The Waggons are condemned.—Messengers to the Cape.—The
Kaoko.—History of Damara-land.—Ghou Damup Genealogies.—Start
for Elephant Fountain.—Excessive Drought.—Engage Eybrett.—Sell
my Cart and Mules.—Travel from Eikhams.—Shooting Giraffes in
the Dusk.—Elephant Fountain.—Numerous Pitfalls.—Plundering
Expeditions.—The Kubabees reach ’Ngami.—Trouble of taking
Observations.—Leave Waggon and ride to the East.—Engage
Saul.—Hans and a Lion.—We enter the Bushman Tract.—Rhinoceros
Skulls.—Hear of the Kubabees Hottentots.—Start for
’Tounobis.—Shoot a White Rhinoceros.—Reach ’Tounobis.—Elephant
in a Pitfall.—Prepare for Sport.—Night-Watching for
Game.—Rhinoceros Veal.—Opera-glasses.—Herd of Elephants.—Fights
and Frolics.—Bulk of the Rhinoceros.—A Picturesque
Finale.—Spring Hares.—Remarks on my Route.—Unicorns
and Cockatrices.—Bushmen Springes.—Setting Guns at
Night.—Description of Plate.—Poisoned Arrows.
During my absence some little news had been received from Europe, for an
Englishman had arrived by ship and settled near Walfisch Bay, to try his
hand at cattle-trading; and one newspaper had been received through his
means. Of my own family I heard no tidings, and of course had been unable
to receive any since I had left England, a year and four months previous
to this time.
The missionaries receive their communications once in every two years,
unless, by some chance accident, a post can be dispatched by ship from
Cape Town. They tried to establish sets of messengers from Rehoboth to
the Orange River, but the road is so long and difficult that the plan had
to be abandoned. One of these messengers murdered his comrade, and said
that he had been eaten by a lion; at another time the letters were spoilt
by the rains: on every occasion there was some delay or accident.
I was delighted to find that the Hottentots had remained very peaceable,
only those under Cornelius having done any mischief to the Damaras during
my absence. Confidence was being restored, and troops of Damaras were
gathered about the watering-places and pasturages of the Swakop, which
had long been abandoned on account of their dangerous proximity to Jonker.
Now, as regards my own plans, the waggons were pronounced scarcely fit
for an overland journey to the Cape. The tires of the wheels were worn
out; the mended axletree was of doubtful wood; and the waggons were
altogether become rickety. On the other hand, the missionaries expected
a vessel some time not earlier than December, and we were now at the
beginning of August. If, then, I returned by the ship, I should have
August, September, October, and half November, to do what I liked in, and
leaving Barmen not later than the end of the first fortnight in November,
I could easily push down to the bay in time to join the vessel.
As a way of ridding myself of the waggons and all my remaining
properties, I should arrange with Hans to act as agent for me to convert
them into oxen, and drive them for sale down to the colony, by which
means I should recover some part of their value.
Then in order to occupy the fifteen weeks that I had to spare, I intended
to make a quick journey to the eastward, both for the purpose of seeing
something of the Hottentots, and also to find out whether, as I had at
first been assured was the case, the Karrikarri Desert was interposed as
an impracticable barrier between the sea-coast countries and Lake ’Ngami.
I divided my party into two: one waggon went down with Hans to the bay,
to bring back all the articles of exchange that I had left there; and the
other waggon, together with all my ride-oxen, went with me by Jonker’s
village on my road to the east.
To make matters more secure, I dispatched messengers to the Orange River,
in obtaining whom Swartboy very kindly assisted me; and among my letters,
I wrote one to the agent of the missionaries in Cape Town, offering to
bear a certain part of the expense of the vessel, on condition that it
was dispatched not earlier than the 1st of December, or later than the
last of January. We then busied ourselves for a week in packing, and in
repairs, and in enjoying Mr. Hahn’s kind hospitality.
Mr. Hahn had made an excursion to Omaruru during my absence, in company
with Katjimaha’s sons. It is a spring, situated in the neighbourhood of
extensive pasturage, a very important place to the Damaras, and about
four and a half days’ travel from Barmen, being a little way beyond
Erongo,—the Ghou Damup mountain that I have already mentioned. Omaruru
is a rendezvous for the caravans that travel between the Damaras and the
sea-side Ovampo; and immediately north of it begins a broad barren tract
called the Kaoko, which those caravans have to cross, and which, though
now very thinly inhabited, appears to have been the original home of the
Damara nation.
I heard of the safety of three of my mules who had travelled down to
Scheppmansdorf and taken up their quarters there; they grazed, strayed,
and slept just where they pleased, for the Hottentots could not manage
them. They were five in number when they ran away from me at Schmelen’s
Hope, but two of them must have been killed on the road by lions; they
certainly did not die of starvation, for the other three arrived at
Scheppmansdorf very plump and in good condition.
I ought to mention that the horse distemper does not appear to exist at
Scheppmansdorf: five or six horses have at different times been kept
there, but none have suffered from the disease.
