Hear ill News.—Engage Hans.—Ride to Barmen.—En route.—Oxen
_versus_ Mules.—Arrive at Barmen.—Jonker’s Attack.—Previous
History.—Oerlams and Europeans.—Hottentots and
Bushmen.—Establishment of Missions.—Native Feuds.—Dislike to
Missions.—Obstruction to Travellers.—Write to Jonker.—Buy Oxen
from Hans.—Breaking them in.—Attacks of Distemper.—Complete
my Encampment.—Damara Digging.—Native Hunting.—Oxen sent
to the Bay.—I go to Barmen.—Damara Thorn-trees.—Jonker
writes to me.—My Plans.—The Ovampo.—First Rain.—Hottentot
Beauties.—Hyena’s Insolence.—Damara Ferocity.—Cruel
Murder.—Mutilated Victim.—Message to Chiefs.—Their Replies.
Otjimbinguè is well situated for a Missionary station. Water, the first
necessary of life, is here in sufficient quantity, as a small streamlet
runs down the bed of the river. Grass, the next essential in the eyes of
a pastoral people like the Damaras, is also in abundance, for the Swakop,
at this place, instead of lying between abrupt cliffs, runs through
a wide plain, that shelves for miles down its bed; and which, though
covered with thorn-bushes, affords a fair allowance of grass-bearing
soil. The mission-house was a temporary affair, a mud wall six feet high,
and over it a round-tented ceiling of matwork, in shape like a waggon
roof. A gigantic house was being built by Mr. Rath, the missionary, on
the top of a little cliff close by. Mr. Rath and his wife received
me with great kindness, and as this place, or its neighbourhood, was
to be my head-quarters for some time, I chose my encampment with some
deliberation. It was among a group of fine trees, and close by a good
spring of water. The natives about the station were excessively annoying
and troublesome, and I was strongly inclined to make an example of some
of them; but I still followed a pacific policy. When my encampment had
been planned, and the tent pitched, and bushes placed in a wide circle
round the cart, I went to spend the evening with the missionary, and to
hear the news of the country. The first intelligence shocked me very
much; it was, that quite recently the neighbouring Namaqua Hottentots had
attacked Schmelen’s Hope (three long days’ journey ahead), had murdered
and mutilated the Damaras that lived there, and, naturally enough,
terrified the resident missionary into leaving the place. The cause of
this outrage, as far as I could learn, was simply savage barbarism, a
little robbery, and a demonstration of dislike to the missionary cause.
I mentioned, at the beginning of the book, the name of Jonker Africaner,
as the most important man among the Hottentots; it was he who headed the
expedition.
The effect of this attack, which had occurred after a long peace or pause
from fighting, was to frighten every Damara who had cattle to lose, into
the far interior, so that hardly an ox was grazing within two days’
journey north of the Swakop, and to seriously alarm the missionaries,
who had hitherto depended on these very Hottentots for protection from
Damara insult. The Damaras that I saw were paupers who had no cows—people
who chiefly lived, not on milk, but on roots like pig-nuts, and who
collected round a white man with a vague hope of protection from him
against their countrymen.
I determined to start immediately for Barmen, the head seat of
intelligence as regards Damara and Hottentot movements, and called upon
Hans, the next morning, to get, not horsed, but “oxed,” for the journey.
I found him in the neatest of encampments, with an old sail stretched
in a sailor-like way to keep the sun off, and in an enclosure of thick
reeds, that were cut and hedged all round. The floor was covered with
sheep-skin mats: shooting things, knick-knacks, and wooden vessels were
hung on the forked branches of the sticks, that propped up the whole. A
very intelligent English lad was acting as his “help.” Natives squatted
round at a respectful distance, and Hans sat on an ottoman, looking
like a Mogul. I had some conversation with him, and saw at once that
he was not only willing to accompany me, but that also he was the very
man I wanted. I had heard but one opinion of his efficiency and honesty
from the Europeans that I had seen, which satisfied me on those points,
and the style of the man was exactly what I desired, for he was quiet,
sedate, but vigorous and powerfully framed, showing in all his remarks
the shrewdest common sense, and evidently, from the order around him, an
excellent disciplinarian. We very soon came to terms, which were, that he
should go with me to Barmen on trial, and that, if we suited, I would
employ him as head servant. I was strongly urged to make a good enclosure
(kraal) for mules and men, as the lions were extremely numerous about the
low ground, in which I had encamped, for the sake of the shade, though
they seldom prowled upon the bare cliff on which Hans and the Damara huts
were scattered. I therefore collected all the natives together that I
could, and set vigorously to work, cutting down all the bushes I could
find, to strengthen my kraal with, and two days passed very busily. I
then left Andersson in charge, and rode on with Stewartson and Hans
towards Barmen, in the afternoon of the second day. Our little caravan
consisted entirely of Hans’ animals, for all of mine required rest;
besides our ride-oxen, we had one ox packed and one loose, three sheep,
and two Damaras; our pace was a jog-trot, and the Damaras drove the sheep
and two oxen in front, while we rode behind and drove on the Damaras. We
off-packed after three hours, but it was dark when we did so, and the
sheep ran loose and we could not drive them in together; one ran quite
away, and was eaten, I presume, by the hyenas, who disturbed us a good
deal; one we killed, and the other we tied to a bush. Hans made me a much
more comfortable bed than I had previously enjoyed, showing me how to cut
the bushes and make a dead hedge of them; then he smoothed the ground,
and plucking dry grass, strewed it thickly about; upon that he laid two
or three sheepskins, over them my mackintosh, and, lastly, my eider-down
quilt. This had become torn to rags by the thorns, and I intended on the
first opportunity to get a caross instead of it. Sheepskins and carosses
are no incumbrance in travelling with pack-oxen, for they are carefully
placed under the saddle-bags, and their use in keeping the animal’s back
from being galled is more than compensation for their weight. I listened
with much interest to Hans’ tales and anecdotes. He had been the most
successful sportsman in the country, and had lived the last two or three
years in sole charge of an immense drove of oxen, once amounting to 700,
with only one or two native lads to help him in the care of them. He had
shot a great many lions out of the Swakop, six in the preceding year,
and made it a much safer place than it used to be, to drive cattle in.
