ofhis dark eyes, or keep the colour out of his cheeks.

  "He is about five feet four. I can look over his head."

  "Oh!"

  "There are grey hairs in his beard."

  "Quite old; old and little! What bad luck! He will have to look upto us."

  "Well, you know, he can't help being small, can he?"

  "I suppose, like most little men, he is as vain as he can stick,bumptious, and fidgety," said Venning, despondently.

  "He struck me as being very quiet. At any rate, you can judge foryourself, as we are due to see him within half an hour. You musttell him that you are a naturalist, as he intends writing a book, inwhich a great deal of space will be given to animals. He said hefelt a 'bit shaky on his pins' when it came to scientific terms."

  "I should be glad to help him there," said Venning; "but it is toogood. He would never take a youngster like me."

  "He said he would rather have a youngster who would carry out hisown views about treating a subject, than a man who would try toteach him his business. Come along and see him for yourself."

  "Within half an hour the two friends who had just left schoolentered a room which was part library, part museum, armoury, dining-room, and cabin, so crammed it was.

  "This is my friend Venning, Mr. Hume."

  "Glad to see you, Venning. Sit down anywhere."

  Compton sat down between the horns of a bleached buffalo skull, butVenning stood like one in a trance. His hand had been swallowed upby a huge palm and thick iron-like fingers, and he was staring downon a pair of the broadest shoulders he had seen, with an archingchest to match. This was the pigmy he had imagined--this man withthe shoulders of a giant and the chest of a Hercules. Then his eyesranged over the walls, gradually recovering their animation.

  "Know 'em," said Mr. Hume, waving a bronzed hand towards the wall.

  "I think so, sir."

  "Just reel off the names."

  Venning reeled off the names of a score or more of animals withouthesitation, and Mr. Hume looked pleased.

  "There are some men," he said, "who come in here and talk over meand round me and under me about fur and feather, and they can't tella bighorn from a koodoo by the horns on the wall. Now, my friend,you knew those over there in the corner were the horns of a koodoo,but do you know his habits?"

  "No, sir; but I spent a month watching a Dartmoor deer."

  "A month! Can't learn anything in a month, boy; but you've struckthe right book. The pages that are spread out under the sky hold theright teaching, for those who wish to learn about animals. There arewriters who make a study of structure; they argue from bones, andclassify; but bones don't tell us about the living flesh and blood.You take my meaning?"

  "You make a difference between the structure of animals and theirhabits."

  "That's so, my lad. Ever read Jeffreys, and the sketches by the 'Sonof the Marshes'?"

  "They're splendid."

  Mr. Hume nodded and filled a pipe, having a footlong stem, made outof the wing-bone of an albatross.

  "I want to describe the personal habits of animals in theirsurroundings. I said 'personal' habits. Do you take me?"

  "No, sir."

  "You think I should use another word, and say, perhaps,'distinctive' habits. I say personal. Now, you take a lion--a bushlion or a veld lion, a yellow lion or a black lion, young or old.That lion, whichever one you take, is a lion by himself. He's gothis own character and his own experience. All lions have ways incommon because they're built alike. They're heavy and muscularbecause they've got to pull down big game; and because they're heavythey move slowly, and because they move slowly they've got to adoptcommon tactics in hunting. Good; but one lion differs from another,and so with other animals, right away through the list. So, I say,one must study the personal habits of animals in their own backyard, so to say, before he can give a true description of them. Doyou take my meaning?"

  "I should like nothing better than to study animals in their home,"said the boy, burning with excitement.

  "And the two of you think you would like to join me in myexpedition?"

  Mr. Hume looked at them out of calm yellowish eyes as if he werestudying them.

  "We should," they said eagerly.

  "Think it will turn out a picnic--a glorified sort of camping-out,with black fellows to wait on you, and a lot of shooting andfishing? Is that your idea?"

  "We were talking about that this morning," said Compton, "and wecame to the conclusion that exploring was hard work. We are preparedfor rough living."

  "That's right. And you tell me that you are free to go withoutgiving anxiety to relatives, eh?"

  "We neither of us have near relatives."

  Mr. Hume stood up and felt each one over in turn, making them drawdeep breaths.

  "Seem sound," he mused, "in wind and limb. But there is one thing.The great danger in Central Africa is from fever--not from animalsor blacks." Here he took down a bottle of white powder, and placed alarge pinch in a wine-glass of water. "Quinine is the traveler'sstand-by, but there are some who cannot take quinine, It has noeffect on them, and such people have no business to set foot infever districts. Drink this?"

  Compton emptied the glass with a wry face, and Venning, when histurn came, shuddered; but they got the dose down, and smiled.

  "Now," said Mr. Hume, "you both of you give me references to theheadmaster of your school, and I will give you one in return. I willmake inquiries about you, and I would advise you to make inquiriesabout me. You can come back here to-morrow afternoon, and if we aremutually satisfied, we will then fix up a contract."

  "I don't think we require a reference," said Venning.

  "Why not?" said Mr. Hume, sharply.

  "Because," blurted out Venning, turning red--"because you have livedamong animals."

  Mr. Hume laughed heartily with a deep rumbling laugh.

  "Animals are tricky, boy; and yet," he added, "there may be ameaning in what you say. They have a dignity in death that is grand.Go and make your inquiries, lads. I am Dave Hume, the hunter, and mylife has been passed in wild lands, but there are some in London whoknow me."

  He rose up to open the door, and Venning overtopped him by inches,yet he did not look either small or unwieldy. His step was springy,and his head, poised on a massive neck, was well set, with the chinraised. He was a man, evidently, who had always looked the worldstraight in the face. His eyes had a yel
lowish tinge, and in theircolour and their calm they reminded Venning somehow of a lion, animpression heightened by the tawny hue of a long beard.

  The next day, the references having been satisfactorily followed up,the contract was entered upon, and the two boys paid over the sum ofPounds 50 each to David Hume, who in his turn agreed to let themshare in any profits which the expedition might make, from anysource whatever.

  "Profits, Mr. Hume?" they asked.

  "Profits from hunting, from trading, or from discovery. I don't saythat we shall make anything. The chances are, of course, that we maylose all before we are a month out, but it is always well to bebusiness-like. There is gold in Central Africa. We may discover agold reef. There are new animals in the forest. We may catch anokapi, and if we could land it in England it would fetch a largesum. We might snare a live gorilla, and there is not a gorilla inthe zoological gardens of Europe."

  "A gorilla!" said Venning, thinking of a picture he had seen of anerect man-ape bending a rifle-barrel into an arch as if it were acane.

  "A gorilla!" said Compton. "I should like to find the Garden ofRest."

  "You have heard his story, Mr. Venning?" said the hunter, noddinghis head at Compton.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, it was because of that story that I have taken you two intomy expedition; otherwise I should have been obliged to decline yourservices on account of your youth. But the story interested me, andI will do my best to help Compton in his search."

  "Thank you," said Compton, quietly.

  "The Garden of Rest!" mused the hunter. "That, I take it, would bean Arabian phrase; for such a term would not occur to a native, whois too often idle to attach much value to a state of rest. Itsounds peaceful; but I have it in my mind that if we ever reach theplace, it will be only after much hard work, much suffering, anddanger. You understand that this is no pleasure excursion?"

  "We do, sir," said Compton; "yet we expect to get much pleasure fromthe expedition."

  "Another word. I am not an exacting man; but there is one thing Iwill not tolerate, and that is disobedience. It is well tounderstand that now;" and there came a stern expression into thosesingular eyes.

  "That is only right," said Compton; and Venning agreed.