I had much satisfaction in comparing the results of my inquiries with
those of Mr. Hahn, with regard to the earlier history of Damara-land.
It appears undoubted that seventy years ago not a single Damara existed
in the parts where I had been travelling, but that they all lived in
the Kaoko, while tribes of Bushmen and Ghou Damup possessed the entire
country between the Orange River and the Ovampo, excepting only the Kaoko
on the north-west, and the central Karrikarri desert on the east.
The Ghou Damup, though treated kindly by the Bushmen, were always
considered as inferiors, and the two races never intermarried. The Ghou
Damup lived then, as they do now, about the hills, and the Bushmen on the
plains. I saw an old Damara, and an old Ghou Damup who remembered this
state of things, and several who were born just after it was put an end
to; among these was Katjimaha himself who looks about sixty-five years
old.
The Damaras at that time made a sweeping invasion eastwards, right across
the country, to the very neighbourhood of Lake ’Ngami, and attacked the
Mationa (as they call the people who live there).
Subsequently the Mationa retaliated and invaded the land as far as Barmen
on one occasion, and on a second attack passed up the Omoramba as far as
Omanbondè. The last Mationa invasion took place about twenty-two years
ago. The result of all this fighting was that the Bushmen tribes have
been exterminated or driven out of the whole pasture country between
Barmen and Okamabuti (the place where the waggon broke down), and the
Damaras inhabit it in their stead. Eastwards, they are now separated
from the Mationa by only a broad strip of barren country. The Ghou Damup
live in large communities about a mountainous district on the lower part
of the Omoramba, where they appear to be by no means an impoverished
nation, but agriculturists and traders with the Ovampo and other nations
to the north. My own belief is, that very long ago the Ghou Damup were
the aborigines not only of the present Damara-land but also of the whole
country to the south of it half way down to the Orange River, and that
they are of a race in every respect kindred to the Ovampo. The Bushmen
appear to have invaded and thoroughly conquered the Ghou Damup, for they
not only exist as the superior caste of the two, but have also taught
them their language, to the entire exclusion of whatever other one they
may at some former period have possessed. Those Ghou Damup that I saw
have no tradition of any other language than that they used; but the
tribes who live on the lower parts of the Omoramba were described as
speaking several languages; and some of these were said to be ignorant of
Hottentot.
All these bits of information were derived from very many sources; some
I received from persons in Damara-land, some from Ghou Damup among the
Namaquas, and the rest from Bushmen who lived far to the east of them.
The Ghou Damup are abused and tyrannised over by everybody, but servitude
has become their nature, and the very name of Ghou which they themselves
adopt and use is far from complimentary. Like many other Hottentot names
it is not translatable to ears polite. The missionaries for delicacy’s
sake call them “Hill” Damaras, because they live on the hills.
A standing joke against the Ghou Damup is, that they trace their descent
from the monkey tribe. An old man amongst them gave me the following
history of his family; he worded it very neatly:—“My great uncle was a
baboon, and lived on excellent terms with the rest of the family, but
the following occurrence caused his separation from it. My grandfather
had been gambling, and lost all the ornaments, &c., that he had on his
person, but wishing to continue the game, requested his brother the
baboon to go to my great grandfather, the famous Hadji-Aybib, and beg
enough beads from him to form another stake. My great uncle the baboon
went, but passing a Hottentot werft by the way, in which were many
fierce dogs, before unknown in the country, he became so alarmed at
their barking and snapping at him that he ran to the hills, and never
dared face man again. Why should not we and the baboons be brothers?”
said the old gentleman. “Everybody persecutes us alike. We both live on
the hills, eat the same roots, and ‘crow’ for them with our hands in
the same manner!” Hadji-Aybib, my friend’s great grandfather, married a
Bushwoman for his second wife, who annoyed her step sons by her hauteur,
and twitted them on account of their vulgar habits and low connections.
Influenced by her, Hadji-Aybib cruelly treated his Damup progeny, and
they on their part earnestly longed for his death. One day he was
missing, rumour gave out that he was killed, and the sons gave way to the
greatest paroxysms of merriment, during which they behaved in such an
unseemly manner before the eyes of their fine lady Hottentot connections
that on Hadji-Aybib’s return,—for he was not killed after all,—they were
obliged, from absolute shame, to hide themselves away from his presence,
and fled to the hills, bearing with them the reproachful name of Ghou
Damup.
_August 13th._—Our party separated, one detachment _en route_ to the
bay, and Andersson, Timboo, John Morta, Phlebus, and myself, travelling
towards Lake ’Ngami. I took only five or six of the most active Damaras
with me, and appointed the neighbourhood of Jonker’s werft as a place of
rendezvous for both parties at the beginning of November.
The dryness of the country was now really alarming; all the
watering-places that remained were crowded with cattle, and every blade
of grass within miles of them was being eaten off. Over a great part of
Damara-land rain had not fallen more than ten times during the whole
rainy season; and a mortality from actual starvation had already begun
among the cattle, and the year will probably be remembered and named by
the Damaras as that of the great drought.
