HOW WE FARED.
Angora goats--Difficulty of keeping meat--The plague of flies
--Rations--Our store--Barter--Fowls--Chasing a dinner--Fowls
difficult to rear--Secretary birds as guardians of the
poultry-yard--Jacob in the Karroo--He comes down in the world
--He dies--Antelopes--A springbok hunt--The Queen's birthday
in the Karroo--Colonial dances--Our klipspringer--Superstition
about hares--Game birds--_Paauw_--_Knorhaan_--Namaqua partridges
--Porcupines--A short-lived pet--Indian corn--Stamped mealies--
Whole-meal bread--Plant used for making bread rise--Substitutes
for butter--_Priembesjes_--A useful tree--Wild honey--The honey
bird--Enemies of bees--Moth in bees' nests--Good coffee--Sour milk.
"How did you live?" is a question we have very often been asked by
friends, who, evidently thinking that our fare on that far-away South
African farm must necessarily have been of the roughest, and that from
a gastronomic point of view we were deeply to be pitied, have been
quite surprised to hear that on the whole we lived very well.
To be sure there were drawbacks. In the first place, however simply you
may live in the Cape Colony, you cannot possibly live cheaply; for
import duties are ruinously heavy, and almost everything, with the
exception of meat, has to be imported. Wheat, for instance, has to be
brought from Australia; the poor, dry South African colony being quite
unable to produce anything like a sufficient supply for its needs.
Then, too, green vegetables are very far from being an everyday item in
the _menu_; and as for fresh fish, it is a still rarer luxury, indeed
throughout all the long, hot summer it is absolutely unobtainable on
the farms, and one almost forgets what it is like. Eggs and butter,
too, have their long periods, first of excessive and increasing
scarcity, and then of entire absence from kitchen and table.
But in the colonies people soon learn to accommodate themselves to
circumstances, and contentedly to do without many of the things which
in England seemed such necessary adjuncts to daily life. They even
become accustomed to a very sad lack of variety in the matter of meat.
From one year's end to another merino mutton and Angora goat are almost
unchangingly the order of the day; the bill of fare being varied by
beef only on those rare occasions, during the very coldest weather,
when one of the farmers--having ascertained beforehand that a
sufficient number of neighbours are willing to share the meat--is
enterprising enough to slaughter an ox. But the difficulties of keeping
meat are such that sheep and goats are generally found to be quite
large enough; indeed, in the hot weather, they are very much too
large, and one is continually wishing that a diminutive race of
mutton-producing quadrupeds--say of the size of Skye terriers--were in
existence for the benefit of housekeepers in sultry climates.
Fortunately you do not get so tired of perpetual mutton as might be
expected, and it does not pall on the taste as beef or fowl would do
under the same circumstances. As we had only a few sheep, but possessed
a flock of several hundred Angoras, our standing dish was, of course,
goat. Let not the traveller pity us who on his journeyings--in Southern
Europe for instance--has had the misfortune to partake of the tough,
stringy, and strongly-flavoured goat's flesh too often iniquitously
substituted for mutton by unprincipled hotel-keepers. As different as
black from white is that unholy viand from our delicious Angora meat;
equal, if not superior, to the best mutton.
The goats are beautiful creatures, with a profusion of long, wavy hair,
which is as soft and glossy as the finest silk, and which, in the
thoroughbred animals, is of the purest white, and nearly touches the
ground. In the evening it is a pretty sight to watch the goats coming
down from the mountains, on whose steep and rocky sides they have
browsed all day; and where, as they descend, they form a long line of
snowy white against the red and green background of the aloes and
_spekboom_. It is pleasant, too, to go out to the kraals when the
little kids, which all arrive at about the same time, are only a few
days old. These goats are prolific creatures, many of them having two,
or even three young ones at once. The crowded enclosure is all alive
with the merry, noisy little fellows, jumping and scampering about in
all directions; and within a few days the number of the flock seems to
have almost doubled.
Angora goats are now more profitable than ostriches; although the hair,
like feathers, has sadly decreased in value, the price having fallen
from 4s. 6d. to 9d. per lb. It seems strange that Angora hair should
remain at such a low price; for a costly plush is now made from it,
besides very beautiful rugs, many of them perfect imitations of
leopard, tiger, and seal-skin--the latter hardly less expensive than
real seal.
The morning on which a goat or sheep is killed--especially during very
hot weather--ushers in a time of care and anxiety for the frugal
housewife. From the moment when the animal expires under the black
herd's hands, until the last joint has been brought to table, that meat
is an incubus which sits heavy on her soul all day, and occasionally
even haunts her dreams at night. She has to wage persistent war against
adverse agencies, always in readiness to work its destruction, and,
with all her vigilance, too often successfully robbing her of a good
portion of it.
First and foremost of all enemies are the flies in the field. As soon
as the dead goat or sheep is hung up out of doors, in as cool and shady
a place as can be found--though this is by no means saying much--it
must instantly be enclosed in a capacious, tightly-tied and
carefully-mended bag of mosquito-net, large enough to cover the whole
animal. For all around, buzzing excitedly, and eagerly looking out for
an opening, however small, through which to squeeze in and do their
deadly work, are crowds of big, noisy, determined blue-bottles--though,
by the way, if I may be allowed so Irish an expression, in the Karroo
these abominations are all green, and--gorgeous as Brazilian
beetles--flash like great emeralds in the sunshine.
