Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer Part 3

Poor Larry O'Toole! We met, years afterwards, in a remote mining-camp.

He ventured into the Low Country beyond the Murchison Range at the wrong season, and contracted fever. In the delirium which supervened he blew his brains out. Larry had a brother, Edmund, who had been a sailor, and who joined Butler's Horse in the Zulu War. He gained the Victoria Cross the day before Ulundi. Together with the late Lord William Beresford ("Bill," as he liked to be called, alliteratively ) he saved a wounded man from the spears of the enemy. For this exploit the cross was offered to Lord William, but he refused to accept it unless a similar distinction were conferred on O'Toole.

The latter had a varied career. I once hailed a cab in Cape Town and found he was the driver. He told me he had saved 200 at cab driving.

But I judge from what I subsequently heard that the money did him no good. He, like so many others of "the legion that never was listed"

with whom I have foregathered, has long since closed his earthly account.

One occurrence I heard of among the seaside camps merits relation. It should be mentioned that the extraordinary, story reached me at second-hand. The incident is said to have taken place one season when I did not visit the coast.

At the end of the sixties no zoological garden contained a specimen of the South African anteater. I do not know whether any such inst.i.tution contains one now. However, a very liberal price was offered for a live specimen. This extraordinary creature is almost strictly nocturnal in its habits, and is consequently extremely difficult to capture. One day a man with whom I was acquainted was riding through the veld a few miles from his camp. To his surprise he noticed a large ant-eater.

Mindful of the reward offered, he sprang from his horse and seized the creature by one of its hind-legs.

The ant-eater has hardly any means of defense, its formidable claws being used solely for digging. But its strength and its digging powers are almost beyond belief. In sandy soil one will bury itself in a few seconds. In this instance the captor had to exert all his strength merely to keep the animal above ground. He was, in fact, only able to do this by means of continually shifting his position, a process involving constant and exhausting effort. He bethought him of the rein fastened to his pony's halter. With great difficulty he loosened this, and tied it in a noose around the ant-bear's loins. But matters were not improved; the digging went on more vigorously than ever.

At length he realized that it was impossible to prevent the animal from burrowing out of sight. One expedient remained. The pony, had a long and bushy tail. He doubled the end of this, and securely fastened the rein to it. Then he hastened to his camp for the purpose of fetching a spade and calling people to a.s.sist him.

On returning a strange spectacle met his view. The pony was sitting on the ground, erect, after the manner of a biped. Its head was in the air, its hind-legs were extended horizontally, its fore-legs were waving impotently up and down'. The ant-bear had carved its way deep into the bowels of the earth, gradually but relentlessly dragging the hapless pony down until its posterior parts hermetically sealed up the burrow. It was, in fact, only the smallness of the latter which prevented the animal from being completely buried. Eventually, however, the rein snapped, and the pony was thus released from a durance probably unique in equine experience. But I wish to make it quite clear that I guarantee nothing in connection with the foregoing remarkable tale, except that I have related it as it was told to me.

I often picture the rounded sandhills stretching from the Gonubie Mouth to the Nahoon, with the dark, olive-green boskage that clothed their curves with beauty, and the veil of orange tinted mystery that at dawn hung like a curtain across that region where sea and sky awaited, breathless, the advent of day. I suppose the placid lagoons still mirror the drifting pageants of cloudland, while the purple kingfishers flit from rock to rock, or poise, fluttering in the air, before they, plunge into the crystal water.

I imagine that at windless nightfall the rich, throbbing organ-tones of the Indian Ocean surf toll all the darkling glades. I wonder do the green, flame-winged loories today call hoa.r.s.ely through the aisles of greenery, and the bushbucks bark their angry challenges from the deep and tangled hollows. I wonder do the monkeys, when the forenoon waxes sultry, swing chattering from bough to bough down the hillside, seeking their daily drink in the coolest depths of the kloof, and do the great Nymphalis b.u.t.terflies, with wings of ochre and pearl, flit among the tree tops!

But so much I know that a part of my youth which in some strange way seems to have acquired an individuality, of its own dwells, and will for ever dwell, among these scenes. And I shall never be so ill-advised as to seek it, for the wraith, like a mocking dryad, would flit from tree to tree, as beautiful and as elusive as the rainbow.