From his account, that river-bed must have swarmed with game, when it
was first seen by Europeans, but I can easily fancy, from the confined
character of the country, how in a short time one or two guns would
entirely exterminate them.
In the morning our remaining sheep could not be driven; he was too
scared, and as time was much more precious than mutton, we killed him,
took out his inside, and strapped him across one of the oxen with
hardly any delay. I was well mounted on an old ox, and really liked his
walking pace very much. I think I can sit more hours on ox-back than on
horse-back, supposing in both cases the animals to walk. An ox’s jog-trot
is not very endurable, but anything faster abominable. The peculiarity of
the creature is, that he will not go alone, from his disposition being so
very gregarious. He is distressed beyond expression, when any attempt
succeeds for a time in separating him from the herd. It is with great
difficulty that an ox can be found willing to go ahead of the others,
even though he knows that his fellows are just behind him. Whipping and
spurring has hardly any effect on the animal: he feels every cut most
sensitively, as the rider cannot but be aware of; but the obstinacy of
his nature is so wonderfully great, that pain has little or no influence
upon his determination. His character is totally different from that of a
horse, and very curious to observe; he is infinitely the more sagacious
of the two, but never free from vice. The gregariousness of oxen and of
sheep is of great advantage to the traveller; for it is not necessary to
be perpetually counting the animals, to see if any have strayed; and at
night, when the oxen are all loose about him, a constant anxiety is taken
off the owner’s mind, by knowing that if he sees one, all are there.
My mules had given me a great deal of trouble, by requiring much more
watching than the oxen; and I hardly know how I could have travelled with
a large drove of those animals. I should not dare to let them be loose at
night; and the country seldom affords enough trees to tether them to.
We made a tedious ride to-day, taking something to eat at noon, and
going on in the evening. I began to see that being able to endure
severe exertion for half the day without the breakfast we always have
in England, was essential to our sort of life. At first it is very
trying. In temperate climates it is easy enough; but in tropical ones,
when you begin work in the fresh cool of the morning, and become hungry
and exhausted at the very time that the sun is beginning to blaze most
powerfully, the want of a restorative is more particularly felt. It
is impossible in practice to ensure breakfast before you start; and
constantly, when you least expect it, a series of accidents occur that
keep you mounted, and put it off till two or three o’clock in the
afternoon; but coffee, so long as you have any, can always be made before
starting.
We passed over very broken ground, and slept under some magnificent
camelthorn trees: the meat we killed in the morning seemed a little
tainted; so we cooked as much as we could in our iron pot, to prevent it
from becoming worse, and gave all the rest to our two or three natives
for a grand feast. The evening of the next day found us at Barmen, which,
if I was to avoid the Hottentots, would probably be the starting-point of
my exploring expedition. Mr. Hahn, a Russian by birth, and married to an
English lady, and a missionary of considerable influence, was the founder
of this station.
Mr. Kolbe and his young wife, who had been attacked by the Hottentots
at Schmelen’s Hope, had come here for refuge. They had lost nearly
everything. It seems they had quite recently occupied the place, and that
the poorer natives had settled in great numbers by them. Kahikenè, one of
the four or five principal chiefs in Damara-land, had also trecked there
with many of his men and large herds of cattle. He had always behaved in
a very friendly way to the missionaries; but this was the first time that
either he, or any of the influential Damaras, had encamped within easy
reach of a mission station. Kahikenè showed no distrust, but lived in the
friendliest relations with Mr. and Mrs. Kolbe; and they had sincerely
hoped by his means to get a firmer footing than they then had in
Damara-land. Just at this time, one night a troop of mounted Hottentots
galloped up to the place, firing at and murdering all they could catch.
Kahikenè narrowly escaped; the Hottentots scoured the country in every
direction, and a most fearful night was passed. In the early morning,
Jonker came reeling drunk to the mission-house, ordered the door to be
unbarred, and behaved in the coolest way,—demanded some breakfast, and
so forth; and then departed with his men, and the oxen, and what else
they had robbed. It is very difficult to find out how many people are
killed or wounded in occasions like these, as hyenas soon devour the
dead bodies, and those who survive scatter in all directions; so that
no clue remains towards the numbers missing. I saw two poor women, one
with both legs cut off at her ankle joints, and the other with one. They
had crawled the whole way on that eventful night from Schmelen’s Hope to
Barmen, some twenty miles. The Hottentots had cut them off after their
usual habit, in order to slip off the solid iron anklets that they wear.
These wretched creatures showed me how they had stopped the blood, by
poking the wounded stumps into the sand. A European would certainly have
bled to death under such circumstances. One of Jonker’s sons, a hopeful
youth, came to a child that had been dropped on the ground, and who lay
screaming there, and he leisurely gouged out its eyes with a small stick.
I had no reason to think that this outrage on Mr. Kolbe’s station was any
worse than the usual attacks that the Hottentots and Damaras make upon
one another; but the Damaras are savages, and are not supposed to know
better, while Jonker is a British subject, born in the colony, and his
best men are British subjects too. Missionaries and teachers in great
numbers have been amongst them, or their fathers, for years and years;
and the home of these people, though now they have trecked on to the
tropics, is properly on the borders of the Orange River.
