第15章 Another Degree

The separation had been accomplished.The astronomers would beworked harder,but the operation itself would not lose by it—the same accuracy and precision would be devoted to the measurement of the new meridian,and would be as scrupulously tested.The three English savants,sharing the work,would advance more slowly and would undergo more fatigue.But they were not men to spare themselves.What the Russians could do on their side,they too would accomplish on the new meridian.If necessary,national amour propre would encourage them in this long and laborious task.Three observers would now have to do the work of six;so all their thoughts and all their time must now be devoted to the enterprise.William Emery must stop dreaming,and Sir John Murray would no longer be able to study the fauna of South Africa rifle in hand.

A fresh programme,defining the duty of each astronomer,was drawn up.To Sir John Murray and the Colonel were entrusted the trigonometrical and zenith observations;William Emery took Nicolas Palander’s place as calculator.Henceforth the choice of stations and arrangements of sights was settled by common consent,and no disagreement was to be feared between the three savants.

Mokoum was still the hunter and guide to the caravan.The English sailors had naturally followed their chiefs;and though the steamer had remained with the Russians,the india-rubber boat,which was quite sufficient for crossing ordinary streams,formed a part of their equipment.The waggons had been divided according to the supplies they carried.Thus the support of the two caravans,and even their comfort,had been amply provided for.

The natives forming the detachment had been divided into two equal parts,but not without their betraying their dissatisfaction at this.Perhaps they were right,as regards their own safety.These Boschjesmen found themselves far from the regions with which they were familiar,far from the pasturages and streams they had frequented,carried into a country far to the northward,swarming with wandering tribes inveterately hostile to the Africans of the South;and under these circumstances it was no little disadvantage to them to divide their strength.But at last the bushman,aided by the vorloper,had overcome their reluctance,and they had consented to the division of the caravan into two detachments,which—and this was the argument which influenced them most of all—would be acting at a distance relatively inconsiderable from each other,and in the same region.

When they quitted Kolobeng on the 31st August,Colonel Everest’s troop made for the cairn which had served as a sight for their last observations:they turned back into the burnt forest and reached the hillock.There operations were resumed on 2nd September.A large triangle,the apex of which pointed towards the left,on a pylon erected on an elevated point,allowed the observer to carry their measurements ten or twelve miles to the west of their former meridian.

Six days later,on 8th September,the series of auxiliary triangles was completed,and Colonel Everest,after consultation with his colleagues and reference to the maps,had chosen the new arc of the meridian,which farther measurements were to calculate as high as the twentieth parallel south.It was one degree west of the former,the twenty-third east of Greenwich.

Thus the English would not be more than sixty miles from the Russians;but this was enough to prevent their triangles from intersecting.It was improbable that the two parties would meet,and more improbable still that the choice of a sight should lead to a discussion,still less a dispute.

The country traversed by the English during September was fertile and varied,though not populous,and was very favourable to the caravan’s progress.The weather was very fine,very clear,free from fogs and clouds.The observations were taken easily—very few forests of any size,copses and thickets well intersected in every direction,broad prairies commanded here and there by rises in the ground,which greatly assisted the construction of signals either for day or night work,and for the use of their instruments.

It was at the same time well supplied with all natural products.Most of the flowers attracted swarms of insects with their perfumes,especially a bee,differing little from the European bee,which left a very fluid and delicious white honey in cracks in the rocks or in fissures of the trees.A few of the larger animals sometimes strayed at night as far as the camp:giraffes,several varieties of antelope;a few beasts of prey,hyaenas,rhinoceroses,and occasionally an elephant.But Sir John would no longer neglect his task for the sake of shooting.His hand was on the eyepiece of the telescope,and no longer grasped the hunter’s rifle.

Mokoum,assisted by some of the natives,provided for the needs of the caravan;but it may be supposed the report of their guns,quickened Sir John’s pulse.Sometimes two or three prairie buffaloes fell to the hunter’s rifle,the bokolokolos of the Bechuanas,twelve feet from muzzle to tail and six feet from shoulder to hoof;their black hides had a bluish tint.They were dangerous animals,with short powerful limbs,small heads,and wild eyes,and the forehead armed with short thick black horns,but they provided an excellent addition to the fresh venison,the staple food of the caravan.

