967 Gathering Honey
After the string rope ladder was secured, a black man bit on the wooden stick with his teeth and climbed onto the tree nimbly.
This type of big-leafed tree grew thick and tall. Wild bees usually built their hives on the thickest tree, thus they needed to prepare a lot of tools for gathering honey.
The rope ladder was their way out. If they angered the bees, they had to quickly climb down the rope ladder to escape. If not, because the tree was over ten meters high, they would either die from the stinging bees or die from the fall jumping out of the tree.
The first person to climb the tree went to hang the rope ladder, and the others got their honey gathering tools ready, and held fire torches as they started climbing.
Li Du asked, "What are these fire torches for? Is it to create smoke to kill the bees?"
Cheeks shook his head and said, "We're already stealing the fruits of the bees' hard work. That is already immoral enough—how could we smoke them to death? The fire torches are for creating sparks to attract the bees into leaving their hive temporarily."
After a few more black men climbed the tree, Cheeks waved his hand and the others quickly left and hid far away.
Just as they had hidden well, a stunning scene appeared in front of Li Du:
As the sun was setting, the forest became dimmer. All of a sudden, a spark of light appeared under the beehive, the brightness of the light sparkled and continuously birthed a series of sparkles that fell to the ground.
The sparkles were very concentrated, and when they fell from a tree over ten meters tall, it was as if a river of fire were falling. Li Du saw the true meaning of "brightness shining through the dark!"
Just when the fire-fall fell started gushing down from the tree, countless bees flew out of the giant beehive. They gathered together and turned into a swarm of bees that chased the fire-fall as they flew downwards together.
At this moment, the honey gatherers on the tree quickly began working.
They held knives made of animal bones in their hands and cut the bottom of the beehive, opened a bag, and a sticky orange colored honey flowed into it immediately.
The honey flowed into the bag, and the honey gatherers kept stirring the opening of the beehive with the knives to prevent the sticky honey from getting stuck at the opening.
Soon, they gathered a bag of honey. At this moment a few men went in again to cut some propolis out. The swarm of bees chased the fireballs around on the ground, and soon began to return to their hive.
At this time the honey gatherers quickly cleaned up their tools and began descending to avoid being blocked by the swarm of bees.
There were some bees who caught them anyway, but this did not affect the overall mission. They swatted the bees that stung them, or simply dealt with the pain from the sting. Either way, they had to quickly climb down.
Using this method, they went to find another beehive and collected some more honey and propolis. When the sunlight was about to disappear from the horizon, they packed up all their things and left.
They gave Li Du and the gang the satchel of honey. It was enough for them to use for grilling the crocodile.
After getting the honey, the groups parted ways. They quickly rushed back to their respective camps while the sky still had a little light left.
Both parties found that they were heading in the same direction. Cheeks and Apodu chatted a little, laughed, and said, "What a coincidence, our camps are not too far apart."
Mr. Lion Hunter shrugged. "It's not too surprising. There's water over there, and the ground is dry, and there are also muddy hills right there to block the wind. This is the most suitable place to safely set up camp, right?"
Sophie was waiting in the camp, reading something on her tablet.
As the gang returned, Sophie waved happily and asked, "So how was it? Did everything go smoothly today?"
Apodu and the bodyguards went to take care of the food as Li Du and the others rested.
He said, "Everything went smoothly. We got some things as well. Do you know the Harzai clan? Let me introduce you to them."
Sophie laughed. "The Harzai clan, a tribe of hunters in Tanzania. How would I not know about them? I even met them. A couple of Harzain ladies paid us a visit at the camp this afternoon."
These two Harzain ladies were also from Cheeks's tribe. Their camps were obviously very close by.
Apodu first cleaned up the giant frog and crocodile. He put the frog meat and crocodile meat over the fire for grilling.
The Zulu had very unique grilling techniques to cook the giant frog. They did not even deskin them. They only removed their internal organs and then used branched sticks to skewer frog and set it over the fire, turning it to grill it evenly.
As they were grilling the frog, Apodu sprinkled salt on it. Soon enough, the skin of the giant frog began to crackle, and snowy white flesh appeared from the inside.
As he continued grilling, the giant frog's fat started dripping out. Every time the fat dripped onto the fire it caused the flames to jump and hiss.
One giant frog finished grilling. Apodu stuck a small knife into it and then he used both his hands to raise the giant frog as he walked over to respectfully offer it to Li Du.
Obviously, he did this to thank Li Du for saving his life earlier. If Li Du had not taken action in time, he would have been bitten by the crocodile for sure. Even if he hadn't been dragged into the water and killed, Apodu would have at least paid a leg as the price. For a hunter like him, there was no difference between losing his leg or his life.
Both Li Du and Sophie could not finish one giant frog, so he cut out two of the frog legs, and wanted to give the rest to Mr. Lion Hunter and the others to eat. But in the end, Ah Meow slapped it down and Ah Ow carried it away instantly. The two of them worked together and got away with the remains of the giant frog.
The giant frog tasted really good; that was why the furry children were so anxious to snatch it. Li Du cut out a piece of frog meat and ate it. It tasted like yellowfin tuna and was especially tender.
The best part of it was that the frog meat itself was fatty and chewy, so the longer they chewed the more fragrant it became.
Sophie felt unsure about eating frogs, so she ended up declining the giant frog meat. And so Mr. Li, who had initially thought he would be uninterested in eating giant frog, had two giant frog legs that he ate happily.
There was still grilled crocodile meat after that. The crocodile meat had been cut into dices, skewered, covered with butter and honey and then brought to grill.
Li Du tried a piece and it was not bad. This meat was even chewier than the frog meat and because they used wild honey on it, it was also quite sweet.
After eating two frog legs he was already almost full, and he was not that interested in crocodile meat anyway, so he did not eat too much of it.
After filling their stomachs with food and drink, Li Du got ready to rest.
Mr. Lion Hunter instead became more energized and said, "Li, don't rush into the tent so quickly. Do you remember the little buffalo that I hunted? I dare say, if we go back there now, and if we are lucky, we might catch a lion!"
Li Du had come to Africa to search for diamonds—he was not here to hunt or risk his own life. Moreover, the lions had not pissed him off, so he would not just go and join in the fun of hunting them.
Seeing that he was uninterested, Mr. Lion Hunter was a little disappointed. He helplessly said, "Dammit, I should have known not to waste that bullet."
The night sky of South Africa's grassland was exceptionally clear. There was no impression of the new moon, and there were countless stars scattered all over the sky.
Li Du raised his head to gaze upon the colorful stars in the sky as he sat in front of the tent.
The stars were shining bright, and they colored the dark sky. The starry sky here was different from other places. The nightfall was like a black canvas and there were spots of yellow and green scattered all over it.
These spots were shining brightly, as bright as lights. That was why even though the night sky was dark, it could not hinder the beauty of the starlights.
The grassland was flat. During daylight it seemed as if one could see the end where the sky and ground met if one looked really far.
During nighttime one's visibility was limited. But because there were some places that were lit with bonfires, and there was virtually no location visually obstructed on the ground, everyone knew how many campfires were around them as long as they turned and looked around.