Letter 4.Adventures with Ostriches.Ostrich-farming is no child’s play. It involves risk in more ways than one, and sometimes taxes both the courage and strength of the farmer.In ordinary circumstances the ostrich is a mild, inoffensive creature—indeed the female is always so; but when a male ostrich is what I may style nesting—when, enclosed in a large field or paddock, he guards his wives and his eggs—no lion of the desert, no tiger of the jungle or kloof, is more ferocious or more savagely bent on the death of any or all who dare to intrude on his domain.The power of the ostrich, too, is quite equal to his strength of will. He stands from seven to nine feet in height, and is very heavy.His tremendous legs are his only weapons, and his kick is almost, if not quite, equal to that of a horse. Possessing enormous feet, with two toes on each, the horny points of which can cut and rip like cold chisels, he rushes at an adversary and kicks, or hits out, straightforward, like a prize-fighter. No unarmed man on earth could stand long before a furious male ostrich without being killed. But there are one or two weak points about him, which abate somewhat the danger of his attack. In the first place his power lies only in his mighty legs, the thighs of which—blue-grey and destitute of feathers—are like two shoulders of mutton. With his beak he can do nothing, and his long neck is so weak that if you can only lay hold of it and pull his head to the ground you are comparatively safe, for he cannot kick effectively in that position, and devotes all his energies, when thus caught, to useless attempts to pull his head out of your grasp. But, then, how are you to get hold of that neck—the root of which stands nearly as high as your own head—in the face of two claws that go like battering-rams wrought by lightning? As well might you attempt to lay hold of a prize-fighter’s nose while his active fists are darting out at you.A powerful, active man has been known, when attacked while unarmed, to spring on the bird, grasp a wing with one arm and the body with the other, and hug it, but there is great danger in this method, because in the attempt you are pretty sure to receive at least one kick, and that, if it takes effect, will be quite sufficient to put you out of action. It also requires much power of endurance, for, hugging a creature that is strong enough to dance about and lift you off your legs in its wild efforts to get rid of you, must be hard work. Supposing that you do succeed, however, in holding on until you work your way along to the neck and get the head into custody, then you can without much difficulty choke the bird, but a male ostrich costs about 150 pounds, and one hesitates to choke 150 pounds, even for the sake of one’s life, especially when the valuable bird belongs to one’s friend.Another and perhaps the best plan, if you are caught unarmed, is to lie down. An ostrich cannot kick you when you lie flat on the ground, he can only dance on you, and although that process is unpleasant it is not necessarily fatal.The ostrich is easily killed by a blow on the neck with a stout stick, but this is as objectionable as the choking process, on the ground of cost. In short, the only legitimate method of meeting a savage papa, in his own field, is with a strong forked pole eight or nine feet long, with which you catch the bird at the root of the neck, and thus keeping him at pole’s-length, let him kick and hiss away to his heart’s content till he is tired, or until assistance comes to you, or until you work him near a wall, when you may jump over and escape, for an ostrich will not jump.Often have I gone, thus armed, with my friend Hobson to feed the nesting ostriches. The risk of attack, I may mention in passing, is not great when two men go together, because the bird seems undecided which foe to attack, and generally ends by condescending to pick at the mealies, (Indian corn), which are thrown down to him.One morning Hobson and his eldest son Six-foot Johnny and I mounted our steeds and rode away to the field in which one of the male ostriches dwelt with his meek brown wives. The wives are always brown, the husbands are jet-black, with the exception of those magnificent and pure white feathers in wings and tail which are so much prized and worn by the fair dames of Europe. Hobson carried a sack of mealies at his saddle-bow.There were several male birds on the farm, all of which were distinguished by name. There were “Master,” and “David Marais,” and “Black Jack,” and “Blind-boy,” (minus one eye!) and “Gouws,” etcetera. Our visit that morning was to David Marais. David was by far the fiercest of the lot, but he was excessively fond of mealies, and could be attracted—though by no means appeased—by these.“Johnny,” said Hobson, as we cantered along by the side of the little stream which caused a strip of bright fertility to wind like a green-snake over the brown Karroo, and which was, as it were, the life-blood of the farm, “Johnny, I want you to go to the nest and count the eggs, while I keep David in play.”“Very well, father.”The order, and the quiet acceptance of it, did not seem to involve much, yet Johnny had been ordered on somewhat dangerous service that morning, for David Marais was intensely watchful as well as savage. Several of the other males, although capable of giving way to temper, were so far amiable that my friend and I had frequently gone into their enclosures with our forked sticks and mealies, and had received no worse at their hands than a threatening attitude or a suspicious look, which passed away when the food was thrown down; but David’s temper was such that we never ventured into his paddock, contenting ourselves by throwing the mealies over the hedge or wall that bounded the field. This field, or enclosure, by the way, was not a small piece of ground which one could take in at a glance. It was more than a mile in extent, undulating in form, with a stream bisecting it, and mimosa bushes scattered here and there, so that from any one point you could not see the entire field, or ascertain its exact form or size. Sometimes, on going into such a field, one has to look about for the birds—also to “look out” for them, as they are prone to sudden assault!But David Marais required no looking for. His large eagle-eye had detected us from afar, and we found him at the nearest extremity of the nearest angle of his grounds ready to give us battle, pacing slowly to and fro, with that peculiar motion of the wings which indicates suppressed wrath.We rode along close to his hedge a short distance, and he marched with us, brushing against the hedge and showing an anxious desire to get at us. If there had been a gap in that hedge he would have charged like a thunderbolt, but there was no gap, and it is a strange fact that an ostrich cannot leap—at least hewillnot. The merest trifle of an obstruction—a bit of wall or hedge over which he couldstepwith perfect ease—is sufficient to check his advance and keep him in; that is, if hewalksup to it, but he is a stupid bird, and if herunsup to such an obstruction he maytumbleover it, gather himself up on the other side, and so continue the charge.On reaching a part of the hedge which dipped into a hollow, Hobson dismounted and opened the sack with the peace-offering. The bird, after breasting up to the hedge and finding it impassable, sat down on what may be styled his elbows, scraped his wings on the ground, and rolled his head and neck about in a fashion that is indescribable. This, I was told, was his method of rousing himself, or of relieving his feelings. It looked more like making a fool of himself. A handful of mealies seemed to irritate him at first, but by degrees the temptation became too strong. He commenced to pick a few seeds—ready, however, on the smallest provocation, to forsake them, charge up to the hedge, and hiss at us.“Now, Johnny, I’ll keep him in play,” said Hobson senior. “You go round to the nest. Keep well down in the hollows, else he’ll be sure to see you.”Johnny at once rode off. The suspicious David looked after him and showed a tendency to retire in the direction of his nest, but Hobson raised his forked stick over the hedge and made a demonstration therewith. This was more than enough.Inflated with rage David at once accepted the challenge, and rushed back to the hedge, over which another handful of mealies were thrown at him, but mealies had lost much of their power by that time. Thus, with alternate taunt and temptation was the false attack maintained by the father, while the real attack was made by the son, at the other extremity of the fortress.I followed the real attack. We did not go direct. The bird would at once have made for its nest had we done so. We rode off in the direction in which we had come until out of sight, and then, making a long circuit at full gallop, came round to the other end of the enclosure, from which point the enemy could not be seen.There was a wall to cross, then a deep hollow through which the little stream ran, then a belt of pretty thick bushes, beyond which, on the open plain, the nest was known to lie—if I may call that a nest which is a mere hollow in the sand, in which the eggs are laid. Here the female sits all day while the male marches about on guard. At night the male sits while the female goes about and feeds. They are most attentive parents, and there is a fitness in this arrangement as regards colour, for the brown female squatted on the brown Karroo is almost invisible in daylight, while the black male is equally invisible during the darkness of the night.“You mustn’t come with me,” said Johnny, dismounting; “it would only increase the chance of my being seen by David.”I was detailed, therefore, to the inglorious duty of holding the horses, while my young friend made the assault alone.He leaped the wall, descended into the bed of the stream, scrambled up the opposite bank, crossed the clump of small wood, and came out into the open. Now a short piece of this open—fifty yards or so, perhaps—was visible from the lower end of the field, where Hobson and David were still coquetting with each other. Johnny tried to skulk over this open ground. He might as well have sought to evade the eyes of Argus. The long-sighted bird caught the very first glint of his cap. Insult and mealies were alike unavailing now. He forsook the sire and made at the son with his great compass-like legs, covering the ground in tremendous as well as rapid strides. No race-horse ever cleared the ground like David Marais! Johnny saw that the “game was up.” Applying his own long legs to the ground with a will, he rushed at the nest. The female bounced up, ran a few yards, and squatted in helpless stupidity. Johnny counted the eggs, turned, and fled. Not a moment too soon! Indeed he was too late, for the ostrich was already close up, and Johnny’s retreat by the way he had come was cut off; but he turned at a sharp angle, and made for another clump of bushes, through which he plunged with a wild hilarious laugh, into the safe retreat of the river-bed. David Marais could not follow there, but he doubtless consoled himself with the reflection that he had gallantly defended his wife and little ones, and had beaten the enemy from the field!Nothing of all this had I seen, for the belt of bushes hid the actors from view, but I heard the ringing laugh with rather anxious surprise, and saw Johnny emerge immediately after from the banks of the stream, flushed and panting from his adventure.That I do not exaggerate the power and ferocity of these birds, may be gathered from an incident which occurred to Hobson himself, and which he related on our way home.One morning he rode to the enclosure of the bird named Master, and entered, intending to feed him and his wife with mealies. Master must have risen off his wrong side that morning, for, instead of amiably accepting his breakfast, he made a sudden and furious rush at his benefactor. Hobson’s horse wheeled round and bolted,—no wonder, with the claw of an ostrich acting as a spur on his flank! The horse was so frightened that he fairly ran away. Master ran after him, and, being much fleeter, kept on kicking his legs and flanks, so that they were soon covered with blood, and once he kicked so high as to cut the crupper. The horse became almost mad with terror, and quite ungovernable. It was chased round and round the place, the walls being too high to leap, and the gate having been closed. At last the horse dashed madly into a mimosa bush, and stuck fast. The impetuous Master followed, but, before he could back out, Hobson caught him by the throat in his powerful grasp. He held on until Master choked. Not wishing to kill the bird, he then let go, and Master dropped like a stone. Hobson then galloped to the river, but Master, who recovered immediately, came rushing on to renew the attack. Hobson, however, had found shelter and safety behind some bushes in the bed of the stream.Not long after our visit to David Marais, I went with Six-foot Johnny to the territory which belonged to Blind-boy. That sagacious bird was not so blind but that, with his one eye, he observed us coming, and met us more than half-way. Knowing him to be, comparatively, a peaceable bird, and being mounted, we entered the enclosure and rode towards him. From certain symptoms and rufflings of the feathers and cockings of the tail, however, my companion knew that Blind-boy was not as amiable as might have been wished.“Take care,” said Johnny.“Why?” said I.“Because he’s angry.”The signs of wrath did not appear to me very obvious, but I afterwards came to understand that, in an ostrich, a small amount of demonstration means an extreme depth of anger.We rode slowly forward. Blind-boy advanced as slowly, with a dangerous motion of the wings.“Keep on this side of the ditch,” said Johnny. “Now, then, we’d better be off.”Before I well understood that it was advisable to get out of the bird’s way, my companion had put spurs to his horse, and was off like an arrow. Or ever I was aware what my horse meant to do, I was almost thrown to the ground. He whirled on his hind-legs—without orders,—and went off like the wind. Nothing but a natural tendency to hold tight with my knees prevented me from being left beside Blind-boy. We went at racing-speed to the gate, and then found, on looking back, that we might have spared ourselves the rush, for Blind-boy was standing as we left him! The ditch had proved an impassable barrier, and he was gazing after us in apparent wonder at our haste. My own wonder at the smart behaviour of my horse was removed when Johnny told me that it was the identical steed his father had ridden when attacked, as I have described, by Master.Johnny himself was once assaulted, trampled on, and severely cut about the head, by one of these same ostriches, and might have been killed if his father had not chanced to be at hand. Johnny was younger at the time, and, in the foolish ardour of youth, attempted to rise when knocked down. This gave the ostrich the opportunity of once and again repeating his blows. If the lad had lain still he would have suffered less. I might draw a beautiful moral on submission and humility out of this, but won’t.Strange to say, the male ostrich loses nearly all his courage when out of his own proper paddock or domain. This was illustrated to me one morning in the case of Gouws. We were walking by the side of his enclosure, and he was advancing to meet us in his own warlike style, when we observed that the gate was open. Before we could get near to close it Gouws marched through. If we had entered his grounds an attack would have been highly probable, but no sooner did he find himself outside the accustomed wall than the spirit in him changed. He looked confusedly round at the unfamiliar objects, then dropped his defiant tail, and fled.It cost us the better part of a forenoon, with temperature at 105 degrees in the shade, before we succeeded in driving that bird back into his own paddock, and all that time he was running away from us, overwhelmed, apparently, with fear!
