There was no hunting for several days after the affair with the koodoo
cow. Jock looked worse the following day than he had done since
recovering consciousness: his head and neck swelled up so that chewing
was impossible and he could only lap a little soup or milk, and could
hardly bend his neck at all.
On the morning of the second day Jim Makokel' came up with his
hostile-looking swagger and a cross worried look on his face, and in a
half-angry and wholly disgusted tone jerked out at me, "The dog is deaf.
I say so! Me! Makokela! Jock is deaf. He does not hear when you
speak. Deaf! yes, deaf!"
Jim's tone grew fiercer as he warmed up; he seemed to hold me
responsible. The moment the boy spoke I knew it was true--it was the
only possible explanation of many little things; nevertheless I jumped
up hurriedly to try him in a dozen ways, hoping to find that he could
hear something. Jim was right; he was really stone deaf. It was
pathetic to find how each little subterfuge that drew his eyes from me
left him out of reach: it seemed as if a link had broken between us and
I had lost my hold. That was wrong, however! In a few days he began to
realise the loss of hearing; and after that, feeling so much greater
dependence on sight, his watchfulness increased so that nothing escaped
him. None of those who saw him in that year, when he was at his very
best, could bring themselves to believe that he was deaf. With me it
made differences both ways: something lost, and something gained. If he
could hear nothing, he saw more; the language of signs developed; and
taking it all round I believe the sense of mutual dependence for success
and of mutual understanding was greater than ever.
Snowball went on to the retired list at the end of the next trip.
Joey the Smith stood at the forge one day, trimming a red-hot
horse-shoe, when I rode up and dropping the reins over Snowball's head,
sang out "Morning, Joey!"
Joey placed the chisel on the shoe with nice calculation of the amount
he wanted to snip off; his assistant boy swung the big hammer, and an
inch cube of red-hot iron dropped off. Then Joey looked up with, what
seemed to me, a conflict of innocent surprise and stifled amusement in
his face. The boy also turned to look, and--the insignificant incident
is curiously unforgettable--trod upon the piece of hot iron. "Look
where you're standing," said Joey reproachfully, as the smoke and smell
of burning skin-welt rose up; and the boy with a grunt of disgust, such
as we might give at a burned boot, looked to see what damage had been
done to his `unders.' It gave me an even better idea of a nigger's feet
than those thorn digging operations when we had to cut through a solid
whitish welt a third of an inch thick.
Joey grinned openly at the boy; but he was thinking of Snowball.
"I wonder you had the heart, Joey, I do indeed!" I said, shaking my
head at him.
"You would have him, lad, there was no refusin' you! You arst so nice
and wanted him so bad!"
"But how could you bear to part with him, Joey? It must have been like
selling one of the family."
"'Es, Boy, 'es! We are a bit stoopid--our lot! Is he still such a
fool, or has he improved any with you?"
"Joey, I've learned him--full up to the teeth. If he stops longer he
will become wicked, like me; and you would not be the ruin of an
innocent young thing trying to earn a living honestly, if he can?"
"Come round behind the shop, Boy. I got a pony'll suit you proper!" He
gave a hearty laugh, and added "You can always get what you arsk for--if
it ain't worth having. Moril! Don't arsk! I never offered you
Snowball. This one's different. You can have him at cost price; and
that's an old twelve month account! Ten pounds. He's worth four of it!
Salted _an'_ shootin'! Shake!" and I gripped his grimy old fist
gladly, knowing it was jonnick and `a square deal.'
That was Mungo Park--the long, strong, low-built, half-bred Basuto
pony--well-trained and without guile.
I left Snowball with his previous owner, to use as required, and never
called back for him; and if this should meet the eye of Joey the Smith
he will know that I no longer hope his future life will be spent in
stalking a wart-eyed white horse in a phantom Bushveld. Mungo made
amends.
There was a spot between the Komati and Crocodile rivers on the north
side of the road where the white man seldom passed and nature was
undisturbed; few knew of water there; it was too well concealed between
deep banks and the dense growth of thorns and large trees.
The spot always had great attractions for me apart from the big game to
be found there. I used to steal along the banks of this lone water and
watch the smaller life of the bush. It was a delightful field for
naturalist and artist, but unfortunately we thought little of such
things, and knew even less; and now nothing is left from all the
glorious opportunities but the memory of an endless fascination and a
few facts that touch the human chord and will not submit to be
forgotten.
