Kenneth McAlpine: A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea

Light, but not darkness. Night, but not silence either. Were it possible for any one to pass swiftly and unseen along the banks of the unknown river at such an hour and on such a night as this, what sights he would see, what sounds would fall upon his listening ear! Come with me in imagination! Take heed of those rocks; they are slippery at the edge, for the rainy season is not yet past. To fall into the stream would mean an ugly death, were you even as good a swimmer as the gallant Webb. There are no signs of life in the water, it is true, but the plash of your fall would raise a score of awful heads above it; the crocodiles would be upon you with lightning speed, and rend you from limb to limb.

Peer over the cliff just there. What is that lying on the mud close by the river? Is it the trunk of some dead tree? Drop a pebble on it. See; it moves off into the river and slowly disappears – a crocodile.

Hark to that horrible sound! it makes the very “welkin” ring, – a loud, discordant, coughing, bellowing roar. It is the lion-king of the forest. He loves not the moonlight. It baulks him of his prey; so there is anger in that growl. But you hardly can tell whence it comes; at one moment, it sounds over yonder among the rocks, next, down in that lonesome ravine, and next, in the forest behind you.

Look at those great birds. They fly so closely over our heads that their mighty wings overshadow us for a moment, and we can hear the rustling, creaking sound made by their feathers. There is something lying dead in the valley beyond the hill, and these are vultures going to gorge by the moonlight.

Two great necks are raised like poles behind a rock as the birds fly in that direction. Giraffes, who have been sleeping – there in the open, their heads leaning on the rocks, their ears doing duty even in slumber, but ready if danger draws near to —

“Burst like whirlwind o’er the waste,To thunder o’er the plain.”

In yonder, beneath that flowery, ferny bank, is the leopard’s cave – the tiger cat. If you went near enough you would see her fiery eyes, and hear a low, ominous growl that would chill you to the spine.

Yes, wild beasts and wild birds keep close to-night; for a little while only; when the deer and the antelope steal down to the river, they will come forth, and there will be yells and shrieks of anger, pain, and terror, and an awful feast to follow.

Behold those lordly elephants; how they trumpet and roar! They are excited about something.

Something unusual has happened, or they would not be there at this hour. Ha! There is a boat on the river, creeping up under the shadow of the rocks. What mystery is this? There are white men in it, too, and right merrily they are paddling along. But never before have the waters of this unknown river been stirred by oar of European.

For not only is the country all around here a wild one, but it has the name, at all events, of being inhabited by a race of savages that are never at peace, who are born, live, and die on the war-path – the Logobo men.

“Couldn’t we go a little nearer?” said Harvey, who sat in the stern sheets near the tall Arab Zona, who was steering, Kenneth and Archie having an oar each.

“Couldn’t we go a little nearer and have a shot at that elephant?”

“No, no, no,” cried Zona, hastily; “we must keep in the shade, gentlemen. Even the moon is not our friend, pleasant though her light be. But the sound of your rifle would raise the Logobo men, and a thousand poisoned arrows would soon be whistling round our heads. We could not escape.”

“Before morning,” said Kenneth, “according to your reckoning, my good Zona, we should be well through the Logobo country, and among friends?”

“True,” replied Zona; “we will be among friends all the way to the land of gold, I trust.”

“The land of gold!” exclaimed Kenneth; “what a fascinating phrase! Zona, when we met you in Zanzibar our lucky stars must have been in the ascendant.”

Zona gave a little laugh.

“It is the land of gold,” he said, “that we are going to, it is true; but no man that ever yet tried brought that gold down to the coast.”

“And why, my friend?”

“Why? I cannot tell you all the reasons why. They say the gold is guarded by evil spirits, that the hills where it is to be found are encircled by giant forests, by terrible swamps, the breath of which is more feared by the Arab than spear of savage foeman.”

“We can but try,” said Kenneth.

“Zona,” said Archie, “did ever you hear the line of that old song, ‘The March of the Cameron Men,’ which says, ‘Whatever a man dares he can do’?”

“Gentlemen all,” replied Zona, “the Arab is the most daring of all men who live; the Arab has sought this gold that we are going in quest of; the Arab has failed! I have spoken.”

