Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer Part 12

The unfortunate balala "the people who are dead" those miserable fugitives from savage justice, or, more often, remnants of clans scattered in war, often perished in veld conflagrations. They wandered, naked and weaponless, in the neutral areas lying between the territories of the different tribes, preferring the mercy of the lion and the hyena to that of man. The appliances of these people for kindling a fire, and thus sending the conflagration on for the purpose of creating a zone of safety, were often quite inadequate for dealing with a sudden emergency.

I only know of one instance of a white man falling a victim to a veld fire. I forget this individual's name, although I knew him well. He, seeing the flames approaching, reached what he thought was a place of safety, for the gra.s.s was very spa.r.s.e, and he reckoned on being able to beat out the fire as it approached him. But he had not taken into account the contingency of the wind freshening and flinging forward sheets of flame from the places where the gra.s.s was longer. This actually happened. He got badly, but not fatally, scorched. A search-party found him and he was a.s.sisted back to camp. Next day he was placed in a rough litter and carried by four natives in the rear of the little caravan. The day was sultry, and he suffered great pain, so he persuaded the natives to set down the litter in a shady place, meaning to get them to carry him on when the afternoon cooled.

The rest of the party proceeded on its course, unaware that the injured man had been left behind. A gra.s.s fire was seen to sweep over the country just crossed, but no particular notice was taken of it. In this fire the unhappy loiterer had been burnt to death. His bearers, when they saw the flames approaching, lost their heads, and, instead of burning a patch to be used as a refuge, fled. There are, surely, few cases on record of such bad luck as this.

The most enchanting scenery in the Low Country was to be found in the vicinity of the rivers. These, considering that they are African, do not lie very far apart. Yet sometimes there were long stretches of waterless country to be traversed, and severe suffering from thirst was a possibility occasionally realized. Besides, as we were practically explorers in a country without human inhabitants or recognizable landmarks, we might unwittingly pa.s.s the bend of a winding river and thus recede from badly needed water. The general landscape was, as a rule, so flat, and the trees were so high, that one could draw no inference as to the whereabouts of a river from the configuration of the country.

But what joy it was, after a long, hot, fatiguing tramp, during which water had to be doled out in sips, to reach a mighty stream, perhaps several hundred yards wide, where one might drink one's fill, wash the grime from one's clothes and person, and loll in the shade of lordly trees.

In writing of those old days I find it hard to realize that the localities described are still in existence. I suppose the rivers are yet running in the old channels, but as the rainfall has been steadily decreasing they are not likely to be today the full, impetuous torrents of liquid crystal that I remember. Moreover, the game, that rapidly moving, kaleidoscopic pageant of varied animal life which made their forested banks a wonder and a joy, has disappeared.

Of all the lovely scenes through which I have wandered, the landscapes along the Olifant and the Letaba dwell in my memory as the loveliest.

In those one-time almost inviolate retreats were to be found everything best calculated to delight the heart of the hunter or the lover of nature. I am, of course, a.s.suming winter as the season, for in summer the worm "that pierces the liver and blackens the blood" made these regions almost uninhabitable for Europeans. But from June to October, inclusive, the country was healthy, the sky rarely held a cloud, the sun shone mildly, and the night was seldom, if ever, cold.

Although the banks of the Low Country rivers were usually heavily wooded, one found here and there wide gra.s.sy glades opening to the waterside. The country being flat, the river-courses were usually wide, with many large rocks standing high out of the water. Between these the streams eddy and wind. Sometimes one would camp near a rapid, and below this a deep pool was invariably to be found; in such pools the sea-cows, snorting and champing, might sometimes be heard throughout the night.

The process of crossing rivers was believed to be dangerous on account of crocodiles, which were often to be seen in large numbers. These reptiles, however, seldom did any damage except in the vicinity of a native kraal, where they used occasionally to seize women and children who came down to fill their pots and calabashes with water. I once saw a dog taken by one; at least, I a.s.sumed that such was the case. The dog was swimming across a deep channel between two shallows when it gave a yelp and disappeared. There were many crocodiles in the river where this happened.

