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Off to the Wilds, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 40. Onward To Wonderland |
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_ CHAPTER FORTY. ONWARD TO WONDERLAND "Bedad, an' his mother must have wathered him well whin he was a babby, to make him grow like that," cried Dinny, as he saw the tall captive haltered to a tree by the waggon, and contentedly beginning to browse upon the tender shoots within its reach. "Is thim legs rale, Masther Dick?" "Real? Of course, Dinny," said Dick, laughing. "Shure, an' I didn't know there was any av coorse in the matther," said Dinny sententiously. "I thought the injanious baste might have been brought up in a wet place, and made himshelf shtilts." "What nonsense, Dinny!" cried Jack. "Ah, an' I dunno about nonsense, Masther Jack; for I've seen some wondherful things since I've been in these parts. An' so we're going to pack up and go home to-morrow, ain't we?" "We're going to pack up and go farther into the wilds," said Dick. "Oh, murther!" "There's the great fall to see yet, and we've got elephants to shoot." "Shure an' I don't want any great falls, or for anny one to see it." "Nonsense, Dinny. I mean to see the cataract," said Dick. "Shure, an' it's you as is talking the nonsense now, Masther Dick; for how could ye see if ye'd got a catharact?" "What do you mean, Dinny?" "What do I mane? Shure it was my own cousin by me mother's side that had a couple o' bad catharacts in his eyes, and couldn't see a bit till they took him to the hoshpittle and had 'em out. Ah, they're mortial bad things, Masther Dick." "No, no; I mean a cataract or fall of the river, where it tumbles over rocks." "An' what would a river go tumbling off rocks for, Masther Dick? Why don't it go along quietly?" "Ah, you'll see when we get there," said Dick. "It's a fall like that where you nearly got drowned, only hundreds of times as big." "An d'ye expect me to get in a boat at a place like that, Masther Dick? Now, by this and by that, ye don't if I know it." "Never mind then, Dinny. You shall take your gun and shoot elephants. You know what they're like?" "Shure, I sin a picture o' one wance," said Dinny. "It was a little thing wid two tails, one at aych ind; and the boy as showed me telled me as they're made of ingy-rubber." "Ah, yes, they're very little things," said Dick, laughing; and then they went to their dinner under the tree. That evening the new pet was well attended to; and the leopard, now growing a fine sleek beast that loved to roll and gambol with the dogs, given his evening meat; and the remains of the daylight were spent in packing. Next morning early, with the skin secure on the waggon-tilt, the sleek oxen were once more in-spanned, and the waggon rolled merrily on towards the falls of the Zambesi. Four days trekking through a beautiful country brought them to where a continuous vibrating roar was always in the air, and in the distance what seemed to be one continuously changing cloud, which was lit up by the sun in a wondrous succession of hues. The boys grew excited with expectation; and Dinny's face became very blank as he whispered to Dick,-- "Shure, the river don't always go on tumbling like that, Masther Jack, do it?" "Always, Dinny," said Jack, as he too listened, with a feeling of awe, to the falling water. "Thin it must be giving itself a moighty hard whack upon the shtones it falls on, to make it roar like that," said Dinny in a serio-comic fashion, and he went off to attend to the fire as, the General having pointed out a capital place for a halt, Mr Rogers gave the word, and the camp was rapidly formed. They had come through plenty of beautiful scenery, but the rich verdure and beauty of the palms, ferns, and other foliage-growths, watered as they were by the soft hazy spray that came from the mighty falls, was beyond anything they had yet seen, and fully justified Mr Rogers' remark, half made aloud,-- "What a glorious place this world is after all!" A strong thorn kraal was formed, and after a good feed the horses and oxen were secured, and resisting the temptation to go that night to inspect the falls--a very dangerous experiment in the dark--the fire blazed up, watch was set, and the sight deferred to the following day. All that night Dick and Jack, when they they were not on watch, dreamed of roaring lions, and falls of water, and then of thunderstorms; but towards morning the heavy dull hum lulled them to sleep, a sleep so sound that Coffee and Chicory amused themselves for ten minutes tickling their noses with strands of grass, before they could get them awake. Then they both jumped up in an ill-temper, each seizing a dark-complexioned tormentor to punch and bang; but the sight of the Zulu boys' merry laughing faces, lit up by their bright eyes and white teeth, disarmed all anger, and Dick and Jack rubbed the last relic of the night's sleep out of their eyes, and went to breakfast. The General had been at the falls before, and as soon as the camp was considered straight, Dinny, Peter, and Dirk were left behind, and the three bosses, as Chicory called them, went off, with the father to guide, the Zulu boys carrying a basket of food. The brilliancy of the greens of the various trees around gave an additional charm to what was always a very beautiful landscape, for here it was never dry, and the consequence was that every tree, plant, and tender herb was in the highest state of luxuriance. They kept a sharp look out for enemies in the shape of large animals, but nothing was seen; and following the General in single file, they went on and on, with the awful thunder in the air growing deeper and louder at every step. No water was