THE GREAT TREK
On the morrow we began to make ready, and a month later we trekked from
our much loved home. Jan tried to sell the farm, which was a very good
one of over six thousand morgen, or twelve thousand English acres, well
watered, and having on it a dwelling house built of stone, with large
kraals and out-buildings, an orchard of fruit-trees, and twenty morgen
of crop lands that could be irrigated in the dry season, well fenced in
with walls built of loose stones. But no one would make a bid for it,
for there were few English about, and most of the farmers were
trekking, so at last he parted with it to a cowardly fellow, a Boer by
birth, but, as I believe, a spy of the British Government, who gave him
fifty pounds and an old waggon in exchange for the place and everything
upon it except the stock which we took with us.
Some years ago I heard that this man’s grandson sold that same farm for
twenty thousand pounds in cash, and that now it is a place where they
breed horses, angora goats, and ostriches in great numbers. It makes me
mad to think that the descendant of that low spy should have profited
so largely out of the land which was ours, but so it often chances that
those whose hearts are small and mean reap the reward of the courage
and misfortunes of braver men. Nor should we grumble indeed, seeing
that the Lord has blessed us greatly in land and goods.
Ah! It was a sad home leaving. The day before we trekked Ralph rode to
visit his mother’s grave for the last time, and then, following the
track which he had taken as a child, he went to the kloof where Suzanne
had found him, and sat down upon that stone on which as a child he had
knelt in prayer, and where in after years he and his lost wife had told
their love. Jan accompanied him upon this dismal journey, for to speak
truth we did not like to leave him more alone than we could help, since
his manner remained strange, and when he set out on his solitary rides
we could not be certain that we should ever see him come back again.
Next morning we trekked away, and my eyes were so full of tears as I
sat beneath the tent of the first waggon that the familiar landscape
and the home where I lived for twenty years and more were blotted from
my sight. But I could still hear the long-nosed spy who had bought the
farm, and who was waiting to enter into possession, talking to Jan.
“Good-bye, Heer Botmar,” he said, “and good fortune to you upon your
journey. For my part I cannot understand you emigrants. The English
Government is an accursed Government, no doubt; still I would not sell
a farm and a house like this for fifty pounds and an old waggon in
order to wander in the wilderness to escape from it, there to be eaten
by lions or murdered by Kaffirs. Still, good-bye, and good luck to you,
and I hope that you are as content with your bargain as I am with
mine.”
“The Lord will be our guide, as He was to the Israelites of old,”
answered Jan in a somewhat troubled voice.
“Yes, yes; they all say that, Heer Botmar, and I trust that they are
right, for you will need nothing less than a cloud by day and a pillar
of fire in the darkness to protect you from all the dangers in your
path. Also I hope that the hosts of Pharaoh, in the shape of English
soldiers, will not fetch you back before you cross the border, for
then, when you have sold your birthright in Egypt, and are cut off from
the Promised Land, your lot will be hard, Heer Botmar.”
“The Lord will guide and protect us,” repeated Jan, and gave the word
to trek.
In my heart at the time I was inclined to agree with that cheat’s
sneering words; and yet Jan was right, and not I, for of the truth the
Lord did guide and protect us. Has anything more wonderful happened in
the world than this journey of a few farmers, cumbered with women and
children, and armed only with old-fashioned muzzle-loading guns, into a
vast, unknown land, peopled by savages and wild beasts? Yet, look what
they did. They conquered Moselikatse; they broke the strength of
Dingaan and all his Zulu impis; they peopled the Free State, the
Transvaal, and Natal. That was the work of those few farmers, and I say
that of their own strength they could never have done it; the strength
was given to them from above; the Sword of God was in their hand, and
He guided that hand and blessed it.
Our first outspan was at the spot where Van Vooren had tried to murder
Ralph and carried off Suzanne upon her wedding-day. We did not stop
there long, for the place was bad for Ralph, who sat upon the box of
the waggon staring moodily at some blackened stones, which, as one of
the drivers told me—the same man who accompanied them upon their
wedding journey—had been brought from the kloof and used by Suzanne to
set the kettle on when they took their meal together. Led by this same
driver I walked to the edge of the cliff—for I had never visited the
place before—and looked at the deep sea-pool, forty feet below me, into
which Swart Piet had thrown Ralph after he had shot him. Also I went
down to the edge of the pool and climbed up again by the path along
which Zinti and Sihamba had staggered with his senseless body.
Afterwards I returned to the waggons with a heart full of thankfulness
and wonder that he should still be alive among us to-day, although
alas, there was much for which I could not feel thankful, at least not
then.
Now it is of little use that I should set down the history of this trek
of ours day by day, for if I did my story would have no end. It is
enough to tell that in company with other emigrants we crossed the
Orange River, heading for Thaba Nchu, which had been the chief town of
Maroko before Moselikatse drove him out of the Marico country. Here
several bands of emigrants were to meet, and here they did meet, but
not until a year or more had passed since we left the colony and
wandered out into the veldt.
