* We found the Batauana in possession of this breed when wediscovered Lake Ngami. One of these horns, brought to Englandby Major Vardon, will hold no less than twenty-one imperialpints of water; and a pair, brought by Mr. Oswell, and now inthe possession of Colonel Steele, measures from tip to tipeight and a half feet.
Returning to the north poorer than he started, he ascended the Teoughe to the hill Sorila, and crossed over a swampy country to the eastward. Pursuing his course onward to the low-lying basin of the Leeambye, he saw that it presented no attraction to a pastoral tribe like his, so he moved down that river among the Bashubia and Batoka, who were then living in all their glory. His narrative resembled closely the "Commentaries of Caesar", and the history of the British in India. He was always forced to attack the different tribes, and to this day his men justify every step he took as perfectly just and right. The Batoka lived on large islands in the Leeambye or Zambesi, and, feeling perfectly secure in their fastnesses, often allured fugitive or wandering tribes on to uninhabited islets on pretense of ferrying them across, and there left them to perish for the sake of their goods. Sekomi, the chief of the Bamangwato, was, when a child, in danger of meeting this fate; but a man still living had compassion on him, and enabled his mother to escape with him by night. The river is so large that the sharpest eye can not tell the difference between an island and the bend of the opposite bank; but Sebituane, with his usual foresight, requested the island chief who ferried him across to take his seat in the canoe with him, and detained him by his side till all his people and cattle were safely landed. The whole Batoka country was then densely peopled, and they had a curious taste for ornamenting their villages with the skulls of strangers. When Sebituane appeared near the great falls, an immense army collected to make trophies of the Makololo skulls; but, instead of succeeding in this, they gave him a good excuse for conquering them, and capturing so many cattle that his people were quite incapable of taking any note of the sheep and goats. He overran all the high lands toward the Kafue, and settled in what is called a pastoral country, of gently undulating plains, covered with short grass and but little forest. The Makololo have never lost their love for this fine, healthy region.
But the Matebele, a Caffre or Zulu tribe, under Mosilikatse, crossed the Zambesi, and, attacking Sebituane in this choice spot, captured his cattle and women. Rallying his men, he followed and recaptured the whole. A fresh attack was also repulsed, and Sebituane thought of going farther down the Zambesi, to the country of the white men. He had an idea, whence imbibed I never could learn, that if he had a cannon he might live in peace. He had led a life of war, yet no one apparently desired peace more than he did. A prophet induced him to turn his face again to the westward. This man, by name Tlapane, was called a "senoga"—one who holds intercourse with the gods. He probably had a touch of insanity, for he was in the habit of retiring no one knew whither, but perhaps into some cave, to remain in a hypnotic or mesmeric state until the moon was full. Then, returning to the tribe quite emaciated, he excited himself, as others do who pretend to the prophetic AFFLATUS, until he was in a state of ecstasy. These pretended prophets commence their operations by violent action of the voluntary muscles. Stamping, leaping, and shouting in a peculiarly violent manner, or beating the ground with a club, they induce a kind of fit, and while in it pretend that their utterances are unknown to themselves. Tlapane, pointing eastward, said, "There, Sebituane, I behold a fire: shun it; it is a fire which may scorch thee. The gods say, go not thither." Then, turning to the west, he said, "I see a city and a nation of black men—men of the water; their cattle are red; thine own tribe, Sebituane, is perishing, and will be all consumed; thou wilt govern black men, and, when thy warriors have captured red cattle, let not the owners be killed; they are thy future tribe—they are thy city; let them be spared to cause thee to build. And thou, Ramosinii, thy village will perish utterly. If Mokari removes from that village he will perish first, and thou, Ramosinii, wilt be the last to die." Concerning himself he added, "The gods have caused other men to drink water, but to me they have given bitter water of the chukuru (rhinoceros). They call me away myself. I can not stay much longer."