It was therefore no easy matter for me to travel about; but I had one
advantage on my side, which was, that on the road, when far away from
watering-places and the grazing limits of the cattle by them, I often
found grass, and there I outspanned to sleep, and let the oxen feed, then
travelling on in the morning I came to the next watering-place at the
middle of the day, when the cattle of the natives were all sent off to
the fields, and the wells were disengaged. I thus ensured an evening’s
meal to the oxen, and also one in the early morning, if they chose to eat
it, and water in the middle of the day, but no more.
On the road to Jonker we found hardly any grass, and I do not know how I
should have been able to keep my cattle at his place, if it were not that
a valley was left unoccupied, owing to a superstitious feeling arising
from a cattle-watcher having been lately murdered there by the Damaras.
Jonker received me very kindly, and I expressed to him how glad I was to
hear of the excellent manner in which he had kept order among his people
during my absence. He had, I knew, been put to very great trouble in
doing so, as the disposition to pillage is general among the Hottentots,
and requires a far more despotic ruler to repress than Jonker or anybody
else in this republican part of the world is allowed to be.
I found a man settled here who was of great use to me, and whom I
engaged; he was white, and born in the Cape; spoke English and Dutch
perfectly, and was brought by the missionaries here as half-carpenter,
half-schoolmaster. He, however, did not suit them, and had for a long
time been dismissed their service; I found him installed as Jonker’s
prime minister. He spoke Hottentot very fairly, and had a winning manner
about him that vastly smoothed down the minor difficulties of my way;
and though he was always getting himself and us into scrapes, yet he had
a marvellous faculty of creeping out of them again. Eybrett, for that
was his name, undertook to guide me to Elephant Fountain, a deserted
station on the northern frontier of Amiral’s tribe. No waggon had passed
that road for years, and the way led along a country which was rarely
travelled over, owing to its being a border district between the Damaras
and Namaquas.
Elephant Fountain and the country immediately adjacent had been the
Ultima Thule of missionaries and traders, but the Oerlams, under Amiral,
had recently extended themselves about forty miles further to the east,
and on their late shooting excursions had reached a point considerably
more distant. I was assured that the appearance of the land would be
found to alter considerably, the thorns and rugged hills of Damara-land
giving place to broad plains, and grass, and timber trees. Beyond was the
desert which had hitherto been considered quite impassable, except for
men on foot, after the rainy season, and which therefore barred out the
lands of the west coast from those of Central Africa.
It was principally with a view to try if this desert were really
impassable that I proposed now to travel, and my object was to strike
upon some road that led from the colony up to Lake ’Ngami. The Lake
itself I was indifferent about reaching, for it is of no great size,
and might prove a very unhealthy place for us, who had been accustomed
so long to the pure air of a high plateau. It was two years since its
discovery, and there was every reason to suppose that it was by this time
perfectly well known. Lastly, I should never get on amongst the blacks
there without an interpreter, being, as they are, deadly enemies to
the Damaras, from whose side I should have come. I also looked forward
with much pleasure to a little sport, for game had been so scarce in
Damara-land that it made shooting a real toil.
I sold my cart and harness which were lying at Otjimbinguè, and the three
mules which were at Scheppmansdorf, to Jonker; he gave me twenty oxen
and forty milch goats for them; but all my efforts to buy horses were
unavailing. He, however, gave me a mount to Rehoboth, where I went to
induce Swartboy to meet Jonker and Cornelius, and settle many matters
that were in dispute between them, and also to overawe Cornelius and keep
him in better order, for he had lately been stealing a great deal of
Damara cattle.
My Hottentot interpreters now were Eybrett and Phlebus; but Eybrett was
an educated man, and could interpret from English to Hottentot at once,
so that I generally employed him. He was an excellent interpreter into
Dutch when he chose to take pains.
We had between us a motley command of languages; for including those
of Europe, one or other of the party could converse fluently in nine
different languages—English, French, Swedish, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese,
Hottentot, Damara, and Movisa; besides having some acquaintance with
German, Arabic, Caffre, and a smattering of Ovampo.
It will be tedious to describe my journey now as minutely as I did that
in Damara-land, for it was much the same thing over again—uncertainty
of the way and want of water; but we had become far quicker and more
self-confident in emergencies, and were altogether a very active and
efficient body of men. Among my Damaras I had two of the smartest men and
best runners that could be found in the country; all of them, indeed,
were picked men, and they had become much attached to us, and worked very
well, and willingly.
In a few hours from Eikhams we had emerged from the valley of the Swakop
on to the high plateau. Thence we followed the Quieep River easterly:
this we left for the Noosop, crossing a broad plain, and having some
shooting; we then followed the Noosop, and game began to appear in
abundance. We passed one great herd of springboks that were migrating;
they eat up the grass almost as locusts would on their way. It was by no
means so numerous a herd as is often seen in Bechuana country; but the
tufts of white hair on the backs of the males were as thickly scattered
over the country as daisies on a lawn. We never had to kill oxen,—only
sheep now and then, for the sake of the fat; for all the game was very
dry; and where you have no vegetables, fat becomes an essential element
of food.
