CHAPTER XVIClearing the Mashona Frontier25th October to 15th NovemberFilthiness is next to Healthiness—Through the Selukwe District—We join Colonel Paget’s Column for the Attack on Monogula’s—On visiting the Stronghold we find it deserted—We clear and destroy the Place—Gwelo—The Difficulties of a Commandant—The End of the War in Matabeleland—We are ordered to Taba Insimba—Enkledoorn Laager—Night March—We attack Taba Insimba (Magneze Poort)—Doctoring wounded Enemies—A Patent Syringe—I return to the General—Smoking on Sentry.For the next four days we have continued our march,—practically across country, as there were a few cart–tracks, some leading right and some wrong, but I had got the right landmarks from one of Jackson’s boys before he left us (which he did at the end of our patrol). We now left his—the Belingwe—district and got into the Gwelo country.25th October.—Although it’s Sunday, which we generally make a day for divine service and forrest, we have had to put in a lot of marching in order to get to Paget in fair time. One cannot reckon on doing so many miles a day in this country; you can only say it will be so many hours. For instance, it took us five hours to do two miles two different days in this march,i.e.in making drifts over bad rivers like the Singweza and the Lundi.We are a wonderfully dirty and ragged–looking crew now—especially me, because I left Buluwayo six weeks ago to join this column only with such things as I could carry on a led pony (including bedding and food). My breeches and shirts are in tatters, my socks have nearly disappeared in shreds. Umtini, my Matabele boy, has made sandals for me to wear over—or at least outside—my soleless shoes.And everywhere the veldt has been burnt by grass–fires—every breeze carries about the fine black dust, and five minutes after washing, your hands and arms and face are as grimy and black as ever—as if you were in London again.Bathing “the altogether” too often is apt to result in fever. Too much washing of hands is apt to help veldt sores to originate—so we don’t trouble to keep clean.Veldt sores bother nearly every one of us.Every scratch you get (and you get a good number from thorns, etc.) at once becomes a small sore, gradually grows, and lasts sometimes for weeks. It is partly the effect of hot sun and dry air too rapidly drying up the wound, and also probably the blood is not in too good a state from living on unchanging diet of tinned half salt beef and tinned vegetables. We have very little variety, except when we loot some sheep or kill a buck. No vegetables, and we are out of sugar, tea, cocoa, and rice.ill-403A Dangerous PracticeWashing, although indulged in as a luxury, is not to be commended as a practice on the veldt. Bathing “the altogether” is apt to bring on fever, and too frequent washing of the hands and face is apt to render them susceptible to veldt sores.Matches are at a premium, pipes are manufactured out of mealie corn–cobs and small reeds. Tobacco is very scarce—tea leaves were in use till the tea came to an end.26th October.—We struck the Gwelo–Victoria road, and it seems quite strange to be once more in civilised (!) country, and not to have to find our own way over every river, and not to be on the look–out for lions at night, etc. Even the spoor of natives fails to excite us much, as most of them about here appear to be giving in. But we hope we may not be too late to help Paget have a final slap at Monogula—one of these koppie–holding gentry who has not yet experienced a bombardment by artillery.It is delightful marching among the hills of this Selukwe district; they are well wooded, and run up here and there into mountains. A lot of the trees are still in their autumn tints, while the others are just budding out (for it is spring here), the young grass is greenifying the low–lying land, and even the black burnt veldt is now brightened up with a great variety of wild flowers—these are what I call bluebells, cowslips, dandelions, snowdrops, sweet peas, sweet williams, convolvulus, and poppies, and many more. Not that they are these flowers actually, but asthey have some faint resemblance, I like to be reminded by them of the English flowers.And the woods are cheery with the chirp and whistle of the birds, and though there are no songsters among them, there is a fellow whose note is like a robin, another like a chaffinch, and, best of all, one who distantly resembles a thrush. And overhead the trilling pipe of a big brown hawk brings back at once the glaring heat of India.And then the peeps, between the trees of wooded peaks beyond show one such colours as can’t be found in paint–boxes. Where would you get that pearly lilac of the lit–up face of the rock or the pure deep blue of the shadows?All about among the hills are gold reefs pegged out with notice–boards, and near them the wattle and daub houses of miners—all deserted and looted, but not burnt.27th October.—The roads are awful for our wretched mules, so hilly, stony, and dusty, but we have struggled on, and at last, on the 27th, we have joined Colonel Paget’s column. This column consists just now of merely a squadron of 7th Hussars, the West Riding Mounted Infantry being away on patrol.Such a breakfast they gave us on arrival, withmilk (tinned), fish, jam, etc. etc. Beautiful camp under the trees. English mails and newspapers, the first for a month. News of Nansen’s return, and of my brother George bringing Nansen home in his yachtOtaria, just what I had hoped Admiral Markham was going to do, taking me with him; we talked of it two years ago.ill406A Roadside Inn in MatabelelandPassing, in the Selukwe district, an inn which had been looted but not burnt by the rebels, the comic man of the mounted infantry acted the part of landlord with the aid of a board and a couple of empty bottles.In the course of the day two messengers from N’dema (one of the two great rebels of this district) came in to say that he had heard of Wedza’s being knocked out of his stronghold, and so had come to surrender, and soon after N’dema himself,and five of his chiefs arrived. They were soon sent off to Gwelo under escort.In the afternoon I went with Paget, Carew, and others, to have a look at Monogula’s stronghold from a distance. It did not look a very desperate place.28th October.—I started off with Carew, 7th Hussars, and a party of ten men, and my orderly Parkyn, to call on Monogula. We went by moonlight, so that he should not be alarmed at our numbers. On arriving near the stronghold soon after daylight, the escort hid in the bush, and, leaving our rifles with them, Parkyn and I rode out into the open in front of the kraal, and, waving a towel as a flag of truce, we told the rebels we were men of peace come to talk with them—that the men of war were not far behind us, and would be there before another sun rose, unless they (the rebels) came to talk over the situation. The great White Queen was getting a little vexed with Monogula; all the other chiefs of note had surrendered or been licked except him: if he did not now take this chance of surrendering, he would be knocked out and his lands given to another, etc. etc. Most eloquent we were! but all in vain. Our shouts only roused up birds from their feeds of spilt grain in the kraal. There was no reply,nor was there any fresh spoor on the many paths. We went closer and closer up on the rocks,—nobody fired at us—they were not there! We had a good look round, and then returned to report to Colonel Paget, who had meanwhile moved up the laager to within three miles of the place.When blazing midday was over, the men and the 7–pounder were moved out to the stronghold. The gun fired half a dozen shells into the place, and the 7th Hussars then advanced along the ridge into the kraal, while I came up from below with the Mounted Infantry. Suddenly there was an outburst of firing in the kraal above us as we scaled the height—I knew it was the 7th Hussars firing into it as a precautionary measure before entering, but the Mounted Infantry supposed that the enemy had been found, and it was a treat to see them dash forward, each man taking his own line, and eager to be first up the rocky face of the koppie, and they were very disgusted to find nobody to fight when they got to the top.A few weeks ago there had been a different tale to tell. A patrol of 7th Hussars under Captain Carew had then got up to the wall that defended the main kraal. One man was shot dead close to the wall, when his companion, without a second’spause, mounted the wall, and pistolled the firer of the shot.The body of the white man was taken by his comrades to their camp, eight miles away, and buried there with honours. But when our column passed that way two days ago, the cross was there, but the grave yawned wide and empty. The enemy had been there since, and, as they often do, had taken out the corpse to make up fetish “medicines” for themselves.The caves under this koppie were typical of the usual thing met with now. You creep in through a narrow little hole, down crevices between rocks—every here and there a crevice leading to the open air gives you light, and a chance of shooting anybody passing by or looking in from outside. Then you come to a roomy cave, from which other tunnels lead out downwards to more caves—the tunnel being occasionally a perpendicular shaft of 20 or 30 feet, which is negotiated by means of a tree–trunk roughly made into a ladder. The caves and their passages worm about inside the koppie, with frequent peeps and bolt–holes to open air, and so are grand refuges for a few desperate rebels. In Monogula’s we placed thirty–four cases of dynamite, and at one grand burst blew up the whole koppie, so thatwhere there had been hill there remained but a crater.ill410A Cave StrongholdElevation and section of the same koppie, showing the caves shaded.The natives, when they return, will scarcely recognise the site of their once famous stronghold, and they will acknowledge that the white man’s God is stronger than their own M’limo.Previous to demolishing the caves, we had ofcourse removed, for our own use, the stores of grain which had been stowed away for the rebel garrison. In searching for this grain, the men had lighted on a place in which the bodies had been thrust of those rebels who had fallen when our last patrol had visited the kraal, and, to our satisfaction, we now found that nine were killed, and among them two Cape Boys, one of whom, Hendricks by name, was noted as a rifle–shot. He had two bullets through his head; so the shooting of the hussars must have been pretty straight for the few minutes they were at it! Indeed, the shooting of the Imperial troops in this campaign has been particularly good, and has won the admiration of the Dutchmen fighting with us.29th October.—My patrol being now over, the mounted infantry started to–day for their march down country to take ship for India, and I was right sorry to part from so good a lot of soldiers. I only wished that they could have had reward for all their keenness and hard work—in the shape of a really good fight with the Matabele.I, myself, now took my way to Gwelo, to be examined by a Court of Inquiry as to why I had sanctioned the execution of Uwini. My only defence is, that it was the only right thing under the circumstances.In connection with what I had done in the case of Uwini, I was rather struck by reading to–day, anent the siege of Delhi, the following remark by John Nicholson to an officer who had said to him, “It is hard, sir, when one has fagged horses and men to death, to be told that one has exceeded orders.” “If you served under me,” were Nicholson’s words, “that would be impossible; my instructions are, always to do everything that can be done.”Gwelo is on a bare, open flat, with a sea–like horizon of veldt. Half a dozen small houses dotted about at two hundred yards apart. A crowded collection of corrugated iron rooms within a rampart of logs and earth forms the fort—kept very clean and neat, which is a change from Buluwayo. But, otherwise, there is not much to commend Gwelo to the artist, traveller, or temperance man.Major Thorold in command has done wonders in bringing order into the place, and his officers (local forces) ably support him, and—have a very well–done mess.But the command of Gwelo is no sinecure. There are “lawyers” in the camp. The following are among their ebullitions:—Copy of cablegram to Secretary of State, which would have gone, butthat the would–be sender was fourpence short of the £24 required for its transmission. “Man named Thorold questioned my sobriety this morning, and called doctor to decide. Doctor drunk himself, could not decide. I said, willing to put in resignation, as a man is not a machine....Who is this Thorold?”Another man telegraphed to headquarters, to ask “When will Gwelo force be disbanded? Without competent officers it is only a farce. Have applied to be discharged; application simply ignored!”The General had telegraphed to me to await him here, as he would shortly been routefor Salisbury, calling at Gwelo on the way.All war is now over in Matabeleland—and Wedza’s may be said to have been the final blow. Plumer’s corps near the Matopos, and Robertson’s Cape Boys have been disbanded, and the 7th Hussars are ordered into rainy–season quarters at Buluwayo.But in Mashonaland the rebels still hold out, and now and then a wire arrives to tell of further fights.And one I heard of on arriving here was of saddest interest about Major Evans of Alderson’s Mounted Infantry, who came out from Englandwith me. I knew him well on board, and two days before we sailed he had married.... In his first action he fell, shot through the heart.Of the officers of this Mounted Infantry who came out with me, several others have been hit in action, viz. Captain Sir Horace MacMahon, Lieutenants French and Eustace.3rd November.—Gwelo is said to have a great future before it, but hasn’t much of a present—a little of it goes a long way. Combined with this, a lion had killed two donkeys on the road five miles S.E., and seven lions had been seen five miles N.W., this morning, so I determined to spend my next few days of waiting for the General in an outing for shooting lions. At 2 p. m. I was to start, horses, etc., all ready packed with food and blankets.At 1 p. m. arrived a telegram from the General, saying that some rebels were reported in the Insimba Hills, near Enkeldoorn, seventy miles N.E. from Gwelo on the Salisbury road, and directing that either Paget or I should take a column of two hundred there without delay. Nothing would have suited us better. Being all ready to start, Paget sent me off to divert the 7th Hussars, who were expected this afternoon from the Selukwe, on to the Salisbury road, while he (Paget) followed on that road direct with extra supplies. So that night found one again in camp on the war–path.ill415Our HorsesThe grey is the sole survivor of my five horses. Prince Teck is the officer holding him.The next few days were spent marching through green bush country and open grass vleis, uninhabited except by game.Being now a sort of “serrefile” or hanger–on to the column, as Paget had come in command, I had lots of time to amuse myself, riding at a distance from the column with my gun ready. We saw wildebeeste, hartebeeste, ostriches, sable and roan antelopes, etc. Carew and I got two beauties of the latter on the 5th, and these supplied the whole camp with fresh meat. I got also a very fine tiger–cat (almost like a small leopard).The longest march seems short when one is hunting game. Your whole attention is fixed at the same time on “distant views,” and on the spoor beneath your nose. Your gun is ready, and every sense is on the alert to see the game. Lion or leopard, boar or buck, nigger or nothing, you never know what is going to turn up. And what an appetite one has at the end of a twelve–mile march, when the folding mess–table is set up, and the Indian cook of the 7th has produced his excellent repast!My only trouble is that I have lost two of my three horses; they broke loose from camp inthe night, and strayed, poor starving brutes, in search of grass, and could not be found. And my remaining horse is very thin and weak. However, I got a pair of veldt schoen (Dutch shoes) at Gwelo, and so can do much of the march on foot now.Another blow to me is the loss of Diamond, my Zulu boy, who wants to go home. I offered to take him to Beira, and to pay his passage home from there—but no, he must go backviâBuluwayo. Why? Because he has a lot of money there,—his savings,—which he has hidden, and no one else can find them.I didn’t know till to–day how to fry liver and bacon—the liver, after being cut in thin strips, should be dipped into a plate of mixed salt, pepper, and dry mustard, before going into the frying–pan. A small matter, but it makes a difference.We journey on by Iron–Mine Hill, Orton’s Drift to Enkeldoorn, seventy miles from Gwelo, and forty from Charter.Meantime, my clothes are in tatters. I remember a lady at a fancy dress ball at Simla figuring as a “beggar maid.” She was dressed in a black frock with bits of flesh–coloured silk stitched on to it here and there to look likeholes! Many people said it was ratherchic(some usingthe softch, others the hard). I am in the same state, only there is no need to stitch on flesh–coloured silk, and I don’t know that I look verychic; but it’s curious to find oneself getting sunburnt in an entirely new place: when bathing, I found that my right knee and thigh have their beautiful alabaster–like surface marred by eight irregular blotches of ruddy sunburn!Rain has been threatening occasionally. Two or three days have been most oppressively hot, and clouds have gathered at nightfall, with mutterings of thunder, and distant lightning. We have put our waterproof sheets ready on going to bed, and sometimes have spread the waggon–sails over the waggons, and have gone to sleep dreaming of the fate in store for us campaigning in wet weather, with the roads impassable for mud, and the drifts unfordable for days together. But we have waked at dawn to find a bright, clear sky overhead, and the promise of another sunny, breezy day. But the rains are evidently not far off.9th November.—Reached Enkeldoorn, just three huts forming a coach change–station, on open, rolling downs. The laager made by the Dutch farmers of the surrounding district is three miles distant.At Enkeldoorn I have been lucky enough to find a covered waggon standing abandoned (one wheel smashed), and have taken possession of it as my house, since the weather is very boisterous and promises rain to–night.P.S.—The promise was fulfilled—it rained hard, and I was happy. I liked the tilt of my waggon so well, that when we marched next day I took it with me; a frame of poles made it into a very comfortable tent in camp.10th November.—We moved to near the Dutch laager, and interviewed the Native Commissioner and others. The laager a most impregnable jam of waggons, strengthened with palisades, sandbags, etc., and surrounded by an entanglement of reims and barbed wire. It was full of women and children and Boers (two hundred of them), from all the farms within a circle of twenty miles round. These farmers brought over two thousand oxen (one man told me seven thousand) to the laager when the rebellion broke out, and now there were but seventy left—such is Rinderpest.The people in the laager lived on fresh meat very largely, the men going out daily to shoot game. A pile of skulls and horns of sable and roan antelope, wildebeeste, etc., showed how successful they had been.The boys of the laager seemed to be fitted out with hats of such a size that they would have to be grown into, and would then do for them in their grown–up years. The young idea was also learning to shoot by using crossbows, and it was interesting to see what good positions they got into for firing in the quickest manner, using aim and trigger just as with a gun. A crossbow should be an excellent instrument for teaching the elements of rifle–shooting.ill421The Young Idea Learning to ShootThe little Dutch boys practise shooting at a mark (generally an empty meat–tin) with the crossbow. With this weapon the aim and the use of the trigger are very much the same as with the rifle, and in this way they become good shots.The Boer pig–sty is a simple one. A round hole in the ground, eight feet across, four feet deep; the pig, once in, can’t get out. A dry ox–hide, laid over one side of the hole, serves as a shelter from sun or rain.Leaving our waggons (except two with rations, etc.) at Enkeldoorn that evening, we marched a few miles in the direction of Taba Insimba, and bivouacked at nightfall. Taba Insimba (Mountainof Iron) is a long wall–like range, with a slice cut through it at one point, looking much like the canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. In this cutting or pass, or, as the Dutch call it, “poort,” the rebels are said to be living in caves in the cliffs, strongly barricaded with stone walls—about eight hundred of them—very defiant. Soon after our reaching Enkeldoorn they had signalled our arrival with smoke–fires. The place is twenty–five miles from Enkeldoorn, but our horses and mules are not up to dashing to the place, so we have come as light as possible, carrying two days’ rations on our saddles, and leaving the waggons to follow.Twenty Boers from the Enkeldoorn laager are with us, and also about a hundred friendly natives with Taylor, the N.C.11th November.