MORE ABOUT OSTRICHES--KARROO GARDENS--A RIDE WITH BONNY--SKETCHING UNDER
DIFFICULTIES--ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS.
Ah, those were happy days, when, with a congenial spirit, I drove and
galloped over the South African plains. There was not much in the way
of thrilling incidents, to be sure, and nothing whatever of wild
adventure, but there was novelty in everything, and possibilities enough
to keep the spirit ever on the alert.
We used to ride out sometimes after steenboks,--small brown creatures,
that made little show when bagged, but then there were huge and horrid
vultures to remind one of the sandy desert, and there were pauws--
gigantic birds that were splendid eating; and the very thought that I
trod on land which little more than quarter of a century back had been
marked by the print of the royal lion was in itself sufficient to arouse
unwonted interest, which was increased by the knowledge of the fact that
the kloofs or glens and gorges of the blue hills on the horizon were at
that time the natural homes of leopards or "Cape-tigers" and huge
baboons.
These animals are, however, extremely wary. The baboons go about in
troops, and are wont to leave a trusty old-man baboon on guard, while
the rest go down at early morn to rob the settler of his fruits and
vegetables. If the old man happens to see or scent danger he gives a
signal and the troop flies helter-skelter to the nearest cliffs. They
are therefore not easily got at by hunters. As to "tigers," they go
about stealthily like cats. I was told there was not a chance of
getting a shot at them, unless I went out with dogs and a hunting party
for the purpose. As this could not be accomplished at the time, I had
to content myself with smaller game.
Bonny, (one of Hobson's younger sons), and I went out one day after
breakfast to try for a steenbok before dinner. There were plenty of
them in the stretches of bush-land that dotted the Karroo in the
immediate neighbourhood of the farmhouse.
Stretching out at a gallop with that light-hearted cheerfulness which is
engendered by bright weather, fresh air, and a good mount, we skirted
the river where Hreikie nursed her little flock.
Hreikie was a small Hottentot girl, as lightly clad as was compatible
with propriety. Her face was dirty brown, her mouth large, her nose a
shapeless elevation with two holes in the front of it. Her head was not
covered, but merely sprinkled with tight woolly knobs or curls the size
of peas. Each knob grew apart from its neighbour knob, and was
surrounded, so to speak, by bald or desert land. This style of hair was
not peculiar to Hreikie alone, but to the whole Hottentot race.
Hreikie's family consisted of thirty-three young ostriches, which,
though only a few weeks of age, stood, I think, upwards of two feet
high. Some of them had been brought out by artificial incubation--had
been heated, as it were, into existence without maternal aid. These
birds, Bonny said, had been already purchased for 15 pounds sterling
apiece, and were deliverable to the purchaser in six months. They were
fed and guarded all day and housed each evening with tender solicitude
by their Hottentot stepmother, whom the birds evidently regarded as
their own natural parent.
We swept on past the garden, where, on a previous morning, Bonny and I
had killed a deadly green-tree snake upwards of five feet long, and
where, on many other mornings, he and I, with sometimes other members of
the family entered into strong temptation among the magnificent fruit.
We used to overcome the temptation by giving way to it! There were
plums, peaches, figs, apples, apricots, grapes, nectarines, and other
fruits, with which the trees were so laden that some of the branches had
given way and their luscious loads were lying on the ground. Cartloads
of these were given away to friends, and to any one, as there was no
market for their disposal.
Many splendid gardens like this exist on what is sometimes styled the
barren Karroo; but the land is anything but barren. All it requires is
a copious supply of water, and wherever farmers have taken the trouble
to form dams and store the heavy though infrequent rains, gardens of the
most prolific kind have been the result. The Karroo-bush itself, which
gives name to these plains, is a succulent plant, which thrives in the
almost waterless soil, and forms a rich pasturage for sheep and cattle.
Hobson's garden--copiously watered by streams led out from his large
dams--was a beautiful shady oasis of green and gold, in the midst of
what, to some eyes, might have appeared a desert, but which, if
irrigated properly, would become a perfect paradise of fertility.
We cantered on over the plain, till the garden and the farm looked in
the distance like ships at sea, and rode among the bushes that crowned a
rising ground. We set up some guinea-fowl and other birds, and startled
a hare, but let them go, as our aim was steenboks. The little boks,
however, were not on the knoll that day, so away we went again at a
gallop until the garden and the farm went down on the horizon.
Sometimes we kept together and chatted, at other times we diverged and
skirted small clumps of underwood on opposite sides. At one time, while
separated from Bonny, I saw a large stone lying on the ground. As I
looked, the stone began to crawl! It was a tortoise, fully as large as
a soup-tureen. The sight of an animal in its "native wilds," which you
have all your life been accustomed to see in zoological gardens, has
something peculiar, almost absurd, in it. As it is with animals, so it
is with other objects. I remember being impressed with this idea, for
the first time, in the south of France, when I beheld a tree covered
with lemons--a fruit which, up to that period, had been connected in my
mind with grocers' windows and brown sugar!
I turned aside and dismounted. The sluggish tortoise stopped,
recognised in me an enemy, and drew in its head and feet. After lifting
and looking at him I set him down. Then it occurred to me that some one
had said a tortoise could carry a man. I stepped upon this one's back
forthwith. He lay perfectly still for some time. At last with great
caution the head and feet were protruded. Another pause, as if of
meditation, then the feet were applied to the ground; they pushed and
strained, until finally the creature advanced about two inches, and then
stopped! This was not much, but it was sufficient to prove his great
strength, and to convince me that a large tortoise could easily have
walked off with a little boy.