Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1893-02-23


lowing pages came to me from the lips
of my old friend, Allan Quatermain, OF
Hunter Quatermain, as we used to call
him in South Africa. lie told it to me
one evening when / was stopping with
him at the place he bought in York
shire Shortly after that the death of
his only son so unsettled him that he
Immediately left England, accompanied
by two companions, who We're fellow
voyagers of his, Sir Henry Curtis and
Captain Good. and has now utterly van
ished into the dark heart of Africa. He
is persuaded that white people, of
whom he has heard rumors all his life.
exists somewhere on the highlands in
the vast, still uneXplored interior, and
his great ambition is to find them before
he dies.
This is the wild quest upon which he
and his companions have departed, and
from which I shrewdly suspect they
never will return. One letter only have
| received from the old gentleman, dated
from a mission station high up the Tana,
a river on the east coast, about three
hundred miles north Of Zanzibar. In it
hardships and adventures, but are alive
and we'll, and have found traces which
90 far toward making him hope that the
results of their wild quest may be
magnificent and unexampled discov-
cry" l greatly fear, however, that all
he has discovered is death, for this letter
came a long while ago, and nobody has
heard q single word of the party since,
They have totally vanished.
1t was on the last evening Of my stay
at his house that he told the ensuing
story to me and Captain Good, who was
dining with him. He had eaten his
dinner and drunk two or three glasses
Of old port just to help Good and my
self to the end Of the second bottle. 1t
was an unusual thing for him to do, for
he was most abstemious man, having
conceived, as he used to say, a great
horror Of drink from observing its eff
fects Upon the class Of men-hunters,
transport riders and others-among
whom he had passed so many years OF
his life. Consequently the good wine
took more effect on him than it would
have done on most men, sending a little
flush into his wrinkled cheeks and max
ing him talk more freely than usual.
Dear old man! can see him now as
be went limping up and down the YES
Gbule, with his gray hair sticking up in
scrubbipg brush fashion, his shriveled,
yellow face and has large dark eyes that
were as keen as any hawk and yet soft
as bucks. The whole room was hung
with trophies Of his numerous hunting
expeditions, and he had some story
about every one Of them, if only you
could get him to tell them. Generally
he would not, for he was notvery fond of
narrating his own adventures, but to-
night the port wine made him more
communicative.
''Ah, you brute!" he said, stopping be-
meath an usually large skull of lion,
which was fixed just over the mantel-
piece beneath d long row of guns, its
jaws distended to their utmost width
'Ah, you brute, you have given me lot
of trouble for the last dozen years, and
will, suppose, to my dying day"
Tell US the yarn, Quatermain," said
Good You have often promised to tell
me, and you never have"
you had better not ask me to-" he an
swered, ''for it is longish one"
"All right" l said; "the evening is
young, and there is some more port"
Thus adjured, he filled his pipe from a
jar Of coarse cut Boer tobacco that was
always standing on the mantelpiece, and
still walking up and down the room be-
gan:
at was, think, il the March of 1869
that | was up in Sikukuni's country. 1t
was just after old Sequati's time, and
Sikukuni had got into power-I forget
how. Anyway | was there. l had heard
that the Bdpedi people had got down an
enormous quantity Of ivory from the in
terror, and so | started with a wagon
load Of goods and came straight away
from Middelburg to try and trade some
Of it. 1t was risky thing to go into the
country SO early ON account of the fever,
but knew that there We're one or two
others after that lot Of ivory, so / de-
termined to have Il try for it and take
my chance Of fever had got so tough
from continual knocking about that |
did not set it down at much. Well, |
got on all right for awhile.
1T is "A wonderfully beautiful piece OF
bush veldt, with great ranges of noun
tains running through il and round
granite koppies starting up here and
there, looking out like sentinels over the
rolling waste Of bush. But it is very
hot-hct as q stewpan-and when wa.
there that March, which Of course is
autumn III that part Of Africa, the whole
place reeked OF fever Every morning
as / trekked along down by the Oliphant
river | used to creep out Of the wagon
at dawn and look out. But there was
40 river to be seen--only long line OF
pillows Of what looked like the finest
cotton wool tossed up lightly with a
pitchfork.
1T was the fever mist. out from
among the scrub, too came little spirals
Of vapor, as though there We're hun
dreds Of tiny fires alight III it-reeli ris-
ing from thousands Of tons of rotting