The rivers were full of fish, but I never carried any tackle, so could not catch any. But the natives of the lower reaches of the Olifant, the Letaba, and the Limpopo often spear them. Snakes I seldom saw in the Low Country. This may be accounted for by the circ.u.mstance that most of my wanderings there took place in winter. During the course of my various trips I did not see more than seven or eight snakes altogether.

Curiously enough, I saw three of these within the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes. Near the Lower Letaba I reached a circular depression the end of a long, winding, dry water-course late one afternoon. The spot was so beautiful that I decided to camp there, instead of going on several miles farther, as I had intended. In the depression was a clear pool surrounded by great rocks and tall trees. The ground in the vicinity was carpeted with bright green gra.s.s.

After selecting a spot for my camp, I sent one of the bearers to collect fuel, and the other to fetch water for the purpose of making soup. The pool was less than fifty yards away. I heard the second bearer give a yell; then he came running back, shouting that he had seen a big snake. Picking up my rifle, I ran to the spot he indicated, and saw about six feet of thick python disappearing among the creepers which lay tangled over the rocks. I fired at the creature but missed it.

In returning to the camping-place I nearly trod on a large puff-adder; this I killed with a stone. Almost immediately afterwards the boy who had been sent for firewood came up with a vicious-looking black and yellow serpent squirming, broken-backed, on his stick. This was more than my nerves could stand, so after filling the billy and the canteens with water, we retired to a spot a few hundred yards away, up the hillside. Here the vegetation was less rank, so we felt safer.

Next morning, just before daybreak, we heard a lion killing close to the water. After day had fully broken, I went down and found some hyenas breakfasting on the remains of a waterbuck.

Sleep's worst enemy in the Low Country was the hyena. The voice of this beast is horrible; it begins with a guttural growl and ends with a high-pitched screech. Although cowardly to a degree, hyenas would often come to within less than a hundred yards of the fire. Occasionally they might be heard on several sides at once, uttering their unspeakable yells. We always noticed that the smell of roast meat attracted them; when meat was boiled, they were not nearly so troublesome. A shot would always send them scampering to a distance, but cartridges were not things to be wasted by the traveler in the Low Country.

On arriving at Lourenco Marques in 1874 I met a man named Good, whom I had known slightly up country. I have been told but I do not guarantee the statement that he was the original of Rider Haggard's "Allan Quatermain." From Good I heard sad news; poor Pat Foote, one of my best friends, had died in the fortress during the previous night. I went up at once to see his remains; they lay on a wretched truckle-bed in a dingy cell.

The funeral took place that afternoon. The grave was dug among some cocoanut palms out beyond the fetid swamp which lay in those days a crescent of foulness on three sides of the town. A wall separated the swamp from the houses, and over this wall the sewage used to be cast.

Poles, bearing human heads, stuck out here and there. The swamp was crossed by a causeway.

The proceedings were marked by a melancholy lack of dignity. Several of those forming the cortege were drunk. Among them was a Portuguese officer. The military guard at the causeway gate failed to present arms, so the officer rushed at the men and belabored them with a stick.

However, poor Foote was too sound asleep to be disturbed by such trifles. I wonder whether, besides myself, any who took part in those squalid obsequies are alive. I believe the palms which shaded that lonely grave have been long since cut down and that the town has extended over the site.

In the early part of 1875, after I left "The Reef," I worked for a short time near the head of the creek. One day a friend named McCallum came and showed me a piece of gold he had picked up on a headland which jutted over the Blyde River near Peach tree Creek. Next day was Sunday, so we went together to the spot and took a prospect. The result was most encouraging; not alone was there a good yield for the amount of wash we had panned, but the quality of the gold suggested that it belonged to a genuine lead. Next morning we struck our tents and moved down to the scene of the discovery. As the area was not far enough from the nearest proclaimed diggings to ent.i.tle us to an extended miner's right, we just marked out a claim apiece and made no report of the matter. We pitched our tents in a little grove of peach-trees below the bluff, close to the river bank.