This vaticination, which loses much in the translation, I have given rather fully, as it shows an observant mind. The policy recommended was wise, and the deaths of the "senoga" and of the two men he had named, added to the destruction of their village, having all happened soon after, it is not wonderful that Sebituane followed implicitly the warning voice. The fire pointed to was evidently the Portuguese fire-arms, of which he must have heard. The black men referred to were the Barotse, or, as they term themselves, Baloiana; and Sebituane spared their chiefs, even though they attacked him first. He had ascended the Barotse valley, but was pursued by the Matebele, as Mosilikatse never could forgive his former defeats. They came up the river in a very large body. Sebituane placed some goats on one of the large islands of the Zambesi as a bait to the warriors, and some men in canoes to co-operate in the manoeuvre. When they were all ferried over to the island, the canoes were removed, and the Matebele found themselves completely in a trap, being perfectly unable to swim. They subsisted for some time on the roots of grass after the goats were eaten, but gradually became so emaciated that, when the Makololo landed, they had only to perform the part of executioners on the adults, and to adopt the rest into their own tribe. Afterward Mosilikatse was goaded on by his warriors to revenge this loss; so he sent an immense army, carrying canoes with them, in order that no such mishap might occur again. Sebituane had by this time incorporated the Barotse, and taught his young men to manage canoes; so he went from island to island, and watched the Matebele on the main land so closely that they could not use their canoes to cross the river any where without parting their forces. At last all the Makololo and their cattle were collected on the island of Loyelo, and lay all around, keeping watch night and day over the enemy. After some time spent in this way, Sebituane went in a canoe toward them, and, addressing them by an interpreter, asked why they wished to kill him; he had never attacked them, never harmed their chief: "Au!" he continued, "the guilt is on your side." The Matebele made no reply; but the Makololo next day saw the canoes they had carried so far lying smashed, and the owners gone. They returned toward their own country, and fever, famine, and the Batoka completed their destruction; only five men returned to Mosilikatse.
Sebituane had now not only conquered all the black tribes over an immense tract of country, but had made himself dreaded even by the terrible Mosilikatse. He never could trust this ferocious chief, however; and, as the Batoka on the islands had been guilty of ferrying his enemies across the Zambesi, he made a rapid descent upon them, and swept them all out of their island fastnesses. He thus unwittingly performed a good service to the country by completely breaking down the old system which prevented trade from penetrating into the great central valley. Of the chiefs who escaped, he said, "They love Mosilikatse, let them live with him: the Zambesi is my line of defense;" and men were placed all along it as sentinels. When he heard of our wish to visit him, he did all he could to assist our approach. Sechele, Sekomi, and Lechulatebe owed their lives to his clemency; and the latter might have paid dearly for his obstructiveness. Sebituane knew every thing that happened in the country, for he had the art of gaining the affections both of his own people and of strangers. When a party of poor men came to his town to sell their hoes or skins, no matter how ungainly they might be, he soon knew them all. A company of these indigent strangers, sitting far apart from the Makololo gentlemen around the chief, would be surprised to see him come alone to them, and, sitting down, inquire if they were hungry. He would order an attendant to bring meal, milk, and honey, and, mixing them in their sight, in order to remove any suspicion from their minds, make them feast, perhaps for the first time in their lives, on a lordly dish. Delighted beyond measure with his affability and liberality, they felt their hearts warm toward him, and gave him all the information in their power; and as he never allowed a party of strangers to go away without giving every one of them, servants and all, a present, his praises were sounded far and wide. "He has a heart! he is wise!" were the usual expressions we heard before we saw him.
He was much pleased with the proof of confidence we had shown in bringing our children, and promised to take us to see his country, so that we might choose a part in which to locate ourselves. Our plan was, that I should remain in the pursuit of my objects as a missionary, while Mr. Oswell explored the Zambesi to the east. Poor Sebituane, however, just after realizing what he had so long ardently desired, fell sick of inflammation of the lungs, which originated in and extended from an old wound got at Melita. I saw his danger, but, being a stranger, I feared to treat him medically, lest, in the event of his death, I should be blamed by his people. I mentioned this to one of his doctors, who said, "Your fear is prudent and wise; this people would blame you." He had been cured of this complaint, during the year before, by the Barotse making a large number of free incisions in the chest. The Makololo doctors, on the other hand, now scarcely cut the skin. On the Sunday afternoon in which he died, when our usual religious service was over, I visited him with my little boy Robert. "Come near," said Sebituane, "and see if I am any longer a man. I am done." He was thus sensible of the dangerous nature of his disease, so I ventured to assent, and added a single sentence regarding hope after death. "Why do you speak of death?" said one of a relay of fresh doctors; "Sebituane will never die." If I had persisted, the impression would have been produced that by speaking about it I wished him to die. After sitting with him some time, and commending him to the mercy of God, I rose to depart, when the dying chieftain, raising himself up a little from his prone position, called a servant, and said, "Take Robert to Maunku (one of his wives), and tell her to give him some milk." These were the last words of Sebituane.
We were not informed of his death until the next day. The burial of a Bechuana chief takes place in his cattle-pen, and all the cattle are driven for an hour or two around and over the grave, so that it may be quite obliterated. We went and spoke to the people, advising them to keep together and support the heir. They took this kindly; and in turn told us not to be alarmed, for they would not think of ascribing the death of their chief to us; that Sebituane had just gone the way of his fathers; and though the father had gone, he had left children, and they hoped that we would be as friendly to his children as we intended to have been to himself.