Phillis, of course, cannot be trusted to go alone to that open-air
larder, for she will invariably leave the bag unfastened, even if by
her rough handling she does not tear a yawning rent in its side. In the
house too, she does her utmost to further the evil designs of the
flies, and, if she uses the meat-safe at all, makes a point of leaving
it wide open till a host of "green-bottles" has collected inside; when
she closes it, leaving them in blissful possession of their prize.
And oh, the house-flies! Truly the plague of flies is in every Karroo
home; and, next to the servants, it is the greatest bane of farm life.
And what flies they are! Their brethren in other parts of the world,
though obnoxious enough, can almost by comparison be called
well-behaved. For, except when eatables are about, they do seem to have
some idea of keeping to themselves and minding their own business;
which latter usually consists in dancing--in the air, and always in the
very centre of the room--a kind of quadrille of many intricate figures,
the accurate performance of which, holding them completely engrossed,
keeps them, for a time at least, out of mischief. But the South African
fly has no such resources of his own to keep him amused; consequently
he devotes all his energy and the whole of his time to one object--that
of making life a burden to the unfortunate human beings on whom he has
chosen to quarter himself. Not content with spoiling your appetite at
meals by the exhibition of his repulsive little black body in every
dish that comes to table, every cup of tea or glass of wine that is
poured out--where, whether cooked to death, or yet alive and
struggling, it is an equally unwelcome and disgusting sight--he makes
it his business to see that throughout the whole day you do not, if he
can help it, get one instant's peace. No matter how large the room may
be, no place in it will suit him for a perch but just your nose, or the
hand which happens to be busily engaged in some operation requiring
extreme steadiness, to which a jerk would be fatal; and however many
times he is rebuffed, he comes back, with the most unerring and
fiendish precision, to exactly the self-same spot, till he has set up a
maddening irritation, not only of the skin, but still more of the
temper. For he possesses, in the very strongest degree, the quality
which led those most observant of naturalists, the ancient Egyptians,
to institute the military order of the Fly. A good general, they
argued, is like a fly; for, however often he may be repulsed, he always
returns persistently to the attack. So they invested the successful
leader of their armies with a gold chain, from which, at intervals,
hung several large flies of pure, beaten gold, about four inches broad
across the closed wings. And in the Cairo Museum a very beautiful chain
of this kind is to be seen.
That South African fly was, indeed, the torment of our lives, until one
day we made a grand discovery. We found out that he could not stand
Keating's insect-powder. If only the smallest grain of it touched any
part of his person he was doomed; and in about five minutes would be
sprawling helplessly on his back, preparing to quit a world in which he
had been so great a nuisance. "Peppering the flies" became a regular
institution, the first business of each morning; and in all the rooms,
most especially in the kitchen--where the whole atmosphere seemed one
vast buzz--the foe would be driven, by the vigorous flapping of a
cloth, into the well-sprinkled windows where his fate awaited him. Soon
every fly would be dead; and as we gloated over the dustpans full of
slain we invoked benedictions on the name of Keating.
By taking care to keep every door and window on the sunny side of the
house either closed or covered with fine net, we managed, thanks to
this delightful powder, to exist in peace, instead of being given over
to the flies like our neighbours; many of whom would calmly submit to
any nuisance rather than take a little trouble to get rid of it, and
would sit quite contentedly in the midst of a buzzing cloud, with flies
popping into their tea one after another, or struggling by dozens in
the butter-dish. We found that one of the small bellows made for
blowing tobacco-smoke into bee-hives became, when filled with Keating,
a very formidable engine of destruction; a couple of puffs, sending the
fine powder in all directions, would settle every fly in the room. In
fact no one, even in the most tropical of climates, need be troubled
with flies, if only this simple remedy is used. If I had but known of
its efficacy a few years before, when up the Nile on a _dahabieh_
swarming with flies! And if, in that same Egypt, poor Menephtah had
only known of it three thousand years ago! Mr. Keating's fortune would
have been a colossal one if he had lived then.
But to return to our Angora. As soon as the meat has been cut up it is
usually sprinkled very plentifully with salt, and wrapped up for a few
hours in the skin; after which the greater portion of it is put into
pickle. For in the hot weather only a very small quantity can be eaten
unsalted, as it becomes tainted almost at once. Even in strong brine,
and with the most careful rubbing and turning, the meat is sometimes
quite uneatable on the second day, especially if the weather happens to
be thundery. And thunder-storms, when they do come, almost invariably
select the time when an animal has just been killed. N.B.--The "pope's
eye" must always be carefully taken out as soon as the meat is cut up,
or the joint will immediately become tainted.
Where the family is a small one it is a good plan, during the hot
weather, to include meat among the men's rations. The herds on the
farms receive weekly, as part of their pay, a certain quantity of meal,
coffee, sugar, salt, tobacco, etc.; and the store where all these
supplies are kept and weighed out on large and business-like scales,
looks--with its piles of sacks and packing-cases, its numerous shelves,
rows of bottles, tins of preserved meats and other provisions--not at
all unlike the general shop of an English village, with a little in the
chemist's and tobacconist's line as well.
It is the work of the mistress of the house to give out the rations;
and her movements, while manipulating the scales, are watched in a very
criticizing and suspicious manner by the black recipients, who always
seem terribly afraid that she will give them short weight. In reality
she is anxiously and almost nervously careful that every pound she
gives them shall be a good one; and if she errs at all it is on their
side, never on her own. In the matter of tobacco her heart is
especially soft, and the spans she measures off those great coils of
dark-brown rope--which surely must be akin to "pigtail tobacco"--are
far longer than can be stretched by her hand, or indeed by any hand but
that of a giant. But in this, as in every other item of the rations,
she is most unjustly and ungratefully suspected of a systematic course
of cheating. Sometimes "April" or "August," struck with a sudden bright
idea, comes up to the table, and, with many monkey-like gestures, makes
a close investigation of the scales and weights; peeping beneath them
and looking at them from all sides, to see by what artful device they
have been made the means of tricking him. He fails to discover
anything; but retires shaking his woolly head dubiously, and as far off
as ever from believing in the honesty of his employers.