Ostrich-farming is no child’s play. It involves risk in more ways than one, and sometimes taxes both the courage and strength of the farmer.
In ordinary circumstances the ostrich is a mild, inoffensive creature—indeed the female is always so; but when a male ostrich is what I may style nesting—when, enclosed in a large field or paddock, he guards his wives and his eggs—no lion of the desert, no tiger of the jungle or kloof, is more ferocious or more savagely bent on the death of any or all who dare to intrude on his domain.
The power of the ostrich, too, is quite equal to his strength of will. He stands from seven to nine feet in height, and is very heavy.
His tremendous legs are his only weapons, and his kick is almost, if not quite, equal to that of a horse. Possessing enormous feet, with two toes on each, the horny points of which can cut and rip like cold chisels, he rushes at an adversary and kicks, or hits out, straightforward, like a prize-fighter. No unarmed man on earth could stand long before a furious male ostrich without being killed. But there are one or two weak points about him, which abate somewhat the danger of his attack. In the first place his power lies only in his mighty legs, the thighs of which—blue-grey and destitute of feathers—are like two shoulders of mutton. With his beak he can do nothing, and his long neck is so weak that if you can only lay hold of it and pull his head to the ground you are comparatively safe, for he cannot kick effectively in that position, and devotes all his energies, when thus caught, to useless attempts to pull his head out of your grasp. But, then, how are you to get hold of that neck—the root of which stands nearly as high as your own head—in the face of two claws that go like battering-rams wrought by lightning? As well might you attempt to lay hold of a prize-fighter’s nose while his active fists are darting out at you.
A powerful, active man has been known, when attacked while unarmed, to spring on the bird, grasp a wing with one arm and the body with the other, and hug it, but there is great danger in this method, because in the attempt you are pretty sure to receive at least one kick, and that, if it takes effect, will be quite sufficient to put you out of action. It also requires much power of endurance, for, hugging a creature that is strong enough to dance about and lift you off your legs in its wild efforts to get rid of you, must be hard work. Supposing that you do succeed, however, in holding on until you work your way along to the neck and get the head into custody, then you can without much difficulty choke the bird, but a male ostrich costs about 150 pounds, and one hesitates to choke 150 pounds, even for the sake of one’s life, especially when the valuable bird belongs to one’s friend.
Another and perhaps the best plan, if you are caught unarmed, is to lie down. An ostrich cannot kick you when you lie flat on the ground, he can only dance on you, and although that process is unpleasant it is not necessarily fatal.
The ostrich is easily killed by a blow on the neck with a stout stick, but this is as objectionable as the choking process, on the ground of cost. In short, the only legitimate method of meeting a savage papa, in his own field, is with a strong forked pole eight or nine feet long, with which you catch the bird at the root of the neck, and thus keeping him at pole’s-length, let him kick and hiss away to his heart’s content till he is tired, or until assistance comes to you, or until you work him near a wall, when you may jump over and escape, for an ostrich will not jump.
Often have I gone, thus armed, with my friend Hobson to feed the nesting ostriches. The risk of attack, I may mention in passing, is not great when two men go together, because the bird seems undecided which foe to attack, and generally ends by condescending to pick at the mealies, (Indian corn), which are thrown down to him.
One morning Hobson and his eldest son Six-foot Johnny and I mounted our steeds and rode away to the field in which one of the male ostriches dwelt with his meek brown wives. The wives are always brown, the husbands are jet-black, with the exception of those magnificent and pure white feathers in wings and tail which are so much prized and worn by the fair dames of Europe. Hobson carried a sack of mealies at his saddle-bow.
There were several male birds on the farm, all of which were distinguished by name. There were “Master,” and “David Marais,” and “Black Jack,” and “Blind-boy,” (minus one eye!) and “Gouws,” etcetera. Our visit that morning was to David Marais. David was by far the fiercest of the lot, but he was excessively fond of mealies, and could be attracted—though by no means appeased—by these.
“Johnny,” said Hobson, as we cantered along by the side of the little stream which caused a strip of bright fertility to wind like a green-snake over the brown Karroo, and which was, as it were, the life-blood of the farm, “Johnny, I want you to go to the nest and count the eggs, while I keep David in play.”
“Very well, father.”
The order, and the quiet acceptance of it, did not seem to involve much, yet Johnny had been ordered on somewhat dangerous service that morning, for David Marais was intensely watchful as well as savage. Several of the other males, although capable of giving way to temper, were so far amiable that my friend and I had frequently gone into their enclosures with our forked sticks and mealies, and had received no worse at their hands than a threatening attitude or a suspicious look, which passed away when the food was thrown down; but David’s temper was such that we never ventured into his paddock, contenting ourselves by throwing the mealies over the hedge or wall that bounded the field. This field, or enclosure, by the way, was not a small piece of ground which one could take in at a glance. It was more than a mile in extent, undulating in form, with a stream bisecting it, and mimosa bushes scattered here and there, so that from any one point you could not see the entire field, or ascertain its exact form or size. Sometimes, on going into such a field, one has to look about for the birds—also to “look out” for them, as they are prone to sudden assault!
But David Marais required no looking for. His large eagle-eye had detected us from afar, and we found him at the nearest extremity of the nearest angle of his grounds ready to give us battle, pacing slowly to and fro, with that peculiar motion of the wings which indicates suppressed wrath.
We rode along close to his hedge a short distance, and he marched with us, brushing against the hedge and showing an anxious desire to get at us. If there had been a gap in that hedge he would have charged like a thunderbolt, but there was no gap, and it is a strange fact that an ostrich cannot leap—at least hewillnot. The merest trifle of an obstruction—a bit of wall or hedge over which he couldstepwith perfect ease—is sufficient to check his advance and keep him in; that is, if hewalksup to it, but he is a stupid bird, and if herunsup to such an obstruction he maytumbleover it, gather himself up on the other side, and so continue the charge.
On reaching a part of the hedge which dipped into a hollow, Hobson dismounted and opened the sack with the peace-offering. The bird, after breasting up to the hedge and finding it impassable, sat down on what may be styled his elbows, scraped his wings on the ground, and rolled his head and neck about in a fashion that is indescribable. This, I was told, was his method of rousing himself, or of relieving his feelings. It looked more like making a fool of himself. A handful of mealies seemed to irritate him at first, but by degrees the temptation became too strong. He commenced to pick a few seeds—ready, however, on the smallest provocation, to forsake them, charge up to the hedge, and hiss at us.
“Now, Johnny, I’ll keep him in play,” said Hobson senior. “You go round to the nest. Keep well down in the hollows, else he’ll be sure to see you.”
Johnny at once rode off. The suspicious David looked after him and showed a tendency to retire in the direction of his nest, but Hobson raised his forked stick over the hedge and made a demonstration therewith. This was more than enough.
Inflated with rage David at once accepted the challenge, and rushed back to the hedge, over which another handful of mealies were thrown at him, but mealies had lost much of their power by that time. Thus, with alternate taunt and temptation was the false attack maintained by the father, while the real attack was made by the son, at the other extremity of the fortress.
I followed the real attack. We did not go direct. The bird would at once have made for its nest had we done so. We rode off in the direction in which we had come until out of sight, and then, making a long circuit at full gallop, came round to the other end of the enclosure, from which point the enemy could not be seen.
There was a wall to cross, then a deep hollow through which the little stream ran, then a belt of pretty thick bushes, beyond which, on the open plain, the nest was known to lie—if I may call that a nest which is a mere hollow in the sand, in which the eggs are laid. Here the female sits all day while the male marches about on guard. At night the male sits while the female goes about and feeds. They are most attentive parents, and there is a fitness in this arrangement as regards colour, for the brown female squatted on the brown Karroo is almost invisible in daylight, while the black male is equally invisible during the darkness of the night.
“You mustn’t come with me,” said Johnny, dismounting; “it would only increase the chance of my being seen by David.”
I was detailed, therefore, to the inglorious duty of holding the horses, while my young friend made the assault alone.
He leaped the wall, descended into the bed of the stream, scrambled up the opposite bank, crossed the clump of small wood, and came out into the open. Now a short piece of this open—fifty yards or so, perhaps—was visible from the lower end of the field, where Hobson and David were still coquetting with each other. Johnny tried to skulk over this open ground. He might as well have sought to evade the eyes of Argus. The long-sighted bird caught the very first glint of his cap. Insult and mealies were alike unavailing now. He forsook the sire and made at the son with his great compass-like legs, covering the ground in tremendous as well as rapid strides. No race-horse ever cleared the ground like David Marais! Johnny saw that the “game was up.” Applying his own long legs to the ground with a will, he rushed at the nest. The female bounced up, ran a few yards, and squatted in helpless stupidity. Johnny counted the eggs, turned, and fled. Not a moment too soon! Indeed he was too late, for the ostrich was already close up, and Johnny’s retreat by the way he had come was cut off; but he turned at a sharp angle, and made for another clump of bushes, through which he plunged with a wild hilarious laugh, into the safe retreat of the river-bed. David Marais could not follow there, but he doubtless consoled himself with the reflection that he had gallantly defended his wife and little ones, and had beaten the enemy from the field!
Nothing of all this had I seen, for the belt of bushes hid the actors from view, but I heard the ringing laugh with rather anxious surprise, and saw Johnny emerge immediately after from the banks of the stream, flushed and panting from his adventure.
That I do not exaggerate the power and ferocity of these birds, may be gathered from an incident which occurred to Hobson himself, and which he related on our way home.