There were plenty of birds--guinea-fowl, pheasant, partridge, knoorhaan
and bush pauw. Jock accompanied me of course when I took the
fowling-piece, but merely for companionship; for there was no need for
him on these occasions. I shot birds to get a change of food and
trusted to walking them up along the river banks and near drinking
pools; but one evening Jock came forward of his own accord to help me--a
sort of amused volunteer; and after that I always used him.
He had been at my heels, apparently taking little interest in the
proceedings from the moment the first bird fell and he saw what the game
was; probably he was intelligently interested all the time but
considered it nothing to get excited about. After a time I saw him turn
aside from the line we had been taking and stroll off at a walking pace,
sniffing softly the while. When he had gone a dozen yards he stopped
and looked back at me; then he looked in front again with his head
slightly on one side, much as he would have done examining a beetle
rolling his ball.
There were no signs of anything, yet the grass was short for those
parts, scarce a foot high, and close, soft and curly. A brace of
partridges rose a few feet from Jock, and he stood at ease calmly
watching them, without a sign or move to indicate more than amused
interest. The birds were absurdly tame and sailed so quietly along that
I hesitated at first to shoot; then the noise of the two shots put up
the largest number of partridges I have ever seen in one lot, and a line
of birds rose for perhaps sixty yards across our front. There was no
wild whirr and confusion: they rose in leisurely fashion as if told to
move on, sailing infinitely slowly down the slope to the thorns near the
donga. Running my eye along the line I counted them in twos up to
between thirty and forty; and that I could not have been more than half.
How many coveys had packed there, and for what purpose, and whether
they came every evening, were questions which one would like answered
now; but they were not of sufficient interest then to encourage a second
visit another evening. The birds sailed quietly into the little wood,
and many of them alighted on branches of the larger trees. It is the
only time I have seen a partridge in a tree; but when one comes to think
it out, it seems commonsense that, in a country teeming with vermin and
night-prowlers, all birds should sleep off the ground. Perhaps they do!
There were numbers of little squirrel-like creatures there too. Our
fellows used to call them ground-squirrels and "tree-rats"; because they
live underground, yet climb trees readily in search of food; they were
little fellows like meerkats, with bushy tails ringed in brown, black
and white, of which the waggon-boys made decorations for their slouch
hats.
Jock wanted a go at them: they did not appear quite so much beneath
notice as the birds.
Along the water's edge one came on the lagavaans, huge repulsive
water-lizards three to four feet long, like crocodiles in miniature,
sunning themselves in some favourite spot in the margin of the reeds or
on the edge of the bank; they give one the jumps by the suddenness of
their rush through the reeds and plunge into deep water.
There were otters too, big black-brown fierce fellows, to be seen
swimming silently close under the banks. I got a couple of them, but
was always nervous of letting Jock into the water after things, as one
never knew where the crocodile lurked. He got an ugly bite from one old
dog-otter which I shot in shallow water; and, mortally wounded as he
was, the otter put up a rare good fight before Jock finally hauled him
out.
Then there were the cane-rats, considered by some most excellent and
delicate of meats, as big and tender as small sucking-pigs. The
cane-rat, living and dead, I was one of the stock surprises, and the
subject of jokes and tricks upon the unsuspecting: there seems to be no
sort of ground for associating the extraordinary fat thing, gliding
among the reeds or swimming silently under the banks, with either its
live capacity of rat or its more attractive dead _role_ of roast
sucking-pig.
The hardened ones enjoyed setting this treat before the hungry and
unsuspecting, and, after a hearty meal, announcing--"That was roast rat:
good, isn't it?" The memory of one experience gives me water in the
gills now! It was unpleasant, but not equal to the nausea and upheaval
which supervened when, after a very savoury stew of delicate white meat,
we were shown the fresh skin of a monkey hanging from the end of the
buck-rails, with the head drooping forward, eyes closed, arms dangling
lifeless, and limp open hands--a ghastly caricature of some hanged
human, shrivelled and shrunk within its clothes of skin. I felt like a
cannibal.
The water tortoises in the silent pools, grotesque muddy fellows, were
full of interest to the quiet watcher, and better that way than as the
"turtle soup" which once or twice we ventured on and tried to think was
good!