Sometimes a little barter is carried on, in quite a primitive,
old-fashioned way, with Dutchmen travelling by in large waggons drawn
by sixteen or eighteen oxen, and often bringing with them very good
onions, oranges, _naatjes_ or mandarines, nuts, dried peaches and
figs--both of which latter are excellent for stewing,--and many other
things, which they are glad to exchange on the farms for coffee, sugar,
etc. This barter is quite the usual way of doing business in the
Karroo; and so many transactions are carried on without the aid of
money, that the latter is hardly required, and indeed is seldom seen on
the farms. If a man or woman servant comes to do an odd day's work, or
a passing workman breaks his journey by staying a couple of days and
making himself generally useful, payment is almost always made in meal,
coffee, or other articles of food, instead of in money. Copper coins,
being universally despised, are not in use; consequently the most
trifling service performed, however badly, by one of the coloured race,
must be rewarded with no smaller sum than threepence, or--to give it
its familiar colonial name--a "tickey."
Fowls, of course, with their obligingly convenient size, are an
invaluable boon in the hot weather; and it is a delightful relief when,
with an empty larder and consequent light heart, free for a while from
the cares and anxieties of the meat, you prolong the respite,
and--putting off till to-morrow the slaying of the next four-legged
incubus--sacrifice in its stead the noisiest crower, or the most
inveterate of the kitchen's feathered intruders. To be sure, hurried,
as he is, straight from his last agonies, into the pot or the oven, you
cannot expect him to be very tender; but an attempt at hanging him is
too likely to result in the sudden discovery that he has hung a little
too long, and you have learnt by experience that it is best to eat him
at once. And a dessert-spoonful of vinegar, administered half an hour
before his execution, will always considerably mitigate his toughness.
Karroo fowls, living a free and active life, are exceedingly agile on
their legs, and when their time comes for paying the debt of nature
they are by no means easy to catch. But Toto took this duty upon
himself, and very jealously asserted his right to perform it. All we
had to do was to point out to him the selected victim. Then, with the
true collie instinct, he would follow it up, never losing it or making
any mistake; and, though it might take refuge in the midst of some
twenty or thirty other fowls, Toto would pick it out from among the
crowd without an instant's hesitation. And when caught, it was never
pounced on roughly, but just quietly held down by the big, gentle paws,
from which it would be taken, perfectly unhurt.
How I missed the aid of Toto one day when--he being far away in Kent,
and we living near Tangier--I was at my wits' end for a dinner, and
trying my hardest to catch a fowl! It was Ramadan--that terrible time
when everything goes wrong and everybody is cross--and no wonder; the
cruel fast, more strictly kept in orthodox Morocco than it is in most
Oriental lands, forbidding the votaries of Islam, from sunrise to
sunset, not only to touch food, but even to moisten their parched lips
with water--and this in hot weather too! No wonder the sunset gun,
instead of being to them the welcome signal for a feast, often finds
them so faint and exhausted that they are in no hurry to begin eating.
And no wonder, too, that Moorish servants--never very far behind those
of South Africa in stupidity--are at this time a greater trial of
patience than ever. One does not like to be hard on them, and the
minimum of work is given to them; but everything is done so badly that
their services might almost as well be dispensed with until the fast is
over. Altogether, during this time of woe, the tempers of employers and
employed are about equally tried.
Mohammed, our genius, who at the best of times was sure to forget one
or more important items of the day's marketing, had on this occasion
omitted just everything that was necessary to make a dinner. The bread
was there, to be sure, so too were figs and dates; but, all having been
put loose into the donkey's panniers and well jolted along the roughest
of roads, the eatables had become so hopelessly mixed up with a large
dab of native soft soap, bought for the week's washing, that they were
only disentangled with difficulty, and the most careful cleansing
failed to make them fit for human food. An earthenware jar of honey had
been bought; but, being unprovided with a stopper, and left to roll
about in the pannier as it pleased, it had poured its contents as a
libation along the road, and, when complacently handed to me by
Mohammed, was perfectly empty. All the non-edible articles of the day's
orders had been carefully remembered, and stowed well away from the
soap; but of fish, flesh, or fowl there was no sign. The poor fasting
man could not be sent all the way back to Tangier to make good the
deficiencies; yet a dinner had to be found somehow for T---- and for a
gentleman guest, and with the aid of the servants I set to work to
catch one of our own fowls.
But I little knew what I was attempting. Our garden, on the steep
slopes of Mount Washington, with its many terraces and walks, flights
of rough stone steps, and tangle of luxuriant vegetation, offered so
many points of vantage to the active birds, that at the end of half an
hour we were all exhausted with running, breathless and giddy with the
heat; while the fowls, on the contrary, fresher and livelier than ever,
seemed mocking all our efforts to catch them; and in despair I took
from its hiding-place a little weapon of defence, provided in view of
possible midnight visits from burglarious Moors.
Grasping the revolver in one hand, and with the other treacherously
holding out a sieve of barley, I stalked one fowl after another in most
unsportsmanlike fashion; inviting the guileless creatures to feed, and
then firing at them, sometimes so close that it seemed as if the
intended victim must be blown to pieces. But no, there he was, when the
smoke cleared away, going off with a triumphant chuckle; wilder and
more wary with each unsuccessful shot.