—Marched all morning, rested all the day, and marched on again after dark, across the wide, perfectly–open flats, till, by 10 p. m., we were within a mile of the place, and then we off–saddled and bivouacked—no talking nor smoking allowed. At 2.30 we were roused up, and formed into our places for the attack. I like the weird, subdued impatience of all the preliminaries for a night surprise.Colonel Paget was to take the mounted infantry and small portable Maxim on to the topof one cliff overlooking the gorge, so as to fire into the caves in the opposite cliff; another party were to be below at the foot of the gorge, to attack these caves under cover of the fire from above. I was ordered to go with Carew’s squadron of 7th Hussars, taking our horses (the remainder of the troop were dismounted), over the ridge, and round to the back of the gorge, to cut off the enemy’s line of retreat.We reached the ridge just when it was getting sufficiently light,—as the Dutchman would say, “to see the horns of an ox,”—clambered up the steep, stony hill through the bush, then down the other side, where there lay before us, in the early light, a panorama of bush and tree–tops.Our guide was one Bester, a Boer, whose farm was here. At the outbreak of the rebellion his father had been wounded, his mother killed, and he and his brother only escaped after killing a number of the rebels, and being nearly killed themselves. We passed through the ashes of their home on our way. His uncle I remembered well as field cornet on the Transvaal border, in our operations against Dinizulu, in Zululand, in 1888.The Magneze Poort, in which the rebels were (for we soon knew that theywerethere, by thebarking of dogs, the talking of men, and calling of women, etc.), was a huge cleft, with rocky sides, and a bubbling torrent roaring through. On arriving in rear of the place, we found ourselves in a valley between numerous bush–covered hills. The line of retreat open to the defenders of the stronghold in the gorge was across an open glade of long white grass, along the foot of the steep mountain–side.It was broad daylight by the time we had got to our position, and we had not long been waiting there before we heard excited shouting from the natives on the top of the opposite cliffs, answered by those in the gorge below; then pop—bom—pop—pop, as the firing began; rifles cracking, and blunderbores roaring back their muffled reply from caves; soon the “isiqwakwa” (Maxim) joined in with its sharp “rat–tat–tat–tat–tat,” from the top of the ridge. Ere long, a party of the enemy were seen hastily making their way across the open grass in front of us; a moment later, and a troop of the hussars had burst from their hidden station in the bush, and were galloping, swords drawn and gleaming, straight for the astonished rebels. But the charge was not to be; the rocky stream, with boggy banks, was the slip that lay between the cup and the lip, and baulked thesabreurs of their wish; but they did not wait to lament. In a trice they were off their horses, carbine in hand, and soon were popping merrily at the foes they could not get at hand–to–hand. While thus engaged, Carew sent round another troop to cut off any rebels who might succeed in running the gauntlet of fire.Finding themselves stopped, some ran back among the rocks, and contented themselves with wasting ammunition in long shots at us, while others lay among the tall white grass—to wait until the clouds rolled by. But these latter were soon moved by the clouds, in the shape of Lieutenant Holford and a few dismounted men, moving on them through the grass, and thus compelling their retreat at point–blank range, or their surrender. This party counted fifteen dead bodies, and found a few women and children, whom they brought back. Among these were, unfortunately, four wounded—three children and one woman, hit by stray bullets as they were lying hid in the grass.ill426A Children’s HospitalSome women and children had hidden themselves in the long grass between the enemy and ourselves, and four of them were consequently struck by stray bullets. They were brought in, and we bandaged them up and brought them into camp. The men of the 7th Hussars made excellent amateur nurses.Three times in this campaign have I taken out to the field with me a few bandages and dressings in my holster, and on each occasion I have found full use for them. I don’t know whether it is coincidence or not—but here was another occasion. Our one doctor was with the main body on the other side of the mountain, so I got to work on the poor little devils. Curiously enough, thewomen and two of the children were hit in the same place,i.e.through the lower part of the thigh, clear of bone and of artery; simple wounds, and easily patched up; while the fourth, a small boy with a very bad temper, had half his calf torn away by a splinter of rock or a ricochet bullet. None of them seemed to feel much pain except him, and he kept kicking and grovelling his poor little leg in the dust when the girl who had charge of him tried to do anything to it. So it was in a bad mess by the time I got an opportunity to get to work on it. It did one good to see one or two of the hussars, fresh from nigger–fighting, giving their help in binding up the youngsters, and tenderly dabbing the wounded limbs with bits of their own shirts wetted. I invented a perfect form of field–syringe for this occasion, which I think I’ll patent when I get home. You make and use it thus—at least I did: Take an ordinary native girl, tell her to go and get some lukewarm water, and don’t give her anything to get it in. She will go to the stream, kneel, and fill her mouth, and so bring the water; by the time she is back, the water is lukewarm. You then tell her to squirt it as you direct into the wound, while you prize around with a feather (I had lost what I otherwise invariablycarry with me—a soft paint–brush). It works very well.Well, we went on with the squadron among the hills, at the back of the position, and burned a kraal. Vaughan, one of Carew’s subalterns, has developed a talent as great, or greater, than that of any colonial, for finding native corn or cattle, be they hidden never so wisely. He brought in from the bush a bunch of lively, healthy cattle.Then, firing having ceased everywhere, and smoke of burning kraals being seen curling up in columns from the stronghold, we ceased from war, and sat us down in a shady glade by the running stream, and soon had breakfast under way.Later on we got back to our laager, and found that the main body had completely surprised the rebels before they could take to the caves (they had been sleeping outside in huts), and, altogether, twenty–six were killed; the rest had fled in different directions. Our people, well hidden in the rocks and bush, had not had a single casualty.So ended my most happy roaming on patrol.The General was expected at Enkeldoorn next morning; so, in the afternoon, I started off, riding one horse and leading another, to do the twenty–five miles between us. At nightfall a heavy thunderstorm rolled up, but I was lucky in beingnear a deserted farmhouse, where I took shelter, with my horses, in the verandah. A wheelbarrow made me a comfortable lounge in which to eat my frugal but rather indigestible meal of cold pig, dough, and tea. I did not live inside the house, as lurking Matabele fugitives might have watched me in, and could have nicely caught me; but in the open verandah I should be quite a match for them. I was glad next day I had acted so, for Lord Grey’s party, camping near the house, found in the rafters of the room a fine, great, green mamba snake.Well, when the rain was over, I rode on in the night; the spoor I had been following was now washed out, but I steered by moon and time until I thought I was near Enkeldoorn, and, not seeing the camp, then prepared to bivouac till daylight, when a sudden small flash, as of a man striking a match, sparkled on a hill close by; and on I went, and found myself at the laager, against the bayonet of a Boer sentry, whose pipe–light had been my guide.Delighted to hear about the fight, he gave me back the news that the General had already arrived. Not long after, I had wedged myself in between Vyvyan and Ferguson in their tent, and was sleeping like a log.At home it may seem strange to talk of a sentry’s pipe, but, in this country, smoking is not a very grave offence. A Colonial volunteer officer, hearing of our army orders on the subject, thought to smarten up his men a bit; so, finding one of his night sentries smoking, he ordered him to consider himself a prisoner. The following was then overheard by some one sleeping near:—Sentry.“What, not smoke on sentry? Then where the——amI to smoke?”Captain Brown.“Of courseit’s not allowed; and I shall make you a prisoner.”Sentry(taking his pipe from his mouth, and tapping Brown—who, in time of peace, was his butcher—on the arm with the stem of it). “Now, look here, Brown, don’t go and make a——fool of yourself. If you do, I’ll go elsewhere for my meat!”And Brown didn’t.CHAPTER XVIIThrough Mashonaland13th November to 2nd DecemberI proceed with the General to Mashonaland—A new fashionable Pastime to be found in Spooring—Charter—Our Daily Trek—Salisbury—The inevitable Alarmist Rumours and their Inventors—Celebrities in Salisbury—A Visit to the Hospital—Cecil Rhodes in Council—A Run with the Hounds, with a Check at the Telegraph Line—A Countess saves her Sewing–Machine and kills a Lion—Marshal MacMahon’s Aide–de–Camp as a Trooper in Mashonaland—The Delays incident to being at the End of a Wire—The Rains begin—The Situation in Mashonaland.13th November.—Up early. Paid off and sorrowfully said “Good–bye” to Diamond and Umtini, my two nigger servants.And in the afternoon the General moved on from Enkeldoorn towards Salisbury. The party consisted of Sir Frederick, Vyvyan, Ferguson, Gormley (our principal medical officer), Leech (who manages our transport), three waggons, a Cape cart, and lots of riding–horses, servants, office–clerks, etc.ill432“Diamond”My Zulu servant. Well–named “Diamond,” for he was a jewel of a servant.This night we camped at Adlum’s Farm (the green mamba house, where I had “dined” the night before), and found Lord Grey and party also camped here on their way to Salisbury.I had walked the march on foot, hoping to find buck, and called, coatless and dirty, just as I was, at Lord Grey’s camp in passing to our own. Lady Grey insisted on my sitting down to dinner then and there with them—and a very jolly dinner it was. It made rather a good picture when Lister held the saucepan of rice, while I helped it out to Lady Victoria, who was “asking for more.”Lady Victoria has developed the talent for spooring, which will therefore probably become the fashionable pastime among the young ladies of this country; if not, on introduction in England, instead of the usual “Do you bike?” you will ask, “Do you spoor?”That night I had a real good sleep, for out of the previous eighty–seven hours only sixteen had been slept, and many of the others had been expended in pretty good bodily exertion.ill433————General Sir F. Carrington——Captain Vyvyan, Brigade–Major————————Lieut. Ferguson, A.D.C.Headquarters’ MessSir Frederick had brought me English letters.15th November.—Charter. One has heard of it so much, and seen it writ large in the map so often, that it comes as a surprise to find it is only a tiny laager of half a dozen waggons, round which huts are being built, ready for the rainy season. An unhealthy–looking place on low ground, beside a stagnant, muddy stream.Here Sir Frederick, as usual, met an old friend in the first trooper he saw. “Good day, my lad. Not much of a place to be quartered in, this.”“No, sir.”“I have seen you before, somewhere.”“Yes, sir, my name is——. I was in your Police Regiment two years. I lunched with you at Kimberley Club five years ago. Since then I have been running a ‘penny steamer’ on the Zambesi. Unhealthy? Yes; always down with fever, but I had luck, and was able to get up again. Came down here to recover, and took on as a trooper for the war.”It is the story of many another cadet of good family moving in these parts.Our ninety–eight miles from Enkeldoorn to Salisbury lay, as per usual, through bush–grown veldt, and was a heavy sandy track, and which meant hard pulling for the mules.We generally rolled out of our blankets at dawn—cocoa—and, mounting our horses, rode into the bush with gun or rifle, each taking his own line to the next outspan.Lord Grey’s party shot to northward of the road, and the south side was our preserve; but neither side yielded much game. By seven or eight o’clock the waggons, having done their eight or ten miles, outspanned. A buck–sail stretched over the tilts of two gave a shady room between, in which we sheltered from the midday heat. Then, in the afternoon, we trekked again till sundown. Dinner, and to bed by nine. A most peaceful, delightful, but terribly fattening life! luckily, some of us had some leeway to make up in that line.19th November.—On a rock, in a small koppie close to our outspan of last night, were a lot of Bushman paintings of animals—some badly, but some very well drawn—in red monochrome. One elephant and a buck were particularly good.ill436Specimen of Old Rock–Painting by Natives in Mashonaland.We were met by Colonel Alderson and other officers from Salisbury, as we rode in the last six miles of our journey.Salisbury—two widely–spread townships in a basin among wooded rising grounds, with little of the regularity of building plots as seen in Buluwayo, but altogether a prettier–looking spot. Houses mostly of bright red brick with white tin roofs—all single–storeyed and verandahed, of course; many of them with nice gardens. One wooded hill overlooks the town, and on this stands the original Fort Salisbury, built by the “pioneers” who first opened up Mashonaland in 1891. At the foot of this hill runs the only regular street of the place—where all the stores, etc., are situated. The rest of the two townships was described to me thus: “There’s the post office, there are the Government buildings, there is the hospital, and there is the club—the remainder are mostly drink–shops.” This is maligning the town rather—but it has its allowance of “drink–shops” all the same.We were put up in the Commercial Hotel, and had nice offices provided near the Government Offices. And we settled down in a few minutes most comfortably.It is curious to come off the veldt, where we have not seen a sign of natives for days, almost weeks past, although hunting about—all of us—off the road in the bush, and yet to be told on arrivalhere that they don’t consider the road safe yet—that the rebels are still about everywhere!Then comes an alarming telegram from Buluwayo to say: “A white man murdered close to the town; general rising of the natives expected; town–guard of volunteers without pay being formed,” etc. Again one of those unmeaning panics, which seems to strike people who have been living on tenter–hooks for a short time—sort of spasms that revisit them now and again till their nerves are restored. But it is very annoying, and often involves moving troops about for fear thatthistime it should be a true report. We have already caught two or three lunatics who had spread such rumours, and sent them out of the country, but there is apparently at least one left. A nervous man is forty thousand times worse than a frightened woman, especially when, as is the case here, he has any number of drink–fuddled “funk–sticks” ready to echo his alarm.I remember being in a theatre when an inexplicable movement took place among the people in the pit. Almost immediately a “funk–stick” in the dress circle, seeing the commotion, but not seeing the cause for it, shouted out his own fear—“Fire!” In a moment others like him echoed his cry, and there was for some few minutes a verypretty exhibition of panic. Manly heroes handing out the women? Not a bit of it; jumping over them to get first to the door!Salisbury is just now full of interesting celebrities—Major Forbes, fresh from the country beyond the Zambesi, where he was administrating the Company’s affairs, and pushing on the telegraph to Khartoum. He had been reported killed in the rebellion, but had got down all right, although his companion was murdered.Captain Younghusband, sent by theTimesto report on the South African situation generally, having just done three months’ visit to the Transvaal among my old friends Paul Kruger, Joubert, etc. etc., at Pretoria.H. Cust, M.P., filling himself up with local information and experience, and with lots of good to say of George (of all people!). Lord and Lady Grey and Lady Victoria, Cecil Rhodes, Sir Charles Metcalfe, etc.21st November.—The General visited the hospital to see the sick and wounded. There were three officers still in, Sir Horace MacMahon and Eustace (both shipmates of mine on theTantallon), both severely wounded in the foot, but going on well.Montgomery shot in the head, and consequentlypartially paralysed; trepanned, and doing well. About a dozen men. One poor chap was shot in both arms; one had been amputated, the other was all smashed above the elbow, but the doctors hope to save it. He also had two or three slight wounds about the body, but was as cheery as possible and getting on well.One curious case we saw there was a young fellow who had been lost on the veldt. His party had searched for him several days, but never found him, and supposed that he was killed. Six weeks afterwards, a party of Dutchmen were hunting that veldt, and they found a path close to their camp leading down to water with fresh spoor of a man on it. During the few days they were there, they noticed the spoor came fresh each day. They watched, and saw this man come down to drink, but when they tried to approach, he fled, and got down an ant–bear hole, where he evidently lived. They could not persuade him to come out, and so finally had to dig him out. They found he was quite off his head—unable to talk—living only on roots and berries. They took him to Salisbury, and when we saw him, he was all right, except he had lost nearly all his teeth, and could not remember much of the time when he was lost.ill441Black and WhiteThe work of nursing our sick and wounded was undertaken by Sisters of Mercy, who slaved their lives out at the duty, having only one or two native boys to help them in the menial work.The hospital nursing staff consists of eight nuns, who do excellent work. Like the Sisters in Buluwayo, they are most self–sacrificing and constant in their attention to the sick and wounded of the force. The General and I went and saw them in their own house, and had a long talk with them. The Superior (a very cheerful, sweet–faced young woman) was an old friend of his, having been a nurse at one of his hospitals for the Bechuanaland Police.The General and his staff have been supplied with bikes by the Chartered Company (they have a number of them for the police), and they are invaluable for getting about the widespread town. The General takes us for gallops now and then, which really do one a lot of good after a load of office work. The roads are fair and the country open and pretty, and the air most delightful, except when, as it was to–day, it was dense with locusts.The outskirts of the township boast a number of nice houses with good gardens and—what is best—deep creeper–grown verandahs.The house, for instance, where Lord Grey is living (Mr. Pauling’s) is a most delightful one—with English furniture; its billiard–room and everything as though in the midst of civilisation, instead of being two hundred miles away from a railway.At our hotel I’ve slept at last in a room—thefirst time for over two months. I tried it the night of our arrival here, but it would not work, and very soon I had my blankets outside in the street! But this night the clouds rolled up, and the first taste of the rainy season came down in sheets at night.22nd November.—Among other items of the day, we (the General, Ferguson, and I) rode up on our bikes and called on Rhodes. We found him living in a very pleasant house belonging to Judge Vintcent, who had been commandant of Salisbury all through the rebellion, and being a true old Carthusian, he had his walls covered with photos, etc., of Charterhouse groups, etc. I was very sorry to find that he had gone off to the Cape on leave, on account of his wife’s health and his own.Meantime, Rhodes occupied his house and, when I saw him, his arm–chair. For Rhodes had been out before daybreak, and was now making up some sleep lost thereby, but insuchan uncomfortable position.ill445Younghusband Baden–Powell Sir F. Carrington Lady V. Grey Sir C. Metcalfe Graham (M.F.H.) Alderson Lord Grey Cecil RhodesThe Opening Meet of the Salisbury Hounds (after the War)This was rather characteristic of him: where other people would have been sleepless from discomfort of body and wear of mind, he was sleeping sweetly; but then he is always thinking or doing what you don’t expect. In talking over ways and means or plans of campaign, he almost invariably throws quite a new light on the subject, and has a totally different plan, and one which is often the best of the lot, especially from the Chartered Company’s point of view, as far as ultimate results go, not present expenditure—that is the point that often makes us pause, but he never seems to think of it, for he looks to the better economy in the end. And while he talks he doesn’t sit still, but he’ll be sprawling all over the sofa one minute, the next he’ll have his legs crossed under him,à la Turc—full of restlessness and energy.23rd November.