A TERRIBLE TREE. The Botanical Vampire in the Wilds of Nubia.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1806, 2 February 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

A TERRIBLE TREE. The Botanical Vampire in the Wilds of Nubia.

Many years ago I turned my restless steps toward Central Africa and made the journey from ■where the Senegal empties itgeif into the Atlantic to the Nile, skirting the Great Desert and reaching Nubia on my way to the Eastern coast. I had with me three native attendants — two of them brothers, the "third, Otona, a young savage from Gaboon uplands, a mere lad in his teens, and one day, leaving my mule with the two men, Mho ■were pitching my tent for the night. I went on with my gun, the boy accompanying me, toward a fern forest which I noticed in the near distance. As I approached it I found the forest cut in two by a, wide glade, and seeing a small herd of the common antelope, an excellent beast in the pot, browsing their way along the shaded side, I crept after them. Though ignorant of the real danger, the herd was suspicious and, slowly trotting before me, enticed me for a mile or more along the verge of the fern growths. Turning a corner I suddenly became aware of a solitary tree growing in the middle of the glade — one tree alone. It struck me at once that I had never seen a iree just like it before; but, being intent upon venison for my supper, I looked at it only long enough to satisfy my surprise at seeing a single plant of such growth flourishing luxuriantly in a spot where only ths harsh fern canes seemed to thrive. The deer, meanwhile, were midway between me and the tree, but, suddenly, instead of passing it, swerved in their career and swept around it at some yards distance. Was I mad, or did the plant really try to catch the deer ? On a sudden I ,saw, or thought I saw, THE TREE VIOLENTLY AGITATED, and, while the ferns all around were standing motionless in the dead evening air, its boughs were swayed by some faudden gust toward the herd, and swept in the force of their impulse, almost to the ground. I drew my hand across my eyes, closed them for a moment and looked again. The tree was as motionless as myself. Toward it, and now close to it, the boy was running in exciting pursuit of the fawn. He stretched out his hands to catch it. It bounded from his eager grasp. Again he stretched forward, and again it escaped him. There was another rush forward and the next instant boy and deer were beneath the tree. And now there was no mistake what I saw. The tree was convulsed with motion, leaned forward, swept ita thick foliage boughs to the ground, and enveloped from my sight pursuer and pursued. I was within a hundred yards, and the cry of Otona from the midst of the tree 3 came to me in all the clearness of its agony. There was then one stifled, strangling scream, and except for the agitation of the leaves where they clesed upon the boy there was not a sign of life. I called out " Otona !" No answer came. I tried to call out again, but my utterance was like that of some wild beast smitten at once with sudden terror and its death wound. I stood there changed from all semblance of a human being. Not all the terrors of the earth together could have made me take my eye< from the awful plant, or my foot off the ground. I must have stood thus for half an hour, for the shadows had crept out from the forest half across the glade before THE HIDEOUS PAROXYSM OF FEAR left me. My first impulse then was to creep slowly away, leßt the tree should perceive me, but my returning senses bade me approach it. The boy might have fallen into the lair of some wild beast of prey. The vegetable fir3t discovered my presence at about thirty yards distance. I then became aware of a stealthy motion among the thick lipped leaves, reminding me of some wild beast slowly gathering itself up from a long sleep, a vast coil of snakes in restless motion. Have you seen bees hanging from a bough — a great cluster of bodies, bee clinging to bee— and by striking the bough or agitating the air causing that massed life to begin sulkily to disentangle, each insect asserting its individual right to move ? And do you remember how, without one bee leaving the pensile cluster, the wholo became gradually instinct with sullen life and horrid with a multitudinous motion? Each separate leaf was agitated and hungry. Was I bewildered by terror? Had my senses abandoned me in my need? I know not— but the tree seemed to me to be alive. Leaning over toward me it seemed to be pulling up its roots from the softened ground and to be moving toward me. A mountainous monster with myriad lips mumbling together for life, was upon me. Like one who desparately defends himself from imminent death, I made an effort for life, and fired my gun at the approaching horror. To my dizzied senses the sound seemed far off, but the shook of the recoil partially recalled me to myself, and starting back I reloaded. The shot had torn their way into the soft body of the great thing. The trunk, as it received the wound, shuddered, and the whole tree was struck with a sudden quiver. A fruit fell down, slipping from the leaves, now rigid with swollen veins, as from cavern foliage. Then I saw a large arm slowly droop, and without a sound, it was severed from the juice fattened bole, and sank down noiselessly through the glistening leaves. I fired again, and another vile fragment was powerless dead. At each discharge, the terrible vegatable YIELDED A LIFE. Piecemeal I attacked it, killing here a leaf and there a branch. My fury increased with the slaughter, till, when my ammunition was exh austed, the splendid giant was left a wreck — as if some hurricane had torn through it. On the ground lay heaped together the fragments," jtruggling, rising and falling, gasping. Over fchetn .drooped in dying languor a few stricken |DJpghg, while in the midst stood, dripping at jefiM'jpint, the glistening trunk. firing h&d brought- up one of on my mule. He dared not (so he Jop^ple) come near me, thinking me mad. , I |f|yw drawn , my hunting knife, and with fighting with- the Jeave^.,.^ed; "but *(wn3|»f was instinct with a horrid life] and

more than once I felt my hand entangled for a moment, and seized 1»9 if by sharp lip 3. Ignorant of the presence of my companion, I made a rush forward over the fallen foliage, and with a last paroxysm of frenzy drove my knife up to the handle in tho soft bole, and slipping on the fast congealing sap fell exhausted and unconscious among tho still panting leaves. My companion carried me back to camp, and, after vainly searching fer Otona, awaited my return to consciousness. Two or three hours elap3ed before I could speik, aud several days before I could approach the terrible thing. My men would not go near it. It was quite dead ; for, as we came up, a great billed bird with gaudy plumage, that bad been securely feasting on the decaying fruit, flew up from among the wreck. We removed the rotten foilage, and there among the dead leaves, still limp with juices, and piled round the roots, we found the ghastly relics of many meals, and — its last nourishment — the corpse of little Otona. To have removed the leaves would have taken ioo long, so we buried the body as it was, with 100 vampire leaves still dinging to it." — Exchange.