What was to be done? Time was passing; T---- would be coming home
hungry by dinner-time, ready for something better than a vegetarian
repast; and _some_ creature or other--I began to feel that I did not
very much care what--had not only to be caught and killed, but also
cooked. Reckless and desperate, I began firing indiscriminately, even
on my laying hens; but, gladly though I would have killed the best of
them, not one could I hit. At last all the hunted birds were in a state
of the wildest excitement; none were in sight, and an agonized chorus
of cackling resounded from all parts of the garden, as if the largest
and most venomous of snakes had been seen. Flinging down the revolver
in disgust, I meditated the crowning baseness of snatching the poor old
sitting hen from the eggs on which she had quietly sat throughout the
commotion, when--joyful sight--Mohammed, who had mysteriously vanished,
suddenly reappeared, triumphantly holding up by the neck a plucked
fowl. It was but a poor, scraggy, spidery-looking thing, all legs and
wings, and with an appearance of having kept Ramadan no less strictly
than the Moorish owners from whose hut the poor fellow--anxious to
retrieve his fault--had brought it. But it was something off which to
dine; and never was the fattest Christmas turkey more welcome than was
its timely appearance.
The rearing of fowls in South Africa is attended with endless
difficulties and discouragements. Frequent epidemics of the fatal
disease known as "fowl-sickness" decimate the poultry-yard, which, at
the best of times, and with all care, can never be kept sufficiently
stocked to supply the needs of the hot weather. Every possible foe of
the gallinaceous tribe abounds in the Karroo; snakes invade the
hen-house, and the blackmail which they levy on the eggs always amounts
to what the Americans call "a large order;" birds of prey of many
different sorts are constantly sailing over head, with sharp eyes on
the look-out for opportunities of plunder; and jackals, wild cats,
lynxes--or, as the Dutch call them, _rooikats_--and numerous other
four-legged free-booters pounce at night on those hens foolish enough
to make their nests far from the comparative safety of the house; the
occasional discovery, in some distant bush, of a collection of empty
eggshells and a heap of drifted feathers proclaiming what has been the
fate of some long-missing hen or turkey.
Altogether, the poultry-keeper's troubles are considerably multiplied
by the surpassing imbecility of the Karroo hens, which have no idea of
taking care of themselves, and, like the ostriches, stoutly oppose all
efforts made for their own welfare and that of their offspring. Their
insanely erratic conduct during sitting causes by far the larger
proportion of nests to come to nothing; and when they have succeeded in
hatching a few chickens, they look as if they did not quite know what
to do with them.
Secretary birds are sometimes taught to be very useful guardians of the
poultry-yard, especially against aerial enemies,--the long-legged,
solemn-looking creature stalking about all day among his feeble-minded
charges, with much consciousness of his own importance. He is accused
of now and then taking toll in the shape of an occasional egg or young
chicken--the latter being of course bolted, anaconda-fashion; but his
depredations are not extensive, and one tolerates them as one does
those of the courier who, though himself not entirely above suspicion,
takes good care that his master is robbed by no one else.
Our secretary, Jacob, whose education had been neglected in youth,
refused to make himself useful as a protector of the poultry-yard. His
character, never the most amiable, deteriorated rapidly after we
brought him up-country, carefully packed for the long railway journey;
the numerous bandages in which he was swathed to secure his long,
slender legs from breakage giving him--but for his protruding,
vulture-like head--the appearance of a gigantic ibis-mummy. Our first
plan of making him trudge on foot along the road with the Walmer
caravan of ostriches was given up, as we felt sure that, with his
already-mentioned "cussedness," he would give more trouble to the herds
than all the rest of the troop together, and either get a knock on the
head to settle him, or else escape, never to be heard of again. At any
rate, he would be quite sure not to arrive at his destination.
Poor Jacob did not flourish in the Karroo, where kittens were scarce,
and where no butcher's cart brought daily and ample supplies for his
colossal appetite; and an existence in which fresh meat was so rare a
luxury must have been for him a kind of perpetual Lent.
With much resentment and plainly-expressed disgust at his reverse of
fortune, he found himself obliged, late in life, to pick up a living
for himself, and would wander dejectedly about the country for miles
round, in search of the fat, succulent locusts, the frogs, small
snakes, lizards, and mice on which he fed. The latter he caught in a
most ingenious manner. Walking up to a bush wherein he knew a mouse was
concealed, he would strike a violent blow with his wing on one side;
then, as the startled animal ran out in the opposite direction, Jacob
would make a lightning-like pounce, and bring down his murderous foot
with unerring aim. On the whole he did not fare badly; but of course,
after his luxurious bringing-up among the fleshpots of Walmer, it was
but natural that he should object to working for a living.
Even in prosperous days he loved to look ill-used, and no comic actor
could have better represented the character of an ill-tempered old man
nursing a grievance than did the well-fed Jacob croaking under the
windows in mendacious pretence of starvation; but now his part was so
absurdly overacted that it became a burlesque. Nature at the same time
assisted him in his make-up for the part, and, moulting and tail-less,
with bald head and general out-at-elbows appearance, he looked indeed
the seediest and most disreputable of old beggars. At the best of times
he looked like a wicked old man, but now--no longer a sleek,
well-clothed old sinner--he seemed to have degenerated into a ruined
gambler, going rapidly to the dogs. Whenever there was a big rain he
would come and stand in front of the windows, wet through and shivering
ostentatiously, with the water running in a little stream from the tip
of his hooked bill, giving him the appearance of one of the ugly
gargoyles on an ancient cathedral. Obstinately refusing to come under
cover, or even to keep himself comparatively dry by squatting under the
kraal hedge, he would stand for hours out in the rain, looking ill-used
and woe-begone; a picture of squalid, unlovely poverty.
