Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick ( Chapter 17)( Page 2 ) Buffalo Bushfire and Wild Dogs

Jock went in front: it was best so, and quite safe, for, whilst certain to spot anything long before we could, there was not the least risk of his rushing it or making any noise.  The slightest whisper of a "Hst" from me would have brought him to a breathless standstill at any moment; but even this was not likely to be needed, for he kept as close a watch on my face as I did on him. There was, of course, no difficulty whatever in following the spoor; the animals were as big as cattle, and their trail through the rank grass was as plain as a road: our difficulty was to get near enough to see them without being heard.  Under the down-trodden grass there were plenty of dry sticks to step on, any of which would have been as fatal to our chances as a pistol shot, and even the unavoidable rustle of the grass might betray, us while the buffalo themselves remained hidden. Thus our progress was very slow, a particularly troublesome impediment being the grass stems thrown down across the trail by the animals crossing and re-crossing each others' spoor and stopping to crop a mouthful here and there or perhaps to play.  The tambookie grass in these parts has a stem thicker than a lead pencil, more like young bamboo than grass; and these stems thrown cross-ways by storms or game make an entanglement through which the foot cannot be forced: it means high stepping all the time. We expected to follow the spoor for several miles before coming on the buffalo--probably right into the kloof towards which it appeared to lead--but were, nevertheless, quite prepared to drop on to them at any moment, knowing well how game will loiter on their way when undisturbed and vary their time and course, instinctively avoiding the too regular habits which would make them an easy prey. Jock moved steadily along the trodden track, sliding easily through the grass or jumping softly and noiselessly over impediments, and we followed, looking ahead as far as the winding course of the trail permitted. To right and left of us stood the screen of tall grass, bush and trees. Once Jock stopped, throwing up his nose, and stood for some seconds while we held our breath; but having satisfied himself that there was nothing of immediate consequence, he moved on again--rather more slowly, as it appeared to us.  I looked at Francis's face; it was pale and set like marble, and his watchful grey eyes were large and wide like an antelope's, as though opened out to take in everything; and those moments of intense interest and expectation were the best part of a memorable day. There was something near: we felt it!  Jock was going more carefully than ever, with his head up most of the time; and the feeling of expectation grew stronger and stronger until it amounted to absolute certainty.  Then Jock stopped, stopped in mid-stride, not with his nose up ranging for scent, but with head erect, ears cocked, and tail poised--dead still: he was looking at something. We had reached the end of the grass where the bush and trees of the mountain slope had choked it out, and before us there was fairly thick bush mottled with black shadows and patches of bright sunlight in which it was most difficult to see anything.  There we stood like statues, the dog in front with the two men abreast behind him, and all peering intently.  Twice Jock slowly turned his head and looked into my eyes, and I felt keenly the sense of hopeless inferiority.  "There it is, what are you going to do?" was what the first look seemed to say; and the second: "Well, what are you waiting for?" How long we stood thus it is, not possible to say: time is no measure of such things, and to me it seemed unending suspense; but we stood our ground scarcely breathing, knowing that something was there, because he saw it and told us so, and knowing that as soon as we moved it would be gone.  Then close to the ground there was a movement--something swung, and the full picture flashed upon us.  It was a buffalo calf standing in the shade of a big bush with its back towards us, and it was the swishing of the tail that had betrayed it.  We dared not breathe a word or pass a look--a face turned might have caught some glint of light and shown us up; so we stood like statues each knowing that the other was looking for the herd and would fire when he got a chance at one of the full-grown animals.

Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick ( Chapter 17 )( Page 1 ) Buffalo Bushfire and Wild dogs