I was very anxious to obtain something like an authentic history of these
Hottentots, and of the Damaras, during the last few years, and I begged
Mr. Hahn, who was eminently qualified to give me one, to do so; and as
it will illustrate my story I will now give its substance, mixed up and
corrected with what I have since gathered from various quarters, or made
out for myself.
The agents in this history are Namaqua “Oerlams,” or Namaquas born, in
or near the colony, often having Dutch blood and a good deal of Dutch
character in their veins. Among these, Jonker is a chief. The Namaqua
“Hottentots” look at these Oerlams with great jealousy, and consider them
almost as aliens; they do not approve of their intelligence and mixed
blood, but nevertheless make common cause with them against the Damaras.
It must be recollected that Hottentots are yellow, and not at all black.
I could pick out many complexions far fairer than that of my own sunburnt
face among them. But the Damaras are quite dark, though their features
are good and seldom of the negro type. Oerlam was a nickname given by
Dutch colonists to the Hottentots that hung about their farms; it means
a barren ewe—a creature good neither for breeding nor fattening, a
worthless concern, one that gives trouble and yields no profit. However
all things are relative, and what these Oerlams were to the Dutchmen,
that the Namaqua Hottentots are to the Oerlams.
The Europeans that have visited the country between the latitudes of
Angra Pequana and Barmen, are some ten missionaries, the same number
of traders, five or six runaway sailors, who have acted as servants to
these, and two travelling parties besides my own. The first was that of
Sir James Alexander, who explored this country upwards from the Orange
River fifteen or twenty years ago, and whom the traders and missionaries
followed; the other was that of Mr. Ruxton, the well-known American
traveller, who sailed to Walfisch Bay, but was prevented by the traders
that were there from entering further into the land, and who had to
return in the same ship that brought him. There is no difference whatever
between the Hottentot and the Bushman, who lives wild about the hills
in this part of Africa, whatever may have been said or written on the
subject. The Namaqua Hottentot is simply the reclaimed and somewhat
civilised Bushman, just as the Oerlams represent the same raw material
under a slightly higher degree of polish. Not only are they identical in
features and language, but the Hottentot tribes have been, and continue
to be, recruited from the Bushmen. The largest tribe of these Namaqua
Hottentots, those under Cornelius, and who muster now 1000 guns, have
almost all of them lived the life of Bushmen. In fact, a savage loses
his name, “Saen,” which is the Hottentot word, as soon as he leaves his
Bushman’s life and joins one of the larger tribes, as those at Walfisch
Bay have done; and therefore when I say Oerlam Hottentot or Bushman, the
identically same yellow, flat-nosed, woolly-haired, clicking individual
must be conjured up before the mind of my kind reader, but differing in
dirt, squalor, and nakedness, according to the actual term employed;
the very highest point of the scale being a creature who has means of
dressing himself respectably on Sundays and gala-days, and who knows
something of reading and writing; the lowest point, a regular savage.
Of the very smallest tribe of Bushmen I met none in my travels.
The Oerlams, then, some thirty years since, were near the Orange River,
and Jonker was a chief of secondary importance amongst them. He fought
his way into notoriety, and with success his little tribe received fresh
recruits. The Namaqua Hottentots asked his assistance in attacking
their northern neighbours, the Damaras, the pretext being constant
quarrels, the ill-treatment that their kindred the Bushmen were receiving
throughout the country, and last, not least, the fine herds of oxen that
only waited to be plundered. Jonker accordingly trecked up, helped the
Hottentots, and then settled alongside of them. His tribe now became
larger and more efficient; he bought guns and horses from the Cape with
the oxen that he stole, and continued robbing the Damaras on his own
account.
In consequence of a representation sent by Sir James Alexander to two
Missionary societies, stations were formed at Jonker’s head-quarters;
and, in 1840, he had been so far influenced, that he agreed to leave
the Damaras at rest, and to take care that the other Hottentots should
do the same, for he had become by far the most important chief among
them all. The way in which peace was made and kept for three years was
highly creditable to the missionaries concerned in it; a great deal of
trade was carried on in Jonker’s werft. A blacksmith’s shop was put up
there, and iron things, assegais, choppers for cutting wood, beads,
and so forth, were made in great quantities and sold for cattle, which
again were exchanged with traders from the Cape for clothes, guns, and
such-like things. But this did not long last; the traders sold their
goods on credit; Jonker and the others became deeply in debt, and as the
only way of paying it off involved themselves once again in the endless
Damara quarrels. It appeared that one Damara chief and his tribe had
been invited to a feast, and when these were attacked, and nearly all
killed, Jonker after much persuasion got a commando together to revenge
the injured party, and started. Once on a raid, the Hottentots did not
much care whom they attacked, and began by robbing a werft under Kasheua,
who had nothing to do with the matter in question, drove off their
cattle, and rode after the natives—men, women, and children, shooting
them down in all directions; this he repeated elsewhere till a large herd
of cattle were brought together, and then he returned. Cornelius’s tribe
of Hottentots hearing of Jonker’s success, followed his example; they
rode in a friendly way to one of Kahikenè’s villages, (Mr. Kolbe’s friend
at Schmelen’s Hope) and as the Damaras were employed in bringing them
milk after the usual fashion, they attacked them and massacred all they
could. From this time up to the Schmelen’s Hope affair, nothing else had
occurred but fightings and retaliations between the Namaquas and Damaras.
I have the details in full of many of them, but they are all alike, with
little more than the name and place varied. The consequence is, that
although the Namaquas have no trade whatever with the Damaras, a steady
export of Damara oxen goes on southwards to our colony in droves of from
200 to 800 head of cattle, which are bought here with far too little
inquiry as to how they have been obtained. In fact I am assured in every
quarter that of late years the news of a trader’s waggon being on the
road has been the signal for a general raid upon the Damaras.