There were certain hours of the day when it was more pleasant and
profitable to lie in the shade and rest. It is the time of rest for the
Bushveld--that spell about middle-day; and yet if one remains quiet,
there is generally something to see and something worth watching. There
were the insects on the ground about one which would not otherwise be
seen at all; there were caterpillars clad in spiky armour made of tiny
fragments of grass--fair defence no doubt against some enemies and a
most marvellous disguise; other caterpillars clad in bark, impossible to
detect until they moved; there were grasshoppers like leaves, and
irregularly shaped stick insects, with legs as bulky as the body, and
all jointed by knots like irregular twigs--wonderful mimetic creatures.
Jock often found these things for me. Something would move and interest
him; and when I saw him stand up and examine a thing at his feet,
turning it over with his nose or giving it a scrape with his paw, it was
usually worth joining in the inspection. The Hottentot-gods always
attracted him as they reared up and `prayed' before him; quaint things,
with tiny heads and thin necks and enormous eyes, that sat up with fore
legs raised to pray, as a pet dog sits up and begs.
One day I was watching the ants as they travelled along their route--
sometimes stopping to hobnob with those they met, sometimes hurrying
past, and sometimes turning as though sent back on a message or reminded
of something forgotten--when a little dry brown bean lying in a spot of
sunlight gave a jump of an inch or two. At first it seemed that I must
have unknowingly moved some twig or grass stem that flicked it; but as I
watched it there was another vigorous jump. I took it up and examined
it but there was nothing unusual about it, it was just a common light
brown bean with no peculiarities or marks; it was a real puzzle, a most
surprising and ridiculous one. I found half a dozen more in the same
place; but it was some days before we discovered the secret. Domiciled
in each of them was a very small but very energetic worm, with a
trap-door or stopper on his one end, so artfully contrived that it was
almost impossible with the naked eye to locate the spot where the hole
was. The worm objected to too much heat and if the beans were placed in
the sun or near the fire the weird astonishing jumping would commence.
The beans were good for jumping for several months, and once in Delagoa,
one of our party put some on a plate in the sun beside a fellow who had
been doing himself too well for some time previously: he had become a
perfect nuisance to us and we could not get rid of him. He had a mouth
full of bread, and a mug of coffee on the way to help it down, when the
first bean jumped. He gave a sort of peck, blinked several times to
clear his eyes, and then with his left hand pulled slightly at his
collar, as though to ease it. Then came another jump, and his mouth
opened slowly and his eyes got big. The plate being hollow and glazed
was not a fair field for the jumpers--they could not escape; and in
about half a minute eight or ten beans were having a rough and tumble.
With a white scared face our guest slowly lowered his mug, screened his
eyes with the other hand, and after fighting down the mouthful of bread,
got up and walked off without a word.
We tried to smother our laughter, but some one's choking made him look
back and he saw the whole lot of us in various stages of convulsions.
He made one rude remark, and went on; but every one he met that day made
some allusion to beans, and he took the Durban steamer next morning.
The insect life was prodigious in its numbers and variety; and the
birds, the beasts, and the reptiles were all interesting. There is a
goodness-knows-what-will-turn-up-next atmosphere about the Bushveld
which is, I fancy, unique. The story of the curate, armed with a
butterfly net, coming face to face with a black-maned lion may or may
not be true--in fact; but it is true enough as an illustration; and it
is no more absurd or unlikely than the meeting at five yards of a
lioness and a fever-stricken lad carrying a white green-lined umbrella--
which is true! The boy stood and looked: the lioness did the same.
"She seemed to think I was not worth eating, so she walked off," he used
to say--and he was Trooper 242 of the Imperial Light Horse who went back
under fire for wounded comrades and was killed as he brought the last
one out.
I had an old cross-bred Hottentot-Bushman boy once--one could not tell
which lot he favoured--who was full of the folklore stories and
superstitions of his strange and dying race, which he half humorously
and half seriously blended with his own knowledge and hunting
experiences. Jantje had the ugly wrinkled dry-leather face of his
breed, with hollow cheeks, high cheek-bones, and little pinched eyes, so
small and so deeply set that no one ever saw the colour of them; the
pepper-corns of tight wiry wool that did duty for hair were sparsely
scattered over his head like the stunted bushes in the desert; and his
face and head were seamed with scars too numerous to count, the
souvenirs of his drunken brawls. He resembled a tame monkey rather than
a human creature, being, like so many of his kind without the moral side
or qualities of human nature which go to mark the distinction between
man and monkey. He was normally most cheery and obliging; but it meant
nothing, for in a moment the monkey would peep out, vicious, treacherous
and unrestrained. Honesty, sobriety, gratitude, truth, fidelity, and
humanity were impossible to him: it seemed as if even the germs were not
there to cultivate, and the material with which to work did not exist.
