MARITZBURG, August 1, 1876.
The brief winter season seems already ended and over, so far as the
crisp, bracing atmosphere is concerned. For many days past it has been
not only very hot in the sun, but a light hot air has brooded over
everything. Not strong enough to be called a hot wind, it is yet like
the quivering haze out of a furnace-mouth. I pity the poor trees: it
is hard upon them. Not a drop of rain has fallen for three months
to refresh their dried-up leaves and thirsting roots, and now the
sun beats down with a fiercer fire than ever, and draws up the drop
of moisture which haply may linger low down in the cool earth. Cool
earth, did I say? I fear that is a figure of speech. It almost burns
one’s feet through the soles of thin boots, and each particle of dust
is like a tiny cinder. I think regretfully of the pleasant, sharp,
frosty mornings and evenings, even though the days are lengthening,
and one may now count by weeks the time before the rain will come, and
fruits and vegetables, milk and butter, be once more obtainable with
comparative ease. What I most long for, however, is a good pelting
shower, a down-pour which will fill the tanks and make water plentiful.
I am always rushing out in the sun to see that the horses and the fowls
and all the animals have enough water to drink. In spite of all my
care, they all seem in a chronic state of thirst, for the Kafirs are
too lazy and careless to think that it matters if tubs get empty or if
a horse comes home too late to be led down to the river with the rest.
The water that I drink myself—and I drink nothing else—would give a
sanitary inspector a fit to look at, even after it has passed through
two filters. But it goes through many vicissitudes before it reaches
this comparatively clean stage. It is brought from the river (which is
barely able to move sluggishly over its ironstone bed) through clouds
of dust. If the Kafir rests his pails for a moment outside before
pouring their contents into the first large filter, the pony, who is
always on the lookout for a chance, plunges his muzzle in among the
green boughs with snorts of satisfaction; the pigeons fly in circles
round the man’s head, trying to take advantage of the first favorable
moment for a bath; and not only dogs, but even cats, press up for a
drop. This is because it is cool, and not so dusty as that in pans
outside. There is not a leaf anywhere yet large enough to give shade,
and the water outside soon becomes loathsomely hot. Of course it is
an exceptionally dry season. All the weather and all the seasons I
have ever met with in the course of my life always have been quite out
of the ordinary routine. Doubtless, it is kindly meant on the part
of the inhabitants, and is probably intended as a consolation to the
new-comer. But I am too well used to it to be comforted. Even when one
comes back to dear old England after three or four years’ absence, and
arrives, say, early in May, everybody professes to be amazed that there
should be a keen east wind blowing, and apologizes for the black hard
buds on the lilac trees and the iron-bound earth and sky by assurances
that “There have been _such_ east winds this year!” Just as if there
are not “such” east winds every year!
After these last few amiable lines it will hardly surprise any one to
hear that this is the irritating hot wind which is blowing so lightly.
You must know we have hot winds from nearly opposite quarters. There
is one from the north-east, which comes down from Delagoa Bay and all
the fever-haunted region thereabouts, which is more unhealthy than
this. _That_ furnace-breath makes you languid and depressed: exertion
is almost an impossibility, thought is an effort. But _this_ light
air represents the healthy hot wind, a nice rasping zephyr—a wind
which dries you up like a Normandy pippin, and puts you and keeps you
in the most peevish, discontented frame of mind. It has swept over
the burning deserts of the interior, and comes from the north-west,
and I can only say there is aggravation in every puff of it. The only
person toward whom I feel at all kindly disposed when this wind is
blowing is Jim. Jim is a new Kafir-lad, Tom’s successor, for Tom’s
battles with Charlie became rather too frequent to be borne in a quiet
household. Jim is such a nice boy, and Jim’s English is delightful. He
began by impressing upon me through Maria that he had “no Inglis,” but
added immediately, “Jim no sheeky.” Certainly he is not cheeky, but,
on the contrary, the sweetest-tempered creature you could meet with
anywhere. He must be about sixteen years old, but he is over six feet
high, and as straight as a willow wand. To see Jim stride along by
the side of my little carriage is to be reminded of the illustrations
to the _Seven-League-Boots_ story. At first, Jim tried to coil and
fold and double his long legs into the small perch at the back of the
pony-carriage, but he always tumbled out at a rut in the road, and kept
me in perpetual terror of his snapping himself in two. Not that there
are many ruts now in my road, I would have you know. It is all solid
dust, about three feet deep everywhere. A road-party worked at it in
their own peculiar way for many weeks this fall, and the old Dutch
overseer used to assure me with much pride every time I passed that he
“vas making my ladyships a boofler road mit grabels.” Of course it was
the queen’s highway at which he and his Kafirs dug, but it pleased him
to regard it as my private path, and this gave him greater courage to
throw out “schnapps” as a suggestion worthy of my attention.
