THROUGH MASHONALAND
_13th November to 2nd December_
I proceed with the General to Mashonaland—A new fashionable Pastime to
be found in Spooring—Charter—Our Daily Trek—Salisbury—The inevitable
Alarmist Rumours and their Inventors—Celebrities in Salisbury—A Visit to
the Hospital—Cecil Rhodes in Council—A Run with the Hounds, with a Check
at the Telegraph Line—A Countess saves her Sewing–Machine and kills a
Lion—Marshal MacMahon’s Aide–de–Camp as a Trooper in Mashonaland—The
Delays incident to being at the End of a Wire—The Rains begin—The
Situation in Mashonaland.
_13th November._—Up early. Paid off and sorrowfully said “Good–bye” to
Diamond and Umtini, my two nigger servants.
And in the afternoon the General moved on from Enkeldoorn towards
Salisbury. The party consisted of Sir Frederick, Vyvyan, Ferguson,
Gormley (our principal medical officer), Leech (who manages our
transport), three waggons, a Cape cart, and lots of riding–horses,
servants, office–clerks, etc.
[Illustration: “DIAMOND”
My Zulu servant. Well–named “Diamond,” for he was a jewel of a servant.]
This night we camped at Adlum’s Farm (the green mamba house, where
I had “dined” the night before), and found Lord Grey and party also
camped here on their way to Salisbury.
I had walked the march on foot, hoping to find buck, and called,
coatless and dirty, just as I was, at Lord Grey’s camp in passing to
our own. Lady Grey insisted on my sitting down to dinner then and there
with them—and a very jolly dinner it was. It made rather a good picture
when Lister held the saucepan of rice, while I helped it out to Lady
Victoria, who was “asking for more.”
Lady Victoria has developed the talent for spooring, which will
therefore probably become the fashionable pastime among the young
ladies of this country; if not, on introduction in England, instead of
the usual “Do you bike?” you will ask, “Do you spoor?”
That night I had a real good sleep, for out of the previous
eighty–seven hours only sixteen had been slept, and many of the others
had been expended in pretty good bodily exertion.
[Illustration:
General Sir F. Carrington Captain Vyvyan, Brigade–Major
Lieut. Ferguson, A.D.C.
HEADQUARTERS’ MESS]
Sir Frederick had brought me English letters.
_15th November._—Charter. One has heard of it so much, and seen it writ
large in the map so often, that it comes as a surprise to find it is
only a tiny laager of half a dozen waggons, round which huts are being
built, ready for the rainy season. An unhealthy–looking place on low
ground, beside a stagnant, muddy stream.
Here Sir Frederick, as usual, met an old friend in the first trooper he
saw. “Good day, my lad. Not much of a place to be quartered in, this.”
“No, sir.”
“I have seen you before, somewhere.”
“Yes, sir, my name is——. I was in your Police Regiment two years. I
lunched with you at Kimberley Club five years ago. Since then I have
been running a ‘penny steamer’ on the Zambesi. Unhealthy? Yes; always
down with fever, but I had luck, and was able to get up again. Came
down here to recover, and took on as a trooper for the war.”
It is the story of many another cadet of good family moving in these
parts.
Our ninety–eight miles from Enkeldoorn to Salisbury lay, as per usual,
through bush–grown veldt, and was a heavy sandy track, and which meant
hard pulling for the mules.
We generally rolled out of our blankets at dawn—cocoa—and, mounting our
horses, rode into the bush with gun or rifle, each taking his own line
to the next outspan.
Lord Grey’s party shot to northward of the road, and the south side was
our preserve; but neither side yielded much game. By seven or eight
o’clock the waggons, having done their eight or ten miles, outspanned.
A buck–sail stretched over the tilts of two gave a shady room between,
in which we sheltered from the midday heat. Then, in the afternoon,
we trekked again till sundown. Dinner, and to bed by nine. A most
peaceful, delightful, but terribly fattening life! luckily, some of us
had some leeway to make up in that line.
_19th November._—On a rock, in a small koppie close to our outspan of
last night, were a lot of Bushman paintings of animals—some badly, but
some very well drawn—in red monochrome. One elephant and a buck were
particularly good.
[Illustration:
SPECIMEN OF OLD ROCK–PAINTING BY NATIVES IN MASHONALAND.]
We were met by Colonel Alderson and other officers from Salisbury, as
we rode in the last six miles of our journey.