The summer slipped away--the full-pulsed ripeness; of the year; beauty and passion; sunshine and storm; long spells of peace and gentleness, of springing life and radiant glory; short intervals of reckless tempest and destructive storm!  Among the massed evergreens of the woods there stood out here and there bright spots of colour, the careless dabs from Nature's artist hand; yellow and brown, orange and crimson, all vividly distinct, yet all in perfect harmony.  The rivers, fed from the replenished mountains' stores, ran full but clear; the days were bright; the nights were cold; the grass was rank and seeding; and it was time to go. Once more the Bushveld beckoned us away. We picked a spot where grass and water were good, and waited for the rivers to fall; and it was while loitering there that a small hunting party from the fields making for the Sabi came across us and camped for the night.  In the morning two of our party joined them for a few days to try for something big. It was too early in the season for really good sport.  The rank tropical grass--six to eight feet high in most places, twelve to fourteen in some--was too green to burn yet, and the stout stems and heavy seed heads made walking as difficult as in a field of tangled sugar cane; for long stretches it was not possible to see five yards, and the dew in the early mornings was so heavy that after a hundred yards of such going one was drenched to the skin. We were forced into the more open parts--the higher, stonier, more barren ground where just then the bigger game was by no means plentiful. On the third day two of us started out to try a new quarter in the hilly country rising towards the Berg.  My companion, Francis, was an experienced hunter and his idea was that we should find the big game, not on the hot humid flats or the stony rises, but still higher up on the breezy hill tops or in the cool shady kloofs running towards the mountains.  We passed a quantity of smaller game that morning, and several times heard the stampede of big animals--wildebeeste and waterbuck, as we found by the spoor--but it was absolutely impossible to see them.  The dew was so heavy that even our hats were soaking wet, and times out of number we had to stop to wipe the water out of our eyes in order to see our way; a complete ducking would not have made the least difference. Jock fared better than we did, finding openings and game tracks at his own level, which were of no use to us; he also knew better than we did what was going on ahead, and it was tantalising in the extreme to see him slow down and stand with his nose thrown up, giving quick soft sniffs and ranging his head from side to side, when he knew there was something quite close, and knew too that a few more toiling steps in that rank grass would be followed by a rush of something which we would never see. Once we heard a foot stamp not twenty yards off, and stood for a couple of minutes on tip-toe trying to pierce the screen of grass in front, absolutely certain that eyes and ears were turned on us in death-like silence waiting for the last little proof of the intruder that would satisfy their owners and start them off before we could get a glimpse. The silence must have made them suspicious, for at some signal unknown to us the troop broke away and we had the mortification to see something, which we had ignored as a branch, tilt slowly back and disappear: there was no mistaking the koodoo bull's horns once they moved! After two hours of this we struck a stream, and there we made somewhat better pace and less noise, often taking to the bed of the creek for easier going.  There, too, we found plenty of drinking-places and plenty of fresh spoor of the bigger game, and as the hills began to rise in view above the bush and trees, we found what Francis was looking for. Something caught his eye on the far side of the stream, and he waded in. I followed and when half-way through; saw the contented look on his face and caught his words: "Buffalo!  I thought so!" We sat down then to think it out.  The spoor told of a troop of a dozen to sixteen animals--bulls, cows, and calves; and it was that morning's spoor: even in the soft moist ground at the stream's edge the water had not yet oozed into most of the prints.  Fortunately there was a light breeze from the hills, and as it seemed probable that in any case they would make that way for the hot part of the day we decided to follow for some distance on the track and then make for the likeliest poort in the hills. The buffalo had come up from the low country in the night on a course striking the creek diagonally in the drinking-place; their departing spoor went off at a slight tangent from the stream--the two trails making a very wide angle at the drinking-place and confirming the idea that after their night's feed in the rich grass lower down they were making for the hills again in the morning and had touched at the stream to drink. Jock seemed to gather from our whispered conversation and silent movements that there was work to hand, and his eyes moved from one face to the other as we talked, much as a child watches the faces in a conversation it cannot quite follow.  When we got up and began to move along the trail, he gave one of his little sideways bounds, as if he half thought of throwing a somersault and restrained himself; and then with several approving waggings of his tail settled down at once to business.

Some Lion Photos taken While on the last safari to the Kruger National Park

Some lion photos taken while on safari to the Kruger National Park. These photos were taken on the Napi Road with my Iphone, as I did not have my camera with me.

This lioness was lying close to our vehicle while the others went looking at something in the bush

This was two lionesses that were close to our vehicle on the road. Something had got the attention of this pride of seven lioneses which we could not see.

Three lionesses lying close to our Open Safari vehicle on the Napi Road in the Kruger National Park.

Four lionesses In the road with the others looking at something in the bush on the side of the Napi Road.

Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick ( Chapter 16 )( Page 4 ) The tiger and Baboon

