THE TRANSVAAL.--PRETORIA TO THE DIAMOND FIELDS.
On the 1st of October I and my friend started from Pretoria for the
Diamond Fields, having spent a pleasant week at the capital of the
Transvaal. There was, however, one regret. I had not seen Sir Theophilus
Shepstone though I had been entertained at his house. He, during the
time, had been absent on one of those pilgrimages which Colonial
Governors make through their domains, and would be absent so long that I
could not afford the time to wait his return. I should much have liked
to discuss with him the question of the annexation, and to have heard
from his own lips, as I had heard from those of Mr. Burgers, a
description of what had passed at the interviews between them. I should
have been glad, also, to have learned from himself what he had thought
of the danger to which the Dutch community had been subject from the
Kafirs and Zulus,--from Secocoeni and Cetywayo,--at the moment of his
coming. But the tale which was not told to me by him was, I think, told
with accuracy by some of those who were with him. I have spoken my
opinion very plainly, and I hope not too confidently of the affair, and
I will only add to that now an assurance of my conviction that had I
been in Sir T. Shepstone’s place and done as he did, I should have been
proud of the way I had served my country.
We started in our cart with our horses as we thought in grand condition.
While at Pretoria we had been congratulated on the way in which we had
made our purchases and travelled the road surmounting South African
difficulties as though we had been at the work all our lives. We had
refilled our commissariat chest, and with the exception that my
companion had shied a bottle of brandy,--joint property,--at the head of
a dog that would bite him,--not me,--as we were packing the cart, there
had been as yet no misfortune. Our Cape-boy driver had not once been
drunk and nothing material had been lost or broken. We got off at 11
A.M.; and at half past one P.M.,--having travelled about fifteen miles
in the normal two and a half hours,--we spanned out and shared our lunch
with a very hungry-looking Dutchman who squatted himself on his haunches
close to our little fire. He was herding cattle and seemed to be very
poor and hungry. I imagined him to be some unfortunate who was working
for low wages at a distance from his home. But I found him to be the
lord of the soil, the owner of the herd, and the possessor of a
homestead about a mile distant. I have no doubt he would have given me
what he had to give if I had called at his house. As it was he seemed to
be delighted with fried bacon and biscuits, and was aroused almost to
enthusiasm over a little drop of brandy and water.
On our road during this day we stopped at an accommodation house, as it
is called in the country,--or small Inn, kept by an Englishman. Here
before the door I saw flying a flag intended to represent the colours
of the Transvaal Dutch Republic. The Englishman, who was rather drunk
and very civil, apologized for this by explaining that he had his own
patriotic feelings, but that as it was his lot in life to live by the
Boers it was necessary that he should please the Boers. This was,
however, the only flag of the Republic which I saw during my journey
through the country, and I am inclined to think that our countryman had
mistaken the signs of the time. I have however to acknowledge in his
favour that he offered to make us a present of some fresh butter.
We passed that night at the house of a Boer, who was represented to me
as being a man of wealth and repute in the country and as being
peculiarly averse to English rule,--Dutch and republican to his heart’s
core. And I was told soon after by a party who had travelled over the
same road, among whom there were two Dutchmen, that he had been very
uncourteous to them. No man could have been more gracious than he was to
us, who had come in as strangers upon his hospitality, with all our
wants for ourselves our servants and our horses. I am bound to say that
his house was very dirty, and the bed of a nature to make the flesh
creep, and to force a British occupant of the chamber to wrap himself
round with further guards of his own in the shape of rugs and great
coats, rather than divest himself of clothes before he would lay himself
down. And the copious mess of meat which was prepared for the family
supper was not appetising. But nothing could be more grandly courteous
than the old man’s manner, or kinder than that of his wife. With this
there was perhaps something of an air of rank,--just a touch of a
consciousness of superiority,--as there might be with some old Earl at
home who in the midst of his pleasant amenities could not quite forget
his ancestors. Our host could not speak a word of English,--nor we of
Dutch; but an Englishman was in the house,--one of the schoolmasters of
whom I have before spoken,--and thus we were able to converse. Not a
word was said about the annexation;--but much as to the farming
prospects of the country. He had grown rich and was content with the
condition of the land.