One morning he rode to the enclosure of the bird named Master, and entered, intending to feed him and his wife with mealies. Master must have risen off his wrong side that morning, for, instead of amiably accepting his breakfast, he made a sudden and furious rush at his benefactor. Hobson’s horse wheeled round and bolted,—no wonder, with the claw of an ostrich acting as a spur on his flank! The horse was so frightened that he fairly ran away. Master ran after him, and, being much fleeter, kept on kicking his legs and flanks, so that they were soon covered with blood, and once he kicked so high as to cut the crupper. The horse became almost mad with terror, and quite ungovernable. It was chased round and round the place, the walls being too high to leap, and the gate having been closed. At last the horse dashed madly into a mimosa bush, and stuck fast. The impetuous Master followed, but, before he could back out, Hobson caught him by the throat in his powerful grasp. He held on until Master choked. Not wishing to kill the bird, he then let go, and Master dropped like a stone. Hobson then galloped to the river, but Master, who recovered immediately, came rushing on to renew the attack. Hobson, however, had found shelter and safety behind some bushes in the bed of the stream.
Not long after our visit to David Marais, I went with Six-foot Johnny to the territory which belonged to Blind-boy. That sagacious bird was not so blind but that, with his one eye, he observed us coming, and met us more than half-way. Knowing him to be, comparatively, a peaceable bird, and being mounted, we entered the enclosure and rode towards him. From certain symptoms and rufflings of the feathers and cockings of the tail, however, my companion knew that Blind-boy was not as amiable as might have been wished.
“Take care,” said Johnny.
“Why?” said I.
“Because he’s angry.”
The signs of wrath did not appear to me very obvious, but I afterwards came to understand that, in an ostrich, a small amount of demonstration means an extreme depth of anger.
We rode slowly forward. Blind-boy advanced as slowly, with a dangerous motion of the wings.
“Keep on this side of the ditch,” said Johnny. “Now, then, we’d better be off.”
Before I well understood that it was advisable to get out of the bird’s way, my companion had put spurs to his horse, and was off like an arrow. Or ever I was aware what my horse meant to do, I was almost thrown to the ground. He whirled on his hind-legs—without orders,—and went off like the wind. Nothing but a natural tendency to hold tight with my knees prevented me from being left beside Blind-boy. We went at racing-speed to the gate, and then found, on looking back, that we might have spared ourselves the rush, for Blind-boy was standing as we left him! The ditch had proved an impassable barrier, and he was gazing after us in apparent wonder at our haste. My own wonder at the smart behaviour of my horse was removed when Johnny told me that it was the identical steed his father had ridden when attacked, as I have described, by Master.
Johnny himself was once assaulted, trampled on, and severely cut about the head, by one of these same ostriches, and might have been killed if his father had not chanced to be at hand. Johnny was younger at the time, and, in the foolish ardour of youth, attempted to rise when knocked down. This gave the ostrich the opportunity of once and again repeating his blows. If the lad had lain still he would have suffered less. I might draw a beautiful moral on submission and humility out of this, but won’t.
Strange to say, the male ostrich loses nearly all his courage when out of his own proper paddock or domain. This was illustrated to me one morning in the case of Gouws. We were walking by the side of his enclosure, and he was advancing to meet us in his own warlike style, when we observed that the gate was open. Before we could get near to close it Gouws marched through. If we had entered his grounds an attack would have been highly probable, but no sooner did he find himself outside the accustomed wall than the spirit in him changed. He looked confusedly round at the unfamiliar objects, then dropped his defiant tail, and fled.
It cost us the better part of a forenoon, with temperature at 105 degrees in the shade, before we succeeded in driving that bird back into his own paddock, and all that time he was running away from us, overwhelmed, apparently, with fear!
Letter 5.More about Ostriches—Karroo Gardens—A Ride with Bonny—Sketching under Difficulties—Anecdotes and Incidents.Ah, those were happy days, when, with a congenial spirit, I drove and galloped over the South African plains. There was not much in the way of thrilling incidents, to be sure, and nothing whatever of wild adventure, but there was novelty in everything, and possibilities enough to keep the spirit ever on the alert.We used to ride out sometimes after steenboks,—small brown creatures, that made little show when bagged, but then there were huge and horrid vultures to remind one of the sandy desert, and there were pauws—gigantic birds that were splendid eating; and the very thought that I trod on land which little more than quarter of a century back had been marked by the print of the royal lion was in itself sufficient to arouse unwonted interest, which was increased by the knowledge of the fact that the kloofs or glens and gorges of the blue hills on the horizon were at that time the natural homes of leopards or “Cape-tigers” and huge baboons.These animals are, however, extremely wary. The baboons go about in troops, and are wont to leave a trusty old-man baboon on guard, while the rest go down at early morn to rob the settler of his fruits and vegetables. If the old man happens to see or scent danger he gives a signal and the troop flies helter-skelter to the nearest cliffs. They are therefore not easily got at by hunters. As to “tigers,” they go about stealthily like cats. I was told there was not a chance of getting a shot at them, unless I went out with dogs and a hunting party for the purpose. As this could not be accomplished at the time, I had to content myself with smaller game.Bonny, (one of Hobson’s younger sons), and I went out one day after breakfast to try for a steenbok before dinner. There were plenty of them in the stretches of bush-land that dotted the Karroo in the immediate neighbourhood of the farmhouse.Stretching out at a gallop with that light-hearted cheerfulness which is engendered by bright weather, fresh air, and a good mount, we skirted the river where Hreikie nursed her little flock.Hreikie was a small Hottentot girl, as lightly clad as was compatible with propriety. Her face was dirty brown, her mouth large, her nose a shapeless elevation with two holes in the front of it. Her head was not covered, but merely sprinkled with tight woolly knobs or curls the size of peas. Each knob grew apart from its neighbour knob, and was surrounded, so to speak, by bald or desert land. This style of hair was not peculiar to Hreikie alone, but to the whole Hottentot race. Hreikie’s family consisted of thirty-three young ostriches, which, though only a few weeks of age, stood, I think, upwards of two feet high. Some of them had been brought out by artificial incubation—had been heated, as it were, into existence without maternal aid. These birds, Bonny said, had been already purchased for 15 pounds sterling apiece, and were deliverable to the purchaser in six months. They were fed and guarded all day and housed each evening with tender solicitude by their Hottentot stepmother, whom the birds evidently regarded as their own natural parent.We swept on past the garden, where, on a previous morning, Bonny and I had killed a deadly green-tree snake upwards of five feet long, and where, on many other mornings, he and I, with sometimes other members of the family entered into strong temptation among the magnificent fruit. We used to overcome the temptation by giving way to it! There were plums, peaches, figs, apples, apricots, grapes, nectarines, and other fruits, with which the trees were so laden that some of the branches had given way and their luscious loads were lying on the ground. Cartloads of these were given away to friends, and to any one, as there was no market for their disposal.Many splendid gardens like this exist on what is sometimes styled the barren Karroo; but the land is anything but barren. All it requires is a copious supply of water, and wherever farmers have taken the trouble to form dams and store the heavy though infrequent rains, gardens of the most prolific kind have been the result. The Karroo-bush itself, which gives name to these plains, is a succulent plant, which thrives in the almost waterless soil, and forms a rich pasturage for sheep and cattle. Hobson’s garden—copiously watered by streams led out from his large dams—was a beautiful shady oasis of green and gold, in the midst of what, to some eyes, might have appeared a desert, but which, if irrigated properly, would become a perfect paradise of fertility.We cantered on over the plain, till the garden and the farm looked in the distance like ships at sea, and rode among the bushes that crowned a rising ground. We set up some guinea-fowl and other birds, and startled a hare, but let them go, as our aim was steenboks. The little boks, however, were not on the knoll that day, so away we went again at a gallop until the garden and the farm went down on the horizon.Sometimes we kept together and chatted, at other times we diverged and skirted small clumps of underwood on opposite sides. At one time, while separated from Bonny, I saw a large stone lying on the ground. As I looked, the stone began to crawl! It was a tortoise, fully as large as a soup-tureen. The sight of an animal in its “native wilds,” which you have all your life been accustomed to see in zoological gardens, has something peculiar, almost absurd, in it. As it is with animals, so it is with other objects. I remember being impressed with this idea, for the first time, in the south of France, when I beheld a tree covered with lemons—a fruit which, up to that period, had been connected in my mind with grocers’ windows and brown sugar!I turned aside and dismounted. The sluggish tortoise stopped, recognised in me an enemy, and drew in its head and feet. After lifting and looking at him I set him down. Then it occurred to me that some one had said a tortoise could carry a man. I stepped upon this one’s back forthwith. He lay perfectly still for some time. At last with great caution the head and feet were protruded. Another pause, as if of meditation, then the feet were applied to the ground; they pushed and strained, until finally the creature advanced about two inches, and then stopped! This was not much, but it was sufficient to prove his great strength, and to convince me that a large tortoise could easily have walked off with a little boy.I found Bonny dismounted and waiting.“No steenboks to-day, I fear,” he said.“We must have a shot at something, Bonny,” said I, dismounting, and sitting down on an anthill. Having been a fair average shot in a rifle corps in Scotland I took careful aim at a small bush, bent on doing credit to the British Volunteers. The result was a “bull’s-eye.”“Capital!” exclaimed Bonny; “if you shoot like that you’ll kill plenty of boks.”Half an hour later I was passing round the left of a knoll, while Bonny took the right. Up leaped a steenbok, which ran a hundred yards or so, and stopped to look at me. I was already off the horse and down in the Hythe position. A careful aim was again taken. The result was “a miss!” while the small deer vanished like the smoke of my rifle. So great is the difference between target-practice and hunting!It was time now to think of returning for dinner. I was thoroughly lost by that time in the vast plain—like a ship at sea without a compass. But Bonny was as knowing in Karroo-craft as a Kentucky hunter is in wood-craft. He steered as true a course for home as if he had smelt the leg of mutton that was roasting at the fire. Probably he did—in imagination! Soon the two ships reappeared on the horizon; our fleet nags quickly transformed them into the garden and the farm, and in half an hour we were relating our mild adventure round Hobson’s hospitable board.“I’m going to visit brother Jonathan after dinner: will you come?” said my host.“Yes, with pleasure,” said I, “but first, while you have your siesta, (midday nap), I will go into the opposite field and make that long-talked-of sketch of your house.”