We really pitied the old bird, and regretted our inability to give him
daily the fresh meat which, in spite of frequent disappointments, he
never failed to claim, noisily and importunately, as his right. He
would come walking excitedly into the kitchen or bedroom, clamouring,
with all the persistence of Shylock, for his pound of flesh; or would
run after Wells as the latter went to chop wood, knocking against his
legs, getting in his way to attract attention, and keeping up his
horrible clock-work noise, till we wondered that that most patient and
even-tempered of men, with the hatchet so handy, was not provoked into
chopping off his head.
At last a long drought set in, and poor Jacob came still further down
in the world; for, as the ground hardened, and vegetation dried up, the
"mice and rats and such small deer" of the _veldt_ became more scarce,
and he had to travel longer distances in search of his prey. We did all
we could for him, and kept quite a battery of mousetraps constantly set
for his benefit; but, compared with his enormous demands, all we could
give him was but as a drop in the ocean, and we felt that he despised
us for our meanness. He grew daily more morose, and would vent his
ill-humour by picking quarrels with the dogs and other creatures about
the place, especially with a pretty little _duyker_ antelope. This
gentle and timid little favourite--a short-lived pet, which, wandering
one day too far from home, was shot by a Boer in mistake for a wild
animal--was several times attacked so savagely by the vengeful Jacob,
that, if Wells had not beaten off the assailant, the little buck would
have been killed. Fortunately Jacob, when excited, always made such a
horrible noise, that we could hear when a battle was going on, and rush
to the rescue. As the drought continued Jacob took to wandering further
and further afield, coming to the house only on rare occasions, until
at last he became almost like a wild bird; and we have little doubt
that these roving propensities, at a time when water was only to be
found at the few-and-far-between homesteads, led at last to the poor
old fellow's death from thirst--a sad end for one of the most comical,
if not the best-tempered of our pets.
Game, of course, forms a very welcome break in the monotony of constant
goat and mutton. The antelopes, though by no means plentiful, are all
excellent eating, and afford good sport. The graceful springbok, one of
the most common, is capable of becoming very tame; and, with its
slender limbs and bright-coloured, variegated coat, it is, but for its
rather goat-like face, one of the prettiest of pet animals. On a large
neighbouring farm the springbok were preserved, and now and then the
somewhat even tenour of Karroo existence would be enlivened by a hunt,
sometimes of several days' duration. The Queen's birthday is a
favourite occasion for these festive gatherings; and from far and
wide, some from distances of two or three days' journey, travelling
on horseback or in roomy American spiders and carts capable of
accommodating large family parties, visitors arrive in rapid
succession, till the house--which at these times seems endowed with
even more than the usual elasticity of the hospitable colonial
homes--appears like some large hotel overflowing with guests. In the
extensive plains surrounding the house the chase goes on merrily
throughout the whole day; many of the hunted bucks being observable
from the verandah as they speed lightly along, with a bounding motion
suggestive of india-rubber balls, and with the sunlight flashing upon
the ridge of long white bristles along the back, invisible when the
animal is in repose, but erected when it is startled.
In the evening the trophies of the battue, sometimes amounting to the
number of thirty, are laid side by side in close ranks upon the ground
in front of the house, forming a noble display. The day's adventures
are recounted, with much chaffing of the by no means few who have been
bucked off or who have otherwise come to grief; T---- on one occasion
bearing off the palm as the butt of the most pitiless jokes, his horse,
declining the superadded weight of a fine buck, having deposited him on
his head, in which acrobatic posture he is reported to have remained
standing long enough to give rise to much speculation among the
onlookers as to whether he intended finally to land on face or back.
By-and-by the silence of the _veldt_ is further broken by the
unaccustomed sound of fireworks, and of loud cheers for the Queen from
the stout lungs of her lieges beneath the Southern Cross; then come
some capital theatricals and a dance, the latter prolonged a good way
into the small hours of the morning. There are no better dancers
anywhere than the Cape colonists; they are of course passionately fond
of the art in which they so much excel; and thus, when a large and
merry party have collected--not without considerable difficulties, and
at the cost of the longest and roughest of journeys--they naturally
like to keep it up as long as possible, and it is by no means an
uncommon thing on these occasions for people not to go to bed at all,
but for the morning sun, peeping in under the vines of the verandah, to
find the dance still in full swing.
The Cape negroes, too, are all born dancers; and it needs but a few
notes scraped on a fiddle or wheezed on an asthmatic accordion to set a
whole company of even the roughest and most uncouth Hottentots waltzing
in perfect time, and in a quiet and almost graceful manner, strangely
out of keeping with their ungainly forms.
Rarest among the antelopes is the klipspringer,[6] which is called the
chamois of South Africa, and which, both in appearance and habits,
closely resembles the Alpine animal. Its flesh, which is short and
dark, with a flavour very like that of duck, is by far the best of all
the venison; and its pretty coat is a marvel of softness and lightness,
each hair being a wide tube as thick as a hedgehog's bristle, but soft
as a feather. In spite of its light weight, this curious coat is
wonderfully thick and durable, and saddle-cloths made from it are
simply perfection.
