From Veldt Camp Fires
By H.A. Bryden
Published by Hurst and Blackett, London.
This edition dated 1900.
From Veldt Camp Fires, by H.A. Bryden.
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FROM VELDT CAMP FIRES,
BY H.A. BRYDEN.
CHAPTER ONE.
A SECRET OF THE ORANGE RIVER.
Many are the stories told at the outspan fires of the South African
transport riders--some weird, some romantic, some of native wars, some
of fierce encounters with the wild beasts of the land. Often have we
stopped for a chat with the rugged transport riders, and some strange
and interesting information is obtained in this way.
The transport rider--the carrier of Africa--with his stout waggon and
span of oxen, travels, year after year, over the rough roads of Cape
Colony and beyond, in all directions, and is constantly encountering all
sorts and conditions of men--white, black and off-coloured; and in his
wanderings, or over his evening camp fire, he picks up great store of
legend and adventure from the passing hunters, explorers and traders.
One night, after a day's journey through the bush-veldt, we lay at a
farmhouse, near which was a public outspan. At this outspan two
transport riders were sitting snugly over their evening meal; they
seemed a couple of cheery, good fellows--one an English Afrikander, the
other an Englishman, an old University man, and well-read, as we
afterwards discovered--and nothing would suit them but that we should
join them and take pot-luck. Attracted by their hospitable ways and the
enticing smell of their game stow, for we were none of us anthobians, we
sat us down and ate and drank with vigorous appetites. Their camp-pot
contained the best part of a tender steinbok, and a brace or two of
pheasants (francolins); and we heartily enjoyed the meal, washed down
with the inevitable coffee.
Supper finished, some good old Cango (the best home-manufactured brandy
of the Cape, made in the Oudtshoorn district) was produced, pipes were
lighted, and then we began to "yarn." For an hour or more we talked
upon a variety of topics--old days in England, the voyage to the Cape,
the Colony, its prospects and its sport.
From these, our conversation wandered up-country, and we soon found that
our acquaintances were old interior traders, who in the days when ivory
and feathers were more plentiful and more accessible than now, had over
and over again made the journey to 'Mangwato and back. 'Mangwato, it
may be explained, is the trader's abbreviation for Bamangwato, Khama's
country, the most northerly of the Bechuana States; and of Bamangwato,
Shoshong was formerly the capital and seat of trade. Then we wandered
in our talk to the Kalahari, that mysterious and little known desert
land, and from the Kalahari back to the Orange River again.
"'Tis strange," said one of our number, "how little is known of the
Orange River--at all events west of the falls; I don't think I ever met
a man who had been down it. One would think the colonists would know
something of their northern boundary; as a matter of fact they don't."
"Ah! talking of the Orange River, reminds me," said the younger of the
transport riders, the ex-Oxonian, and the more loquacious of the two,
"of a most extraordinary yarn I heard from a man I fell in with some
years back, stranded in the `thirstland,' north-west of Shoshong. Poor
chap! he was in a sorry plight; he was an English gentleman, who for
years had, from sheer love of sport and a wild life, been hunting big
game in the interior. That season he had stayed too late on the Chobi
River, near where it runs into the Zambesi, and with most of his people
had got fever badly. They had had a disastrous trek out, losing most of
their oxen and all their horses, and when I came across them they were
stuck fast in the doorst-land (thirstland) unable to move forward or
back. For two and a half days they had been without water, and from
being in bad health to begin with, hadn't half a chance; and, if I had
not stumbled upon them, they must all have been dead within fifteen
hours. I had luckily some water in my vatjes, and managed to pull them
round, and that night, leaving their waggon in the desert in hopes of
being saved subsequently, and taking as much of the ivory and valuables
as we could manage and Mowbray's (the Englishman's) guns and ammunition,
we made a good trek, and reached water on the afternoon of the next day.
I never saw a man so grateful as Mowbray; I believe he would have done
anything in the world for me after he had pulled round a bit. Poor
chap! during the short time I knew him I found him one of the best
fellows and most delightful companions I ever met. Unlike most hunters,
he had read much and could talk well upon almost any subject, and his
stories of life and adventure in the far interior interested and
impressed me wonderfully. But the Zambesi fever had got too strong a
hold upon him. I dosed him with quinine and pulled him together till we
got to Shoshong, where I wanted him to rest, but he seemed restless and
anxious to get out into the open veldt again, and after a few days we
started away. Before we had got half-way down to Griqualand, Mowbray
grew suddenly worse and died one evening in my waggon just at sunset.
We buried him under a kameel doom tree, covering the grave with heavy
stones, and fencing it strongly with thorns to keep away the jackals and
hyenas.
"Many and many a talk I had with poor Mowbray before he died; sometimes
he would brighten up wonderfully and insist on talking to me for hours,
as he lay well wrapped up, in the evening, underneath my waggon sail.
One evening, in particular, he had seemed so much stronger and better,
and, later on, as we sat before the camp fire on the dewless ground,
where I had propped him up and made him comfortable, he told me a most
strange story, a story so wonderful that most people would scout and
laugh at it as wildly improbable; yet, remembering well the narrator and
the circumstances under which he told it to me, with the shadow of death
creeping over the short remaining vista of his life, I believe most
firmly his story to be true as gospel.