“Very good; I’ll send for you when the cart is ready. There are some ostriches in the field, but you don’t need to mind them, for they are quite young, although full-grown.”It is a common custom among South Africans to take a nap in the heat of the day during summer. They dine early, and the power of the sun at that part of the day renders work almost impossible. I could not at first fall in with this custom; therefore, while the family retired, I took my sketch-book and colours and went off to the field.There was a mound, whence I could obtain a good view of the house with its surroundings, the cattle-kraal or enclosure, the course of the little stream, with one of the small dams or lakelets, and the garden, the whole backed by the blue mountain range on the horizon.The sun was blazing fiercely, but, as before remarked, I delight in heat. Selecting a stone I sat down, opened my book and colour-box, and began. To those who don’t know it, I may say that sketching is a most fascinating and engrossing species of work. I soon forgot where I was, forgot Hobson, forgot time, forgot every thing in fact except the glowing face of nature, when a sound recalled me. I looked round and observed eight or ten huge ostriches stalking towards me with slow funereal gait. I felt somewhat uneasy,—for their youth, of which Hobson had assured me, was in no way indicated by their huge bodies and dreadful legs. However, I had taken the precaution to carry my forked stick, and drawing it nearer continued at my work with an easier mind. If they meant war I knew escape to be hopeless, for the nearest wall was a quarter of a mile off.The females halted at a respectful distance, but two of the largest black males came stalking close up to me and stood still, gazing intently, first with one eye, then with the other, at a distance of about six yards.Meanwhile some of the females sat down, and one of them put herself in an attitude so absurd that I introduced her into the drawing. Presently the largest male advanced a little nearer, and kept somewhat behind me. This was embarrassing. It occurred to me that, in the art of war, an attacking party is supposed to have the advantage of one that is assaulted. I therefore rose, brought my fork to the charge, and went at the bird with a furious roar. It turned and ran a few yards, but stopped when I stopped, and began to return slowly, as before, the moment I had sat down. As it drew nearer I observed that it eyed my colour-box curiously. Stories about the peculiar taste of these giant birds recurred to me. People say they will eat anything. Their digestive powers have passed into a proverb. The day before I had given an ostrich a large apple, which it coolly bolted, and I could trace the progress of the apple by the lump in its throat as it passed rather slowly down. Some one—Bonny I rather think—had told me he had seen an ostrich accept and swallow a bottle of shoe-blacking! Anything bright is sure to attract the eye of an ostrich and be coveted. I trembled for my colour-box, and, seizing my fork, charged again.About this time Bonny himself came to say that the cart was ready. We therefore packed up and came away. The ostriches, he said, were too young to think of molesting us, though he admitted that they would probably have swallowed the colour-box if I had allowed them. They followed us down to the gate, and finally saw us safely off their premises.“Father once had an ostrich,” said Bonny, as we walked towards the house, “that caught a couple of thieves for him.”“Indeed! how was that, Bonny?”“You are aware that Kafirs are terrible thieves?” he replied.“Yes, I’ve been given to understand that they have propensities that way.”“Oh! but you have no idea how clever they are at it, and the Totties are just as bad, if not worse. On one occasion we had a nest of eggs in the field over there, which we had left to be hatched in the natural way by the hen-ostrich. One night it rained very hard—so hard that we feared the young ones would be drowned in the nest, so brother Johnny was sent to look after them. He took two Totties with him. It was very dark, but he found the nest with the cock bird sitting on it. You know the cock always sits at night. Well, Johnny took him by the nose and pulled him off the nest, and gave him to the two Totties to hold. It was hard work, but they kept his head well down, so that he couldn’t kick. Johnny soon bagged all the little ones, leaped over the wall, and then called out to let go the cock. It was so dark that he couldn’t see very well. He could only hear a scuffle, and then saw the two men bounding over the wall like indiarubber balls while the cock went bang against it like a battering-ram. We got the little ones home all safe, but, would you believe it? these rascally Totties had managed to pull out all the best wing-feathers while they were holding the cock—each feather worth, perhaps, twenty shillings or more—and got clear away with them to the canteen, where they can always sell stolen goods.“But that is not what I was going to tell you,” continued Bonny. “It was about two Kafir thieves who were going round the country stealing. They came to our place one evening, and, in the course of their depredations, happened to cross one of the fields where a pair of our ostriches had a nest. The cock had not yet commenced his night duty on the nest. He caught sight of the two Kafirs, and was down on them instantly like lightning. They took refuge in a mimosa-thorn, and there he kept them all night. It was no use their trying to make a bolt for it, because twice or three times their speed could not have saved them from the ostrich. There they remained, and there father found them next morning, when he rode out to feed the birds.”The sturdy sons of this Karroo farmer had no light duty to perform each day. The farm was twenty miles in length, and of variable breadth. There were no crops raised on it, save the fruit of the splendid garden already mentioned, some grapes, and a few mealies. The sources of gain were ostriches and their feathers, Angora goat hair, (mohair), horses, sheep-wool, and cattle, looking after which kept father and sons pretty constantly in the saddle. It was a dashing style of life, requiring robust health and spirits. I have seen one or both of the boys return of an evening—after having been up at five or six, and out all day,—scarce able to decide whether to eat or sleep! Counting and guarding the flocks formed a part of the duty.One evening the report was brought that a horse and thirteen bucks had disappeared. The Kafir thief had driven them off in the direction of Somerset. There he had been questioned closely as to where he came from, etcetera. His replies not being satisfactory, the animals were seized and put in the pound, whence they were afterwards reclaimed, while the thief escaped being put in the “tronk,” or jail, by a sudden dart into the jungle of the Boschberg!My friend and I were soon on the road which led to the farm of his brother Jonathan. It stood about two miles distant. On our way we had to pass one corner of the private domain of Black Jack, or David Marais, I forget which—I think it was the former. He was there ready for us, and evidently in a rage at the mere possibility of our intrusion, for the wings were going like flails and the tail was up. Hobson pulled up to look at him for a minute. I got down and went to the wall, knowing that it afforded perfect security. Black Jack came up slowly, as if he meant no mischief. I leant over the wall, which was breast-high, and poked fun at him. In an instant, like a flash of light, he came at me. I saw his great claw over my head, and almost before I could jump back, a couple of heavy stones were driven violently off the top of the wall. To bolt and jump into the cart was almost an involuntary and instantaneous impulse on my part, though there was no need for haste, because the furious biped could not leap the wall.“Yes,” remarked my friend, with a quiet chuckle, as we drove along; “I expected as much. Black Jack is in a bad humour to-day.”The farm of Jonathan lay at the side of the stream which watered that of his brother. It was a pretty place. We drove through the stream to get to the house. On entering we found Jonathan standing in his hall, besprinkled with his own blood, and smiling. He was one of those tall, thin, powerful sort of men, with genial good-humour wrinkling the corners of their eyes, who seem to be ready to smile at everything, pleasant or otherwise, that befalls them.“Hallo! what’s wrong, Jonathan?” asked his brother, with a touch of tenderness in his tone.“Nothing particular,” replied the other; “I’ve just had a tussle with one of my birds. He wriggled out of the stick and kicked me.”On more particular inquiry we found that Jonathan and his son—another powerful six-footer—had gone that morning to search for eggs, which they felt sure must have been laid somewhere about the enclosed field. To keep the male bird in play while the search was being made, the father took his forked stick, met the cock in single combat, clapped the fork on his neck, and let him kick away. All might have gone well, for the father, besides being strong, was accustomed to such work; but the bird, instead of keeping up a straightforward assault, as it ought to have done, turned its back to its foe, wriggled its neck, in some inexplicable manner, out of the fork, and before it could be refixed had given Jonathan several tremendous kicks. One of these nearly tore his trousers to pieces, and another cut him across the right wrist into the bone. This rendered his right arm powerless for the moment, and it might have gone ill with him, had not his son, who was still in sight, observed what had occurred, and run back to the rescue. As it was, the father’s wrist was severely, though I hope not permanently, damaged.On a certain occasion three friends visited Ebenezer. One of these—we shall call him Squib—was a sporting character, and anxious to have a shot at the guinea-fowl which abounded on the farm. Hobson, with his usual kindness, readily agreed to pilot him and his friends.“The ground, however,” said Hobson, “is part of the domain which belongs to one of my ostriches, whose temper is uncertain. I don’t feel sure of him. Perhaps it would be better—”“Oh! never mind that,” interrupted Squib; “we’re not afraid of ostriches. Come along.”“Very well,” returned the host, “come along.”And along they went to the domain of Gouws, who was found pacing solemnly inside the wall of his enclosure. His wings were active, and his tail was cocked. Otherwise he was calm enough to all appearance. Hobson knew that the bird was in a rage, and said so, but his friends, who were young and reckless, insisted on entering the enclosure.They did so, and Gouws followed them with a stately air, but did not attack, being no doubt perplexed by numbers.They walked in Indian file, Hobson being the last of the line.“I could turn him with a bit of a bush,” said Squib, glancing at Gouws, who was drawing gradually nearer to the party. “Just cut one for me, Hobson, will you, like a good fellow?”Hobson turned aside and stooped to cut a branch from a mimosa bush.Just then the ostrich, which had marched ahead of the party, turned sharp round and charged. Poor Squib tripped, by good luck, and fell as the bird passed over him. It kicked down the other two, and sprang on the shoulders of the stooping Hobson, who fell and gashed his finger as the bird tumbled over him.The whole party rose with marvellous celerity, and the sportsmen rushed towards the boundary wall, while Gouws scrambled on his long legs and ran after them. Had the distance been great, their chance of escape would have been small. As it was, Gouws overtook one of the party just as he reached a part of the wall which had been mended with mimosa-thorn bushes. With one tremendous kick he sent the unfortunate man into the midst of the thorns, where he would certainly have given him further punishment had he not been attracted by a yell of alarm from another of the party. Poor Squib was not fleet of foot or active. He made a clumsy attempt to vault the wall, which his companions had already leaped. Leaving his thorn-pierced victim, Gouws made at Squib, applied his huge foot to his person, with a slap that must have forcibly recalled the days of childhood, and sent him over the wall with undignified haste. It is generally believed that Squib has not gone guinea-fowl shooting among ostriches since that day!The profits on ostrich feathers are very considerable. I do not profess to give statistical information in these pages, but merely touch lightly on what came under my observation. At one farm which I visited near Capetown I was told that the owner had cleared 2500 pounds in one year. Timid men are sometimes alarmed by depressions in the trade in feathers, and some of them have sold off their birds at heavy loss; but bold and hopeful men continue to persevere and prosper, as such men always will in every trade all the world over. That ostrich-farming has been found worthy of zealous attention is proved by the fact that, while in 1865 there were only between eighty and ninety birds in the colony, in 1875 there were upwards of 22,000. (In 1925 there were 239,000.)Some days afterwards, I pretty well completed my circle of knowledge on this subject by witnessing the birth of an ostrich!Hobson and I rode that day over to a lovely place named Glenbonny, on the edge of that part of the Karroo where the mountainous lands begin. It was a charming ride of forty miles—there and back—with a pleasant visit, and a rest between. Here dwelt relatives of my friend—a family named Berrington—one daughter of which, (with wealth of golden hair), had been a shipmate on the voyage out. The principal neighbours of this family were tigers and baboons. There was a minor population of deer, hyenas, hares, coneys, monkeys, and moles, but no human beings of any kind. Their dwelling was low and flat-roofed, the walls being coated with mud, so that its aspect outside was not imposing, but inside we found substantial comfort if not luxury, refinement, and hospitality. This is not an infrequent combination in the outlying districts of the Cape, where the nature of life and things is such that wealth, education, and refinement are often found robed in a modest homespun garb, and housed in a mere hut.Among other objects of interest inside we found ostriches—very little ones—in divers stages of progression. There was one, the size of an ordinary fowl, which had been in existence—after egg life I mean—a few days, and swaggered about the premises like an impudent child. There was another baby—weak in the understanding, physically as well as mentally—which staggered about in a drunken manner, with an insane tendency to use its tail as a support. This creature was kept in existence by having its food forcibly crammed down its throat, the amount given each meal being gauged not by appetite but by the tension of its stomach. Last, and least, there was one which had succeeded in bursting out one end of its native egg that morning. Its already tremendous toes protruded, and were engaged in further efforts to get out when we arrived. While we were at dinner that day the creature effected its liberation, and entered on the staggering and stuffing phase of its career.All these birds, and many others, had been nursed into life through a hot-air and warm blanket incubator, by the amiable lady of the house, and were destined to spend the early part of their lives under the care of some Hottentot stepmother.
Ah, those were happy days, when, with a congenial spirit, I drove and galloped over the South African plains. There was not much in the way of thrilling incidents, to be sure, and nothing whatever of wild adventure, but there was novelty in everything, and possibilities enough to keep the spirit ever on the alert.