Will you believe me when I declare that in spite of all these weary
weeks of drought, in spite of this intense blaze of burning sunshine
all through the thirsty day, the long stretches of the blackened
country are showing tender green shoots round the stumps of the old
rank grass burned away long ago? It seems little short of a miracle
when one sees the baked earth, hard as a granite cliff, dry as a last
year’s bone, and through its parched, pulverized surface little clumps
of trefoil are springing everywhere, and young blades of grass. On
the mulberry trees, too, the buttons have burst into tufts of dainty
leaves, which assert themselves more and more every day, and herald
that wealth of freshest greenery in which Natal was clad over hill and
dale when first I saw her last November. Then I could not take in that
the smiling emerald downs which stretched around me could ever be the
arid desolate wasteland they now appear; and now I can scarcely summon
up faith enough to believe in the miracle of the spring resurrection
close at hand, of which these few lonely leaves and blades are the sign
and token.
Yes, Jim’s English is very droll—all the more so for his anxiety to
practice it, in spite of his protestations to the contrary. Jim is a
great meteorologist, unlike the majority of Kafirs, from whom you can
extract no opinion whatever. They say the rain-doctor is the proper
person to determine whether it is going to be fair or foul weather. I
have asked Charlie whether it was going to rain when the heavy clouds
have been almost over our heads, just to hear what he would say; and
Charlie has answered with Turkish fatalism, “Oh, ma’, I doan know: if
it like to rain, it will, but if it don’t, it won’t.” Now, Jim does
proffer an opinion, expressed by a good deal of pantomime, and Jim is
quite as often right as most weather-prophets. Jim studies the skies on
account of getting and keeping his wood-heap dry, and prides himself
on neat stacks of chopped-up fuel. I gave Jim an orange the other day,
and he took it in the graceful Kafir fashion with both hands, and burst
forth into all his English at once: “Oh, danks, ma’: inkosa-casa vezy
kind new face, vezy. Jim no sheeky: oh yaas, all lite!” His meaning can
only dimly be guessed at, especially about the new face. I wish with
all my heart I _could_ get a new face, for this one is much the worse
for the South African sun and my inveterate habit of loitering about
out of doors whenever I can, and spending most of my waking hours in
the verandah.
AUGUST 4.
Since I last wrote there has not been much loitering out of doors,
nor has any one who could possibly avoid doing so even put his nose
outside. The hot zephyr I alluded to three days ago suddenly changed
to a furious hot gale, the worst I have ever seen—hotter than a New
Zealand nor’-wester, and as heavy as a hurricane. The clouds of dust
baffle description. The direction, too, from whence it came must also
have changed, for a sort of epidemic of low fever is hanging about,
and the influenza would be ludicrous from the number of its victims
if it were not so disagreeable and so dangerous. All the washermen
and washerwomen in the whole place are ill, the entire body of Kafir
police is on the sick list, all one’s servants are laid up—Charlie says
pathetically, “Too moch plenty cough inside, ma’”—and everybody looks
wretched. The “inkos” which one hears in passing are either a hoarse
growl or a wheezy whisper. When you consider how absolutely dry the
atmosphere must be, it is difficult to imagine how people catch such
constant and severe colds as they do here. I am bound to say, however,
that except with this influenza a cold does not last so long as it does
in England, but I think you catch cold oftener; and the reason is not
far to seek. In these hot winds, or out of the broiling midday sun,
some visitor rides up from town, and arrives here or elsewhere very hot
indeed. Then he comes into a little drawing-room with its thick stone
walls and closed, darkened windows, and exclaims, “How delightfully
cool you are here!” but in five minutes he is shivering; and the next
thing I hear is that he has cold or fever. Yet what is one to do? I
have to keep in-doors all day: I must have a cool room to sit in; and
as long as one has not been taking exercise out of doors, it does no
harm.
The gale of hot wind seemed to set the whole place on fire. I should
not have thought a tussock had been left anywhere, but every night
lately has been made bright as day by the glare of blazing hillsides.
Then I leave my readers to imagine the state of a house into which
all these fine particles of soot filter through ill-fitting doors
and windows, driven by a furious hurricane. The other morning poor
little G—— ’s plate of porridge set aside to cool in the dining-room,
with every door and window closed, had a layer of black burnt grass
on the top in five minutes; and the state of the tablecloth, milk,
etc. baffles description. Indeed, one’s life is a life of dusting
and scrubbing and cleaning generally, if a house is to be kept even
tolerably tidy in these parts.
I forget if I have ever told you of the spiders here. They are another
sorrow to the careful housewife, spinning webs in every corner, across
doorways, filling up spaces beneath tables, flinging their aërial
bridges from chair to chair—all in a single night—and regarding glass
and china ornaments merely as a nucleus or starting-point for a filmy
labyrinth.
