Tales of South Africa Part 11

During the next few days the wagon and oxen were got safely to the town, and some progress was made in preliminary negotiations for a concession to Lane and his party. Finally, at the close of a week, after the endless discussion and argument so dear to the native African, Tapinyani set his royal mark, duly attested and approved by the headmen and elders of his tribe, to a grant of 300,000 acres of pastoral land--part of that huge and unexplored tract of country over which he hunted and nominally held sway. The considerations for this grant were a yearly payment of 100 pounds, a dozen Martini-Henry rifles with suitable ammunition, a "salted" horse worth 90 pounds, six bottles of French brandy, a suit of store clothes, a case of Eau de Cologne, and a quant.i.ty of beads and trinkets. These terms may, to the uninitiated mind, seem not highly advantageous to the native side; yet, measured by the considerations in other and far vaster South African concessions in recent years, and remembering that the land granted was at present waterless, remote, and almost totally unexplored, they were fair and equitable.

This business settled, Tapinyani now turned his thoughts to the trial of his new horse and rifles. He had once possessed an old broken-down nag, bought from a swindling Namaqua Hottentot, and he knew a little of guns and gunnery. But he was unskilled in the use of either. His people badly wanted giraffe hides for making sandals and for barter; the animals were plentiful in the open forests a day or two north of the town; they must have a big hunt forthwith.

Accordingly, the horses having, meanwhile, under the influence of Kaffir corn, plenty of water, and a good rest, recovered some of their lost condition, a day or two later the hunting party sallied forth. Keen Masarwa Bushmen, half famished and dying for a gorge of flesh, trotted before the hors.e.m.e.n as spoorers; while well in the rear a cloud of Tapinyani's people hovered in the like hope of meat and hides. For a whole day the party rode northward into the desert; they found no giraffe, but spoor was plentiful, and they camped by a tiny limestone fountain with high hopes for the morrow. At earliest streak of dawn they were up and preparing for the chase. Tapinyani was stiff and sore from unaccustomed horse exercise, yet he had plenty of pluck, and, clad in his canary-yellow, brand-new, store suit of cords, climbed gaily to the saddle.

In an hour they were on fresh spoor of "camel"; a troop had fed quite recently through the giraffe-acacia groves; and the whispering Bushmen began to run hot upon the trail. Just as the great red disk of sun shot up clear above the rim of earth, they emerged upon a broad expanse of plain, yellow with long waving gra.s.s. Save for an odd camel-thorn tree here and there, it was open for some three miles, until checked again by a dark-green belt of forest. Half a mile away in their front, slouching leisurely across the flat with giant strides, moved a troop of nine tall giraffe--a huge dark-coloured old bull, towering above the rest, four or five big cows, and some two-year-old calves. Well might the hearts of the two younger Englishmen beat faster, and their palates grow dry and parched. Neither had seen giraffes in the wild state before, and here at last was a towering old bull, whose tail, if it could but be secured, would amply satisfy Kate Manning's commands. Hume Wheler meant killing that giraffe, more, probably, from a feeling of natural rivalry than anything else. Joe Granton had at heart a much deeper interest in the chase. He was in truth in very serious earnest about Kate Manning; the coveted trophy might mean all the world for him.

The four men set their horses going at a sharp gallop, and had run two hundred yards before the tall game had spied them. Here, unluckily, Tapinyani's horse put its foot in a hole, came down with a crash, and sent its rider flying yards upon the veldt. His loaded rifle, carried, native fashion, at full c.o.c.k, exploded, and the startled giraffes glancing round saw danger, and instantly broke into their ludicrous rolling gallop. Up and down their long necks flailed the air, in strange machine-like unison with their gait; quickly they were in full flight, going great guns for the shelter of the forest ahead of them.

Now the three Englishmen rammed in spurs, set their teeth, and raced their nags at their hardest. To kill "camel" there is only one method.

You must run up to them (if you can) at top speed in the first two or three miles of chase, else they will outstay you and escape. Force the giraffe beyond his pace, and he is yours.