“Worthy Zona,” said Harvey, laughing, “you have an excellent opinion of your people, and an excellent opinion of yourself. Nay, never start, man. I love you for it. But let me tell you this. There is one thing in which even an Arab gold-seeker, with all his pluck and daring, may fail in – ”

“And that is?” said Zona.

“Knowledge of prospecting.”

“I am in the dark as to your meaning,” said Zona.

“I know you are, and so are all your people. In other words, then, they don’t know where to look for the gold. Now listen, friend. I have spent years and years in the gold regions of California – ”

“I say, Harvey, old man,” said Kenneth, “you weren’t much the better of it. Eh?”

“True,” replied Harvey, with a sigh; “else you wouldn’t have found me working as an ordinary seaman before the mast in a craft like the Brilliant.”

“Forgive me,” said Kenneth, stretching out his hand, which Harvey readily grasped. “Forgive me; I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I found you before the mast, it is true; but I took to you from the first hour we met. You have got the grit of a good man in you. Else Archie and I wouldn’t have asked you to come with us on this gold-hunt, which after all may turn out to be a wild-goose chase.”

“But it will not be a wild-goose chase. Man, I tell you this, the very mud of the river we are now floating over contains gold dust. We are going to trace that gold to its source, and find it in nuggets.”

“I have found gold before,” he continued. “I have made two fortunes and lost them, worse luck; but I can tell you whether or not gold lies in any country, if I get but one glance at the land, or but walk over it once. Fear not then, I won’t deceive you, nor myself.”

“Well, we shall trust to your skill,” said Archie.

“And to Zona’s,” added Kenneth.

“To Zona’s, certainly.”

Let us hark back, reader, in our tale for a moment, and explain the appearance of our adventurers on this wild dark river of Africa at such a time of night.

The Brilliant then was in the habit of touching occasionally at Zanzibar in her passage from the East Indies to the Cape. Being much on shore, Kenneth could not help becoming acquainted with some of the numerous Portuguese merchants, who had settled in that strange city, – if a Portuguese merchant can be said to settle anywhere, for they are, like ourselves, a nation of wanderers. They are hospitable at their houses, however, and Kenneth and Archie too were made welcome, enough, and many a quiet cup of coffee they drank in the cool of the evening on great square housetops overlooking the blue sea.

They would sit far into the night, listening to stories of the interior of Africa, of wild adventures with wild beasts and wilder men, of great forest land and terrible swamps, of the country of the dwarfs and the dreaded gorilla, and of diamond caves, and caves in which nuggets of the richest gold were to be had for the gathering.

No wonder that such stories as these fired the young blood of our heroes Kenneth and Archie. They both longed to be rich; it was no mean ambition, for riches would be valued by neither as a mere hoard of wealth, but for the good they could accomplish therewith in the dear wild land of their nativity.

“Oh!” said Kenneth one evening as he sat on a roof-top under the quiet stars, listening to the conversation of his friend Morosco. “Oh! if I could but get up and command an expedition into the interior!”

“Ha! ha!” laughed the Portuguese, “an idle dream. Ten thousand men could not penetrate into the land of gold and diamonds.”

“But,” said Archie, “two or three might.”

“Ah!” cried Morosco, “there you have it, young sir; one man may do more in Africa than an army. It has ever been thus; look at your Livingstone for example.”

Then Kenneth took to thinking, and for days said no more on the subject even to Archie. But one evening, he asked him to come for a row among the coral islands. It was nearly sundown. There was not a ripple on the water, only a yellow haze all along the horizon, with the broad sun sinking red through it.

Kenneth lay on his oars, and let the boat float wherever the tide cared to take her.

“What a lovely night, Archie!” said Kenneth at last. “What a lovely colour is in the sky! The clouds are gold, the sea is gold, the consuls’ houses and the sultan’s palace are roofed in gold, the lofty palm-trees are tipped with gold, and the waves are rippling and lisping on sands of gold.”

“Ah!” replied Archie, “my dear brother, your thoughts are steeped in gold. Morosco’s stories have given you gold fever – but there, I won’t laugh at you, for I tell you I know all your longings, and I, too, have the same.”

Kenneth stretched across the thwarts and pressed his friend’s hand.

“You’ll go,” he said, “you’ll come with me into the interior. You’ll brave danger? Everything?”