AUGUST 10.
Every now and then, when I give way to temper and a hot wind combined,
and write crossly about the climate, my conscience reproaches me
severely with a want of fairness when the weather changes, as it
generally does directly, and we have some exquisite days and nights.
For instance, directly after I last wrote our first spring showers
fell—very coyly, it is true, and almost as if the clouds had forgotten
how to dissolve into rain. Still, the very smell of the moist earth was
delicious, and ever since that wet night the whole country has been
Growing glorious
Quietly, day by day;
and except in the very last-burnt patches a faint and hesitating tinge
of palest green is stealing over all the bleak hillsides. My poor
bamboos are still mere shriveled ghosts of the fair green plumes which
used to rustle and wave all through the drenching summer weather, but
everything else is pushing a leaf here and a shoot there wherever it
can, and, joy of joys! there has been no dust for a day or two. All
looks washed and refreshed: parched-up Nature accepts this shower as
the first installment of the deluge which is coming presently. In the
mean time, the air is delicious, and even the poor influenza victims
are creeping about in the sunshine. The Kafirs have suffered most, and
it is really quite sad to see how weak they are, and how grateful for a
little nourishing food, which they absolutely require at present.
I took advantage of the first of these new spring days, with their
cool air, to make a little expedition I have long had on my mind. From
my verandah I can see on the opposite hills, at about my own lofty
elevation of fifty feet or so, the white tents beyond the dark walls
of Fort Napier. Now, this little spot represents the only shelter and
safety in all the country-side in case of a “difficulty” with our
swarming dusky neighbors. Here and there in other townships there are
“laagers,” or loopholed enclosures, within which wagons can be dragged
and a stand made against a sudden Kafir raid; but here, at the seat of
government, there is a battalion of an English regiment, a thousand
strong, and a regular, orthodox fortified place, with some heavy pieces
of ordnance. But you know of old how terribly candid I am, so I must
confess at once that it was not with the smallest idea of ascertaining
for myself the military strength and capability of Fort Napier that
I paid it a visit that fine spring morning. No: my object was of the
purest domestic character, and indeed was only to see with my own eyes
what these new Kafir huts were like, with a view to borrowing the idea
for a spare room here. Could anything be more peaceful than such a
project? I felt like the old wife in Jean Ingelow’s _Brides of Enderby_
as I drove slowly up the steep hill, at the brow of which I could
already see the pacing sentries and the grim cannon-mouth—
And why should this thing be?
What danger lowers by land or sea?
I might have answered as she did,
For storms be none, and pyrates flee;
for, although there are skirmishes beyond our borders, we ourselves,
thank God! dwell in peace and safety within them. Nothing could be
more picturesque than the gleaming white points now standing sharply
out in snowy vandykes against a cobalt sky, or else toned harmoniously
down against a soft gray cloud; now glistening on a background of
green hillside, or nestling dimly in a dusty hollow. There is only
barrack-room for half the regiment, and the other half, under canvas,
takes a good many tents and covers a good deal of ground. Although
the soldiers have got through the winter very well, it would not be
prudent to trust them to the shelter of a tent during the coming
summer months of alternate flood and sunshine. So Kafirs have been
busy building nearly a hundred of their huts on an improved plan all
this dry weather, and these little dwellings are now just ready for
their complement of five men apiece. They are a great step in advance
of the original Kafir hut, and it was for this reason I came to see
them, lured also by hearing that they only cost four pounds apiece.
We are so terribly cramped for room here. I have only ventured on one
tiny addition—a dressing-room about as big as the cabin of a ship,
which cost nearly eighty pounds to build of stone like the rest of the
house. So I have had it on my mind for some time that it would be a
very fine thing to build one of these glorified Kafir huts close to the
house for a spare room. The real Kafir hut is exactly like a beehive,
without door or window, and only a small hole to creep in and out at.
These new military huts have circular walls, five feet high and about
a dozen feet in diameter, made of closely-woven wattles, and covered
within and without with clay. I stood watching the Kafirs working at
one for some time. It certainly looked a rude and simple process.
Some four or five stalwart Kafirs were squatting on the ground hard
by, “snuffing” and conversing with much gesticulation and merriment.