It was a great drawback to us that elands were hardly ever seen in this
country: they are the staple food of sportsmen in Bechuana-land, and are
very fat.
We discovered how to shoot giraffes on foot from Andersson having gone
successfully after a herd in the dusk of the evening, when we found that
they allowed him to stalk close up to them. They see very indistinctly in
the dark. He shot at two, who did not run far when wounded, but seemed
bewildered. He fired all his bullets away at them, and brought one to
a stand-still, and the other to a slow walk; but they would not fall.
He could only find one pebble in the sandy soil to fire out of the gun,
instead of a bullet, and that seemed to have no effect upon the animal:
he then thought of hamstringing them; but though he nicked the skin of
one deeply, yet as he struck out both with his horns and heels when he
did so, it was too dangerous to continue the attempt. In despair, he
took his rifle-barrel (which was a common thick thing) from the stock,
and kept flinging it at the giraffe’s head like a knob-kerrie, and at
length the beast dropped. In the morning the other one had walked away;
and though he was tracked a couple of miles, yet he could not be found.
We jerked the giraffe, that is, cut the flesh that we did not eat into
strips, and dried them in the sun. The skin was of great service to us,
as our shoes were worn out, and wanted new soles. It is strange to see
in how small a compass the meat of the whole animal packs up when it is
dried.
Something was shot every day till we came to Kurrikoop, and there we
slept out by the water. A buffalo, a gnu, five zebras, two hartebeests,
and three roebucks were “bagged” in two nights. The natives of the place
had a grand feast: and so had we.
At Elephant Fountain we found Amiral, and about forty men, who had just
arrived there, _en route_ for a shooting excursion to the east. They
take their waggons with them for some days, and then make an encampment,
whence they journey short distances on ride-oxen, and shoot what they
can, bringing the meat back jerked to the waggon. It was delightful to
hear people talk familiarly of the rhinoceros as an everyday kind of
game, and we longed for a raid upon them. I had not yet seen a single
rhinoceros. One was shot by Andersson and Hans when they went down to the
bay, but I was not then present. On the last shooting excursion Amiral’s
men had “bagged” forty of them.
Elephant Fountain is a rather copious spring on the side of a black
thorny hill, above a narrow river-bed. Herds of animals come here to
drink; and the ground at the principal place is bored full of pitfalls.
By arranging the bushes in different ways, different sets of paths and
pitfalls can be used at pleasure, and the animals are unscared by the
smell of the blood of their companions, who may have been caught and
slaughtered the preceding evening. No less than thirty-four zebras were
entrapped in one night. We could not of course shoot here, as it might
frighten the game away, and there was no great temptation, as only zebras
and roebucks came to drink. There were a great many lions about, some
of whom had lately taken two men, who had sat up watching for game; but
none troubled us. In the day-time, while we were waiting for Amiral, a
few animals were shot, and jerked as food for the party that was to stay
with the waggon, for I intended to let it stop here, and to ride on with
Andersson, Eybrett, and Timboo, leaving John Morta and Phlebus behind.
Elephant Fountain acquired its name from the enormous number of tusks
that were found in the water of this place. When the Hottentots settled
there, the pool into which the water runs was overgrown with reeds, and
harboured lions and hyenas, and all kinds of wild beasts. So the reeds
were burnt down, and the pool cleared out: it was not at all a large
one, perhaps twenty-five paces across; but in the mud at the bottom of
it they found quantities of elephants’ bones and tusks, so that a trader
bought enough ivory to fill more than one, and I think two waggons with
it. Elephants were then numerous at the place, but they have now quitted
it.
A very fatal intermittent fever occurs here, and has depopulated the
place more than once; it breaks out in April, and rages for two or
three months. It does not extend to the west of the place; I cannot say
whether or no it does to the east. Amiral told me that the Mationa, or
Bechuanas, as he called them, occasionally visited him; but that, having
no interpreter, he could not converse with them. One large party of
chiefs had just left Wesley Vale. He said that the Bushmen had always
told him that the desert to the east was impassable; but that from time
to time they had found springs in their hunting excursions; and that very
likely there was a way across it, if the Bushmen would only choose to
point it out. It seemed that the desert was bare sand opposite to Wesley
Vale, four days south of Elephant Fountain, but covered with grass at
this latitude. I therefore had good reason to hope that we should turn
its flank. Last year a large party of Kubabees Hottentots (who live a
few days east of Bethany) rode up to the north, passing alongside of
Amiral’s country; but far to the east of it, they came to a place called
“Tounobis,” whence they made plundering excursions on all sides: some
against the Damaras, and some against the Mationa, who lived on Lake
’Ngami itself. A nephew of Amiral’s, who could write Dutch, was in the
expedition, and sent Amiral a letter about it. He described the boats
that were there, and said much about the alligators, who killed very many
of their dogs. The Hottentots made a most murderous excursion, having
fallen upon a village that was situated on the river, connected with the
west of the lake, and cut every person’s throat they could lay hands
on. They then robbed the huts and decamped with their booty. Carosses,
made of skins that were unknown to them, were amongst the plunder. The
lake itself they did not dare to go to; a hill or mountain was pointed
out to them, at the foot of which not only the lake, but a large werft
of natives were; and these they did not venture to approach. I was told
that I should probably see the Bushmen, who guided them. Amiral was very
anxious to lay hold of these Bushmen, and require them not to guide
strangers, as the harm which the Kubabees Hottentots had done would
probably be retaliated on his head.