—Meet of the hounds at Rhodes’ house. The pack has been kept in the laager during the dangerous time—fed on Boer meal. Is hunted by Graham, the Postmaster. We were a field of twenty–seven,—which is not bad, considering how few horses are now fit for work,—all in shirt sleeves. One lady (Lady Victoria Grey). We got on to a buck within half a mile of the house, and had a gallop. I was riding near Rhodes, who was thoroughly enjoying the working of the hounds, till suddenly something better attracted his notice, and we passed under the telegraph line from Cape Town to, or rather towards, Cairo—and he at once went into particulars of that, and showed how the iron posts were made, according to his design, in two parts, so that they would not be too heavy for niggersto carry in the bush and fly country—wooden poles useless, on account of the inroads of white ants; and then we continued our gallop.Talking of inroads,—we hear that the jigger, an insect the size of a pin’s head, is invading South Africa. He came from the West Coast, and is now down as far as Beira. I know the beast: he got me coming back from Kumassi, and planted his eggs under my toe–nail, and I had ten minutes’ genuine fun while the doctor cut them out.Curious how the little pest should be able to cross Africa, and make himself a scourge in a new bit of country,—just as the rinderpest has done,—taking three years to get here from Somaliland.25th November.—I dined with Wilson Fox, old Carthusian, Public Prosecutor, Director of Commissariat and Transport, and a good singer—so pretty useful all round.This morning I took a toss off my bike and damaged my knees, so that I stand over like an old cab–horse.27th November.—For the past four days the telegraph line between this and Cape Town has been down, and we have been unable to get sanction to our proposed move out of the country.The rains are beginning (thunderstorms nearly every afternoon), a man per day dying for the last six days, which is a large order in so small a force.Dined at Lord Grey’s to–night, and there also dined the Count and Countess de la P——e. No more interesting couple could be found in the country. I listened open–mouthed to their adventures. He was formerly captain in the French navy and A.D.C. to MacMahon, and has four war medals and ten orders. She was “slavey” in a London boarding–house. They came up here before women were allowed in the country—she dressed as a boy, and so got admitted. They started with £40 and one cow; in three years they owned a large farm and 160 cows, and were clearing £250 a month dairy–farming and butchering. Rinderpest and rebellion suddenly stopped this, and swept away all they had. He took his waggon and span of donkeys to Chimoio, and spent the whole of their money in getting a load of food and luxuries to sell in Salisbury. She remained at the farm, with one nigger boy to protect her.The Count brought his waggon up the road in company with two other traders’ waggons—six white men and one American young lady. Thirty miles from Salisbury they found on the road thebodies of a white family—father, mother, and children,—lying, just murdered. They began to bury them, when a volley was fired on them at short range, killing a number of donkeys. They embarked in the lightest waggon, the Count losing his waggon and stores. They trekked on, pursued by rebels, who kept firing, without daring to attack, or even to show themselves out of the bush. This went on for two days and one night, till they reached Salisbury. The girl, meanwhile, had been very plucky—merely asked to be supplied with a revolver, with which to shoot herself if the worst came to the worst; and she got one of the men to promise to do it for her if her courage failed.But they got in all right. Meanwhile, the Countess, living out at the farm, five miles from Salisbury, received warning by messenger to come in to laager; and when she delayed about it, they sent four friendlies as a guard for her. Her account of it, told in a very matter–of–fact cockney way, was most refreshing—“You see, they had murdered our neighbours that day, and I couldn’t help thinking about it. So I didn’t go to bed that night, but just put on a blouse and skirt, and lay down on the bed, after barricading the door. Well, in the nightI was startled first by a waggon going past at full speed; drivers yelling at the mules and cracking their whips,—this was the waggon going to Mazoe to rescue the women there. I could not sleep. By and by I heard a noise, and, looking through a hole in the door, I saw niggers—plenty of them—close to the house, and on three sides of it. I got the rifle, slipped on my bandolier, seized up my revolver–belt, and jumped out of the back window and ran. As I got over the wall of the garden, I upset an iron bucket with an awful clang. At the same time, my boy, running out of the kitchen, knocked against two frying–pans that were hanging up there, and made worse din. But he got away, and joined me in the bush above the house. There we hid for the rest of the night behind a gravestone. They did not burn the house; and next morning, after waiting some time, to see if any of them were about, I got so impatient about it, that I sent the boy down,—to see if my sewing–machine was all right,—and he soon came back with it. He had found it close to the well: a nigger had got it, and was clearing with it, when he was assegaied by one of the Zambesi boys. Lucky they killed him a few yards from the well; another step, and my sewing–machine would have been down the well. But the Zambesi boys were all killed—lying about round the front door. Well, then we made our way into Salisbury; and I had no sooner got there than I found that, like the stupid I was, I had brought the revolver–case, empty—in the confusion I had left the revolver behind. So, says I, I must go back and get that revolver.ill452The Countess Rescues herSewing–MachineWhen her house was attacked at night by rebels, four of her native guards were killed, and she herself was compelled to hide with the surviving boy till daylight, when, the enemy having cleared out, she went back and got her sewing–machine which had been dropped by the looters among the dead boys in the garden.“There was a patrol just then going out, so I got them to let me go with them and back to my house. I made my way through the murdered Zambesi boys, but I didn’t stop to look at them, I was that anxious to get my revolver; and I got it all right, and glad I was to come away with it; not but what it’s getting worn–out now, I think, as it wouldn’t act the other night when I wanted it to; but it’s the one I’ve shot a lion with, so I like it. Oh, he was only a very old lion; but, ye see, he used to come pretty near every night to our camp, and snap up one or other of thedogs. One night he even got into our dining–hut, where there was a ham hanging from the roof; he got on to the table to reach it down; but the table was a rickety concern and came down with him, and I had stupidly left the cloth on overnight, and a nice lot of holes he made in it with his claws. Well, one evening I heard the old brute moving in the sluit, close to the camp; so I called to the boy to get the gun, and come up with me into the waggon, and I took the revolver. Soon we heard the lion coming along the path, kicking oranges—them hard–rinded things—with his feet. I says to the boy, ‘There he is, shoot!’ But the boy couldn’t see him; and so I says, ‘Oh, if you’re going to take all night to shoot him, here goes!’ and with that I up with my revolver, and lets off a shot at him. The lion sprang forward to the waggon, and I give him another, that sent him back where he came from, and he rolled about a bit in the sluit, and died there. I had hit him right in the neck.“What about the other night? Oh, I hate to think of it—my luck was dead out that night! Three nights ago it was, I heard a curious noise at the back of the house, here in Salisbury; so I put on my indiarubber shoes, and takes my pistol, and I slips round to see what it is; andthere I find a man—a white man, mind you—trying to break into the house. So I catches him by the neck with one hand” (the Countess is a small, slim person), “and put the revolver in his face with the other, and tells ‘im to keep quiet; but he wriggles, and gets loose. Well, I catches hold of his shirt, and that tears; then I catches his trousers, they tears; and with that he bolts away. Well, I up with my pistol and fired, and fired. But whether it was the cartridges was bad, or there was something wrong with the pistol—go off it wouldn’t; and so that man got away.”But if the Countess was amusing and original, so was the Count in his way. He had been a great elephant hunter in Central Africa. Used to hunt, like Selous, in only a shirt, belt, and hat; no shoes. Killed 103 elephants in one season. Ever charged by an elephant? No, but an elephant was charged by him. Following up a wounded elephant, it took down a steep hillside in thick bush. He tore after it,—an elephant goes very slowly down a steep place,—so he rushed right on to it before he saw it. However, he put up his heavy rifle and fired up into its head and killed it, but the angle of the gun was so great as to knock him down, the stock in its recoil cutting his cheek all open, and leaving him senseless. His boys wentback and told his friends in camp that both he and the elephant were killed, the elephant having put his tusk through his cheek.“Srough my cheek! The elephant had a tusk so long as my body, and so thick as my leg, how can he put it through mycheek? I should have nofaceleft.”The Count, upon coming into laager at Salisbury after the loss of his donkey–waggon, was made a trooper. He an ex–captain of the navy, with four war medals, while his commanding officer was a barman at one of the public–houses! The excuse for this apparent anomaly was that he had known what it was to be an officer, and he might now let the others have a chance of trying. The troop consisted of 120, but of these only 50 were available for duty, the rest were nearly all officers.In spite of having lost everything, the Count and Countess seemed very cheery and hopeful, and are longing to get to work again on their farm. They deserve to prosper.29th November.—Part of the mounted infantry and the invalids were at last to start down towards Beira for embarkation. The General was to inspect the corps before they started. We went over to the camp (I, being an invalid, owing to my broken knees, was kindly taken by Lady Grey in her Cape cart).Just as we got there, a black wall of cloud arrived from the opposite direction. A roar of thunder warned us off, a sharp volley of rain followed. The General dismissed the parade, and we all scampered for home as hard as we could go, pursued by a drenching downpour. All the afternoon and all the night it came down in sheets; the rains had begun. Now comes the anxiety of learning whether we shall be able to get out of the country at all for the next four months.The rivers rise, the ground becomes a bog, and mules can’t work if their coats are wet, as the harness rubs them raw. It rather shows the danger of working to order at the end of a long telegraph line. Every thunderstorm (and they have been plentiful of late) breaks down the telegraph line somewhere, so that messages take many days to come and go, and we have already wasted a week here merely waiting for replies.1st December.—For two days it has been fine, as far as actual rain goes, but dead still and hot—boiling hot, banking up for more rain. Very little work and very little play, for Salisbury is, to say the least of it, a littletristejust now. No news from the outside world at all. The club has a pile of old newspapers (none newer than September 12th) lying on the table, and we go and read theseover again like dogs at a bone, hoping yet to find a scrap of interesting matter somewhere in them, even though it be among the advertisements.We had hoped to start to–morrow, but now as I go to bed another thunderstorm is on us—the roar of the rain is deafening as it falls in a heavy mass on the roof (glad I am to be under a roof, too!). One hardly hears the thunder through, but the lightning is incessant and beautiful; but I wish we were well over the road that lies between us and the sea!
CHAPTER XVIClearing the Mashona Frontier25th October to 15th NovemberFilthiness is next to Healthiness—Through the Selukwe District—We join Colonel Paget’s Column for the Attack on Monogula’s—On visiting the Stronghold we find it deserted—We clear and destroy the Place—Gwelo—The Difficulties of a Commandant—The End of the War in Matabeleland—We are ordered to Taba Insimba—Enkledoorn Laager—Night March—We attack Taba Insimba (Magneze Poort)—Doctoring wounded Enemies—A Patent Syringe—I return to the General—Smoking on Sentry.For the next four days we have continued our march,—practically across country, as there were a few cart–tracks, some leading right and some wrong, but I had got the right landmarks from one of Jackson’s boys before he left us (which he did at the end of our patrol). We now left his—the Belingwe—district and got into the Gwelo country.25th October.—Although it’s Sunday, which we generally make a day for divine service and forrest, we have had to put in a lot of marching in order to get to Paget in fair time. One cannot reckon on doing so many miles a day in this country; you can only say it will be so many hours. For instance, it took us five hours to do two miles two different days in this march,i.e.in making drifts over bad rivers like the Singweza and the Lundi.We are a wonderfully dirty and ragged–looking crew now—especially me, because I left Buluwayo six weeks ago to join this column only with such things as I could carry on a led pony (including bedding and food). My breeches and shirts are in tatters, my socks have nearly disappeared in shreds. Umtini, my Matabele boy, has made sandals for me to wear over—or at least outside—my soleless shoes.And everywhere the veldt has been burnt by grass–fires—every breeze carries about the fine black dust, and five minutes after washing, your hands and arms and face are as grimy and black as ever—as if you were in London again.Bathing “the altogether” too often is apt to result in fever. Too much washing of hands is apt to help veldt sores to originate—so we don’t trouble to keep clean.Veldt sores bother nearly every one of us.Every scratch you get (and you get a good number from thorns, etc.) at once becomes a small sore, gradually grows, and lasts sometimes for weeks. It is partly the effect of hot sun and dry air too rapidly drying up the wound, and also probably the blood is not in too good a state from living on unchanging diet of tinned half salt beef and tinned vegetables. We have very little variety, except when we loot some sheep or kill a buck. No vegetables, and we are out of sugar, tea, cocoa, and rice.ill-403A Dangerous PracticeWashing, although indulged in as a luxury, is not to be commended as a practice on the veldt. Bathing “the altogether” is apt to bring on fever, and too frequent washing of the hands and face is apt to render them susceptible to veldt sores.Matches are at a premium, pipes are manufactured out of mealie corn–cobs and small reeds. Tobacco is very scarce—tea leaves were in use till the tea came to an end.26th October.—We struck the Gwelo–Victoria road, and it seems quite strange to be once more in civilised (!) country, and not to have to find our own way over every river, and not to be on the look–out for lions at night, etc. Even the spoor of natives fails to excite us much, as most of them about here appear to be giving in. But we hope we may not be too late to help Paget have a final slap at Monogula—one of these koppie–holding gentry who has not yet experienced a bombardment by artillery.It is delightful marching among the hills of this Selukwe district; they are well wooded, and run up here and there into mountains. A lot of the trees are still in their autumn tints, while the others are just budding out (for it is spring here), the young grass is greenifying the low–lying land, and even the black burnt veldt is now brightened up with a great variety of wild flowers—these are what I call bluebells, cowslips, dandelions, snowdrops, sweet peas, sweet williams, convolvulus, and poppies, and many more. Not that they are these flowers actually, but asthey have some faint resemblance, I like to be reminded by them of the English flowers.And the woods are cheery with the chirp and whistle of the birds, and though there are no songsters among them, there is a fellow whose note is like a robin, another like a chaffinch, and, best of all, one who distantly resembles a thrush. And overhead the trilling pipe of a big brown hawk brings back at once the glaring heat of India.And then the peeps, between the trees of wooded peaks beyond show one such colours as can’t be found in paint–boxes. Where would you get that pearly lilac of the lit–up face of the rock or the pure deep blue of the shadows?All about among the hills are gold reefs pegged out with notice–boards, and near them the wattle and daub houses of miners—all deserted and looted, but not burnt.27th October.—The roads are awful for our wretched mules, so hilly, stony, and dusty, but we have struggled on, and at last, on the 27th, we have joined Colonel Paget’s column. This column consists just now of merely a squadron of 7th Hussars, the West Riding Mounted Infantry being away on patrol.Such a breakfast they gave us on arrival, withmilk (tinned), fish, jam, etc. etc. Beautiful camp under the trees. English mails and newspapers, the first for a month. News of Nansen’s return, and of my brother George bringing Nansen home in his yachtOtaria, just what I had hoped Admiral Markham was going to do, taking me with him; we talked of it two years ago.ill406A Roadside Inn in MatabelelandPassing, in the Selukwe district, an inn which had been looted but not burnt by the rebels, the comic man of the mounted infantry acted the part of landlord with the aid of a board and a couple of empty bottles.In the course of the day two messengers from N’dema (one of the two great rebels of this district) came in to say that he had heard of Wedza’s being knocked out of his stronghold, and so had come to surrender, and soon after N’dema himself,and five of his chiefs arrived. They were soon sent off to Gwelo under escort.In the afternoon I went with Paget, Carew, and others, to have a look at Monogula’s stronghold from a distance. It did not look a very desperate place.28th October.—I started off with Carew, 7th Hussars, and a party of ten men, and my orderly Parkyn, to call on Monogula. We went by moonlight, so that he should not be alarmed at our numbers. On arriving near the stronghold soon after daylight, the escort hid in the bush, and, leaving our rifles with them, Parkyn and I rode out into the open in front of the kraal, and, waving a towel as a flag of truce, we told the rebels we were men of peace come to talk with them—that the men of war were not far behind us, and would be there before another sun rose, unless they (the rebels) came to talk over the situation. The great White Queen was getting a little vexed with Monogula; all the other chiefs of note had surrendered or been licked except him: if he did not now take this chance of surrendering, he would be knocked out and his lands given to another, etc. etc. Most eloquent we were! but all in vain. Our shouts only roused up birds from their feeds of spilt grain in the kraal. There was no reply,nor was there any fresh spoor on the many paths. We went closer and closer up on the rocks,—nobody fired at us—they were not there! We had a good look round, and then returned to report to Colonel Paget, who had meanwhile moved up the laager to within three miles of the place.When blazing midday was over, the men and the 7–pounder were moved out to the stronghold. The gun fired half a dozen shells into the place, and the 7th Hussars then advanced along the ridge into the kraal, while I came up from below with the Mounted Infantry. Suddenly there was an outburst of firing in the kraal above us as we scaled the height—I knew it was the 7th Hussars firing into it as a precautionary measure before entering, but the Mounted Infantry supposed that the enemy had been found, and it was a treat to see them dash forward, each man taking his own line, and eager to be first up the rocky face of the koppie, and they were very disgusted to find nobody to fight when they got to the top.A few weeks ago there had been a different tale to tell. A patrol of 7th Hussars under Captain Carew had then got up to the wall that defended the main kraal. One man was shot dead close to the wall, when his companion, without a second’spause, mounted the wall, and pistolled the firer of the shot.The body of the white man was taken by his comrades to their camp, eight miles away, and buried there with honours. But when our column passed that way two days ago, the cross was there, but the grave yawned wide and empty. The enemy had been there since, and, as they often do, had taken out the corpse to make up fetish “medicines” for themselves.The caves under this koppie were typical of the usual thing met with now. You creep in through a narrow little hole, down crevices between rocks—every here and there a crevice leading to the open air gives you light, and a chance of shooting anybody passing by or looking in from outside. Then you come to a roomy cave, from which other tunnels lead out downwards to more caves—the tunnel being occasionally a perpendicular shaft of 20 or 30 feet, which is negotiated by means of a tree–trunk roughly made into a ladder. The caves and their passages worm about inside the koppie, with frequent peeps and bolt–holes to open air, and so are grand refuges for a few desperate rebels. In Monogula’s we placed thirty–four cases of dynamite, and at one grand burst blew up the whole koppie, so thatwhere there had been hill there remained but a crater.ill410A Cave StrongholdElevation and section of the same koppie, showing the caves shaded.The natives, when they return, will scarcely recognise the site of their once famous stronghold, and they will acknowledge that the white man’s God is stronger than their own M’limo.Previous to demolishing the caves, we had ofcourse removed, for our own use, the stores of grain which had been stowed away for the rebel garrison. In searching for this grain, the men had lighted on a place in which the bodies had been thrust of those rebels who had fallen when our last patrol had visited the kraal, and, to our satisfaction, we now found that nine were killed, and among them two Cape Boys, one of whom, Hendricks by name, was noted as a rifle–shot. He had two bullets through his head; so the shooting of the hussars must have been pretty straight for the few minutes they were at it! Indeed, the shooting of the Imperial troops in this campaign has been particularly good, and has won the admiration of the Dutchmen fighting with us.29th October.