“Everything,” replied Archie. “We are young, strong, healthy, hearty; why should we not? But,” he continued, “while you have been dreaming I have been scheming. Zona, an Arab friend of mine, and a soldier, has been on expeditions into and beyond the Logobo country already; I have spoken to him, he is willing to venture with us. And so will Harvey.”

“Harvey?” said Kenneth.

“Yes, he is like ourselves, a Scot. He will, he says, do or dare anything for a change.”

“Hurrah!” cried Kenneth.

He was so excited now that he must needs bend to his oars again, and the light skiff in which he rowed seemed actually to skim the water like a skipjack. For his actions were keeping pace with his thoughts. And all the way down to the Cape, in what was to be their last voyage in the Brilliant, there was little else talked about by the three friends but their coming adventures in the land of gold.

When paid off, they took passage, for cheapness’ sake, in an Arab dhow to Zanzibar. It was a long voyage in such a craft, and a rough one in many ways, for they got little to eat except dates and rice. But what cared they? The rice, in their eyes, seemed like little nuggets of gold. They reached Zanzibar safe and sound, and made haste to see Zona, the Arab chief, and arrange everything.

Zona brought with him a bold but honest-looking black boy. He was to be their guide through the country beyond Logobo. This boy, called Essequibo, came from there. Nay, let me rather say had been dragged from there by cruel and heartless slave-dealers.

Though an Arab, Zona had a good heart. He had first seen little Essequibo asleep on the rude steps of the slave auction mart at Lamoo, and his soul warmed to the poor lad. Dreaming the boy was of his far-off home in the interior, of the little village among the cocoa palms, where his mother and father lived ere that terrible night when the Arabs fell on them with chains and fire, – fire for the town, chains for the captives. Dreaming of home, dreaming that he was back once more, roaming with his brothers and sisters in the free forest, through the jungle, over hills purple with glorious heaths, through woods dark even at midday, or by the lakes where the hippopotami bathe and wallow, and where under the pale rays of the moon the deer and hart steal down to drink, their every movement watched by the wary leopard.

Though but a child when stolen from his home, and at the time of our tale in his fifteenth year, Essequibo had not forgotten a single hill or dale or creek or even tree of his native country. He was bold, bright, and faithful, as will be seen.

The preparations for the great journey had been very simple, perhaps too much so, for they consisted mainly in arms and ammunition. Kenneth, with all the simple faith of his countrymen, had put Nannie’s old Bible in his wallet. In his wallet, too, Archie had slyly deposited the flute.

“An old Scotch air,” he had said, “may help to ’liven us up when things look black and drear.”

They had travelled thus far almost without adventure. They were now in the very heart of the warlike Logobos, but as yet had seen nothing more terrible than the denizens of forests and river I have already described.

Chapter Nineteen

The Search for the Land of Gold

Scene: – Daybreak on the unknown river. The stream is a good mile wide here; its banks are lined with a cloudland of green, the great trees trailing their branches in the water. A sand bar at one side, jutting far out into the river, tall crimson ibises standing thereon like a regiment of British soldiers. The mist of morning uprising everywhere off the woods and off the water. One long red cloud in the east heralding the approach of the god of day. Silence over all, except for the dip of the oars – they are muffled – as our adventurers’ boat rapidly nears the shore to seek the friendly shelter of the tree-fringe.

“So far on our way, thank heaven,” said Kenneth, as soon as the boat was hidden and the party had landed on a little bank deeply bedded with brown leaves.

“So far, and now for breakfast.”

Yes, now for breakfast, reader, and a very frugal one it was; some handfuls of boiled rice and a morsel of biscuit steeped in the water to make it go down.

This had been their fare for days and days, but added thereto was the fruit that Essequibo never failed to find.

Fish there were in this great river in abundance, fish that they had plenty of means of catching too, but none of cooking without danger; for smoke might betray their presence to an enemy more implacable and merciless than the wildest beast in the jungle.

The long hot day passed drearily away. They sat or reclined mostly in a circle, carrying on a conversation in voices but little over a whisper.