He was decidedly the best specimen of a native chief I ever met. I never felt so much grieved by the loss of a black man before; and it was impossible not to follow him in thought into the world of which he had just heard before he was called away, and to realize somewhat of the feelings of those who pray for the dead. The deep, dark question of what is to become of such as he, must, however, be left where we find it, believing that, assuredly, the "Judge of all the earth will do right."
At Sebituane's death the chieftainship devolved, as her father intended, on a daughter named Ma-mochisane. He had promised to show us his country and to select a suitable locality for our residence. We had now to look to the daughter, who was living twelve days to the north, at Naliele. We were obliged, therefore, to remain until a message came from her; and when it did, she gave us perfect liberty to visit any part of the country we chose. Mr. Oswell and I then proceeded one hundred and thirty miles to the northeast, to Sesheke; and in the end of June, 1851, we were rewarded by the discovery of the Zambesi, in the centre of the continent. This was a most important point, for that river was not previously known to exist there at all. The Portuguese maps all represent it as rising far to the east of where we now were; and if ever any thing like a chain of trading stations had existed across the country between the latitudes 12 Deg. and 18 Deg. south, this magnificent portion of the river must have been known before. We saw it at the end of the dry season, at the time when the river is about at its lowest, and yet there was a breadth of from three hundred to six hundred yards of deep flowing water. Mr. Oswell said he had never seen such a fine river, even in India. At the period of its annual inundation it rises fully twenty feet in perpendicular height, and floods fifteen or twenty miles of lands adjacent to its banks.
The country over which we had traveled from the Chobe was perfectly flat, except where there were large ant-hills, or the remains of former ones, which had left mounds a few feet high. These are generally covered with wild date-trees and palmyras, and in some parts there are forests of mimosae and mopane. Occasionally the country between the Chobe and Zambesi is flooded, and there are large patches of swamps lying near the Chobe or on its banks. The Makololo were living among these swamps for the sake of the protection the deep reedy rivers afforded them against their enemies.
Now, in reference to a suitable locality for a settlement for myself, I could not conscientiously ask them to abandon their defenses for my convenience alone. The healthy districts were defenseless, and the safe localities were so deleterious to human life, that the original Basutos had nearly all been cut off by the fever; I therefore feared to subject my family to the scourge.
As we were the very first white men the inhabitants had ever seen, we were visited by prodigious numbers. Among the first who came to see us was a gentleman who appeared in a gaudy dressing-gown of printed calico. Many of the Makololo, besides, had garments of blue, green, and red baize, and also of printed cottons; on inquiry, we learned that these had been purchased, in exchange for boys, from a tribe called Mambari, which is situated near Bihe. This tribe began the slave-trade with Sebituane only in 1850, and but for the unwillingness of Lechulatebe to allow us to pass, we should have been with Sebituane in time to have prevented it from commencing at all. The Mambari visited in ancient times the chief of the Barotse, whom Sebituane conquered, and he refused to allow any one to sell a child. They never came back again till 1850; and as they had a number of old Portuguese guns marked "Legitimo de Braga", which Sebituane thought would be excellent in any future invasion of Matebele, he offered to purchase them with cattle or ivory, but the Mambari refused every thing except boys about fourteen years of age. The Makololo declare they never heard of people being bought and sold till then, and disliked it, but the desire to possess the guns prevailed, and eight old guns were exchanged for as many boys; these were not their own children, but captives of the black races they had conquered. I have never known in Africa an instance of a parent selling his own offspring. The Makololo were afterward incited to make a foray against some tribes to the eastward; the Mambari bargaining to use their guns in the attack for the captives they might take, and the Makololo were to have all the cattle. They went off with at least two hundred slaves that year. During this foray the Makololo met some Arabs from Zanzibar, who presented them with three English muskets, and in return received about thirty of their captives.
In talking with my companions over these matters, the idea was suggested that, if the slave-market were supplied with articles of European manufacture by legitimate commerce, the trade in slaves would become impossible. It seemed more feasible to give the goods, for which the people now part with their servants, in exchange for ivory and other products of the country, and thus prevent the trade at the beginning, than to try to put a stop to it at any of the subsequent steps. This could only be effected by establishing a highway from the coast into the centre of the country.
As there was no hope of the Boers allowing the peaceable instruction of the natives at Kolobeng, I at once resolved to save my family from exposure to this unhealthy region by sending them to England, and to return alone, with a view to exploring the country in search of a healthy district that might prove a centre of civilization, and open up the interior by a path to either the east or west coast. This resolution led me down to the Cape in April, 1852, being the first time during eleven years that I had visited the scenes of civilization. Our route to Cape Town led us to pass through the centre of the colony during the twentieth month of a Caffre war; and if those who periodically pay enormous sums for these inglorious affairs wish to know how our little unprotected party could quietly travel through the heart of the colony to the capital with as little sense or sign of danger as if we had been in England, they must engage a "'Times' Special Correspondent" for the next outbreak to explain where the money goes, and who have been benefited by the blood and treasure expended.