—My patrol being now over, the mounted infantry started to–day for their march down country to take ship for India, and I was right sorry to part from so good a lot of soldiers. I only wished that they could have had reward for all their keenness and hard work—in the shape of a really good fight with the Matabele.I, myself, now took my way to Gwelo, to be examined by a Court of Inquiry as to why I had sanctioned the execution of Uwini. My only defence is, that it was the only right thing under the circumstances.In connection with what I had done in the case of Uwini, I was rather struck by reading to–day, anent the siege of Delhi, the following remark by John Nicholson to an officer who had said to him, “It is hard, sir, when one has fagged horses and men to death, to be told that one has exceeded orders.” “If you served under me,” were Nicholson’s words, “that would be impossible; my instructions are, always to do everything that can be done.”Gwelo is on a bare, open flat, with a sea–like horizon of veldt. Half a dozen small houses dotted about at two hundred yards apart. A crowded collection of corrugated iron rooms within a rampart of logs and earth forms the fort—kept very clean and neat, which is a change from Buluwayo. But, otherwise, there is not much to commend Gwelo to the artist, traveller, or temperance man.Major Thorold in command has done wonders in bringing order into the place, and his officers (local forces) ably support him, and—have a very well–done mess.But the command of Gwelo is no sinecure. There are “lawyers” in the camp. The following are among their ebullitions:—Copy of cablegram to Secretary of State, which would have gone, butthat the would–be sender was fourpence short of the £24 required for its transmission. “Man named Thorold questioned my sobriety this morning, and called doctor to decide. Doctor drunk himself, could not decide. I said, willing to put in resignation, as a man is not a machine....Who is this Thorold?”Another man telegraphed to headquarters, to ask “When will Gwelo force be disbanded? Without competent officers it is only a farce. Have applied to be discharged; application simply ignored!”The General had telegraphed to me to await him here, as he would shortly been routefor Salisbury, calling at Gwelo on the way.All war is now over in Matabeleland—and Wedza’s may be said to have been the final blow. Plumer’s corps near the Matopos, and Robertson’s Cape Boys have been disbanded, and the 7th Hussars are ordered into rainy–season quarters at Buluwayo.But in Mashonaland the rebels still hold out, and now and then a wire arrives to tell of further fights.And one I heard of on arriving here was of saddest interest about Major Evans of Alderson’s Mounted Infantry, who came out from Englandwith me. I knew him well on board, and two days before we sailed he had married.... In his first action he fell, shot through the heart.Of the officers of this Mounted Infantry who came out with me, several others have been hit in action, viz. Captain Sir Horace MacMahon, Lieutenants French and Eustace.3rd November.—Gwelo is said to have a great future before it, but hasn’t much of a present—a little of it goes a long way. Combined with this, a lion had killed two donkeys on the road five miles S.E., and seven lions had been seen five miles N.W., this morning, so I determined to spend my next few days of waiting for the General in an outing for shooting lions. At 2 p. m. I was to start, horses, etc., all ready packed with food and blankets.At 1 p. m. arrived a telegram from the General, saying that some rebels were reported in the Insimba Hills, near Enkeldoorn, seventy miles N.E. from Gwelo on the Salisbury road, and directing that either Paget or I should take a column of two hundred there without delay. Nothing would have suited us better. Being all ready to start, Paget sent me off to divert the 7th Hussars, who were expected this afternoon from the Selukwe, on to the Salisbury road, while he (Paget) followed on that road direct with extra supplies. So that night found one again in camp on the war–path.ill415Our HorsesThe grey is the sole survivor of my five horses. Prince Teck is the officer holding him.The next few days were spent marching through green bush country and open grass vleis, uninhabited except by game.Being now a sort of “serrefile” or hanger–on to the column, as Paget had come in command, I had lots of time to amuse myself, riding at a distance from the column with my gun ready. We saw wildebeeste, hartebeeste, ostriches, sable and roan antelopes, etc. Carew and I got two beauties of the latter on the 5th, and these supplied the whole camp with fresh meat. I got also a very fine tiger–cat (almost like a small leopard).The longest march seems short when one is hunting game. Your whole attention is fixed at the same time on “distant views,” and on the spoor beneath your nose. Your gun is ready, and every sense is on the alert to see the game. Lion or leopard, boar or buck, nigger or nothing, you never know what is going to turn up. And what an appetite one has at the end of a twelve–mile march, when the folding mess–table is set up, and the Indian cook of the 7th has produced his excellent repast!My only trouble is that I have lost two of my three horses; they broke loose from camp inthe night, and strayed, poor starving brutes, in search of grass, and could not be found. And my remaining horse is very thin and weak. However, I got a pair of veldt schoen (Dutch shoes) at Gwelo, and so can do much of the march on foot now.Another blow to me is the loss of Diamond, my Zulu boy, who wants to go home. I offered to take him to Beira, and to pay his passage home from there—but no, he must go backviâBuluwayo. Why? Because he has a lot of money there,—his savings,—which he has hidden, and no one else can find them.I didn’t know till to–day how to fry liver and bacon—the liver, after being cut in thin strips, should be dipped into a plate of mixed salt, pepper, and dry mustard, before going into the frying–pan. A small matter, but it makes a difference.We journey on by Iron–Mine Hill, Orton’s Drift to Enkeldoorn, seventy miles from Gwelo, and forty from Charter.Meantime, my clothes are in tatters. I remember a lady at a fancy dress ball at Simla figuring as a “beggar maid.” She was dressed in a black frock with bits of flesh–coloured silk stitched on to it here and there to look likeholes! Many people said it was ratherchic(some usingthe softch, others the hard). I am in the same state, only there is no need to stitch on flesh–coloured silk, and I don’t know that I look verychic; but it’s curious to find oneself getting sunburnt in an entirely new place: when bathing, I found that my right knee and thigh have their beautiful alabaster–like surface marred by eight irregular blotches of ruddy sunburn!Rain has been threatening occasionally. Two or three days have been most oppressively hot, and clouds have gathered at nightfall, with mutterings of thunder, and distant lightning. We have put our waterproof sheets ready on going to bed, and sometimes have spread the waggon–sails over the waggons, and have gone to sleep dreaming of the fate in store for us campaigning in wet weather, with the roads impassable for mud, and the drifts unfordable for days together. But we have waked at dawn to find a bright, clear sky overhead, and the promise of another sunny, breezy day. But the rains are evidently not far off.9th November.—Reached Enkeldoorn, just three huts forming a coach change–station, on open, rolling downs. The laager made by the Dutch farmers of the surrounding district is three miles distant.At Enkeldoorn I have been lucky enough to find a covered waggon standing abandoned (one wheel smashed), and have taken possession of it as my house, since the weather is very boisterous and promises rain to–night.P.S.—The promise was fulfilled—it rained hard, and I was happy. I liked the tilt of my waggon so well, that when we marched next day I took it with me; a frame of poles made it into a very comfortable tent in camp.10th November.—We moved to near the Dutch laager, and interviewed the Native Commissioner and others. The laager a most impregnable jam of waggons, strengthened with palisades, sandbags, etc., and surrounded by an entanglement of reims and barbed wire. It was full of women and children and Boers (two hundred of them), from all the farms within a circle of twenty miles round. These farmers brought over two thousand oxen (one man told me seven thousand) to the laager when the rebellion broke out, and now there were but seventy left—such is Rinderpest.The people in the laager lived on fresh meat very largely, the men going out daily to shoot game. A pile of skulls and horns of sable and roan antelope, wildebeeste, etc., showed how successful they had been.The boys of the laager seemed to be fitted out with hats of such a size that they would have to be grown into, and would then do for them in their grown–up years. The young idea was also learning to shoot by using crossbows, and it was interesting to see what good positions they got into for firing in the quickest manner, using aim and trigger just as with a gun. A crossbow should be an excellent instrument for teaching the elements of rifle–shooting.ill421The Young Idea Learning to ShootThe little Dutch boys practise shooting at a mark (generally an empty meat–tin) with the crossbow. With this weapon the aim and the use of the trigger are very much the same as with the rifle, and in this way they become good shots.The Boer pig–sty is a simple one. A round hole in the ground, eight feet across, four feet deep; the pig, once in, can’t get out. A dry ox–hide, laid over one side of the hole, serves as a shelter from sun or rain.Leaving our waggons (except two with rations, etc.) at Enkeldoorn that evening, we marched a few miles in the direction of Taba Insimba, and bivouacked at nightfall. Taba Insimba (Mountainof Iron) is a long wall–like range, with a slice cut through it at one point, looking much like the canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. In this cutting or pass, or, as the Dutch call it, “poort,” the rebels are said to be living in caves in the cliffs, strongly barricaded with stone walls—about eight hundred of them—very defiant. Soon after our reaching Enkeldoorn they had signalled our arrival with smoke–fires. The place is twenty–five miles from Enkeldoorn, but our horses and mules are not up to dashing to the place, so we have come as light as possible, carrying two days’ rations on our saddles, and leaving the waggons to follow.Twenty Boers from the Enkeldoorn laager are with us, and also about a hundred friendly natives with Taylor, the N.C.11th November.—Marched all morning, rested all the day, and marched on again after dark, across the wide, perfectly–open flats, till, by 10 p. m., we were within a mile of the place, and then we off–saddled and bivouacked—no talking nor smoking allowed. At 2.30 we were roused up, and formed into our places for the attack. I like the weird, subdued impatience of all the preliminaries for a night surprise.Colonel Paget was to take the mounted infantry and small portable Maxim on to the topof one cliff overlooking the gorge, so as to fire into the caves in the opposite cliff; another party were to be below at the foot of the gorge, to attack these caves under cover of the fire from above. I was ordered to go with Carew’s squadron of 7th Hussars, taking our horses (the remainder of the troop were dismounted), over the ridge, and round to the back of the gorge, to cut off the enemy’s line of retreat.We reached the ridge just when it was getting sufficiently light,—as the Dutchman would say, “to see the horns of an ox,”—clambered up the steep, stony hill through the bush, then down the other side, where there lay before us, in the early light, a panorama of bush and tree–tops.Our guide was one Bester, a Boer, whose farm was here. At the outbreak of the rebellion his father had been wounded, his mother killed, and he and his brother only escaped after killing a number of the rebels, and being nearly killed themselves. We passed through the ashes of their home on our way. His uncle I remembered well as field cornet on the Transvaal border, in our operations against Dinizulu, in Zululand, in 1888.The Magneze Poort, in which the rebels were (for we soon knew that theywerethere, by thebarking of dogs, the talking of men, and calling of women, etc.), was a huge cleft, with rocky sides, and a bubbling torrent roaring through. On arriving in rear of the place, we found ourselves in a valley between numerous bush–covered hills. The line of retreat open to the defenders of the stronghold in the gorge was across an open glade of long white grass, along the foot of the steep mountain–side.It was broad daylight by the time we had got to our position, and we had not long been waiting there before we heard excited shouting from the natives on the top of the opposite cliffs, answered by those in the gorge below; then pop—bom—pop—pop, as the firing began; rifles cracking, and blunderbores roaring back their muffled reply from caves; soon the “isiqwakwa” (Maxim) joined in with its sharp “rat–tat–tat–tat–tat,” from the top of the ridge. Ere long, a party of the enemy were seen hastily making their way across the open grass in front of us; a moment later, and a troop of the hussars had burst from their hidden station in the bush, and were galloping, swords drawn and gleaming, straight for the astonished rebels. But the charge was not to be; the rocky stream, with boggy banks, was the slip that lay between the cup and the lip, and baulked thesabreurs of their wish; but they did not wait to lament. In a trice they were off their horses, carbine in hand, and soon were popping merrily at the foes they could not get at hand–to–hand. While thus engaged, Carew sent round another troop to cut off any rebels who might succeed in running the gauntlet of fire.Finding themselves stopped, some ran back among the rocks, and contented themselves with wasting ammunition in long shots at us, while others lay among the tall white grass—to wait until the clouds rolled by. But these latter were soon moved by the clouds, in the shape of Lieutenant Holford and a few dismounted men, moving on them through the grass, and thus compelling their retreat at point–blank range, or their surrender. This party counted fifteen dead bodies, and found a few women and children, whom they brought back. Among these were, unfortunately, four wounded—three children and one woman, hit by stray bullets as they were lying hid in the grass.ill426A Children’s HospitalSome women and children had hidden themselves in the long grass between the enemy and ourselves, and four of them were consequently struck by stray bullets. They were brought in, and we bandaged them up and brought them into camp. The men of the 7th Hussars made excellent amateur nurses.Three times in this campaign have I taken out to the field with me a few bandages and dressings in my holster, and on each occasion I have found full use for them. I don’t know whether it is coincidence or not—but here was another occasion. Our one doctor was with the main body on the other side of the mountain, so I got to work on the poor little devils. Curiously enough, thewomen and two of the children were hit in the same place,i.e.through the lower part of the thigh, clear of bone and of artery; simple wounds, and easily patched up; while the fourth, a small boy with a very bad temper, had half his calf torn away by a splinter of rock or a ricochet bullet. None of them seemed to feel much pain except him, and he kept kicking and grovelling his poor little leg in the dust when the girl who had charge of him tried to do anything to it. So it was in a bad mess by the time I got an opportunity to get to work on it. It did one good to see one or two of the hussars, fresh from nigger–fighting, giving their help in binding up the youngsters, and tenderly dabbing the wounded limbs with bits of their own shirts wetted. I invented a perfect form of field–syringe for this occasion, which I think I’ll patent when I get home. You make and use it thus—at least I did: Take an ordinary native girl, tell her to go and get some lukewarm water, and don’t give her anything to get it in. She will go to the stream, kneel, and fill her mouth, and so bring the water; by the time she is back, the water is lukewarm. You then tell her to squirt it as you direct into the wound, while you prize around with a feather (I had lost what I otherwise invariablycarry with me—a soft paint–brush). It works very well.Well, we went on with the squadron among the hills, at the back of the position, and burned a kraal. Vaughan, one of Carew’s subalterns, has developed a talent as great, or greater, than that of any colonial, for finding native corn or cattle, be they hidden never so wisely. He brought in from the bush a bunch of lively, healthy cattle.Then, firing having ceased everywhere, and smoke of burning kraals being seen curling up in columns from the stronghold, we ceased from war, and sat us down in a shady glade by the running stream, and soon had breakfast under way.Later on we got back to our laager, and found that the main body had completely surprised the rebels before they could take to the caves (they had been sleeping outside in huts), and, altogether, twenty–six were killed; the rest had fled in different directions. Our people, well hidden in the rocks and bush, had not had a single casualty.So ended my most happy roaming on patrol.The General was expected at Enkeldoorn next morning; so, in the afternoon, I started off, riding one horse and leading another, to do the twenty–five miles between us. At nightfall a heavy thunderstorm rolled up, but I was lucky in beingnear a deserted farmhouse, where I took shelter, with my horses, in the verandah. A wheelbarrow made me a comfortable lounge in which to eat my frugal but rather indigestible meal of cold pig, dough, and tea. I did not live inside the house, as lurking Matabele fugitives might have watched me in, and could have nicely caught me; but in the open verandah I should be quite a match for them. I was glad next day I had acted so, for Lord Grey’s party, camping near the house, found in the rafters of the room a fine, great, green mamba snake.Well, when the rain was over, I rode on in the night; the spoor I had been following was now washed out, but I steered by moon and time until I thought I was near Enkeldoorn, and, not seeing the camp, then prepared to bivouac till daylight, when a sudden small flash, as of a man striking a match, sparkled on a hill close by; and on I went, and found myself at the laager, against the bayonet of a Boer sentry, whose pipe–light had been my guide.Delighted to hear about the fight, he gave me back the news that the General had already arrived. Not long after, I had wedged myself in between Vyvyan and Ferguson in their tent, and was sleeping like a log.At home it may seem strange to talk of a sentry’s pipe, but, in this country, smoking is not a very grave offence. A Colonial volunteer officer, hearing of our army orders on the subject, thought to smarten up his men a bit; so, finding one of his night sentries smoking, he ordered him to consider himself a prisoner. The following was then overheard by some one sleeping near:—Sentry.“What, not smoke on sentry? Then where the——amI to smoke?”Captain Brown.“Of courseit’s not allowed; and I shall make you a prisoner.”Sentry(taking his pipe from his mouth, and tapping Brown—who, in time of peace, was his butcher—on the arm with the stem of it). “Now, look here, Brown, don’t go and make a——fool of yourself. If you do, I’ll go elsewhere for my meat!”And Brown didn’t.