They were the off-gang, I imagine. Three or four more were tranquilly
and in a leisurely fashion trampling the wet clay and daubing it on
with their hands inside and out. They had not the ghost of a tool of
any sort, and yet the result was wonderfully good. I wondered why
finely-chopped grass was not mixed with the clay, as I have seen the
New Zealand shepherds do in preparing the “cob” for their mud walls;
but I was told that the Kafir would greatly object to anything so
uncomfortable for his bare legs and feet. Of course, the shepherd works
up the ugly mass with a spade, whilst here these men slowly trample
it to the right consistency. The plastering is really a triumph of
(literally) handiwork, though the process is exasperatingly slow. At
first the mud comes out all over thumb-marks, and dries so, but in a
day or two buckets of water are dashed over it, so as to remoisten it,
and then it is once more patiently smoothed all over with the palm of
the hand until an absolutely smooth surface is obtained, as flat and
flawless as though the best of trowels had been used. A neatly-fitting
door and window have meantime been made in the regimental workshop, and
hung in the spaces left for them in the wattled walls. More wattles,
closely woven together, are put on in the shape of a very irregular
dome, and this is thatched nearly a foot deep with long rank grass tied
securely down by endless ropes of finely-plaited grass. The result is
a spacious, cool, and most comfortable circular room, and those which
are finished and fitted up with shelves and camp furniture look as nice
as possible. A little tuft of straw at the apex of each dome is at
once a lightning-conductor and a finish to the quaint little building.
The plastered walls of some huts are whitewashed, but the most popular
idea seems to be to tar them and make them still more weather-proof. A
crooked stick or two, being merely the rough branch of a tree, stands
in the centre and acts as a musket-rack and tent-pole to the little
dwelling. The Kafirs get only one pound ten shillings for each hut,
and the wooden fittings are calculated to cost about two pounds ten
shillings more; but I hear that they grumble a good deal on account
of the distance from which they have to bring the grass, all in the
neighborhood having been burnt. They also regard it as women’s work,
for all the kraals are built by women.
On the whole, I am more than ever taken with the idea of a Kafir spare
room, and quite hope to carry it out some day, the huts look so cool
and healthy and clean. The thatch and mud walls will keep off the sun
in the hot weather before us; and as all the huts stand on a gentle
slope, there is no fear of their being damp. It is wonderful how well
the soldiers have managed hitherto under canvas, and how healthy they
have been; but I can quite understand that it is not well to presume
upon such good luck during another wet season. As we were up in camp,
we looked at all the soldiers’ arrangements—the canteen, where mustard
and pickles seemed to be the most popular articles of food; the
schoolhouse, a wee brick building, in which both the children and the
recruits have to learn, and which is also used as a chapel on Sunday.
Everything was the pink of neatness and cleanliness, as is always the
case where soldiers or sailors live, and I was much struck by the
absolute silence and repose of so small an enclosure with a thousand
men inside it. I wondered whether a thousand women could have kept so
quiet? Of course I peeped into the kitchen, and instantly coveted the
beautiful brick oven out of which sundry smoking platters were being
drawn. But curry and rice was the chief dish in the bill of fare for
that day, and I can only say the smell was excellent and exceedingly
appetizing. The view all round, too, was charming. Just at our feet lay
the hollow where the men’s gardens are. Such potatoes and pumpkins!
such cabbages and onions! The men delight in cultivating the willing
soil in which all vegetables grow so luxuriantly and easily; and it is
so managed that it shall be a profit as well as a pleasure to them. In
many ways this encouragement of a taste for gardening is good: there
is the first consideration of the advantage to themselves, and it
is indirectly a boon to us, for if a thousand men were added to the
consumers of the few potatoes and vegetables which daily find their
way into the Maritzburg market, I know not what would become of us.
Our last stroll was to the brow of another down close by, also crowned
with white tents. Beneath it lay the military graveyard, and I have
seldom seen anything more poetic and touching than the effect of this
lovely garden—for so it looked, a spot of purest green, tenderly cared
for—amid the bare winter coloring of all the country-side. The hills
folded it softly, as if it were a precious place, the sun lay brightly
on it, and the quiet sleeping-ground was made orderly and tranquil
by many a sheltering tree and blooming shrub. I promised myself to
come in summer and look down on it again when all the wealth of roses
and geraniums are out, and when these brown hillsides are green and
glorious with their tropic pasture.
You will think I have indeed taken a sudden mania for soldiers and
camps when I tell you that a very few days after my visit to Fort
Napier I joyfully accepted the offer of a friend to take me to see the
annual joint encampment of the Natal Carbineers and D’Urban Mounted
Rifles out on Botha’s Flat, rather more than halfway between this and
D’Urban. Not only was I delighted at the chance of seeing that lovely
bit of country more at my leisure than dashing through it in the
post-cart, but I have always so much admired the pluck and spirit of
this handful of volunteers, who keep up the discipline and prestige
of their little corps in the teeth of all sorts of difficulties and
discouragements, that I was glad to avail myself of the opportunity of
paying them a visit when they were out in camp. For many years past
these smart light-horse have struggled on in spite of obstacles to
attending drill, want of money, lack of public attention and interest,
and a thousand other lets and hinderances. Living as we do in such
a chronically precarious position—a position in which five minutes’
official ill-temper or ever so trifling an injudicious action might
set the whole Kafir population in a blaze of discontent, and even
revolt—too much importance cannot, in my poor judgment, be attached
to the volunteer movement; and it seems to me worthy in the highest
degree of every encouragement and token of appreciation which it is
in our power to give. Of either pence or praise these Natal mounted
volunteers (for they would be very little use on foot over such an
extent of railway-less country) have hitherto had a very small share,
and yet I found the pretty little camp as full of military enthusiasm,
as orderly, as severely simple in its internal economy, as though
the eyes of all Europe were upon it. Each man there in sacrificing a
week of his time was giving up a good deal more than most volunteers
give up, and it would make too long a story if I were to enter into
particulars of the actual pecuniary loss which in this country attends
the lawyer leaving his office, the clerk his desk, the merchant his
counting-house, and each providing himself with horses, etc. to come
out here twice a year and drill pretty nearly from morning till night.