Having placed my family on board a homeward-bound ship, and promised to rejoin them in two years, we parted, for, as it subsequently proved, nearly five years. The Directors of the London Missionary Society signified their cordial approval of my project by leaving the matter entirely to my own discretion; and I have much pleasure in acknowledging my obligations to the gentlemen composing that body for always acting in an enlightened spirit, and with as much liberality as their constitution would allow.
I have the like pleasure in confessing my thankfulness to the Astronomer Royal at the Cape, Thomas Maclear, Esq., for enabling me to recall the little astronomical knowledge which constant manual labor and the engrossing nature of missionary duties had effaced from my memory, and in adding much that I did not know before. The promise he made on parting, that he would examine and correct all my observations, had more effect in making me persevere in overcoming the difficulties of an unassisted solitary observer than any thing else; so whatever credit may be attached to the geographical positions laid down in my route must be attributed to the voluntary aid of the excellent and laborious astronomer of the Cape observatory.
Having given the reader as rapid a sketch as possible of events which attracted notice between 1840 and 1852, I now proceed to narrate the incidents of the last and longest journey of all, performed in 1852-6.
Start in June, 1852, on the last and longest Journey from Cape Town— Companions—Wagon-traveling—Physical Divisions of Africa—The Eastern, Central, and Western Zones—The Kalahari Desert—Its Vegetation—Increasing Value of the Interior for Colonization— Our Route—Dutch Boers—Their Habits—Sterile Appearance of the District—Failure of Grass—Succeeded by other Plants— Vines—Animals—The Boers as Farmers—Migration of Springbucks— Wariness of Animals—The Orange River—Territory of the Griquas and Bechuanas—The Griquas—The Chief Waterboer—His wise and energetic Government—His Fidelity—Ill-considered Measures of the Colonial Government in regard to Supplies of Gunpowder—Success of the Missionaries among the Griquas and Bechuanas—Manifest Improvement of the native Character—Dress of the Natives—A full-dress Costume—A Native's Description of the Natives—Articles of Commerce in the Country of the Bechuanas—Their Unwillingness to learn, and Readiness to criticise.
Having sent my family home to England, I started in the beginning of June, 1852, on my last journey from Cape Town. This journey extended from the southern extremity of the continent to St. Paul de Loando, the capital of Angola, on the west coast, and thence across South Central Africa in an oblique direction to Kilimane (Quilimane) in Eastern Africa. I proceeded in the usual conveyance of the country, the heavy, lumbering Cape wagon drawn by ten oxen, and was accompanied by two Christian Bechuanas from Kuruman—than whom I never saw better servants any where—by two Bakwain men, and two young girls, who, having come as nurses with our children to the Cape, were returning to their home at Kolobeng. Wagon-traveling in Africa has been so often described that I need say no more than that it is a prolonged system of picnicking, excellent for the health, and agreeable to those who are not over-fastidious about trifles, and who delight in being in the open air.
Our route to the north lay near the centre of the cone-shaped mass of land which constitutes the promontory of the Cape. If we suppose this cone to be divided into three zones or longitudinal bands, we find each presenting distinct peculiarities of climate, physical appearance and population. These are more marked beyond than within the colony. At some points one district seems to be continued in and to merge into the other, but the general dissimilarity warrants the division, as an aid to memory. The eastern zone is often furnished with mountains, well wooded with evergreen succulent trees, on which neither fire nor droughts can have the smallest effect ('Strelitzia', 'Zamia horrida', 'Portulacaria afra', 'Schotia speciosa', 'Euphorbias', and 'Aloes arborescens'); and its seaboard gorges are clad with gigantic timber. It is also comparatively well watered with streams and flowing rivers. The annual supply of rain is considerable, and the inhabitants (Caffres or Zulus) are tall, muscular, and well made; they are shrewd, energetic, and brave; altogether they merit the character given them by military authorities, of being "magnificent savages". Their splendid physical development and form of skull show that, but for the black skin and woolly hair, they would take rank among the foremost Europeans.
The next division, that which embraces the centre of the continent, can scarcely be called hilly, for what hills there are are very low. It consists for the most part of extensive, slightly undulating plains. There are no lofty mountains, but few springs, and still fewer flowing streams. Rain is far from abundant, and droughts may be expected every few years. Without artificial irrigation no European grain can be raised, and the inhabitants (Bechuanas), though evidently of the same stock, originally, with those already mentioned, and closely resembling them in being an agricultural as well as a pastoral people, are a comparatively timid race, and inferior to the Caffres in physical development.