But in this instance the dappled giants had too long a start. The ponies were not at their best, and the forest sanctuary lay now only two miles beyond the quarry. Ride as they would, the hunters could not make up their lee-way in the distance. Once in the woodlands the giraffes would have much the best of it. The two clouds of dust raised by pursued and pursuers rose thick upon the clear morning air, and steadily neared the forest fringe. Now the giraffe are only two hundred yards from their sanctuary, the lighter cows, running ahead, rather less. The hors.e.m.e.n are still nearly three hundred yards in rear of the nearest of the troop. "Jump off, lads, and shoot!" roars Tom Lane, as he reins up his nag suddenly, springs off, and puts up his rifle. The other two men instantly follow his example. Two barrels are fired by Lane, but the distance is great, that desperate gallop has made him shaky, and his bullets go wide.

Hume Wheler, quicker down from his horse than his friend, fires next at the old bull, lagging last; he, too, misses clean, and shoves another cartridge into his single sporting Martini. But now even the old bull is close upon the forest, into whose depths the rest of the troop are disappearing, and he, too, is within easy hail of safety. Before Hume can fire again, Joe Granton has put up his sight for 350 yards and aimed full; he draws a deep breath, pulls trigger, and in the next instant the great dark chestnut bull falls p.r.o.ne to the earth, and lies there very still. Never again shall he stalk the pleasant Kalahari forests never again stretch upward that slender neck to pluck the young acacia leaf.a.ge!

"My G.o.d, Joe! you've killed him," gasped Hume Wheler.

"Bravo!" chimed in Tom Lane, wiping his brow; "whether you fluked him or not, it was a wonderful shot. You've got Kate Manning's tail right enough."

Now Joe, it must be frankly admitted, was not a good shot; either of his friends could give him points in the ordinary way. Here was an extraordinary stroke of luck! Speechless with delight, flushed of face, and streaming with sweat, his eyes still fixed upon the piece of gra.s.s where the bull had gone down, he mounted his horse and galloped up. The others followed in more leisurely fashion. Joe was quickly by the side of the great dappled giraffe. Taking off and waving his hat, he turned his face to his friends and gave a loud hurrah. Then, first whipping out his hunting-knife and cutting off the long tail by the root, he sat himself down upon the dead beast's shoulder to await their coming. At that instant a strange resurrection happened. Whether roused to life again by the sharp severing of its tail, or by a last desperate stirring of nature, the giraffe--not yet dead after all--rose suddenly from its p.r.o.ne position, and, with Joe clinging in utter bewilderment to its long neck, staggered to its stilt-like legs. For another instant the great creature beat the air in its real death-agony, staggered, staggered again, and then, with a crash that shook the earth, fell truly dead. In that terrible fall Joe Granton was hurled upon his head, and, as his comrades rode anxiously up, lay there apparently as void of life as his gigantic quarry. In his hand he still clutched desperately the tail upon which he had so firmly set his mind.

From the shock of that fall Joe Granton sustained heavy concussion of the brain, and had to be carried with much care and difficulty back to Tapinyani's town. Hume Wheler, with infinite solicitude and care, superintended this operation, while Lane stayed out another two days in the veldt and shot three giraffe for the chief and his people. Hume Wheler himself had the satisfaction of bringing down his first and a good many more "camels" at a subsequent period.

A fortnight's careful nursing at Tapinyani's restored Joe Granton to something like his normal health. In due time the expedition returned, after a tedious and even dangerous trek, to Vryburg.

Whether it was, in truth, the coveted giraffe's tail that settled the business; whether it was the dangerous accident Joe had suffered in her behalf; or whether Kate Manning had not for some time before had a tender corner in her heart for Joe Granton, is scarcely of consequence.

Certain it is that, not long after the presentation of the precious trophy, a question that Joe put to Kate was answered in a way that made him extravagantly happy.

The members of the Tapinyani syndicate sold their concession very well during a boom in the South African market, and Joe Granton's share enabled him to set up cattle ranching in handsome fashion. He and his wife live very happily on a large farm given to them as a portion by Mr Manning. Here they have made a very charming home of their own. The great black switch tail of the bull giraffe hangs on the dining-room wall, plain evidence of the curious romance in which it had been involved.

Hume Wheler, who, with Tom Lane, occasionally drops in upon them during his periodical trips from the interior, often chaffs his old friends upon that celebrated trophy. "Ah! Mrs Joe," he says, on one of these occasions, as he takes one of her two youngsters on his knee and looks up at the tail. "Your husband captured you by a magnificent accident.

There never was a bigger fluke in this world than when the old fraud knocked over that big 'camel.'"

CHAPTER NINE.

VROUW VAN VUUREN'S FRENCHMAN.