The real difficulty, I fancy, lies in subordinates being able to
obtain leave. Every sugar-estate, every office, every warehouse, has
so few white men employed in it, exists in such a chronic state of
short-handedness, that it is the greatest inconvenience to the masters
to let their clerks go out. Both corps are therefore stronger on paper
than in the field, but from no lack of willingness to serve on the part
of the volunteers themselves.
I don’t want to be spiteful or invidious, but I have seen volunteer
camps nearer the heart of civilization, where there were flower-gardens
round the tents and lovely “fixings” inside, portable couches and
chairs, albums, and clocks, besides a French cook and iced champagne
flowing like a river. Dismiss from your mind all ideas of that sort
if you come with me next year to Botha’s Flat. I can promise you
scrupulous and exquisite neatness and cleanliness, but in every other
respect you might as well be in a real camp on active service. Even
the Kafir servants are left behind, the men—some of them very fine
gentlemen indeed—cleaning their own horses and accoutrements, pitching
their own tents, cooking their own food, and in fact acting precisely
as though they had really taken the field in an enemy’s country. The
actual drill, therefore—though more than half the hours of daylight
are spent in the saddle under the instruction of one of the most
enthusiastic and competent drill-instructors you could find anywhere—is
by no means all that is practiced in these brief, hardly-won camp-days.
The men learn to rely solely on their own resources. Their commissariat
is arranged by themselves, one single small wagon to each corps
conveying tents, forage, stores, firewood—all that is needed for man
and horse—for ten days or so. They have no “base of operations”—nothing
and nobody to depend upon but themselves. It is literally a “flying
camp,” and all the more interesting for being so evidently what we
shall most need in case of any native difficulty. I don’t suppose they
ever dream of visitors, for in this languid land few people would
journey thirty miles to look at anything, especially in a hot wind. Nor
am I sure the volunteers want visitors. It is real, earnest, practical
hard work with them, done with their utmost diligence, and without
expecting the smallest reward, even in fair words. It strikes me as
very remarkable and characteristic of the lack of general interest in
public subjects how little one hears of the very men on whom we may at
any moment be only too glad to rely. However, I never can attempt to
fathom causes: rather let me describe effects for you as best I may.
And a very pretty effect the camp has as we dash round the shoulder
of a steep hill with the brake hard down, the leaders plunging wildly
along with slack traces, and a general appearance of an impending upset
over everything. It has been a lovely drive, though rather hot, but
the roads are ever so much better than they were in the summer, and
I have never seen the country looking more beautiful, as it seems to
grow greener with every mile out of Maritzburg. When the hills open out
suddenly and show the great fertile cleft of undulating downs, green
ravines with trickling silver threads down them, and purple mountains
in the distance stretching away to the coast, which is known as the
Inanda Location, one feels as if one were looking at the Happy Valley.