Clearing the Mashona Frontier
25th October to 15th November
Filthiness is next to Healthiness—Through the Selukwe District—We join Colonel Paget’s Column for the Attack on Monogula’s—On visiting the Stronghold we find it deserted—We clear and destroy the Place—Gwelo—The Difficulties of a Commandant—The End of the War in Matabeleland—We are ordered to Taba Insimba—Enkledoorn Laager—Night March—We attack Taba Insimba (Magneze Poort)—Doctoring wounded Enemies—A Patent Syringe—I return to the General—Smoking on Sentry.
For the next four days we have continued our march,—practically across country, as there were a few cart–tracks, some leading right and some wrong, but I had got the right landmarks from one of Jackson’s boys before he left us (which he did at the end of our patrol). We now left his—the Belingwe—district and got into the Gwelo country.
25th October.—Although it’s Sunday, which we generally make a day for divine service and forrest, we have had to put in a lot of marching in order to get to Paget in fair time. One cannot reckon on doing so many miles a day in this country; you can only say it will be so many hours. For instance, it took us five hours to do two miles two different days in this march,i.e.in making drifts over bad rivers like the Singweza and the Lundi.
We are a wonderfully dirty and ragged–looking crew now—especially me, because I left Buluwayo six weeks ago to join this column only with such things as I could carry on a led pony (including bedding and food). My breeches and shirts are in tatters, my socks have nearly disappeared in shreds. Umtini, my Matabele boy, has made sandals for me to wear over—or at least outside—my soleless shoes.
And everywhere the veldt has been burnt by grass–fires—every breeze carries about the fine black dust, and five minutes after washing, your hands and arms and face are as grimy and black as ever—as if you were in London again.
Bathing “the altogether” too often is apt to result in fever. Too much washing of hands is apt to help veldt sores to originate—so we don’t trouble to keep clean.
Veldt sores bother nearly every one of us.Every scratch you get (and you get a good number from thorns, etc.) at once becomes a small sore, gradually grows, and lasts sometimes for weeks. It is partly the effect of hot sun and dry air too rapidly drying up the wound, and also probably the blood is not in too good a state from living on unchanging diet of tinned half salt beef and tinned vegetables. We have very little variety, except when we loot some sheep or kill a buck. No vegetables, and we are out of sugar, tea, cocoa, and rice.
ill-403
A Dangerous PracticeWashing, although indulged in as a luxury, is not to be commended as a practice on the veldt. Bathing “the altogether” is apt to bring on fever, and too frequent washing of the hands and face is apt to render them susceptible to veldt sores.
A Dangerous PracticeWashing, although indulged in as a luxury, is not to be commended as a practice on the veldt. Bathing “the altogether” is apt to bring on fever, and too frequent washing of the hands and face is apt to render them susceptible to veldt sores.
A Dangerous Practice
Washing, although indulged in as a luxury, is not to be commended as a practice on the veldt. Bathing “the altogether” is apt to bring on fever, and too frequent washing of the hands and face is apt to render them susceptible to veldt sores.
Matches are at a premium, pipes are manufactured out of mealie corn–cobs and small reeds. Tobacco is very scarce—tea leaves were in use till the tea came to an end.
26th October.—We struck the Gwelo–Victoria road, and it seems quite strange to be once more in civilised (!) country, and not to have to find our own way over every river, and not to be on the look–out for lions at night, etc. Even the spoor of natives fails to excite us much, as most of them about here appear to be giving in. But we hope we may not be too late to help Paget have a final slap at Monogula—one of these koppie–holding gentry who has not yet experienced a bombardment by artillery.
It is delightful marching among the hills of this Selukwe district; they are well wooded, and run up here and there into mountains. A lot of the trees are still in their autumn tints, while the others are just budding out (for it is spring here), the young grass is greenifying the low–lying land, and even the black burnt veldt is now brightened up with a great variety of wild flowers—these are what I call bluebells, cowslips, dandelions, snowdrops, sweet peas, sweet williams, convolvulus, and poppies, and many more. Not that they are these flowers actually, but asthey have some faint resemblance, I like to be reminded by them of the English flowers.
And the woods are cheery with the chirp and whistle of the birds, and though there are no songsters among them, there is a fellow whose note is like a robin, another like a chaffinch, and, best of all, one who distantly resembles a thrush. And overhead the trilling pipe of a big brown hawk brings back at once the glaring heat of India.
And then the peeps, between the trees of wooded peaks beyond show one such colours as can’t be found in paint–boxes. Where would you get that pearly lilac of the lit–up face of the rock or the pure deep blue of the shadows?
All about among the hills are gold reefs pegged out with notice–boards, and near them the wattle and daub houses of miners—all deserted and looted, but not burnt.
27th October.—The roads are awful for our wretched mules, so hilly, stony, and dusty, but we have struggled on, and at last, on the 27th, we have joined Colonel Paget’s column. This column consists just now of merely a squadron of 7th Hussars, the West Riding Mounted Infantry being away on patrol.
Such a breakfast they gave us on arrival, withmilk (tinned), fish, jam, etc. etc. Beautiful camp under the trees. English mails and newspapers, the first for a month. News of Nansen’s return, and of my brother George bringing Nansen home in his yachtOtaria, just what I had hoped Admiral Markham was going to do, taking me with him; we talked of it two years ago.
ill406
A Roadside Inn in MatabelelandPassing, in the Selukwe district, an inn which had been looted but not burnt by the rebels, the comic man of the mounted infantry acted the part of landlord with the aid of a board and a couple of empty bottles.
A Roadside Inn in MatabelelandPassing, in the Selukwe district, an inn which had been looted but not burnt by the rebels, the comic man of the mounted infantry acted the part of landlord with the aid of a board and a couple of empty bottles.
A Roadside Inn in Matabeleland
Passing, in the Selukwe district, an inn which had been looted but not burnt by the rebels, the comic man of the mounted infantry acted the part of landlord with the aid of a board and a couple of empty bottles.
In the course of the day two messengers from N’dema (one of the two great rebels of this district) came in to say that he had heard of Wedza’s being knocked out of his stronghold, and so had come to surrender, and soon after N’dema himself,and five of his chiefs arrived. They were soon sent off to Gwelo under escort.
In the afternoon I went with Paget, Carew, and others, to have a look at Monogula’s stronghold from a distance. It did not look a very desperate place.
28th October.—I started off with Carew, 7th Hussars, and a party of ten men, and my orderly Parkyn, to call on Monogula. We went by moonlight, so that he should not be alarmed at our numbers. On arriving near the stronghold soon after daylight, the escort hid in the bush, and, leaving our rifles with them, Parkyn and I rode out into the open in front of the kraal, and, waving a towel as a flag of truce, we told the rebels we were men of peace come to talk with them—that the men of war were not far behind us, and would be there before another sun rose, unless they (the rebels) came to talk over the situation. The great White Queen was getting a little vexed with Monogula; all the other chiefs of note had surrendered or been licked except him: if he did not now take this chance of surrendering, he would be knocked out and his lands given to another, etc. etc. Most eloquent we were! but all in vain. Our shouts only roused up birds from their feeds of spilt grain in the kraal. There was no reply,nor was there any fresh spoor on the many paths. We went closer and closer up on the rocks,—nobody fired at us—they were not there! We had a good look round, and then returned to report to Colonel Paget, who had meanwhile moved up the laager to within three miles of the place.
When blazing midday was over, the men and the 7–pounder were moved out to the stronghold. The gun fired half a dozen shells into the place, and the 7th Hussars then advanced along the ridge into the kraal, while I came up from below with the Mounted Infantry. Suddenly there was an outburst of firing in the kraal above us as we scaled the height—I knew it was the 7th Hussars firing into it as a precautionary measure before entering, but the Mounted Infantry supposed that the enemy had been found, and it was a treat to see them dash forward, each man taking his own line, and eager to be first up the rocky face of the koppie, and they were very disgusted to find nobody to fight when they got to the top.
A few weeks ago there had been a different tale to tell. A patrol of 7th Hussars under Captain Carew had then got up to the wall that defended the main kraal. One man was shot dead close to the wall, when his companion, without a second’spause, mounted the wall, and pistolled the firer of the shot.
The body of the white man was taken by his comrades to their camp, eight miles away, and buried there with honours. But when our column passed that way two days ago, the cross was there, but the grave yawned wide and empty. The enemy had been there since, and, as they often do, had taken out the corpse to make up fetish “medicines” for themselves.
The caves under this koppie were typical of the usual thing met with now. You creep in through a narrow little hole, down crevices between rocks—every here and there a crevice leading to the open air gives you light, and a chance of shooting anybody passing by or looking in from outside. Then you come to a roomy cave, from which other tunnels lead out downwards to more caves—the tunnel being occasionally a perpendicular shaft of 20 or 30 feet, which is negotiated by means of a tree–trunk roughly made into a ladder. The caves and their passages worm about inside the koppie, with frequent peeps and bolt–holes to open air, and so are grand refuges for a few desperate rebels. In Monogula’s we placed thirty–four cases of dynamite, and at one grand burst blew up the whole koppie, so thatwhere there had been hill there remained but a crater.
ill410
A Cave StrongholdElevation and section of the same koppie, showing the caves shaded.
A Cave StrongholdElevation and section of the same koppie, showing the caves shaded.
A Cave Stronghold
Elevation and section of the same koppie, showing the caves shaded.
The natives, when they return, will scarcely recognise the site of their once famous stronghold, and they will acknowledge that the white man’s God is stronger than their own M’limo.
Previous to demolishing the caves, we had ofcourse removed, for our own use, the stores of grain which had been stowed away for the rebel garrison. In searching for this grain, the men had lighted on a place in which the bodies had been thrust of those rebels who had fallen when our last patrol had visited the kraal, and, to our satisfaction, we now found that nine were killed, and among them two Cape Boys, one of whom, Hendricks by name, was noted as a rifle–shot. He had two bullets through his head; so the shooting of the hussars must have been pretty straight for the few minutes they were at it! Indeed, the shooting of the Imperial troops in this campaign has been particularly good, and has won the admiration of the Dutchmen fighting with us.
29th October.—My patrol being now over, the mounted infantry started to–day for their march down country to take ship for India, and I was right sorry to part from so good a lot of soldiers. I only wished that they could have had reward for all their keenness and hard work—in the shape of a really good fight with the Matabele.
I, myself, now took my way to Gwelo, to be examined by a Court of Inquiry as to why I had sanctioned the execution of Uwini. My only defence is, that it was the only right thing under the circumstances.
In connection with what I had done in the case of Uwini, I was rather struck by reading to–day, anent the siege of Delhi, the following remark by John Nicholson to an officer who had said to him, “It is hard, sir, when one has fagged horses and men to death, to be told that one has exceeded orders.” “If you served under me,” were Nicholson’s words, “that would be impossible; my instructions are, always to do everything that can be done.”
Gwelo is on a bare, open flat, with a sea–like horizon of veldt. Half a dozen small houses dotted about at two hundred yards apart. A crowded collection of corrugated iron rooms within a rampart of logs and earth forms the fort—kept very clean and neat, which is a change from Buluwayo. But, otherwise, there is not much to commend Gwelo to the artist, traveller, or temperance man.
Major Thorold in command has done wonders in bringing order into the place, and his officers (local forces) ably support him, and—have a very well–done mess.
But the command of Gwelo is no sinecure. There are “lawyers” in the camp. The following are among their ebullitions:—Copy of cablegram to Secretary of State, which would have gone, butthat the would–be sender was fourpence short of the £24 required for its transmission. “Man named Thorold questioned my sobriety this morning, and called doctor to decide. Doctor drunk himself, could not decide. I said, willing to put in resignation, as a man is not a machine....Who is this Thorold?”
Another man telegraphed to headquarters, to ask “When will Gwelo force be disbanded? Without competent officers it is only a farce. Have applied to be discharged; application simply ignored!”
The General had telegraphed to me to await him here, as he would shortly been routefor Salisbury, calling at Gwelo on the way.
All war is now over in Matabeleland—and Wedza’s may be said to have been the final blow. Plumer’s corps near the Matopos, and Robertson’s Cape Boys have been disbanded, and the 7th Hussars are ordered into rainy–season quarters at Buluwayo.
But in Mashonaland the rebels still hold out, and now and then a wire arrives to tell of further fights.
And one I heard of on arriving here was of saddest interest about Major Evans of Alderson’s Mounted Infantry, who came out from Englandwith me. I knew him well on board, and two days before we sailed he had married.... In his first action he fell, shot through the heart.
Of the officers of this Mounted Infantry who came out with me, several others have been hit in action, viz. Captain Sir Horace MacMahon, Lieutenants French and Eustace.
3rd November.—Gwelo is said to have a great future before it, but hasn’t much of a present—a little of it goes a long way. Combined with this, a lion had killed two donkeys on the road five miles S.E., and seven lions had been seen five miles N.W., this morning, so I determined to spend my next few days of waiting for the General in an outing for shooting lions. At 2 p. m. I was to start, horses, etc., all ready packed with food and blankets.
At 1 p. m. arrived a telegram from the General, saying that some rebels were reported in the Insimba Hills, near Enkeldoorn, seventy miles N.E. from Gwelo on the Salisbury road, and directing that either Paget or I should take a column of two hundred there without delay. Nothing would have suited us better. Being all ready to start, Paget sent me off to divert the 7th Hussars, who were expected this afternoon from the Selukwe, on to the Salisbury road, while he (Paget) followed on that road direct with extra supplies. So that night found one again in camp on the war–path.
ill415
Our HorsesThe grey is the sole survivor of my five horses. Prince Teck is the officer holding him.
Our HorsesThe grey is the sole survivor of my five horses. Prince Teck is the officer holding him.
Our Horses
The grey is the sole survivor of my five horses. Prince Teck is the officer holding him.
The next few days were spent marching through green bush country and open grass vleis, uninhabited except by game.
Being now a sort of “serrefile” or hanger–on to the column, as Paget had come in command, I had lots of time to amuse myself, riding at a distance from the column with my gun ready. We saw wildebeeste, hartebeeste, ostriches, sable and roan antelopes, etc. Carew and I got two beauties of the latter on the 5th, and these supplied the whole camp with fresh meat. I got also a very fine tiger–cat (almost like a small leopard).
The longest march seems short when one is hunting game. Your whole attention is fixed at the same time on “distant views,” and on the spoor beneath your nose. Your gun is ready, and every sense is on the alert to see the game. Lion or leopard, boar or buck, nigger or nothing, you never know what is going to turn up. And what an appetite one has at the end of a twelve–mile march, when the folding mess–table is set up, and the Indian cook of the 7th has produced his excellent repast!
My only trouble is that I have lost two of my three horses; they broke loose from camp inthe night, and strayed, poor starving brutes, in search of grass, and could not be found. And my remaining horse is very thin and weak. However, I got a pair of veldt schoen (Dutch shoes) at Gwelo, and so can do much of the march on foot now.
Another blow to me is the loss of Diamond, my Zulu boy, who wants to go home. I offered to take him to Beira, and to pay his passage home from there—but no, he must go backviâBuluwayo. Why? Because he has a lot of money there,—his savings,—which he has hidden, and no one else can find them.
I didn’t know till to–day how to fry liver and bacon—the liver, after being cut in thin strips, should be dipped into a plate of mixed salt, pepper, and dry mustard, before going into the frying–pan. A small matter, but it makes a difference.
We journey on by Iron–Mine Hill, Orton’s Drift to Enkeldoorn, seventy miles from Gwelo, and forty from Charter.
Meantime, my clothes are in tatters. I remember a lady at a fancy dress ball at Simla figuring as a “beggar maid.” She was dressed in a black frock with bits of flesh–coloured silk stitched on to it here and there to look likeholes! Many people said it was ratherchic(some usingthe softch, others the hard). I am in the same state, only there is no need to stitch on flesh–coloured silk, and I don’t know that I look verychic; but it’s curious to find oneself getting sunburnt in an entirely new place: when bathing, I found that my right knee and thigh have their beautiful alabaster–like surface marred by eight irregular blotches of ruddy sunburn!
Rain has been threatening occasionally. Two or three days have been most oppressively hot, and clouds have gathered at nightfall, with mutterings of thunder, and distant lightning. We have put our waterproof sheets ready on going to bed, and sometimes have spread the waggon–sails over the waggons, and have gone to sleep dreaming of the fate in store for us campaigning in wet weather, with the roads impassable for mud, and the drifts unfordable for days together. But we have waked at dawn to find a bright, clear sky overhead, and the promise of another sunny, breezy day. But the rains are evidently not far off.
9th November.—Reached Enkeldoorn, just three huts forming a coach change–station, on open, rolling downs. The laager made by the Dutch farmers of the surrounding district is three miles distant.
At Enkeldoorn I have been lucky enough to find a covered waggon standing abandoned (one wheel smashed), and have taken possession of it as my house, since the weather is very boisterous and promises rain to–night.
P.S.—The promise was fulfilled—it rained hard, and I was happy. I liked the tilt of my waggon so well, that when we marched next day I took it with me; a frame of poles made it into a very comfortable tent in camp.
10th November.—We moved to near the Dutch laager, and interviewed the Native Commissioner and others. The laager a most impregnable jam of waggons, strengthened with palisades, sandbags, etc., and surrounded by an entanglement of reims and barbed wire. It was full of women and children and Boers (two hundred of them), from all the farms within a circle of twenty miles round. These farmers brought over two thousand oxen (one man told me seven thousand) to the laager when the rebellion broke out, and now there were but seventy left—such is Rinderpest.
The people in the laager lived on fresh meat very largely, the men going out daily to shoot game. A pile of skulls and horns of sable and roan antelope, wildebeeste, etc., showed how successful they had been.