The thing was a "surface" proposition; that is to say, the wash was only a few inches deep; it lay on a soft slate bottom. We fixed our sluice box in a rapid of the river which was some two hundred yards from the claim, and was reached by a footpath we scarped down the face of the bluff. We hired a couple of boys to carry down the wash. I did the pick and shovel work, which included the filling of the gunny-bags.

McCallum washed out each installment as it arrived. This was the easiest contract I ever took on; it meant about one minute's work alternating with nearly ten minutes' rest, all day long. The first couple of days' work gave splendid results; from the gravel cleared off a s.p.a.ce about eight feet square we got, so far as I can remember, about a pound weight of gold.

Naturally, we considered that at length our fortunes were made. Our claims measured together forty five thousand square feet, the area we had cleared was but sixty four. The latter number, when worked into the former, went nearly seven hundred times. And the surface appeared to be exactly the same over the whole area.

a.s.suming that any reliance could be placed on arithmetic, we were potential capitalists. We began to speculate as to what we would do with our money. 14,000 apiece was a large sum. I think McCallum decided to go to Scotland, there to recommence some lawsuit he had been obliged to drop for want of funds. My own firm intention was to organize an expedition to the Zambezi not to go "foot-slogging," as I had been doing in the Low Country, but with properly equipped wagons, the most modern armament, salted horses and all the rest of it. Well, for one night, at all events, we enjoyed ourselves. I do not think we slept at all.

But we never found so much as another half-ounce of gold in those claims; we had struck the one little "patch" they contained. We hired more boys, we ran prospecting trenches in every direction, we worked late and early often carrying the bags of wash down the scarped footpath ourselves, long after the boys had knocked off. But all was in vain. Our pound of gold melted like an icicle in the sun. We were, in local parlance, "bust."

CHAPTER X

Prospectors start for Swaziland--Rumors as to their fate--MacLean and I decide to follow them--Precautions against lions--The Crocodile River--The Boer and the pessimist--Game and honey--Crocodiles--Difficulties in crossing the river--MacLean nearly drowned in the rapids--I go on alone First sight of De Kaap--A labyrinth of dongas--I reach Swaziland--Baboons On the trail of the prospectors--The mystery solved--'Ntshindeen's Kraal Swazi hospitality--How I became celebrated--A popular show--Repairing guns Character of the Swazis--Contempt for money and love of salt--Prospecting My welcome outstayed--A dangerous crisis--Return to the Crocodile River The rhinoceros--Our bearers decamp--We abandon our goods--Attacked by fever--Terror of partridges--Arrival at Mac Mac.

In the early part of 1875 a large party of Australian prospectors started from Pilgrim's Rest to seek for gold on the north-eastern borders of Swaziland. They took with them a light wagon which could easily be taken to pieces and a span of oxen. They were accompanied by guides. At that time little was known of the country beyond the boundaries of the Transvaal on its eastern side. Swaziland was, in fact, an unknown region. But rumor was rife as to fabulously rich deposits of gold in the tracts lying to the east and south-east of Lydenburg. There were, needless to say, no maps of the country in question. But under such circ.u.mstances the less known of any given region, the greater its fascination.

Some six weeks having pa.s.sed without news of the party, the camp seethed with wild report as to its fortune. Some maintained that the Swazis, who were believed to be averse to the opening up of their country, had wiped out the intruders. More or less circ.u.mstantial details of the supposed ma.s.sacre were current, but critical examination proved such to be quite without foundation. Then came wafts of rumor to the effect that the prospectors had "struck it rich," but were determined to keep the strike to themselves. My youthful imagination inclined to the latter view. I had a friend who knew the Swazis well, and he held it to be unlikely in the last degree that a party of peaceful prospectors would be molested. Accordingly, I made up my mind to get on the trail of the adventurers and stick to it until I found them.

My "mate" at the time was a man whom I will call MacLean. That was not his name, but it will do as well as if it were. MacLean belonged to an old Scottish family, and had brought a suit before the House of Lords in which he claimed a certain peerage to which great estates and many t.i.tles were attached. He failed through being unable to prove the marriage of one of his ancestors. We had made a small strike of gold on one of the terraces of the Blyde River, but this was soon worked out, and we spent most of our gains in pursuing a vanished "lead." After some hesitation MacLean agreed to accompany me.