The western division is still more level than the middle one, being rugged only near the coast. It includes the great plain called the Kalahari Desert, which is remarkable for little water and very considerable vegetation.
The reason, probably, why so little rain falls on this extensive plain is that the prevailing winds of most of the interior country are easterly, with a little southing. The moisture taken up by the atmosphere from the Indian Ocean is deposited on the eastern hilly slope; and when the moving mass of air reaches its greatest elevation, it is then on the verge of the great valley, or, as in the case of the Kalahari, the great heated inland plains; there, meeting with the rarefied air of that hot, dry surface, the ascending heat gives it greater capacity for retaining all its remaining humidity, and few showers can be given to the middle and western lands in consequence of the increased hygrometric power.
This is the same phenomenon, on a gigantic scale, as that which takes place on Table Mountain, at the Cape, in what is called the spreading of the "table-cloth". The southeast wind causes a mass of air, equal to the diameter of the mountain, suddenly to ascend at least three thousand feet; the dilatation produced by altitude, with its attendant cold, causes the immediate formation of a cloud on the summit; the water in the atmosphere becomes visible; successive masses of gliding-up and passing-over air cause the continual formation of clouds, but the top of the vapory mass, or "table-cloth", is level, and seemingly motionless; on the lee side, however, the thick volumes of vapor curl over and descend, but when they reach the point below, where greater density and higher temperature impart enlarged capacity for carrying water, they entirely disappear.
Now if, instead of a hollow on the lee side of Table Mountain, we had an elevated heated plain, the clouds which curl over that side, and disappear as they do at present when a "southeaster" is blowing, might deposit some moisture on the windward ascent and top; but the heat would then impart the increased capacity the air now receives at the lower level in its descent to leeward, and, instead of an extended country with a flora of the 'Disa grandiflora', 'gladiolus', 'rushes', and 'lichens', which now appear on Table Mountain, we should have only the hardy vegetation of the Kalahari.
Why there should be so much vegetation on the Kalahari may be explained by the geological formation of the country. There is a rim or fringe of ancient rocks round a great central valley, which, dipping inward, form a basin, the bottom of which is composed of the oldest silurian rocks. This basin has been burst through and filled up in many parts by eruptive traps and breccias, which often bear in their substances angular fragments of the more ancient rocks, as shown in the fossils they contain. Now, though large areas have been so dislocated that but little trace of the original valley formation appears, it is highly probable that the basin shape prevails over large tracts of the country; and as the strata on the slopes, where most of the rain falls, dip in toward the centre, they probably guide water beneath the plains but ill supplied with moisture from the clouds. The phenomenon of stagnant fountains becoming by a new and deeper outlet never-failing streams may be confirmatory of the view that water is conveyed from the sides of the country into the bottom of the central valley; and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the wonderful river system in the north, which, if native information be correct, causes a considerable increase of water in the springs called Matlomagan-yana (the Links), extends its fertilizing influence beneath the plains of the Kalahari.
The peculiar formation of the country may explain why there is such a difference in the vegetation between the 20th and 30th parallels of latitude in South Africa and the same latitudes in Central Australia. The want of vegetation is as true of some parts too in the centre of South America as of Australia; and the cause of the difference holds out a probability for the success of artesian wells in extensive tracts of Africa now unpeopled solely on account of the want of surface water. We may be allowed to speculate a little at least on the fact of much greater vegetation, which, from whatever source it comes, presents for South Africa prospects of future greatness which we can not hope for in Central Australia. As the interior districts of the Cape Colony are daily becoming of higher value, offering to honest industry a fair remuneration for capital, and having a climate unequaled in salubrity for consumptive patients, I should unhesitatingly recommend any farmer at all afraid of that complaint in his family to try this colony. With the means of education already possessed, and the onward and upward movement of the Cape population, he need entertain no apprehensions of his family sinking into barbarism.
The route we at this time followed ran along the middle, or skirted the western zone before alluded to, until we reached the latitude of Lake Ngami, where a totally different country begins. While in the colony, we passed through districts inhabited by the descendants of Dutch and French refugees who had fled from religious persecution. Those living near the capital differ but little from the middle classes in English counties, and are distinguished by public spirit and general intelligence; while those situated far from the centres of civilization are less informed, but are a body of frugal, industrious, and hospitable peasantry. A most efficient system of public instruction was established in the time of Governor Sir George Napier, on a plan drawn up in a great measure by that accomplished philosopher, Sir John Herschel. The system had to contend with less sectarian rancor than elsewhere; indeed, until quite recently, that spirit, except in a mild form, was unknown.
The population here described ought not to be confounded with some Boers who fled from British rule on account of the emancipation of their Hottentot slaves, and perhaps never would have been so had not every now and then some Rip Van Winkle started forth at the Cape to justify in the public prints the deeds of blood and slave-hunting in the far interior. It is therefore not to be wondered at if the whole race is confounded and held in low estimation by those who do not know the real composition of the Cape community.