It was not until the second time I stayed with him that old Cornelis Van Vuuren began to open his heart, and to pour fitfully into my ears, from the rich storehouse of his memory, many a strange tale of veldt life. I had been fortunate enough to render some little service to a son of the Van Vuurens, far up in the hunting veldt; and these kindly, if somewhat uncouth, South African Dutch folk do not lightly forget such matters.

When I pa.s.sed through the Orange Free State on my way to Natal, in the year 1880, I stayed for a night at the Van Vuurens' farm. The good people received me with the greatest hospitality, and Cornelis pressed me to stay longer. I was unable to do so at that time; but later, on my way up-country, I outspanned at Nooitgedacht, and stayed several nights.

That name, Nooitgedacht (never give in), bestowed years ago upon the farm, well indicates the strong and stubborn character of old Cornelis Van Vuuren, its owner. There were some springboks and blesboks running on the place--remnants of those mighty herds of game which formerly blackened the Free State plains.

During the daytime I shot a few head of buck--I wanted some blesbok heads as specimens--and at evening, after supper, as we sat out beneath the warm starlight, Cornelis would open up, and yarn to me in a way that, until you know him well, the Boer seldom manifests to the _rooinek_ [Literally, Red-neck--a Boer name for Englishmen].

What experiences the old man had had! In his youth he had been a great hunter, and had followed the elephants far into the interior before Gordon c.u.mming's time. In those days ivory was plentiful throughout the north of the Transvaal. Many and many a rich load of tusks had Cornelis brought down-country. One of the first to penetrate into the Sabi River country and Gazaland, he had reaped a rich reward. So well had he done, that by 1863 he had practically retired from the hunting veldt, having ama.s.sed enough money and cattle to settle down on one of the best farms in the Free State. Here, at the time I knew him, he was living in a roomy, comfortable farmhouse--one of the best Dutch homesteads I have entered. Groves of fruit trees flourished round about; the well-tilled "lands" grew enough grain for a pastoral farmer's needs; upon the 10,000 acre run large herds of cattle, sheep, goats, and horses flourished.

Most of the children had grown up, and been duly married off long since.

Only Franz Van Vuuren, the youngest son, whom I had met up-country, now lived with his parents.

By the second evening, as we sat at supper, old Cornelis and I had become fast friends. The old man knew from his son that I had shot pretty successfully in Mashonaland; and, in the old Dutch fashion, his simple soul went out at once to a hunter--especially to one who had done Franz a kindly turn. It was a warm evening in November. Vrouw Van Vuuren--a broad-faced, white-haired, portly old dame, still keen-eyed, brisk and sharp with her native servants--sat at the head of the table, endued with a clean print gown and her best black silk ap.r.o.n in honour of my coming. In front of her stood the great coffee urn. Her capacious feet, enveloped in soft _velschoens_, rested, spite of the warmth of the African evening, upon one of those curious chafing stools--a footstool filled with hot embers--so common in Boer houses.

Franz sat at one side of the table, I at the other. Old Cornelis was at the top. I see him now in memory as he stood reverently pouring forth one of those long Dutch prayers, without which no good Boer will begin his meal. He was a magnificent old fellow, far better looking than the average run of Free State or Transvaal Boers. Cornelis Van Vuuren stood a good six feet in his _velschoens_, and, although now seventy years of age, was still erect and strong as an ancient oak. His thick ma.s.ses of white hair--not too well trimmed--and his snowy beard well set off his strong, ma.s.sive features. And the old man's bright blue eye--merry, alert, and penetrating--showed that the fire of life still burned strong within that great old frame. Well might he be called by his fellows, "Sterk Cornelis" (strong Cornelis). I had often heard of the old man's reputation far up in the interior--of his clear courage and unflagging resource; for Cornelis had been in many a tight place, whether in hunting or in native wars. Few men, even among the great English hunters, had been more reliable at need, whether facing an infuriated bull elephant, or standing up to a wounded and snarling lion--two of the most dangerous foes, I take it, that a man may expect to confront in Africa.

As we sat at the evening meal, the pretty Cape swallows, in their handsome livery of blue-black and rufous, flitted in and out of the chamber, through door or open window, hawking incessantly at the plague of flies, or sitting sometimes upon the top of the open door, cheeping their brief, cheerful song. As in many Boer houses, the Van Vuurens had fitted up, for cleanliness' sake, directly under the swallows' nests, which were fastened between the central roof timber and the reed thatch, immediately over the table, a broad, square, flat piece of wood. Thus the swallows never trouble the farmer; and, in return for a kindly toleration, the pretty, tame creatures do their best to rid the homesteads of those plagues of flies which are found at most cattle kraals near a Dutchman's house. Sometimes I have seen the little, confiding creatures, as old Cornelis sat outside upon the _stoep_, with legs comfortably outstretched, stoop for an instant upon his shoe, and, like lightning, pick off some fly that had rested there.