We used to ride out sometimes after steenboks,—small brown creatures, that made little show when bagged, but then there were huge and horrid vultures to remind one of the sandy desert, and there were pauws—gigantic birds that were splendid eating; and the very thought that I trod on land which little more than quarter of a century back had been marked by the print of the royal lion was in itself sufficient to arouse unwonted interest, which was increased by the knowledge of the fact that the kloofs or glens and gorges of the blue hills on the horizon were at that time the natural homes of leopards or “Cape-tigers” and huge baboons.
These animals are, however, extremely wary. The baboons go about in troops, and are wont to leave a trusty old-man baboon on guard, while the rest go down at early morn to rob the settler of his fruits and vegetables. If the old man happens to see or scent danger he gives a signal and the troop flies helter-skelter to the nearest cliffs. They are therefore not easily got at by hunters. As to “tigers,” they go about stealthily like cats. I was told there was not a chance of getting a shot at them, unless I went out with dogs and a hunting party for the purpose. As this could not be accomplished at the time, I had to content myself with smaller game.
Bonny, (one of Hobson’s younger sons), and I went out one day after breakfast to try for a steenbok before dinner. There were plenty of them in the stretches of bush-land that dotted the Karroo in the immediate neighbourhood of the farmhouse.
Stretching out at a gallop with that light-hearted cheerfulness which is engendered by bright weather, fresh air, and a good mount, we skirted the river where Hreikie nursed her little flock.
Hreikie was a small Hottentot girl, as lightly clad as was compatible with propriety. Her face was dirty brown, her mouth large, her nose a shapeless elevation with two holes in the front of it. Her head was not covered, but merely sprinkled with tight woolly knobs or curls the size of peas. Each knob grew apart from its neighbour knob, and was surrounded, so to speak, by bald or desert land. This style of hair was not peculiar to Hreikie alone, but to the whole Hottentot race. Hreikie’s family consisted of thirty-three young ostriches, which, though only a few weeks of age, stood, I think, upwards of two feet high. Some of them had been brought out by artificial incubation—had been heated, as it were, into existence without maternal aid. These birds, Bonny said, had been already purchased for 15 pounds sterling apiece, and were deliverable to the purchaser in six months. They were fed and guarded all day and housed each evening with tender solicitude by their Hottentot stepmother, whom the birds evidently regarded as their own natural parent.
We swept on past the garden, where, on a previous morning, Bonny and I had killed a deadly green-tree snake upwards of five feet long, and where, on many other mornings, he and I, with sometimes other members of the family entered into strong temptation among the magnificent fruit. We used to overcome the temptation by giving way to it! There were plums, peaches, figs, apples, apricots, grapes, nectarines, and other fruits, with which the trees were so laden that some of the branches had given way and their luscious loads were lying on the ground. Cartloads of these were given away to friends, and to any one, as there was no market for their disposal.
Many splendid gardens like this exist on what is sometimes styled the barren Karroo; but the land is anything but barren. All it requires is a copious supply of water, and wherever farmers have taken the trouble to form dams and store the heavy though infrequent rains, gardens of the most prolific kind have been the result. The Karroo-bush itself, which gives name to these plains, is a succulent plant, which thrives in the almost waterless soil, and forms a rich pasturage for sheep and cattle. Hobson’s garden—copiously watered by streams led out from his large dams—was a beautiful shady oasis of green and gold, in the midst of what, to some eyes, might have appeared a desert, but which, if irrigated properly, would become a perfect paradise of fertility.
We cantered on over the plain, till the garden and the farm looked in the distance like ships at sea, and rode among the bushes that crowned a rising ground. We set up some guinea-fowl and other birds, and startled a hare, but let them go, as our aim was steenboks. The little boks, however, were not on the knoll that day, so away we went again at a gallop until the garden and the farm went down on the horizon.
Sometimes we kept together and chatted, at other times we diverged and skirted small clumps of underwood on opposite sides. At one time, while separated from Bonny, I saw a large stone lying on the ground. As I looked, the stone began to crawl! It was a tortoise, fully as large as a soup-tureen. The sight of an animal in its “native wilds,” which you have all your life been accustomed to see in zoological gardens, has something peculiar, almost absurd, in it. As it is with animals, so it is with other objects. I remember being impressed with this idea, for the first time, in the south of France, when I beheld a tree covered with lemons—a fruit which, up to that period, had been connected in my mind with grocers’ windows and brown sugar!
I turned aside and dismounted. The sluggish tortoise stopped, recognised in me an enemy, and drew in its head and feet. After lifting and looking at him I set him down. Then it occurred to me that some one had said a tortoise could carry a man. I stepped upon this one’s back forthwith. He lay perfectly still for some time. At last with great caution the head and feet were protruded. Another pause, as if of meditation, then the feet were applied to the ground; they pushed and strained, until finally the creature advanced about two inches, and then stopped! This was not much, but it was sufficient to prove his great strength, and to convince me that a large tortoise could easily have walked off with a little boy.
I found Bonny dismounted and waiting.
“No steenboks to-day, I fear,” he said.
“We must have a shot at something, Bonny,” said I, dismounting, and sitting down on an anthill. Having been a fair average shot in a rifle corps in Scotland I took careful aim at a small bush, bent on doing credit to the British Volunteers. The result was a “bull’s-eye.”
“Capital!” exclaimed Bonny; “if you shoot like that you’ll kill plenty of boks.”
Half an hour later I was passing round the left of a knoll, while Bonny took the right. Up leaped a steenbok, which ran a hundred yards or so, and stopped to look at me. I was already off the horse and down in the Hythe position. A careful aim was again taken. The result was “a miss!” while the small deer vanished like the smoke of my rifle. So great is the difference between target-practice and hunting!
It was time now to think of returning for dinner. I was thoroughly lost by that time in the vast plain—like a ship at sea without a compass. But Bonny was as knowing in Karroo-craft as a Kentucky hunter is in wood-craft. He steered as true a course for home as if he had smelt the leg of mutton that was roasting at the fire. Probably he did—in imagination! Soon the two ships reappeared on the horizon; our fleet nags quickly transformed them into the garden and the farm, and in half an hour we were relating our mild adventure round Hobson’s hospitable board.
“I’m going to visit brother Jonathan after dinner: will you come?” said my host.
“Yes, with pleasure,” said I, “but first, while you have your siesta, (midday nap), I will go into the opposite field and make that long-talked-of sketch of your house.”
“Very good; I’ll send for you when the cart is ready. There are some ostriches in the field, but you don’t need to mind them, for they are quite young, although full-grown.”
It is a common custom among South Africans to take a nap in the heat of the day during summer. They dine early, and the power of the sun at that part of the day renders work almost impossible. I could not at first fall in with this custom; therefore, while the family retired, I took my sketch-book and colours and went off to the field.
There was a mound, whence I could obtain a good view of the house with its surroundings, the cattle-kraal or enclosure, the course of the little stream, with one of the small dams or lakelets, and the garden, the whole backed by the blue mountain range on the horizon.
The sun was blazing fiercely, but, as before remarked, I delight in heat. Selecting a stone I sat down, opened my book and colour-box, and began. To those who don’t know it, I may say that sketching is a most fascinating and engrossing species of work. I soon forgot where I was, forgot Hobson, forgot time, forgot every thing in fact except the glowing face of nature, when a sound recalled me. I looked round and observed eight or ten huge ostriches stalking towards me with slow funereal gait. I felt somewhat uneasy,—for their youth, of which Hobson had assured me, was in no way indicated by their huge bodies and dreadful legs. However, I had taken the precaution to carry my forked stick, and drawing it nearer continued at my work with an easier mind. If they meant war I knew escape to be hopeless, for the nearest wall was a quarter of a mile off.
The females halted at a respectful distance, but two of the largest black males came stalking close up to me and stood still, gazing intently, first with one eye, then with the other, at a distance of about six yards.
Meanwhile some of the females sat down, and one of them put herself in an attitude so absurd that I introduced her into the drawing. Presently the largest male advanced a little nearer, and kept somewhat behind me. This was embarrassing. It occurred to me that, in the art of war, an attacking party is supposed to have the advantage of one that is assaulted. I therefore rose, brought my fork to the charge, and went at the bird with a furious roar. It turned and ran a few yards, but stopped when I stopped, and began to return slowly, as before, the moment I had sat down. As it drew nearer I observed that it eyed my colour-box curiously. Stories about the peculiar taste of these giant birds recurred to me. People say they will eat anything. Their digestive powers have passed into a proverb. The day before I had given an ostrich a large apple, which it coolly bolted, and I could trace the progress of the apple by the lump in its throat as it passed rather slowly down. Some one—Bonny I rather think—had told me he had seen an ostrich accept and swallow a bottle of shoe-blacking! Anything bright is sure to attract the eye of an ostrich and be coveted. I trembled for my colour-box, and, seizing my fork, charged again.
About this time Bonny himself came to say that the cart was ready. We therefore packed up and came away. The ostriches, he said, were too young to think of molesting us, though he admitted that they would probably have swallowed the colour-box if I had allowed them. They followed us down to the gate, and finally saw us safely off their premises.
“Father once had an ostrich,” said Bonny, as we walked towards the house, “that caught a couple of thieves for him.”
“Indeed! how was that, Bonny?”
“You are aware that Kafirs are terrible thieves?” he replied.
“Yes, I’ve been given to understand that they have propensities that way.”
“Oh! but you have no idea how clever they are at it, and the Totties are just as bad, if not worse. On one occasion we had a nest of eggs in the field over there, which we had left to be hatched in the natural way by the hen-ostrich. One night it rained very hard—so hard that we feared the young ones would be drowned in the nest, so brother Johnny was sent to look after them. He took two Totties with him. It was very dark, but he found the nest with the cock bird sitting on it. You know the cock always sits at night. Well, Johnny took him by the nose and pulled him off the nest, and gave him to the two Totties to hold. It was hard work, but they kept his head well down, so that he couldn’t kick. Johnny soon bagged all the little ones, leaped over the wall, and then called out to let go the cock. It was so dark that he couldn’t see very well. He could only hear a scuffle, and then saw the two men bounding over the wall like indiarubber balls while the cock went bang against it like a battering-ram. We got the little ones home all safe, but, would you believe it? these rascally Totties had managed to pull out all the best wing-feathers while they were holding the cock—each feather worth, perhaps, twenty shillings or more—and got clear away with them to the canteen, where they can always sell stolen goods.
“But that is not what I was going to tell you,” continued Bonny. “It was about two Kafir thieves who were going round the country stealing. They came to our place one evening, and, in the course of their depredations, happened to cross one of the fields where a pair of our ostriches had a nest. The cock had not yet commenced his night duty on the nest. He caught sight of the two Kafirs, and was down on them instantly like lightning. They took refuge in a mimosa-thorn, and there he kept them all night. It was no use their trying to make a bolt for it, because twice or three times their speed could not have saved them from the ostrich. There they remained, and there father found them next morning, when he rode out to feed the birds.”
The sturdy sons of this Karroo farmer had no light duty to perform each day. The farm was twenty miles in length, and of variable breadth. There were no crops raised on it, save the fruit of the splendid garden already mentioned, some grapes, and a few mealies. The sources of gain were ostriches and their feathers, Angora goat hair, (mohair), horses, sheep-wool, and cattle, looking after which kept father and sons pretty constantly in the saddle. It was a dashing style of life, requiring robust health and spirits. I have seen one or both of the boys return of an evening—after having been up at five or six, and out all day,—scarce able to decide whether to eat or sleep! Counting and guarding the flocks formed a part of the duty.
