A HOTTENTOT VILLAGE.
The voyage along the upper course of the river was soon accomplished,
and although the weather soon became rainy, the passengers, comfortably
installed in the ship's cabin, suffered no inconvenience from the
torrents of rain which usually fall at that season. The "Queen and
Czar" shot along rapidly, for there were neither rapids nor shallows,
and the current was not sufficiently strong to retard her progress.
Every aspect of the river-banks was enchanting; forest followed upon
forest, and quite a world of birds dwell among the leafy branches.
Here and there were groups of trees belonging to the family of
the "proteaceæ," and especially the "wagenboom" with its reddish
marbled-wood, forming a curious contrast with its deep blue leaves and
large pale yellow flowers: then there were the "zwarte-basts" with
their black bark, and the "karrees" with dark evergreen foliage. The
banks were shaded every where by weeping willows, while the underwood
extended beyond for several miles. Every now and then vast open
tracks presented themselves unexpectedly, large plains, covered with
innumerable colocynths, mingled with "sugar-bushes," out of which
flew clouds of sweet-singing little birds, called "suiker-vogels" by
the Cape colonists. The winged world offered many varieties, all of
which were pointed out to Sir John Murray by the bushman. Sir John was
a great lover of game, both hairy and feathered, and thus a sort of
intimacy arose between him and Mokoum, to whom, according to Colonel
Everest's promise, he had given an excellent long-range rifle, made
on the Pauly system. It would be useless to attempt a description of
the bushman's delight when he found himself in possession of such
a splendid weapon. The two hunters understood each other well, for
though so learned, Sir John Murray passed for one of the most brilliant
fox-hunters in old Caledonia, and he listened to the bushman's stories
with an interest amounting to envy. His eyes sparkled when Mokoum
showed him the wild ruminants in the woods; here a herd of fifteen
to twenty giraffes; there, buffaloes six feet high, with towering
black horns: farther on, fierce gnus with horses' tails; and again,
herds of "caamas," a large kind of deer, with bright eyes, and horns
forming a threatening-looking triangle; and every where, in the dense
forests as well as in the open plains, the innumerable varieties of
antelopes which abound in Southern Africa; the spurious chamois, the
gems-bok, the gazelle, the duiker-bok, and the spring-bok. Was not
all this something to tempt a hunter, and could the fox-hunts of the
Scottish lowlands vie with the exploits of a Cumming, an Anderson, or
a Baldwin? It must be confessed that Sir John Murray's companions were
less excited than himself at these magnificent specimens of wild game.
William Emery was watching his colleagues attentively, and trying to
discover their character under their cold exterior. Colonel Everest
and Matthew Strux, men of about the same age, were equally cold,
reserved, and formal; they always spoke with a measured slowness, and
from morning to night it seemed as if they had never met before. That
any intimacy should ever be established between two such important
personages was a thing not to be hoped for; two icebergs, placed side
by side would join in time, but two scientific men, each holding a high
position, never.
Nicholas Palander, a man of about fifty-five years of age, was one
of those who have never been young, and who will never be old. The
astronomer of Helsingfors, constantly absorbed in his calculations,
might be a very admirably constructed machine, but still he was nothing
but a machine, a kind of abacus, or universal reckoner. He was the
calculator of the Anglo-Russian Commission, and one of those prodigies
who work out multiplications to five figures in their head, like a
fifty-year-old Mondeux.
Michael Zorn more nearly resembled William Emery in age, enthusiasm,
and good humour. His amiable qualities did not prevent his being an
astronomer of great merit, having attained an early celebrity. The
discoveries made by him at the Kiew Observatory concerning the nebula
of Andromeda had attracted attention in scientific Europe, and yet with
this undoubted merit he had a great deal of modesty, and was always
in the background. William Emery and Michael Zorn were becoming great
friends, united by the same tastes and aspirations; and most generally
they were talking together, while Colonel Everest and Matthew Strux
were coldly watching each other, and Palander was mentally extracting
cube roots without noticing the lovely scenes on the banks, and Sir
John Murray and the bushman were forming plans for hunting down whole
hecatombs of victims.
No incident marked the voyage along the upper course of the Orange.
Sometimes the granite cliffs which shut in the winding bed of the
river seemed to forbid further progress, and often the wooded islands
which dotted the current seemed to render the route uncertain; but
the bushman never hesitated, and the "Queen and Czar" always chose
the right route, and passed round the cliffs without hindrance. The
helmsman never had to repent of having followed Mokoum's directions.
In four days the steamboat had passed over the 240 miles between the
cataract of Morgheda and the Kuruman, an affluent which flowed exactly
past the town of Lattakoo, whither Colonel Everest's expedition was
bound. About thirty leagues above the falls the river bends from its
general direction, which is east and west, and flows south-east as
far as the acute angle which the territory of Cape Colony makes in
the north, and then turning to the north-east, it loses itself in the
wooded country of the Transvaal Republic. It was early in the morning
of the 5th of February, in a driving rain, that the "Queen and Czar"
arrived at Klaarwater, a Hottentot village, close to the meeting of the
Orange and Kuruman. Colonel Everest, unwilling to lose a moment, passed
quickly by the few Bochjesmen cabins that form the village, and under
the pressure of her screw, the vessel began to ascend the affluent.