Jonker had up to the present time acted very fairly, but rather
despotically to all the whites. He had always protected their persons
and property, and had often stood their friend against the other
Hottentots. Even the Damara missionaries were greatly indebted to him
for the security they enjoyed; for the belief was, that any harm done
to them would be instantly retaliated by the much-dreaded horsemen of
the Hottentots. But Jonker liked to have his own way, and soon became
heartily tired of advice and admonition; and more lately his plundering
disposition and that of the Hottentots had become so thoroughly roused,
that the rebuking presence of the missionaries was felt to be extremely
irksome and galling, and he constantly expressed his determination to
rid himself of them. Still they entertained no personal cause for alarm,
but the attack on Schmelen’s Hope had placed the matter on a different
footing, and their position was become avowedly very perilous.
The Damaras, from their suspicious nature, always believed the
missionaries and other white people to be merely a species of Hottentot,
and acting as spies to Jonker. They argue thus,—“You come and go without
harm, passing through their country; you must therefore be as one of
their people;” and now that the Damaras had been killed all round Mr.
Kolbe, and he himself not murdered, they firmly believed that he went
there merely as a decoy to bring Kahikenè within Jonker’s reach. There
was nothing revolting in such a line of conduct in the Damara mind,
for they seem to have no perceptible notion of right and wrong, but it
was considered to be a simple fact, and as such they acted upon it, by
entirely gutting the Schmelen’s Hope house the instant that Mr. and Mrs.
Kolbe had made their hurried retreat from that place to Barmen.
Jonker had never, even when on the best terms with the whites, permitted
any of them to enter Damara-land; the traders were peremptorily refused
permission to go there; and more lately, when Mr. Hahn had got everything
in readiness at Barmen to explore the interior, a troop of men were sent
who drove away all his ride, pack, and waggon oxen, and detained them
till the season for travelling was gone by; the reason being, that if a
free intercourse were established between the whites and Damara-land, the
Damaras would soon buy guns and weapons, which would place them on more
equal terms with the Hottentots. It can easily then be conceived with
what temper Jonker and the others had heard of my landing, and intention
to explore; a plan of sending men down to Walfisch Bay, and to cut me
off there, was, as I found out afterwards, publicly discussed. Help or
countenance from the Damaras was the last thing I could expect, for
they would treat me as a Hottentot, and again, my men were so totally
undisciplined and devoid of pluck, and had already cast back so many
longing regrets towards the Cape, that I felt that the least check, in
the first instance, to my success would dash the whole enterprise.
At the Cape my plans had already been thwarted by the emigrant Boers, who
chose to cut off all communication with the north by the one side of the
Karrikarri desert; and here were the Oerlams, their offset as it were,
trying to do the same on the other. The cases were as similar as could
be; both parties were guided by British subjects,—both were effectually
barring out civilisation and commerce from Central Africa, and what I
felt most peculiarly vexatious, both were barring out _me_.
Now when I was in Cape Town there was a very general feeling that the
interior of South Africa would become an extensive and open field for
colonial commerce; since the discovery of Lake ’Ngami had shown a way
to it. Hence it was doubly annoying that the emigrant Boers, whose
treatment of the blacks was not very many shades better than that of the
Oerlams, should not only keep us from these countries, but also generate
a hatred on the part of the blacks against white faces, which years of
intercourse on our part might not efface. His excellency the Governor,
guided by these views, took advantage of my intended expedition, and
also of Mr. Oswell’s, who was then in the neighbourhood of Lake ’Ngami,
by formally requesting each of us to establish “friendly relations” on
the part of the Cape Government with the black tribes who were subject
to the attacks of these marauders. We were simply to convey expressions
of good-will and strong assurances that the proceedings of the Boers met
with no countenance on the part of the colony. I, therefore, knowing
that Jonker still felt some fear of and respect for the Cape Government,
wrote him a long letter in legible characters, which I was assured could
be deciphered by some of his people. I told him how much displeasure the
emigrant Boers had caused,—that his actions were as bad as theirs,—and
that therefore he would probably be regarded with the same displeasure
as they, if he persisted in attacking the Damaras now that he had been
warned. I ended with an assurance that I should call the Damara chiefs
together, and express to them what I had been requested to do in the case
of the nations threatened by the emigrant Boers.
After I had written my letter in English, I had it translated into simple
Dutch, and written on a magnificent sheet of paper, and, finding a
messenger, sent it by him to Jonker, who lived fifty miles off, under a
high range of hills which was distinctly visible from Barmen.
Mr. Hahn spoke highly of Hans, and strongly advised me not only to take
him into my service, but also to buy up his stock of oxen and sheep, as
it would save me infinite trouble; and this I did. I paid him, by cheque
on Cape Town, 71_l._ for fifty oxen and a hundred sheep and goats. Of
these about fifteen were more or less trained, and two or three were
ride-oxen. It was the best bargain I could possibly have made, for a
month’s barter among the Damaras would never have bought so many. The
poverty of the land began to strike me, and the extreme inconvenience
of having no currency, which makes bartering a very different matter
from buying at a shop. I was grieved, too, to find that very many of
my articles of exchange were ill-chosen and worthless, and also that I
should require a very large troop of slaughter oxen, as hardly any game
seemed to exist in this part of the country.
I only staid one whole day at Barmen, and then returned to my cart at
Otjimbinguè, riding the sixty miles between the two places in a day and
a half, which is very fair travelling for an ox.
I found everything in order under Andersson’s management. I heard that
the night I left them some lions were roaring in the most awful manner
close round the encampment. They seemed to be trying to get at the mules,
who luckily did not break loose. The men were excessively frightened, as
well they might be, for they could see nothing in the dark night, and
the lions could at any moment have leaped over the slight fence into
the midst of them. The morning showed their spoors, as they had crawled
round, and close to the bushes that made the fence.