He had certain make-believe substitutes, which had in a sense been
grafted on to his nature, and appeared to work, while there was no real
use for them; they made a show, until they were tested; one took them
for granted, as long as they were not disproved: it was a skin graft
only, and there seemed to be no real `union' possible between them and
the tough alien stock. He differed in character and nature from the
Zulu as much as he did from the white man; he was as void of principle
as--well, as his next of kin, the monkey; yet, while without either
shame of, or contempt for, cowardice; he was wholly without fear of
physical danger, having a sort of fatalist's indifference to it; and
that was something to set off against his moral deficit. I put Jantje
on to wash clothes the day he turned up at the waggons to look for work,
and as he knelt on the rocks stripped to the waist I noticed a very
curious knotted line running up his right side from the lowest rib into
the armpit. The line was whiter than his yellow skin; over each rib
there was a knot or widening in the line; and under the arm there was a
big splotchy star--all markings of some curious wound.
He laughed almost hysterically, his eyes disappearing altogether and
every tooth showing, as I lifted his arm to investigate; and then in
high-pitched falsetto tones he shouted in a sort of ecstasy of delight,
"Die ouw buffels, Baas! Die buffels bull, Baas!"
"Buffalo! Did he toss you?" I asked. Jantje seemed to think it the
best joke in the world and with constant squeals of laughter and graphic
gestures gabbled off his account.
His master, it appears, had shot at and slightly wounded the buffalo,
and Jantje had been placed at one exit from the bush to prevent the herd
from breaking away. As they came towards him he fired at the foremost
one; but before he could reload the wounded bull made for him and he ran
for dear life to the only tree near--one of the flat-topped thorns. He
heard the thundering hoofs and the snorting breath behind, but raced on
hoping to reach the tree and dodge behind it; a few yards short,
however, the bull caught him, in spite of a jump aside, and flung him
with one toss right on top of the thorn-tree.
When he recovered consciousness he was lying face upwards in the sun,
with nothing to rest his head on and only sticks and thorns around him.
He did not know where he was or what had happened; he tried to move, but
one arm was useless and the effort made him slip and sag, and he thought
he was falling through the earth. Presently he heard regular tramping
underneath him and the breath of a big animal: and the whole incident
came back to him. By feeling about cautiously he at last located the
biggest branch under him, and getting a grip on this he managed to turn
over and ease his right side. He could then see the buffalo: it had
tramped a circle round the tree and was doing sentry over him. Now and
again the huge creature stopped to sniff, snort and stamp, and then
resumed the round, perhaps the reverse way. The buffalo could not see
him and never once looked up, but glared about at its own accustomed
level; and, relying entirely on its sense of smell, it kept up the
relentless vengeful watch for hours, always stopping in the same place,
to leeward, to satisfy itself that the enemy had not escaped.
Late in the afternoon the buffalo, for the first time, suddenly came to
a stand on the windward side of the tree, and after a good minute's
silence turned its tail on Jantje and with angry sniffs and tosses
stepped swiftly and resolutely forward some paces. There was nothing to
be seen; but Jantje judged the position and yelled out a warning to his
master whom he guessed to be coming through the bush to look for him,
and at the same time he made what noise he could in the tree top to make
the buffalo think he was coming down. The animal looked round from time
to time with swings and tosses of the head and threatening angry
sneezes, much as one sees a cow do when standing between her young calf
and threatened danger: it was defending Jantje, for his own purposes,
and facing the danger.
For many minutes there was dead silence: no answer came to Jantje's
call, and the bull stood its ground glaring and sniffing towards the
bush. At last there was a heavy thud below, instantly followed by the
report of the rifle--the bullet came faster than the sound; the buffalo
gave a heavy plunge and with a grunting sob slid forward on its chest.
Round the camp fire at night Jantje used to tell tales in which fact,
fancy, and superstition were curiously mingled; and Jantje when not out
of humour was free with his stories. The boys, for whose benefit they
were told, listened open-mouthed; and I often stood outside the ring of
gaping boys at their fire, an interested listener.
