Chapter 20 - Animals

We had acquired three animals by this time. Orchid was our dog whom we had brought with us. She had been bought as a puppy at an auction sale in Bulawayo and turned into the strangest crossbreed we could have believed. She appeared to be half daschund and half Ridgeback and as the ridgeback is a large brown, smooth-haired dog with a curly ridge of hair on her long daschund back. Fortunately she was a sturdier shape than the elegant pedigree and carried her ridge without too much embarrassment.

 Our second animal was a small black kid. During the absence of Hilda and I at Tunduma, the men had been out hunting for meat, as it was the only way we could get fresh meat and was necessary not only for us but for the whole camp who were often desperately short of relish for their 'bunga' as they called their ground maize meal. On this occasion they had shot a large buck and it was being skinned in the space behind our house when a leopard appeared, attracted by the smell. The 'boys' set up a yell and banged every tin within sight which frightened the leopard, but not before he had mauled Orchid in passing, who ran into the house covered in blood and terrified at her narrow escape. Alex bathed and comforted her and realised that the leopard would have to be caught as it would probably return until either it, or we would suffer.

Roy was so upset at Orchid's plight that he immediately rushed after the leopard with his gun and had to be restrained as it was now dark and too dangerous to hunt wild animals on foot. It was decided to set a trap so a small stockade was built inside a larger one, In the smaller stockade was put the little black kid and at the opening of the larger stockade was fixed a gun and a trip wire. This produced no result and was given up, which meant that we now had Jan as the second member of our animal family, and when Hilda and I returned and found what had been her original role, we petted her extravagantly and she became so tame she would follow us everywhere, answer her name and took up her abode in the house. The natives kept goats for food and could not understand the tameness she showed with us, but they decided she was bewitched and treated her with great respect. She would follow Alex to the bridge site and when he told the labourers she was 'inspecting' they believed him and got to work under the slit yellow gaze of our little goat.

One day a native arrived at the house with a tiny baby monkey. He was only about 6 inches long and very frightened so I bought him. The native said his mother had been killed. I fed him from a fountain pen filler with milk and kept him in a shopping basket wrapped in an old jumper, and at night beside my bed he would at first cry like a small baby and had to be patted. Later I hung the basket on the veranda and he learned to climb about among the poles and to eat, and later still he became extremely mischievous. We called him Junior.

Each morning Eleanore and Hilda would set out for a walk 'to look for crocodiles' with Orchid and Jan running behind them and Junior clinging to Eleanore's neck under her hair. I soon had another monkey vendor. and again bought a poor little scrap, older than Junior and not nearly so attractive and although I tried to make him well and happy, he seemed to pine away and when the next offer of a monkey arose, Alex said definitely 'No!. You must bring no more monkeys to the Mama and you must take that one back into the bush and let him go. We will not buy any'. He watched to see what the native would do, and when he found that on receiving no money for his captive he proceeded to abuse it to the great amusement of all the onlookers, he was furiously angry and spoke at length and with force, so that never again, at least to us, would any African capture a wild animal for the money it would bring. We had discovered that they were looking for monkeys to kill the mother and steal the babies. I had bought the two monkeys to save them from the suffering I knew they would endure among the Africans, but it had to stop somewhere and Alex had stopped it. Without a market there might be no more attempts to kill what they could not eat, although there was some joking among them at times about eating monkeys. One tribe would say scoffingly 'she is of a tribe that eats monkeys' and they would all laugh hilariously. I asked Simon about this and he said with amusement 'there is a tribe who are said to eat monkeys, but they must turn the head away so that it does not see them'. I found that most of the women did not like then, nor would they touch them.

Each tribe had an animal which was a fetish and could not be touched, and we found one of ours was a python. Roy had found a large python curled in a hole on the bridge site, and had shot it, and as he was busy at the time, he told the boys with whom he used to hunt, to skin it. The next day on going to see it, he found it was still untouched and the hunters told him that they could not do it, so Roy skinned it himself, watched warily by the boys, but as he neared the end of his task, Mwangani Mwenso came up to him and said craftily 'Bwana, I want you to give me the heart and the tongue for my muti' and when Roy did so, he was delighted and put them in a little skin bag which he tied round his neck

There were several dogs on the compound but they were poor things, as they were kept only to help the natives hunt, and if the hunting was poor they starved, for no food was given them and should they steal a bone they were beaten unmercifully. We all tried to teach them not to be cruel, but it was impossible- we could only reprimand when such an action came directly to our notice. They could not understand what we were talking about as cruelty to animals was just a part of living and they in turn thought we were very stupid to bother about them.