Hans was now formally installed in his office, and the breaking in of the
new oxen for the waggons began. Yokes were borrowed from the missionary,
and a heavy tree felled for the animals to draw. The first ox that we
lassoed by the leg was very vicious: he threw himself down, and broke his
thigh-bone, and I had to shoot him. The next sprained his ankle, and then
got savage, and chased everybody, running upon three legs. He at length
took refuge among some thick dabby bushes, which were thronged with
hornets, and, what between the mad charges of the animal and the stings
of the hornets, we were fairly beaten off, and had to leave him the whole
day by himself.
This was a bad beginning; but after infinite labour three or four were
inspanned: they were caught, then made fast between two tame oxen, and
there yoked. The same operation was repeated for a few days; but we did
not make much progress, the animals were so very fresh and vicious. It
must be recollected that Damara cattle are far wilder animals than those
we see in England, and infinitely more difficult to break in. There is a
game-like and thorough-bred look about them. Many of them will face and
charge a lion, as a buffalo would. My ride-ox, Frieschland, who had once
been badly scratched and bitten, became furious if he heard a lion’s cry
near him. Hans suggested driving them down to the Bay, and then, when a
little tired by the journey, and accustomed to having a number of white
men about them, they would be more submissive; I decided on trying this
plan, and an early day was fixed for the start.
In the meantime we had ceased to stare at the strangeness of our new
friends, the Damaras. Numbers came to my kraal every day, to look in at
us in a friendly manner, and to see if there was anything for them to
pilfer. Timboo began to make himself intelligible to them, and was quite
delighted at each word or phrase that he found to be the same as in his
own language.
The mules and horses were just recovering their condition, when that
fatal scourge, the distemper, broke out amongst them. First one fine
mule was found to be ill, and to stand with difficulty; a little froth
gathered about his nose and mouth; in an hour he was lying on the ground,
and in another hour dead. I was distressed beyond measure, as I knew the
disease would not rest with him; neither did it,—two more mules were
infected, and died also; but my last horse still was in good health. He
gave me one good gallop after a giraffe. I saw him far off, coming down
the long slope on the other side of the river, and cantered round him.
As I got nearer and rode gently, I passed two other individuals, each
stalking the same beast; one was my faithful Hans, and the other, a brute
of a lion. I gallopped up to the giraffe, and put a large bullet through
his ribs, which sickened him at once. I then rode in front of him, as he
slowly kept on his road at a pace between a walk and a trot; but when I
began to re-load, I found to my intense disgust, that my powder-horn had
jolted out of my pocket. I could not turn the giraffe; he forged steadily
on at about seven miles an hour, and, as the evening was closing in, I
had to leave him to go where he pleased. I offered a good reward for my
powder-flask, which I could not easily spare; and men, women, and boys
ran off the next day on my horse’s spoor, and found it. I never carried a
powder-flask loose in my pocket again. Other Damaras followed, and got my
giraffe for themselves.
In return for the meat of the dead mules, the Damaras worked at
strengthening my kraal, building me a hut in it, and digging a well. I
had logs of wood or branches of trees planted upright in the ground at
intervals all round, and plenty of dabby bushes wattled in between them.
I made a good gate to the whole; for I wished to feel, that when Timboo,
John Morta, and I remained behind, and the rest of the party were gone
down to the Bay to fetch the waggons, I might have a place of security
against pilferers and night marauders.
When the holes had to be dug for planting the uprights, I was infinitely
amused at the adroitness with which the Damaras made them. I should have
used spades, and, in default of those, I really do not know what I should
have done, but the natives each took a common stick, pointed at one end,
and, holding it like a dagger, broke up the ground with it; they then
scratched out the loose earth with their left hand, working in this way
until holes were burrowed deeper than the elbow, and only some six inches
in diameter. Savages have so many occasions for scratching up the ground,
as in digging for deep roots, for water, when the wells are partly choked
up, and such-like, that the Damaras often carry a stick for the purpose
among their arrows, in their quiver. The Bushmen do the same, and this
method of digging is called in Dutch patois “crowing” the ground; thus,
“crow-water,” means water that you have to crow for, and not an open
well, or spring.
To return to my horse; the day arrived when he was doomed, and the fatal
distemper made him its last victim. It appears that distemper is most
fatal in the months of September, October, and November, and that it
generally ceases with the first rains. The Hottentots were hardly able
to contend with it at first, but by degrees places were found in the
Hottentot country, one on a high table-mountain, where the sickly season
could be passed by them in safety; some few horses had had the distemper
and recovered, and these were kept at hand. Jonker had always a few of
these about him. The exchange price of a horse among the Hottentots here
is from eight to ten oxen, but they were hardly ever sold, as a horse
is invaluable for marauding purposes. Cattle cannot be swept off by a
few men without their aid, for as soon as the attack is made, the oxen
run off in all directions, and it is quite out of the power of a man on
foot to overtake and turn them, but they are quite at the mercy of a few
horsemen.
There were large herds of zebras about, that came down nearly every
afternoon to drink, but I soon gave over trying to shoot them. It here
required a very long stalk, as the broad open river-bed had first to be
crossed; and there were four or five hangers-on about the place with
their guns, who would run down and have their shots; besides these, there
were savages with their bows and arrows. Often, after an hour’s hard and
careful manœuvring, the game was seen to be startled, and a ball from a
zealous sportsman was whizzing at them from some ridiculous distance. The
captain of the werft made good and steady bags of game with his bow and
arrows, getting a zebra about every other day; but then he had to slave
at it, and often follow the wounded animal’s spoor for great distances.
The lions also killed several, and they supplied the natives pretty well.
The Damaras were always on the look-out, and, guided by the vultures,
appropriated in the morning whatever beasts the lions had left half eaten.