When the day was at its very hottest, when there was not a leaf stirring in the branches above, when the monkeys that more than once had visited them, creeping nearer and nearer with curious half-frightened gaze, had sought the darkest, coolest nooks of the forest, and the —

“Strange bright birds on starry wing – ”

had ceased their low plaintive songs, and sat open-mouthed and all a-gasp on the boughs, then sleep stole over every one, and it was far into the afternoon ere they awoke.

The sun went down at last, and darkness – a tropical darkness – very soon followed. Lights might now be seen flitting about among the trees; the fire-flies and curious creeping things went gliding hither and thither on the ground, all ablaze with phosphorescent light. Yonder knobs of fire that jump about so mysteriously are beetles; that long line of fire wriggling snake-like at the tree foot is the dreaded brown centipede, whose bite is death.

They must not leave their hiding-place yet though, for Logobo canoes are still on the river. They must wait and listen for hours to come. But they keep closer together now and grasp their arms sturdily, for lions have awakened and begun to yawn; there are terrible yells and shrieks, and coughing and groaning to be heard on every side, and many a plash alongside in the dark water. Sometimes a huge bat drives right against them, poisoning the air with pestiferous odour. Sometimes they see starry eyeballs glaring at them from under the plantain bushes, and hear the branches creak and crack, and the sound of stealthy footsteps near them. It is an eeriesome place this to spend even half-an-hour in after nightfall, but their only chance of safety lies in remaining perfectly still, perfectly mute. At long last light shimmers in through the leafy canopy above them, they know the moon has arisen, and it is time to be going.

Once more they are embarked, and once more stealing silently up the unknown river.

As the night advances, they are less cautious and talk more freely. Earlier in the evening they had heard the beating of the warlike tom-tom and the shouts of savage sentries, but now these are hushed and the beasts and birds of the night alone are left to rend the ear with their wild cries.

Hiding by day, and journeying silently onward and upward by night, our heroes are in less than a week far past the country of the dreaded Logobo men. Not that their dangers are over by any means, nor their trials. There are dangers from beasts, from lion or leopard, and from hideous reptiles, far more ugly than a nightmare, and these they must often face, for the rapids in the river have now become numerous, and they have to land and carry their light boat past them. But, on the whole, they were so happy now and light-hearted that they often laughed and joked and sang; and why not? Were they not marching on to fortune? They believed so, at all events.

In the long dark evenings, round the camp fire, they would lie on their blankets with their feet to the fire, and their guns not far off, you may be well sure, and sing songs and tell stories of their far-away native land. The flute, too, was put on duty, much to the delight of little Essequibo, the nigger boy. Essequibo, or Keebo as he was called for short, was at first inclined to be afraid of the flute; in fact, when first he heard it, he turned three somersaults backwards and disappeared in the jungle. He did not appear again for half-an-hour; then he came out, and gradually and slowly and wonderingly advanced to where Kenneth sat playing.

Keebo’s eyes were as big as half-crown pieces, now, and he walked on tip-toe, ready to bolt again at a moment’s notice.

“Massa Kennie,” he said plaintively, “Massa Kennie, what you raise inside dis poor chile wid dat tube you blows into? You raisee de good spirit or de ebil one? Tell me dat.”

“The good spirit, Keebo,” replied Kenneth; “listen.”

Then Kenneth played “The Land of the Leal.”

“I’se all of a shake, Massa Kennie,” said the poor boy; “de spirits, dey am all about here now, I knows. Dey not can touch poor Keebo? Tell me dat for true?”

Essequibo got more used to the flute before long, and at last he quite loved it.

Here is the story of Essequibo’s conversion. I give it briefly. It was one day when Kenneth and he were alone, all the rest being away in the bush in search of food and dry fuel.

Keebo squatted near Kenneth’s knees, leaning his hands thereon with child-like confidence, and gazing up into the young Scot’s face as he played low sweet Scottish airs. These plaintive airs took Kenneth away back in fancy to grand Glen Alva, and the tears rose to his eyes as he thought of his childhood’s days, of his simple happiness while herding sheep, of his dear mother, of Kooran and the fairy knoll.

And last but not least of the sweet child Jessie, and of that day among the Highland heather, when she gave him the flowers. He took the Bible from his bosom and opened it.

And there they were side by side. And they were near a chapter his mother used often to read to him. His mother? Heigho! he would never see her again in this world, but faith pointed upwards.