"Poor chap! He began in this way: `Felton, you have been a thundering
kind friend to me, kind and tender as any woman (which, by the way, was
all nonsense), and I feel I owe you more than I am ever likely to repay;
yet, if you want wealth, I believe I can put it in your way. Do you
know the northern bank of the Orange River, between the great falls and
the sea? No! I don't suppose you do, for very few people have ever
trekked down it; still fewer have ever got down to the water from the
great walls of desolate and precipitous mountain that environ its
course, and, except myself and two others, neither of whom can ever
reveal its whereabouts, I believe no mortal soul upon this earth has
ever set eyes upon the place I am going to tell you about. Listen!
"In 1871, about the time the diamond fields were discovered, and people
began to flock to Griqualand West, I was rather bitten with the mania,
and for some months worked like a nigger on the fields; during that time
I got to know a good deal about stones. I soon tired of the life,
however, and finally sold my claim and what diamonds I had acquired,
fitted up a waggon, gathered together some native servants, and trekked
again for those glorious hunting grounds of the interior, glad enough to
resume my old and ever-charming life. Amongst my servants was a little
Bushman, Klaas by name, whom I afterwards found a perfect treasure at
spooring and hunting. Like all true Bushmen, he was dauntless as a
wounded lion, and determined as a rhinoceros, which is saying a good
deal. I suppose Klaas had had more varied experience of South African
life than any native I ever met. Originally, he had come as a child
from the borders of the Orange River, where he had been taken prisoner
in a Boer foray, in which nearly all his relations were shot down. He
had then been `apprenticed' in the family of one of his captors, where
he had acquired a certain knowledge of semi-civilised life. From the
Boer family of the back-country, he had subsequently drifted farther
down into the colony, and thence into an elephant hunter's retinue. He
had accompanied expeditions with Griquas, Dutch and Englishmen all over
the far interior. The Kalahari desert, Ovampo-land, Lake Ngami, the
Mababi veldt, and the Zambesi country, were all well known to him, for
in all of them he had traded, hunted and, on occasion, fought. As for
the Western Orange River and its mysteries--for it is a mysterious
region--he knew it, as I afterwards discovered, better than any man in
the world. Well, we trekked up to Matabeleland and, after some trouble,
got permission to hunt there; and a fine time we had, getting a quantity
of ivory, and magnificent sport among lions, elephants, buffaloes,
rhinoceros, sable and roan antelopes, koodoo, eland, Burchell's zebras,
pallah and all manner of smaller game.
"One day, Klaas, who was sometimes a bit too venturesome, got caught in
the open by a black rhinoceros, a savage old bull. The old brute
charged and slightly tossed him, making a nasty gash in his right thigh,
but not fairly getting his horn under him, and was just turning to
finish the poor little, beggar, when I luckily nicked in. I had seen
the business and had had time to rush out on to the plain, and, just as
Borele charged at poor Klaas to finish him off as he lay, I got up
within forty yards, let drive, and, as luck would have it, dropped him
with a 500 Express bullet behind the shoulder. Even then the fierce
brute recovered himself and tried to charge me in turn, but he was now
disabled and I soon settled his game. After that episode Klaas proved
himself about the only grateful native I ever heard of, and seemed as if
he couldn't do enough for me.
"One day, after he had got over his wound, he came to me, and said,
`Sieur! you said one day that you would like to know whether there are
diamonds anywhere else than at New Rush (as Kimberley was then called).
Well, sieur, I have been working at New Rush and I know what diamonds
are like; and I can tell you where you can find as many of them in a
week's search as you may like to pick up. Allemaghte! Ja, it is as
true, sieur, as a wilde honde on a hartebeest's spoor.'
"`What the devil do you mean, Klaas!' said I, turning sharply round--for
I was mending the disselboom (waggon-pole)--to see if the Bushman was
joking. But on the contrary, Klaas's little weazened monkey face wore
an expression perfectly serious and apparently truthful. The statement
seemed strange, for I knew the little beggar was not given to `blowing,'
as so many of the Kaffirs and Totties are.
"`Ja, sieur, it is truth; if ye will so trek with me to the Groote
(Orange) River, three or four days beyond the falls, I will show you a
place where there are hundreds and hundreds of diamonds, big ones, too,
many of them to be found lying about in the gravel. I have played with
them and with other "mooi steins" too, often and often as a boy, when I
used to poke about here and there, up and down the Groote River. My
father and grandfather lived near the place I speak of, and I know the
way to the "vallei" where these diamonds are well, though no one but
myself knows of them; for I found them by a chance, and, selfish like,
never told of my child's secret. I will take you to the place if you
like.'
"`Are you really speaking truth, Klaas?' said I severely.
"`Ja! Ja! sieur, I am, I am,' he earnestly and vehemently reiterated,
`you saved my life from the "rhenoster" the other day, and I don't
forget it.'
"Again and again I questioned and cross-questioned the little Bushman,
and finally convinced myself of his truth; and I had too much respect
for his keen intelligence to think he was himself misled or mistaken.
"`Well, Klaas,' said I at last, `I believe you, and we'll trek down to
the Orange River and see this wonderful diamond valley of yours.'