The natives prepared this meat so as to preserve it for any length of time,much as pemmican isprepared by the North American Indians.The Europeans watched this culinary operation with interest,although at first they showed some repugnance to it.The buffalo meat,after having been cut into thin slices and dried in the sun,was pressed in a tanned skin and beaten with a flail till it was reduced almost to impalpable fragments.It was then nothing more than powdered or pulverised meat.This powder,enclosed in skin bags,and squeezed closely together,was then moistened with boiling fat taken from the same animal;to this fat,which,it must be confessed,tastes of tallow,the African cooks add very fine marrow and the berries of certain shrubs;then this composition is rubbed and beaten until,when cold,it becomes a cake as hard as stone.

Mokoum then invited the astronomers to taste the mixture.The Europeans did so to please the hunter,who was proud of his pemmican as a national dish.They did not find it very agreeable at first,but they soon became accustomed to the taste of this African pudding,and before long they got to like it.It was,in fact,a very nourishing food,and very well adopted to the wants of a caravan in an unknown country,where fresh provisions might very possibly fail;it was easy to carry and could be kept almost any length of time,and it contained a great quantity of nutritive elements in a very small bulk.Thanks to the hunter,their store of pemmican amounted to several hundred pounds,which guaranteed them against want for the future.

Sometimes they took observations at night.William Emery was always thinking about his friend,Michel Zorn,and regretting the disaster which had so suddenly severed the link of friendship between them.Yes;he missed Michel Zorn,and when his heart was full of the impressions to which the grand wild scenes of nature around give birth,he had no one to whom he could unbosom himself.He therefore busied himself in calculations,and took refuge in figures with the tenacity of a Palander.Colonel Everest was just the same as before,with the same cold temperament,whose only passion was trigonometrical operations.As for Sir John,he frankly regretted his former freedom,but he took care never to complain.

Nevertheless,fortune occasionally gave him the chance he longed for.If he had no time now to beat the covers and hunt the wild beasts,these animals sometimes took the trouble to come on purpose to interrupt him in his observations.Then the savant became the hunter,Sir John regarding this as legitimate defence.Thus on 12th September,he had dealings with an old rhinoceros in the neighbourhood which cost him rather dear.

For some time this beast had been prowling about the caravan.It was an enormous chucuroo,as the Boschjesmen call that animal.It was about fourteen feet long and six feet high;its skin was black,and less wrinkled than that of its Asiatic congeners.The bushman said that it was very dangerous,and indeed the black species are more active and more aggressive than the white,and will attack men and horses without provocation.

That day Sir John Murray,accompanied by Mokoum,had gone to reconnoitre a height six miles from the station,where Colonel Everest meant to erect a signal pylon.By some presentiment he had taken his rifle,and not an ordinary shot-gun:though the rhinoceros had not been seen for two days,he was unwilling to cross an unknown part of the country without weapons.Mokoum and his companions had hunted the animal,but had not come up with him,and the enormous beast might have given up his visits.

Sir John had no reason to regret having acted so prudently.He and his companion had reached the height and just got to its top when,at its base on the skirts of a dense coppice the chucuroo suddenly made its appearance.Sir John had never seen it so closely before.It was truly a formidable beast:its little eyes gleamed;its short horns bent slightly back,one in front of the other;each was about two feet long,and firmly planted in the bony structure of his snout—a really dangerous weapon.

The bushman was the first to notice the animal,and squatted down under a mastick bush.‘Sir John,’he said,‘fortune is favouring you.There’s the chucuroo.’

‘The rhinoceros!’cried Sir John‘where?’

‘There!’the hunter pointed;‘as you see,he’s a magnificent fellow,and he seems very much disposed to off our retreat.Why I cannot understand,for he lives only on vegetables;but there he is,and we shall have to get rid of him.’

‘Can he get up to us?’asked Sir John.