One evening the report was brought that a horse and thirteen bucks had disappeared. The Kafir thief had driven them off in the direction of Somerset. There he had been questioned closely as to where he came from, etcetera. His replies not being satisfactory, the animals were seized and put in the pound, whence they were afterwards reclaimed, while the thief escaped being put in the “tronk,” or jail, by a sudden dart into the jungle of the Boschberg!
My friend and I were soon on the road which led to the farm of his brother Jonathan. It stood about two miles distant. On our way we had to pass one corner of the private domain of Black Jack, or David Marais, I forget which—I think it was the former. He was there ready for us, and evidently in a rage at the mere possibility of our intrusion, for the wings were going like flails and the tail was up. Hobson pulled up to look at him for a minute. I got down and went to the wall, knowing that it afforded perfect security. Black Jack came up slowly, as if he meant no mischief. I leant over the wall, which was breast-high, and poked fun at him. In an instant, like a flash of light, he came at me. I saw his great claw over my head, and almost before I could jump back, a couple of heavy stones were driven violently off the top of the wall. To bolt and jump into the cart was almost an involuntary and instantaneous impulse on my part, though there was no need for haste, because the furious biped could not leap the wall.
“Yes,” remarked my friend, with a quiet chuckle, as we drove along; “I expected as much. Black Jack is in a bad humour to-day.”
The farm of Jonathan lay at the side of the stream which watered that of his brother. It was a pretty place. We drove through the stream to get to the house. On entering we found Jonathan standing in his hall, besprinkled with his own blood, and smiling. He was one of those tall, thin, powerful sort of men, with genial good-humour wrinkling the corners of their eyes, who seem to be ready to smile at everything, pleasant or otherwise, that befalls them.
“Hallo! what’s wrong, Jonathan?” asked his brother, with a touch of tenderness in his tone.
“Nothing particular,” replied the other; “I’ve just had a tussle with one of my birds. He wriggled out of the stick and kicked me.”
On more particular inquiry we found that Jonathan and his son—another powerful six-footer—had gone that morning to search for eggs, which they felt sure must have been laid somewhere about the enclosed field. To keep the male bird in play while the search was being made, the father took his forked stick, met the cock in single combat, clapped the fork on his neck, and let him kick away. All might have gone well, for the father, besides being strong, was accustomed to such work; but the bird, instead of keeping up a straightforward assault, as it ought to have done, turned its back to its foe, wriggled its neck, in some inexplicable manner, out of the fork, and before it could be refixed had given Jonathan several tremendous kicks. One of these nearly tore his trousers to pieces, and another cut him across the right wrist into the bone. This rendered his right arm powerless for the moment, and it might have gone ill with him, had not his son, who was still in sight, observed what had occurred, and run back to the rescue. As it was, the father’s wrist was severely, though I hope not permanently, damaged.
On a certain occasion three friends visited Ebenezer. One of these—we shall call him Squib—was a sporting character, and anxious to have a shot at the guinea-fowl which abounded on the farm. Hobson, with his usual kindness, readily agreed to pilot him and his friends.
“The ground, however,” said Hobson, “is part of the domain which belongs to one of my ostriches, whose temper is uncertain. I don’t feel sure of him. Perhaps it would be better—”
“Oh! never mind that,” interrupted Squib; “we’re not afraid of ostriches. Come along.”
“Very well,” returned the host, “come along.”
And along they went to the domain of Gouws, who was found pacing solemnly inside the wall of his enclosure. His wings were active, and his tail was cocked. Otherwise he was calm enough to all appearance. Hobson knew that the bird was in a rage, and said so, but his friends, who were young and reckless, insisted on entering the enclosure.
They did so, and Gouws followed them with a stately air, but did not attack, being no doubt perplexed by numbers.
They walked in Indian file, Hobson being the last of the line.
“I could turn him with a bit of a bush,” said Squib, glancing at Gouws, who was drawing gradually nearer to the party. “Just cut one for me, Hobson, will you, like a good fellow?”
Hobson turned aside and stooped to cut a branch from a mimosa bush.
Just then the ostrich, which had marched ahead of the party, turned sharp round and charged. Poor Squib tripped, by good luck, and fell as the bird passed over him. It kicked down the other two, and sprang on the shoulders of the stooping Hobson, who fell and gashed his finger as the bird tumbled over him.
The whole party rose with marvellous celerity, and the sportsmen rushed towards the boundary wall, while Gouws scrambled on his long legs and ran after them. Had the distance been great, their chance of escape would have been small. As it was, Gouws overtook one of the party just as he reached a part of the wall which had been mended with mimosa-thorn bushes. With one tremendous kick he sent the unfortunate man into the midst of the thorns, where he would certainly have given him further punishment had he not been attracted by a yell of alarm from another of the party. Poor Squib was not fleet of foot or active. He made a clumsy attempt to vault the wall, which his companions had already leaped. Leaving his thorn-pierced victim, Gouws made at Squib, applied his huge foot to his person, with a slap that must have forcibly recalled the days of childhood, and sent him over the wall with undignified haste. It is generally believed that Squib has not gone guinea-fowl shooting among ostriches since that day!
The profits on ostrich feathers are very considerable. I do not profess to give statistical information in these pages, but merely touch lightly on what came under my observation. At one farm which I visited near Capetown I was told that the owner had cleared 2500 pounds in one year. Timid men are sometimes alarmed by depressions in the trade in feathers, and some of them have sold off their birds at heavy loss; but bold and hopeful men continue to persevere and prosper, as such men always will in every trade all the world over. That ostrich-farming has been found worthy of zealous attention is proved by the fact that, while in 1865 there were only between eighty and ninety birds in the colony, in 1875 there were upwards of 22,000. (In 1925 there were 239,000.)
Some days afterwards, I pretty well completed my circle of knowledge on this subject by witnessing the birth of an ostrich!
Hobson and I rode that day over to a lovely place named Glenbonny, on the edge of that part of the Karroo where the mountainous lands begin. It was a charming ride of forty miles—there and back—with a pleasant visit, and a rest between. Here dwelt relatives of my friend—a family named Berrington—one daughter of which, (with wealth of golden hair), had been a shipmate on the voyage out. The principal neighbours of this family were tigers and baboons. There was a minor population of deer, hyenas, hares, coneys, monkeys, and moles, but no human beings of any kind. Their dwelling was low and flat-roofed, the walls being coated with mud, so that its aspect outside was not imposing, but inside we found substantial comfort if not luxury, refinement, and hospitality. This is not an infrequent combination in the outlying districts of the Cape, where the nature of life and things is such that wealth, education, and refinement are often found robed in a modest homespun garb, and housed in a mere hut.
Among other objects of interest inside we found ostriches—very little ones—in divers stages of progression. There was one, the size of an ordinary fowl, which had been in existence—after egg life I mean—a few days, and swaggered about the premises like an impudent child. There was another baby—weak in the understanding, physically as well as mentally—which staggered about in a drunken manner, with an insane tendency to use its tail as a support. This creature was kept in existence by having its food forcibly crammed down its throat, the amount given each meal being gauged not by appetite but by the tension of its stomach. Last, and least, there was one which had succeeded in bursting out one end of its native egg that morning. Its already tremendous toes protruded, and were engaged in further efforts to get out when we arrived. While we were at dinner that day the creature effected its liberation, and entered on the staggering and stuffing phase of its career.
All these birds, and many others, had been nursed into life through a hot-air and warm blanket incubator, by the amiable lady of the house, and were destined to spend the early part of their lives under the care of some Hottentot stepmother.
Letter 6.Over the Plains—Lion and Tiger Reminiscences—Frontier Forces and Escaped Convicts—Monkeys and Prickly Pears—A Veteran Settler’s Experiences of Kafir Warfare—Story of the Dutch Farmers’ Rising in 1815.It was a sad day that on which I left the Karroo and bade farewell to Ebenezer.I had gone there in absolute ignorance of men and things, and had found a hearty welcome in the abode of a warm-hearted Christian family and a romantic region, full, to me, of new ideas, experiences, circumstances, and sensations.Hobson drove me in his cart. Our destination was the mountain region of Baviaans, or Baboons, River.The first part of our route lay across the Karroo and over the mountain range which separated us from the town of Somerset East. As we sped along, drawn by two powerful horses, over the ocean-like plains, we were silent at first, but gradually the cheering influence of rapid motion and fine weather began to tell. Our spirits rose, and Hobson related numerous anecdotes, historical and adventurous, from the rich stores of a good memory.About noon we outspanned beside a stream and allowed the horses to have a roll. Under the shade of a bush we lay and chatted, while our eyes roamed over the rolling plains to the blue mountain range which formed its northern boundary.“There,” said my friend, pointing towards the mountains, “is the spot where one of the last lions was seen in this part of the country. There were plenty of them here once, and the last one disappeared in 1840, only thirty-six years ago.”He then related the incident connected with the lion referred to. The following is the substance of it.Early in the year 1840 a runaway soldier was travelling through that part of the country. He was on his way to Graaff-Reinet in search of work. At that time farmhouses were very few and far between in that region. The wearied soldier came one evening to the house of a Boer named Smit, not many miles from the spot where Hobson and I were reposing.Smit was a surly fellow, and refused shelter to the traveller, who was therefore obliged to continue his journey during the night. Next day the unfortunate man’s mangled body was found not far off, a few yards from the foot of a small tree. The traces revealed clearly that he had been killed by a lion, whose footprints had been seen and voice heard for some time in the neighbourhood. On the approach of the lion the man had sought refuge in the small tree just mentioned, but being little better than a large bush, it failed him in the hour of need. Even when perched on the highest branch that would bear him, he was not beyond the spring of the lion. It had caught him, torn him down, and devoured his breast and arms, after which it left him.This was the last lion in that region that succeeded in taking human life. Six months later the last lion of all made his appearance. He was evidently a less ferocious animal, and made his final exit in a rather humorous manner. In his prowling about he chanced to find an old Dutchman, and pounced upon him, but the old man had his wits about him. At first sight of his enemy he let himself go limp as if dead. Lions are particular. They don’t like dead meals; they prefer to kill their own dinners. After pouncing on his prey the lion put his mouth to the old fellow’s ear and roared. If he was not deaf for life after that he ought to have been! At all events he was deaf at the time to the remark, for he paid no attention to it whatever. Then the lion pawed him a little, lay down on him, rolled him about as a cat plays with a mouse, and ultimately couched a few yards off to watch jealously for the slightest sign of life. But the Dutchman was a splendid actor. Even in breathing he managed to remain motionless, and at last the lion sneaked away overwhelmed with disappointment. Then the old man slowly lifted his head, rose, congratulated himself, and returned home in a thankful state of mind.Although lions had finally taken themselves off, and retired to safer and more distant retreats, the mountain glens of the neighbourhood were, as I have already said, still inhabited by leopards of large size and dangerous temper.“They are powerful and savage fellows,” said my friend, as he rose to inspan, “and few men like to face them unless assisted by a party, and with good dogs. One friend of mine, a doctor, used to boast that he could stare a leopard out of countenance. At last one was caught in a trap, and the doctor tried the experiment, but only got knocked over and his nose scratched for his pains. There was a curious instance, once, of a Fingo going mad in consequence of being bitten by a leopard. The madness took the form of his feigning to be a leopard, and there was no doubt as to his insanity, for he continually growled and scratched and snapped with his teeth, and finished off by jumping through a glass door.