He took his flute more cheerfully now, and began to play that sweet melody “New London.” His whole soul was breathed into the instrument.

When he looked again at Keebo, why, there were tears rolling down the boy’s cheeks.

“You remember your mother, Keebo?”

“Ess, Massa Kennie, I ’member she. De cruel Arab men kill she wid one spear. Sometimes Keebo tink she speak to her boy yet in his dreams.”

“So she does, Keebo. So she does, dear child. She lives, Keebo.”

“She lib, sah! My moder lib?”

Then Kenneth told Essequibo the Bible tale and all the sweet story of Jesu’s love; and every word sank deep into Keebo’s heart, and was never, never forgotten.

When returning that day from the bush in Indian file, Archie, who was first, checked the others with uplifted hands, and pointed through the plantain bushes to the clearing where Kenneth knelt in prayer beside the boy Keebo.

Both Archie and Harvey doffed their caps, and stood reverently there, not daring to reveal their presence till Kenneth had arisen. The very sky above them seemed at that moment a holy sky.

Essequibo was a strange name to give this nigger boy. (The name of a river in South America.) It came by chance, and suited him well. He was clever, this lad; and proved a treasure to the little expedition in many a trial. His English was not of the purest, he had learnt it in Zanzibar; but he could talk the languages of the interior tribes and Arabic as well. It is truly wonderful how soon boys of this caste learn languages.

Zona was guide and chief of the party; he knew the land well, and he knew the river. He knew which way to go to avoid unfriendly Indians, and he knew also the shortest tracks. So you may fancy them going on and on day after day in their search for the land of gold, sometimes gliding along the silent and unknown river, sometimes plunging into deep, dark forests; at other times toiling over arid plains, round the spurs of lofty mountains, or wading deep through miry marsh lands, the home, par excellence, of the most loathsome of Saurian monsters; but journeying ever with light hearts, for hope still pointed onwards.

At night, by the camp fire, Archie and Kenneth used to build aerial castles, and plan out the kind of future that they should spend in Scotland when they had wealth. But never a night passed without a chapter being read, a psalm sung, and a prayer said. Zona used to retire to the bush, and it is but fair to say that, according to his lights, he was as good at heart as any of the others.

They had hired over a dozen sturdy Indians to carry boats and ammunition, but these men needed watching, both by night and by day. They were necessary evils, that is all. Not that negroes of this kind are not often faithful enough, but they need a master eye to guide them, else they soon lose heart and faint and fail – then fly.

More than once Keebo prevented these men from stampeding, for Keebo was ever watchful.

For many weeks our heroes kept on in the same slow course, defying every obstacle. They were now little more than fifty miles from the goal of their desires.

“If gold or diamonds,” said Kenneth to Archie, “be but half as plentiful as represented, we have only to collect and retire. We have overcome every danger, and avoided the greatest danger of all – the Logobo country. We will go more swiftly down stream than we came up.”

Archie was quite as hopeful as Kenneth.

Harvey hardly so much so.

“‘There is many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip,’” the latter would say.

Perhaps this was one of the happiest periods of the lives of either of our heroes. Indeed, their existence at present resembled nothing so much as one long picnic. They were like the wild creatures around them; they lived on the good things they found, and were contented and happy.

Kenneth, true lover of nature, could never have dreamt of scenery like that which he now gazed on daily. Oh the luxuriance of an African tropical woodland! what pen could describe, what pencil or brush portray it!

Yes, there were deadly things to be avoided, but one gets careless of even them, or, at least, used to them, so that in time not even a great snake dangling from a branch in front of him makes him shudder; nor is he greatly alarmed if he comes suddenly on the African “tiger,” as the leopard is called, enjoying a siesta at noon-tide under a tree.

The tribes they had hitherto encountered were non-warlike and quiet. One day, however, Essequibo, who had been scouting on ahead, came rushing back in a state of great alarm.

“Dey come, dey come!” he shouted; “plenty bad men. Plenty spear and shield. Dey kill and eat us all for true!”

The carrier negroes threw down their boat and packages and would have bolted en masse, had not our heroes stood by them with pistol and whip. The whip was, I believe, more dreaded than even the revolver.

In less time than it takes me to tell it, the little expedition, which was quickly formed into a solid square, was surrounded by a cloud of armed blacks.