‘No,’replied the bushman,‘the climb is too steep for his short thick legs;but he’ll wait for us down there.’

‘Well,let him wait,’said Sir John,‘and when we’ve finished our work at this station,we’ll get rid of our inconvenient neighbour.’

Sir John Murray and Mokoum then resumed their interrupted work.They made notes of the layout of the higher part of the hill,and chose the spot where the signal pylon should be erected.When this was done Sir John turned to the bushman and said:

‘When you like,Mokoum.’

‘I’m at your orders,Sir.’

‘Is the rhinoceros still waiting for us?’

‘Still.’

‘Let’s go down,then,and,powerful as the beast may be,a bullet from my rifle will soon account for him.’

‘A bullet!’cried the bushman;‘you don’t know what a chucuroo is.They take a great deal of killing,and nobody has ever seen a rhinoceros fall to a single bullet,well as it may have been aimed.’

‘Bah!’said Sir John,‘that’s because they did not use conical bullets.’

‘Conical or round,’replied Mokoum,‘your first bullets will never bring down such an animal as that.’

‘Well,my brave Mokoum,’Sir John was stimulated by his amour propre as a shot,‘I’ll just show you what our English weapons can do,as you seem to doubt it.’

And Sir John cocked his rifle,ready to fire as soon as he thought the beast was within range.

‘One word,your honour,’the bushman was rather put out,and checked his companion,‘will you make a bet with me?’

‘Why not,my worthy hunter?’replied Sir John.

‘I’m not rich,’Mokoum declared,‘but I’ll willingly risk a pound against your honour’s first bullet.’

‘Agreed!’Sir John retorted at once.‘There’ll be a pound for you if I fail to bring the rhinoceros down with my first bullet.’

‘Done?’asked the bushman.

‘Done!’

The two hunters descended the hillock,and were soon about five hundred yards from the animal,which had stayed perfectly still.It was thus in a very favourable position for Sir John,who could take aim at his ease.He thought he was so certain to win that before he pressed the trigger he wanted to give the bushman the chance of withdrawing his bet,so he asked:

‘The bet still stands?’

‘Still’was all that Mokoum said.

The rhinoceros all this time had stayed as motionless as a target.Sir John was able to choose where to hit it so as to kill it as once.He decided on hitting it in the mouth,and his amour propre as a hunter stimulating him,he took a very careful aim.

The shot rang out,but the bullet,instead of striking the flesh,hit the horn and broke off its tip.The animal did not seem to notice the blow.

‘That shot doesn’t count,’said the bushman,‘as you didn’t hit the flesh.’

‘Yes it does,’Sir John was rather vexed.‘I’ve lost a pound to you,Mokoum,but I’ll let it be double or quits.’

‘As you please,Sir John,but you’ll lose.’

‘We shall see.’

The rifle was reloaded,and Sir John aimed at the beast’s flank and fired.But,hitting a place where the skin lay in heavy folds,the bullet fell to the ground;the rhinoceros moved a couple of steps away.

‘Two pounds,”said Mokoum.

‘Will you bet again?’asked Sir John.

‘Willingly.’

This time Sir John,who was getting angry,took a careful aim at the animal’s head;the bullet struck the place it was aimed at and rebounded as if from an iron plate.

‘Four pounds,’the bushman said quietly.

‘Four it is,’Sir John was really exasperated.

This time the ball hit the rhinoceros’haunch.It sprang forward,but instead of falling dead it vented its fury on the bushes.

‘I think he’s still moving a little.Sir John,’was all that Mokoum said.

Sir John could no longer control himself,and his coolness completely forsook him.He risked the eight pounds he had lost to the bushman and lost them;he kept on increasing his bets—and losing—and it was only at the ninth ball that the toughskinned rhinoceros fell at last,shot through the heart.

Then Sir John began to cheer up;his bets and his disappointment were all forgotten;he could remember only one thing—he had shot a rhinoceros.

But as he said to some of his club friends in London,‘that was a dear animal.’

In fact,it had cost him no less than thirty-six pounds,a very considerable sum,which the bushman pocketed with his habitual calm.