The driving of bullocks is not an exalted occupation: it is a very
humble calling indeed; yet, if one is able to learn, there are things
worth learning in that useful school. But it is not good to stay at
school all one's life.
Brains and character tell there as everywhere; experience only gives
them scope; it is not a substitute. The men themselves would not tell
you so; they never trouble themselves with introspections and analyses,
and if you asked one of them the secret of success, he might tell you
"Commonsense and hard work," or curtly give you the maxims `Watch it,'
and `Stick to it'--which to him express the whole creed, and to you, I
suppose, convey nothing. Among themselves, when the prime topics of
loads, rates, grass, water and disease have been disposed of, there is
as much interest in talking about their own and each other's oxen as
there is in babies at a mothers' meeting. Spans are compared;
individual oxen discussed in minute detail; and the reputations of
`front oxen,' in pairs or singly, are canvassed as earnestly as the
importance of the subject warrants--for, "The front oxen are half the
span," they say. The simple fact is that they `talk shop,' and when you
hear them discussing the characters and qualities of each individual
animal you may be tempted to smile in a superior way, but it will not
eventually escape you that they think and observe, and that they study
their animals and reason out what to do to make the most of them; and
when they preach patience, consistency and purpose, it is the fruit of
much experience, and nothing more than what the best of them practise.
Every class has its world; each one's world--however small--is a whole
world, and therefore a big world; for the little things are magnified
and seem big, which is much the same thing: Crusoe's island was a world
to him and he got as much satisfaction out of it as Alexander or
Napoleon--probably a great deal more. The little world is less
complicated than the big, but the factors do not vary; and so it may be
that the simpler the calling, the more clearly apparent are the working
of principles and the relations of cause and effect. It was so with us.
To you, as a beginner, there surely comes a day when things get out of
hand and your span, which was a good one when you bought it, goes wrong:
the load is not too heavy; the hill not too steep; the work is not
beyond them for they have done it all before; but now no power on earth,
it seems, will make them face the pull. Some jib and pull back; some
bellow and thrust across; some stand out or swerve under the chain; some
turn tail to front, half choked by the twisted strops, the worn-out
front oxen turn and charge downhill; and all are half frantic with
excitement, bewilderment or terror. The constant shouting, the battle
with refractory animals, the work with the whip, and the hopeless chaos
and failure, have just about done you up; and then some one--who knows--
comes along, and, because you block the way where he would pass and he
can see what is wrong, offers to give a hand. Dropping his whip he
moves the front oxen to where the foothold is best and a straight pull
is possible; then walks up and down the team a couple of times talking
to the oxen and getting them into place, using his hand to prod them up
without frightening them, until he has the sixteen standing as true as
soldiers on parade--their excitement calmed, their confidence won, and
their attention given to him. Then, one word of encouragement and one
clear call to start, and the sixteen lean forward like one, the waggon
lifts and heaves, and out it goes with a rattle and rush.
It looks magical in its simplicity; but no lecturer is needed to explain
the magic, and if honest with yourself you will turn it over that night,
and with a sense of vague discomfort it will all become clear. You may
be tempted, under cover of darkness, to find a translation for `watch
it' and `stick to it!' more befitting your dignity and aspirations:
`observation and reasoning,' `patience and purpose,' will seem better;
but probably you will not say so to any one else, for fear of being
laughed at.
And when the new-found knowledge has risen like yeast, and is ready to
froth over in advice to others, certain things will be brought home to
you with simple directness: that, sufficient unto the yeast is the loaf
it has to make; that, there is only one person who has got to learn from
you--yourself; and that, it is better to be still, for if you keep your
knowledge to yourself you keep your ignorance from others.
A marked span brands the driver. The scored bullock may be a rogue or
may be a sulky obstinate brute; but the chances are he is either badly
trained or overworked, and the whip only makes matters worse; the
beginner cannot judge, and the oxen suffer. Indeed, the beginner may
well fail in the task, for there are many and great differences in the
temperaments and characters of oxen, just as there are in other animals
or in human beings. Once in Mashonaland, when lions broke into a kraal
and killed and ate two donkeys out of a mixed lot, the mules were found
next day twenty miles away; some of the oxen ran for several miles, and
some stopped within a few hundred yards; two men who had been roused by
the uproar saw in the moonlight one old bullock stroll out through the
gap in the kraal and stop to scratch his back with his horn; and three
others were contentedly dozing within ten yards of the half-eaten
donkeys when we went to the kraal in the early morning and found out
what had happened.