Salisbury—two widely–spread townships in a basin among wooded rising
grounds, with little of the regularity of building plots as seen
in Buluwayo, but altogether a prettier–looking spot. Houses mostly
of bright red brick with white tin roofs—all single–storeyed and
verandahed, of course; many of them with nice gardens. One wooded
hill overlooks the town, and on this stands the original Fort
Salisbury, built by the “pioneers” who first opened up Mashonaland in
1891. At the foot of this hill runs the only regular street of the
place—where all the stores, etc., are situated. The rest of the two
townships was described to me thus: “There’s the post office, there
are the Government buildings, there is the hospital, and there is the
club—the remainder are mostly drink–shops.” This is maligning the town
rather—but it has its allowance of “drink–shops” all the same.
We were put up in the Commercial Hotel, and had nice offices provided
near the Government Offices. And we settled down in a few minutes most
comfortably.
It is curious to come off the veldt, where we have not seen a sign of
natives for days, almost weeks past, although hunting about—all of
us—off the road in the bush, and yet to be told on arrival here that
they don’t consider the road safe yet—that the rebels are still about
everywhere!
Then comes an alarming telegram from Buluwayo to say: “A white man
murdered close to the town; general rising of the natives expected;
town–guard of volunteers without pay being formed,” etc. Again one of
those unmeaning panics, which seems to strike people who have been
living on tenter–hooks for a short time—sort of spasms that revisit
them now and again till their nerves are restored. But it is very
annoying, and often involves moving troops about for fear that _this_
time it should be a true report. We have already caught two or three
lunatics who had spread such rumours, and sent them out of the country,
but there is apparently at least one left. A nervous man is forty
thousand times worse than a frightened woman, especially when, as is
the case here, he has any number of drink–fuddled “funk–sticks” ready
to echo his alarm.
I remember being in a theatre when an inexplicable movement took place
among the people in the pit. Almost immediately a “funk–stick” in the
dress circle, seeing the commotion, but not seeing the cause for it,
shouted out his own fear—“FIRE!” In a moment others like him echoed
his cry, and there was for some few minutes a very pretty exhibition
of panic. Manly heroes handing out the women? Not a bit of it; jumping
over them to get first to the door!
Salisbury is just now full of interesting celebrities—Major Forbes,
fresh from the country beyond the Zambesi, where he was administrating
the Company’s affairs, and pushing on the telegraph to Khartoum. He
had been reported killed in the rebellion, but had got down all right,
although his companion was murdered.
Captain Younghusband, sent by the _Times_ to report on the South
African situation generally, having just done three months’ visit to
the Transvaal among my old friends Paul Kruger, Joubert, etc. etc., at
Pretoria.
H. Cust, M.P., filling himself up with local information and
experience, and with lots of good to say of George (of all people!).
Lord and Lady Grey and Lady Victoria, Cecil Rhodes, Sir Charles
Metcalfe, etc.
_21st November._—The General visited the hospital to see the sick and
wounded. There were three officers still in, Sir Horace MacMahon and
Eustace (both shipmates of mine on the _Tantallon_), both severely
wounded in the foot, but going on well.
Montgomery shot in the head, and consequently partially paralysed;
trepanned, and doing well. About a dozen men. One poor chap was shot in
both arms; one had been amputated, the other was all smashed above the
elbow, but the doctors hope to save it. He also had two or three slight
wounds about the body, but was as cheery as possible and getting on
well.
One curious case we saw there was a young fellow who had been lost on
the veldt. His party had searched for him several days, but never found
him, and supposed that he was killed. Six weeks afterwards, a party of
Dutchmen were hunting that veldt, and they found a path close to their
camp leading down to water with fresh spoor of a man on it. During the
few days they were there, they noticed the spoor came fresh each day.
They watched, and saw this man come down to drink, but when they tried
to approach, he fled, and got down an ant–bear hole, where he evidently
lived. They could not persuade him to come out, and so finally had to
dig him out. They found he was quite off his head—unable to talk—living
only on roots and berries. They took him to Salisbury, and when we saw
him, he was all right, except he had lost nearly all his teeth, and
could not remember much of the time when he was lost.
[Illustration: BLACK AND WHITE
The work of nursing our sick and wounded was undertaken by Sisters of
Mercy, who slaved their lives out at the duty, having only one or two
native boys to help them in the menial work.]
The hospital nursing staff consists of eight nuns, who do excellent
work. Like the Sisters in Buluwayo, they are most self–sacrificing and
constant in their attention to the sick and wounded of the force. The
General and I went and saw them in their own house, and had a long talk
with them. The Superior (a very cheerful, sweet–faced young woman) was
an old friend of his, having been a nurse at one of his hospitals for
the Bechuanaland Police.