The boys of the laager seemed to be fitted out with hats of such a size that they would have to be grown into, and would then do for them in their grown–up years. The young idea was also learning to shoot by using crossbows, and it was interesting to see what good positions they got into for firing in the quickest manner, using aim and trigger just as with a gun. A crossbow should be an excellent instrument for teaching the elements of rifle–shooting.
ill421
The Young Idea Learning to ShootThe little Dutch boys practise shooting at a mark (generally an empty meat–tin) with the crossbow. With this weapon the aim and the use of the trigger are very much the same as with the rifle, and in this way they become good shots.
The Young Idea Learning to ShootThe little Dutch boys practise shooting at a mark (generally an empty meat–tin) with the crossbow. With this weapon the aim and the use of the trigger are very much the same as with the rifle, and in this way they become good shots.
The Young Idea Learning to Shoot
The little Dutch boys practise shooting at a mark (generally an empty meat–tin) with the crossbow. With this weapon the aim and the use of the trigger are very much the same as with the rifle, and in this way they become good shots.
The Boer pig–sty is a simple one. A round hole in the ground, eight feet across, four feet deep; the pig, once in, can’t get out. A dry ox–hide, laid over one side of the hole, serves as a shelter from sun or rain.
Leaving our waggons (except two with rations, etc.) at Enkeldoorn that evening, we marched a few miles in the direction of Taba Insimba, and bivouacked at nightfall. Taba Insimba (Mountainof Iron) is a long wall–like range, with a slice cut through it at one point, looking much like the canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. In this cutting or pass, or, as the Dutch call it, “poort,” the rebels are said to be living in caves in the cliffs, strongly barricaded with stone walls—about eight hundred of them—very defiant. Soon after our reaching Enkeldoorn they had signalled our arrival with smoke–fires. The place is twenty–five miles from Enkeldoorn, but our horses and mules are not up to dashing to the place, so we have come as light as possible, carrying two days’ rations on our saddles, and leaving the waggons to follow.
Twenty Boers from the Enkeldoorn laager are with us, and also about a hundred friendly natives with Taylor, the N.C.
11th November.—Marched all morning, rested all the day, and marched on again after dark, across the wide, perfectly–open flats, till, by 10 p. m., we were within a mile of the place, and then we off–saddled and bivouacked—no talking nor smoking allowed. At 2.30 we were roused up, and formed into our places for the attack. I like the weird, subdued impatience of all the preliminaries for a night surprise.
Colonel Paget was to take the mounted infantry and small portable Maxim on to the topof one cliff overlooking the gorge, so as to fire into the caves in the opposite cliff; another party were to be below at the foot of the gorge, to attack these caves under cover of the fire from above. I was ordered to go with Carew’s squadron of 7th Hussars, taking our horses (the remainder of the troop were dismounted), over the ridge, and round to the back of the gorge, to cut off the enemy’s line of retreat.
We reached the ridge just when it was getting sufficiently light,—as the Dutchman would say, “to see the horns of an ox,”—clambered up the steep, stony hill through the bush, then down the other side, where there lay before us, in the early light, a panorama of bush and tree–tops.
Our guide was one Bester, a Boer, whose farm was here. At the outbreak of the rebellion his father had been wounded, his mother killed, and he and his brother only escaped after killing a number of the rebels, and being nearly killed themselves. We passed through the ashes of their home on our way. His uncle I remembered well as field cornet on the Transvaal border, in our operations against Dinizulu, in Zululand, in 1888.
The Magneze Poort, in which the rebels were (for we soon knew that theywerethere, by thebarking of dogs, the talking of men, and calling of women, etc.), was a huge cleft, with rocky sides, and a bubbling torrent roaring through. On arriving in rear of the place, we found ourselves in a valley between numerous bush–covered hills. The line of retreat open to the defenders of the stronghold in the gorge was across an open glade of long white grass, along the foot of the steep mountain–side.
It was broad daylight by the time we had got to our position, and we had not long been waiting there before we heard excited shouting from the natives on the top of the opposite cliffs, answered by those in the gorge below; then pop—bom—pop—pop, as the firing began; rifles cracking, and blunderbores roaring back their muffled reply from caves; soon the “isiqwakwa” (Maxim) joined in with its sharp “rat–tat–tat–tat–tat,” from the top of the ridge. Ere long, a party of the enemy were seen hastily making their way across the open grass in front of us; a moment later, and a troop of the hussars had burst from their hidden station in the bush, and were galloping, swords drawn and gleaming, straight for the astonished rebels. But the charge was not to be; the rocky stream, with boggy banks, was the slip that lay between the cup and the lip, and baulked thesabreurs of their wish; but they did not wait to lament. In a trice they were off their horses, carbine in hand, and soon were popping merrily at the foes they could not get at hand–to–hand. While thus engaged, Carew sent round another troop to cut off any rebels who might succeed in running the gauntlet of fire.
Finding themselves stopped, some ran back among the rocks, and contented themselves with wasting ammunition in long shots at us, while others lay among the tall white grass—to wait until the clouds rolled by. But these latter were soon moved by the clouds, in the shape of Lieutenant Holford and a few dismounted men, moving on them through the grass, and thus compelling their retreat at point–blank range, or their surrender. This party counted fifteen dead bodies, and found a few women and children, whom they brought back. Among these were, unfortunately, four wounded—three children and one woman, hit by stray bullets as they were lying hid in the grass.
ill426
A Children’s HospitalSome women and children had hidden themselves in the long grass between the enemy and ourselves, and four of them were consequently struck by stray bullets. They were brought in, and we bandaged them up and brought them into camp. The men of the 7th Hussars made excellent amateur nurses.
A Children’s HospitalSome women and children had hidden themselves in the long grass between the enemy and ourselves, and four of them were consequently struck by stray bullets. They were brought in, and we bandaged them up and brought them into camp. The men of the 7th Hussars made excellent amateur nurses.
A Children’s Hospital
Some women and children had hidden themselves in the long grass between the enemy and ourselves, and four of them were consequently struck by stray bullets. They were brought in, and we bandaged them up and brought them into camp. The men of the 7th Hussars made excellent amateur nurses.
Three times in this campaign have I taken out to the field with me a few bandages and dressings in my holster, and on each occasion I have found full use for them. I don’t know whether it is coincidence or not—but here was another occasion. Our one doctor was with the main body on the other side of the mountain, so I got to work on the poor little devils. Curiously enough, thewomen and two of the children were hit in the same place,i.e.through the lower part of the thigh, clear of bone and of artery; simple wounds, and easily patched up; while the fourth, a small boy with a very bad temper, had half his calf torn away by a splinter of rock or a ricochet bullet. None of them seemed to feel much pain except him, and he kept kicking and grovelling his poor little leg in the dust when the girl who had charge of him tried to do anything to it. So it was in a bad mess by the time I got an opportunity to get to work on it. It did one good to see one or two of the hussars, fresh from nigger–fighting, giving their help in binding up the youngsters, and tenderly dabbing the wounded limbs with bits of their own shirts wetted. I invented a perfect form of field–syringe for this occasion, which I think I’ll patent when I get home. You make and use it thus—at least I did: Take an ordinary native girl, tell her to go and get some lukewarm water, and don’t give her anything to get it in. She will go to the stream, kneel, and fill her mouth, and so bring the water; by the time she is back, the water is lukewarm. You then tell her to squirt it as you direct into the wound, while you prize around with a feather (I had lost what I otherwise invariablycarry with me—a soft paint–brush). It works very well.
Well, we went on with the squadron among the hills, at the back of the position, and burned a kraal. Vaughan, one of Carew’s subalterns, has developed a talent as great, or greater, than that of any colonial, for finding native corn or cattle, be they hidden never so wisely. He brought in from the bush a bunch of lively, healthy cattle.
Then, firing having ceased everywhere, and smoke of burning kraals being seen curling up in columns from the stronghold, we ceased from war, and sat us down in a shady glade by the running stream, and soon had breakfast under way.
Later on we got back to our laager, and found that the main body had completely surprised the rebels before they could take to the caves (they had been sleeping outside in huts), and, altogether, twenty–six were killed; the rest had fled in different directions. Our people, well hidden in the rocks and bush, had not had a single casualty.
So ended my most happy roaming on patrol.
The General was expected at Enkeldoorn next morning; so, in the afternoon, I started off, riding one horse and leading another, to do the twenty–five miles between us. At nightfall a heavy thunderstorm rolled up, but I was lucky in beingnear a deserted farmhouse, where I took shelter, with my horses, in the verandah. A wheelbarrow made me a comfortable lounge in which to eat my frugal but rather indigestible meal of cold pig, dough, and tea. I did not live inside the house, as lurking Matabele fugitives might have watched me in, and could have nicely caught me; but in the open verandah I should be quite a match for them. I was glad next day I had acted so, for Lord Grey’s party, camping near the house, found in the rafters of the room a fine, great, green mamba snake.
Well, when the rain was over, I rode on in the night; the spoor I had been following was now washed out, but I steered by moon and time until I thought I was near Enkeldoorn, and, not seeing the camp, then prepared to bivouac till daylight, when a sudden small flash, as of a man striking a match, sparkled on a hill close by; and on I went, and found myself at the laager, against the bayonet of a Boer sentry, whose pipe–light had been my guide.
Delighted to hear about the fight, he gave me back the news that the General had already arrived. Not long after, I had wedged myself in between Vyvyan and Ferguson in their tent, and was sleeping like a log.
At home it may seem strange to talk of a sentry’s pipe, but, in this country, smoking is not a very grave offence. A Colonial volunteer officer, hearing of our army orders on the subject, thought to smarten up his men a bit; so, finding one of his night sentries smoking, he ordered him to consider himself a prisoner. The following was then overheard by some one sleeping near:—
Sentry.“What, not smoke on sentry? Then where the——amI to smoke?”
Captain Brown.“Of courseit’s not allowed; and I shall make you a prisoner.”
Sentry(taking his pipe from his mouth, and tapping Brown—who, in time of peace, was his butcher—on the arm with the stem of it). “Now, look here, Brown, don’t go and make a——fool of yourself. If you do, I’ll go elsewhere for my meat!”
And Brown didn’t.
CHAPTER XVIIThrough Mashonaland13th November to 2nd DecemberI proceed with the General to Mashonaland—A new fashionable Pastime to be found in Spooring—Charter—Our Daily Trek—Salisbury—The inevitable Alarmist Rumours and their Inventors—Celebrities in Salisbury—A Visit to the Hospital—Cecil Rhodes in Council—A Run with the Hounds, with a Check at the Telegraph Line—A Countess saves her Sewing–Machine and kills a Lion—Marshal MacMahon’s Aide–de–Camp as a Trooper in Mashonaland—The Delays incident to being at the End of a Wire—The Rains begin—The Situation in Mashonaland.13th November.—Up early. Paid off and sorrowfully said “Good–bye” to Diamond and Umtini, my two nigger servants.And in the afternoon the General moved on from Enkeldoorn towards Salisbury. The party consisted of Sir Frederick, Vyvyan, Ferguson, Gormley (our principal medical officer), Leech (who manages our transport), three waggons, a Cape cart, and lots of riding–horses, servants, office–clerks, etc.ill432“Diamond”My Zulu servant. Well–named “Diamond,” for he was a jewel of a servant.This night we camped at Adlum’s Farm (the green mamba house, where I had “dined” the night before), and found Lord Grey and party also camped here on their way to Salisbury.I had walked the march on foot, hoping to find buck, and called, coatless and dirty, just as I was, at Lord Grey’s camp in passing to our own. Lady Grey insisted on my sitting down to dinner then and there with them—and a very jolly dinner it was. It made rather a good picture when Lister held the saucepan of rice, while I helped it out to Lady Victoria, who was “asking for more.”Lady Victoria has developed the talent for spooring, which will therefore probably become the fashionable pastime among the young ladies of this country; if not, on introduction in England, instead of the usual “Do you bike?” you will ask, “Do you spoor?”That night I had a real good sleep, for out of the previous eighty–seven hours only sixteen had been slept, and many of the others had been expended in pretty good bodily exertion.ill433————General Sir F. Carrington——Captain Vyvyan, Brigade–Major————————Lieut. Ferguson, A.D.C.Headquarters’ MessSir Frederick had brought me English letters.15th November.—Charter. One has heard of it so much, and seen it writ large in the map so often, that it comes as a surprise to find it is only a tiny laager of half a dozen waggons, round which huts are being built, ready for the rainy season. An unhealthy–looking place on low ground, beside a stagnant, muddy stream.Here Sir Frederick, as usual, met an old friend in the first trooper he saw. “Good day, my lad. Not much of a place to be quartered in, this.”“No, sir.”“I have seen you before, somewhere.”“Yes, sir, my name is——. I was in your Police Regiment two years. I lunched with you at Kimberley Club five years ago. Since then I have been running a ‘penny steamer’ on the Zambesi. Unhealthy? Yes; always down with fever, but I had luck, and was able to get up again. Came down here to recover, and took on as a trooper for the war.”It is the story of many another cadet of good family moving in these parts.Our ninety–eight miles from Enkeldoorn to Salisbury lay, as per usual, through bush–grown veldt, and was a heavy sandy track, and which meant hard pulling for the mules.We generally rolled out of our blankets at dawn—cocoa—and, mounting our horses, rode into the bush with gun or rifle, each taking his own line to the next outspan.Lord Grey’s party shot to northward of the road, and the south side was our preserve; but neither side yielded much game. By seven or eight o’clock the waggons, having done their eight or ten miles, outspanned. A buck–sail stretched over the tilts of two gave a shady room between, in which we sheltered from the midday heat. Then, in the afternoon, we trekked again till sundown. Dinner, and to bed by nine. A most peaceful, delightful, but terribly fattening life! luckily, some of us had some leeway to make up in that line.19th November.—On a rock, in a small koppie close to our outspan of last night, were a lot of Bushman paintings of animals—some badly, but some very well drawn—in red monochrome. One elephant and a buck were particularly good.ill436Specimen of Old Rock–Painting by Natives in Mashonaland.We were met by Colonel Alderson and other officers from Salisbury, as we rode in the last six miles of our journey.Salisbury—two widely–spread townships in a basin among wooded rising grounds, with little of the regularity of building plots as seen in Buluwayo, but altogether a prettier–looking spot. Houses mostly of bright red brick with white tin roofs—all single–storeyed and verandahed, of course; many of them with nice gardens. One wooded hill overlooks the town, and on this stands the original Fort Salisbury, built by the “pioneers” who first opened up Mashonaland in 1891. At the foot of this hill runs the only regular street of the place—where all the stores, etc., are situated. The rest of the two townships was described to me thus: “There’s the post office, there are the Government buildings, there is the hospital, and there is the club—the remainder are mostly drink–shops.” This is maligning the town rather—but it has its allowance of “drink–shops” all the same.We were put up in the Commercial Hotel, and had nice offices provided near the Government Offices. And we settled down in a few minutes most comfortably.It is curious to come off the veldt, where we have not seen a sign of natives for days, almost weeks past, although hunting about—all of us—off the road in the bush, and yet to be told on arrivalhere that they don’t consider the road safe yet—that the rebels are still about everywhere!Then comes an alarming telegram from Buluwayo to say: “A white man murdered close to the town; general rising of the natives expected; town–guard of volunteers without pay being formed,” etc. Again one of those unmeaning panics, which seems to strike people who have been living on tenter–hooks for a short time—sort of spasms that revisit them now and again till their nerves are restored. But it is very annoying, and often involves moving troops about for fear thatthistime it should be a true report. We have already caught two or three lunatics who had spread such rumours, and sent them out of the country, but there is apparently at least one left. A nervous man is forty thousand times worse than a frightened woman, especially when, as is the case here, he has any number of drink–fuddled “funk–sticks” ready to echo his alarm.I remember being in a theatre when an inexplicable movement took place among the people in the pit. Almost immediately a “funk–stick” in the dress circle, seeing the commotion, but not seeing the cause for it, shouted out his own fear—“Fire!” In a moment others like him echoed his cry, and there was for some few minutes a verypretty exhibition of panic. Manly heroes handing out the women? Not a bit of it; jumping over them to get first to the door!Salisbury is just now full of interesting celebrities—Major Forbes, fresh from the country beyond the Zambesi, where he was administrating the Company’s affairs, and pushing on the telegraph to Khartoum. He had been reported killed in the rebellion, but had got down all right, although his companion was murdered.Captain Younghusband, sent by theTimesto report on the South African situation generally, having just done three months’ visit to the Transvaal among my old friends Paul Kruger, Joubert, etc. etc., at Pretoria.H. Cust, M.P., filling himself up with local information and experience, and with lots of good to say of George (of all people!). Lord and Lady Grey and Lady Victoria, Cecil Rhodes, Sir Charles Metcalfe, etc.21st November.