Ah! I tell you, my child, the veldt in those days was different indeed
from what it is now. The land itself remains the same except where
white men have built towns upon it, but all else is changed. Then it
was black with game when the grass was green; yes, at times I have seen
it so black for miles that we could scarcely see the grass. There were
all sorts of them, springbucks in myriads, blesbok and quagga and
wildebeeste in thousands, sable antelope, sassaby and hartebeeste in
herds, eland, giraffe and koodoo in troops; while the forests were full
of elephant and the streams of sea-cow. They are all gone now, the
beautiful wild creatures; the guns of the white men have killed them
out or driven them away, and I suppose that it is as well that they are
gone, for while the game is in such plenty the men will not work. Still
I for one am sorry to lose the sight of them, and had it not been for
their numbers we Boers should never have lasted through that long trek,
for often and often we lived upon buck’s flesh and little else for
weeks together.
At Thaba Nchu we camped, waiting for other bands of emigrants, but
after four or five months some of our number grew so impatient that
they started off by themselves. Among these were the companies under
the Heer Triegaart and the Heer Rensenburg, who wished us to accompany
him, but Jan would not, I do not know why. It was as well, for the
knob-nosed Kaffirs killed him and everybody with him. Triegaart, who
had separated from him, trekked to Delagoa Bay, and reached it, where
nearly all his people died of fever.
After that we moved northwards in detachments, instead of keeping
together as we should have done, with the result that several of our
parties were fallen upon and murdered by the warriors of Moselikatse.
Our line of march was between where Bloemfontein and Winburg now stand
in the Orange Free State, and it was south of the Vaal, not far from
the Rhenoster River that Moselikatse attacked us.
I cannot tell the tale of all this way, I can only tell of what I saw
myself. We were of the party under the leadership of Carl Celliers,
afterwards an elder of the church at Kronnstadt. Celliers went on a
commission to Zoutpansberg to spy out the land, and it was while he was
away that so many families were cut off by Moselikatse, the remainder
of them, with such of their women and children as were left alive,
retreating to our laager. Then Celliers returned from his commission,
and we retired to a place called Vechtkop, near the Rhenoster River;
altogether we numbered not more than fifty or sixty souls, including
women and children.
Here we heard that Moselikatse was advancing to make an end of us, so
we made our laager as strong as we could, lashing the disselboom of
each waggon beneath the framework of that before it and filling the
spaces beneath and between with the crowns and boughs of sharp-thorned
mimosa trees, which we tied to the trek tows and brake chains so that
they could not be torn away. Also in the middle of the laager we made
an inner defence of seven waggons, in which were placed the women and
children, with the spare food and gunpowder, but the cattle we were
obliged to leave outside. Early on the morning when we had finished the
laager we heard that the impi of Moselikatse was close to us, and the
men to the number of over thirty rode out to look for it, leaving but a
few to defend the camp.
About an hour’s ride away they found the Kaffirs, thousands of them,
and a Hottentot who could speak their tongue was instructed to call to
them and ask them why they attacked us. By way of answer they shouted
out the name of their chief and began to charge, whereupon our men
dismounted from their horses and opened fire upon them, mounting again
before they could come near. So the fight went on until the laager was
reached, and many Kaffirs were killed without any loss to the Boers,
for luckily in those days the natives had no firearms.
I remember that we women were moulding bullets when the men rode in,
and very thankful we were to find that not one of them was even
wounded. While they ate something we washed out their guns, and at
intervals near the places where each man must stand behind the waggons
we piled little heaps of powder and bullets upon buckskins and pieces
of canvas laid on the ground; also we did all we could to strengthen
our defences still further by binding ox-hides over the waggon wheels
and thrusting in more thorns between them.
Then, as the enemy was still preparing to attack us, the Heer Celliers
called us together, and there in the laager, while all knelt around
him, even to the smallest child, he put up a prayer to God asking that
we might be forgiven our sins, and that He would look upon us and
protect us in our great need.
It was a strange sight. There we all knelt in the quiet sunshine while
he prayed in an earnest voice, and we followed his words with our
hearts, every one of us, men and women, holding guns or axes in our
hands. Never had human beings more need for prayer, for through the
cracks between the waggons we could see Moselikatse’s Zulus, six or
seven thousand of them, forming themselves into three bodies to rush
upon us and murder us, and that was a dreadful sight for fifty or sixty
people, of whom some were little children.
When we had finished praying, husbands and wives and parents and
children kissed each other, and then the little ones and some of the
women who were sick or aged were put behind the seven waggons in the
centre of the laager, round which were tied the horses, while the rest
of us went to our stations, men and women together. I stood behind Jan
and Ralph, who fought side by side, and, assisted by a girl of fourteen
years of age, loaded their spare guns. Now there was a great silence in
the camp, and suddenly in the silence, Jan, who was looking through his
loophole, whispered:
“Allemachter! here they come.”
