THE JOURNEY

As he had three ladies with him Mr. Pym decided to take a private saloon-car, but no saloon in the world could prevent them being nearly smothered with the dust through Bechuanaland and Matabeleland in August, and while Aunt Emily rent the air with her complainings and sufferings, Diana chose to pass disparaging remarks upon the long-suffering British Empire, which she considered responsible for her journey north. Meryl said nothing, but there was often a wistful expression in her eyes as they sighted a lonely farmstead, or stood in a little wayside station with perhaps one corrugated-iron building, where some white-faced woman looked listlessly at the train. When she tried to voice her sympathy with their loneliness, however, Diana snapped her up a little impatiently.

“My dear Meryl, you will look at things always in the sentimental light. A woman with a husband and child in this freshness and sunshine is at least better off than if she were in a city slum, and her man probably out of work, and her child dying for want of fresh air.”

“But that is not the only alternative!... And in any case to suffer in company is almost always easier than to suffer alone.”

“But they don’t suffer, or, at any rate, they needn’t necessarily. That is where you are so short-sighted. The average woman wants a husband and a child, and I don’t see that it matters much whether she has them in the wilderness or in a city; the main thing is to have them.”

“Well, for my part,” put in Aunt Emily in an aggrieved voice, “if I could only have a man in a cloud of dust I’d sooner never see the species again,” which tickled Diana hugely and caused her to horrify her aunt by adding, “But what an advantage for him never to be able to see what you were doing! One could have such high jinks!...” Then, changing her voice subtly, she enquired, “Is it too much for you, aunty?... I mean the dust and the journey? because there must be such very much worse things ahead, and ...”

“That will do, my dear. I can bear it,” and her expression of mournful resignation tickled Diana more than ever. On the day before they reached Bulawayo, however, when hour after hour brought very little but scrub and sand, she and her aunt were very nervy and irritable, and only Meryl, with her dreams and ideals, continued quietly interested. When they reached Bulawayo matters did not improve much, because a sand-storm was blowing and it was almost impossible to go out. Mr. Pym packed them off to the Victoria Falls as soon as possible, and remained behind himself to complete the arrangements for his trip. On the further railway journey the dust was worse than ever, and utterly out of heart with everything Rhodesian, Aunt Emily retired to a suite of rooms at the hotel on their arrival and said she should stay there until the cool of the evening.

So Diana and Meryl stood on Danger Point alone, when they took their first long look at the amazing cataract of waters. Neither spoke for many seconds, and then Diana breathed, “I’m glad Aunt Emily didn’t come. She would have called it ‘lovely’ or ‘sweet.’”

Meryl laid a sympathetic hand on her arm and murmured, “And you?...”

“One couldn’t call it anything. It just is.” And Meryl with her understanding heart pressed her arm in silence.

They walked together through the rain forest, getting drenched with spray and hardly noticing it, until they came to the opening near the Devil’s Cataract at the south end, and sat down to gaze at the splendour and wonder outspread.

Then Diana spoke a little in something of an undertone, half to Meryl, half to the air:

“A god did it. I don’t know which Jupiter or Pan, or Apollo or Hercules and when they grew tired of the earth and went off to other planets, they just left it behind as a child might a castle he has built in the sand; and by and by some crabs crawled along and found the castle, and sat down and looked at it because it seemed to them so wonderful; and by and by some humans found the gods’ waterfall, crawled up to it, and sat down and wondered. That’s all there is to do. O, Meryl, I wish I were a goddess and not a worm. The waters are mocking us. Don’t you hear them?... I just feel as if there were something about it all I can’t bear.”

Meryl smiled a little tender smile. To her Diana in all her moods was adorable. In her shy, fierce, tense ones, as now, she was best of all.

“What does it say to you, Meryl?...” the girl went on. “Do you feel as if you hated it and worshipped it both together? Hated its remote magnificence and devilish cruelty, and worshipped it because you couldn’t help yourself, either from fear or wonder? I don’t know which, only I feel ... I feel ... as if I ought to throw over something I loved as a sacrifice of propitiation. And it goes on just the same think of it year after year, century after century, just calmly spilling magnificence on the desert air! I believe I’m frightened, Meryl. Tell me what it all says to you.”

Meryl looked dreamily along the glistening mighty cascades, and then spoke softly:

“I feel I’m in the presence of one of the world’s biggest things, and it is inspiring. You know that sentence of James Lane Allen’s, ’When one has heard the big things calling, how they call and call, day and night, day and night!...’ Here they call louder, that is my chief feeling. I look at this great natural wonder, and whatever there is in me most akin to it swells upward. I feel I must do great things or die ... be great or not at all. And while I feel like this there is a sense of kinship, as if some spirit of the waters understands.”