It was most likely on a visit of expostulation, or as spies, that the
Mationa chiefs had been to Wesley Vale; but as no interpreter could be
found, the interview ended in nothing but an exchange of presents. I
heard that there was a woman born among the Mationa, but now naturalised
in Amiral’s tribe; and I sent messengers long distances to try and bring
her, but she was not to be found—only her two half-caste children, who
knew nothing but Hottentot.
The country appeared to have become quite devoid of all landmarks, only
a few rising heads and long undulating ridges being visible, which I
could make no use of in triangulating. I had brought my triangulations
to within eleven hours of Elephant Fountain, and, indeed, with a slight
gap, to Elephant Fountain itself; but here it seemed that they must
cease, so I took a great number of lunars, to fix as accurately as I
could the position of the place. I had done the same at Okamabuti, which
was the northern limit, or near to it, of my network of triangles; that
of Walfisch Bay was given by Captain Owen’s survey, and I had taken many
sets at Barmen, as a check upon the whole. These were all observed with
a large sextant, for which I had contrived a stand; but in travelling on
ox-back I was obliged to leave this behind, as being much too cumbrous to
carry, and packed a small but excellent circle among plenty of stockings,
&c., in a fishing-basket, which I made a man strap on his back. With
this circle I had already taken sets for longitude at Ondonga, and I
proposed now doing the same at the most eastern point I should arrive at,
filling up the intermediate places by a careful dead reckoning, checked
by latitudes. I had so few subjects of interest in the journey, that
taking sets of observations, which would be a great nuisance to a person
under any other circumstances, was to me a source of occupation and a
great pleasure, and I slaved at it. It requires some care to “pit” one
observation against another, so as to eliminate the error of a doubtful
instrument.
The packing and unpacking is troublesome, and an instrument cannot be
left for a moment unguarded, or the goats will butt at it, the sheep and
dogs run over it, or the oxen brush against it; and it is cold work,
having to leave the fire, that its glare may be avoided, and to wait for
the culminating of one star after another.
We were detained longer than we ought to have been at Elephant Fountain,
by a break-down of Amiral’s waggon, just as he was starting, but, as
it was a light vehicle and the roads were level, a piece of green wood
was made into an axletree, and we were ready to proceed in two days.
Our dates were, left Jonker, August 30th; arrived at Elephant Fountain,
September 14th; proceeded, September 19th.
Hardly a Hottentot lived at Elephant Fountain, but there were large
werfts of Berg Damaras there, who of course belonged to Amiral. I
therefore felt no fear whatever at leaving my two men, for there is
security of life in the country of the Hottentots, and we parted in high
spirits for a six weeks’ tour, my time being limited by the expected
arrival of the ship at Walfisch Bay, from which I was now distant 156
hours (390 miles), or, with a single span of oxen, at least a month’s
journey off.
We rode over to ’Twas in eleven hours, following the track of Amiral’s
waggon, and there we found a large werft. I engaged a Dutchman, by
name Saul, whom I found there. He was to take two or three pack-oxen,
and to pack them himself, and to help my party in everything. He was a
well-known shot, spoke Hottentot perfectly, and was just the man I wanted.
It seemed to me that, small as Amiral’s tribe was, it was infinitely the
most civilised of all I had seen, and seemed possessed of more resources
by far than either Swartboy’s or Cornelius’. I mean that, with the usual
articles of exchange, whatever was wanted, might be found and bought
there with far more facility than elsewhere. The others keep no “stock in
hand” of anything, but scramble on from hand to mouth. If you want a pair
of leather trousers made, the goat must be killed and the skin dressed,
for nobody cares to keep a spare piece of leather. In the same way with
carosses, each man has his own sleeping things, but no overplus by him to
sell. Every Hottentot has his ride-ox, which he will not dream of parting
with until he has broken in another one to take its place, and there
is a want of _capital_ everywhere, so that although a traveller may be
abundantly supplied with articles of exchange, and the natives around him
by no means badly off, yet it does not at all follow that he will find
anybody to barter with him as he journeys through their country.
_September 24th._—We left ’Twas on our shooting excursion. I took no
dogs: mine were useless curs for anything else but night-watching; and
under the guidance of Saul we travelled five hours and a half, passing
a succession of little springs on our way. Early the next morning we
went three hours to the place of rendezvous, and Amiral came shortly
afterwards: numbers of other Hottentots soon dropped in, and we had
a very merry evening, telling tales, and talking about the habits of
animals. Of course we had lion and elephant stories in abundance. I was
curious to know what animals here were the most fatal to man, and we
counted over all the deaths that we could think of. Buffaloes (though
not common here) killed the most, then rhinoceroses, and lastly, lions.
