It was Pettigrew's Road that brought home to me, and to others, the
wisdom of the old transport-riders' maxim: `Take no risks.' We all knew
that there were `fly' belts on the old main road but we rushed these at
night, for we knew enough of the tsetse fly to avoid it; however the
discovery of the new road to Barberton, a short cut with plenty of water
and grass, which offered the chance of working an extra trip into the
short Delagoa season, tempted me, among others, to take a risk. We had
seen no `fly' when riding through to spy out the land, and again on the
trip down with empty waggons all had seemed to be well; but I had good
reason afterwards to recall that hurried trip down and the night spent
at Low's Creek. It was a lovely moonlight night, cool and still, and
the grass was splendid; after many weeks of poor feeding and drought the
cattle revelled in the land of plenty. We had timed our treks so as to
get through the suspected parts of the road at night, believing that the
fly did not trouble after dark, and thus we were that night outspanned
in the worst spot of all--a tropical garden of clear streams,
tree-ferns, foliage plants, mosses, maidenhair, and sweet grass! I
moved among the cattle myself, watching them feed greedily and waiting
to see them satisfied before inspanning again to trek through the night
to some higher and more open ground. I noticed then that their tails
were rather busy. At first it seemed the usual accompaniment of a good
feed, an expression of satisfaction; after a while, however, the
swishing became too vigorous for this, and when heads began to swing
round and legs also were made use of, it seemed clear that something was
worrying them. The older hands were so positive that at night cattle
were safe from fly, that it did not even then occur to me to suspect
anything seriously wrong. Weeks passed by, and although the cattle
became poorer, it was reasonable enough to put it down to the
exceptional drought.
It was late in the season when we loaded up for the last time in Delagoa
and ploughed our way through the Matolla swamp and the heavy sands at
Piscene; but late as it was, there was no sign of rain, and the rain
that we usually wanted to avoid would have been very welcome then. The
roads were all blistering stones or powdery dust, and it was cruel work
for man and beast. The heat was intense, and there was no breeze; the
dust moved along slowly apace with us in a dense cloud--men, waggons,
and animals, all toned to the same hue; and the poor oxen toiling slowly
along drew in the finely-powdered stuff at every breath. At the outspan
they stood about exhausted and panting, with rings and lines of brown
marking where the moisture from nostrils, eyes and mouths had caught the
dust and turned it into mud. At Matolla Poort, where the Lebombo Range
runs low, where the polished black rocks shone like anvils, where the
stones and baked earth scorched the feet of man and beast to aching, the
world was like an oven; the heat came from above, below, around--a
thousand glistening surfaces flashing back with intensity the sun's
fierce rays. And there, at Matolla Poort, the big pool had given out!
Our standby was gone! There, in the deep cleft in the rocks where the
feeding spring, cool and constant, had trickled down a smooth black rock
beneath another overhanging slab, and where ferns and mosses had
clustered in one little spot in all the miles of blistering rocks, there
was nothing left but mud and slime. The water was as green and thick as
pea-soup; filth of all kinds lay in it and on it; half a dozen rotting
carcases stuck in the mud round the one small wet spot where the pool
had been--just where they fell and died; the coat had dropped away from
some, and mats of hair, black-brown and white, helped to thicken the
green water. But we drank it. Sinking a handkerchief where the water
looked thinnest and making a little well into which the moisture slowly
filtered, we drank it greedily.
The next water on the road was Komati River, but the cattle were too
weak to reach it in one trek, and remembering another pool off the
road--a small lagoon found by accident when out hunting the year
before--we moved on that night out on to the flats and made through the
bush for several miles to look for water and grass.
We found the place just after dawn. There was a string of half a dozen
pools ringed with yellow-plumed reeds--like a bracelet of sapphires set
in gold--deep deep pools of beautiful water in the midst of acres and
acres of rich buffalo grass. It was too incredibly good!