“Perhaps that is why I am afraid,” breathed Diana. “I don’t care about greatness. I don’t want to be great. It all seems so unreal. I like the sunshine, and flowers, and trees, and birds, and four-footed things. I don’t want to be bothered with my fellow-creatures; they are a nuisance. If they are in difficulties, and can’t find a way out for themselves, they might just as well go under.”

“You heartless little heathen!” affectionately.

The girl brightened suddenly. “Why! it understands, Meryl!... The Spirit of the Waters heard me, and now it is laughing. It is great enough to understand and appreciate the feelings of both of us. Don’t you hear the note of revelling now?... Why!... it’s all revelling. The waters are shrieking with joy. They’ve come tearing down the Zambesi valley for the rapture of plunging over the precipice, and now they are just beside themselves with the excitement and delight of it. O!... they heard me say I don’t care about my fellow-creatures, that they are just a nuisance, and they’re shouting to me, ’Neither do we ... neither do we!... Silly, wide-eyed, open-mouthed humans come and stare at us, and try to describe us, saying we are lovely and wonderful and pretty and such-like, and we just roar at them and their puniness and take our glorious plunge.’ That is what the waters are saying to me now, Meryl. I feel as if I simply must plunge with them. Take me away. I can’t bear any more to-day.” And they went silently back through the lovely plantations to the hotel.

But in the evening, in the moonlight, her mood changed again.

“I feel a little like you to-night, Meryl. The big things do matter, of course. If I’m such a silly little goat I can’t do anything big myself, I guess I’ll help you whenever it’s possible. And, of course, even humans matter a little, though I do like dogs and horses so much better; but there’s something so calm and big and strong about the waters to-night, they are telling me all the time that the big things matter. O, Meryl, it’s so lovely so lovely it hurts dreadfully....”

And after a pause: “If it hadn’t been for you I should never have taken the trouble to come and see it. I won’t grouse at the dust any more.”

And later: “I’m glad there’s no sign of a human habitation at hand, and that the wilderness is all round. They had to be splendidly isolated magnificently alone the god who did it understood that. One can think of the wide reaches of Africa afterwards, and the gem, like a priceless jewel, set in them. Deep silence, wide horizons, untrodden country on every hand, and this in the midst like a treasure tenderly enfolded.”

After three days they returned to Bulawayo, and found their pilot impatient to be off. He unfolded his plans, and the two girls listened eagerly when he said:

“I am told there is every indication of gold in the Victoria district, and my engineer is anxious I should journey down there and see one or two properties. The railway does not extend beyond Selukwe, so if we go we must take a travelling ambulance and tents and sleep out in them for three or four weeks. I think there is a pretty good hotel in Edwardstown, where you could remain if you like while I travel round, and then we might all journey to Salisbury up the old pioneer route.”

The girls were delighted, but Aunt Emily’s mournful resignation had reached its limit. She informed them, in a voice which implied, no matter how they pleaded with her, she should remain firm, that nothing would induce her to accompany them upon such a journey.

Her brother said quietly, “Just as you like, Emily. I think I can take care of the girls. Will you stay in Bulawayo, or go back to Johannesburg?”

Aunt Emily’s face wore rather a reproachful expression as she replied, “I suppose I had better return to Johannesburg, and then if any of you get ill with malaria or typhoid, you must wire for me and I will come back.”

“You were very good to come so far,” said Meryl gently, seeing the veiled disappointment that they could dispense with her so easily.

“If it is any consolation,” volunteered Diana, “you may be quite sure we are all going to be most horribly uncomfortable for the next month or two. The only illness I anticipate is an utter and complete weariness of life. I don’t know which sounds the most dreadful: being bumped along dusty roads in an ambulance, and sleeping with snakes and toads under a tent; or being stifled in an odious little corrugated-iron hotel, living on poisonous tinned stuffs in a perpetual odour of stale roast nigger. If I am going to endure it for my country, I hope my country will give me the only fitting reward the Victoria Cross.”

“Perhaps we needn’t stay in the hotel,” said Meryl hopefully. “We can probably camp out. Surely the wonderful old ruins are somewhere near Edwardstown, father? How splendid if we could camp beside them!...”

“Quite near. We will certainly go and see them. They tell me there is a police camp there, and at this time of the year it is quite healthy.”

“But how glorious!...” cried Meryl. “I had no idea you were going in their direction.”

“I meant to if possible,” her father said; and so the trip was decided upon.

Three days later the cavalcade started off from Gwelo with great eclat. Two ambulances: one containing the two girls, a driver, a fore-looper, and a small black boy named Gelungwa, who was everything from ladies’ maid to general adviser; and the other containing Mr. Pym, his engineer, driver, fore-looper, and the engineer’s black cook-boy, who proved himself an invaluable asset.

Each ambulance was drawn by eight mules, and carried its share of the paraphernalia necessary to a long sojourn in the wilderness, and being thoroughly well equipped, they had decided to dispense with any further railway service until they reached Salisbury.