While living at Sunny Slope I paid my first visit to East London, the occasion being an agricultural show. I accompanied the Norton family.

We traveled in an ox-wagon through the loveliest imaginable country.

Our course lay mainly down the valley of the Nahoon River, in which the vegetation was then much richer than it is today. The little town of East London was confined to the west bank of the Buffalo River mouth.

Where the town now stands, on the east bank, there was not a single house in 1868. So far as I can recollect, Tapson's Hotel was the only building between Cambridge and the sea. This building was still in existence a few years ago. The Buffalo River had to be crossed by means of a pontoon; the road to this was cut through dense jungle. Judging by the spoors crossing the road this jungle must have been full of game.

After the show a large picnic was held in the forest at the well-known Second Creek. The guests were conveyed to the spot by a paddle tug, the Buffalo. This vessel now lies, a melancholy wreck, half-submerged, at the mouth of the Kowie River.

At the picnic I sustained a severe moral shock. A certain doctor with whom I was acquainted an elderly and much respected resident of King William's Town looked upon the wine when it was red, and became violently uproarious. My ethical orientation became disturbed; all my canons got confused. I had seen this man wearing the insignia of munic.i.p.al dignity; he had been mayor of his town during the previous year. Now he was acting the mountebank, to the huge amus.e.m.e.nt of a lot of yokels.

I knew that disreputable Europeans and natives occasionally became intoxicated, but here was my first experience of a respectable person committing such a lapse. The shock was so painful that my enjoyment was completely spoilt. I crept to a thicket, from which I could see without being seen, and observed the old gentleman's antics with amazed horror.

He insisted on making a long speech, interspersed with s.n.a.t.c.hes of song. This only came to an end when some of his friends seized the tails of his frock-coat and hauled him down. Then he was carried, protesting loudly, to the tug.

It soon became abundantly clear that our farming could not prove a success, so Sunny Slope was given up, and we returned to King William's Town. Here my father, with the remainder of his capital, purchased a property in the Alexandra Road, close to the present railway-station.

Sheep had fallen heavily in value; our flock could not be realized without incurring a ruinous loss, so it was kept for a time on the town commonage. Eventually, it was handed over to a native chief named Toise, who lived on the other side of the Buffalo River, about five miles away.

I was put to the grammar school, where I studied for something more than half a year. This, it may be remarked, is all the regular schooling I ever had. Mr. John Samuel, who afterwards became a school inspector, was the head master. Dr. Theal, the historian (then Mr.

Theal), was in charge of the second division, or, as it was called, the lower school.

It was my duty to ride out every Sat.u.r.day to Toise's kraal for the purpose of counting the sheep. So far as I can remember, none were ever stolen a fact of some significance considering that the whole country, almost as far as the eye could reach in every direction, was densely populated by "raw" natives. But the unhappy animals suffered from scab and various other diseases.

Toise, albeit addicted to strong drink, was a gentleman in all essentials. He was a tall, dignified, and remarkably handsome man; his hospitality and courtesy could not be surpa.s.sed. A calabash of delicious amaas (koumis) was always ready for me on my arrival, and a feed of mealies provided for the pony. I believe that subsequently Toise became ruined, morally and physically, through the drink habit.

He was only another of the countless victims of "Cape Smoke."

In the days I write of, the climate of the Eastern Province was totally different from what it is today. From October to March thunderstorms, accompanied by torrential rain, were of frequent occurrence. Early in the afternoon clouds would appear over the mountains to the north-west; between three and four o'clock these clouds, now forming immense, towering ma.s.ses of c.u.mulus, would sweep down towards the sea, pouring out torrents of rain on their course. Between five and six o'clock all these meteorological alarums and excursions would be over, the sky would be again clear, and the sun again shining hotly, on the drenched earth.

Hailstorms occasionally happened. I recall a very remarkable one that pa.s.sed over that portion of King William's Town known as "the German Village" in, I think, the summer of 1869. The hailstones, which were of immense size, did not fall very thickly. Moreover, the area of the town over which the storm pa.s.sed contained no houses but thatched ones.