I employed myself in breaking in my remaining mules to carry packs and
saddles; they were too few now to draw my cart, but use might be made of
them in some other way. They were troublesome, sensible creatures, not
kicking at random, but always with an aim. We had several tumbles, but
succeeded in teaching them the elements of their duty.
It is much more difficult to break in animals in the open country than it
is in an enclosure, because, when you let them go, which you cannot help
doing sometimes, they gallop off, and it takes a very long time, often an
hour, and plenty of running, to turn and catch them again; besides this,
each chase scares and frightens them all the more.
Eight days had now passed since I had returned from Barmen, and a
fortnight since the cart first arrived here, in Otjimbinguè. The time
had been spent pretty actively, a great deal had been learnt, one very
bad character weeded from among my men, and on the evening of the ninth
day all the party, except Timboo, John Morta, and myself, went down
under the care of Andersson to the waggons. They took all the oxen and
a sufficiency of slaughter sheep with them, the remainder being in
charge of John Allen, the English lad whom I found living with Hans, and
doing work for him. John Allen was not yet in my service, but I engaged
him afterwards; he was a most trustworthy, hard-working clever lad,
and originally a sailor. There was now no anxiety about the food and
safety of the Bay party, for Hans knew every inch of the road, and was
thoroughly _au fait_ in all that related to oxen; but I did anticipate
with much fear that the animals would never be broken in within any
reasonable time. Everybody prophesied ill; but they had done so from the
beginning, and I felt convinced that the hardest part of the journey, the
first step, was over. I now had an establishment of oxen and men, and a
few good servants amongst them, and it was precisely in possessing myself
of an establishment that my great difficulty had lain.
There was a ride-ox for every man that went to the Bay, and they trotted
off on the evening of October 17th. Stewartson went back with them. I was
very sorry to part with him, as he had been an amusing comrade and of
great service to me. My proposed expedition to Erongo had therefore to be
postponed, and I determined to go there on Hans’s return.
I now lived in great part at Mr. Rath’s house, copying his dictionary of
Damara words, and hearing the results of his observations on the people.
Timboo continued learning the language; and I waited with anxiety for an
answer from Jonker. The time passed pleasantly enough. I put my map of
the country, so far as I had gone, into order, practised a good deal with
my sextant, but made very little progress indeed in the language; I could
find no pleasure in associating and trying to chat with these Damaras,
they were so filthy and disgusting in every way, and made themselves very
troublesome. My mules were watched and taken out to graze by two natives,
whom I fed and paid at the rate of a yard of iron wire per month.
After a time, no reply having arrived from Jonker, I engaged a Hottentot,
who had four or five trained oxen, to take me to Barmen. He was a
respectable old gentleman, who spoke Dutch perfectly, and every now and
then earned something by doing odd jobs for the missionaries. His honesty
was unimpeachable; his family large; the ladies of it were thoroughly
Hottentot, and the younger ones were dressed in leather skirts, that
showed off their peculiar shapes to great advantage. Half of my things
were put on ox-back, half on the mules. Timboo and I rode an ox and a
mule between us. John Morta got a mount now and then, but he disliked
both animals exceedingly. The mule curved his back and cocked his ears
and switched his tail much more than was pleasant among the sharp rocks
and abominable hakis thorns. These hakis thorns have overspread the whole
country on this side of Tsobis; the tree is seldom more than fifteen feet
high, with a short straight stem and a spreading bushy head; the thorns
are all curved (hakis is the Dutch for hook), and, consequently, they do
not hurt you like other thorns when you tumble into a bush, but only when
you try to get _out_ of it. My hands were cruelly torn with these thorns,
and as I was still in bad condition, all the scratches festered; it was
very painful, I could hardly close my hands for pain. Besides these,
there were the “black thorn” and the “white thorn” (I take the names as I
heard them); the first produces crisp tasteless gum in great abundance,
the other a very sweet gum, that tastes and feels exactly like jujubes,
but has a great tendency to ferment.
We travelled on very quietly to Barmen, as John Morta was lame, and there
was no hurry. We were four days in going there. I like gipsying work
excessively, making a temporary home of a pretty spot and then going on
without regret at leaving it.
A heavy thunder-storm swept by us, the first we had yet seen, and the
harbinger of the rainy weather that was to provision me, as far as water
was concerned, for my approaching journey. Deluges of rain and peals of
thunder passed down the Swakop, such as only tropical countries can show.
Jonker’s answer reached me at Barmen; it was rambling and unsatisfactory,
begging that I would come to his town and discuss the matters. The
letter, instead of having been sent by a direct messenger, had been
passed from one person to another, so that it had occupied a month in
travelling from the blue hills that bounded the horizon before me. I
thought this highly disrespectful, and hardly knew how to act, when three
days later brought intelligence of a Hottentot raid of a more murderous
and extensive description than any that had taken place previously.
Eleven whole werfts had been swept away; the Hottentots had passed
within twenty miles of where I was, and fugitives came from every side
telling of their misfortunes. Now this was too bad; but I determined to
have patience for a little time—a traveller must learn patience—and I
wrote Jonker another civil letter. I took the ground of supposing that
he had not understood my last one, and I explained myself over again. My
intentions were simply these: if he still intended to obstruct the way to
Damara-land, in spite of the long, the carefully worded and well indited
letters that I had sent him, and which explained fairly enough what the
feelings were with which the Cape Government regarded marauders like
himself, I would try if I could not do something personally to further my
own plans of exploring as I liked. I had no idea of undertaking a piece
of Quixotism in behalf of the Damaras, who are themselves a nation of
thieves and cut-throats; but I was determined that Jonker’s contempt of
white men should not be carried so far as to jeopardise my own plans. In
fact, if he did not care a straw for me, as the bearer of the wishes of
our common Government, I would take my own line as an individual who had
a few good guns at command, and would do my best to force my point.