—Now then, the cart’s ready; in you go.”I jumped in, and off we went again over the sweet-scented plain,—now on a good bit of road, now on a bad; often forsaking the track altogether, and occasionally plunging into holes that knocked our heads against the hood, and tried our springs to the uttermost, till evening at last found us among the hills, where a rough-and-ready inn afforded us shelter for the night.Passing through Somerset we came to a place named Cookhouse Drift, where there is a bridge over the Great Fish River.We also met here with seven troopers of the frontier, armed and mounted police, as tight and serviceable a set of young fellows as one could wish to see—clad in corduroy, thorough-going, rough-and-ready colonial cavalry—and well-trained to bush fighting. They were out after seven escaped convicts, and had caught one, a big Kafir, who was handcuffed, and seemed sulky when I looked at him.At another place, where the prickly pear was very prolific, and the bush so dense that it formed a pretty safe retreat to escaped convicts, as well as baboons and tigers, we discovered a band of Kafirs celebrating a wedding.The prickly pears, which were ripe at this time, we found to be very pleasant and refreshing, but we had to handle them with care, as they were covered with prickles so fine that they pierced the skin and broke off the pear with the least touch. The great evil of prickly pear thorns is that it is almost impossible to extract them, and although it can scarcely be said that they cause pain, the irritation they produce is great and prolonged. The monkeys know this well!I was greatly amused once, while delayed at a road-side inn, by the antics of a monkey with a prickly pear. I had fed him with part of one, of which he seemed passionately fond. Wishing to know whether monkeys as well as men were cautious in handling the fruit, I pulled another by means of a couple of sticks. The usual mode of proceeding is to rub the pear on the ground with a bunch of grass, and thus remove the prickles, when it may be handled with impunity. Without doing this, however, I lifted the pear with my sticks and handed it to Jacko. He looked at it earnestly for a few seconds, then at me with a round mouth and reproachful eyes, as though to say, “You don’t meanthat, do you?”I smiled and nodded.Jacko looked again at the pear and put one finger towards it with great caution, but drew back and looked up at me again, as if to say, “Won’tyou help me?”I smiled again and shook my head, whereupon he went to work with the most gingerly and delicate touches, as if he were handling red-hot iron. At last he managed to tear a hole in the skin, into which he inserted his black nose, and greedily devoured the contents. Despite his caution, however, I noticed that Jacko kept scratching his hands pretty steadily for some time afterwards.As we advanced into the hills the roads became unimaginably bad. In one place our track had been carried away by a flood, and the boulder-covered bed of the torrent was our only road.At last we got up into the mountain region of Glen Lynden, the place to which the Scotch settlers were sent by Government in 1820, under the care of Thomas Pringle, the “African poet,” who, among other pieces, wrote the beautiful poem which begins:“Afar in the desert I love to ride,With the silent bushboy alone by my side.”The descendants of the 1820 men now occupy these valleys. Both in physique and character they do credit to their sires.Here I met one of the few survivors of the original settlers, Mr Dodds Pringle, and brother to the poet. (This happened about 1876.) Although upwards of seventy, and a large, stout man, I saw him mount his horse with the activity of a man of thirty. At his house in Glen Lynedock, where I spent a night, they showed me an assagai, or Kafir spear, which had been bent into the form of a half-moon against his, (Mr Pringle’s), stomach! It happened thus:He was out fighting with the rest of the farmers in the war of 1851, and one day was attacked by Kafirs, one of whom flung his assagai at him with tremendous force. Mr Pringle had just fired his rifle, and was reloading when the assagai struck him. It was arrested, however, in its deadly flight by his belt and bullet-pouch. The savage rushed forward, intending to finish his adversary by a thrust from a short spear, but old Pringle guarded the thrust with one hand, while, with the other, he drew a pistol and shot the Kafir through the heart. At that moment another savage ran at him, but a comrade of Pringle suddenly came on the scene and the savage turned to fly. The comrade took aim at him.“Be cool, and take him low,” said Pringle, undoing his belt to examine his wound.The comrade fired, and the savage fell.“Are you killed?” asked the comrade, turning to Pringle and glancing at the bent assagai.“I don’t know,” replied the other, with a serious look, as he thrust his hand under his waist-belt, “there’s no hole that I can find, anyhow.”The hand, when withdrawn, was covered with blood, but it was found on examination that the wound was slight, thanks to the providential interposition of the thick bullet-pouch. The old gentleman is now naturally fond of showing the weapon which had so nearly proved fatal.Advancing into the Baviaans River District we passed through many places of historic interest, and scenery that must have reminded the Scottish settlers of the rugged glens to which they had bidden farewell for ever.Among other places, Hobson pointed out a small cavern, high up on the cliffs, which was the scene of a cruel affray not many years before the arrival of the Scotch settlers in the district.As it illustrates the wild frontier life of those times, and bears on the subject of the grievances of early colonists, I shall relate it.There was a Dutch Boer, a farmer named Bezuidenhout, who, in the year 1815, dwelt in the lonely and wild recesses of the Baviaans River District. He seems to have been a passionate, headstrong man. The Dutch Boers were generally honest, sterling men, though at that time very ignorant, being far removed from the means of instruction. But the Dutchmen, not less than others, had wild and foolish men amongst them who were easily misled by unprincipled adventurers.Bezuidenhout seems to have been one of these; at all events he was savage enough to treat one of his Hottentot servants so ill that he was cited to appear before the Court of his district, and was foolish enough to resist the summons. A messenger was therefore sent to arrest him, and as he was known to be a daring character, and had threatened to shoot any limb of the law who should dare to approach his residence, twenty men of the Cape Corps, under Lieutenant Rousseau accompanied the messenger.On reaching the mountain home of Bezuidenhout they found him prepared. He and a powerful half-caste in his employment were found sheltered behind the high wall of a cattle enclosure, well armed. The Dutchman called to the soldiers to stop, else he would shoot the first man. Disregarding the threat, the lieutenant extended his men in skirmishing order, and attacked. Bezuidenhout fired, happily missed, and retreated into his house, whence he passed by a back-door into the thick jungle in rear. They lost him for a time, but finally traced him to a steep krantz, or precipice, up the almost inaccessible face of which he and his follower had taken refuge in a small cavern. The muzzles of their rifles were seen protruding from the entrance. Lieutenant Rousseau therefore crept up warily, until he reached a ledge above the aperture, from which point he challenged the farmer to surrender, telling him the reason of his being there, and assuring him of personal safety.The man replied he would die rather than submit. The Lieutenant endeavoured to persuade him to surrender, but he was obdurate. Night was approaching. The officer was anxious to get his men out of these dark kloofs in daylight. He therefore ordered them to ascend in two bodies. They did so, reached the cave, and rushed to the entrance, from which Bezuidenhout fired, but without effect, the muzzle of his rifle having been thrown up. At the same moment one of the soldiers fired into the cavern, and shot the farmer dead on the spot. The servant surrendered, and on entering the place it was found that a large quantity of ammunition had been collected there, evidently with a view to standing a siege.After the departure of the military, the relations and friends of the unfortunate and misguided man assembled to bury him, and, over his grave, they vowed to avenge his death. A brother of Bezuidenhout spoke to them, and so wrought on their feelings that a great number of the farmers of that and the neighbouring districts ultimately assembled under arms, with the avowed intention of ridding themselves altogether of British interference! They went still further, and took a step which might have been much more serious. They sent Cornelius Faber, a brother-in-law of the Bezuidenhouts, to the Kafir chief Gaika for the purpose of rousing that savage and his hordes to attack the Colony.Of course the Government was obliged to frustrate such an attempt with all possible speed. Troops were immediately sent against the rebels, under Colonel Cuyler. One of the rebel leaders, named Prinsloo, was captured at a critical moment, and the main body, amounting to between three and four hundred, was finally met with. But before proceeding to extremities, a field-commandant, William Nel, volunteered to go alone among the rebels, and reason with them. He did so, and was so far successful as to shake the resolution of some, for, although disaffected, many of these men were by no means so foolish as their leaders. Indeed, many of them had been threatened and coerced into rebellion. Seeing the effect of Nel’s remonstrances, Faber, Bezuidenhout, and other leaders, assembled their forces at a place called Slachters Nek, and exacted from them an oath to remain faithful to each other until they had expelled the tyrants from the frontier.Next morning Colonel Cuyler proceeded to attack them. On his approach thirty or more of them threw down their arms in token of surrender; the remainder, seeing that resistance would be hopeless, retired into the fastnesses of Baviaans River. There they were followed and surrounded, and an attempt was made to bring them to submission, but during the night most of them managed to escape by familiar mountain passes.The principal leaders, rejecting all terms, escaped with their wagons, families, and goods to the Winterberg Mountains, bordering on Kafirland, where they hoped to be safe; but, being followed up hotly by a body of troops under Major Fraser, they were eventually overtaken and surrounded in a deep kloof. Here six of them were brought to bay, among whom were Faber, with his wife, his son—a lad of fourteen years,—and John Bezuidenhout. These, retiring behind the wagons, a skirmish began, which was not concluded until one of the soldiers was killed, another wounded, Bezuidenhout shot, and Faber and his wife and son severely wounded. Then the party were taken prisoners.Subsequently fifty or sixty of the other rebels were captured and taken to Capetown. Of these, thirty-nine of the most culpable were tried on the charge of high treason. Six were condemned to death; the others, after being compelled to witness the execution of their leaders, were to undergo various degrees of punishment, according to their proved guilt. One of the six had the capital sentence commuted to transportation for life, and the remaining five ringleaders were executed.
It was a sad day that on which I left the Karroo and bade farewell to Ebenezer.
I had gone there in absolute ignorance of men and things, and had found a hearty welcome in the abode of a warm-hearted Christian family and a romantic region, full, to me, of new ideas, experiences, circumstances, and sensations.
Hobson drove me in his cart. Our destination was the mountain region of Baviaans, or Baboons, River.
The first part of our route lay across the Karroo and over the mountain range which separated us from the town of Somerset East. As we sped along, drawn by two powerful horses, over the ocean-like plains, we were silent at first, but gradually the cheering influence of rapid motion and fine weather began to tell. Our spirits rose, and Hobson related numerous anecdotes, historical and adventurous, from the rich stores of a good memory.
About noon we outspanned beside a stream and allowed the horses to have a roll. Under the shade of a bush we lay and chatted, while our eyes roamed over the rolling plains to the blue mountain range which formed its northern boundary.
“There,” said my friend, pointing towards the mountains, “is the spot where one of the last lions was seen in this part of the country. There were plenty of them here once, and the last one disappeared in 1840, only thirty-six years ago.”
He then related the incident connected with the lion referred to. The following is the substance of it.
Early in the year 1840 a runaway soldier was travelling through that part of the country. He was on his way to Graaff-Reinet in search of work. At that time farmhouses were very few and far between in that region. The wearied soldier came one evening to the house of a Boer named Smit, not many miles from the spot where Hobson and I were reposing.
Smit was a surly fellow, and refused shelter to the traveller, who was therefore obliged to continue his journey during the night. Next day the unfortunate man’s mangled body was found not far off, a few yards from the foot of a small tree. The traces revealed clearly that he had been killed by a lion, whose footprints had been seen and voice heard for some time in the neighbourhood. On the approach of the lion the man had sought refuge in the small tree just mentioned, but being little better than a large bush, it failed him in the hour of need. Even when perched on the highest branch that would bear him, he was not beyond the spring of the lion. It had caught him, torn him down, and devoured his breast and arms, after which it left him.