There are no two alike! You find them nervous and lethargic, timid and
bold, independent and sociable, exceptional and ordinary, willing and
sulky, restless and content, staunch and faint-hearted--just like human
beings. I can remember some of them now far better than many of the men
known then and since:--Achmoed and Bakir, the big after-oxen who carried
the disselboom contentedly through the trek and were spared all other
work to save them for emergencies; who, at a word, heaved together--
their great backs bent like bows and their giant strength thrown in to
hoist the waggon from the deepest hole and up the steepest hill; who
were the standby in the worst descents, lying back on their haunches to
hold the waggon up when brakes could do no more; and inseparables
always--even when outspanned the two old comrades walked together.
There was little Zole, contented, sociable and short of wind, looking
like a fat boy on a hot day, always in distress. There was Bantom, the
big red ox with the white band, lazy and selfish, with an enduring evil
obstinacy that was simply incredible. There was Rooiland, the light
red, with yellow eyeballs and topped horns, a fierce, wild,
unapproachable, unappeasable creature, restless and impatient, always
straining to start, always moaning fretfully when delayed, nervous as a
young thoroughbred, aloof and unfriendly to man and beast, ever ready to
stab or kick even those who handled him daily, wild as a buck, but
untouched by whip and uncalled by name; who would work with a straining,
tearing impatience that there was no checking, ever ready to outpace the
rest, and at the outspan standing out alone, hollow-flanked and panting,
eyes and nostrils wide with fierceness and distress, yet always ready to
start again--a miracle of intense vitality! And then there was old
Zwaartland, the coal-black front ox, and the best of all: the sober
steadfast leader of the span, who knew his work by heart and answered
with quickened pace to any call of his name; swinging wide at every
curve to avoid cutting corners; easing up, yet leading free, at every
steep descent, so as neither to rush the incline nor entangle the span;
holding his ground, steady as a rock when the big pull came, heedless of
how the team swayed and strained--steadfast even when his mate gave in.
He stood out from all the rest; the massive horns--like one huge spiral
pin passed through his head, eight feet from tip to tip--balancing with
easy swing; the clean limbs and small neat feet moving with the quick
precision of a buck's tread; and the large grave eyes so soft and clear
and deep!
For those who had eyes to see the book lay open: there, as elsewhere;
there, as always. Jock, with his courage, fidelity and concentration,
held the secrets of success! Jim--dissolute, turbulent and savage--
could yield a lesson too; not a warning only, sometimes a crude but
clear example! The work itself was full of test and teaching; the hard
abstemious life had its daily lessons in patience and resource, driven
home by every variety of means and incident on that unkindly road. And
the dumb cattle--in their plodding toil, in their sufferings from
drought and over-work, and in their strength and weakness--taught and
tested too. There is little food for self-content when all that is best
and worst comes out; but there is much food for thought.
There was a day at Kruger's Post when everything seemed small beside the
figure of one black front ox, who held his ground when all others
failed. The waggon had sunk to the bed-plank in gluey turf, and,
although the whole load had been taken off, three spans linked together
failed to move it. For eight hours that day we tried to dig and pull it
out, but forty-four oxen on that soft greasy flat toiled in vain. The
long string of bullocks, desperate from failure and bewilderment, swayed
in the middle from side to side to seek escape from the flying whips;
the unyielding waggon held them at one end, and the front oxen, with
their straining fore feet scoring the slippery surface as they were
dragged backwards, strove to hold them true at the other. Seven times
that day we changed, trying to find a mate who would stand with
Zwaartland; but he wore them all down. He broke their hearts and stood
it out alone! I looked at the ground afterwards: it was grooved in long
parallel lines where the swaying spans had pulled him backwards, with
his four feet clawing the ground in the effort to hold them true; but he
had never once turned or wavered.
And there was a day at Sand River, when we saw a different picture. The
waggons were empty, yet as we came up out of the stony drift, Bantom the
sulky hung lazily back, dragging on his yoke and throwing the span out
of line. Jim curled the big whip round him, without any good effect,
and when the span stopped for a breather in the deep narrow road, he lay
down and refused to budge. There was no reason in the world for it
except the animal's obstinate sulky temper. When the whip--the
giraffe-hide thong, doubled into a heavy loop--produced no effect, the
boys took the yoke off to see if freedom would tempt the animal to rise!
It did. At the first touch of the whip Bantom jumped up and charged
them; and then, seeing that there was nothing at all the matter, the
boys inspanned him and made a fresh start--not touching him again for
fear of another fit of sulks; but at the first call on the team, down he
went again.