Our united means amounted to less than five pounds sterling. This we invested in flour, tea, strong boots, and other indispensables. We possessed an old gun a double-barreled fowling-piece that had once been a flint-lock. The spring driving one hammer was too weak to discharge a percussion cap, that of the other was just strong enough to cause detonation on an average twice out of three attempts. We could get no bullet mould the gun being of an unusual caliber so we used to chop off chunks of lead and roll them between flat stones until the requisite degrees of size and rotundity had been attained. By using stones with the surface slightly roughened we could always reduce the size of the bullet, but the work of doing so was laborious in the extreme.

We hired two Bapedi boys to carry some of our goods. One was named Indogozan; I forget the name of the other. They turned out to be lazy scoundrels, and gave endless trouble by loitering. On weighing our "swags" at Mac Mac the day we started, Maclean's and mine tipped the scale at fifty-six pounds each. Those of the boys weighed, respectively, about fifteen pounds less.

We descended the mountain range at Spitzkop. The trail was easily found. After entering the Low Country we halted each night at a camping place of the party we were pursuing, and built our fire on the cold ashes of their one-time hearth. Occasionally we reached some obstacle over which no wagon could possibly have been drawn, and where there were evidences that these practical explorers had taken the vehicle to pieces and carried it over. Game was not very plentiful; even had it been so our gun was not of the kind to do much execution. As we approached the Crocodile River Valley lions began to make themselves heard at night. MacLean was nervous; I fear it was my habit to trade on this. It was he who used to collect an immense pile of fuel every night, and I felt I could turn in and sleep soundly fortified with the knowledge that the watch-fire would not be left untended.

At the Crocodile River we met with a serious check. There was no drift, and the stream was still swollen from the summer rains. Drawn up on the opposite bank was a raft, by means of this the prospectors had crossed.

We camped and considered the situation.

We found two men with a wagon at the river. The owner of the wagon was an old Boer named Niekerk; he owned a farm in the Lydenburg District, but spent most of his life wandering about in search of game. Niekerk's companion was an ex-man-of-war's man named Rawlings, one of the most ill-tempered and pessimistic beings I have ever met. He was small, hatchet faced, and foxy in appearance. His face was much disfigured by a bullet-wound through both jaws received, so he said, in a skirmish with slavers near Zanzibar. Rawlings's disposition suggested a possible descent from Mr. Squeers and Mrs. Gummidge.

Niekerk and Rawlings were a strangely a.s.sorted couple. They could not quarrel, for the reason that Niekerk had no English and Rawlings no Dutch. Niekerk held stoutly to the theory that all Englishmen were mad, more or less, and excused his companion's peculiarities accordingly. He had met Rawlings tramping in the Transvaal and given him a lift.

Rawlings was not particular as to locality, having inverted the theory of Dr. Pangloss, and settled to his own satisfaction that this was the worst of all possible worlds, he held all places to be more or less equally vile. So he had followed Niekerk grumblingly down the mountain pa.s.s leading to the Low Country, and had been wasting his pessimism on the desert air of the Crocodile River Valley for several weeks before our arrival.

Game was here more plentiful. I borrowed Niekerk's rifle and shot a waterbuck and several klipspringers. Our camp was surrounded by immense domes of granite, and each morning the summit of almost every dome was occupied by several klipspringers. The bearers were much delighted, they had hated our diet of unvarying askoek. We also found quant.i.ties of honey. Honey-birds were numerous, and ever ready to oblige by pointing out a bees' nest. The scenery, was very beautiful. To the north-west towered some of the loftiest peaks of the Drakensberg. The bare, granite domes around us were almost hemispherical in shape. They arose out of swamp rooted forest. The vegetation was very rich.

The problem as to how we were to cross the river now became very pressing indeed. We could not afford to waste any time, as our food supply was extremely limited. The weather was hot and moist, so we could not manage to dry any meat; the flies got at it at once. One of two things had to be done: we had to cross the river within a very few days or else turn back. And turning back was a thing I had always hated doing.