The tale of his experiences with the honey-bird which he had cheated of
its share was the first I heard him tell. Who could say how much was
fact, how much fancy, and how much the superstitions of his race? Not
even Jantje knew that! He believed it all.
The Honey-bird met him one day with cheery cheep-cheep, and as he
whistled in reply it led him to an old tree where the beehive was: it
was a small hive, and Jantje was hungry; so he ate it all. All the time
he was eating, the bird kept fluttering about, calling anxiously, and
expecting some honey or fat young bees to be thrown out for it; and when
he had finished, the bird came down and searched in vain for its share.
As he walked away the guilty Jantje noticed that the indignant bird
followed him with angry cries and threats.
All day long he failed to find game; whenever there seemed to be a
chance an angry honey-bird would appear ahead of him and cry a warning
to the game; and that night as he came back, empty-handed and hungry,
all the portents of bad luck came to him in turn. An owl screeched
three times over his head; a goat-sucker with its long wavy wings and
tail flitted before him in swoops and rings in most ghostly silence--and
there is nothing more ghostly than that flappy wavy soundless flitting
of the goat-sucker; a jackal trotted persistently in front looking back
at him; and a striped hyena, humpbacked, savage, and solitary, stalked
by in silence, and glared.
At night as he lay unable to sleep the bats came and made faces at him;
a night adder rose up before his face and slithered out its forked
tongue--the two black beady eyes glinting the firelight back; and
whichever way he looked there was a honey-bird, silent and angry, yet
with a look of satisfaction, as it watched. So it went all night: no
sleep for him; no rest!
In the morning he rose early and taking his gun and chopper set out in
search of hives: he would give all to the honey-bird he had cheated, and
thus make amends.
He had not gone far before, to his great delight, there came a welcome
chattering in answer to his low whistle, and the busy little fellow flew
up to show himself and promptly led the way, going ahead ten to twenty
yards at a flight. Jantje followed eagerly until they came to a small
donga with a sandy bottom, and then the honey-bird calling briskly,
fluttered from tree to tree on either bank, leading him on.
Jantje, thinking the hive must be near by, was walking slowly along the
sandy bed and looking upwards in the trees, when something on the ground
caught his eye and he sprang back just as the head of a big puff-adder
struck where his bare foot had been a moment before. With one swing of
his chopper he killed it; he took the skin off for an ornament, the
poison-glands for medicine, and the fangs for charms, and then whistled
and looked about for the honey-bird; but it had gone.
A little later on, however, he came upon another, and it led him to a
big and shady wild fig tree. The honey-bird flew to the trunk itself
and cheeped and chattered there, and Jantje put down his gun and looked
about for an easy place to climb. As he peered through the foliage he
met a pair of large green eyes looking full into his: on a big limb of
the tree lay a tiger, still as death, with its head resting on its paws,
watching him with a cat-like eagerness for its prey. Jantje hooked his
toe in the reim sling of his old gun and slowly gathered it up without
moving his eyes from the tiger's, and backing away slowly, foot by foot,
he got out into the sunshine and made off as fast as he could.
It was the honey-bird's revenge: he knew it then!
He sat down on some bare ground to think what next to do; for he knew he
must die if he did not find honey and make good a hundred times what he
had cheated.
All day long he kept meeting honey-birds and following them; but he
would no longer follow them into the bad places, for he could not tell
whether they were new birds or the one he had robbed! Once he had
nearly been caught; the bird had perched on an old ant-heap, and Jantje,
thinking there was a ground hive there, walked boldly forward. A small
misshapen tree grew out of the ant-heap, and one of the twisted branches
caught his eye because of the thick ring around it: it was the coil of a
long green mamba; and far below that, half hidden by the leaves, hung
the snake's head with the neck gathered in half-loop coils ready to
strike at him.
After that Jantje kept in the open, searching for himself among rocks
and in all the old dead trees for the tell-tale stains that mark the
hive's entrance; but he had no luck, and when he reached the river in
the early afternoon he was glad of a cool drink and a place to rest.