[6] _Oreotragus saltatrix._
A little klipspringer was brought to us, so young that for the first
few weeks it was fed with milk from a baby's bottle. It soon grew tame,
and it was very pretty to see the miniature chamois trotting
confidingly about the house, always on the extreme tips of those
natural alpenstocks, its little pointed feet. These tiny ferules, all
four of which would have stood together on a penny-piece, were
evidently capable of giving a firm foothold even in the most impossible
places. This little creature was one of our unlucky pets--by far the
most numerous class in the collection,--and our hope of taking him to
England, where he would have enjoyed the proud distinction of being the
first of his kind ever imported, was doomed to disappointment. Whether
it is really the fact, as one is always told in South Africa, that this
buck cannot live in captivity, or whether an inveterate habit of eating
the contents of the waste-paper basket, with an impartial relish for
printed and written matter, shortened the life of our specimen, I do
not know; but rapid consumption set in, and the pathetic, almost human
attacks of coughing were so distressing to witness that it was a relief
when the poor little patient succumbed.
Then, also among the smaller antelopes, there are the duyker and
stenbok. Both these pretty little bucks make forms like hares, and the
stenbok, a wee thing very little larger than a hare, is not unlike that
animal in flavour.
As for "poor Wat" himself, the uncanny reputation which in all lands he
seems so unjustly to have acquired is here intensified; and among
Boers, Kaffirs, and Hottentots he is the object of so superstitious a
dread that none will venture to eat him. His inoffensive little body
is firmly believed to be tenanted by the spirits of dead-and-gone
relatives and friends; and even Phillis, by no means a dainty
feeder--to whom a good epidemic of fowl-sickness is a welcome harvest,
and the sudden and fatal apoplectic fit of the fattest turkey the
occasion of a right royal feast and long-remembered red-letter day,--is
indignant and insulted if you offer her what is left of a particularly
delicious jugged hare. To have lent a hand in cooking the unholy beast
was sacrilege enough, but there her not over-sensitive conscience draws
the line. Most uncanny of all the hares is the _springhaas_. This
creature, with disproportionately long hind-legs and kangaroo-like mode
of progression, is never seen in the daytime, and can only be shot on
moonlight nights.
The best game birds of the Karroo are those of the bustard tribe. Of
the great bustard, or _paauw_, there are two kinds; one, a gigantic
bird, sometimes weighing as much as seventy pounds. In hunting the
_paauw_--as in stalking the wily mosquito--your first and special
care must be not to let the object of your chase see you looking
at him. With well-acted unconsciousness, and eyes carefully turned
in any direction but towards the spot where the _paauw_ squats in
the grass, you ride round and round him in an ever-lessening circle,
until you get within range. Then you jump off, make a run at him,
and fire.
A smaller bustard, with beautifully-variegated plumage, is about the
size of a large fowl. His Dutch name of _knorhaan_--which may be
translated "scolding cock," or "growling fowl"--is very justly bestowed
on him to express his exceeding noisiness, and I do not think that
throughout the whole length and breadth of the bird kingdom there
exists such another chatterer. What a start he gives you sometimes
when, on a brisk ride or drive through the _veldt_, you approach
his hiding-place, and suddenly, before you have had time to see his
slender dark neck and head peering out above the low bush, he springs
up with a deafening clamour, as of a dozen birds instead of one; and,
unless silenced by a shot, he continues his harsh, discordant noise,
apparently without once stopping for breath, until his swift wings have
borne him far away out of hearing. A whole chorus of blackbirds,
suddenly disturbed from revels among ripe fruit, would be nothing in
comparison with him.
The quaint, old-fashioned-looking little _dikkop_, smallest of the
bustard tribe, is, in the opinion of epicures, the best of all. In the
bustards the position of the white and dark meat is reversed, the flesh
being dark on the breast and white on the legs. They possess certain
feathers which are invaluable to the makers of flies for fishing.
Of partridges there are two kinds, the red-wing and grey-wing, the
latter being found only on the mountains. The beautiful little "Namaqua
partridges," which come in flights, are in reality a kind of grouse.
It is a pretty sight when, at sundown, these neatest and most
delicately-plumaged of little birds collect in large numbers to drink
at the dams.
Of some of our queer dishes, such as _consomme d'autruche_ and the
mock-turtle afforded by the gigantic tortoises of the _veldt_, I
have already spoken. Now and then, too, when a porcupine was killed, we
would follow the example of the Algerian Arabs, and dine sumptuously
off its flesh, which was not unlike English pork with extra-good
crackling.
A baby porcupine, which was taken alive and unhurt, was for some weeks
an amusing addition to the menagerie; and many were our regrets
when--just as he was getting tame and friendly--he fell a victim to an
unexpected cold night, against which, in his little box out of doors,
we had ignorantly left him insufficiently protected. At first his
temper, which was decidedly of the kind usually described as "short,"
gave us much amusement; and, when irritated by our approach, he would
stamp his little feet, wheel round impetuously, and come charging at us
backwards, with all his quills erect, and an absurd expression of
energetic pugnacity depicted, not only on his small, snub-nosed
countenance, but throughout the whole of his bristling body.
Unfortunately, "the pig with the sticks on his back," as the Kaffirs
call the porcupine, is the worst of gardeners; and provoking indeed is
the devastation wrought by his omnivorous appetite among potatoes,
carrots, parsley, pumpkins, water-melons, and indeed all other plants
which, in our most thankless of kitchen gardens, are grown and
irrigated with such infinite toil and difficulty.