I had long spoken Boer Dutch, and our conversation therefore flowed smoothly and merrily enough. Old Cornelis was in high spirits, and, in response to my queries, told several anecdotes of his early life in the far wilderness. He had been one of the "Voor-Trekkers," quitting the Cape Colony in 1836, and pa.s.sing beyond the Orange River to found a new home, and to seek fresh hunting-grounds beyond the reach of a British government. His young wife had fared forth with him, and for twenty years and more had shared his life of pioneer and hunter, with all its dangers, its roughs and tumbles, its wild pleasures, and its fierce occasional excitements. In the distant interior, in the big wagon, or in some temporary hartebeest house of reeds and clay, had the family of this st.u.r.dy pair been reared around them.

Presently, as he filled his great pipe, and pushed his coffee cup away, some amusing reminiscence flitted across the old Boer's brain. A broad smile overspread his face, as he said to me, nodding mischievously at his wife, "_Kerel_ (my boy), you have never by chance heard the story of the vrouw there and her Frenchman? It used to be pretty well-known in the veldt years ago."

"No," I answered, "I never heard the tale. What is it?"

"Almighty!" he returned. "It's a good story, though an old one. I never think of it without laughing, though it happened forty years ago!

I must tell it to him, vrouw; what say you?"

And then, as the merry recollection rose firmer before the old man's mind, his broad palm smote his great thigh with a smack that resounded through the room, and he burst into a fit of laughing--so hearty and so long, that the tears started into his blue eyes.

But Vrouw Van Vuuren looked meanwhile straight in front of her, with a rather grim look upon her strong old face.

"Cornelis Van Vuuren," she said, after a little pause, looking now very hard at her husband, "that is an old and a foolish story that has been told far too many times already. I will not have it told in my house.

If you wish to repeat tales that are better dead and buried, you must go outside."

Cornelis looked at his wife. One glance, and a long experience--nearly fifty years of married life--told him plainly enough that the vrouw was in earnest.

"That is all right, Anna, my dear," he said simply. "I won't tease you with an old joke. Come, my friend [to me], we will smoke our pipes outside."

We sat ourselves down upon the broad _stoep_ (veranda) which ran round the house, and smoked our pipes. Franz had gone to the sheep-kraals to see that all was well for the night. The sun had just set, and the western heavens and horizon were still aflame with colour. A strange, mellow, refracted light filled the upper air, and threw the flat gra.s.s plains, stretching everywhere around, into strong relief. Far out upon these gra.s.sy flats, some half a mile away, grazed a troop of springbok, their shining white and cinnamon coats flecking the plain brilliantly.

The mingled bleat of sheep and goats and the low of neat cattle came not unpleasantly from the kraals behind the dwelling. I saw that the old man's eye was resting upon the springboks, now grazing so peacefully upon the plain. Presently he took his pipe from his mouth, shook his head regretfully, and said, "'Tis a pity the _wilde_ (game) are going so fast. I never could have believed it. When I first trekked through this country, in 1837, the land was darkened with wild animals.

Almighty! they ran in millions. Quagga, Bonte quagga, black wildebeest, elands, hartebeest, ostrich, springboks, blesboks. Ach! _Kerel_! (my boy) I tell you I have pa.s.sed across these plains through a herd of _trek-bokken_ (migrating springboks) three or four miles broad, and extending as far as a man's eye could reach. All day we pa.s.sed through that _trek-bokken_. I shall never forget it, never. We shot scores of buck, till we were tired; but we were chiefly anxious to get past the springboks, which had eaten off every blade of gra.s.s for miles upon miles, so that our oxen and horses looked like being starved. And now, almost all gone, all gone!"

"But," I said, "although you Afrikanders have pretty well cleaned out the Free State and Transvaal, there is still a good deal of game beyond.

Along the Sabi River, for instance!"