—The General visited the hospital to see the sick and wounded. There were three officers still in, Sir Horace MacMahon and Eustace (both shipmates of mine on theTantallon), both severely wounded in the foot, but going on well.Montgomery shot in the head, and consequentlypartially paralysed; trepanned, and doing well. About a dozen men. One poor chap was shot in both arms; one had been amputated, the other was all smashed above the elbow, but the doctors hope to save it. He also had two or three slight wounds about the body, but was as cheery as possible and getting on well.One curious case we saw there was a young fellow who had been lost on the veldt. His party had searched for him several days, but never found him, and supposed that he was killed. Six weeks afterwards, a party of Dutchmen were hunting that veldt, and they found a path close to their camp leading down to water with fresh spoor of a man on it. During the few days they were there, they noticed the spoor came fresh each day. They watched, and saw this man come down to drink, but when they tried to approach, he fled, and got down an ant–bear hole, where he evidently lived. They could not persuade him to come out, and so finally had to dig him out. They found he was quite off his head—unable to talk—living only on roots and berries. They took him to Salisbury, and when we saw him, he was all right, except he had lost nearly all his teeth, and could not remember much of the time when he was lost.ill441Black and WhiteThe work of nursing our sick and wounded was undertaken by Sisters of Mercy, who slaved their lives out at the duty, having only one or two native boys to help them in the menial work.The hospital nursing staff consists of eight nuns, who do excellent work. Like the Sisters in Buluwayo, they are most self–sacrificing and constant in their attention to the sick and wounded of the force. The General and I went and saw them in their own house, and had a long talk with them. The Superior (a very cheerful, sweet–faced young woman) was an old friend of his, having been a nurse at one of his hospitals for the Bechuanaland Police.The General and his staff have been supplied with bikes by the Chartered Company (they have a number of them for the police), and they are invaluable for getting about the widespread town. The General takes us for gallops now and then, which really do one a lot of good after a load of office work. The roads are fair and the country open and pretty, and the air most delightful, except when, as it was to–day, it was dense with locusts.The outskirts of the township boast a number of nice houses with good gardens and—what is best—deep creeper–grown verandahs.The house, for instance, where Lord Grey is living (Mr. Pauling’s) is a most delightful one—with English furniture; its billiard–room and everything as though in the midst of civilisation, instead of being two hundred miles away from a railway.At our hotel I’ve slept at last in a room—thefirst time for over two months. I tried it the night of our arrival here, but it would not work, and very soon I had my blankets outside in the street! But this night the clouds rolled up, and the first taste of the rainy season came down in sheets at night.22nd November.—Among other items of the day, we (the General, Ferguson, and I) rode up on our bikes and called on Rhodes. We found him living in a very pleasant house belonging to Judge Vintcent, who had been commandant of Salisbury all through the rebellion, and being a true old Carthusian, he had his walls covered with photos, etc., of Charterhouse groups, etc. I was very sorry to find that he had gone off to the Cape on leave, on account of his wife’s health and his own.Meantime, Rhodes occupied his house and, when I saw him, his arm–chair. For Rhodes had been out before daybreak, and was now making up some sleep lost thereby, but insuchan uncomfortable position.ill445Younghusband Baden–Powell Sir F. Carrington Lady V. Grey Sir C. Metcalfe Graham (M.F.H.) Alderson Lord Grey Cecil RhodesThe Opening Meet of the Salisbury Hounds (after the War)This was rather characteristic of him: where other people would have been sleepless from discomfort of body and wear of mind, he was sleeping sweetly; but then he is always thinking or doing what you don’t expect. In talking over ways and means or plans of campaign, he almost invariably throws quite a new light on the subject, and has a totally different plan, and one which is often the best of the lot, especially from the Chartered Company’s point of view, as far as ultimate results go, not present expenditure—that is the point that often makes us pause, but he never seems to think of it, for he looks to the better economy in the end. And while he talks he doesn’t sit still, but he’ll be sprawling all over the sofa one minute, the next he’ll have his legs crossed under him,à la Turc—full of restlessness and energy.23rd November.—Meet of the hounds at Rhodes’ house. The pack has been kept in the laager during the dangerous time—fed on Boer meal. Is hunted by Graham, the Postmaster. We were a field of twenty–seven,—which is not bad, considering how few horses are now fit for work,—all in shirt sleeves. One lady (Lady Victoria Grey). We got on to a buck within half a mile of the house, and had a gallop. I was riding near Rhodes, who was thoroughly enjoying the working of the hounds, till suddenly something better attracted his notice, and we passed under the telegraph line from Cape Town to, or rather towards, Cairo—and he at once went into particulars of that, and showed how the iron posts were made, according to his design, in two parts, so that they would not be too heavy for niggersto carry in the bush and fly country—wooden poles useless, on account of the inroads of white ants; and then we continued our gallop.Talking of inroads,—we hear that the jigger, an insect the size of a pin’s head, is invading South Africa. He came from the West Coast, and is now down as far as Beira. I know the beast: he got me coming back from Kumassi, and planted his eggs under my toe–nail, and I had ten minutes’ genuine fun while the doctor cut them out.Curious how the little pest should be able to cross Africa, and make himself a scourge in a new bit of country,—just as the rinderpest has done,—taking three years to get here from Somaliland.25th November.—I dined with Wilson Fox, old Carthusian, Public Prosecutor, Director of Commissariat and Transport, and a good singer—so pretty useful all round.This morning I took a toss off my bike and damaged my knees, so that I stand over like an old cab–horse.27th November.—For the past four days the telegraph line between this and Cape Town has been down, and we have been unable to get sanction to our proposed move out of the country.The rains are beginning (thunderstorms nearly every afternoon), a man per day dying for the last six days, which is a large order in so small a force.Dined at Lord Grey’s to–night, and there also dined the Count and Countess de la P——e. No more interesting couple could be found in the country. I listened open–mouthed to their adventures. He was formerly captain in the French navy and A.D.C. to MacMahon, and has four war medals and ten orders. She was “slavey” in a London boarding–house. They came up here before women were allowed in the country—she dressed as a boy, and so got admitted. They started with £40 and one cow; in three years they owned a large farm and 160 cows, and were clearing £250 a month dairy–farming and butchering. Rinderpest and rebellion suddenly stopped this, and swept away all they had. He took his waggon and span of donkeys to Chimoio, and spent the whole of their money in getting a load of food and luxuries to sell in Salisbury. She remained at the farm, with one nigger boy to protect her.The Count brought his waggon up the road in company with two other traders’ waggons—six white men and one American young lady. Thirty miles from Salisbury they found on the road thebodies of a white family—father, mother, and children,—lying, just murdered. They began to bury them, when a volley was fired on them at short range, killing a number of donkeys. They embarked in the lightest waggon, the Count losing his waggon and stores. They trekked on, pursued by rebels, who kept firing, without daring to attack, or even to show themselves out of the bush. This went on for two days and one night, till they reached Salisbury. The girl, meanwhile, had been very plucky—merely asked to be supplied with a revolver, with which to shoot herself if the worst came to the worst; and she got one of the men to promise to do it for her if her courage failed.But they got in all right. Meanwhile, the Countess, living out at the farm, five miles from Salisbury, received warning by messenger to come in to laager; and when she delayed about it, they sent four friendlies as a guard for her. Her account of it, told in a very matter–of–fact cockney way, was most refreshing—“You see, they had murdered our neighbours that day, and I couldn’t help thinking about it. So I didn’t go to bed that night, but just put on a blouse and skirt, and lay down on the bed, after barricading the door. Well, in the nightI was startled first by a waggon going past at full speed; drivers yelling at the mules and cracking their whips,—this was the waggon going to Mazoe to rescue the women there. I could not sleep. By and by I heard a noise, and, looking through a hole in the door, I saw niggers—plenty of them—close to the house, and on three sides of it. I got the rifle, slipped on my bandolier, seized up my revolver–belt, and jumped out of the back window and ran. As I got over the wall of the garden, I upset an iron bucket with an awful clang. At the same time, my boy, running out of the kitchen, knocked against two frying–pans that were hanging up there, and made worse din. But he got away, and joined me in the bush above the house. There we hid for the rest of the night behind a gravestone. They did not burn the house; and next morning, after waiting some time, to see if any of them were about, I got so impatient about it, that I sent the boy down,—to see if my sewing–machine was all right,—and he soon came back with it. He had found it close to the well: a nigger had got it, and was clearing with it, when he was assegaied by one of the Zambesi boys. Lucky they killed him a few yards from the well; another step, and my sewing–machine would have been down the well. But the Zambesi boys were all killed—lying about round the front door. Well, then we made our way into Salisbury; and I had no sooner got there than I found that, like the stupid I was, I had brought the revolver–case, empty—in the confusion I had left the revolver behind. So, says I, I must go back and get that revolver.ill452The Countess Rescues herSewing–MachineWhen her house was attacked at night by rebels, four of her native guards were killed, and she herself was compelled to hide with the surviving boy till daylight, when, the enemy having cleared out, she went back and got her sewing–machine which had been dropped by the looters among the dead boys in the garden.“There was a patrol just then going out, so I got them to let me go with them and back to my house. I made my way through the murdered Zambesi boys, but I didn’t stop to look at them, I was that anxious to get my revolver; and I got it all right, and glad I was to come away with it; not but what it’s getting worn–out now, I think, as it wouldn’t act the other night when I wanted it to; but it’s the one I’ve shot a lion with, so I like it. Oh, he was only a very old lion; but, ye see, he used to come pretty near every night to our camp, and snap up one or other of thedogs. One night he even got into our dining–hut, where there was a ham hanging from the roof; he got on to the table to reach it down; but the table was a rickety concern and came down with him, and I had stupidly left the cloth on overnight, and a nice lot of holes he made in it with his claws. Well, one evening I heard the old brute moving in the sluit, close to the camp; so I called to the boy to get the gun, and come up with me into the waggon, and I took the revolver. Soon we heard the lion coming along the path, kicking oranges—them hard–rinded things—with his feet. I says to the boy, ‘There he is, shoot!’ But the boy couldn’t see him; and so I says, ‘Oh, if you’re going to take all night to shoot him, here goes!’ and with that I up with my revolver, and lets off a shot at him. The lion sprang forward to the waggon, and I give him another, that sent him back where he came from, and he rolled about a bit in the sluit, and died there. I had hit him right in the neck.“What about the other night? Oh, I hate to think of it—my luck was dead out that night! Three nights ago it was, I heard a curious noise at the back of the house, here in Salisbury; so I put on my indiarubber shoes, and takes my pistol, and I slips round to see what it is; andthere I find a man—a white man, mind you—trying to break into the house. So I catches him by the neck with one hand” (the Countess is a small, slim person), “and put the revolver in his face with the other, and tells ‘im to keep quiet; but he wriggles, and gets loose. Well, I catches hold of his shirt, and that tears; then I catches his trousers, they tears; and with that he bolts away. Well, I up with my pistol and fired, and fired. But whether it was the cartridges was bad, or there was something wrong with the pistol—go off it wouldn’t; and so that man got away.”But if the Countess was amusing and original, so was the Count in his way. He had been a great elephant hunter in Central Africa. Used to hunt, like Selous, in only a shirt, belt, and hat; no shoes. Killed 103 elephants in one season. Ever charged by an elephant? No, but an elephant was charged by him. Following up a wounded elephant, it took down a steep hillside in thick bush. He tore after it,—an elephant goes very slowly down a steep place,—so he rushed right on to it before he saw it. However, he put up his heavy rifle and fired up into its head and killed it, but the angle of the gun was so great as to knock him down, the stock in its recoil cutting his cheek all open, and leaving him senseless. His boys wentback and told his friends in camp that both he and the elephant were killed, the elephant having put his tusk through his cheek.“Srough my cheek! The elephant had a tusk so long as my body, and so thick as my leg, how can he put it through mycheek? I should have nofaceleft.”The Count, upon coming into laager at Salisbury after the loss of his donkey–waggon, was made a trooper. He an ex–captain of the navy, with four war medals, while his commanding officer was a barman at one of the public–houses! The excuse for this apparent anomaly was that he had known what it was to be an officer, and he might now let the others have a chance of trying. The troop consisted of 120, but of these only 50 were available for duty, the rest were nearly all officers.In spite of having lost everything, the Count and Countess seemed very cheery and hopeful, and are longing to get to work again on their farm. They deserve to prosper.29th November.—Part of the mounted infantry and the invalids were at last to start down towards Beira for embarkation. The General was to inspect the corps before they started. We went over to the camp (I, being an invalid, owing to my broken knees, was kindly taken by Lady Grey in her Cape cart).Just as we got there, a black wall of cloud arrived from the opposite direction. A roar of thunder warned us off, a sharp volley of rain followed. The General dismissed the parade, and we all scampered for home as hard as we could go, pursued by a drenching downpour. All the afternoon and all the night it came down in sheets; the rains had begun. Now comes the anxiety of learning whether we shall be able to get out of the country at all for the next four months.The rivers rise, the ground becomes a bog, and mules can’t work if their coats are wet, as the harness rubs them raw. It rather shows the danger of working to order at the end of a long telegraph line. Every thunderstorm (and they have been plentiful of late) breaks down the telegraph line somewhere, so that messages take many days to come and go, and we have already wasted a week here merely waiting for replies.1st December.—For two days it has been fine, as far as actual rain goes, but dead still and hot—boiling hot, banking up for more rain. Very little work and very little play, for Salisbury is, to say the least of it, a littletristejust now. No news from the outside world at all. The club has a pile of old newspapers (none newer than September 12th) lying on the table, and we go and read theseover again like dogs at a bone, hoping yet to find a scrap of interesting matter somewhere in them, even though it be among the advertisements.We had hoped to start to–morrow, but now as I go to bed another thunderstorm is on us—the roar of the rain is deafening as it falls in a heavy mass on the roof (glad I am to be under a roof, too!). One hardly hears the thunder through, but the lightning is incessant and beautiful; but I wish we were well over the road that lies between us and the sea!
Through Mashonaland
13th November to 2nd December
I proceed with the General to Mashonaland—A new fashionable Pastime to be found in Spooring—Charter—Our Daily Trek—Salisbury—The inevitable Alarmist Rumours and their Inventors—Celebrities in Salisbury—A Visit to the Hospital—Cecil Rhodes in Council—A Run with the Hounds, with a Check at the Telegraph Line—A Countess saves her Sewing–Machine and kills a Lion—Marshal MacMahon’s Aide–de–Camp as a Trooper in Mashonaland—The Delays incident to being at the End of a Wire—The Rains begin—The Situation in Mashonaland.
13th November.—Up early. Paid off and sorrowfully said “Good–bye” to Diamond and Umtini, my two nigger servants.
And in the afternoon the General moved on from Enkeldoorn towards Salisbury. The party consisted of Sir Frederick, Vyvyan, Ferguson, Gormley (our principal medical officer), Leech (who manages our transport), three waggons, a Cape cart, and lots of riding–horses, servants, office–clerks, etc.
ill432
“Diamond”My Zulu servant. Well–named “Diamond,” for he was a jewel of a servant.
“Diamond”My Zulu servant. Well–named “Diamond,” for he was a jewel of a servant.
“Diamond”
My Zulu servant. Well–named “Diamond,” for he was a jewel of a servant.
This night we camped at Adlum’s Farm (the green mamba house, where I had “dined” the night before), and found Lord Grey and party also camped here on their way to Salisbury.
I had walked the march on foot, hoping to find buck, and called, coatless and dirty, just as I was, at Lord Grey’s camp in passing to our own. Lady Grey insisted on my sitting down to dinner then and there with them—and a very jolly dinner it was. It made rather a good picture when Lister held the saucepan of rice, while I helped it out to Lady Victoria, who was “asking for more.”
Lady Victoria has developed the talent for spooring, which will therefore probably become the fashionable pastime among the young ladies of this country; if not, on introduction in England, instead of the usual “Do you bike?” you will ask, “Do you spoor?”
That night I had a real good sleep, for out of the previous eighty–seven hours only sixteen had been slept, and many of the others had been expended in pretty good bodily exertion.
ill433
————General Sir F. Carrington——Captain Vyvyan, Brigade–Major————————Lieut. Ferguson, A.D.C.Headquarters’ Mess
————General Sir F. Carrington——Captain Vyvyan, Brigade–Major————————Lieut. Ferguson, A.D.C.Headquarters’ Mess
————General Sir F. Carrington——Captain Vyvyan, Brigade–Major————————Lieut. Ferguson, A.D.C.
Headquarters’ Mess
Sir Frederick had brought me English letters.
15th November.—Charter. One has heard of it so much, and seen it writ large in the map so often, that it comes as a surprise to find it is only a tiny laager of half a dozen waggons, round which huts are being built, ready for the rainy season. An unhealthy–looking place on low ground, beside a stagnant, muddy stream.
Here Sir Frederick, as usual, met an old friend in the first trooper he saw. “Good day, my lad. Not much of a place to be quartered in, this.”
“No, sir.”
“I have seen you before, somewhere.”
“Yes, sir, my name is——. I was in your Police Regiment two years. I lunched with you at Kimberley Club five years ago. Since then I have been running a ‘penny steamer’ on the Zambesi. Unhealthy? Yes; always down with fever, but I had luck, and was able to get up again. Came down here to recover, and took on as a trooper for the war.”
It is the story of many another cadet of good family moving in these parts.
Our ninety–eight miles from Enkeldoorn to Salisbury lay, as per usual, through bush–grown veldt, and was a heavy sandy track, and which meant hard pulling for the mules.
We generally rolled out of our blankets at dawn—cocoa—and, mounting our horses, rode into the bush with gun or rifle, each taking his own line to the next outspan.
Lord Grey’s party shot to northward of the road, and the south side was our preserve; but neither side yielded much game. By seven or eight o’clock the waggons, having done their eight or ten miles, outspanned. A buck–sail stretched over the tilts of two gave a shady room between, in which we sheltered from the midday heat. Then, in the afternoon, we trekked again till sundown. Dinner, and to bed by nine. A most peaceful, delightful, but terribly fattening life! luckily, some of us had some leeway to make up in that line.
19th November.—On a rock, in a small koppie close to our outspan of last night, were a lot of Bushman paintings of animals—some badly, but some very well drawn—in red monochrome. One elephant and a buck were particularly good.
ill436
Specimen of Old Rock–Painting by Natives in Mashonaland.
Specimen of Old Rock–Painting by Natives in Mashonaland.
Specimen of Old Rock–Painting by Natives in Mashonaland.
We were met by Colonel Alderson and other officers from Salisbury, as we rode in the last six miles of our journey.