This was the last lion in that region that succeeded in taking human life. Six months later the last lion of all made his appearance. He was evidently a less ferocious animal, and made his final exit in a rather humorous manner. In his prowling about he chanced to find an old Dutchman, and pounced upon him, but the old man had his wits about him. At first sight of his enemy he let himself go limp as if dead. Lions are particular. They don’t like dead meals; they prefer to kill their own dinners. After pouncing on his prey the lion put his mouth to the old fellow’s ear and roared. If he was not deaf for life after that he ought to have been! At all events he was deaf at the time to the remark, for he paid no attention to it whatever. Then the lion pawed him a little, lay down on him, rolled him about as a cat plays with a mouse, and ultimately couched a few yards off to watch jealously for the slightest sign of life. But the Dutchman was a splendid actor. Even in breathing he managed to remain motionless, and at last the lion sneaked away overwhelmed with disappointment. Then the old man slowly lifted his head, rose, congratulated himself, and returned home in a thankful state of mind.
Although lions had finally taken themselves off, and retired to safer and more distant retreats, the mountain glens of the neighbourhood were, as I have already said, still inhabited by leopards of large size and dangerous temper.
“They are powerful and savage fellows,” said my friend, as he rose to inspan, “and few men like to face them unless assisted by a party, and with good dogs. One friend of mine, a doctor, used to boast that he could stare a leopard out of countenance. At last one was caught in a trap, and the doctor tried the experiment, but only got knocked over and his nose scratched for his pains. There was a curious instance, once, of a Fingo going mad in consequence of being bitten by a leopard. The madness took the form of his feigning to be a leopard, and there was no doubt as to his insanity, for he continually growled and scratched and snapped with his teeth, and finished off by jumping through a glass door.—Now then, the cart’s ready; in you go.”
I jumped in, and off we went again over the sweet-scented plain,—now on a good bit of road, now on a bad; often forsaking the track altogether, and occasionally plunging into holes that knocked our heads against the hood, and tried our springs to the uttermost, till evening at last found us among the hills, where a rough-and-ready inn afforded us shelter for the night.
Passing through Somerset we came to a place named Cookhouse Drift, where there is a bridge over the Great Fish River.
We also met here with seven troopers of the frontier, armed and mounted police, as tight and serviceable a set of young fellows as one could wish to see—clad in corduroy, thorough-going, rough-and-ready colonial cavalry—and well-trained to bush fighting. They were out after seven escaped convicts, and had caught one, a big Kafir, who was handcuffed, and seemed sulky when I looked at him.
At another place, where the prickly pear was very prolific, and the bush so dense that it formed a pretty safe retreat to escaped convicts, as well as baboons and tigers, we discovered a band of Kafirs celebrating a wedding.
The prickly pears, which were ripe at this time, we found to be very pleasant and refreshing, but we had to handle them with care, as they were covered with prickles so fine that they pierced the skin and broke off the pear with the least touch. The great evil of prickly pear thorns is that it is almost impossible to extract them, and although it can scarcely be said that they cause pain, the irritation they produce is great and prolonged. The monkeys know this well!
I was greatly amused once, while delayed at a road-side inn, by the antics of a monkey with a prickly pear. I had fed him with part of one, of which he seemed passionately fond. Wishing to know whether monkeys as well as men were cautious in handling the fruit, I pulled another by means of a couple of sticks. The usual mode of proceeding is to rub the pear on the ground with a bunch of grass, and thus remove the prickles, when it may be handled with impunity. Without doing this, however, I lifted the pear with my sticks and handed it to Jacko. He looked at it earnestly for a few seconds, then at me with a round mouth and reproachful eyes, as though to say, “You don’t meanthat, do you?”
I smiled and nodded.
Jacko looked again at the pear and put one finger towards it with great caution, but drew back and looked up at me again, as if to say, “Won’tyou help me?”
I smiled again and shook my head, whereupon he went to work with the most gingerly and delicate touches, as if he were handling red-hot iron. At last he managed to tear a hole in the skin, into which he inserted his black nose, and greedily devoured the contents. Despite his caution, however, I noticed that Jacko kept scratching his hands pretty steadily for some time afterwards.
As we advanced into the hills the roads became unimaginably bad. In one place our track had been carried away by a flood, and the boulder-covered bed of the torrent was our only road.
At last we got up into the mountain region of Glen Lynden, the place to which the Scotch settlers were sent by Government in 1820, under the care of Thomas Pringle, the “African poet,” who, among other pieces, wrote the beautiful poem which begins:
“Afar in the desert I love to ride,With the silent bushboy alone by my side.”
“Afar in the desert I love to ride,With the silent bushboy alone by my side.”
The descendants of the 1820 men now occupy these valleys. Both in physique and character they do credit to their sires.
Here I met one of the few survivors of the original settlers, Mr Dodds Pringle, and brother to the poet. (This happened about 1876.) Although upwards of seventy, and a large, stout man, I saw him mount his horse with the activity of a man of thirty. At his house in Glen Lynedock, where I spent a night, they showed me an assagai, or Kafir spear, which had been bent into the form of a half-moon against his, (Mr Pringle’s), stomach! It happened thus:
He was out fighting with the rest of the farmers in the war of 1851, and one day was attacked by Kafirs, one of whom flung his assagai at him with tremendous force. Mr Pringle had just fired his rifle, and was reloading when the assagai struck him. It was arrested, however, in its deadly flight by his belt and bullet-pouch. The savage rushed forward, intending to finish his adversary by a thrust from a short spear, but old Pringle guarded the thrust with one hand, while, with the other, he drew a pistol and shot the Kafir through the heart. At that moment another savage ran at him, but a comrade of Pringle suddenly came on the scene and the savage turned to fly. The comrade took aim at him.
“Be cool, and take him low,” said Pringle, undoing his belt to examine his wound.
The comrade fired, and the savage fell.
“Are you killed?” asked the comrade, turning to Pringle and glancing at the bent assagai.
“I don’t know,” replied the other, with a serious look, as he thrust his hand under his waist-belt, “there’s no hole that I can find, anyhow.”
The hand, when withdrawn, was covered with blood, but it was found on examination that the wound was slight, thanks to the providential interposition of the thick bullet-pouch. The old gentleman is now naturally fond of showing the weapon which had so nearly proved fatal.
Advancing into the Baviaans River District we passed through many places of historic interest, and scenery that must have reminded the Scottish settlers of the rugged glens to which they had bidden farewell for ever.
Among other places, Hobson pointed out a small cavern, high up on the cliffs, which was the scene of a cruel affray not many years before the arrival of the Scotch settlers in the district.
As it illustrates the wild frontier life of those times, and bears on the subject of the grievances of early colonists, I shall relate it.
There was a Dutch Boer, a farmer named Bezuidenhout, who, in the year 1815, dwelt in the lonely and wild recesses of the Baviaans River District. He seems to have been a passionate, headstrong man. The Dutch Boers were generally honest, sterling men, though at that time very ignorant, being far removed from the means of instruction. But the Dutchmen, not less than others, had wild and foolish men amongst them who were easily misled by unprincipled adventurers.
Bezuidenhout seems to have been one of these; at all events he was savage enough to treat one of his Hottentot servants so ill that he was cited to appear before the Court of his district, and was foolish enough to resist the summons. A messenger was therefore sent to arrest him, and as he was known to be a daring character, and had threatened to shoot any limb of the law who should dare to approach his residence, twenty men of the Cape Corps, under Lieutenant Rousseau accompanied the messenger.
On reaching the mountain home of Bezuidenhout they found him prepared. He and a powerful half-caste in his employment were found sheltered behind the high wall of a cattle enclosure, well armed. The Dutchman called to the soldiers to stop, else he would shoot the first man. Disregarding the threat, the lieutenant extended his men in skirmishing order, and attacked. Bezuidenhout fired, happily missed, and retreated into his house, whence he passed by a back-door into the thick jungle in rear. They lost him for a time, but finally traced him to a steep krantz, or precipice, up the almost inaccessible face of which he and his follower had taken refuge in a small cavern. The muzzles of their rifles were seen protruding from the entrance. Lieutenant Rousseau therefore crept up warily, until he reached a ledge above the aperture, from which point he challenged the farmer to surrender, telling him the reason of his being there, and assuring him of personal safety.
The man replied he would die rather than submit. The Lieutenant endeavoured to persuade him to surrender, but he was obdurate. Night was approaching. The officer was anxious to get his men out of these dark kloofs in daylight. He therefore ordered them to ascend in two bodies. They did so, reached the cave, and rushed to the entrance, from which Bezuidenhout fired, but without effect, the muzzle of his rifle having been thrown up. At the same moment one of the soldiers fired into the cavern, and shot the farmer dead on the spot. The servant surrendered, and on entering the place it was found that a large quantity of ammunition had been collected there, evidently with a view to standing a siege.
After the departure of the military, the relations and friends of the unfortunate and misguided man assembled to bury him, and, over his grave, they vowed to avenge his death. A brother of Bezuidenhout spoke to them, and so wrought on their feelings that a great number of the farmers of that and the neighbouring districts ultimately assembled under arms, with the avowed intention of ridding themselves altogether of British interference! They went still further, and took a step which might have been much more serious. They sent Cornelius Faber, a brother-in-law of the Bezuidenhouts, to the Kafir chief Gaika for the purpose of rousing that savage and his hordes to attack the Colony.
Of course the Government was obliged to frustrate such an attempt with all possible speed. Troops were immediately sent against the rebels, under Colonel Cuyler. One of the rebel leaders, named Prinsloo, was captured at a critical moment, and the main body, amounting to between three and four hundred, was finally met with. But before proceeding to extremities, a field-commandant, William Nel, volunteered to go alone among the rebels, and reason with them. He did so, and was so far successful as to shake the resolution of some, for, although disaffected, many of these men were by no means so foolish as their leaders. Indeed, many of them had been threatened and coerced into rebellion. Seeing the effect of Nel’s remonstrances, Faber, Bezuidenhout, and other leaders, assembled their forces at a place called Slachters Nek, and exacted from them an oath to remain faithful to each other until they had expelled the tyrants from the frontier.
Next morning Colonel Cuyler proceeded to attack them. On his approach thirty or more of them threw down their arms in token of surrender; the remainder, seeing that resistance would be hopeless, retired into the fastnesses of Baviaans River. There they were followed and surrounded, and an attempt was made to bring them to submission, but during the night most of them managed to escape by familiar mountain passes.
The principal leaders, rejecting all terms, escaped with their wagons, families, and goods to the Winterberg Mountains, bordering on Kafirland, where they hoped to be safe; but, being followed up hotly by a body of troops under Major Fraser, they were eventually overtaken and surrounded in a deep kloof. Here six of them were brought to bay, among whom were Faber, with his wife, his son—a lad of fourteen years,—and John Bezuidenhout. These, retiring behind the wagons, a skirmish began, which was not concluded until one of the soldiers was killed, another wounded, Bezuidenhout shot, and Faber and his wife and son severely wounded. Then the party were taken prisoners.
Subsequently fifty or sixty of the other rebels were captured and taken to Capetown. Of these, thirty-nine of the most culpable were tried on the charge of high treason. Six were condemned to death; the others, after being compelled to witness the execution of their leaders, were to undergo various degrees of punishment, according to their proved guilt. One of the six had the capital sentence commuted to transportation for life, and the remaining five ringleaders were executed.