Areep, the predecessor of Cornelius, as chief of his tribe, was killed by
a black rhinoceros. It is curious how many people are wounded by lions,
though not killed. A very active Damara, who was some time with me in
Damara-land, but who stayed behind as I journeyed up the country, was
in a dreadfully mangled state when I returned. He had found a lion in
the act of striking down his ox, and rushed at him with his assegai: he
gave him a wound that must have proved mortal, for the assegai went far
into his side; but the lion turned upon him, and seizing him, bit one
elbow-joint quite through, and continued worrying him until some other
Damaras ran up and killed the animal. My servant, Hans, had a very narrow
escape some time since. He was riding old Frieschland (the most useful ox
I had, but now worn out by the Ondonga journey) along the Swakop, when he
saw something dusky by the side of a camelthorn tree, two hundred yards
off. This was a lion, that rose and walked towards him: Hans had his
gun in his gun-bag by the side of his saddle, and rode on, for there is
no use in provoking hostilities single-handed with a lion, unless some
object has to be gained by it, as every sportsman at last acknowledges.
The coolest hand and the best shot are never safe, for a bullet, however
well aimed, is not certain to put the animal _hors de combat_. After the
lion had walked some twenty or thirty yards, Frieschland, the ox, either
saw or smelt him, and became furious. Hans had enough to do to keep his
seat; for a powerful long-horned ox tossing his head about and plunging
wildly is a most awkward hack for the best of jockeys. The lion galloped
up. He and Hans were side by side. The lion made his spring, and one
heavy paw came on the nape of the ox’s neck, and rolled him over; the
other clutched at Hans’ arm, and tore the sleeve of his shirt to ribbons,
but did not wound him, and there they all three lay. Hans, though he was
thrown upon his gun, contrived to wriggle it out, the lion snarling and
clutching at him all the time; but for all that, he put both bullets into
the beast’s body, who dropped, then turned round, and limped bleeding
away into the recesses of a broad thick cover; and of course Hans, shaken
as he was, let him go. There were no dogs to follow him, so he was
allowed to die in peace; and subsequently his spoor was taken up, and his
remains found.
Probably many more people are killed by lions than one hears of, for
the most frequent victims are paupers who scatter themselves about the
country, squatting on the ground and crowing pig-nuts; they become so
absorbed in their occupation that a lion could easily crouch behind
and spring upon them. Numbers of people are reported to be missing in
Damara-land, but no one cares to search out their fate. I made a list
once of the people I had met with who had been wounded by lions, but I
have lost it. It was a very long one. The wounds were always bad ones to
heal. They frequently became almost well, and then broke out afresh.
_26th._—We were now fairly _en route_, and had entered the Bushman
country; we travelled along the brow of a long ridge that rose insensibly
to perhaps 1000 feet above a wide plain, which stretched far away to the
east, and was covered with timber trees;—this was the margin of the great
desert. I was told that we should continue journeying along this ridge
till we reached the furthest point that Amiral’s men had yet travelled
to, and thence our course would, if we intended to go to ’Tounobis, lie
across this plain.
The news of our shooting expedition had spread far and wide, and Damaras
flocked like crows from all quarters to share in the food. The place
where we slept on the 26th was a charming spot, among blackthorn trees,
lighted up by fires in all directions, round each of which were grouped
parties of our guests. We steadily rode on, keeping ahead of Amiral’s
party, and on the evening of the second day we arrived at the first great
shooting-place. It was a picturesque gorge in the ridge which led down
to the plain, and in which was a succession of small springs. Rhinoceros
skulls were lying in every direction, but strangely enough only one spoor
could be seen. The whole of that night did Saul and I watch without
seeing anything but a jackal. It was very disappointing, but the animals
clearly were not there. We therefore pushed on. Saul had told us that
the rhinoceroses would begin trooping in at night-fall, and that we
should continue firing at them till day-break, and I had believed him.
Forty were killed here about a month since; I could not doubt it, for I
counted in a small space upwards of twenty heads; but I suppose that a
vast number were also wounded, and that the whole game was fairly scared
from the place. Amiral’s men were hard up for food; each man came on his
ride-ox, and carried nothing with him.
On the 28th we arrived at the furthest place the Namaquas had explored
to. We saw about a dozen fresh spoors of elephants, and a few of
rhinoceroses. I tried all I could to make the people encamp out of
ear-shot of the water but they would not. No elephants came that night,
but a rhinoceros, a lion, a hyena, and a gnu were “bagged.” The Damaras
were only allowed the carrion, as Amiral’s suite of forty men all had to
be fed: these poor people were in a sad state; they searched for pieces
of old rhinoceros hide, the skin of animals that had been slaughtered
here before, and which had dried in the sun before wild beasts had had
time to devour it. This cooked in the fire and beaten with stones to make
it soft enough to chew is not at all bad, and I have often eaten it; but
there was not enough of it to feed the whole crew of Damaras, neither
were there pig-nuts here for them to crow, and they were, consequently,
in great distress.