O mortal man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this, thy hard estate,
for neither the imaginary kingdom of Amhara nor any other kingdom in
all the fair earth can show a more poetical or suggestive glimpse of
scenic beauty. Yet when a few miles more of rushing and galloping
through the soft air brings us to the top of the pass of the Inchanga,
I make up my mind that _that_ is the most beautiful stretch of country
my eyes have ever beheld. It is too grand to describe, too complete to
break up into fragments by words. Far down among the sylvan slopes of
the park-like foreground the Umgeni winds, with the sunshine glinting
here and there on its waters: beyond are bold, level mountains with
rich deep indigo shadows and lofty crests cut off straight against
the dappled sky, according to the South African formation. But we
soon climb the lofty saddle, and put the brake hard down again for
the worst descent on the road. If good driving and skill and care can
save us, we need not be nervous, for we have all these; but the state
of the harness fills me with apprehension, and it is little short of
a miracle why it does not all give way at once and tumble off the
horses’ backs. Luckily, there is very little of it to begin with, and
the original leather is largely supplemented by reins or strips of
dried bullock hide, so we hold together until the vehicle draws up at
the door of a neat little wayside inn, where we get out and begin at
once to rub our elbows tenderly, for they are all black and blue. There
is the camp, however, on yonder green down, and here are two of the
officers from it waiting for us, and wanting to know all about hours
and plans and so forth. A little rest and luncheon are first on the
programme, and a good deal of soap and water also for us travelers,
and then, the afternoon being still young, we mount our horses and
canter up the rising ground to where the flagstaff stands. The men
are just falling in for their third and last drill, which will last
till sundown, so there is time to go round the pretty little spot and
admire the precision and neatness, the serviceable, business-like
air, of everything. There is the path the sentries tread, already
worn perfectly bare, but straight as though it had been ruled: yonder
is the bit of sod-fencing thrown up as a shelter to the kettles and
frying-pans. The kitchen range consists of half a dozen forked sticks
to leeward of this rude shelter, and each troop contributes a volunteer
cook and commissariat officer. The picket-ropes for the horses run
down the centre of the little camp, and we must look at the neat pile
of blankets and nose-bags marked with separate initials. The officers’
tents are at one end, and the guard tents at the other, and those for
the privates, holding five men each, are between. It is all as sweet
and clean and neat as possible, and one can easily understand what is
stated almost as a joke—that the first night in camp no one could sleep
for his own and his neighbor’s cough, and now there is not such a sound
to be heard.
We are coming back into camp presently, for I am invited to dine at
the officers’ mess to-night, so we must make the most of the daylight.
It is a gray evening, and the hot wind has died away, allowing the
freshness from the hills to steal down to this green spur, which is
yet high enough to be out of the cold mists of the valley. The drill
is not very amusing for a lady this afternoon, because it is real
hard work—patiently doing the same thing over and over again until
each little point is perfect—until the horses are steady and the men
move with the ease and precision of a machine. But it is just because
there is little else to distract one’s attention that I can notice
what fine stalwart young fellows they all are, and how thoroughly in
earnest. Their uniforms and accoutrements are simple, but natty, and
clean as a new pin, the horses especially being ever so much better
groomed and turned out by their masters’ hands than if each had been
saddled by his usual Kafir groom. So, after a short while of watching
the little squadron patiently wheel and trot and advance by those
mysterious “fours,” manœuvre across a swamp, charge down a hill,
skirmish up that burnt slope over there, and so forth, we leave them
hard at work, and canter over some ridges to see what lies beyond. But
there is nothing much to reward us, and the only effect of our long
evening ride is to make us all ravenously hungry and anxious for six
o’clock and dinner. Long before that hour the dusk has crept down, and
by the time we have returned, and I have exchanged my riding-habit
for a splendid dinner-costume of ticking, it is cold enough and dark
enough to make us glad of all the extra wraps we can find, and of the
light and shelter of the snug little tent. Here, again, it is real camp
fare. I am given _the_ great luxury of the encampment—to sit upon a
delicious _karosse_, or rug of dressed goat skins. It is snowy white,
and soft and flexible as a glove on the wrong side, and on the right
it is covered with long, wavy cream-colored hair with black patches
at each corner. The ground is strewn with grass, dry and sweet as
hay, and carriage candles are tied by wire to a cross stick fastened
on a tent-pole: the tablecloth is a piece of canvas, the dishes are
billies, but the food is excellent, and, above all, we have tea as
the sole beverage for everybody. We are all provided with the best of
sauces, and I assure you we very soon find ourselves at our dessert of
oranges in a basket-lid. Never have any of us enjoyed a meal more, and
certainly everybody except myself has earned it. Then there is a little
tinkling and tuning up outside, and the band turns out to play to us.