"Yes, yes," said the old fellow, "that's right enough; but even there the heavy game's going. Why, how many elephants does a man now get in a season's hunt? Eight or ten, perhaps,--if he is a good man,--and thinks himself lucky. Why, _Kerel_, when I first hunted along the Crocodile, I shot sixty elephants to my own _roer_ (gun) in five months. That was something like a game country,--elephants and rhinoceros as common as goats in a kraal."

"Was that the season you met the Frenchman?" I inquired, with a smile.

"No, no," briskly responded Cornelis, with a sly look towards the room where the vrouw still sat. "Not that season, nor the next. But you would like to hear the yarn, and it always make me laugh to tell it.

Laughter is good. I was always a merry one, and that, thank the Heer G.o.d, is the reason I have got so well through my troubles. Your sour-faced fellow is no good for the long trek through life.

"Well, well! It was a funny business that of the good vrouw there and the little Frenchman. It happened in this way. In the third year after we had got into the Transvaal, about two years after we had driven Moselikatse and his _verdomde_ (infernal) Matabele rascals beyond the Crocodile, I was shooting elephants up in the north. The vrouw was with me, and the children,--we had three young children then,--and we had made a big _scherm_ (camp) some way south of the Crocodile, a few miles out of reach of the 'fly,' [Tse-tse fly] which, I can tell you, was in those days a terrible pest.

"The first time I met Pierre Cellois--'Klein Pierre' we used to call him--I was about a day east of our camp, shooting water-buck for _velschoens_. We had worn out our foot-gear, and wanted fresh supplies of skin. Never shall I forget the little Frenchman's appearance. He was tricked out in a big slouch hat smothered with great white ostrich feathers--enough to frighten half the game of the country away. Then he had a bright blue jacket with gilt b.u.t.tons, a pink flannel shirt, a red silk sash round his waist--something like what your officers wore across their shoulders at Boom Plaats, when we fought Sir Harry Smith--white breeches, and long, shiny, black English hunting-boots. In his sash he had stuck a long knife and a pair of pistols. At his side he wore a wonderful powder-horn, decked with silver, and over his back a brown leather bag, smothered with steel mountings, the flash of which you might see a mile off. He carried a good English rifle. His Hottentot boy, besides a fowling-piece, carried a green net and a lot of boxes.

The little Frenchman collected b.u.t.terflies and bird-skins, and he never went abroad without his full paraphernalia. I have seen some funny sights in the veldt, but never have I seen such a figure of a sportsman as Pierre Cellois.

"Well, the little Frenchman, it seems, had come up to the Transvaal to shoot game and to collect specimens for a museum. He had read a book by your English army officer, Captain Harris, who was up in the country just before we turned out Moselikatse and his Matabele. Though he was an Englishman, Harris was a right good sportsman. I saw him in our laager in 1837, and his wagons were crammed with horns and skins and ivory. Cellois had Harris's book with him, a great book--I saw it afterwards on Gordon c.u.mming's wagon in Bamangwato--full of capital coloured pictures of game. Little Cellois used to rave over that book, and fling his arms about, and slap his rifle, and altogether send me nearly dying with laughter. But, bless you, Pierre was no sportsman; I could see that at once with half an eye. He had the best of rifles, powder-horns, knives, pistols, everything else--but he hadn't the pluck, without which a man in the veldt in those days might surely turn his wagons and go home. I have seen him peppering away at a rhinoceros at a hundred and a hundred and fifty yards--teasing the great beast, and tickling its hide, and making it mad, but doing nothing more.

"Well, we hunted together during the afternoon of the day I met him, and I shot a big white rhinoceros bull--about the easiest beast a man could shoot. The Frenchman hadn't seen a rhinoceros shot before, and he nearly went out of his mind. He danced about, cried out with joy, and then rushing up to me, put his arms round my neck and kissed me--yes, kissed me, the little fool! Pah! I couldn't stand that, and I gave him a bit of a push, and sent him over on his back. He picked himself up and seemed rather angry, but we became good friends afterwards. Next day we came across elephants, and I shot three good bulls, and a cow with long teeth. I was finishing off the last bull, when Pierre Cellois, who had kept very much in the background so far, came up and fired his piece two or three times into the beast, which was now at a stand, just about dying. Then it fell, and the little fellow climbed up on to its back, screaming and waving his arms, took off his hat and cried out something about 'La France.' Laugh! I nearly split my sides with laughing at that little jackanapes fellow dancing about up there on the big elephant."

And the old man, as he recalled that absurd scene of forty years agone, laughed in his hearty, ma.s.sive way so heartily that I, too, was impelled to join him.