Great lumps of ice, all of the same shape, but of various sizes, began to rain out of the sky. The shape was that of a full-blown rose; it suggested that each had been formed in a tiny vortex-mould. Some of the lumps measured four inches across. Dr. Egan, at the Grey Hospital, secured one monster which weighed a pound and three-quarters.

The throbbing roar heralding the approaching hail cataract was a thing never to be forgotten. I heard of no fatalities among human beings, but a flock of sheep was wiped out at a spot where the storm concentrated.

This happened on a high, abrupt hill about twenty miles away.

In those days streams such as the Kat, the Koonap, the Buffalo, and the Keiskamma were really rivers; often they foamed down in mighty brown torrents. As there were no bridges, except the occasional military, ones, post carts would often be delayed for days at a time, and one's letters would sometimes arrive more or less in a state of pulp. The whole country was covered with rank vegetation up to June, when nearly all the gra.s.s would be burnt off. It is to the cessation of this immemorial practice one noted by, all the voyagers along the south-east coast that I attribute the enormous increase of the tick pest.

One of my favorite diversions, when the Buffalo was in flood, was to ride to a spot near the upper end of the town and there strip. I would tie my clothes into a bundle and entrust them, with my pony, to another boy. Then I would jump into the river and allow myself to be carried down by the torrent. All one had to do was to keep well in the middle of the stream and avoid contact with occasional uprooted trees.

Once or twice I found myself, when thus swimming, unpleasantly close to puff-adders and other snakes which had been washed by the flood out of their hiding-places in the holes piercing the river-banks. But such reptiles were always too much stiffened by the cold water to be capable of doing any injury.

Meanwhile the boy, with my clothes and the pony, would be waiting for me at a stated spot some distance below the wool-washing yards to the south-east of the town. I should not now care to venture on such an excursion.

CHAPTER IV

Trip to the Transkei--Tiyo Soga and his family--Trip to the seaside--The Fynns--Wild dogs--Start as a sheep farmer--My camp burnt out--First commercial adventure--Chief Sandile--Discovery of diamonds--Start for Golconda--Traveling companions--Manslaughter narrowly escaped--Old De Beers--Life at the Diamond Fields--Scarcity of water--First case of diamond stealing--I nearly discover Kimberley Mine--The rush to Colesberg Kopje--My first diamond--Its loss and my humiliation--Kimberley claims dear at 10--Camp-life in early days--I. D. B.--Canteen burning.

It was in the June holidays of 1869 that I undertook my first real adventure. I then accompanied Mr. Samuel and two of my schoolfellows on an expedition to the Transkei, which at that time was still practically independent Kaffirland. The Fingoes were in a sense under British protection, and Mr. Fynn was resident with Sariii (usually known as "Kreli"), the celebrated Goaleka chief.

The Kei River was the colonial boundary. Traveling on horseback we crossed the river by a drift some distance below the site of the present Komgha Bridge. One of my companions was Tom Irvine, now a partner in the firm of Dyer and Dyer, of East London. The other was Alfred Longden, whose father was Wesleyan missionary near the site on which the town of b.u.t.terworth now stands, Richard Irvine had a trading station at the Incu Drift. The old building still exists. When we arrived there the tobacco crop had just been harvested, and the trader was kept busy from early morning until late at night buying tobacco at the rate of a penny per pound, the price being taken in the form of trade goods.

We moved on to Tutura, the mission station of that remarkable man Tiyo Soga. Mrs. Soga and her sister, Miss Burnside, received us with the best hospitality. Their dwelling consisted of a row of huts which were connected with each other by means of wattled pa.s.sages. The huts had doors and ordinary windows.

The Sogas were just on the point of starting for the seaside on their annual holiday when we joined them. Their destination was the mouth of the Kobonqaba River. We decided to join the party. I rode most of the way, some forty miles, at Mr. Soga's side. He beguiled the time by reciting Wordsworth's poetry, which at that time I had never heard of.

As each fresh aspect of the magnificent scenery unfolded itself he would pause and declaim some appropriate quotation from "The Excursion."