He was heartily abused to us afterwards by the party which contained the
two Dutchmen as being a Boer by name and a boor by nature, as being a
Boer all round and down to the ground. These were not Hollanders from
Holland, but Dutchmen lately imported from the Cape Colony;--and as such
were infinitely more antagonistic to the real Boer than would be any
Englishman out from Europe. To them he was a dirty, ignorant, and
arrogant Savage. To him they were presumptuous, new-fangled, vulgar
upstarts. They were men of culture and of sense and of high standing in
the new country,--but between them and him there were no sympathies.
I think that the English who have now taken the Transvaal will be able,
after a while, to rule the Boers and to extort from them that respect
without which there can be no comfort between the governors and the
governed;--but the work must be done by English and not by Dutch hands.
The Dutch Boer will not endure over him either a reforming Hollander
from Europe, or a spick-and-span Dutch Africander from the Cape Colony.
The reforming Hollander and the spick-and-span Dutch Africander are very
intelligent people. It is not to be supposed that I am denying them any
good qualities which are to be found in Englishmen. But the Boer does
not love them.
Soon after starting from our aristocratic friend’s house one of our
horses fell sick. He was the one that kicked,--a bright bay little
pony,--and in spite of his kicking had been the favourite of the team.
We dined that day about noon at a Boer’s house, and there we did all
that we knew to relieve the poor brute. We gave him chlorodyne and
alum,--in accordance with advice which had been given to us for our
behoof along the road,--and when we started we hitched him on behind,
and went the last stage for that day with a unicorn team. Then we gave
him whisky, but it was of no use. That night he could not feed, and
early the next morning he laid himself down when he was brought out of
the stable and died at my feet. It was our first great misfortune. Our
other three horses were not the better or the brighter for all the work
they had done, and would certainly not be able to do what would be
required of them without a fourth companion.
The place we were now at is called Wonder Fontein, and is remarkable,
not specially for any delightfully springing run of water, but for a
huge cave, which is supposed to go some miles underground. We went to
visit it just at sunset, and being afraid of returning in the dark, had
not time to see all of it that is known. But we climbed down into the
hole, and lit our candles and wandered about for a time. Here and
there, in every direction, there were branches and passages running
under ground which had hitherto never been explored. The son of the Boer
who owned the farm at which we were staying, was with us, and could
guide us through certain ways;--but other streets of the place were
unknown to him, and, as he assured us, had never yet been visited by
man. The place was full of bats, but other animals we saw none. In
getting down, the path was narrow, steep, low and disagreeable
enough;--but when once we were in the cave we could walk without
stooping. At certain periods when the rains had been heavy the caves
would become full of water,--and then they would drain themselves when
the rains had ceased. It was a hideously ugly place; and most
uninteresting were it not that anything not customary interests us to
some extent. The caves were very unlike those in the Cango district,
which I described in the first volume.
At Wonder Fontein there were six or seven guests besides the very large
family with which the Boer and his wife were blessed, and we could not
therefore have bedrooms apiece;--nor even beds. I and my young friend
had one assigned to us, while the Attorney General of the Colony, who
was on circuit and to whom we had given a lift in our cart to relieve
him for a couple of days of the tedium of travelling with the Judge and
the Sheriff by ox waggon, had a bench assigned to him in a corner of the
room. In such circumstances a man lies down, but does not go to bed. We
lay down,--and got up at break of day, to see our poor little horse die.
On leaving these farm houses the Boers, if asked, will make a charge for
the accommodation afforded, generally demanding about 5s. for the
supper, a night’s rest, and breakfast if the traveller chooses to wait
for it. Others, English and Germans, will take nothing for their
hospitality. Both the one and the other expect to be paid for what the
horses may consume; and we thought we observed that forage with the
English and Germans was dearer than with the Boers,--so that the cost
came to much the same with the one as with the other. At the English
houses,--or German,--it was possible to go to bed. In a Boer’s
establishment we did not venture to do more than lie down.