I was trekking alone that trip, the only white man there, and--tired out
by the all-night's work, the long ride, and the searching in the bush
for the lagoon--I had gone to sleep after seeing the cattle to the water
and grass. Before midday I was back among them again; some odd
movements struck a chord of memory, and the night at Low's Creek flashed
back. Tails were swishing freely, and the bullock nearest me kicked up
sharply at its side and swung its head round to brush something away. I
moved closer up to see what was causing the trouble: in a few minutes I
heard a thin sing of wings, different from a mosquito's, and there
settled on my shirt a grey fly, very like and not much larger than a
common house-fly, whose wings folded over like a pair of scissors. That
was the "mark of the beast." I knew then why this oasis had been left
by transport-rider and trekker, as nature made it, untrodden and
untouched.
Not a moment was lost in getting away from the `fly.' But the mischief
was already done; the cattle must have been bitten at Low's Creek weeks
before, and again that morning during the time I slept; and it was clear
that, not drought and poverty, but `fly' was the cause of their
weakness. After the first rains they would begin to die, and the right
thing to do, now was to press on as fast as possible and deliver the
loads. Barberton was booming and short of supplies and the rates were
the highest ever paid; but I had done better still, having bought my own
goods, and the certain profit looked a fortune to me. Even if all the
cattle became unfit for use or died, the loads would pay for everything
and the right course therefore was to press on; for delay would mean
losing both cattle and loads--all I had in the world--and starting again
penniless with the years of hard work thrown away.
So the last hard struggle began. And it was work and puzzle day and
night, without peace or rest; trying to nurse the cattle in their daily
failing strength, and yet to push them for all they could do; watching
the sky cloud over every afternoon, promising rain that never came, and
not knowing whether to call it promise or threat; for although rain
would bring grass and water to save the cattle, it also meant death to
the fly-bitten.
We crossed the Komati with three spans--forty-four oxen--to a waggon,
for the drift was deep in two places and the weakened cattle could not
keep their feet. It was a hard day, and by nightfall it was easy to
pick out the oxen who would not last out a week. That night Zole lay
down and did not get up again--Zole the little fat schoolboy, always out
of breath, always good-tempered and quiet, as tame as a pet dog.
He was only the first to go; day by day others followed. Some were only
cattle: others were old friends and comrades on many a trek. The two
big after-oxen Achmoed and Bakir went down early; the Komati Drift had
over-tried them, and the weight and jolting of the heavy disselboom on
the bad roads finished them off. These were the two inseparables who
worked and grazed, walked and slept, side by side--never more than a few
yards apart day or night since the day they became yoke-fellows. They
died on consecutive days.
But the living wonder of that last trek was still old Zwaartland the
front ox! With his steady sober air, perfect understanding of his work,
and firm clean buck-like tread, he still led the front span. Before we
reached the Crocodile his mate gave in--worn to death by the ebbing of
his own strength and by the steady indomitable courage of his comrade.
Old Zwaartland pulled on; but my heart sank as I looked at him and noted
the slightly `staring' coat, the falling flanks, the tread less sure and
brisk, and a look in his eyes that made me think he knew what was coming
but would do his best.
The gallant-hearted old fellow held on. One after another we tried with
him in the lead, half a dozen or more; but he wore them all down. In
the dongas and spruits, where the crossings were often very bad and
steep, the waggons would stick for hours, and the wear and strain on the
exhausted cattle was killing: it was bad enough for the man who drove
them. To see old Zwaartland then holding his ground, never for one
moment turning or wavering while the others backed jibbed and swayed and
dragged him staggering backwards, made one's heart ache. The end was
sure: flesh and blood will not last for ever; the stoutest heart can be
broken.
The worst of it was that with all the work and strain we accomplished
less than we used to do before in a quarter of the time. Distances
formerly covered in one trek took three, four, and even five now.
Water, never too plentiful in certain parts, was sadly diminished by the
drought, and it sometimes took us three or even four treks to get from
water to water. Thus we had at times to drive the oxen back to the last
place or on to the next one for their drinks, and by the time the poor
beasts got back to the waggons to begin their trek they had done nearly
as much as they were able to do.