Our route lay along the side of the spur, skirting the rocky backbone and winding between occasional boulders, clumps of trees and bush, and we had moved on only a little way when a loud "Waugh" from a baboon on the mountain behind made us stop to look back.  The hoarse shout was repeated several times, and each time more loudly and emphatically; it seemed like the warning call of a sentry who had seen us.  Moved by curiosity we turned aside on to the ridge itself, and from the top of a big rock scanned the almost precipitous face opposite.  The spur on which we stood was divided from the Berg itself only by a deep but narrow kloof or ravine, and every detail of the mountain side stood out in the clear evening air, but against the many-coloured rocks the grey figure of a baboon was not easy to find as long as it remained still, and although from time to time the barking roar was repeated, we were still scanning the opposite hill when one of the boys pointed down the slope immediately below us and called out, "There, there, Baas!" The troop of baboons had evidently been quite close to us--hidden from us only by the little line of rocks--and on getting warning from their sentry on the mountain had stolen quietly away and were then disappearing into the timbered depth of the ravine.  We sat still to watch them come out on the opposite side a few minutes later and clamber up the rocky face, for they are always worth watching; but while we watched, the stillness was broken by an agonised scream--horribly human in its expression of terror--followed by roars, barks, bellows and screams from scores of voices in every key; and the crackle of breaking sticks and the rattle of stones added to the medley of sound as the baboons raced out of the wood and up the bare rocky slope. "What is it?" "What's the matter?" "There's something after them." "Look, look! there they come:" burst from one and another of us as we watched the extraordinary scene.  The cries from below seemed to waken the whole mountain; great booming "waughs" came from different places far apart and ever so high up the face of the Berg; each big roar seemed to act like a trumpet-call and bring forth a multitude of others; and the air rang with bewildering shouts and echoes volleying round the kloofs and faces of the Berg.  The strange thing was that the baboons did not continue their terrified scramble up the mountain, but, once out of the bush, they turned and rallied.  Forming an irregular semicircle they faced down hill, thrusting their heads forward with sudden jerks as though to launch their cries with greater vehemence, and feinting to charge; they showered loose earth, stones and debris of all sorts down with awkward underhand scrapes of their fore-paws, and gradually but surely descended to within a dozen yards of the bush's edge. "Baas, Baas, the tiger!  Look, the tiger!  There, there on the rock below!" Jim shot the words out in vehement gusts, choky with excitement; and true enough, there the tiger was.  The long spotted body was crouched on a flat rock just below the baboons; he was broadside to us, with his fore-quarters slightly raised and his face turned towards the baboons; with wide-opened mouth he snarled savagely at the advancing line, and with right paw raised made threatening dabs in their direction.  His left paw pinned down the body of a baboon. The voices from the mountain boomed louder and nearer as, clattering and scrambling down the face, came more and more baboons: there must have been hundreds of them; the semicircle grew thicker and blacker, more and more threatening, foot by foot closer.  The tiger raised himself a little more and took swift looks from side to side across the advancing front, and then his nerve went, and with one spring he shot from the rock into the bush. There was an instant forward rush of the half-moon, and the rock was covered with roaring baboons, swarming over their rescued comrade; and a moment later the crowd scrambled up the slope again, taking the tiger's victim with them.  In that seething rabble I could pick out nothing, but all the kaffirs maintained they could see the mauled one dragged along by its arms by two others, much as a child might be helped uphill. We were still looking excitedly about--trying to make out what the baboons were doing, watching the others still coming down the Berg, and peering anxiously for a sight of the tiger--when once more Jim's voice gave us a shock. "Where are the dogs?" he asked; and the question turned us cold.  If they had gone after the baboons they were as good as dead already-- nothing could save them.  Calling was useless: nothing could be heard in the roar and din that the enraged animals still kept up.  We watched the other side of the ravine with something more than anxiety, and when Jock's reddish-looking form broke through the bracken near to the tiger's rock, I felt like shutting my eyes till all was over.  We saw him move close under the rock and then disappear.  We watched for some seconds--it may have been a minute, but it seemed an eternity--and then, feeling the utter futility of waiting there, jumped off the rock and ran down the slope in the hope that the dogs would hear us call from there. From where the slope was steepest we looked down into the bed of the stream at the bottom of the ravine, and the two dogs were there: they were moving cautiously down the wide stony watercourse just as we had seen them move in the morning, their noses thrown up and heads turning slowly from side to side.  We knew what was coming; there was no time to reach them through the bush below; the cries of the baboons made calling useless; and the three of us sat down with rifles levelled ready to fire at the first sight.  With gun gripped and breath hard held, watching intently every bush and tree and rock, every spot of light and shade, we sat--not daring to move.  Then, over the edge of a big rock overlooking the two dogs, appeared something round; and, smoothly yet swiftly and with a snake-like movement, the long spotted body followed the head and, flattened against the rock, crept stealthily forward until the tiger looked straight down upon Jess and Jock. The three rifles cracked like one, and with a howl of rage and pain the tiger shot out over the dogs' heads, raced along the stony bed, and suddenly plunging its nose into the ground, pitched over--dead. It was shot through the heart, and down the ribs on each side were the scraped marks of the trap.