For a couple of hours he had seen no honey-birds, and it seemed that at
last his pursuer had given him up, for that day at least. As he sat in
the shade of the high bank, however, with the river only a few yards
from his feet he heard again a faint chattering: it came from the
river-side beyond a turn in the bank, and it was too far away for the
bird to have seen Jantje from where it called, so he had no doubt about
this being a new bird. It seemed to him a glorious piece of luck that
he should find honey by the aid of a strange bird and be able to take
half of it back to the hive he had emptied the day before and leave it
there for the cheated bird.
There was a beach of pebbles and rocks between the high bank and the
river, and as Jantje walked along it on the keen lookout for the bird,
he spotted it sitting on a root half-way down the bank some twenty yards
ahead. Close to where the chattering bird perched there was a break in
the pebbly beach, and there shallow water extended up to the
perpendicular bank. In the middle of this little stretch of water, and
conveniently placed as a stepping-stone, there was a black rock, and the
bare-footed Jantje stepped noiselessly from stone to stone towards lit.
An alarmed cane-rat, cut off by Jantje from the river, ran along the
foot of the bank to avoid him; but when it reached the little patch of
shallow water it suddenly doubled back in fright and raced under the
boy's feet into the river.
Jantje stopped! He did not know why; but there seemed to be something
wrong. Something had frightened the cane-rat back on to him, and he
stared hard at the bank and the stretch of beach ahead of him. Then the
rock he meant to step on to gave a heave, and a long blackish thing
curved towards him; he sprang into the air as high as he could, and the
crocodile's tail swept under his feet!
Jantje fled back like a buck--the rattle on the stones behind him and
crash of reeds putting yards into every bound.
For four days he stayed in camp waiting for some one to find a hive and
give him honey enough to make his peace; and then, for an old snuff-box
and a little powder, he bought a huge basket full of comb, young and
old, from a kaffir woman at one of the kraals some miles away, and put
it all at the foot of the tree he had cleaned out.
Then he had peace.
The boys believed every word of that story: so, I am sure, did Jantje
himself. The buffalo story was obviously true, and Jantje thought
nothing of it: the honey-bird story was not, yet he gloried in it; it
touched his superstitious nature, and it was impossible for him to tell
the truth or to separate fact from fancy and superstition.
How much of fact there may have been in it I cannot say: honey-birds
gave me many a wild-goose chase, but when they led to anything at all it
was to hives, and not to snakes, tigers and crocodiles. Perhaps it is
right to own up that I never cheated a honey-bird! We pretended to
laugh at the superstition, but we left some honey all the same--just for
luck! After all, as we used to say, the bird earned its share and
deserved encouragement.
Round the camp fire at nights it was no uncommon thing to see some one
jump up and let out with whatever was handiest at some poisonous
intruder. There was always plenty of dead wood about and we piled on
big branches and logs freely, and as the ends burnt to ashes in the
heart of the fire we kept pushing the logs further in. Of course, dead
trees are the home of all sorts of `creepy-crawly' things, and as the
log warmed up and the fire eat into the decayed heart and drove thick
hot smoke through the cracks and corridors and secret places in the logs
the occupants would come scuttling out at the butt ends. Small snakes
were common--the big ones usually clearing when the log was first
disturbed--and they slipped away into the darkness giving hard quick
glances about them; but scorpions, centipedes and all sorts of spiders
were by far the most numerous.
Occasionally in the mornings we found snakes under our blankets, where
they had worked in during the night for the warmth of the human body;
but no one was bitten, and one made a practice of getting up at once,
and with one movement, so that unwelcome visitors should not be warned
or provoked by any preliminary rolling. The scorpions, centipedes and
tarantulas seemed to be more objectionable; but they were quite as
anxious to get away as we were, and it is wonderful how little damage is
done.
One night when we had been watching them coming out of a big honeycombed
log like the animals from the Ark, and were commenting on the
astonishing number and variety of these things, I heard Jantje conveying
in high-pitched tones fanciful bits of information to the credulous
waggon-boys. When he found that we too were listening--and Jantje had
the storyteller's love for a `gallery'--he turned our way and dropped
into a jargon of broken English, helped out with Hottentot-Dutch, which
it is impossible to reproduce in intelligible form.
He had made some allusion to `the great battle,' and when I asked for an
explanation he told us the story. It is well enough known in South
Africa, and similar stories are to be found in the folklore of other
countries, but it had a special interest for us in that Jantje gave it
as having come to him from his own people. He called it "The Great
Battle between the Things of the Earth and the Things of the Air."