"Shortly after this conversation we came back to Shoshong, where I sold
my ivory, and then, with empty waggon and the oxen refreshed by a good
rest, set our faces for the river. From Shoshong, in Bamangwato, we
trekked straight away across the south-eastern corner of the Kalahari,
in an oblique direction, pointing south-west; it was a frightfully
waterless and tedious journey, especially after passing the Langeberg,
which we kept on our left hand. Towards the end of the journey we found
no water at a fountain where we had expected to obtain it, and thereby
lost four out of twenty-two oxen (for I had six spare ones), and at
last, after trekking over a burning and most broken country, we were
beyond measure thankful to strike the river some way below the great
falls. Klaas had led us to a most beautiful spot, where the terrain
slopes gradually to the river (the only place for perhaps thirty or
forty miles where the water, shut in by mighty mountain walls, can be
approached), and where we could rest and refresh ourselves and our oxen.
Here we stopped four days. It was a lovely spot; down the banks of the
river, and following its course, grew charming avenues of willows,
kameel dooms (acacias) and bastard ebony; two or three islands, densely
clothed with bush and greenery, dotted the broad and shining bosom of
the mighty stream; hippopotami wallowed quietly in the flood, and fish
were plentiful. The thorny acacia was now in full bloom, and the sweet
fragrance of its yellow flowers everywhere perfumed the air as one
strolled by the river's brim. Rare cranes, flamingoes, gorgeous
kingfishers and many handsome geese, ducks and other water-fowl, lent
life and charm to this sweet and favoured oasis.
"I had some old scraps of fishing tackle with me, and having cut myself
a rod from a willow tree, I employed some of my spare time in catching
fish, and had, for South Africa--which, as you know, is not a great
angling country--capital sport. The fish I captured were a kind of
flat-headed barbel, fellows with dark greenish-olive backs and white
bellies, and I caught them with scraps of meat, bees, grasshoppers,
anything I could get hold of, as fast as I could pull them out, for an
hour or two at a time. Once I ran clean out of bait, and was
nonplussed; however, I turned over a stone or two, killed a couple of
scorpions, carefully cut off their stings, and used them as bait, and
the fish came at them absolutely like tigers. I soon caught some thirty
pounds weight of fish whenever I went out. The mountains rose here and
there around in magnificently serrated peaks, and the whole place,
whichever way you looked, was superbly beautiful. There was a fair
quantity of game about; Klaas shot some klipspringer antelopes--
hereabouts comparatively tame--up in the mountains, and there were
koodoos, steinbok and duykers in the bushes and kopjes.
"After the parching and most harassing trek across the desert; our
encampment seemed a terrestrial paradise. The guinea-fowls called
constantly with pleasant metallic voices from among the trees that
margined the river, and furnished capital banquets when required. Many
fine francolins abounded, and at evening, Namaqua partridges came to the
water to drink in literally astounding numbers. We had to form a strong
fence of thorns around us, for leopards were numerous and very daring,
and there were still lions about in that country. At night, as I lay in
my waggon, contentedly looking into the starry blue, studded with a
million points of fire, and mildly admiring the glorious effulgence of
the greater constellations, I began to conjure up all sorts of dreams of
the future, of which the bases and foundations were piles of diamonds,
culled from Klaas's wondrous valley.
"Having recruited from the desert journey, and all, men and beasts,
being in good heart and fettle, we presently started away down the river
for the valley of diamonds. I had, besides Klaas, four other men as
drivers, voerlopers and after-riders, and they naturally enough were
extremely curious to know what on earth the `Baas' could want to trek
down the Orange River for--a country where no one came, and of which no
one had ever even heard. I had to tell them that I was prospecting for
a copper mine, for, as you probably know, there are many places in this
region where that metal occurs. After our four days' rest by the noble
river we were all greatly refreshed, and quite prepared for the severe
travel that lay before us. As we were doubtful whether we should find
water at the next fountain that Klaas knew of, owing to the prevalence
of drought--and as it was an utter impossibility (so Klaas informed me)
to get down to the river on this side for several days, owing to the
steep mountain wall that everywhere encompassed it--I filled the water
vatjes and every other utensil I could think of, and then, all being
ready and the oxen inspanned, we moved briskly forward.
"We had now to make a detour to the right, away from the river, and for
great part of a day picked our painful footsteps over a rough and
semi-mountainous country. Towards evening, we emerged upon a dreary and
interminable waste that lay outstretched before us, its far horizon
barred in the dim distance by towering mountains, through which we
should presently have to force our passage. That evening we outspanned
in a howling wilderness of loose and scorching sand, upon which scarcely
a bush or shrub found subsistence. After a night not too comfortable
and broken by some hyenas that prowled restlessly about, we were up
betimes next morning. As soon as the oxen were inspanned and ready to
move forward for the mountains to which Klaas had directed our course, I
rode off for a low kopje that rose from the plain away in the distance
hoping to see game beyond. I was not disappointed; a small troop of
hartebeest was grazing about half a mile off, and by dint of a little
manoeuvring with my Hottentot after-rider, whom I despatched on a
detour, I managed to cut across the herd and knocked over a fat cow at
forty yards. We soon had her skinned, and taking the best of the meat,
rode on for the waggon. Again we had an exhausting trek over a burning
sandy plain; the heat of this day was something terrible. I have had
some baddish journeys in the doorst-land on the way to the great lake,
but this was, if possible, worse. Towards four o'clock the oxen were
ready to sink in their yokes, their lowing was most distressing, and as
the water was now nearly at an end, and we might not reach a permanent
supply for another day, nothing could be done to alleviate their
sufferings. At nightfall, more dead than alive, we outspanned beneath
the loom of a gigantic mountain range, whose recesses we were to pierce
on the following morning. Half a day beyond this barrier lay the valley
of diamonds, as Klaas whispered to me after supper that night, with
gleaming excited eyes; for, noticing my growing keenness, he, too, was
becoming imbued with something of my expectancy.