in sight as they went carefully through the trees and huge fronded ferns; nothing but verdure of the richest hues, the sun shining through it, and making the dewy leaves glisten with a sheen like that of many precious stones. So loud though was the roar of the water that they knew that they must now be near, when all at once they reached an opening in the forest, and Mr Rogers and his sons involuntarily paused, to gaze at a rainbow of such beauty, and apparently so near that it was hard to believe that by stretching out the hand it could not be touched. Even as they gazed it disappeared, but only to appear again a little farther off, and in a slightly different position. Then it was gone again, and so on and on, a dozen times or so; but always beautiful beyond the power of description. When they were weary of gazing the General smiled, and went on again towards a soft pearly-looking mist, almost like the thinnest smoke; and for this the boys took it, till Mr Rogers whispered that it was the fine spray rising in clouds from the falls. On they went, slowly, down amongst fern-hung rocks, and narrow ravines full of rich foliage, while tall palms stood up every here and there like columns; and then all at once the General stood aside, and the party, with the earth trembling beneath their feet, passed through a screen of trees, and stood gazing at one of the wonders of the world. Right and left, as far as they could see for the trees, and comparatively close to them, the waters of the great river were passing over and between a vast barrier of rocks, forming numberless cataracts, some small, some of large volume. In places these fell in a smooth glassy body of water towards them, in a glistening curve, down far below and out of their sight, while others fell from rocky shelf to shelf, to be broken up into foam and spray as, glistening and white, they hurried down to join more broken water, as far down as they could see. Where they stood was thirty or forty feet below the level of the river before it made its spring; but how far down it fell into the awful gulf at their feet they could not tell, but the depth seemed to be immense. Mr Rogers afterwards said it was 400 feet. The first instinct of the boys was to go nearer, but, with a look of alarm, the General grasped Jack by the arm, and showed him that the ground sloped so and was so slippery, that to get near enough to see the bottom of the fall would have been to run the greatest risk of falling headlong into the awful abyss. In mute amazement then they stood, watching the long line of cataracts, endless as it were in the beauty and variety of their forms. Wonder upon wonder seemed to greet the eye in the colour of the waters as they flashed in the sun, some descending in huge solid glassy masses of water, others in tiny spirts that seemed to make a leap on their own account into the vast chasm, falling at last like a shower of fine rain. "I could stand and look at it for ever, father," said Dick, in a low, awe-inspired voice. "Look at the foam there! look at that spray! The water is quite white there! And that great fall there, see how it glistens! Oh, how I should like to be below, and see where the water strikes, and churns up together. Could a boat get there?" Mr Rogers smiled, and shook his head. "Then I should like to be a bird," said Dick quietly, "and fly softly through that great gulf." "Till the water made your wings wet, and you fell in and were drowned," said matter-of-fact Jack. "I shouldn't; but I should like to get close to the edge, and see the falls from the bottom to the top." But the General shook his head, and said that it could not be done. As they grew more used to the scene, they made out that the range of cataracts was much farther away than they had at first thought, being quite a couple of hundred yards; but the awful thunderous roar, the trembling of the earth beneath their feet, and the strange vibration in the air, seemed to confuse them, so that everything seemed unreal and strange, and the whole vision like some dream. They gazed on, never weary of the beauty of the great falls; and then, following their guide, he led them from place to place, so that they could see the huge serpentine gorge in which the river ran after its fall, rushing wildly between two grand walls of rock, its rage becoming the more furious from its being a mighty broad river above the falls, and then having to compress itself into a gorge not a thirteenth part of its original width. The speed of the river as it foamed along in this terrible ravine, seemed absolutely frightful, and in places where the rocks had to bear the brunt of the current as it made some sudden turn, the din was terrific. Hours were spent in gazing at the verdure-carpeted rocks, the brilliant rapids, the wondrous twining creepers, and, above all, at the beauties of this wonder of the world; and then at last they tore themselves unwillingly away, to attend to such ladly matter-of-fact affairs as eating and drinking. After this, as sunset was growing near, they stopped to see the gorgeous tints upon the clouds of vapour, and the fresh rainbows that kept coming and going as if by magic. At last they tore themselves away, silent and awe-inspired at the wonders upon which they had gazed, the deep thunder of the falling waters rolling in their ears as they journeyed on, and keeping up its solemn boom night and day. Now as the wind wafted it towards them it came in a deep roar, but only to soften and become distant, swelling, and rising, and falling, filling their dreams again, as they lay beneath the shelter of the canvas tilts, and seeming to wake them at the break of day. _ |
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