Population among the Boers increases rapidly; they marry soon, are seldom sterile, and continue to have children late. I once met a worthy matron whose husband thought it right to imitate the conduct of Abraham while Sarah was barren; she evidently agreed in the propriety of the measure, for she was pleased to hear the children by a mother of what has been thought an inferior race address her as their mother. Orphans are never allowed to remain long destitute; and instances are frequent in which a tender-hearted farmer has adopted a fatherless child, and when it came of age portioned it as his own.
Two centuries of the South African climate have not had much effect upon the physical condition of the Boers. They are a shade darker, or rather ruddier, than Europeans, and are never cadaverous-looking, as descendants of Europeans are said to be elsewhere. There is a tendency to the development of steatopyga, so characteristic of Arabs and other African tribes; and it is probable that the interior Boers in another century will become in color what the learned imagine our progenitors, Adam and Eve, to have been.
The parts of the colony through which we passed were of sterile aspect; and, as the present winter had been preceded by a severe drought, many farmers had lost two thirds of their stock. The landscape was uninviting; the hills, destitute of trees, were of a dark brown color, and the scanty vegetation on the plains made me feel that they deserved the name of Desert more than the Kalahari. When first taken possession of, these parts are said to have been covered with a coating of grass, but that has disappeared with the antelopes which fed upon it, and a crop of mesembryanthemums and crassulas occupies its place. It is curious to observe how, in nature, organizations the most dissimilar are mutually dependent on each other for their perpetuation. Here the original grasses were dependent for dissemination on the grass-feeding animals, which scattered the seeds. When, by the death of the antelopes, no fresh sowing was made, the African droughts proved too much for this form of vegetation. But even this contingency was foreseen by the Omniscient One; for, as we may now observe in the Kalahari Desert, another family of plants, the mesembryanthemums, stood ready to neutralize the aridity which must otherwise have followed. This family of plants possesses seed-vessels which remain firmly shut on their contents while the soil is hot and dry, and thus preserve the vegetative power intact during the highest heat of the torrid sun; but when rain falls, the seed-vessel opens and sheds its contents just when there is the greatest probability of their vegetating. In other plants heat and drought cause the seed-vessels to burst and shed their charge.
One of this family is edible ('Mesembryanthemum edule'); another possesses a tuberous root, which may be eaten raw; and all are furnished with thick, fleshy leaves, having pores capable of imbibing and retaining moisture from a very dry atmosphere and soil, so that, if a leaf is broken during a period of the greatest drought, it shows abundant circulating sap. The plants of this family are found much farther north, but the great abundance of the grasses prevents them from making any show. There, however, they stand ready to fill up any gap which may occur in the present prevailing vegetation; and should the grasses disappear, animal life would not necessarily be destroyed, because a reserve supply, equivalent to a fresh act of creative power, has been provided.
One of this family, 'M. turbiniforme', is so colored as to blend in well with the hue of the soil and stones around it; and a 'gryllus' of the same color feeds on it. In the case of the insect, the peculiar color is given as compensation for the deficiency of the powers of motion to enable it to elude the notice of birds. The continuation of the species is here the end in view. In the case of the plant the same device is adopted for a sort of double end, viz., perpetuation of the plant by hiding it from animals, with the view that ultimately its extensive appearance will sustain that race.
As this new vegetation is better adapted for sheep and goats in a dry country than grass, the Boers supplant the latter by imitating the process by which graminivorous antelopes have so abundantly disseminated the seed of grasses. A few wagon-loads of mesembryanthemum plants, in seed, are brought to a farm covered with a scanty crop of coarse grass, and placed on a spot to which the sheep have access in the evenings. As they eat a little every night, the seeds are dropped over the grazing grounds in this simple way, with a regularity which could not be matched except at the cost of an immense amount of labor. The place becomes in the course of a few years a sheep-farm, as these animals thrive on such herbage. As already mentioned, some plants of this family are furnished with an additional contrivance for withstanding droughts, viz., oblong tubers, which, buried deep enough beneath the soil for complete protection from the scorching sun, serve as reservoirs of sap and nutriment during those rainless periods which recur perpetually in even the most favored spots of Africa. I have adverted to this peculiarity as often seen in the vegetation of the Desert; and, though rather out of place, it may be well—while noticing a clever imitation of one process in nature by the Cape farmers—to suggest another for their consideration. The country beyond south lat. 18 Deg. abounds in three varieties of grape-bearing vines, and one of these is furnished with oblong tubers every three or four inches along the horizontal root. They resemble closely those of the asparagus. This increase of power to withstand the effects of climate might prove of value in the more arid parts of the Cape colony, grapes being well known to be an excellent restorative in the debility produced by heat: by ingrafting, or by some of those curious manipulations which we read of in books on gardening, a variety might be secured better adapted to the country than the foreign vines at present cultivated. The Americans find that some of their native vines yield wines superior to those made from the very best imported vines from France and Portugal. What a boon a vine of the sort contemplated would have been to a Rhenish missionary I met at a part in the west of the colony called Ebenezer, whose children had never seen flowers, though old enough to talk about them!