They started from Gwelo, with its wide, tree-lined roads, in the freshness of the morning, and leaving the surrounding bare, uninteresting common quickly behind, dived straightway into a track of Rhodesia that is like a vast, undulating park. The red road wound across a wide, breezy stretch of veldt to wooded hills and valleys, and beyond this was an enchanting vista of dreaming blue kopjes on a far horizon. Even Diana found nothing to grumble at. Like Meryl, her eyes rested often on that dreaming distance, and the unique charm of a journey into the unknown, independent of railways and hotels, held her senses. When two graceful buck sprang up in the grass near them, stood a moment to investigate, and then fled away, leaping and bounding to safety, she drew a deep breath of delight.

“Di, it’s going to be a glorious trip!” Meryl exclaimed in low-voiced ecstasy.

Diana paused before she remarked in answer:

“It seems so natural somehow, to be journeying out to an unknown bourne in this primitive fashion. I wonder if, in another existence, I was one of the wives or handmaidens in Abraham’s caravanserai? Perhaps I was his favourite concubine!... How interesting!... I’m sure I’ve journeyed like this into a far land before.”

And again:

“How jolly to have two drivers who don’t understand a word we say, instead of a chauffeur who is all ears and an Aunt Emily who is all prejudices!”

“Still,” said Meryl, “you couldn’t very well have a coachman in England wearing a sky-blue felt hat that was obviously meant for a lady, and with a large blue patch upon brown trousers.”

“He’s just a dear,” was Diana’s laughing comment. “I love his awful solemnity. He’s like a Hindoo idol. And what luck to have a side wind instead of a forward one!”

At twelve they stayed in a welcome piece of shade for their first veldt meal. Lounge-chairs were untied for them to rest in, and an excellent little repast prepared by the cook-boy, while the small black imp waited upon them like a trained butler. Then they dozed through the hot midday hours, continuing their journey to those alluring blue distances after all were rested, until they reached the first night’s camping place and pitched their tents near a rippling river as Diana described it, “all mixed up with stars, and dreams, and niggers, and kopjes, and mules.”

For a week they journeyed on, each day seeming lovelier than the last, and the dreaming repose of a great content hovered over all of them. There was no need for haste and none was made. There was no pitiless urging of tired mules as in the post-cart; no shouting natives, no hurried pauses for a snatched rest. The mules jogged contentedly along, realising they were in good hands, and always through the midday hours everyone lazed. An early spring had brought many young leaves out, although it was still August, and these were often beautiful shades of red, bronze, orange, scarlet, gold, and emerald-green, beyond or through which blue kopjes took on a yet more dream-like, ethereal air. Sometimes the red road wound along through woods of loveliest colouring, carpeted already with spring flowers. Sometimes it ran out into open spaces where the trees stood back in line, revealing wonderful glimpses of the fascinating land to their eager gaze.

Strange, fantastical, granite kopjes like mighty mausoleums adorned with ilex trees barred their path, and Diana was convinced some of the bones of her ancestors lay buried there, because she felt so weirdly at home with them.

“This is my natural environment,” she informed her uncle and the engineer. “I ought to be dwelling here in state, as the favourite wife of the greatest chief in the land.”

Meryl grew dreamier with every day, though sometimes her eyes were sad as she looked out over the country, as if she already loved it with a love that was akin to pain.

Had he, that great Imperialist, looked at it with those calm eyes of his, and known just that sense of aching love?... When he journeyed out into its enchanting untrodden spaces, accompanied only by some kindred spirit, had the land risen up and enslaved and enfolded him, like some enchantress who bound men’s souls for ever?... Had Rhodesia, in her sunny loveliness, been wife and child to the great man who went lonely to his grave?...

As they drove along and the fascination increased, far outweighing any discomfort of glare and dust and jolting roads, Meryl felt herself engraving the sight and the sound and the freshness of it upon her soul, that she might have hidden pictures to gaze upon with closed eyes when the exigencies of life called her back into the throng.

Her father was mostly silent as was his wont, planning and scheming with a brain that knew little other rest than following its natural bent, yet with that in his silence, and in his watchful eyes that made one feel he too loved the land for itself, as well as for what he could get out of it; and that when occasion came, like Alfred Beit and Cecil Rhodes, he would pay his debt a hundredfold.

So they came at last to the wide, open veldt where Edwardstown was situated, and knew themselves in the district teeming with pioneer memories.

Meryl and Diana descended reluctantly at the hotel, and looked round disparagingly at their little hot bedroom, thinking regretfully of their tent in the wilderness.

“How awful,” said Diana, “if we find ourselves never able to exist in an ordinary house again! We shall have to pitch two tents in Hyde Park. Ugh!... it positively smells of walls and doors and windows; how I hate them!”

“We’ll go on to Zimbabwe to-morrow and camp beside the ruins,” answered Meryl. “How splendid to be going there so soon!”

“Ruins are not much in my line,” quoth the outspoken. “Let’s hope there’ll be a man there as well.”