The General and his staff have been supplied with bikes by the
Chartered Company (they have a number of them for the police), and they
are invaluable for getting about the widespread town. The General takes
us for gallops now and then, which really do one a lot of good after
a load of office work. The roads are fair and the country open and
pretty, and the air most delightful, except when, as it was to–day, it
was dense with locusts.
The outskirts of the township boast a number of nice houses with good
gardens and—what is best—deep creeper–grown verandahs.
The house, for instance, where Lord Grey is living (Mr. Pauling’s) is
a most delightful one—with English furniture; its billiard–room and
everything as though in the midst of civilisation, instead of being two
hundred miles away from a railway.
At our hotel I’ve slept at last in a room—the first time for over two
months. I tried it the night of our arrival here, but it would not
work, and very soon I had my blankets outside in the street! But this
night the clouds rolled up, and the first taste of the rainy season
came down in sheets at night.
_22nd November._—Among other items of the day, we (the General,
Ferguson, and I) rode up on our bikes and called on Rhodes. We found
him living in a very pleasant house belonging to Judge Vintcent, who
had been commandant of Salisbury all through the rebellion, and being
a true old Carthusian, he had his walls covered with photos, etc., of
Charterhouse groups, etc. I was very sorry to find that he had gone off
to the Cape on leave, on account of his wife’s health and his own.
Meantime, Rhodes occupied his house and, when I saw him, his arm–chair.
For Rhodes had been out before daybreak, and was now making up some
sleep lost thereby, but in _such_ an uncomfortable position.
[Illustration:
Younghusband Baden–Powell Sir F. Carrington Lady V. Grey Sir C. Metcalfe Graham (M.F.H.)
Alderson Lord Grey Cecil Rhodes
THE OPENING MEET OF THE SALISBURY HOUNDS (AFTER THE WAR)]
This was rather characteristic of him: where other people would have
been sleepless from discomfort of body and wear of mind, he was
sleeping sweetly; but then he is always thinking or doing what you
don’t expect. In talking over ways and means or plans of campaign,
he almost invariably throws quite a new light on the subject, and
has a totally different plan, and one which is often the best of the
lot, especially from the Chartered Company’s point of view, as far as
ultimate results go, not present expenditure—that is the point that
often makes us pause, but he never seems to think of it, for he looks
to the better economy in the end. And while he talks he doesn’t sit
still, but he’ll be sprawling all over the sofa one minute, the next
he’ll have his legs crossed under him, _à la Turc_—full of restlessness
and energy.
_23rd November._—Meet of the hounds at Rhodes’ house. The pack
has been kept in the laager during the dangerous time—fed on Boer
meal. Is hunted by Graham, the Postmaster. We were a field of
twenty–seven,—which is not bad, considering how few horses are now fit
for work,—all in shirt sleeves. One lady (Lady Victoria Grey). We got
on to a buck within half a mile of the house, and had a gallop. I was
riding near Rhodes, who was thoroughly enjoying the working of the
hounds, till suddenly something better attracted his notice, and we
passed under the telegraph line from Cape Town to, or rather towards,
Cairo—and he at once went into particulars of that, and showed how the
iron posts were made, according to his design, in two parts, so that
they would not be too heavy for niggers to carry in the bush and fly
country—wooden poles useless, on account of the inroads of white ants;
and then we continued our gallop.
Talking of inroads,—we hear that the jigger, an insect the size of a
pin’s head, is invading South Africa. He came from the West Coast, and
is now down as far as Beira. I know the beast: he got me coming back
from Kumassi, and planted his eggs under my toe–nail, and I had ten
minutes’ genuine fun while the doctor cut them out.
Curious how the little pest should be able to cross Africa, and make
himself a scourge in a new bit of country,—just as the rinderpest has
done,—taking three years to get here from Somaliland.
_25th November._—I dined with Wilson Fox, old Carthusian, Public
Prosecutor, Director of Commissariat and Transport, and a good
singer—so pretty useful all round.
This morning I took a toss off my bike and damaged my knees, so that I
stand over like an old cab–horse.
_27th November._—For the past four days the telegraph line between this
and Cape Town has been down, and we have been unable to get sanction
to our proposed move out of the country. The rains are beginning
(thunderstorms nearly every afternoon), a man per day dying for the
last six days, which is a large order in so small a force.