"That night, as we lay under the mountain, was one of the most stifling
I ever endured in South Africa, where, on the high table-lands of the
interior, nights are usually cool and refreshing. Even the moist heat
of the Zambesi valley was not more trying than this torrid, empty
desert. The ovenlike heat, cast up all day from the sandy plain, seemed
to be returned at night by these sun-scorched rocks with redoubled
intensity. Waterless, we lay sweltering in our misery, with blackened
tongues and parched and cracking lips. The oxen seemed almost like dead
things. Often have I inwardly thanked Pringle, the poet, of South
Africa, for his sweet and touching verse, written with the love of this
strange wild land deep in him, for his striking descriptions of its
beauties and its fauna. As I lay panting that night, cursing my luck
and the folly that brought me thither, I lit a lantern and opened his
glowing pages. What were almost the first lines to greet my gaze?
These!
"A region of emptiness, howling and drear,
Which man hath abandoned, from famine and fear,
Which the snake and the lizard inhabit alone,
With the twilight bat from the yawning stone;
Where grass nor herb nor shrub takes root,
Save poisonous thorns that pierce the foot;
And here, while the night-winds around me sigh,
And the stars burn bright in the midnight sky,
As I sit apart by the desert stone,
Like Elijah at Horeb's cave alone,
`A still small voice' comes through the wild
(Like a father consoling his fretful child),
Which banishes bitterness, wrath and fear,
Saying, `Man is distant, but God is near.'
"We hailed, the passage of the mountains next morning with something
akin to delight; anything to banish the monotony of these last two days
of burning toil. We were up as the morning star flashed above the
earth-line. We drank the remaining water, which afforded barely half a
pint each to the men, none for the oxen and horses. With difficulty the
poor oxen, already, in this short space, gaunt and enfeebled from the
heat and for lack of food and drink, were forced up into their yokes.
Klaas, as the only one of us who knew the country, directed our
movements, and with hoarse shouts, and re-echoing cracks from the mighty
waggon-whip, slowly our caravan was set in motion. Our entrance to the
mountains was effected through a narrow and extremely difficult poort
(pass), strewn with huge boulders and overgrown with brush and underwood
that often barred the way and rendered Stoppages frequent. After about
a mile, the kloof into which this poort debouched suddenly narrowed and
turned left-handed at right angles to our course. Accompanied by Klaas,
I walked down it, and was soon convinced by the little Bushman that our
passage that way was ended. As Klaas had warned me, our only way
through and out of the mountains now lay in taking, with our waggons, to
the steep and broken hill sides, a proceeding not only perilous, but
apparently all but impossible. Yet the thing had to be done, and we at
once set the spent oxen in motion and faced the ascent obliquely. After
consultation with Klaas, I got out some ropes, which I had fastened to
the uppermost side of the waggon, while some stout long poles, which I
had had previously cut for such an emergency while outspanned at the
Orange River, served to prop up our lumbering vehicle from the lower
side. Slowly and wearily, and yet, withal, with a sort of dogged
stubbornness, the poor oxen toiled on, half-hour after half-hour, urged
by our shouts, by the cruel waggon-whip, mercilessly plied, and the
terrible after-ox sjambok. Many times it seemed, as our cumbrous desert
ship crashed across a boulder or down a stair-like terrace of rock, that
it must inevitably topple over and roll crashing to the bottom; but our
guy-ropes and the supporting poles saved us again and again.
"I had fastened one of the ropes with a stout band of leather round the
chest of my hunting horse; the other two ropes were held by the
strongest of my servants and myself, while two other men held the poles
against the lower side of the waggon as they stood down hill below it.
My old horse, guided by a Bechuana boy, as usual, proved himself as
sensible as any Christian, knew exactly what he had to do, and, when we
came to crucial points and the waggon shivered as it were upon empty
space, he and my Kaffir and I tugged away, while the fellows below
shoved with might and main. And so time after time we averted a
catastrophe, so dire that I shuddered to think of it; for in some
places, if the waggon had gone, the wreck must have been irreparable and
the yoked oxen hurled with it in a broken and mangled heap to the bottom
far below us. Well, occasionally halting for a blow, long hours of the
most distressing labour I ever experienced were at last got through; we
had surmounted and left behind the first huge mountain-side, had plunged
into a valley, had passed obliquely over the shoulder of another great
mountain, and now halted in a deep and hollow kloof lying below a
singular flat-topped mountain, conical in shape, that stretched across
our onward path. This mountain was flanked on either hand, as we
fronted it, by yawning cliffs, and was only approachable from this one
aspect. Here we outspanned for a final rest before completing our work,
if to complete it were possible. Shading my eyes from the fierce
sunlight, I looked upward at the long slope of mountain, broken here and
there, and occasionally shaggy with bush; over all the fierce atmosphere
quivered, seething and dancing in the sun-blaze. I looked again with
doubt and dismay at the gasping oxen, many of them lying foundered and
almost dead from thirst and fatigue, and my spirits, usually brisk and
unflagging, sank below zero. Klaas had told me previously of a most
wonderful pool of water that lay on the crown of a mountain where we
should outspan finally before entering upon the portals of the diamond
valley. Now he came to me and said, pointing upwards, `Sieur, de sweet
water lies yonder op de berg. It is a beautiful pool, such as ye never
saw the like of; if we reach it we are saved and the oxen will soon get
round again; ye must get them up somehow, even without the waggon.'