Salisbury—two widely–spread townships in a basin among wooded rising grounds, with little of the regularity of building plots as seen in Buluwayo, but altogether a prettier–looking spot. Houses mostly of bright red brick with white tin roofs—all single–storeyed and verandahed, of course; many of them with nice gardens. One wooded hill overlooks the town, and on this stands the original Fort Salisbury, built by the “pioneers” who first opened up Mashonaland in 1891. At the foot of this hill runs the only regular street of the place—where all the stores, etc., are situated. The rest of the two townships was described to me thus: “There’s the post office, there are the Government buildings, there is the hospital, and there is the club—the remainder are mostly drink–shops.” This is maligning the town rather—but it has its allowance of “drink–shops” all the same.
We were put up in the Commercial Hotel, and had nice offices provided near the Government Offices. And we settled down in a few minutes most comfortably.
It is curious to come off the veldt, where we have not seen a sign of natives for days, almost weeks past, although hunting about—all of us—off the road in the bush, and yet to be told on arrivalhere that they don’t consider the road safe yet—that the rebels are still about everywhere!
Then comes an alarming telegram from Buluwayo to say: “A white man murdered close to the town; general rising of the natives expected; town–guard of volunteers without pay being formed,” etc. Again one of those unmeaning panics, which seems to strike people who have been living on tenter–hooks for a short time—sort of spasms that revisit them now and again till their nerves are restored. But it is very annoying, and often involves moving troops about for fear thatthistime it should be a true report. We have already caught two or three lunatics who had spread such rumours, and sent them out of the country, but there is apparently at least one left. A nervous man is forty thousand times worse than a frightened woman, especially when, as is the case here, he has any number of drink–fuddled “funk–sticks” ready to echo his alarm.
I remember being in a theatre when an inexplicable movement took place among the people in the pit. Almost immediately a “funk–stick” in the dress circle, seeing the commotion, but not seeing the cause for it, shouted out his own fear—“Fire!” In a moment others like him echoed his cry, and there was for some few minutes a verypretty exhibition of panic. Manly heroes handing out the women? Not a bit of it; jumping over them to get first to the door!
Salisbury is just now full of interesting celebrities—Major Forbes, fresh from the country beyond the Zambesi, where he was administrating the Company’s affairs, and pushing on the telegraph to Khartoum. He had been reported killed in the rebellion, but had got down all right, although his companion was murdered.
Captain Younghusband, sent by theTimesto report on the South African situation generally, having just done three months’ visit to the Transvaal among my old friends Paul Kruger, Joubert, etc. etc., at Pretoria.
H. Cust, M.P., filling himself up with local information and experience, and with lots of good to say of George (of all people!). Lord and Lady Grey and Lady Victoria, Cecil Rhodes, Sir Charles Metcalfe, etc.
21st November.—The General visited the hospital to see the sick and wounded. There were three officers still in, Sir Horace MacMahon and Eustace (both shipmates of mine on theTantallon), both severely wounded in the foot, but going on well.
Montgomery shot in the head, and consequentlypartially paralysed; trepanned, and doing well. About a dozen men. One poor chap was shot in both arms; one had been amputated, the other was all smashed above the elbow, but the doctors hope to save it. He also had two or three slight wounds about the body, but was as cheery as possible and getting on well.
One curious case we saw there was a young fellow who had been lost on the veldt. His party had searched for him several days, but never found him, and supposed that he was killed. Six weeks afterwards, a party of Dutchmen were hunting that veldt, and they found a path close to their camp leading down to water with fresh spoor of a man on it. During the few days they were there, they noticed the spoor came fresh each day. They watched, and saw this man come down to drink, but when they tried to approach, he fled, and got down an ant–bear hole, where he evidently lived. They could not persuade him to come out, and so finally had to dig him out. They found he was quite off his head—unable to talk—living only on roots and berries. They took him to Salisbury, and when we saw him, he was all right, except he had lost nearly all his teeth, and could not remember much of the time when he was lost.
ill441
Black and WhiteThe work of nursing our sick and wounded was undertaken by Sisters of Mercy, who slaved their lives out at the duty, having only one or two native boys to help them in the menial work.
Black and WhiteThe work of nursing our sick and wounded was undertaken by Sisters of Mercy, who slaved their lives out at the duty, having only one or two native boys to help them in the menial work.
Black and White
The work of nursing our sick and wounded was undertaken by Sisters of Mercy, who slaved their lives out at the duty, having only one or two native boys to help them in the menial work.
The hospital nursing staff consists of eight nuns, who do excellent work. Like the Sisters in Buluwayo, they are most self–sacrificing and constant in their attention to the sick and wounded of the force. The General and I went and saw them in their own house, and had a long talk with them. The Superior (a very cheerful, sweet–faced young woman) was an old friend of his, having been a nurse at one of his hospitals for the Bechuanaland Police.
The General and his staff have been supplied with bikes by the Chartered Company (they have a number of them for the police), and they are invaluable for getting about the widespread town. The General takes us for gallops now and then, which really do one a lot of good after a load of office work. The roads are fair and the country open and pretty, and the air most delightful, except when, as it was to–day, it was dense with locusts.
The outskirts of the township boast a number of nice houses with good gardens and—what is best—deep creeper–grown verandahs.
The house, for instance, where Lord Grey is living (Mr. Pauling’s) is a most delightful one—with English furniture; its billiard–room and everything as though in the midst of civilisation, instead of being two hundred miles away from a railway.
At our hotel I’ve slept at last in a room—thefirst time for over two months. I tried it the night of our arrival here, but it would not work, and very soon I had my blankets outside in the street! But this night the clouds rolled up, and the first taste of the rainy season came down in sheets at night.
22nd November.—Among other items of the day, we (the General, Ferguson, and I) rode up on our bikes and called on Rhodes. We found him living in a very pleasant house belonging to Judge Vintcent, who had been commandant of Salisbury all through the rebellion, and being a true old Carthusian, he had his walls covered with photos, etc., of Charterhouse groups, etc. I was very sorry to find that he had gone off to the Cape on leave, on account of his wife’s health and his own.
Meantime, Rhodes occupied his house and, when I saw him, his arm–chair. For Rhodes had been out before daybreak, and was now making up some sleep lost thereby, but insuchan uncomfortable position.
ill445
Younghusband Baden–Powell Sir F. Carrington Lady V. Grey Sir C. Metcalfe Graham (M.F.H.) Alderson Lord Grey Cecil RhodesThe Opening Meet of the Salisbury Hounds (after the War)
Younghusband Baden–Powell Sir F. Carrington Lady V. Grey Sir C. Metcalfe Graham (M.F.H.) Alderson Lord Grey Cecil RhodesThe Opening Meet of the Salisbury Hounds (after the War)
Younghusband Baden–Powell Sir F. Carrington Lady V. Grey Sir C. Metcalfe Graham (M.F.H.) Alderson Lord Grey Cecil Rhodes
The Opening Meet of the Salisbury Hounds (after the War)
This was rather characteristic of him: where other people would have been sleepless from discomfort of body and wear of mind, he was sleeping sweetly; but then he is always thinking or doing what you don’t expect. In talking over ways and means or plans of campaign, he almost invariably throws quite a new light on the subject, and has a totally different plan, and one which is often the best of the lot, especially from the Chartered Company’s point of view, as far as ultimate results go, not present expenditure—that is the point that often makes us pause, but he never seems to think of it, for he looks to the better economy in the end. And while he talks he doesn’t sit still, but he’ll be sprawling all over the sofa one minute, the next he’ll have his legs crossed under him,à la Turc—full of restlessness and energy.
23rd November.—Meet of the hounds at Rhodes’ house. The pack has been kept in the laager during the dangerous time—fed on Boer meal. Is hunted by Graham, the Postmaster. We were a field of twenty–seven,—which is not bad, considering how few horses are now fit for work,—all in shirt sleeves. One lady (Lady Victoria Grey). We got on to a buck within half a mile of the house, and had a gallop. I was riding near Rhodes, who was thoroughly enjoying the working of the hounds, till suddenly something better attracted his notice, and we passed under the telegraph line from Cape Town to, or rather towards, Cairo—and he at once went into particulars of that, and showed how the iron posts were made, according to his design, in two parts, so that they would not be too heavy for niggersto carry in the bush and fly country—wooden poles useless, on account of the inroads of white ants; and then we continued our gallop.
Talking of inroads,—we hear that the jigger, an insect the size of a pin’s head, is invading South Africa. He came from the West Coast, and is now down as far as Beira. I know the beast: he got me coming back from Kumassi, and planted his eggs under my toe–nail, and I had ten minutes’ genuine fun while the doctor cut them out.
Curious how the little pest should be able to cross Africa, and make himself a scourge in a new bit of country,—just as the rinderpest has done,—taking three years to get here from Somaliland.
25th November.—I dined with Wilson Fox, old Carthusian, Public Prosecutor, Director of Commissariat and Transport, and a good singer—so pretty useful all round.
This morning I took a toss off my bike and damaged my knees, so that I stand over like an old cab–horse.
27th November.—For the past four days the telegraph line between this and Cape Town has been down, and we have been unable to get sanction to our proposed move out of the country.The rains are beginning (thunderstorms nearly every afternoon), a man per day dying for the last six days, which is a large order in so small a force.
Dined at Lord Grey’s to–night, and there also dined the Count and Countess de la P——e. No more interesting couple could be found in the country. I listened open–mouthed to their adventures. He was formerly captain in the French navy and A.D.C. to MacMahon, and has four war medals and ten orders. She was “slavey” in a London boarding–house. They came up here before women were allowed in the country—she dressed as a boy, and so got admitted. They started with £40 and one cow; in three years they owned a large farm and 160 cows, and were clearing £250 a month dairy–farming and butchering. Rinderpest and rebellion suddenly stopped this, and swept away all they had. He took his waggon and span of donkeys to Chimoio, and spent the whole of their money in getting a load of food and luxuries to sell in Salisbury. She remained at the farm, with one nigger boy to protect her.
The Count brought his waggon up the road in company with two other traders’ waggons—six white men and one American young lady. Thirty miles from Salisbury they found on the road thebodies of a white family—father, mother, and children,—lying, just murdered. They began to bury them, when a volley was fired on them at short range, killing a number of donkeys. They embarked in the lightest waggon, the Count losing his waggon and stores. They trekked on, pursued by rebels, who kept firing, without daring to attack, or even to show themselves out of the bush. This went on for two days and one night, till they reached Salisbury. The girl, meanwhile, had been very plucky—merely asked to be supplied with a revolver, with which to shoot herself if the worst came to the worst; and she got one of the men to promise to do it for her if her courage failed.
But they got in all right. Meanwhile, the Countess, living out at the farm, five miles from Salisbury, received warning by messenger to come in to laager; and when she delayed about it, they sent four friendlies as a guard for her. Her account of it, told in a very matter–of–fact cockney way, was most refreshing—
“You see, they had murdered our neighbours that day, and I couldn’t help thinking about it. So I didn’t go to bed that night, but just put on a blouse and skirt, and lay down on the bed, after barricading the door. Well, in the nightI was startled first by a waggon going past at full speed; drivers yelling at the mules and cracking their whips,—this was the waggon going to Mazoe to rescue the women there. I could not sleep. By and by I heard a noise, and, looking through a hole in the door, I saw niggers—plenty of them—close to the house, and on three sides of it. I got the rifle, slipped on my bandolier, seized up my revolver–belt, and jumped out of the back window and ran. As I got over the wall of the garden, I upset an iron bucket with an awful clang. At the same time, my boy, running out of the kitchen, knocked against two frying–pans that were hanging up there, and made worse din. But he got away, and joined me in the bush above the house. There we hid for the rest of the night behind a gravestone. They did not burn the house; and next morning, after waiting some time, to see if any of them were about, I got so impatient about it, that I sent the boy down,—to see if my sewing–machine was all right,—and he soon came back with it. He had found it close to the well: a nigger had got it, and was clearing with it, when he was assegaied by one of the Zambesi boys. Lucky they killed him a few yards from the well; another step, and my sewing–machine would have been down the well. But the Zambesi boys were all killed—lying about round the front door. Well, then we made our way into Salisbury; and I had no sooner got there than I found that, like the stupid I was, I had brought the revolver–case, empty—in the confusion I had left the revolver behind. So, says I, I must go back and get that revolver.
ill452
The Countess Rescues herSewing–MachineWhen her house was attacked at night by rebels, four of her native guards were killed, and she herself was compelled to hide with the surviving boy till daylight, when, the enemy having cleared out, she went back and got her sewing–machine which had been dropped by the looters among the dead boys in the garden.
The Countess Rescues herSewing–MachineWhen her house was attacked at night by rebels, four of her native guards were killed, and she herself was compelled to hide with the surviving boy till daylight, when, the enemy having cleared out, she went back and got her sewing–machine which had been dropped by the looters among the dead boys in the garden.
The Countess Rescues herSewing–Machine
When her house was attacked at night by rebels, four of her native guards were killed, and she herself was compelled to hide with the surviving boy till daylight, when, the enemy having cleared out, she went back and got her sewing–machine which had been dropped by the looters among the dead boys in the garden.
“There was a patrol just then going out, so I got them to let me go with them and back to my house. I made my way through the murdered Zambesi boys, but I didn’t stop to look at them, I was that anxious to get my revolver; and I got it all right, and glad I was to come away with it; not but what it’s getting worn–out now, I think, as it wouldn’t act the other night when I wanted it to; but it’s the one I’ve shot a lion with, so I like it. Oh, he was only a very old lion; but, ye see, he used to come pretty near every night to our camp, and snap up one or other of thedogs. One night he even got into our dining–hut, where there was a ham hanging from the roof; he got on to the table to reach it down; but the table was a rickety concern and came down with him, and I had stupidly left the cloth on overnight, and a nice lot of holes he made in it with his claws. Well, one evening I heard the old brute moving in the sluit, close to the camp; so I called to the boy to get the gun, and come up with me into the waggon, and I took the revolver. Soon we heard the lion coming along the path, kicking oranges—them hard–rinded things—with his feet. I says to the boy, ‘There he is, shoot!’ But the boy couldn’t see him; and so I says, ‘Oh, if you’re going to take all night to shoot him, here goes!’ and with that I up with my revolver, and lets off a shot at him. The lion sprang forward to the waggon, and I give him another, that sent him back where he came from, and he rolled about a bit in the sluit, and died there. I had hit him right in the neck.
“What about the other night? Oh, I hate to think of it—my luck was dead out that night! Three nights ago it was, I heard a curious noise at the back of the house, here in Salisbury; so I put on my indiarubber shoes, and takes my pistol, and I slips round to see what it is; andthere I find a man—a white man, mind you—trying to break into the house. So I catches him by the neck with one hand” (the Countess is a small, slim person), “and put the revolver in his face with the other, and tells ‘im to keep quiet; but he wriggles, and gets loose. Well, I catches hold of his shirt, and that tears; then I catches his trousers, they tears; and with that he bolts away. Well, I up with my pistol and fired, and fired. But whether it was the cartridges was bad, or there was something wrong with the pistol—go off it wouldn’t; and so that man got away.”
But if the Countess was amusing and original, so was the Count in his way. He had been a great elephant hunter in Central Africa. Used to hunt, like Selous, in only a shirt, belt, and hat; no shoes. Killed 103 elephants in one season. Ever charged by an elephant? No, but an elephant was charged by him. Following up a wounded elephant, it took down a steep hillside in thick bush. He tore after it,—an elephant goes very slowly down a steep place,—so he rushed right on to it before he saw it. However, he put up his heavy rifle and fired up into its head and killed it, but the angle of the gun was so great as to knock him down, the stock in its recoil cutting his cheek all open, and leaving him senseless. His boys wentback and told his friends in camp that both he and the elephant were killed, the elephant having put his tusk through his cheek.
“Srough my cheek! The elephant had a tusk so long as my body, and so thick as my leg, how can he put it through mycheek? I should have nofaceleft.”
The Count, upon coming into laager at Salisbury after the loss of his donkey–waggon, was made a trooper. He an ex–captain of the navy, with four war medals, while his commanding officer was a barman at one of the public–houses! The excuse for this apparent anomaly was that he had known what it was to be an officer, and he might now let the others have a chance of trying. The troop consisted of 120, but of these only 50 were available for duty, the rest were nearly all officers.
In spite of having lost everything, the Count and Countess seemed very cheery and hopeful, and are longing to get to work again on their farm. They deserve to prosper.
29th November.—Part of the mounted infantry and the invalids were at last to start down towards Beira for embarkation. The General was to inspect the corps before they started. We went over to the camp (I, being an invalid, owing to my broken knees, was kindly taken by Lady Grey in her Cape cart).Just as we got there, a black wall of cloud arrived from the opposite direction. A roar of thunder warned us off, a sharp volley of rain followed. The General dismissed the parade, and we all scampered for home as hard as we could go, pursued by a drenching downpour. All the afternoon and all the night it came down in sheets; the rains had begun. Now comes the anxiety of learning whether we shall be able to get out of the country at all for the next four months.
The rivers rise, the ground becomes a bog, and mules can’t work if their coats are wet, as the harness rubs them raw. It rather shows the danger of working to order at the end of a long telegraph line. Every thunderstorm (and they have been plentiful of late) breaks down the telegraph line somewhere, so that messages take many days to come and go, and we have already wasted a week here merely waiting for replies.
1st December.—For two days it has been fine, as far as actual rain goes, but dead still and hot—boiling hot, banking up for more rain. Very little work and very little play, for Salisbury is, to say the least of it, a littletristejust now. No news from the outside world at all. The club has a pile of old newspapers (none newer than September 12th) lying on the table, and we go and read theseover again like dogs at a bone, hoping yet to find a scrap of interesting matter somewhere in them, even though it be among the advertisements.
We had hoped to start to–morrow, but now as I go to bed another thunderstorm is on us—the roar of the rain is deafening as it falls in a heavy mass on the roof (glad I am to be under a roof, too!). One hardly hears the thunder through, but the lightning is incessant and beautiful; but I wish we were well over the road that lies between us and the sea!