For a long time there had been jealousy between the Things of the Earth
and the Things of the Air, each claiming superiority for themselves;
each could do something the others could not do; and each thought their
powers greater and their qualities superior. One day a number of them
happened to meet on an open plain near the river's bank, and the game of
brag began again as usual. At last the Lion, who was very cross, turned
to the old Black Aasvogel, as he sat half asleep on a dead tree, and
challenged him.
"You only eat the dead: you steal where others kill. It is all talk
with you; you will not fight!"
The Aasvogel said nothing, but let his bald head and bare neck settle
down between his shoulders, and closed his eyes.
"He wakes up soon enough when we find him squatting above the carcase,"
said the Jackal. "See him flop along then."
"When _we_ find him!" the Aasvogel said, opening his eyes wide.
"Sneaking prowler of the night! Little bastard of the Striped Thief!"
"Come down and fight," snarled the Hyena angrily. "Thief and scavenger
yourself!"
So the Things of the Air gathered about and joined in backing the Black
Aasvogel; and the Things of the Earth kept on challenging them to come
down and have it out; but nobody could hear anything because the Jackal
yapped incessantly and the Go'way bird, with its feathers all on end and
its neck craned out, screamed itself drunk with passion.
Then the Eagle spoke out:
"You have talked enough. Strike--strike for the eyes!" and he swept
down close to the Lion's head, but swerving to avoid the big paw that
darted out at him, he struck in passing at the Jackal, and took off part
of his ear.
"I am killed! I am killed!" screamed the Jackal, racing for a hole to
hide in. But the other beasts laughed at him; and when the Lion called
them up and bade them take their places in the field for the great
battle, the Jackal walked close behind him holding his head on one side
and showing each one what the Eagle had done.
"Where is my place?" asked the Crocodile, in a soft voice, from the bank
where no one had noticed him come up.
The Things of the Earth that were near him moved quietly away.
"Your place is in the water," the Lion answered. "Coward and traitor
whom no one trusts! Who would fight with his back to you?"
The Crocodile laughed softly and rolled his green eyes from one to
another; and they moved still further away.
"What am I?" asked the Ostrich. "Kindred of the Birds, I am of the
winged ones; yet I cannot fight with them!"
"Let him fly!" said the Jackal, grinning, "and we shall then see to whom
he belongs! Fly, old Three Sticks! Fly!"
The Ostrich ran at him, waltzing and darting with wings outspread, but
the Jackal dodged away under the Lion and squealed out, "Take your feet
off the ground, Clumsy, and fly!"
Then it was arranged that there should be two Umpires, one for each
party, and that the Umpires should stand on two high hills where all
could see them. The Ostrich was made Umpire for the Things of the Air,
and as long as the fight went well with his party he was to hold his
head high so that the Things of the Air might see the long thin neck
upright and, knowing that all was well, fight on.
The Jackal asked that he might be Umpire for the Things of the Earth.
"You are too small to be seen!" objected the Lion gruffly.
"No! No!" urged the Jackal, "I will stand on a big ant-heap and hold my
bushy tail on high where all will see it shining silver and gold in the
sunlight."
"Good!" said the Lion. "It is better so, perhaps, for you would never
fight; and as soon as one begins to run, others follow!"
The Things of the Air gathered in their numbers, and the Eagle led them,
showing them how to make up for their weakness by coming swiftly down in
numbers where they found their enemies alone or weak; how to keep the
sun behind them so that it would shine in their enemies' eyes and blind
them; and how the loud-voiced ones should attack on the rear and scream
suddenly, while those with bill and claw swooped down in front and
struck at the eyes.
And for a time it went well with the Things of the Air. The little
birds and locusts and butterflies came in clouds about the Lion and he
could see nothing as he moved from place to place; and the Things of the
Earth were confused by these sudden attacks; and, giving up the fight,
began to flee from their places.
Then the Jackal, believing that he would not be found out, cheated: he
kept his tail up to make them think they were not beaten. The Lion
roared to them, so that all could hear, to watch the hill where the
Jackal stood and see the sign of victory; and the Things of the Earth,
being strong, gathered together again and withstood the enemy and drove
them off.
The battle was going against the Things of the Air when the Go'way bird
came to the Eagle and said:
"It is the Jackal who has done this. Long ago we had won; but, Cheat
and Coward, he kept his tail aloft and his people have returned and are
winning now."