And trouble begot trouble, as usual! Sam the respectable, who had drawn
all his pay in Delagoa, gave up after one hard day and deserted me. He
said that the hand of the Lord had smitten me and mine, and great
misfortune would come to all; so he left in the dark at Crocodile Drift,
taking one of the leaders with him, and joined some waggons making for
Lydenburg. The work was too hard for him; it was late in the season; he
feared the rains and fever; and he had no pluck or loyalty, and cared
for no one but himself.
I was left with three leaders and two drivers to manage four waggons.
It was Jim who told me of Sam's desertion. He had the cross, defiant,
pre-occupied look of old; but there was also something of satisfaction
in his air as he walked up to me and stood to deliver the great
vindication of his own unerring judgment:
"Sam has deserted you and taken his voorlooper." He jerked the words
out at me, speaking in Zulu.
I said nothing. It was just about Sam's form; it annoyed but did not
surprise me. Jim favoured me with a hard searching look, a subdued
grunt, and a click expressive of things he could not put into words, and
without another word he turned and walked back towards his waggon. But
half-way to it he broke silence: facing me once more, he thumped his
chest and hurled at me in mixed Zulu and English: "I said so! Sam lead
a Bible. Sam no good. Umph! M'Shangaan! I said so! I always said
so!"
When Jim helped me to inspan Sam's waggon, he did it to an accompaniment
of Zulu imprecations which only a Zulu could properly appreciate. They
were quite `above my head,' but every now and then I caught one sentence
repeated like the responses in a litany: "I'll kill that Shangaan when I
see him again!"
At Lion Spruit there was more bad luck. Lions had been troublesome
there in former years, but for a couple of seasons nothing had been seen
of them. Their return was probably due to the fact that, because of the
drought and consequent failure of other waters, the game on which they
preyed had moved down towards the river. At any rate, they returned
unexpectedly and we had one bad night when the cattle were unmanageable,
and their nerves all on edge. The herd boys had seen spoor in the
afternoon; at dusk we heard the distant roaring, and later on, the
nearer and more ominous grunting. I fastened Jock up in the tent-waggon
lest the sight of him should prove too tempting; he was bristling like a
hedgehog and constantly working out beyond the cattle, glaring and
growling incessantly towards the bush. We had four big fires at the
four corners of the outspan, and no doubt this saved a bad stampede, for
in the morning we found a circle of spoor where the lions had walked
round and round the outspan. There were scores of footprints--the
tracks of at least four or five animals.
In the Bushveld the oxen were invariably tied up at night, picketed to
the trek-chain, each pair at its yoke ready to be inspanned for the
early morning trek. Ordinarily the weight of the chain and yokes was
sufficient to keep them in place, but when there were lions about, and
the cattle liable to be scared and all to sway off together in the same
direction, we took the extra precaution of pegging down the chain and
anchoring the front yoke to a tree or stake. We had a lot of trouble
that night, as one of the lions persistently took his stand to windward
of the cattle to scare them with his scent. We knew well enough when he
was there, although unable to see anything, as all the oxen would face
up wind, staring with bulging eyeballs in that direction and braced up
tense with excitement. If one of them made a sudden move, the whole lot
jumped in response and swayed off down wind away from the danger,
dragging the gear with them and straining until the heavy waggons
yielded to the tug. We had to run out and then drive them up again to
stay the stampede. It is a favourite device of lions, when tackling
camps and outspans, for one of them to go to windward so that the
terrified animals on winding him may stampede in the opposite direction
where the other lions are lying in wait.
Two oxen broke away that night and were never seen again. Once I saw a
low light-coloured form steal across the road, and took a shot at it;
but rifle-shooting at night is a gamble, and there was no sign of a hit.
I was too short-handed and too pressed for time to make a real try for
the lions next day, and after a morning spent in fruitless search for
the lost bullocks we went on again.
