Sand rivers (28 page)

PETER MATTHIESSEN

you know," he says, reverting to his old White Highlands manner. This time he has told the porters that if they keep on eating up the white man's food, they will grow very pale and their hair will straighten, and though a Mombasa Kenyan like Kazungu is too sophisticated for this jest, the Tanzanian country boys enjoy it.

I suspect Brian Nicholson of liking Africans, despite all the conventional prejudices he displays. If 1 had any doubts about this, most of them would be resolved by the evidence of my own eyes and ears that Africans, from the simplest of these porters to an urbane, well-educated man such as Costy Mlay, seem fond of Brian, whose fluent Swahili must convey subtleties of understanding and even concern that are absent in most whites. Unlike lonides, Brian was born in East Africa and has known and worked with Africans since he was a child. It is true that he has usually been in a superior's position with these people, which goes a long way to explain his preference for country Africans over those in the city, and no doubt he would agree with lonides that Western civilization has reduced many first-rate Africans to third-rate Europeans; 1 no longer bother to point out that, forced to adapt suddenly to an African culture, a first-rate European would certainly be thought of as a third-rate African, at least for the first few hundred years.

Kazungu, who can speak some English, is teaching me a little Swahili, and Brian teases him, saying that Kenyans don't really know how to speak it. "The Brits have really buggered up the Swahili language. Say fambo instead of Hujamhu just for a start. And then they answer 'Jambo', which is all wrong, too. Once asked an African up there, 'Ume elewal' which means. Do you understand? and he became frightfully offended - thought 1 was accusing him of being drunk. To be drunk is kulewa-not the same sound at all." And Kazungu laughs, nodding his head; he freely admits that these young Tanzanians speak better Swahili than he does, since for them it is not a lingua franca but a local tongue.

As camp cook and a man with a bit of English, not to mention experience of such cities as Nairobi and Mombasa, Kazungu has prestige among the porters. But he never abuses his position, in part because he is outnumbered six to one. This evening, in the only unpleasant tone 1 have heard in the past fortnight, Davvid Endo Nitu is informing Stephen Kazungu Joma that if the arrogant Kenyans don't behave themselves, the Tanzanian Army will march through their country as it did through Uganda, to teach them a lesson once and for all.

Brian doesn't think much of my argument that the temporary anarchy in Uganda is probably worth it to get Idi Amin out of power, although I back up my position by relating a story told to me by Maria's brother, now a doctor in Australia, who had done his colonial service in Kampala. One of Peter Eckhart's teammates on the rugby team was a young African giant who was already heavyweight boxing champion of Uganda and a marvelous athlete, Peter said, immensely powerful and

SAND RIVERS

very fast for his great size; what struck Peter, who is not liberal in any way and doubtless shares the political outlook of Brian Nicholson, was this man's gentleness and consideration toward all the white players and absolute ferocity toward other blacks - "murderous", to use Dr. Eck-hart's word, and a good word, too, in the light of later events. And then there was the warning that the British left the new leaders of Uganda when Independence came, concerning a young lieutenant named Idi Amin who was ruthlessly exterminating recalcitrant tribesmen up in Karamojong, how they were sure to have trouble with this fellow if they didn't bring him under control immediately ..,

And Brian shrugs, not because what I am saying is not true but because such excess is only to be expected on this continent: the bloody display of power is an African tradition. "Why was Amin any worse than that emperor up in Central African Republic, 'or the one in Guinea? Butchering people right and left, and nobody paid any attention." I cannot deny this. Who had concerned themselves about the deaths of the thousands massacred in Guinea by President Macias Nguema Biyogo? What could his Belgian friends reveal about political oppression under Colonel Joseph Mobutu, the Western puppjft still catering to European interests in Zaire? And hadn't the French cynically supported the "Emperor" Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic despite the well-documented knowledge that he had personally taken part in the massacre of two hundred schoolchildren?