By this time the wind has got up again from another point, and is so
bitterly bleak and cold that the musicians cannot possibly stand still,
but have to keep marching round and round the little tent, playing away
lustily and singing with a good courage. Every now and then a stumble
over a tent-peg jerks out a laugh instead of a note, but still there
is plenty of “go” and _verve_ in the music, and half the camp turns
out to join in the chorus of “Sherman’s March through Georgia.” We
all declare loudly that we are going to carry “the flag that makes us
free” through all sorts of places, especially from “Atlanta to the
sea,” and I am quite sure that Sherman’s own “dashing Yankee boys”
could not possibly have made more noise themselves. This is followed
by the softest and sweetest of sentimental songs, given in a beautiful
falsetto which would be a treasure to a chorister; but it is really too
cold for sentiment, so we have one more song, and then the band sings
“Auld Lang Syne” with great spirit, and as the wind is now rising to
a hurricane, the musical performances are wound up somewhat hurriedly
by “God Save the Queen!” For this the whole camp turns out of their
own accord. The cooks leave their fires, the fatigue-party their
scrubbing and the lazy ones their pipes. Under the clear starlight,
with the Southern Cross sloping up from the edge of yonder dusky hill,
with the keen wind sweeping round the camp of this little handful of
Englishmen in a strange and distant country, the words of the most
beautiful tune in the world come ringing as though straight from each
man’s heart. Of course we all come out of our tent to stand bareheaded
too, and I assure you it is a very impressive and beautiful moment. One
feels as one stands here amid the flower of the young colonists, each
man holding his cap aloft in his strong right hand, each man putting
all the fervor and passion of his loyal love and reverence for his
queen into every tone of his voice, that it is well worth coming down
for this one moment alone. It is very delightful to see the English
people, whether in units or tens of thousands, greet their sovereign
face to face, but there is something even more heart-stirring, more
inexpressibly pathetic, in such outbursts as this, evoked by none of
the glamour and glitter of a royal pageant, but called into being
merely by a name, a tune, a sentiment. I often think if I were a queen
I should be more really gratified and touched by the ardent and loyal
love of such handfuls of my subjects in out-of-the-way corners of my
empire, where the sentiment has nothing from outside to fan it, than
with the acclamations of a shouting multitude as my splendor is passing
them by. At all events, _I_ have never seen soldiers or sailors,
regulars or volunteers, more enthusiastic over our own anthem. It is
followed by cheer upon cheer, blessing upon blessing on the beloved and
royal name, until everybody is perfectly hoarse from shouting in such a
high wind, and we all retreat into the tiny tents for a cup of coffee
and—what do you think? Stories. I am worse than any child in my love of
stories, and we have one or two really good _raconteurs_ in the little
knot of hosts.
Of course one of the first inquiries I make is whether any snakes have
been found in the tents, and I hear, much to my disappointment—because
the bare fact will not at all lend itself to a story for G—— when I get
home—that only one little one had crept beneath a folded great-coat
(which is the camp pillow, it seems), and been found in the morning
curled up, torpidly dozing in the woolen warmth. No, it is not a story
G—— will ever care about, for the poor little snake had not even been
killed: it was too small and too insignificant, they say, and it merely
got kicked out of its comfortable bed. To console me for this bald and
incomplete adventure, I am told some more snake-stories, which, at all
events, _ought_ to have been true, so good are they. Here are two for
you, one of which especially delights me.
Hard by this very camp a keen sportsman was lately pursuing a buck. He
had no dogs except a pet Skye terrier to help him in the chase—nothing
but his rifle and a trusty Kafir. Yet the hard-pressed buck had to dash
into a small, solitary patch of thorny scrub for shelter and a moment’s
rest. In an instant the hunter was off his pony, and had sent the
Kafir into the bush to drive out the buck, that he might have a shot
at it the moment it emerged from the cover. Instead of the expected
buck, however—I must tell you the story never states what became of
_him_—came loud cries in Kafir from the scrub of, “Oh, my mother! oh,
my friends and relations! I die! I die!” The master, much astonished,
peeped as well as he could into the little patch of tangled briers and
bushes, and there he saw his crouching Kafir stooping, motionless,
beneath a low branch round which was coiled a large and venomous snake.
The creature had struck at the man’s head as he crept beneath, and its
forked tongue had got firmly imbedded in the Kafir’s woolly pate. The
wretched beater dared not stir an inch: he dared not even put up his
hands to free himself; but there he remained motionless and despairing,
uttering these loud shrieks. His master bade him stay perfectly still,
and taking close aim at the snake’s body, fired and blew it in two.
He then with a dexterous jerk disentangled the barbed tongue, and
flung the quivering head and neck outside the bushes. Here comes the
only marvelous part of the story. “How did he know it was a poisonous
snake?” I ask. “Oh, well: the little dog ran up to play with the head,
and the snake—or rather the half snake—struck out at it and bit it in
the paw, and it died in ten minutes.”
But the following is _my_ favorite Munchausen: There was once a certain
valiant man of many adventures whose Kafir title was “the prince
of—fibs,” and he used to relate the following experience: One day—so
long ago that breech-loading guns were unknown, and the process of
reloading was a five-minute affair—he came upon a large and deadly
snake making as fast as it could for its hole hard by. Of course, such
a thing as escape could not be permitted, and as there was no other
weapon at hand, the huntsman determined to shoot the huge reptile. But
first the gun must be loaded, and whilst this was being done, lo! the
snake’s head had already disappeared in the hole: in another instant
the whole body would have followed. A sudden grasp at the tail, a
rapid, bold jerk, flung the creature a yard or two off. Did it attempt
to show fight? Oh no: it glided swiftly as ever toward the same shelter
from which it had been so rudely plucked. The ramrod was rapidly
plied, the charge driven home, but there was yet the percussion-cap
to be adjusted. Once more the tail was grasped, the snake pulled out
and flung still farther away. Again did the wily creature approach
the hole. In another instant the cap would be on and the gun cocked,
but everything depended on that instant. The sportsman kept his eye
fixed on his artful foe even whilst his fingers deftly found and fixed
the percussion-cap. What, then, was his horror and dismay to find
that he had, for once, met his match, and that the snake, recognizing
the desperate nature of the position, and keeping a wary eye on the
hunter’s movements, instead of going into his hole for the third time
in the usual method, had turned round and was backing in _tail first_!