The crop which best repays cultivation in that arid soil is Indian
corn. This most wholesome and nourishing food is much more suitable
for hot climates than oatmeal, as it possesses none of the heating
properties of the latter; and, although in one form or another it is a
standing dish at nearly every meal in a Karroo house, one never tires
of it. The nicest way of preparing it is in the form called "stamped
mealies." The ripe yellow grains of the Indian corn are moistened and
placed in a large and massive wooden mortar, generally consisting of
the stump of a tree hollowed out. (The centre of an old waggon-wheel
did duty very effectually as our mealie-stamper.) Then, with a heavy
wooden pestle, they are bruised just sufficiently to remove the yellow
husks, though not enough to break up the corn itself, as in the case of
the American hominy. After a long and gentle boiling the mealies are as
tender as young peas, and it is difficult for a stranger to believe
that they have not been cooked in milk.
It would be a good thing if those who make it their study to provide
cheap and nourishing food for the starving poor of London and other
over-populated towns would try stamped mealies. The small cost of the
Indian corn and the simple and easy manner of its preparation would
enable it to be supplied in large quantities; and the really excellent
dish, if it once became known in England, could not fail to be popular.
In some parts of South Africa the natives live almost entirely on
Indian corn, especially the Zulus, than whom no finer race of men could
be found.
If, among all the different competitions now set on foot, there were
one for bread-makers of all countries, surely the Dutchwomen of the
Karroo would bear away the prize for their delicious whole-meal bread,
leavened with sour dough and baked in large earthenware pots. It is
beautifully sweet and light; and as Phillis's bread--besides containing
almost as plentiful a sprinkling of flies as there are currants in a
penny bun--is in every way more often a failure than a success, it is
as well for the lady settler promptly on arrival to take a lesson from
some neighbouring vrouw, and herself to undertake the bread-making.
While on the subject of whole-meal bread, why is it that in England the
nutritious, flinty part of the grain is almost invariably taken out and
made into macaroni or used for other purposes, while the bread is made
of flour from which all the goodness has been refined away? If
whole-meal bread is ordered of the English baker, he throws a handful
of bran into this same flour; and the brown loaf looks tempting enough,
but both it and the white one are alike tasteless and insipid, and
destitute of nutritious qualities. What is really wanted for good bread
is just simply the entire contents of the grain, as nature, who after
all knows best, has given it to us.
Better than sour dough, yeast, and all the baking-powders in the world
is a preparation made by the Kaffir women from a curious and rather
rare little plant which grows in the Karroo. This plant is almost all
root, the small portion which peeps above the ground consisting only of
a few tight clusters of small, shiny knobs, of a dull leaden colour.
There is nothing like it for making bread rise; but it is most
difficult to get any of it, as the Kaffir women, besides being too lazy
to relish the work of preparing it, which is a long and tedious
business, make a mystery and a secret of it: no servant will own to
understanding it, and somehow one never gets to see the whole process,
and is only shown certain stages of it, one of which consists in the
hanging up of the substance for a while in a bag exposed to the air,
during which time it increases enormously in bulk, in a manner which
seems almost miraculous.
Butter being so rare a luxury in the Karroo, a number of different
substances have to be pressed into the service during long droughts to
supply its place, such as lard, dripping, etc., and, for the table, the
fat from the huge tails of sheep somewhat resembling those of Syria,
though not, like the latter, kindly provided with little carts on which
to drag the cumbersome weight. English jams, of course, like all other
imported provisions, are ruinously expensive; and it is a pity that the
Natal preserves, plentiful as are both fruit and sugar in that most
fertile of lands, are hardly less extravagant in price. But very good
home-made jams can be obtained from the Cape gooseberry--a kind of
small tomato, enclosed in a loose, crackling bag much too large for it;
also from _priembesjes_ (pronounced "primbessies"), a delicious
wild fruit which grows on small trees along the lower slopes of the
mountains. These trees only bear biennially; and, as if exhausted by
the lavish profusion of fruit yielded each alternate season, produce
nothing in the intermediate year. The pretty fruit, resembling a small,
semi-transparent cherry, is at first completely enclosed in such a
tight-fitting case that it looks like a soft, velvety green ball. As
the fruit ripens this green covering divides in half, and gradually
opens wider and wider, disclosing the vivid scarlet within. Amid the
prevailing stiffness and sombreness of Karroo vegetation the pretty,
rounded outline of these trees, and their bright, glossy, dark
foliage--forming an effective background for the jewel-like fruit as it
peeps from the delicate pale-green cases in all different stages of
expansion--afford a pleasing contrast.
In search of _priembesjes_ we made many delightful expeditions on
horseback to the foot of the mountains; sitting in our saddles close to
the trees and picking from our animals' backs, T---- occasionally
standing up like a circus-rider to reach the higher boughs. Our horses
became quite accustomed to the work, and, moving into the exact spot
desired, would stand motionless as long as we chose while we filled our
baskets. The fruit is slightly acid and very refreshing; and the
preserve, not unlike cherry jam, well repays the trouble of making,
which is considerable, the enormous stones being quite out of
proportion to the size of the fruit, and very difficult to separate
from the pulp. Even these stones, however, possess their good
qualities, and contain a delicate little kernel, as nice a nut as you
could wish to eat, from which an excellent oil can be pressed. Then,
too,--no small recommendation in the eyes of ladies,--they make the
most delightful beads, being just soft enough to pierce with a good
strong needle, though not so soft as to shrivel up afterwards. They are
of all different shades of rich brown, and, when threaded into
necklaces, remind one of the old Arab rosaries in Cairo, made from the
"Mecca seeds," and rubbed to a brilliant polish by devout Mohammedan
thumbs. Jam, beads, oil, and nuts! Surely a tree with such numerous and
varied ways of making itself useful to humanity seems quite worthy to
have figured in the pages of "The Swiss Family Robinson."