Many are the stories of cruelty to oxen, and I had never understood how
human beings could be so fiendishly cruel as to do some of the things
that one heard of, such as stabbing, smothering and burning cattle; nor
under what circumstances or for what reasons such acts of brutality
could be perpetrated; but what I saw that day threw some light on these
questions, and, more than anything else, it showed the length to which
sulkiness and obstinacy will go, and made me wonder whether the
explanation was to be sought in endurance of pain through temper or in
sheer incapacity to feel pain at all. This is no defence of such
things; it is a bare recital of what took place--the only scene I can
recall of what would be regarded as wanton cruelty to oxen; and to that
extent it is an explanation, and nothing more! Much greater and real
cruelty I have seen done by work and punishment; but it was due to
ignorance, impatience, or--on rare occasions--uncontrollable temper; it
did not look deliberate and wanton.
There were two considerations here which governed the whole case. The
first was that as long as the ox lay there it was impossible to move the
waggon, and there was no way for the others to pass it; the second, that
the ox was free, strong and perfectly well, and all he had to do was to
get up and walk.
The drivers from the other waggons came up to lend a hand and clear the
way so that they might get on; sometimes three were at it together with
their double whips; and, before they could be stopped, sticks and stones
were used to hammer the animal on the head and horns, along the spine,
on the hocks and shins, and wherever he was supposed to have feeling;
then he was tied by the horns to the trek-chain, so that the span would
drag him bodily; but not once did he make the smallest effort to rise.
The road was merely a gutter scoured out by the floods and it was not
possible either to drag the animal up the steep sides or to leave him
and go on--the waggon would have had to pass over him. And all this
time he was outspanned and free to go; but would not stir.
Then they did the kaffir trick--doubled the tail and bit it: very few
bullocks will stand that, but Bantom never winced. Then they took their
clasp knives and used them as spurs--not stabbing to do real injury, but
pricking enough to draw blood in the fleshy parts, where it would be
most felt: he twitched to the pricks--but nothing more. Then they made
a fire close behind him, and as the wood blazed up, the heat seemed
unendurable; the smell of singed hair was strong, and the flames, not a
foot away, seemed to roast the flesh, and one of the drivers took a
brand and pressed the glowing red coal against the inside of the hams;
but, beyond a vicious kick at the fire, there was no result. Then they
tried to suffocate him, gripping the mouth and nostrils so that he could
not breathe; but, when the limit of endurance was reached and even the
spectators tightened up with a sense of suffocation, a savage shake of
the head always freed it--the brute was too strong for them. Then they
raised the head with reims, and with the nose held high poured water
down the nostrils, at the same time keeping the mouth firmly closed; but
he blew the water all over them and shook himself free again.
For the better part of an hour the struggle went on, but there was not
the least sign of yielding on Bantom's part, and the string of waiting
waggons grew longer, and many others, white men and black, gathered
round watching, helping or suggesting. At last some one brought a
bucket of water, and into this Bantom's muzzle was thrust as far as it
would go, and reims passed through the ears of the bucket were slipped
round his horns so that he could not shake himself free at will. We
stood back and watched the animal's sides for signs of breathing. For
an incredible time he held out; but at last with a sudden plunge he was
up; a bubbling muffled bellow came from the bucket; the boys let go the
reims; and the terrified animal ridding himself of the bucket after a
frantic struggle, stood with legs apart and eyeballs starting from the
sockets, shaking like a reed.
But nothing that had happened revealed the vicious ingrained obstinacy
of the animal's nature so clearly as the last act in the struggle: it
stood passive, and apparently beaten, while the boys inspanned it again.
But at the first call to the team to start, and without a touch to
provoke its temper again, it dropped down once more. Not one of all
those looking on would have believed it possible; but there it was! In
the most deliberate manner the challenge was again flung down, and the
whole fight begun afresh.
We felt really desperate: one could think of nothing but to repeat the
bucket trick; for it was the only one that had succeeded at all. The
bucket had been flung aside on the stones as the ox freed itself, and
one of the boys picked it up to fetch more water. But no more was
needed: the rattle of the bucket brought Bantom to his feet with a
terrified jump, and flinging his whole weight into the yoke, he gave the
waggon a heave that started the whole span, and they went out at a run.
The drivers had not even picked up their whips: the only incentive
applied was the bucket, which the boy--grasping the position at once--
rattled vigorously behind Bantom, doubling his frantic eagerness to get
away, amid shouts of encouragement and laughter from the watching group.
The trials and lessons of the work came in various shapes and at every
turn; and there were many trials where the lesson was not easy to read.
It would have taken a good man to handle Bantom, at any time--even in
the beginning; but, full-grown, and confirmed in his evil ways, only the
butcher could make anything out of him.
And only the butcher did!