Starting on the following day with our three horses we reached
Potchefstroom, which, though not the capital, is the largest town in the
Transvaal. The road all along had been of the same nature, and the
country nearly of the same kind as that we had seen before reaching
Pretoria. Here and there it was stony,--but for the most part capable of
cultivation. None of it, however, was cultivated with the exception of
small patches round the farm houses. These would be at any rate ten
miles distant one from each other, and probably more. The roads are
altogether unmade, and the “spruits” or streams are unbridged. But the
traffic, though unfrequent, has been sufficient to mark the way and to
keep it free from grass. Travelling in wet weather must often be
impossible,--and in windy weather very disagreeable. We were most
fortunate in avoiding both mud and dust, either of which, to the extent
in which they sometimes prevail in the Transvaal, might have made our
journey altogether impossible.
At Potchefstroom we found a decent hotel kept by an Englishman,--at
which we could go to bed, though not indulged with the luxury of a room
for each of us. The assizes were going on and we found ourselves to be
lucky in not being forced to have a third with us. Here our first care
was to buy a horse so as once again to complete our team. We felt that
if we loudly proclaimed our want, the price of horses in Potchefstroom
would be raised at once;--and yet it was difficult to take any step
without proclaiming our want. We had only one day to stay in the town,
and could not therefore dally with the difficulty as is generally the
proper thing to do when horse-flesh is concerned. So we whispered our
need into the landlord’s ear and he undertook to stand our
friend,--acknowledging, however, that a horse in a hurry was of all
things the most difficult to be had at Potchefstroom. Nevertheless
within two hours of our arrival an entire team of four horses was
standing in the hotel yard, from which we were to be allowed to choose
one for £30. I had refused to have anything to do with the buying in
regard to terms; but consented to select the one which should be bought,
if we could agree as to price. When I went forth to make the choice I
found that in spite of our secrecy a congregation of horse-fanciers had
come to see what was being done. Four leaner, poorer, skinnier brutes I
never saw standing together with halters round their necks;--but out of
the four I did pick one, guided by the bigness of his leg bones and by
the freedom of his pace. Everybody was against me,--our driver
preferring a younger horse, and the vendor assuring me that in passing
over an old grey animal I was altogether cutting my own throat. But I
was firm, and then left the conclave, desiring my young friend to go
into the money question.
The seller at first seemed to think that the price was a thing settled.
Had he not told the landlord that we might select one for £30;--and had
not the selection been made? He assumed a look of injured innocence as
though the astute Briton were endeavouring to get the better of the poor
Dutchman most dishonourably. Eventually, however, he consented to accept
£23, and the money was paid. Then came the criticism of the bystanders
thick and hard upon us. £23 for that brute! Was it true that we had
given the man £23 for an animal worth at the most £7 10s.? They had
allowed the seller to have his luck while the sale was going on, but
could not smother their envy when the money was absolutely in his
pocket. However we had our horse, whose capabilities were much better
than his appearance, and who stood to us gallantly in some after
difficulties in which his co-operation was much needed.
Potchefstroom may probably contain something over 2,000 white
inhabitants. In saying this, however, I have nothing but guess work to
guide me. It is a town covering a very large area, with streets nearly a
mile in length;--but here again there is a great deficiency of houses.
In some of those streets a wanderer might fancy himself to be roaming
through some remote green lane in England, overshadowed through its
whole length by weeping willows. The road way under his feet will be
exactly that of a green lane;--here a rut, and there a meandering path
worn by children’s feet, and grass around him everywhere. Now and again
he will come across a cottage,--hardly more than a cabin,--with half a
dozen dirty children at the door. Such are the back streets at
Potchefstroom. And here too, as at Pretoria, there are hedges of roses,
long rows of crowded rose-bushes round the little houses of the better
class. There are spots so picturesque as almost to make the wanderer
fancy that it would be pleasant to live in a place so pretty, so
retired, and so quiet. But weeping willows and rose hedges would, I
fear, after a time become insufficient, and the wanderer who had chosen
to sojourn here under the influence of these attractions, might wish
himself back in some busier centre of the world’s business.