"The tiny yellow blear-eyed Bushman, standing over me as I sat on a
rock, pointing with his lean arm skywards, his anxious dirt-grimed face
streaming with perspiration, was hardly the figure of an angel of hope;
and yet at that moment he was an angel, of the earth, earthy, 'tis true,
yet an angel that held before us sure hope of rescue from our valley of
despair; for despair, black and grim, now lay upon the faces of my
followers and in the eyes of my oxen. Remember, we had tasted no water
to speak of for close on three days, and had had besides a frightfully
trying trek.
"We lay panting and grilling for an hour or more, and then I told my men
that water in any quantity lay at the mountain top and that we must, at
all hazards, get the oxen up to it. By dint of severe thrashing with
the after-ox sjambok, we at last got the oxen on to their legs--all but
two, which could not be made to rise, and then, leaving the waggon, but
taking three or four buckets, we moved upwards. Only a mile of ascent,
or a little more, lay before us; but so feeble were the oxen that we had
the greatest difficulty to drive them to the top, even without the
encumbering waggon. At last we reached the krantz, and after a hundred
yards' walk upon its flat top, we came almost suddenly upon a most
wonderful and, to us, most soul-thrilling sight.
"Dense bushes of acacia thorn, spekboom, euphorbia, Hottentot cherry and
other shrubs grew around, here and there relieved by wide patches of
open space. The oxen, getting the breeze and scenting water, suddenly
began to display a most extraordinary freshness; up went their heads,
their dull eyes brightened and they trotted forward to where the brush
apparently grew thickest.
"For a time they found no opening, but after following the circling wall
of bush, at length a broad avenue was disclosed--an avenue doubtless
worn smooth by the passage of elephants, rhinoceroses and other mighty
game, in past ages--and then there fell upon our sight the most
refreshing prospect that man ever gazed upon. Thirty yards down the
opening there lay a great pool of water, about 200 feet across at its
narrowest point, and apparently of immense depth; the pool was circular,
its sides were of rock and quartz, and completely inaccessible from
every approach save that by which we had reached it. It was indeed
completely encompassed by precipitous walls about thirty feet in height,
which defied the advent of any other living thing than a lizard or a
rock-rabbit. Upon these rocky walls grew lichens of various colours--
blood-red, yellow and purple, imparting a most wonderful beauty to the
place. The avenue to the brink of this delicious water was of smooth
rock somewhat sloping, and in the rush to drink we had the greatest
difficulty in preventing the half-mad oxen from plunging or being pushed
in, in which case we should have had much trouble to rescue them.
"How the poor beasts drank of that cool, pellucid flood, and how we
human beings drank, too! I thought we should never have finished. The
oxen drank and drank till the water literally ran out of their mouths as
they at last turned away. Then I cast off my clothes and plunged into
the water; it was icy cold and most invigorating, and I swam and
splashed to my heart's content. After my swim and a rest I directed my
men to fill the four buckets we had brought, and then, leaving the
horses in charge of one of their number, we drove the cattle, loth
though they were to leave the pool, back to the waggon, going very
carefully so as not to spill the water.
"At length we reached the valley, only to find our two poor foundered
bullocks lying nearly dead. The distant lowing of their refreshed
comrades had, I think, warned them of good news, and the very smell of
the water revived them, and after two buckets apiece of the cold draught
had been gulped down their kiln-dried throats, they got up, shook
themselves, and rejoined their fellows.
"We rested for a short time and then inspanned and started for the
upland pool. The oxen, worn and enfeebled though they were, had such a
heart put into them by their drink, and seemed so well to know that
their watery salvation lay up there, only a short mile distant, that
they one and all bent gallantly to the yokes and dragged their heavy
burden to the margin of the bush-girt water. We now outspanned for the
night, made strong fires, for the spoor of leopards was abundant, stewed
some bustards, ate a good supper, and turned in; when I say turned in, I
should be more correct in saying I turned into my waggon, while the men
wrapped themselves in their blankets or karosses, lay with their toes
almost into the fire and snored in the most varied and inharmonious
chorus that ears ever listened to.
"I suppose we had not been asleep two hours when I was awakened by the
sharp barks and yelpings of my dogs, the kicks and scrambles of the
oxen, and the shouts of the men. Snatching up my rifle and rushing out,
I was just in time to see a firebrand hurled at some dark object that
sped between the fires.
"`What is it, Klaas?' I shouted.
"`Allemaghte! it is a tiger (leopard), sieur,' cried the Bushman, `and
he has clawed one of the dogs.'