And come they did, with a rush and a roar from three sides at once,
while men drew in their breath and set their faces for the struggle.
Still no one fired, for the order was that we were to save our powder
until Celliers let off his gun. Already the savages were within thirty
paces of us, a countless mass of men packed like sheep in a kraal,
their fierce eyes shewing white as ivory in the sunlight, their cruel
spears quivering in their hands, when the signal was given and every
gun, some loaded with slugs and some with bullets, was discharged
point-blank into the thick of them.
Over they rolled by dozens, but that did not stop the rest, who, in
spite of our pitiless fire, rushed up to the waggons and gripped them
with their hands, striving to drag them apart, till the whole line of
them rocked and surged and creaked like boats upon the sea, while the
air grew thick with smoke rising straight up towards the sky, and
through the smoke assegais flashed as thick as rain.
But although some of the heavy laden waggons were dragged a foot or
more outward they held together, and the storm of spears flying over
our heads did little harm. Heavens! what a fight was that, the fight of
fifty against six thousand.
Not more than seven feet of space divided us from that shrieking sea of
foes into which we poured bullets at hazard, for there was no need to
aim, as fast as the guns could be loaded. Suddenly I heard the girl
call out:
“_Kek, tante, da is een swartzel!_” (Look, aunt, there is a black man.)
I looked, and just at my side I saw a great savage who had forced his
way through the thorns and crawled beneath the waggon into the laager.
The gun in my hand was empty, but by me lay an axe which I snatched up,
and as he rose to his knees I struck him with all my strength upon the
neck and killed him at a blow. Yes, my child, that was the kind of work
to which we wives of the voortrekkers had to put a needle.
Jan had just fired his gun, and seeing the man he sprang to help me,
whereon three more Kaffirs following on the dead soldier’s path crawled
out from under the waggon. Two of them gained their feet and ran at him
lifting their assegais. I thought that all was lost, for one hole in
our defence was like a pin prick to a bladder, but with a shout Jan
dropped the empty gun and rushed to meet them. He caught them by the
throat, the two of them, one in each of his great hands, and before
they could spear him dashed their heads together with such desperate
strength that they fell down and never stirred again. This was always
thought something of a feat, for as everybody knows the skulls of
Kaffirs are thick.
By this time the girl had handed Ralph his second gun loaded, and with
it he shot the third Kaffir; then he also did a brave thing, for seeing
that more Zulus were beginning to creep through the hole, he snatched
the assegai from a dead man’s hand, and stopped the gap with his own
body, lying flat upon his stomach and thrusting at their heads with the
spear. Soon we dragged him out with only one slight wound, pushing the
bodies of the Kaffirs into his place, and over them spare branches of
thorn, so that the breach was made good.
This was the turning point of the fight, for though after it one other
Kaffir managed to get into the laager, where he was cut down, and two
Boers, Nicholas Potgieter and Pieter Botha were killed by assegais
thrown from without, from that moment the attack began to slacken. In
thirty minutes from the time that Celliers had fired the first shot,
Moselikatse’s general, whose name was Kalipi, had given the order to
retire, and his hosts drew off sullenly, for we had beaten them.
Thirty minutes! Only thirty minutes—the shadows had shifted but a few
inches on the grass, and yet now that it was done with it seemed like
half a lifetime. Panting and begrimed with smoke and powder, we stood
looking at each other and around us. The tents of the waggons were
ripped to pieces, in our own I counted more than sixty spear cuts, and
the trampled turf inside the laager was like the back of an angry
porcupine, for from it we gathered nearly fourteen hundred heavy
assegais. For the rest, the two men lay dead where they had fallen,
their faces turned towards the sky, each of them pierced through by a
spear, and out of our little number twelve others were wounded, though
none of them died of their wounds. Not a woman or a child was touched.
Outside the laager there was a sight to see, for there on the red
grass, some lying singly and some in heaps, were over four hundred Zulu
soldiers, most of them dead, and how many wounded they carried away
with them I cannot tell.
Now we saw that the Kaffirs were collecting our cattle, and about
twenty men under Potgieter saddled up and rode out to try and recapture
them, since without oxen to draw the waggons we were helpless. Till
sunset they followed them, killing many, but being so few they could
not recapture the cattle, and in the end were obliged to return empty
handed. Ralph went with his party, and, because of an act of mercy
which he did then it came about in the end that Suzanne was found and
many lives were saved. So plenteously do our good deeds bear fruit,
even in this world.
Yes, you may have thought that this tale of the battle of Vetchkop was
only put in here because it is one of the great experiences of an old
woman’s life. But it is not so; it has all to do with the story of
Ralph and of my daughter Suzanne.