Here also there is a great square in the centre of the town, with the
Dutch church in the midst of it,--by no means so ugly as the church at
Pretoria. The square is larger and very much more picturesque,--while
the sardine boxes and paper shirt-collars, so ubiquitous at the newer
town, are less obtrusive. The square when I was there was green with
grass on which horses were grazing, and here and there were stationed
the huge waggons of travellers who had “spanned out” their oxen and were
resting here under the tent coverings erected on their vehicles. The
scene as I saw it would have made an exquisite subject for a Dutch
landscape painter, and was especially Dutch in all its details.
At one corner of the square the Judge was holding the Court in a large
room next to the Post-office which is kept for that and other public
services. The Judge I had met at Pretoria, and had been much struck by
his youth. One expects a judge to be reverend with years, but this was
hardly more than a boy judge. He had been brought from the Cape Bar to
act as Judge in the Transvaal before the annexation,--when the payment
even of a judge’s salary must have been a matter of much doubt. But the
annexation came speedily and the position of the new comer was made sure
by British authority. He at any rate must approve the great step taken
by Sir Theophilus Shepstone. I was assured when at Pretoria that the
Colony generally had every reason to be satisfied with the choice made
by the Republic. He will no doubt have assistant Judges and become a
Chief Justice before long and may probably live to be the oldest legal
pundit under the British Crown. I went into the Court to look at him
while at work, but was not much edified as the case then before him was
carried on in Dutch. Dutch and English have to be used in the Court as
one or the other language may be needed. An interpreter is present, but
as all the parties concerned in the case, including the Judge and the
jury, were conversant with Dutch, no interpreter was wanted when I was
there.
From Potchefstroom to Klerksdorp our horses, including the new purchase,
did their work well. Here we found a clean little Inn kept by an
Englishman with a very nice English wife,--who regaled us with lamb and
mint-sauce and boiled potatoes, and provided clean sheets for our
couches. Why such a man, and especially why such a woman, should be at
such a place it is difficult to understand. For Klerksdorp is a town
consisting perhaps of a dozen houses. The mail cart passes but once a
week, and the other traffic on the road is chiefly that of ox-waggons.
On the following day, a Saturday, we travelled 50 miles, and, with our
horses very tired, reached a spot across the “Maquasie Spruit,” at which
a store or shop is kept and where we remained over the Sunday,
hospitably entertained by the owners of the establishment. Here we were
on land which has been claimed and possessed by the Transvaal Republic;
but which was given over to the Batlapin natives by a division generally
known in the later-day history of South African affairs as the Keate
award. The Batlapins are a branch of the great Bechuana tribe. Mr. Keate
in 1871 was Lieut.-Governor of Natal, and undertook, at the instance of
the British Government, to make an award between the Transvaal Republic
and the Batlapin Kafirs, whose Chief is and was a man called Gassibone.
I should hardly interest or instruct my readers by going deeply into the
vexed question of the Keate award. To Europeans living in South Africa
it is always abominable that anything should be given up or back to the
natives, and whatever is surrendered to them in the way of territory is
always resumed before long by hook or crook. There is a whole district
of the Transvaal Republic,--a county as we should say,--lying outside or
beyond the “Maquasie Spruit,”--called Bloomhof, with two towns, Bloomhof
and Christiana, each having perhaps a dozen houses,--and this the
Transvaal never did surrender. Governor Keate’s award was repudiated by
the Volksraad of the Transvaal, and a Dutch Landroost,--or
magistrate,--who however is an Englishman, was stationed at Christiana
and still remains there. This was a matter of no great trouble to us
while the Republic stood on its own legs. Though a Governor of ours had
made the award we were not bound to remedy Dutch injustice. But now what
are we to do? Are we to give back the country with its British and Dutch
inhabitants,--a dozen families at Bloomhof and a dozen more at
Christiana,--and the farmers here and there to the dominion of Gassibone
and his Batlapins? I think I may say that most certainly we shall do
nothing of the kind,--but with what excuse we shall escape the necessity
I do not see so clearly. In the meantime there is the Landroost at
Christiana,--now paid with British gold, who before the annexation was
paid with Transvaal notes worth 5s. to the nominal pound. When I talked
to him of Keate’s award and of Gassibone’s line, he laughed at me.