Many cases of leopards taking dogs in difficult places have been recorded. I personally saw a leopard leap from the rocks into an enclosed courtyard at Shiwa N'Gandu to attack a dog. The leopard got in a terrible state when it could not easily get back out again and terrified everyone until it escaped

I shot the leopard several nights later, with a .22 after missing it with the .303 which had bad sights for nighr shooting. We had the skin for many years after.

 Hunting had to be done as we all needed fresh meat, and Roy was the one to do it. He would take one of two hunters with him and perhaps be away for a day or two, walking perhaps twenty miles before getting a buck, or a Roan Antelope or an Eland or even a Warthog. White people had decided that warthog was not good for eating, but when Roy shot one, we decided to try it. They are very ugly animals with large tusked heads, and have a thick warty skin. The first thing was to skin it, and this was done in our cement bath with hot water and scrubbing. Then Roy built a brick fireplace outside and by keeping a damp fire going for some days the wart hog was eventually smoked. We enjoyed thick slices of ham for the whole camp for weeks.

We learned how to keep fresh meat in good condition and this was very useful, as it was not always easy to find game and we got so tired of tinned corned beef. Everywhere in N.R. people used the paraffin tin which they called 'debbies' for every conceivable use. They were water carriers, meal storers, fire braziers, and stools, so we collected all we had to spare and on the next successful hunting expedition we cut up as much of the meat as was left over after supplying the camp with a feast, onto rough chunks and tightly filled each debbie with it and a plentiful supply of rock salt. On top of each we put a board and weighted it down with bricks. This we found would keep for a few months and from it we could draw a supply of stewing steak as we needed it.

At one time I could not bear to think of any animal or even insect being killed, particularly the pretty little buck, but it is a strange thing that living in the bush with so many people to feed, I came to accept the necessity for it and so long as it was a clean kill I did not mind.

The Africans, however, enjoy the hunt so much that when an animal is sighted they are after it and on it with great ferocity and each enjoys his share in the killing. With Roy's gun this was prevented and he became an excellent shot. He had been keeping a look-out for the leopard which attacked Orchid, having several times caught a glimpse of him in the nearby bush, but one evening he was able to catch him and it was with great satisfaction to all the camp when he dragged it in and skinned it. We had the skin for many years but each succeeding dog we had, chewed more and more of his edges until he became a shadow of his former self. How beautiful they are!. The skin shining and strong with colour, the thick head and narrow eyes, green in the dark for wild beasts, the heavy cruel paws and the beautiful gliding walk, but they are killers and can destroy a kraal full of sheep or goats for no other pleasure than the killing. They are also particularly fond of dogs and have been known to break through a mosquito gauze to take them even in a comparatively large bush station.

The two weeks of Eleanore's holiday came too soon to an end and as we had taken the opportunity to arrange to send Hilda to school in Johannesburg, with an aunt and uncle of mine there. It meant we were losing both our girls at once as we had decided they should travel together as far as Bulawayo. They were reluctant to go, but Eleanore had made up her mind to come up for good as soon as she could manage it, and we felt it was a good opportunity for Hilda to meet friends of her own age and live in the kind of world she would be living in later on.

They left in the Thatcher and Hobson bus for the long journey back to Broken Hill and then by train to Bulawayo and we had messages back from their various stops telling us of their progress southwards. I missed them very much and the Africans lost interest in our house for a time as there were no young girls and their gaiety to observe, but I was still very busy with my 'patients' and animals, and a garden I was trying to plant.

We were fortunate in being in an area which was declared a 'Rinderpest Clearance' area to prevent the spread of a serious animal disease from Tanganyika into N.R. and a 40 mile wide strip the whole length of the border was open hunting and all animals were considered vermin. I did in fact often walk distances of up to forty miles in a day while out hunting. The Benamwanga hunters were incredible and taught me all I know. They could follow a 'spoor' of tracks ,broken grass, bent leaves or occasional spots of blood while moving at a trot and were able to spot the flick of an ear or the swish of a tail at hundreds of yards. They were able to carry great weights of meat for many miles while not eating or drinking from sunup to sundown, the result of many generations of 'survival of the fittest'.

The 'debbie's' mentioned were four-gallon square tin cans with a wire handle on top. Most petrol and all paraffin were delivered by road to the North in these cans and when empty were used for a great number of purposes from storage to being re-shaped into utensils, cooking pots etc.

The African reaction to killing is crude. After I had shot an animal, even though it dropped dead on the spot, the 'blood lust' made them rush up to it and hack it with axes and knives as though it was trying to run away... which resulted in a grizzly mess.. which they clearly enjoyed.