Instead of fifteen to eighteen miles a day, as we should have done, we
were then making between four and eight--and sometimes not one. The
heat and the drought were awful; but at last we reached the Crocodile
and struck up the right bank for the short cut--Pettigrew's Road--to
Barberton, and there we had good water and some pickings of grass and
young reeds along the river bank.
The clouds piled up every afternoon; the air grew still and sultry; the
thunder growled and rumbled; a few drops of rain pitted the dusty road
and pattered on the dry leaves; and that was all. Anything seemed
preferable to the intolerable heat and dust and drought, and each day I
hoped the rain would come, cost what it might to the fly-bitten cattle;
but the days dragged on, and still the rain held off.
Then came one black day as we crawled slowly along the river bank, which
is not to be forgotten. In one of the cross-spruits cutting sharply
down to the river the second waggon stuck: the poor tired-out cattle
were too weak and dispirited to pull it out. Being short of drivers and
leaders it was necessary to do the work in turns, that is, after getting
one waggon through a bad place, to go back for another. We had to
double-span this waggon, taking the span from the front waggon back to
hook on in front of the other; and on this occasion I led the span while
Jim drove. We were all tired out by the work and heat, and I lay down
in the dusty road in front of the oxen to rest while the chains were
being coupled up. I looked up into old Zwaartland's eyes, deep, placid,
constant, dark grey eyes--the ox-eyes of which so many speak and write
and so few really know. There was trouble in them; he looked anxious
and hunted; and it made me heart-sick to see it.
When the pull came, the back span, already disheartened and out of hand,
swayed and turned every way, straining the front oxen to the utmost; yet
Zwaartland took the strain and pulled. For a few moments both front
oxen stood firm; then his mate cut it and turned; the team swung away
with a rush, and the old fellow was jerked backwards and rolled over on
his side. He struggled gamely, but it was some minutes before he could
rise; and then his eye looked wilder and more despairing; his legs were
planted apart to balance him, and his flanks were Jim straightened up
the double-span again. Zwaartland leaned forward once more, and the
others followed his lead; the waggon moved a little and they managed to
pull it out. But I, walking in front, felt the brave old fellow
stagger, and saw him, with head lowered, plod blindly like one stricken
to death.
We outspanned on the rise, and I told Jim to leave the reim on
Zwaartland's head. Many a good turn from him deserved one more from
me--the last. I sent Jim for the rifle, and led the old front ox to the
edge of the donga where a bleached tree lay across it... He dropped
into the donga under the dead tree; and I packed the dry branches over
him and set fire to the pile. It looks absurd now; but to leave him to
the wolf and the jackal seemed like going back on a friend; and the
queer looks of the boys, and what they would think of me, were easier to
bear. Jim watched, but said nothing: with a single grunt and a shrug of
his shoulders he stalked back to the waggons.
The talk that night at the boys' fire went on in low-pitched tones--not
a single word audible to me; but I knew what it was about. As Jim stood
up to get his blanket off the waggon, he stretched himself and closed
off the evening's talk with his Zulu click and the remark that "All
white men are mad, in some way."
So we crawled on until we reached the turn where the road turned between
the mountain range and the river and where the railway runs to-day.
There, where afterwards Cassidy did his work, we outspanned one day when
the heat became so great that it was no longer possible to go on. For
weeks the storm-clouds had gathered, threatened, and dispersed; thunder
had come half-heartedly, little spots of rain enough to pock-mark the
dust; but there had been no break in the drought.
It was past noon that day when everything grew still; the birds and
insects hushed their sound; the dry leaves did not give a whisper.
There was the warning in the air that one knows but cannot explain; and
it struck me and the boys together that it was time to spread and tie
down the buck-sails which we had not unfolded for months.
While we were busy at this there came an unheralded flash and crash;
then a few drops as big as florins; and then the flood-gates were opened
and the reservoir of the long months of drought was turned loose on us.
Crouching under the waggon where I had crept to lash down the sail, I
looked out at the deluge, hesitating whether to make a dash for my
tent-waggon or remain there.