The rapid current was to be attributed, as the passengers remarked, to
a peculiarity in the river, for the Kuruman being wide at its source,
was lessened as it descended by the influence of the sun's rays; but at
this season, swollen by the rains, and further increased by the waters
of a sub-affluent, the Moschona, it became very deep and rapid. The
fires were therefore made up, and the vessel ascended the Kuruman at
the rate of three miles an hour.
During the voyage the bushman pointed out a good many hippopotami in
the water; but these great pachyderms, clumsy, thickset beasts, from
eight to ten feet long, which the Dutch at the Cape call "sea-cows,"
were by no means of an aggressive nature, and the hissing of the steam
and the panting of the screw quite frightened them, the boat appearing
to them like some great monster which they ought to distrust, and in
fact, the arsenal on board would have rendered approach very difficult.
Sir John Murray would have very much liked to try his explosive bullets
on the fleshy masses, but the bushman assured him that there would be
no lack of hippopotami in the more northerly rivers, so he determined
to wait for a more favourable opportunity.
The 150 miles which separated the mouth of the Kuruman from the station
of Lattakoo were traversed in fifty hours, and on the 7th of February
the travellers had reached the end of their journey. As soon as the
steamboat was moored to the bank which served as a quay, a man of fifty
years of age, with a grave air but kind countenance, stepped on board,
and offered his hand to William Emery. The astronomer introduced the
new-comer to his travelling companions, as--
"The Rev. Thomas Dale, of the London Missionary Society, Governor of
the station of Lattakoo."
The Europeans bowed to Mr. Dale, who gave them welcome, and put himself
at their service.
The town of Lattakoo, or rather the village of that name, is the
most northerly of the Cape Missionary stations, and is divided into
Old and New. The first, which the "Queen and Czar" now reached, had
12,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the century, but they have
since emigrated to the north-east, and the town, now fallen into
decay, has been replaced by New Lattakoo, which is built close by, on
a plain which was formerly covered with acacias, and thither Mr. Dale
conducted the Europeans. It consisted of about forty groups of houses,
and contained 5000 or 6000 inhabitants of the tribe of the Bechuanas.
Dr. Livingstone stayed in this town for three months before his first
voyage up the Zambesi in 1840, previously to crossing the whole of
Central Africa, from the bay of Loanda to the port of Kilmana on the
coast of Mozambique.
When they reached New Lattakoo, Colonel Everest presented a letter
from Dr. Livingstone, which commended the Anglo-Russian Commission to
his friends in South Africa. Mr. Dale read it with much pleasure, and
returned it to the Colonel, saying that he might find it useful on
his journey, as the name of David Livingstone was known and honoured
throughout that part of Africa.
The members of the Commission were lodged in the missionary
establishment, a large house built on an eminence and surrounded by
an impenetrable hedge like a fortification. The Europeans could be
more comfortably lodged here than with the Bechuanas; not that their
dwellings were not kept properly in order; on the contrary, the smooth
clay floors did not show a particle of dust, and the long-thatched
roofs were quite rain-proof; but at best, their houses were little
better than huts with a round hole for a door, hardly large enough to
admit a man; moreover, they all lived in common, and close contact
with the Bechuanas would scarcely have been agreeable.
[Illustration: The Mission Home Establishment.]
The chief of the tribe, one Moulibahan, lived at Lattakoo, and thought
it right to come and pay his respects to the Europeans. He was rather
a fine man, without the thick lips and flat nose of the negro, with
a round face not so shrunken in its lower part as that of the other
Hottentots. He was dressed in a cloak of skins, sewn together with
considerable art, and an apron called a "pujoke." He wore a leather
skull-cap, and sandals of ox-hide: ivory rings were wound round his
arms, and from his ears hung brass plates about four inches long--a
kind of ear-ring--which is also a charm; an antelope's tail stood
up in his skull-cap, and his hunting-stick was surmounted by a tuft
of small black ostrich feathers. The natural colour of his body was
quite invisible through the thick coating of ochre with which he was
besmeared from head to foot, while some ineffaceable incisions in his
legs denoted the number of enemies he had slain.
[Illustration: Chief Moulibahan.]
The chief, as grave as Matthew Strux himself, stepped up to the
Europeans, and took them in turn by the nose. The Russians permitted
this to be done quite gravely, the English rather more reluctantly, but
still it had to be done, for according to African custom, it denoted a
solemn engagement to fulfil the duties of hospitality to the Europeans.
When the ceremony was over, Moulibahan retired without having uttered a
word.
"And now that we are naturalized Bechuanas," said Colonel Everest, "let
us begin our operations without losing a day or an hour."
And indeed no time was lost; still, such is the variety of detail
required in the organization of an expedition of this character, the
Commission was not ready to start until the beginning of March. That,
however, was the time appointed by Colonel Everest; because then the
rainy season just being over, the water, preserved in the fissures
of the earth, would furnish a valuable resource to travellers in the
desert.
On the 2nd of March, then, the whole caravan, under Mokoum's command,
was ready. The Europeans took farewell of the missionaries at Lattakoo,
and left the village at seven o'clock in the morning.
"Where are we going, Colonel?" asked William Emery, as the caravan
passed the last house in the town.
"Straight on, Mr. Emery," answered the Colonel, "until we reach a
suitable place for establishing a base."
At eight o'clock the caravan had passed over the low shrubby hills
which skirt the town, and soon the desert, with its dangers, fatigues,
and risks, lay unfolded before the travellers.