I have seldom been so impressed by any one as by this Kaffir, who, born in absolute barbarism, had acquired culture both deep and wide, and then returned to try and civilize his people. At the time I met him Mr.

Soga was hard at work translating, for the benefit of the Natives, the Bible and "Pilgrim's Progress." The Kaffir language is eminently suited to the former; good Kaffir linguists will tell you that many of the Psalms sound better in Mr. Soga's version than in English. His rendering of "Pilgrim's Progress," too, is a masterpiece.

Tiyo Soga was a tall man of slender build and with a stooping figure.

Even at the time I tell of a short, hacking cough gave evidence of the consumption which some years later caused his death. He was not alone a deeply cultivated scholar, but a Christian gentleman in the fullest sense of the term.

We pa.s.sed Kreli's kraal, but the chief was in retirement under the hands of a witch-doctor, so we did not see him. The scenery along the watershed between the Kei and the Kobonqaba is wonderfully beautiful.

The weather was calm and clear; the ocean like a world of sapphire fringed with snow. The populous villages of the Natives stood on every ledge; sleek cattle grazed in every valley. The people looked prosperous and contented. We met civility everywhere; milk was offered us at every kraal. I visited the same locality a few years ago and sojourned for a few weeks near the site of the old Soga camp, but the season was summer, and both ticks and snakes were in evidence to a most unpleasant degree. The natives also had changed; no longer were they so civil or so hospitable. Revisiting the scenes of one's youth is usually an unsatisfactory experience.

We spent a week with the Sogas, and then went to the camp of the Fynns, a few miles away. Here, also, we were hospitably entertained. There were three Fynn brothers, and their aggregate height was nineteen feet.

Late one afternoon, when returning from a ride, I had my first sight of wild dogs. In crossing a deep, bushy kloof by a bridle-path I reached an open s.p.a.ce. Here I saw five large, smoke-colored animals. Two were squatting on their haunches, the others were standing. I pa.s.sed within about twenty-five yards of them. They made no hostile demonstration, neither did they attempt to run away. When I related my experience at the camp, I was told that the animals I had seen were wild dogs, a pack of which had for some time been marauding in the vicinity.

I returned to King William's Town via Tsomo and Tembani. We traveled mostly, by night. My companion for I had left Mr. Samuel's party was a trader. He carried four hundred sovereigns in a holster. We off-saddled at several kraals, and on each occasion the gold jingled audibly, yet we never felt the slightest uneasiness. In those days it was a common practice for traders to send large sums of money by native runners from the heart of Kaffirland, yet I do not think there is a single instance of such a trust having been betrayed.

When I reached King William's Town it was quite evident that our sheep were not flourishing. They were, in fact, dwindling daily. Something had to be done, so my father hired a farm about ten miles away, in the direction of Kabousie. I volunteered my services as caretaker of the flock, and to my intense gratification this offer was accepted. The farm had no homestead, so I was given an old bell-tent, purchased at a military rummage sale, to live in.

My a.s.sistant was a Kaffir lad named Toby, whose memory is kept green, so far as I am concerned, by his enormous lips. These resembled sausages strung across his face literally from ear to ear. I now considered myself to be a full-fledged farmer. An old sheep kraal was put into a state of repair. Toby and I built a wattle hut, and a shelter for the pony. The hut was so small that Toby, had to lie curled up in it; if he stretched himself, either head or heels had to be out in the cold.

After the novelty had worn off, the monotony of my life became appalling. There were no neighbors with whom to foregather; there was no game to shoot; the surrounding country was uninteresting to a degree. Far away, just peeping over the rim of the horizon, were the peaks of the Amatole and Kabousie Ranges regions of enchantment, cliff-crowned and forest-clothed towards which my soul vainly sighed.

But an accident quickly brought this chapter of my life to a tragic close. One very, windy day I went out with the sheep, leaving Toby at the camp to cook the dinner. The blasts were so strong that it was impracticable to light a fire in the open. Toby, suggested lighting one in the tent, and to this I unwisely consented, warning him, however, to be very careful lest our dwelling should catch alight.