"True enough, on inspecting the yelping sufferer, Rooi-kat, a brindled
red dog, and one of the best of my pack, I found the poor wretch at its
last gasp, with its throat and neck almost torn to ribbons. Nothing
could save the unfortunate animal, the blood streamed from its open
throat, and, after a convulsive kick or two, it stretched itself out and
lay there dead. Cursing the sneaking, cowardly leopard, I saw that the
replenished fires blazed up, and again turned in.
"It must have been about two o'clock in the morning, the coldest, the
most silent, and the dreariest of the dark hours--that fatal hour
betwixt night and day, when many a flickering life, unloosed by death,
slips from its moorings--when I was again startled from slumber by a
most blood-curdling yell. Hunters, as you know, sleep light and seem
instinctively to be aware of what passes around them, even although
apparently wrapped in profoundest sleep. I knew in a moment that that
agonised cry came from a human throat, and headlong from my kartel I
dashed. God! what a din was there again from dogs, men, and oxen, and
above all, those horrid human screams. I had my loaded rifle, and
rushing up to a confused crowd struggling near the firelight, I saw in a
moment what had happened.
"The youngest of my servants, a mere Bechuana boy, was hard and fast in
the grip of an immense leopard, which was tearing with its cruel teeth
at his throat, and at the same time kicking murderously with its heavily
clawed hind legs at the poor fellow's stomach and thighs. One of the
men, Klaas of course, bolder than his fellows, was lunging an assegai
into the brute's ribs, seemingly without the smallest effect, others
were thrashing it with firebrands, and the dogs were vainly worrying at
its head and flanks. All this I saw instantaneously. Thrusting my
followers aside, I ran up to the leopard, and, putting my rifle to its
ear, fired. The Express bullet did its work at once; the fiercest and
most tenacious of the feline race could not refuse to yield its life
with its head almost blown to atoms, and loosening its murderous hold,
the brute lay dead. But too late! the poor Bechuana boy lay upon the
sand wounded to the death. His right shoulder and throat were terribly
ripped and mangled by the fore claws and teeth of the deadly cat; but
the cruellest wounds lay lower down. The hinder claws of the leopard
had absolutely torn the abdomen away; it was a shocking sight. Recovery
was hopeless, and indeed, although we did what we could for the poor
sufferer, he only lingered an hour insensible, then died. After his
death my men told me how the thing had happened. In this solitary
region the leopards and other ferae, as I have often heard, never being
disturbed by gunners, are extraordinarily fierce and audacious. The
leopard, a male, was evidently very hungry, as its empty stomach
testified, and after once tasting blood--that of the dog--it soon got
over its temporary scare. The young Bechuana lay farthest from the
fire, for his elders took up the warmest positions, and the leopard had
crept cat-like in upon him and got him by the throat before he knew
where he was. Then came the awful shrieks I had heard, and then began
the tussle for life; alas! an altogether one-sided one. My men, in the
scramble, and scared, too, no doubt, forgot the guns which were in the
waggon, and only Klaas had thought of his assegai. So bloodthirsty was
the brute, that nothing, except my rifle, could make it relax its hold,
even although it was manifestly unable to get away with its victim.
After these horrors sleep was banished, and as the grey light came up we
prepared for day.
"The morning broke at length in ruddiest splendour, and as the terrain
was slowly unfolded before my gaze, I realised the desolate magnificence
of the country. Mountains, mountains, mountains of grim sublimity
rolled everywhere around. Far away below, as I looked westward, a thin
silvery line, only visible for a little space, told of the great river
flowing to the sea, inexorably shut in by precipitous mountain walls
that guaranteed for ever its awful solitude.
"Klaas stood near, and as I gazed, he whispered, for my men were not far
away: `Sieur, yonder, straight in front of you, five miles away, lie the
diamonds. If we start directly after breakfast we shall have four
hours' hard climbing and walking to reach the valley.'
"All right, Klaas," said I, "breakfast is nearly ready and we'll start
as soon as we have fed." A good fire was going, the pot was already
steaming, the oxen had been watered, and I myself, stripping off my
clothes on the brink of that delicious pool, dived deeply into its
unknown depths. After a magnificent swim in the cold and bracing water
I felt transformed and ready for breakfast; but although the bathe had
to some extent revived my spirits, I could not forget the sad beginning
of our search--the death of poor Amazi, now, poor fellow, lying buried
beneath a cairn of stones just away beyond the camp.
"Well, breakfast was soon over, and then I spoke to my men. I told them
that I intended to stay at this pool for a few days, and that in the
meantime I was going prospecting in the mountains bordering the river.
I despatched two of them to go and hunt for mountain buck in the
direction we had come from, where we had noticed plenty of rhebok,
duyker and klipspringer, the others were to see that the oxen fed round
about the water, where pasture was good and plentiful, and generally to
look after the camp. For Klaas and myself, we should be away till dusk,
perhaps even all night; but we did not wish to be followed or disturbed,
and unless those at the camp heard my signal of four consecutive rifle
shots they were on no account to attempt to follow up our spoor. My men
by this time knew me and my ways well, and I was convinced that we
should not be followed by prying eyes; indeed, the lazy Africans were
only too glad of an easy day in camp after their hard journey.
"Taking some biltong (dried flesh), biscuits and a bottle of water each,
and each shouldering a rifle, Klaas and I started away at seven o'clock.