The slow pace at which we wound our way through the colony made almost any subject interesting. The attention is attracted to the names of different places, because they indicate the former existence of buffaloes, elands, and elephants, which are now to be found only hundreds of miles beyond. A few blesbucks ('Antilope pygarga'), gnus, bluebucks ('A. cerulea'), steinbucks, and the ostrich ('Struthio camelus'), continue, like the Bushmen, to maintain a precarious existence when all the rest are gone. The elephant, the most sagacious, flees the sound of fire-arms first; the gnu and ostrich, the most wary and the most stupid, last. The first emigrants found the Hottentots in possession of prodigious herds of fine cattle, but no horses, asses, or camels. The original cattle, which may still be seen in some parts of the frontier, must have been brought south from the north-northeast, for from this point the natives universally ascribe their original migration. They brought cattle, sheep, goats, and dogs; why not the horse, the delight of savage hordes? Horses thrive well in the Cape Colony when imported. Naturalists point out certain mountain ranges as limiting the habitat of certain classes of animals; but there is no Cordillera in Africa to answer that purpose, there being no visible barrier between the northeastern Arabs and the Hottentot tribes to prevent the different hordes, as they felt their way southward, from indulging their taste for the possession of this noble animal.
I am here led to notice an invisible barrier, more insurmountable than mountain ranges, but which is not opposed to the southern progress of cattle, goats, and sheep. The tsetse would prove a barrier only until its well-defined habitat was known, but the disease passing under the term of horse-sickness (peripneumonia) exists in such virulence over nearly seven degrees of latitude that no precaution would be sufficient to save these animals. The horse is so liable to this disease, that only by great care in stabling can he be kept any where between 20 Deg. and 27 Deg. S. during the time between December and April. The winter, beginning in the latter month, is the only period in which Englishmen can hunt on horseback, and they are in danger of losing all their studs some months before December. To this disease the horse is especially exposed, and it is almost always fatal. One attack, however, seems to secure immunity from a second. Cattle, too, are subject to it, but only at intervals of a few, sometimes many years; but it never makes a clean sweep of the whole cattle of a village, as it would do of a troop of fifty horses. This barrier, then, seems to explain the absence of the horse among the Hottentots, though it is not opposed to the southern migration of cattle, sheep, and goats.
When the flesh of animals that have died of this disease is eaten, it causes a malignant carbuncle, which, when it appears over any important organ, proves rapidly fatal. It is more especially dangerous over the pit of the stomach. The effects of the poison have been experienced by missionaries who had eaten properly cooked food, the flesh of sheep really but not visibly affected by the disease. The virus in the flesh of the animal is destroyed neither by boiling nor roasting. This fact, of which we have had innumerable examples, shows the superiority of experiments on a large scale to those of acute and able physiologists and chemists in the laboratory, for a well known physician of Paris, after careful investigation, considered that the virus in such cases was completely neutralized by boiling.
This disease attacks wild animals too. During our residence at Chonuan great numbers of tolos, or koodoos, were attracted to the gardens of the Bakwains, abandoned at the usual period of harvest because there was no prospect of the corn ('Holcus sorghum') bearing that year. The koodoo is remarkably fond of the green stalks of this kind of millet. Free feeding produced that state of fatness favorable for the development of this disease, and no fewer than twenty-five died on the hill opposite our house. Great numbers of gnus and zebras perished from the same cause, but the mortality produced no sensible diminution in the numbers of the game, any more than the deaths of many of the Bakwains who persisted, in spite of every remonstrance, in eating the dead meat, caused any sensible decrease in the strength of the tribe.
The farms of the Boers consist generally of a small patch of cultivated land in the midst of some miles of pasturage. They are thus less an agricultural than a pastoral people. Each farm must have its fountain; and where no such supply of water exists, the government lands are unsalable. An acre in England is thus generally more valuable than a square mile in Africa. But the country is prosperous, and capable of great improvement. The industry of the Boers augurs well for the future formation of dams and tanks, and for the greater fruitfulness that would certainly follow.