The wild honey of the Karroo is generally very good, though some is
occasionally found to which unwholesome flowers have imparted their
evil qualities. If, for instance, "where the bee sucks" there is much
euphorbia-blossom, the honey is pungent and burns the tongue. Sometimes
it is even poisonous.
A most useful volunteer assistant in the taking of bees' nests is the
honey-bird, an insignificant-looking little brown fellow who seems
possessed of an almost uncanny amount of intelligence. Well does he
know that old tree or that hole in the ground where there is a goodly
store of the sweet food into which he is longing to plunge his bill;
but, unfortunately, he cannot get it out for himself, and must needs
call in the aid of a human ally to take the nest. So he wanders hither
and thither, and, hailing the first person he meets, flies close up to
him, chirping and calling loudly to attract attention, and behaving
altogether in such a confidingly familiar and impudent manner that
strangers unaccustomed to his ways would take him for a tame bird
escaped from his cage. If you refuse to follow him he gets very angry,
and shows his impatience by flying backwards and forwards, chirping
excitedly; but if his guidance is accepted--although he may give you a
very long, rough walk--he will lead you without fail to the nest.
As soon as the spot is reached he changes his note; and, while his
featherless partner secures the prize, he sits close by, watching the
proceedings with intense interest, and waiting for his share of the
plunder. The natives are always superstitiously careful to leave him a
liberal portion; for they credit him with a very vindictive
disposition, and say that if any one is base enough to refuse him his
well-earned reward, he will revenge himself on the next person he
meets, however innocent the latter may be, and, under pretence of
taking him to a bees' nest, will lure him to the lair of a leopard, the
hole of a venomous snake, or some other equally undesirable spot.
One day T----, on a long homeward ride, was waylaid by one of these
birds, which, taking him under his protection in the usual
business-like and patronizing manner, led him by a most roundabout
route, and at last, with many fussy demonstrations, conducted him
triumphantly to our own beehive, close to the house. Then he perched on
a little bush from whence he could contemplate the bees; and T----
called me out to look at him as he sat chirping, immensely contented
with himself, and scolding us loudly for our neglect of duty.
Among the numerous enemies of bees the pretty bird called the bee-eater
is one of the most destructive; and wherever there is a hive or a nest
several of these birds are almost sure to be seen, darting about
swiftly and catching the poor little insects on the wing. A large kind
of hornet is also continually on the watch for bees, which he slays
apparently out of pure spite; and last, though by no means least, a
horrid little red scorpion-like creature invades the hive itself,
killing many of the inmates.
A large moth resembling the death's-head often takes up its abode in
bees' nests, betraying its presence by a peculiar plaintive sound, and
apparently living in a perfectly friendly and peaceful manner with its
hosts. The natives, however, and indeed also many of the colonists,
stand in great awe of it, as they imagine it to be possessed of a most
deadly sting. Throughout the whole country one hears accounts of men,
oxen, etc., being killed by this terrible moth; and T----, wishing to
investigate the matter and find out whether there were any truth in the
tale, sent several specimens to England, where, on examination by an
authority on entomology, they all proved to be destitute of stings.
You never get a bad cup of coffee in South Africa. That unholy
ingredient, chicory, with which people in England persist in making
their coffee undrinkable, is never used, and all, even on the roughest
of farms, seem to understand the secret of preparing good coffee,
which, after all, needs but the observance of a very simple rule;
_i.e._, never to roast or grind more at a time than is required
for immediate use. The Dutch _vrouw's_ coffee would be perfection
if she would only refrain from making it the medium by which to express
the depth of her kindly feelings towards her guests, and turning it to
a sickly syrup by adding sugar in the proportion of Falstaff's
"intolerable deal of sack." And Phillis, however hopelessly ignorant
she may be on all other points of cookery, prepares the huge bowl of
_café au lait_, which, in accordance with colonial custom, she
brings to your bedside in the early morning, in a manner which
partially atones for her multitude of sins.
Yet people at home do not seem to realize that coffee, if kept even for
a little time after it is roasted, and--worse still--after it is
ground, completely loses its flavour. As a rule they buy it ready
ground, in large quantities, and keep it for weeks in the house; and
under such circumstances it is no wonder that even in the best hotels
the coffee is not fit to drink, and that too often, but for the only
flavour left in it--that of the acrid chicory with which it has been
bountifully doctored--it might be taken for weak tea. And yet there is
no better "pick-me-up" after a long walk or tiring day's work, nothing
more warming and comforting on a cold day, than a cup of really good
coffee. Such, for instance, as you get in any of the numerous Arab
_cafés_ in Algiers; a tiny cup of which, hardly larger than an
egg-cup, does you more good than a glass of port wine. Indeed, wherever
coffee is really well made--as in France and Spain--it does extensively
take the place of intoxicating drinks; and it would be a good thing if
in England, and especially among our poorer classes, this splendidly
nutritious substance--food no less than drink--were as much used as it
is abroad. The coffee-house where well-made, unadulterated coffee might
be obtained would be a formidable rival to the gin-palace. As it is,
however, the art of making coffee--if ever possessed at all in
England--has been so completely lost that the increasing disuse of the
beverage is no matter of surprise.
Angora milk is excellent with coffee, but, though abundant at times, it
is hardly to be obtained at all during droughts; and for months you
have to be contented with Swiss milk. The Boers and Kaffirs think
fresh, sweet milk very unwholesome; a Dutchwoman never gives her child
anything but sour milk to drink, and the Kaffirs always keep their milk
in large gourds which have the property of rapidly turning it sour.