The little beggar, who, I suppose, in his Bushman youth had wandered
baboon-like all over this wild country, till he knew it by heart, showed
no sign of hesitation, but walked rapidly down hill into a deep gorge at
the foot, which led half a mile or so into a huge mass of mountain that
formed the north wall of the Orange River. This kloof must at some time
or another have served as a conduit for mighty floods of water, for its
bottom was everywhere strewn with boulders of titanic size and shape,
torn from the cliff walls above. It took us a long hour of the most
laborious effort to surmount these impediments, and then with torn hands
and aching legs we went straight up a mountain, whose roof-like sides
consisted of masses of loose shale and shingle, over which we slipped
and floundered slowly and with difficulty. I say we, but I am bound to
admit that the Bushman made much lighter of his task than I, his
ape-like form seeming indeed much more fitted for such a slippery
breakneck pastime.
"At length we reached the crest, and then, after passing through a
fringe of bush and scrub, we scrambled down the thither descent, a
descent of no little danger. The slipping shales that gave way at every
step, often threatened, indeed, to hurl us headlong to the bottom, which
we should most certainly have reached mere pulpy masses of humanity. At
last this stage was ended, and we found ourselves in a very valley of
desolation. Now we were almost completely entombed by narrowing
mountain walls, whose dark red sides frowned upon us everywhere in
horrid and overpowering silence. The sun was up, and the heat, shut in
as we were, overpowering. Moreover, to make things more lively, I
noticed that snakes were hereabouts more than ordinarily plentiful; the
bloated puff-adder, the yellow cobra, and the dangerous little night
adder several times only just getting out of our path.
"The awful silence of this sepulchral place was presently, as we rested
for ten minutes, broken by a posse of baboons, who, having espied us
from their krantzes above, came shoggling down to see what we were.
"They were huge brutes and savage, and quah-quahed at us threateningly
till Klaas sent a bullet into them, when they retreated pell-mell. We
soon started again, and pressed rapidly along a narrow gorge some fifty
feet wide with perfectly level precipitous walls, apparently worn smooth
at their bases by the action of terrific torrents, probably an early
development of the Orange River when anciently it made its way through
these grim defiles. The ground we walked upon was, I noticed, composed
of sand and rounded pebbles, evidently water-worn and of various kinds.
Some of them were round masses of the most beautiful transparent
crystal-spar, often as large as a man's head.
"Presently the causeway narrowed still more, and then, turning a sharp
corner, we suddenly came upon a pair of leopards sauntering coolly
towards us. I didn't like the look of things at all, for a leopard at
the best of times is an ugly customer, even when he knows and dreads
firearms, and here, probably, the animals had never even heard the
report of a gun.
"The brutes showed no intention of bolting, but stood with their backs
up, their tails waving ominously and their gleaming teeth bared in
fierce defiance. There was nothing for it, either we or they must
retreat, and having come all this frightful trek for the diamonds I felt
in no mood to back down, even to _Felis pardus_ in his very nastiest
mood. Looking to our rifles, we moved very quietly forward, until
within thirty-five yards of the grim cats. They were male and female,
and two as magnificent specimens of their kind as sun ever shone upon.
The male had now crouched flat for his charge and not an instant was to
be lost; the female stood apparently irresolute. Noticing this, and not
having time to speak, we both let drive at the charging male; both shots
struck, but neither stopped him. The lady, hearing the report, and
apparently not liking the look of affairs, incontinently fled. With a
hoarse, throaty grunt the male leopard flew across the sand, coming
straight at me, and then launched himself into the air. I fired too
hurriedly my second barrel, and, for a wonder, clean missed, for in
those days I seldom failed in stopping dangerous game; but these beggars
are like lightning once they are charging. In a moment the yellow form
was flying through space, straight at my head; I sprang to one side, and
Klaas, firing again, sent the leopard struggling to earth, battling
frantically for life, amid sand and shingle, with a broken back. Lucky
was the shot, and bravely fired, or I had probably been as good as a
dead man ere this. Another cartridge soon finished off the fierce
brute. We noticed on inspection that one of our first two bullets had
ploughed up the leopard's nose and glanced off the forehead; the other
had entered the chest and passed almost from end to end of the body,
while the third had broken the spine. Klaas soon whipped the skin off
the dead leopard and hid it under some stones, and we then proceeded,
the whole affair having occupied but twenty minutes.
"Another mile of this canal-like kloof brought us to an opening, and
here a most singular sight lay before my vision. Hitherto we had been
so shut in that the sun failed to penetrate between the narrowing
cliffs, except, probably, for a short while as it passed immediately
above them.