Several Bushmen came to us here, of the tribe that lived at ’Tounobis;
the Namaquas can hardly understand them; they laugh excessively at the
odd double way in which they pronounce their clicks. One man, the son of
the chief whose name means “Buffalo,” was much the most intelligible,
and I engaged him at once as guide. He told us all about the Kubabees
Hottentots, how they came, and where they went, whom they killed, and
whom they robbed, and gave us every particular. All the Bushmen were well
acquainted with the great waters to the north-east (the lake ’Ngami and
its rivers), and described the boats on them, and mimicked the alligators
and hippopotami. They had heard also of the Soun Damup, that tribe of
Ghou Damup that live in an independent state along the lower part of the
Omoramba, and pointed out the direction of their country. They knew of
waggons having gone to Lake ’Ngami, and said that they had some things
which were given to them by the people who travelled in them, whom they
particularly described. They however protested that the country was, in
this peculiarly dry season, impassable beyond ’Tounobis.
How far this place was we could not well make out, but it certainly was
a long journey without water; tired and footsore as the oxen were, I was
determined however to attempt it. The Bushmen declared that the game
was all scared away from where we were; but that we should see immense
quantities at ’Tounobis. One informant asserted that the buffaloes
were so thick upon the ground that we should have great difficulty in
driving the waggons through them. But they all agreed that near ’Tounobis
it would be dangerous to travel at night, as the wild animals would
certainly charge us and our oxen when we met them on the way.
We started for ’Tounobis on the afternoon of Oct. 1st with Amiral and
half of his men; after about three hours we came to a little well that
the Hottentots who were before us had just drank dry, and, going on, to
our delight saw two huge white rhinoceroses, three or four hundred yards
on one side of us. They are indeed immense creatures, so far longer than
the black ones, and their horns so much larger. The rhinoceros now in the
Regent’s Park Gardens is a black rhinoceros; it is much the most vicious
of the two kinds, but nothing like the size of the other. We all tumbled
off our oxen, some twenty of us (the others had returned to Amiral’s
waggons), and ran helter-skelter through the bushes, each his own way,
till we were pretty near them, and then, as one trotted up to see what
was the matter, a volley was blazed into him, that bowled him over like
a hare. The other one took a sweep and escaped unshot. The rapidity
with which the slaughtered one was cut up was perfectly astonishing. I
minuted the whole occurrence; it only took twenty minutes, and we were
in our saddles again thirty-five minutes after we had left them. It
must be recollected that three-penny pocket-knives are not the best of
instruments to make an impression on rhinoceros hide. There is no knife
so good as a common butcher’s knife; as a general rule, soft steel, or
even iron, is far better than hard steel, because you can sharpen the
first on any bit of stone, and the metal does not splinter when it comes
against a bone.
We followed an elephant path, which went as straight as a Roman road. I
took its direction several times with an azimuth compass, and it did not
vary four degrees. We travelled till past nine, having been on the move
for six and a quarter hours.
The next day, starting very early, poor Timmerman and Frieschland both
knocked up; they had never recovered the Ondonga journey: we drove them
as far as we could, but it was no use, and as we of course could not
wait in the middle of the plain without water, we had to leave the poor
creatures to their fate.
This day we managed eleven hours’ actual travelling, and could have
easily pushed on again at midnight, but the Bushmen begged us not, as we
were coming to where the rhinoceroses were very numerous, and assured us
that if we started in the morning we should arrive at ’Tounobis before
the heat of the day. This we did; we passed along a labyrinth of wild
beasts’ paths, put up one rhinoceros, and, after four hours, a valley in
front where smoke rose among the trees announced that we had arrived at
’Tounobis. We hurried to the water to look for spoors, and now we were,
without any doubt, in a game-country. The river-bed was trodden like the
ground in a cattle fair by animals of all descriptions. The water lay in
pools among rocks, and there were evident marks of where the water had
stood at the preceding evening, and the depth to which it had been drunk
out by the animals during the night; by the sides of these holes were the
circular walls of loose stones, two or three feet high, that the Kubabees
Hottentots had built up as screens, from behind which to shoot.
A little way off were crowds of Bushmen; we went to them, and found them
clustered round one of a series of deep uncovered wells, about twelve
feet across and eight or ten deep, and very close together, into which an
elephant had been pushed the preceding night by his comrades, as they had
scrambled in droves to drink, and there he lay, just killed, and great
pieces of flesh were being cut off and hauled up from his carcase.
All this was delightful, and we off-packed our lean oxen in the highest
spirits about a quarter of a mile from the water, in the midst of a thick
grove of trees. Amiral encamped near us; we made a kraal and settled down
for at least a week’s pleasuring. As soon as the elephant was disposed
of, I collected all the chief Bushmen in a ring, and gave them tobacco
and so forth, and began asking them about the country further on ahead.