Annexation to British rule with all the beauties of British punctuality
was a great deal too good a thing to be sacrificed to a theory of
justice in favour of such a poor race of unfighting Kafirs as the
Batlapins! I have no doubt that he was right, and that the Transvaal
Colony will maintain a Landroost at Christiana as long as Landroosts
remain in that part of South Africa.
But the question was a very vital one in that neighbourhood. As I was
passing over the Vaal in a punt to the Orange Free State a Boer who had
heard my name, and who paid me the undeserved compliment of thinking my
opinion on such a matter worth having, consulted me on his peculiar
case. After the Keate award, when by the decision then made the portion
of territory in question had been adjudged to be the property of
Gassibone and his tribe, this Boer had bought land of the Kafirs. The
land so procured had also been distributed by the Transvaal Republican
Government to those claiming it under the law as to burghers’ rights.
The rulers of the Transvaal Republic would not recognise any alienation
of land by contract with the Kafirs. Now, upon the annexation, my friend
had thought that the Keate award would be the law, and that his purchase
from the Kafirs would hold good. There was I, a grey-bearded Englishman
of repute, travelling the country. What did I think of it? I could only
refer him to the Landroost. The Landroost, he said, was against him.
“Then,” said I, “you may be sure that the facts will be against you, for
the Landroost will have the decision in his hands.” He assented to my
opinion as though it had come direct from Minos, merely remarking that
it was very hard upon him. I did not pity him much because it is
probable that he only gave the Kafirs a few head of cattle, and that he
bought the land from Kafirs who had no right of selling it away from
their tribe. At the “Maquasie Spruit,” where we first entered this
debateable land, the storekeepers were also anxious to know what was to
happen to them; but they were Scotchmen and were no doubt quite clear in
their own minds that the entire country would remain British soil.
The next day we reached Bloomhof and on the day following Christiana.
This last place we entered anything but triumphantly, two of our horses
being so tired that we had to take them off the cart, and walk into the
place driving them before us. Two more days would take us to Kimberley
according to our appointed time, but these two days would be days of
long work. And here we heard for the first time that there was a long
and weary region of sand before us in the portion of the Orange Free
State through which we must pass. It was evident to us that we could not
do it all with our own horses, and therefore we resolved to hire. This
was at first pronounced to be impossible, but the impossibility
vanished. Though there were certainly not more than twelve houses in the
place one belonged to a man who, oddly enough, had two spare horses out
in the veld. He was brought to us, and I shall never forget the look of
dismay and bewilderment which came across his countenance when he was
told that he must decide at once whether he would allow his horses to be
hired. “He must,” he said, as he seated himself near a bottle of Cape
brandy,--“he must have time to think about it!” When he was again
pressed, he groaned and shook himself. The landlord told us that the man
was so poor that his children had nothing to eat but mealies. The money
no doubt was desirable;--but how could he make up his mind in less than
two or three hours to what extent he might so raise his demand as not to
frighten away the customers which Providence had sent him, and yet
secure the uttermost sum after due chaffering and bargaining? At last
words were extracted from him. We should have two horses for sixteen
miles, for----well, say, for the incredibly small sum of £2. We
hurriedly offered him 30s., and he was at last bustled into the
impropriety of agreeing to our terms without taking a night’s rest to
sleep upon it. He was an agonised man as he assented, having been made
to understand that we must then and there make up our minds, whether we
would proceed early on the next day or stay for twenty-four hours to
refresh our own stud. The latter alternative would, however, have been
destructive to us, as our horses had already eaten up all the forage to
be found in Christiana. At seven the next morning two wretched little
ponies were brought in from the veld, one of which was lame. All
Christiana was standing in the street to watch us. I flicked the lame
animal with the driver’s long whip to see if he could trot, and then
pronounced in his favour. I fear I felt that his lameness would not
matter if he could be made to take us as far as “Blignaut’s punt” which
was now his destination. He was harnessed in, and on we went with the
two most infirm of our own team following behind us. We made the stage