Whatever I was to do must be postponed till my men came, so I busied
myself as usual with the milder occupations of latitudes and longitudes,
and mapping. I built a wall, on the top of which I mounted my tent; a
hut was made opposite for my two men, and the whole was well bushed in
with thorns. I dined most days with Mr. Hahn, who gave me most full and
accurate information about both Damaras and Hottentots. Timboo improved
very much in the language, and was the life and soul of the place,
while John Morta watched over my kraal like a dragon, and made the very
children cry out with terror when he scowled at them. Mr. Hahn and I
had numbers of the natives up to question them about the country to
the north, but very little could be learnt. At last a man came to Mr.
Hahn and said there was a great lake ten days off, of which he heard
I had been in search, and that he would take me there, and the name
of the lake was Omanbondè. Its direction was somewhere between north
and east. This was just what I wanted—a point to aim at, something to
search for and explore. It seemed so very absurd to bring a quantity
of men and oxen, and charge the scarcely penetrable hakis thorns which
hemmed us in on every side, without something definite to go after. The
name was pretty; the idea of a lake in this dusty sun-dried land was
most refreshing, and, according to my temperament, I became immediately
sanguine and determined to visit it.
A nation called the Ovampo were said to live in that direction, a very
interesting agricultural people, who, according to Damara ideas, were
most highly civilised. I wished much to go to them; they were the only
people worth visiting that I could hear of; but I could find out very
little regarding them. These savages were as ignorant of the country two
days’ journey off as an English labourer usually is. My friend, who told
me of Omanbondè, told me also that I could get to the Ovampo by way of
that lake, and he told me much more. He mentioned most particularly a
remarkable nation, who were deficient in joints both at the elbow and
knees. They were therefore unable to lift anything to their mouths by
themselves; but when they dined, they did so in pairs, each man feeding
his _vis-à-vis_.
We had, after a long drought, a most terrific thunder-storm: the
lightning flashed so continuously that I could read a newspaper by its
light without stopping, my eye taking in enough words by one flash to
enable me to read steadily on until the next one. It lightened in three
different parts, and we were in the middle. There were some flowers in
front of me, and the lightning was so vivid, and its light so pure, that
I could not only see the flowers, but also their colours. I believe this
is a very rare thing with lightning. There were four savages running in a
line, about 100 yards off, on their way to their huts: after one of the
flashes, only three remained; the other was struck dead. Mr. Hahn and I
picked him up. It is curious how little a negro’s features are changed by
death; there is no paleness. His widow howled all night; and was engaged
to be married again the succeeding day.
The Swakop ran violently after this storm, pouring vast volumes of turbid
and broken water for three days down what had hitherto been an arid sandy
channel.
Mr. Hahn’s household was large. There was an interpreter, and a
sub-interpreter, and again others; but all most excellently well-behaved,
and showing to great advantage the influence of their master. These
servants were chiefly Hottentots, who had migrated with Mr. Hahn from
Hottentot-land, and, like him, had picked up the language of the
Damaras. The sub-interpreter was married to a charming person, not only
a Hottentot in figure, but in that respect a Venus among Hottentots. I
was perfectly aghast at her development, and made inquiries upon that
delicate point as far as I dared among my missionary friends. The result
is, that I believe Mrs. Petrus to be the lady who ranks second among all
the Hottentots for the beautiful outline that her back affords, Jonker’s
wife ranking as the first; the latter, however, was slightly _passée_,
while Mrs. Petrus was in full _embonpoint_. I profess to be a scientific
man, and was exceedingly anxious to obtain accurate measurements of her
shape; but there was a difficulty in doing this. I did not know a word
of Hottentot, and could never therefore have explained to the lady what
the object of my foot-rule could be; and I really dared not ask my worthy
missionary host to interpret for me. I therefore felt in a dilemma as
I gazed at her form, that gift of bounteous nature to this favoured
race, which no mantua-maker, with all her crinoline and stuffing, can do
otherwise than humbly imitate. The object of my admiration stood under
a tree, and was turning herself about to all points of the compass,
as ladies who wish to be admired usually do. Of a sudden my eye fell
upon my sextant; the bright thought struck me, and I took a series of
observations upon her figure in every direction, up and down, crossways,
diagonally, and so forth, and I registered them carefully upon an outline
drawing for fear of any mistake; this being done, I boldly pulled out my
measuring-tape, and measured the distance from where I was to the place
she stood, and having thus obtained both base and angles, I worked out
the results by trigonometry and logarithms.
Mr. Hahn gave me a very interesting account of the first establishment
of the Damara mission. He was permitted to leave Jonker’s place after
much trouble, and encamped amongst the negroes in company with Mr.
Rath and Mr. Bam. None of them knew a word of the language. No European
had ever as yet learnt it, and the natives laughed at them, and annoyed
them most excessively; they were mobbed and could do scarcely anything.
At last, a lazy fellow, with his nose half-bitten off by a hyena,
attached himself to them. He happened, besides being lazy, to be also a
particularly intelligent man, and soon understood what the missionaries
were driving at, when they endeavoured to get at the pronouns and tenses
of this tongue of prefixes. He was of the greatest use to them, and,
mainly through his aid, they have, after five or six years’ labour, fully
acquired the language. Their grammar and dictionary were to have been
sent in 1852, to the professor of philology at Bonn, and have probably
been received by this time.
This man’s nose was seized by a hyena while he was asleep on his
back—very unpleasant, and an excellent story to frighten children with.