We are edgy on this subject, and I am considering how to change it when I notice the bottle of whiskey that sits like a reproach beside my cot. Since wine and beer were too bulky and heavy, this bottle has been brought along for me instead, but in the well-being and exhilaration of the foot safari, I have felt no need for it; on the other hand I am mildly embarrassed, since it has been an extra weight in someone's load. Thoughtlessly I suggest that it be given to the staff, to celebrate when we reach the Mbarangandu, and Brian snaps, "Absolutely not! You Americans ruined your own natives with alcohol; leave ours alone!" I know he has taken advantage of an opening, and I know why, but I manage to repress a sharp retort about the echo of colonialism in that "your" and "ours"; his choice of words does not change the fact that he is right.

Tonight we have buffalo kidney to go with our rice and beans, and while we eat Brian describes how he had once been hurt by a buffalo that had been wounded by a "big-game hunter" from Dayton, Ohio. "That was in the Maasai Mara, about 1949, when I was learning the hunting safari business as assistant to a chap named Geoff Lawrence-Brown. We had followed up this fellow's wounded buffalo and it jumped out of my side of the thicket, right on top of me. I got two rounds off into this dark blur, and it went down, but not before it caught me with the outside of its horn and sent me flying. 1 was pretty badly banged up."

I ask his opinion of these "big-game hunters", and the Warden

PETER MATTHIESSEN

grunts. "Don't know much about these people, really. Only stayed in that business long enough to qualify for my professional hunter's license. 1 always had my eye on the Game Department, you see. But I will say that most of the professional hunters 1 knew had contempt for a lot of their clients. Some tried to find nice things to say, and were loyal to their clients whether they liked them or not, but there aren't many professionals of that caliber any more. And a number of clients simply weren't physically fit enough to track their animals, even if they had nerve enough to leave their Land Rovers. Sometimes they shot from the windows, or rested their rifles on the bonnet of the car; many animals are unafraid of cars, so they had them at point-blank range. Sometimes the hunter and his client got out of the car on the far side from the animal, using the car as a hide; as soon as the car moved out of the way, they shot, and later it was claimed that they hunted the animal on foot. The client forgets what he wants to forget by the time he gets back home.

"A lot of these clients are first-class people, of course, but others are just big drinkers and big talkers, very childish men. What amazes me is how they worship their professional hunters, look at them like gods. I've seen grown men who seem to have good sense in every other way - must be good businessmen, at least, if they can afford that kind of safari - go all to pieces over one of these professionals who might just be a bloody idiot, and often is. Some of them are good men, good hunters and good conservationists, but too many are in it part-time, looking for quick money, or perhaps they're farmers who've shot a buffalo or two - short on experience and long on bullshit.

"One damned fella shot a rare cheetah down here, mistook it for a leopard - how could you mistake a cheetah for a leopard? The way they look, the way they move - why, they're not alike in any way! Another one told me he'd seen lesser kudu here, and dik-dik. Well, he hadn't.

"One hunter had trouble qualifying; there was no one who would vouch for him. He claimed to be a friend of mine, and used me as a reference when he applied for his license; probably thought they wouldn't check, since 1 was so far from Nairobi. I wrote back to say I'd never heard of him, which was the truth, but somehow he got his license anyway. And there was another one who claimed he knew me, too, one of these birds with a leopard-skin hat band and so many elephant-hair bracelets he could hardly lift his arms, you know the type. Told Billy Woodley he'd worked with me on elephant control down along the Ruvuma. Well, one day Billy and I were going through Namanga, and Billy introduced us, or rather, he said, 'I don't have to introduce you two, since you already know each other.' For some reason, the subject of our days together down on the Ruvuma never came up.

"Here in the Selous, we didn't care much how these people got their animals; if the professional did most of the killing for his client, as was sometimes the case - the client fires, and he never hears that second

SAND RIVERS

shot - it was more efficient and a lot more merciful. The point was that the Game Department needed the revenues, and every animal was paid for; a game scout went along with each safari to record any animals lost when wounded, since those counted on their limit, and to see that the limit was never exceeded. Each year we established a quota for each hunting block, according to what it could easily support, and we were very strict. I caught one German hunter who'd killed a rhino, although he had none on his quota, then tried to bribe one of my game scouts to keep him quiet; the scout came straight in and reported it, bringing the money. This German had also let an unqualified assistant take people out after buffalo, which was forbidden. I confiscated his license and told him he had forty-eight hours to get out of the Selous. The clients begged me, of course, but I just told them that they'd have to find themselves another hunter."