All along the surface of the earth there lay for a minute or so a
two-feet screen of mingled dust and splash: long spikes of rain drove
down and dashed into spray, each bursting its little column of dust from
the powdery earth. There was an indescribable and unforgettable
progression in sounds and smells and sights--a growth and change--rapid
yet steady, inevitable, breathless, overwhelming. Little enough could
one realise in those first few minutes and in the few square yards
around; yet there are details, unnoticed at the time, which come back
quite vividly when the bewildering rush is over, and there are
impressions which it is not possible to forget.
There were the sounds and the smells and the sights! The sounds that
began with the sudden crash of thunder; the dead silence that followed
it; the first great drops that fell with such pats on the dust; then
more and faster--yet still so big and separate as to make one look round
to see where they fell; the sound on the waggon-sail--at first as of
bouncing marbles, then the `devil's tattoo,' and then the roar!
And outside there was the muffled puff and patter in the dust; the
rustle as the drops struck dead leaves and grass and sticks; the blend
of many notes that made one great sound, always growing, changing and
moving on--full of weird significance--until there came the steady swish
and hiss of water upon water, when the earth had ceased to stand up
against the rain and was swamped. But even that did not last; for then
the fallen rain raised its voice against the rest, and little sounds of
trickling scurrying waters came to tone the ceaseless hiss, and grew and
grew until from every side the chorus of rushing tumbling waters filled
the air with the steady roar of the flood.
And the smells! The smell of the baked drought-bound earth; the faint
clearing and purifying by the first few drops; the mingled dust and
damp; the rinsed air; the clean sense of water, water everywhere; and in
the end the bracing sensation in nostrils and head, of, not wind
exactly, but of swirling air thrust out to make room for the falling
rain; and, when all was over, the sense of glorious clarified air and
scoured earth--the smell of a new-washed world!
And the things that one saw went with the rest, marking the stages of
the storm's short vivid life. The first puffs of dust, where drops
struck like bullets; the cloud that rose to meet them; the drops
themselves that streaked slanting down like a flight of steel ramrods;
the dust dissolved in a dado of splash. I had seen the yellow-brown
ground change colour; in a few seconds it was damp; then mud; then all
asheen. A minute more, and busy little trickles started everywhere--
tiny things a few inches long; and while one watched them they joined
and merged, hurrying on with twist and turn, but ever onward to a given
point--to meet like the veins in a leaf. Each tuft of grass became a
fountain-head: each space between, a little rivulet: swelling rapidly,
racing away with its burden of leaf and twig and dust and foam until in
a few minutes all were lost in one sheet of moving water.
Crouching under the waggon I watched it and saw the little streamlets,
dirty and debris-laden, steal slowly on like sluggard snakes down to my
feet, and winding round me, meet beyond and hasten on. Soon the
grass-tufts and higher spots were wet; and as the water rose on my boots
and the splash beat up to my knees, it seemed worth while making for the
tent of the waggon. But in there the roar was deafening; the rain beat
down with such force that it drove through the canvas-covered
waggon-tent and greased buck-sail in fine mist. In there it was black
dark, the tarpaulin covering all, and I slipped out again back to my
place under the waggon to watch the storm.
We were on high ground which fell gently away on three sides--a long
spur running down to the river between two of the numberless small
watercourses scoring the flanks of the hills. Mere gutters they were,
easy corrugations in the slope from the range to the river,
insignificant drains in which no water ever ran except during the heavy
rains. One would walk through scores of them with easy swinging stride
and never notice their existence. Yet, when the half-hour's storm was
over and it was possible to get out and look round, they were rushing
boiling torrents, twenty to thirty feet across and six to ten feet deep,
foaming and plunging towards the river, red with the soil of the
stripped earth, and laden with leaves, grass, sticks, and branches--
water-furies, wild and ungovernable, against which neither man nor beast
could stand for a moment.