Dined at Lord Grey’s to–night, and there also dined the Count and
Countess de la P——e. No more interesting couple could be found in the
country. I listened open–mouthed to their adventures. He was formerly
captain in the French navy and A.D.C. to MacMahon, and has four war
medals and ten orders. She was “slavey” in a London boarding–house.
They came up here before women were allowed in the country—she dressed
as a boy, and so got admitted. They started with £40 and one cow; in
three years they owned a large farm and 160 cows, and were clearing
£250 a month dairy–farming and butchering. Rinderpest and rebellion
suddenly stopped this, and swept away all they had. He took his waggon
and span of donkeys to Chimoio, and spent the whole of their money in
getting a load of food and luxuries to sell in Salisbury. She remained
at the farm, with one nigger boy to protect her.
The Count brought his waggon up the road in company with two other
traders’ waggons—six white men and one American young lady. Thirty
miles from Salisbury they found on the road the bodies of a white
family—father, mother, and children,—lying, just murdered. They began
to bury them, when a volley was fired on them at short range, killing
a number of donkeys. They embarked in the lightest waggon, the Count
losing his waggon and stores. They trekked on, pursued by rebels, who
kept firing, without daring to attack, or even to show themselves out
of the bush. This went on for two days and one night, till they reached
Salisbury. The girl, meanwhile, had been very plucky—merely asked to be
supplied with a revolver, with which to shoot herself if the worst came
to the worst; and she got one of the men to promise to do it for her if
her courage failed.
But they got in all right. Meanwhile, the Countess, living out at the
farm, five miles from Salisbury, received warning by messenger to come
in to laager; and when she delayed about it, they sent four friendlies
as a guard for her. Her account of it, told in a very matter–of–fact
cockney way, was most refreshing—
“You see, they had murdered our neighbours that day, and I couldn’t
help thinking about it. So I didn’t go to bed that night, but just
put on a blouse and skirt, and lay down on the bed, after barricading
the door. Well, in the night I was startled first by a waggon going
past at full speed; drivers yelling at the mules and cracking their
whips,—this was the waggon going to Mazoe to rescue the women there.
I could not sleep. By and by I heard a noise, and, looking through a
hole in the door, I saw niggers—plenty of them—close to the house, and
on three sides of it. I got the rifle, slipped on my bandolier, seized
up my revolver–belt, and jumped out of the back window and ran. As I
got over the wall of the garden, I upset an iron bucket with an awful
clang. At the same time, my boy, running out of the kitchen, knocked
against two frying–pans that were hanging up there, and made worse din.
But he got away, and joined me in the bush above the house. There we
hid for the rest of the night behind a gravestone. They did not burn
the house; and next morning, after waiting some time, to see if any
of them were about, I got so impatient about it, that I sent the boy
down,—to see if my sewing–machine was all right,—and he soon came back
with it. He had found it close to the well: a nigger had got it, and
was clearing with it, when he was assegaied by one of the Zambesi boys.
Lucky they killed him a few yards from the well; another step, and my
sewing–machine would have been down the well. But the Zambesi boys were
all killed—lying about round the front door. Well, then we made our
way into Salisbury; and I had no sooner got there than I found that,
like the stupid I was, I had brought the revolver–case, empty—in the
confusion I had left the revolver behind. So, says I, I must go back
and get that revolver.
[Illustration: THE COUNTESS RESCUES HER SEWING–MACHINE
When her house was attacked at night by rebels, four of her native
guards were killed, and she herself was compelled to hide with the
surviving boy till daylight, when, the enemy having cleared out, she
went back and got her sewing–machine which had been dropped by the
looters among the dead boys in the garden.]
“There was a patrol just then going out, so I got them to let me go
with them and back to my house. I made my way through the murdered
Zambesi boys, but I didn’t stop to look at them, I was that anxious
to get my revolver; and I got it all right, and glad I was to come
away with it; not but what it’s getting worn–out now, I think, as it
wouldn’t act the other night when I wanted it to; but it’s the one
I’ve shot a lion with, so I like it. Oh, he was only a very old lion;
but, ye see, he used to come pretty near every night to our camp, and
snap up one or other of the dogs. One night he even got into our
dining–hut, where there was a ham hanging from the roof; he got on to
the table to reach it down; but the table was a rickety concern and
came down with him, and I had stupidly left the cloth on overnight, and
a nice lot of holes he made in it with his claws. Well, one evening
I heard the old brute moving in the sluit, close to the camp; so I
called to the boy to get the gun, and come up with me into the waggon,
and I took the revolver. Soon we heard the lion coming along the path,
kicking oranges—them hard–rinded things—with his feet. I says to the
boy, ‘There he is, shoot!’ But the boy couldn’t see him; and so I says,
‘Oh, if you’re going to take all night to shoot him, here goes!’ and
with that I up with my revolver, and lets off a shot at him. The lion
sprang forward to the waggon, and I give him another, that sent him
back where he came from, and he rolled about a bit in the sluit, and
died there. I had hit him right in the neck.