with great success,--and whatever may have been the future state of that
pony he went out of harness apparently a much sounder animal than he
went in. From hence, after discussing the matter of Keate’s award with
the injured Dutchmen, we went on across the arid lands of the Orange
Free State to a Boer’s house in the wilderness, where we were assured
that we should be made welcome for that night. Our horses could hardly
take us there;--but they did do it, and we were made welcome. The Boer
was very much like the other Boers of the Transvaal,--a burly, handsome,
dirty man, with a very large, dirty family, and a dirty house,--but all
the manners of the owner of a baronial castle. He also had a private
tutor in his family, a Dutchman who had come out to make money, who knew
German and English, but who had failed in his career, and had undertaken
his present duties at the rate of £12 a month, besides his board and
lodging. I have known English gentlemen who have not paid so highly for
their private tutors. This farm was altogether in the wilderness, the
land around being a sandy, stony desert, and not a shrub, hardly a blade
of grass, being visible. But we knew that our host had grown rich as a
farmer on it, owning in fee about 12,000 acres.
On the next morning we were up early, but we could not get on without
the Boer’s assistance. One of our horses was again dying or seemed to be
dying. He was a pretty bay pony, the very fellow of the one we had lost
at Wonder Fontein. He had not ate his food all night, and when we took
him out at five in the morning he would do nothing but fall down in the
veld at our feet. He suffered excruciating agonies, groaning and
screaming as we looked at him. We gave him all that we had to
give,--French brandy and Castor oil. But nothing seemed to serve him.
Then there came to us a little Dutchman from a neighbouring waggon who
suggested that we should bleed our poor pony in the ear. The little
Dutchman was accordingly allowed the use of a penknife, and the animal’s
ear was slit. From that moment he recovered,--beginning at once to crop
what grass there was. I have often known the necessity of bleeding
horses for meagrims or staggers, by cutting the animal on the palate of
the mouth. But I had never before heard of operating on a horse’s ear;
and I think I may say that our pony was suffering, not from meagrims or
from staggers, but from cholic. I leave the fact to veterinary surgeons
at home; but our pony, after having almost died and then been bled on
the ear, travelled on with us bravely though without much strength to
help us.
On this day we did at last reach the Diamond Fields, but our journey was
anything but comfortable. It was very hot and the greater part of the
road was so heavy with sand that we were forced to leave the cart and
walk. The Boer at whose house we had slept, lent us a horse to help us
for the first eight miles. Then we came to a little Dutch roadside
public house, the owner of which provided us with two horses to help us
on to Kimberley,--a distance of 27 miles,--for £2, sending with us a
Kafir boy to lead our tired horses and bring back his own. Eight miles
on we reached a hut in the wilderness where a Dutchman had made a dam,
and he allowed us to water our cattle charging us one and sixpence. From
thence on to Kimberley, through the heavy sand, there was not a drop of
water. We went very slowly ourselves, trudging on foot after the cart;
but the Kafir boy could not keep up with us, and he with the two poor
animals remained out in the veld all night. We did reach the town about
sunset, and I found myself once again restored to the delights of tubs,
telegrams, and bed linen.
Here we parted with our cart, horses, and harness which,--including the
price of the animal purchased at Potchefstroom,--had cost us
£243,--selling them by auction and realising the respectable sum of £100
by the sale. The auctioneer endeavoured to raise the speculative energy
of the bidders by telling them that the horses had all been bred at
“Orley Farm” for my own express use, “Orley Farm” being the name of a
novel written by me many years ago;--but I do not know that this romance
much affected the bidding. We had intended to have taken our equipage
on to Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State, which is about
80 miles from Kimberley; but my travelling companion was summoned back
to Capetown, and I would not make the journey, or undertake the nuisance
of the sale alone. We were of course told that, as things were at
present, horses were a mere drug at the Diamond Fields, and that a Cape
cart in Kimberley was a thing of no value at all. In my ignorance I
would have taken £10 for my share, and therefore when I heard what the
auctioneer had done for us I almost felt that my fortune had been made
for ever. I certainly think that if the purchaser had seen the team
coming into Kimberley he would have hesitated before he made his last
bid.