I could hardly believe it until a case occurred—quite _à-propos_. An old
Bushwoman, who encamped under the lee of a few sticks and reeds that she
had bent together, after the custom of those people, was sleeping coiled
up close round the fire, with her lank feet straggling out in the dark,
when a hyena, who was prowling about in the early morning, laid hold of
her heel, and pulled her bodily half out of the hut. Her howls alarmed
the hyena, who quitted his hold; and she hobbled up the next morning to
us for plaisters and bandages. The very next night the old lady slept
in the same fashion as before, and the hyena came in the same way, and
tugged at her heel just as he had done the previous evening. The poor
creature was in a sad state; and I and one of Mr. Hahn’s men sat up the
next night to watch for the animal. I squatted in the shade of her house;
my companion covered a side-path, and the woman occupied her hut as a
bait. It was a grand idea, that of baiting with an old woman. The hyena
came along the side-path, and there received his quietus.
All along the country about us was in the utmost confusion; but we were
not annoyed at Barmen. Once indeed men came with the news that a body
of Damaras had been seen prowling behind the rocks that form a broken
background to the station; and we got everything ready for an attack, and
watched through the night, but nothing came.
The fugitives from a lately dispersed werft were staying at Barmen; their
cattle had been scattered all about the country, and three men went out
on a three or four days’ excursion to look after them. When they returned
they came to the station yelling and leaping, and the whole population
turned out and joined them in their war-dance. I never witnessed a more
demoniacal display; their outrageous movements, their barking cries, the
brandishing of the assegais, and the savage exultation of man, woman,
and child at the thoughts of bloodshed, formed a most horrible scene. We
heard that the meaning of it all was, that the Damaras, who were looking
after their lost cattle, had found two of the robbers in the act of
driving some of their herd a few miles from this place, and that they
had caught the men and killed them. The story seemed improbable on very
many accounts, and as the scene of the slaughter was no great distance
off, the interpreter and two or three men were sent on the spoor to find
out what they could. They returned with the tale that in the middle of
a river-bed they had come to a place where the sand was much trodden
down, and some blood was dashed about, and from that spot footsteps led
in two directions, and with each set of footsteps there was the mark of
something being dragged; the first spoor led to a bush on one side of the
river where a man lay dead, the other to a thick hakis thorn cover, but
nothing could be seen under it though the sand was disturbed. Looking
further they found a spoor that went thence by itself right up the
river-bed. The interpreter followed it; it was that of a person crawling
and dragging himself, and the wretched man whose track it was was found a
mile off under a tree in a most pitiable state, with the back of his neck
cut through to the bone. It was in the forenoon of the day before that he
had been wounded, and it was now past the early morning, but he was still
able to speak. He said—and further inquiries corroborated the story—that
he and the man that lay dead were loitering about digging roots, when
they saw a fire and the three Damaras, from Barmen, eating meat over it;
an ox lay slaughtered by their side. They offered to feed them if they
would help to carry as much meat to Barmen as they could, so they agreed
and went on. Arriving at the river-bed, the three men fell upon their two
porters, knocked them down with their knob kerries, and struck them till
they were nearly insensible, and then hacked at their necks with their
assegais. This one was left for dead, but he recovered, and succeeded in
crawling from under the thorn bush to where he was found. The tenacity
of life in a negro is wonderful. The object of the murder proved to be
simply this—The three Damaras had found cattle belonging to their werft
but not to themselves; they were hungry and killed an ox to have a good
gorge, and then, not knowing how to get out of the scrape of having
killed their friends’ cattle, they determined to lay the guilt upon these
two unhappy men, and therefore murdered them. It would never do to leave
this man to die where he was, so I went with water, a litter and some
bandages. The first man’s throat was cut quite through, and he had long
been dead; the second man I found under the shadow of a tree with his
head between his two hands on his knees and insensible, but we roused him
up, his lips were cracked with thirst and he could not speak. I could
never have believed that a man with a wound like this could have survived
an hour; all the back sinews of his neck were severed to the bone, and
the cut went quite round his neck, but only skin deep near the jugular
vein and windpipe. The head was perfectly loose upon his shoulders, and
heavily bruised, and his skin was torn with the hakis thorns. I put him
on the litter, but his head rolled so shockingly from side to side as the
litter moved that I was obliged to make two cushions of grass, one on
each side of his head, to steady it. At Barmen he was not able to give
any further account, as he became delirious and died in a few hours.
I had sent messages to the different chiefs trying to explain what
the instructions were that I had received at Cape Town. The way of
authenticating messages in this part of the world is curious; it is by
giving some token to the messenger which he shows as a guarantee that
he really comes from the person he professes to represent, just as our
ancestors who were not clever at writing sent their signet rings. I could
not tell what to send; it ought to be something very characteristic and
not worth stealing—an article that neither grease, rain, nor dirt could
spoil, and impossible to be broken. All my things were reviewed, but
none were suitable except a great French cuirassier’s sword in a steel
scabbard, one that I had bought years before in Egypt. This was just the
thing. The Damaras adore iron as we adore gold; and the brightness of
the weapon was charming in their eyes. They had no idea of its use, as
swords are unknown to them, but they considered it as a large knife. I
therefore girded my messenger with it in the presence of his companion,
and Mr. Hahn translated for me a short message to this effect—That I came
from a great chief and a large nation who did not rob as the Namaquas
did, but wished to be friends and not enemies with the Damaras, and to
send traders into their country; that our land was very fertile, and we
did not want any other, but we wanted cattle, and our traders would bring
iron and buy them; that the Damaras must not think when our people come
that they are spies, for they are friends, and they must treat them
kindly. The messengers then repeated what they had heard, to show that
they recollected it, and were given a sheep to cut up and carry for their
provision, and started off. I received civil answers on the messengers’
return; but the Damaras are all so hostile to each other, tribe against
tribe, that I found it impossible to bring the chiefs together. Still I
was glad that I had sent my messages, as it was a demonstration, and that
might be of some immediate good to me.