Allan and the Holy Flower | Page 5

that
drug from the Kaffirs. Then he opened up those wounds upon his thigh
and cleaned them out and bandaged them with boiled herbs. Afterwards,
when Scroope came to again, he gave him a drink that threw him into a
sweat and took away the fever. The end of it was that in two days' time
his patient sat up and asked for a square meal, and in a week we were
able to begin to carry him to the coast.
"Guess that message of yours saved Brother Scroope's life," said old
John, as he watched him start.
I made no answer. Here I may state, however, that through my own
men I inquired a little as to Brother John's movements at the time of
what he called the message. It seemed that he /had/ arranged to march
towards the coast on the next morning, but that about two hours after

sunset suddenly he ordered them to pack up everything and follow him.
This they did and to their intense disgust those Kaffirs were forced to
trudge all night at the heels of Dogeetah, as they called him. Indeed, so
weary did they become, that had they not been afraid of being left alone
in an unknown country in the darkness, they said they would have
thrown down their loads and refused to go any further.
That is as far as I was able to take the matter, which may be explained
by telepathy, inspiration, instinct, or coincidence. It is one as to which
the reader must form his own opinion.
During our week together in camp and our subsequent journey to
Delagoa Bay and thence by ship to Durban, Brother John and I grew
very intimate, with limitations. Of his past, as I have said, he never
talked, or of the real object of his wanderings which I learned
afterwards, but of his natural history and ethnological (I believe that is
the word) studies he spoke a good deal. As, in my humble way, I also
am an observer of such matters and know something about African
natives and their habits from practical experience, these subjects
interested me.
Amongst other things, he showed me many of the specimens that he
had collected during his recent journey; insects and beautiful butterflies
neatly pinned into boxes, also a quantity of dried flowers pressed
between sheets of blotting paper, amongst them some which he told me
were orchids. Observing that these attracted me, he asked me if I would
like to see the most wonderful orchid in the whole world. Of course I
said yes, whereon he produced out of one of his cases a flat package
about two feet six square. He undid the grass mats in which it was
wrapped, striped, delicately woven mats such as they make in the
neighbourhood of Zanzibar. Within these was the lid of a packing-case.
Then came more mats and some copies of /The Cape Journal/ spread
out flat. Then sheets of blotting paper, and last of all between two
pieces of cardboard, a flower and one leaf of the plant on which it
grew.
Even in its dried state it was a wondrous thing, measuring twenty-four
inches from the tip of one wing or petal to the tip of the other, by

twenty inches from the top of the back sheath to the bottom of the
pouch. The measurement of the back sheath itself I forget, but it must
have been quite a foot across. In colour it was, or had been, bright
golden, but the back sheath was white, barred with lines of black, and
in the exact centre of the pouch was a single black spot shaped like the
head of a great ape. There were the overhanging brows, the deep
recessed eyes, the surly mouth, the massive jaws--everything.
Although at that time I had never seen a gorilla in the flesh, I had seen a
coloured picture of the brute, and if that picture had been photographed
on the flower the likeness could not have been more perfect.
"What is it?" I asked, amazed.
"Sir," said Brother John, sometimes he used this formal term when
excited, "it is the most marvellous Cypripedium in the whole earth, and,
sir, I have discovered it. A healthy root of that plant will be worth
£20,000."
"That's better than gold mining," I said. "Well, have you got the root?"
Brother John shook his head sadly as he answered:
"No such luck."
"How's that as you have the flower?"
"I'll tell you, Allan. For a year past and more I have been collecting in
the district back of Kilwa and found some wonderful things, yes,
wonderful. At last, about three hundred miles inland, I came to a tribe,
or rather, a people, that no white man had