I have endeavoured to give the reader the results so far of my
experience of South African travel. As regards money and time no doubt
both are to some extent sacrificed by the buying and selling of a
private carriage or cart. We had our horses on the road a month.
They coat us about 7s. 6d. a day each for their keep, or £45
The expenses of the Cape boy who drove us amounted to about 15
The cart and horses and harness, as above shown, cost 143
----
Total £203
====
which, as we were two, must be divided, making our expense £101 10s.
each for about 700 miles. There are public conveyances over the whole
road which would carry a passenger with his luggage for about £40. We
travelled when on the road 30 miles a day on an average, whereas the
public carts make an average of 90. This seems to be all in favour of
the mail carts. And then it has to be acknowledged that the
responsibilities and difficulties of a private team are very wearing.
Horses in South Africa are peculiarly liable to sickness; and, though
they do a very large average of work, seem when tired to be more
incapable of getting over the ground than any other horses. The
necessity of providing forage,--sometimes where no forage is to be
had,--and of carrying large quantities on the cart; the agony of losing
a horse, and the nuisance of having to purchase or hire others; the
continual fear of being left as it were planted in the mud;--all these
things are very harassing, and teach the traveller to think that the
simplicity of the Mail Cart is beautiful. If misfortune happen to a
public conveyance the passenger is not responsible. He may be left
behind, but he always has the satisfaction of demanding from others that
he shall be carried on. On our route we encountered two sets of
travellers who had been left on the road through the laches of the Cart
Contractors; but in both cases the sufferers had the satisfaction of
threatening legal proceedings and of demanding damages. When one’s own
horse dies on the road, or one’s own wheel flies off the axle, there is
nobody to threaten, and personal loss is added to personal misery. All
this seems to be in favour of the simple Mail Cart.
But there is another side to the question which I attempted to describe
when I told the tale of those unfortunate wretches who were forced to
wander about in the mud and darkness between Newcastle and Pretoria.
Such a journey as those gentlemen were compelled to make would in truth
kill a weakly person. Some of these conveyances travel day and night,
for four, five, or six consecutive days,--or stop perhaps for three or
four hours at some irregular time which can hardly be turned to account
for rest. Such journeys if they do not kill are likely to be
prejudicial, and for the time are almost agonizing. We with our own cart
and horses could get in and out when we pleased, could stop when we
liked and as long as we liked, and encountered no injurious fatigue. In
addition to this I must declare that I never enjoyed my meals more
thoroughly than I did those which we prepared for ourselves out in the
veld. Such comfort, however, must depend altogether on the nature of the
companion whom the traveller may have selected for himself. I had been,
in this respect, most fortunate. We had harassed minds when our horses
became sick or when difficulties arose as to feeding them; but our
bodies were not subjected to torment.
These are the pros and the cons, as I found them, and which I now offer
for the service of any gentleman about to undertake South African
travel. Ladies, who make long journeys in these parts only when their
husbands or fathers have selected some new and more distant site for
their homes, are generally carried about on ox-waggons, in which they
live and sleep and take their meals. They progress about 16, 20, or
sometimes 24 miles a day, and find the life wearisome and uncomfortable.
But it is sure, and healthy, and when much luggage has to be carried, is
comparatively inexpensive.
I had by no means finished my overland travels in South Africa on
reaching Kimberley. I had indeed four or five hundred miles still
before me, of which I shall speak as I go on. But I had learned that the
coaches to Bloemfontein, and thence down to Grahamstown were more
Christian in their nature, and more trustworthy than those which had
frightened me in the Transvaal. Partly on this account and partly
because my friend was deserting me I determined to trust myself to
them;--and therefore have given here this record of my experiences as to
a Cape cart and private team of horses.
GRIQUALAND WEST.