When the rain ceased the air was full of the roar of waters, growing
louder and nearer all the time. I walked down the long low spur to look
at the river, expecting much, and was grievously disappointed. It was
no fuller and not much changed. On either side of me the once dry
dongas emptied their soil-stained and debris-laden contents in foaming
cataracts, each deepening the yellowy red of the river at its banks; but
out in mid-stream the river was undisturbed, and its normal colour--the
clear yellow of some ambers--was unchanged. How small the great storm
seemed then! How puny the flooded creeks and dongas--yet each master of
man and his work! How many of them are needed to make a real flood!
There are few things more deceptive than the tropical storm. To one
caught in it, all the world seems deluged and overwhelmed; yet a mile
away it may be all peace and sunshine. I looked at the river and
laughed at myself! The revelation seemed complete; it was humiliating;
one felt so small. Still, the drought was broken; the rains had come;
and in spite of disappointment I stayed to watch, drawn by the scores of
little things caught up and carried by--the first harvest garnered by
the rains.
A quarter of an hour or more may have been spent thus, when amid all the
chorus of the rushing waters there stole in a duller murmur. Murmur it
was at first, but it grew steadily into a low-toned, monotoned, distant
roar; and it caught and held one like the roar of coming hail or
hurricane. It was the river coming down.
The sun was out again, and in the straight reach above the bend there
was every chance to watch the flood from the bank where I stood. It
seemed strangely long in coming, but come it did at last, in waves like
the half-spent breakers on a sandy beach--a slope of foam and broken
waters in the van, an ugly wall with spray-tipped feathered crest
behind, and tier on tier to follow. Heavens, what a scene! The force
of waters, and the utter hopeless puniness of man! The racing waves,
each dashing for the foremost place, only to force the further on; the
tall reeds caught waist high and then laid low, their silvery tops
dipped, hidden, and drowned in the flood; the trees yielding, and the
branches snapping like matches and twirling like feathers down the
stream; the rumbling thunder of big boulders loosed and tumbled, rolled
like marbles on the rocks below; whole trees brought down, and turning
helplessly in the flood--drowned giants with their branches swinging
slowly over like nerveless arms. It was tremendous; and one had to stay
and watch.
Then the waves ceased; and behind the opposite bank another stream began
to make its way, winding like a huge snake, spreading wider as it went
across the flats beyond, until the two rejoined and the river became one
again. The roar of waters gradually lessened; the two cataracts beside
me were silent; and looking down I saw that the fall was gone and that
water ran to water--swift as ever, but voiceless now--and was lost in
the river itself. Inch by inch the water rose towards my feet; tufts of
grass trembled, wavered, and went down; little wavelets flipped and
licked like tongues against the remaining bank of soft earth below me;
piece after piece of it leant gently forward, and toppled headlong in
the eager creeping tide; deltas of yellow scum-flecked water worked
silently up the dongas, reaching out with stealthy feelers to enclose
the place where I was standing; and then it was time to go!
The cattle had turned their tails to the storm, and stood it out. They
too were washed clean and looked fresher and brighter; but there was
nothing in that! Two of them had been seen by the boys moving slowly,
foot by foot, before the driving rain down the slope from the outspan,
stung by the heavy drops and yielding in their weakness to the easy
gradient. Only fifty yards away they should have stopped in the
hollow--the shallow dry donga of the morning; but they were gone!
Unwilling to turn back and face the rain, they had no doubt been caught
in the rush of storm-water and swirled away, and their bodies were
bobbing in the Crocodile many miles below by the time we missed them.
In a couple of hours the water had run off; the flooded dongas were
almost dry again; and we moved on.
It was then that the real `rot' set in. Next morning there were half a
dozen oxen unable to stand up; and so again the following day. It was
no longer possible to take the four waggons; all the spare cattle had
been used up and it was better to face the worst at once; so I
distributed the best of the load on the other three waggons and
abandoned the rest of it with the fourth waggon in the bush. But day by
day the oxen dropped out, and when we reached the Junction and branched
up the Kaap, there were not enough left for three waggons.
This time it meant abandoning both waggon and load; and I gave the
cattle a day's rest then, hoping that they would pick up strength on
good grass to face the eight drifts that lay between us and Barberton.