A cold clear morning. Well before daybreak, voices murmur and human figures move about, building up the fire to keep warm. A smell of carrion hangs heavy on the air, but the leopard, he^rd again last night, has not visited the buffalo, nor did the lions follow up our circling vultures. As for hyena, none have been heard since we left the Mbarangandu, nor are there hyena tracks in the sand river.

The sun-dried meat is packed into the loads; every man must help to carry it, since they mean to take it all. In the cold sunrise, the porters are quickly ready. As we depart, a stream of parrots in careening flight recaptures the sausage tree across the river; the fleeting human presence will lose significance with the last figure that passes out of sight in the dawn trees.

We are headed north again, into burned country, and the spurts of green grass in the black dust are sign that these fires preceded those we made on the way south; if this is the eastern edge of the large burn that we struck in the first days of our safari, then we are closer than we think to the Luwegu. In the bright grass the animals are everywhere, making outlandish sounds as we approach; the kongoni emit their nasal puffing snort, the zebra yap and whine like dogs, the impala make that peculiar sneezing bark. But the two buffalo that canter across our path are silent, the early red sun in the palm fronds glistening on their upraised nostrils, on the thick boss of the horns, the guard hairs down their spines, the flat bovine planes of their hind quarters.

At the edge of the plain, between thickets and karongas, Goa rounds a high bush and stops short; without turning around he hands the rifle back, as Brian and 1 stop short behind him.

In a growth of thin saplings, at extreme close quarters, stands a rhinoceros with a small calf at her side. The immense and ancient animal remains motionless and silent, even when the unwarned porters, coming

PETER MATTHIESSEN

up behind, gasp audibly and scatter backward to the nearest trees. Goa, Brian and I are also in retreat, backing off carefully and quietly, without quick motion: I am dead certain that the rhino is going to charge, it is only a matter of reaction time and selection of one dimly seen shadow, for we are much too deep into her space, too close to the small calf, to get away with it. But almost immediately a feeling comes, a knowing, rather, that the moment of danger, if it ever existed, is already past, and I stop where I am, in pure breathless awe of this protean life form, six hundred thousand centuries on earth.

In the morning sun, reflecting the soft light of shining leaves, this huge gray creature carved of stone is a thing magnificent, the ugliest and most beautiful life imaginable, and her sheep-sized calf, which stands backed up into her flank, staring with fierce intensity in the wrong direction, is of a truly marvelous young foolishness. Brian's voice comes softly, "Better back up, before she makes up her mind to rush at us," but I sense that he, too, knows that the danger has evaporated, and I linger a little longer where I am. There is no sound. Though her ears are high, the rhinoceros makes no move at all, there is no twitch of her loose hide, no swell or raising of the ribs, which are outlined in darker gray on the barrel flanks, as if holding her breath might render her invisible. The tiny eyes are hidden in the bags of skin, and though her head is high, extended toward us, the great hump of the shoulders rises higher still, higher even than the tips of those coarse dusty horns that are worth more than their weight in gold in the Levant. Just once, the big ears give a twitch; otherwise she remains motionless, as the two oxpeckers attending her squall uneasily, and a zebra yaps nervously back in the trees.

Then heavy blows of canvas wings dissolve the spell: an unseen griffon in the palm above flees the clacking fronds and, flying straight into the sun, goes up in fire. I rejoin the others. As we watch, the serene great beast settles backward inelegantly on her hind quarters, then lies down in the filtered shade to resume her rest, her young beside her.

We walk along a little way before I find my voice. "That was worth the whole safari," I say at last.

Brian nods. "Had to shoot one once that tossed a porter into a thorn bush and wouldn't give up, kept trying to get at him. But by and large, the rhino down in this part of the country have never given me much trouble." He turns his head and looks back at me over his shoulder. "Still, that's a lot closer than you want to get, especially with a gang of porters. If this was Tsavo —!" He rolls his eyes toward heaven. In an easing of the nerves, we burst out laughing, and the Africans, awe-struck until this moment, laugh as well: kali ("hot-tempered", dangerous) or not, a rhinoceros with new calf ten yards away was serious business!