“What about the other night? Oh, I hate to think of it—my luck was dead
out that night! Three nights ago it was, I heard a curious noise at
the back of the house, here in Salisbury; so I put on my indiarubber
shoes, and takes my pistol, and I slips round to see what it is; and
there I find a man—a white man, mind you—trying to break into the
house. So I catches him by the neck with one hand” (the Countess is a
small, slim person), “and put the revolver in his face with the other,
and tells ‘im to keep quiet; but he wriggles, and gets loose. Well, I
catches hold of his shirt, and that tears; then I catches his trousers,
they tears; and with that he bolts away. Well, I up with my pistol and
fired, and fired. But whether it was the cartridges was bad, or there
was something wrong with the pistol—go off it wouldn’t; and so that man
got away.”
But if the Countess was amusing and original, so was the Count in his
way. He had been a great elephant hunter in Central Africa. Used to
hunt, like Selous, in only a shirt, belt, and hat; no shoes. Killed
103 elephants in one season. Ever charged by an elephant? No, but an
elephant was charged by him. Following up a wounded elephant, it took
down a steep hillside in thick bush. He tore after it,—an elephant goes
very slowly down a steep place,—so he rushed right on to it before he
saw it. However, he put up his heavy rifle and fired up into its head
and killed it, but the angle of the gun was so great as to knock him
down, the stock in its recoil cutting his cheek all open, and leaving
him senseless. His boys went back and told his friends in camp that
both he and the elephant were killed, the elephant having put his tusk
through his cheek.
“Srough my cheek! The elephant had a tusk so long as my body, and so
thick as my leg, how can he put it through my _cheek_? I should have no
_face_ left.”
The Count, upon coming into laager at Salisbury after the loss of his
donkey–waggon, was made a trooper. He an ex–captain of the navy, with
four war medals, while his commanding officer was a barman at one of
the public–houses! The excuse for this apparent anomaly was that he had
known what it was to be an officer, and he might now let the others
have a chance of trying. The troop consisted of 120, but of these only
50 were available for duty, the rest were nearly all officers.
In spite of having lost everything, the Count and Countess seemed very
cheery and hopeful, and are longing to get to work again on their farm.
They deserve to prosper.
_29th November._—Part of the mounted infantry and the invalids were at
last to start down towards Beira for embarkation. The General was to
inspect the corps before they started. We went over to the camp (I,
being an invalid, owing to my broken knees, was kindly taken by Lady
Grey in her Cape cart). Just as we got there, a black wall of cloud
arrived from the opposite direction. A roar of thunder warned us off, a
sharp volley of rain followed. The General dismissed the parade, and we
all scampered for home as hard as we could go, pursued by a drenching
downpour. All the afternoon and all the night it came down in sheets;
the rains had begun. Now comes the anxiety of learning whether we shall
be able to get out of the country at all for the next four months.
The rivers rise, the ground becomes a bog, and mules can’t work if
their coats are wet, as the harness rubs them raw. It rather shows the
danger of working to order at the end of a long telegraph line. Every
thunderstorm (and they have been plentiful of late) breaks down the
telegraph line somewhere, so that messages take many days to come and
go, and we have already wasted a week here merely waiting for replies.
_1st December._—For two days it has been fine, as far as actual rain
goes, but dead still and hot—boiling hot, banking up for more rain.
Very little work and very little play, for Salisbury is, to say the
least of it, a little _triste_ just now. No news from the outside
world at all. The club has a pile of old newspapers (none newer than
September 12th) lying on the table, and we go and read these over
again like dogs at a bone, hoping yet to find a scrap of interesting
matter somewhere in them, even though it be among the advertisements.
We had hoped to start to–morrow, but now as I go to bed another
thunderstorm is on us—the roar of the rain is deafening as it falls
in a heavy mass on the roof (glad I am to be under a roof, too!). One
hardly hears the thunder through, but the lightning is incessant and
beautiful; but I wish we were well over the road that lies between us
and the sea!