"Suddenly, as the gorge widened on either hand, a blaze of sunlight
glowed and glistened on the upright walls to the left hand of us. As I
looked thither, one of the most marvellous sights in nature was, in an
instant, laid bare; a sight that few mortals, even in aeons upon aeons
of the past, have ever gazed upon in these remote and most inaccessible
regions of the Orange River. The wall of mountain on our left stood up
straight before the hot sunlight a dark reddish-brown mass of rock, I
suppose some five hundred feet in height, and then sloped away more
smoothly to its summit, which overlooked the river, as I should judge,
about a mile distant. As we came out into the sunshine, Klaas, pointing
to the cliff, ejaculated, in quite an excited way, `De paarl! de paarl!
kek, sieur, kek!' (The pearl! the pearl! look, sir, look!) Looking
upwards at the pile of rock, my eye was suddenly arrested by a gleaming
mass that protruded from the dead wall of mountain. Half-dazzled, I
shaded my eyes with my hand and looked again. It was a most strange and
beautiful thing that I beheld, a freak of nature the most curious that I
had ever set eyes on. The glittering mass was a huge egg-shaped ball of
quartz, of a semi-transparent, milky hue, flashing and gleaming in the
radiant sunshine, with the glorious prismatic colours that flash from
the unlucky opal. But yet more strange, above the `paarl,' as Klaas
quaintly called it, and overhanging it, was a kind of canopy of
stalactite of the same brilliant opalescent colours. It was wonderful!
Klaas here began to caper and dance in the most fantastic fashion, and
then, suddenly ceasing, he said, `Now, sieur, I will soon show you the
diamonds; they are there,' pointing to a dark corner of the glen, `right
through the rock.'
"`What made you call that shining stone up there "de paarl"?' said I, as
I gazed in admiration at the beautiful ball of crystal.
"`Well, sieur, I was once with a wine Boer at the Paarl, down in the Old
Colony, and a man told me why they called the mountain there "De Paarl,"
and he told me, too, what the pretty gems were that I saw in the young
vrouw's best ring when she wore it; and I then knew what a paarl was and
that it came from a fish that grows in the sea. And I remembered then
the great shining stone that I found up here, when I was a boy, on the
Groote River, and I thought to myself, "Ah! Klaas, that was the finest
paarl ye ever saw, that near where the pretty white stones lay." I mean
the diamonds yonder, sieur.'
"At last, then, we were within grasp of the famous stones, concerning
whose reality I had even to the last had secret misgivings. It was a
startling thought. Just beyond there, somewhere through the rock-walls,
whose secret approach at present Klaas only knew, lay `Sindbad's
Valley.' Could it be true? Could I actually be within touch of riches
unspeakable; riches, in comparison with which the wealth of Croesus
seemed but a beggar's hoard?
"I sat down on a rock and lit a pipe, just to think it over and settle
my rather highly-strung nerves. The Paarl, as I could now see, was an
unique formation of crystal-spar, singularly rounded upon its face. It
and the glorious canopy of hanging stalactite above it must have been
reft bare by some mighty convulsion that had anciently torn asunder
these mountains, leaving the ravine in which we stood.
"As we drank from our water-bottles and ate some of the dried flesh and
biscuits we had brought with us, I noticed Klaas's keen little eyes
wandering inquiringly round the base of the precipice in our front. He
seemed puzzled, and as we finished our repast and lit our pipes again,
he said, `The hole in the rock that leads from this kloof to the
diamonds should be over there,' pointing before him. `But I can't quite
make out the spot, the bushes have altered and grown so since I was here
as a boy, years and years ago.'
"We got up and walked straight for the point he had indicated and
reached the foot of the precipice. All along here, where the sand and
soil had been swept in bygone floods, or had formed from the slow
disintegration of fallen rock from above, cactus, euphorbia, aloe and
brush grew thickly, and in particular the curious Euphorbia Candelabrum,
with its many-branching arms, stood prominent. The Bushman hunted
hither and thither in the prickly jungle with the fierce rapidity of a
tiger-cat after a running guinea-fowl; but, inasmuch as he was sometimes
prevented from immediately approaching the rock-wall, he appeared unable
to hit off the tunnel that led, as he had formerly told me, to the
valley beyond. Suddenly, after he had again disappeared, he gave a low
whistle, a signal to approach to which I quickly responded. Quietly
pushing my way towards him, I was astonished to see within a small
clearing a thick and high thorn fence, outside of which Klaas stood.
Inside this circular kraal was a low round hut, formed of boughs and
branches strongly and closely interlaced Klaas was standing watching
intently the interior of the hut, which seemed to be barred at its tiny
entrance by a pile of thorns lying close against it.
"What could it mean, this strange dwelling, inaccessible as it seemed to
human life? Klaas soon found a weak spot in the kraal-fence, and,
pulling down some thorns, we stepped inside and approached the hut.
Here, too, Klaas pulled away the dry acacia thorns from the entrance and
was at once confronted by a tiny bow and arrow and behind that by a
fierce little weazened face. Instantly, my Bushman poured forth a
torrent of his own language, redundant beyond expression with those
extraordinary clicks of which the Bushman tongue seems mainly to
consist.
"Even as he spoke, the bow and arrow were lowered, the little head
appeared through the entrance, and the tiniest, quaintest, most ancient
figure of a man I had ever beheld stood before us. Ancient, did I say?
Ancient is hardly a meet description of his aspect. As he stood there,
blinking like an owl in the fierce sunlight, his only covering a little
skin kaross of the red-rhebok, fastened over his shoulders, standing not
more than three feet eight or ten inches in height, he looked indeed
coeval with the rocks around him. I never saw anything like it. Poor
little oddity! Dim though his eyes were waxing, feeble though his
shrivelled arms, dulled though his formerly acute senses, he had, with
all the desperate pluck of his race, been prepared to do battle for his
hearth and home.