The river was indeed a formidable obstacle. It showed no signs of subsiding, for thunderstorms still broke on and behind the mountain range. In the vicinity where the raft lay the channel was about a hundred yards wide and was very deep. The current here was sluggish, but just above was a long and dangerous rapid with many rocks projecting from the water. On these rocks crocodiles of various sizes used to bask with half opened jaws. Around the head of each saurian several little birds would flutter and hop, occasionally entering the toothed death-trap without the least apparent fear. These birds were useful in picking parasites from between the monsters' teeth.

One day in exploring the river bank above the rapids in search of a drift, I walked along the edge of the water immediately at the foot of a steep sand-dune about fifteen feet in height. The top of this, but I was unaware of the fact, was occupied by a large number of crocodiles of all sizes, they ranged from one to about fifteen feet in length.

These took alarm and flung themselves into the water, both in front and behind me. One cut me across the shin with its tail in pa.s.sing. I carry the mark of the cut to this day.

To return to the problem of crossing the river. We had brought with us some strong, light, hempen rope for the purpose of lowering our swags down steep and difficult places. This, with infinite labor we unwound, separating the strands and joining them again lengthwise. The result was still too short for our purpose, so we sought in the forest for monkey-ropes. These we crushed, and, after separating and partly drying the fibers, we twisted the latter into a strong, light cable.

When we judged that our cable, plus the line a was long enough to reach the other side, we attempted to carry one end of the latter across the river for the purpose of towing back the raft. Over and over again one of the bearers and I made the attempt, but when we got about three parts of the way across, the slow, steady pressure of the current would fill the bend of the line and sweep us down stream. We had spent most of the previous day in shooting at crocodiles on the rocks in the rapid, for the purpose of driving them from the neighborhood. We had wounded several. On the day of our attempt not a saurian was to be seen. Nevertheless, I felt extremely nervous. The carca.s.s of one monster we had wounded afterwards washed up; it measured upwards of sixteen feet.

After our repeated failures to carry the line across, nothing remained to be done but to attempt a crossing at the rapids. This we succeeded in doing, but the attempt nearly cost MacLean his life. He was an indifferent swimmer. The day was blazing hot. I stripped, but MacLean, disregarding every one's advice, insisted on swimming in his shirt. We had to creep slowly from rock to rock, through tumbling water, with an occasional short swim through a deeper channel. The river was here much wider than at the scene of our former attempt.

When we were about half-way across MacLean stumbled. As he attempted to recover his foothold, facing the time down-stream, the current filled his shirt from behind and carried it over his head. Then he rolled helplessly down the rapid towards the deep reach. I floundered after, and succeeded in overtaking him. He was quite exhausted; it was only with great difficulty that I succeeded in getting him to the bank, fortunately to that side on which the raft lay.

After a short rest we launched the raft, or, as it turned out to be, a sort of square, flat bottomed boat, with sides only a few inches deep, and built of planks. But it was shrunken and gaping from the heat, and at once filled with water. It was sufficiently buoyant to float when empty, but would not sustain any weight. We drew it out again; caulking was out of the question, so we collected dry reeds and tied them into bundles with gra.s.s ropes made on the spot. We fastened these bundles to the bottom and sides, and launched our galley once more. This time we propelled her triumphantly, but very slowly, to the other side, where landing was comparatively easy. We had found in her two rough wooden paddles.

I had, by this time, been exposed stark naked to the sun for over five hours. I felt and no doubt looked like a raw beefsteak. Maclean's foot had got severely hurt in the course of his adventure, and he was much bruised and battered.

Accordingly it was decided that I should go on with Indogozan and his companion, leaving MacLean behind.

So next afternoon the Pessimist and MacLean ferried the two bearers and me across. The Pessimist bade me a doleful farewell, and suggested that I should leave any mementos for my friends behind, with instructions as to their disposal. To comfort him I wrote the names and addresses of my nearest relations on a leaf torn out of my pocket-book, and gave him the latter. He was absolutely certain that the prospectors had met their doom under the Swazi spears, and that a like fate would be mine.