As cattle and sheep farmers the colonists are very successful. Larger and larger quantities of wool are produced annually, and the value of colonial farms increases year by year. But the system requires that with the increase of the population there should be an extension of territory. Wide as the country is, and thinly inhabited, the farmers feel it to be too limited, and they are gradually spreading to the north. This movement proves prejudicial to the country behind, for labor, which would be directed to the improvement of the colony, is withdrawn and expended in a mode of life little adapted to the exercise of industrial habits. That, however, does not much concern the rest of mankind. Nor does it seem much of an evil for men who cultivate the soil to claim a right to appropriate lands for tillage which other men only hunt over, provided some compensation for the loss of sustenance be awarded. The original idea of a title seems to have been that "subduing" or cultivating gave that right. But this rather Chartist principle must be received with limitations, for its recognition in England would lead to the seizure of all our broad ancestral acres by those who are willing to cultivate them. And, in the case under consideration, the encroachments lead at once to less land being put under the plow than is subjected to the native hoe, for it is a fact that the Basutos and Zulus, or Caffres of Natal, cultivate largely, and undersell our farmers wherever they have a fair field and no favor.
Before we came to the Orange River we saw the last portion of a migration of springbucks ('Gazella euchore', or tsepe). They come from the great Kalahari Desert, and, when first seen after crossing the colonial boundary, are said often to exceed forty thousand in number. I can not give an estimate of their numbers, for they appear spread over a vast expanse of country, and make a quivering motion as they feed, and move, and toss their graceful horns. They feed chiefly on grass; and as they come from the north about the time when the grass most abounds, it can not be want of food that prompts the movement. Nor is it want of water, for this antelope is one of the most abstemious in that respect. Their nature prompts them to seek as their favorite haunts level plains with short grass, where they may be able to watch the approach of an enemy. The Bakalahari take advantage of this feeling, and burn off large patches of grass, not only to attract the game by the new crop when it comes up, but also to form bare spots for the springbuck to range over.
It is not the springbuck alone that manifests this feeling. When oxen are taken into a country of high grass, they are much more ready to be startled; their sense of danger is increased by the increased power of concealment afforded to an enemy by such cover, and they will often start off in terror at the ill-defined outlines of each other. The springbuck, possessing this feeling in an intense degree, and being eminently gregarious, becomes uneasy as the grass of the Kalahari becomes tall. The vegetation being more sparse in the more arid south, naturally induces the different herds to turn in that direction. As they advance and increase in numbers, the pasturage becomes more scarce; it is still more so the further they go, until they are at last obliged, in order to obtain the means of subsistence, to cross the Orange River, and become the pest of the sheep-farmer in a country which contains scarcely any of their favorite grassy food. If they light on a field of wheat in their way, an army of locusts could not make a cleaner sweep of the whole than they will do. It is questionable whether they ever return, as they have never been seen as a returning body. Many perish from want of food, the country to which they have migrated being unable to support them; the rest become scattered over the colony; and in such a wide country there is no lack of room for all. It is probable that, notwithstanding the continued destruction by fire-arms, they will continue long to hold their place.
On crossing the Orange River we come into independent territory inhabited by Griquas and Bechuanas. By Griquas is meant any mixed race sprung from natives and Europeans. Those in question were of Dutch extraction, through association with Hottentot and Bushwomen. Half-castes of the first generation consider themselves superior to those of the second, and all possess in some degree the characteristics of both parents. They were governed for many years by an elected chief, named Waterboer, who, by treaty, received a small sum per annum from the colonial government for the support of schools in his country, and proved a most efficient guard of our northwest boundary. Cattle-stealing was totally unknown during the whole period of this able chief's reign; and he actually drove back, single-handed, a formidable force of marauding Mantatees that threatened to invade the colony.* But for that brave Christian man, Waterboer, there is every human probability that the northwest would have given the colonists as much trouble as the eastern frontier; for large numbers among the original Griquas had as little scruple about robbing farmers of cattle as the Caffres are reputed to have. On the election of Waterboer to the chieftainship, he distinctly declared THAT NO MARAUDING SHOULD BE ALLOWED. As the government of none of these tribes is despotic, some of his principal men, in spite of this declaration, plundered some villages of Corannas living to the south of the Orange River. He immediately seized six of the ringleaders, and, though the step put his own position in jeopardy, he summoned his council, tried, condemned, and publicly executed the whole six. This produced an insurrection, and the insurgents twice attacked his capital, Griqua Town, with the intention of deposing him; but he bravely defeated both attempts, and from that day forth, during his long reign of thirty years, not a single plundering expedition ever left his territory. Having witnessed the deleterious effects of the introduction of ardent spirits among his people, he, with characteristic energy, decreed that any Boer or Griqua bringing brandy into the country should have his property in ardent spirits confiscated and poured out on the ground. The Griqua chiefs living farther east were unable to carry this law into effect as he did, hence the greater facility with which Boers in that direction got the Griquas to part with their farms.