Is it not delightful?
As soon as we had finished laughing at this and similar stories it was
high time to break up the little party, although it was only about the
hour at which one sits down to dinner in London. Still, there were
early parades and drills and goodness knows what, and I was very tired
and sleepy with my jolting journey and afternoon on horseback. So we
all went the “grand rounds,” lantern in hand, and with a deep feeling
of admiration and pity for the poor sentries pacing up and down on
the bleak hillside, walked down to the little inn, where a tiny room,
exactly like a wooden box, had been secured for me, the rest of the
party climbing heroically up the hill again to sleep on the ground
with their saddles for a pillow. This was playing at soldiers with
a vengeance, was it not? However, they all looked as smart and well
as possible next morning, when they came to fetch me up to breakfast
in the camp. Then more drill—very pretty this time—a sham attack and
defence, and then another delightful long ride over a different range
of hills. It was a perfect morning for exploring, gray and cool and
cloudy—so different from the hot wind and scorching sun of yesterday.
We could not go fast, not only from the steep up-and-down hill, but
from the way the ground was turned up by the ant-bears. Every few yards
was a deep burrow, often only a few hours’ old; and unless you had
seen it with your own eyes I can never make you believe or understand
the extraordinarily vivid color of this newly-turned earth. During
yesterday’s journey I had noticed that the only wild-flower yet out was
a curious lily growing on a fat bulb more than half out of the ground,
and sometimes of a deep-orange or of a brilliant-scarlet color. With
the recollection of these blossoms fresh in my mind, I noticed a patch
of bright scarlet on the face of an opposite down, and thought it must,
of course, be made by lilies. As I was very anxious to get some bulbs
for my garden, I proposed that we should ride across the ravine and dig
some up. “We can come if you like,” said the kindest and pleasantest of
guides, “but I assure you it is only a freshly-dug ant-bear’s hole.”
Never did I find belief so difficult, and, like all incredulous people,
I was on the point of backing up my hasty opinion by half a dozen
pairs of gloves when the same friendly guide laughingly pointed to a
hole close by, bidding me look well at it before risking my gloves.
There was nothing more to be said. The freshly scratched-out earth was
exactly like vermilion, moist and brilliant in color—“a ferruginous
soil,” some learned person said; but, however that may be, I had never
before seen earth of such a bright color, for it was quite different
from the red-clay soil one has seen here and in other places.
The line of country we followed that morning was extraordinarily
pretty and characteristic. The distant purple hills rolled down to the
gently-undulating ground over which we rode. Here and there—would that
it had been oftener!—a pretty homestead with its sheltering trees and
surrounding patches of pale-green forage clung to the steep hillside
before us. Then, as we rode on, one of the ravines fell away at our
feet to a deep gully, through which ran a streamlet among clustering
scrub and bushes. In one spot the naked rock stood out straight and
bare and bold for fifty yards or so, as though it were the walls of
a citadel, with a wealth of creeping greenery at its foot, and over
its face a tiny waterfall, racing from the hill behind, leapt down to
join the brook in the gully. We saw plenty of game, too—partridges,
buck, two varieties of the bald-headed ibis, secretary-birds, and, most
esteemed of all, a couple of paauw (I wonder _how_ it is spelt?), a
fine kind of bustard, which is quite as good eating as a turkey, but
daily becoming more and more scarce. There were lots of plover, too,
busy among the feathery ashes on the newly-burned ground, and smaller
birds chirruped sweetly every now and then. It was all exceedingly
delightful, and I enjoyed it all the more for the absence of the
blazing sunshine, which, however it may light up and glorify the
landscape, beats too fiercely on one’s head to be pleasant. If only
we women could bring ourselves to wear pith helmets, it would not be
so bad; but with the present fashion of hats, which are neither shade
nor shelter, a ride in the sun is pretty nearly certain to end in a
bad headache. At all events, _this_ ride had no worse consequence than
making us very hungry for our last camp-meal, a solid luncheon, and
then there was just time to rush down the hill and clamber into the
post-cart for four hours of galloping and jolting through the cold
spring evening air. My last look was at the white tents of the pretty
camp, the smoke of its fires and the smart lines of carbineers and
mounted rifles assembling to the bugle-call for another long afternoon
of steady drill down in the valley, or “flat,” as it is called—a
picturesque and pretty glimpse, recalling the memory of some very
pleasant hours, the prettiest imaginable welcome, and a great deal of
hearty and genuine hospitality.