One of my men came to say that he had just found a Bushman cooking with
a large iron pot; this was a sure sign of the neighbourhood of civilised
man. The Bushman said that it was given to them by people from a waggon
some distance to the east, and who had gone to the lake during the
previous rainy season. The man who had guided the Kubabees Hottentots
lived here—Toes-u-wap was his melodious name. He and the other Bushman
wore great numbers of elephant hair necklaces, with three or four beads
strung on each of them; they are, as I now find, worked after the manner
that the English ladies call “tatting.” Old Buffaloe’s son and Toes-u-wap
were the only two who could understand much of the language of the
Hottentots; they interpreted for us to the other Bushmen as well as they
could, but our conversation was far from fluent. Several of these Bushmen
knew the Mationa language, and as I had a little MS. Sichuana dictionary
with me, I asked the Sichuana names for sixty words; of these about
twenty were identical with those in my dictionary, twenty were somewhat
like them, and the other twenty I could not find. I presume, therefore,
that their language is Sichuana, or a dialect of it. The Bushmen were
unanimous in saying that our next stage to the east was longer than the
one we had just travelled. The season was so excessively dry that all the
wells were exhausted. The Kubabees Hottentots had passed by this place
in the dry season, but it was subsequent to an ordinarily rainy summer,
and they left ’Tounobis in the afternoon, travelled all night, and next
midday drank water with reeds, after their manner, from a place where the
sand was damp; on the ensuing day they came to a Bushman werft, and so on
every day till the fifth, when they reached a Mationa cattle-post; they
call it Eisis in Hottentot, Chuèsa in Mationa language; from there the
hills that border the great water (river or lake I am not sure which) can
be seen. There is said to be much game there.
We had great difficulty in making the Bushmen distinguish between the
lake and the rivers; they called the whole water-country by one name—Tl’
Annee. However, I will not enter at length into these details, as more
accurate information will certainly be received before long from the
whites, or whiter races, who are now steadily pushing northwards.
We repaired the circular walls of loose stones that were to form our
shooting-screens. The lower they are the better, generally speaking,
as being less likely to attract attention; but when it can be managed,
a wall about two feet nine inches high is much the most convenient
to shoot over, as a man’s position is not cramped when he kneels down
and fires from behind one of these: they ought to be six or seven feet
across. A hole in the ground is sometimes made instead of a wall; but
generally speaking, the neighbourhood of large watering-places in these
parts is a mass of limestone rock, into which one cannot dig.
It is one of the most strangely exciting positions that a sportsman can
find himself in, to lie behind one of these screens or holes by the side
of a path leading to a watering-place so thronged with game as ’Tounobis.
Herds of gnus glide along the neighbouring paths in almost endless files:
here standing out in bold relief against the sky, there a moving line,
just visible in the deep shades; and all as noiseless as a dream. Now
and then a slight pattering over the stones makes you start; it jars
painfully on the strained ear, and a troop of zebras pass frolicking
by. All at once you observe, twenty or thirty yards off, two huge ears
pricked up high above the brushwood; another few seconds, and a sharp
solid horn indicates the cautious and noiseless approach of the great
rhinoceros. Then the rifle or gun is poked slowly over the wall, which
has before been covered with a plaid, or something soft, to muffle all
grating sounds; and you keep a sharp and anxious look-out through some
cranny in your screen. The beast moves nearer and nearer; you crouch
close up under the wall, lest he should see over it and perceive you.
Nearer, nearer still; yet somehow his shape is indistinct, and perhaps
his position unfavourable to warrant a shot. Another moment, and he is
within ten yards, and walking steadily on. There lies a stone, on which
you had laid your caross and other things, when making ready to enter
your shooting-screen; the beast has come to it, he sniffs the taint of
them, tosses his head up wind, and turns his huge bulk full broadside on
to you. Not a second is to be lost. Bang! and the bullet lies well home
under his shoulder. Then follows a plunge and a rush, and the animal
charges madly about, making wide sweeps to right and left with his huge
horn, as you crouch down still and almost breathless, and with every
nerve on the stretch. He is off; you hear his deep blowing in the calm
night; now his gallop ceases. The occasional rattling of a stone alone
indicates that he is yet a-foot; for a moment all is still, and then a
scarcely audible “sough” informs you that the great beast has sunk to the
ground, and that his pains of death are over.
The animals are picked up in the morning; but it is not very easy to
find them. Spooring is, in most cases, quite out of the question, on
account of the numberless tracks. The Bushmen jerked every particle of
the meat of all the animals that we killed, excepting that which we used
ourselves. I like rhinoceros flesh more than that of any other wild
animal. A young calf, rolled up in a piece of spare hide, and baked in
the earth is excellent. I hardly know which part of the little animal is
the best, the skin or the flesh.
The Hottentots shot away a great many bullets at rhinoceroses, and did, I
dare say, a great deal of mischief; for they lie six or seven together
in each shooting-screen, and blaze volleys at long distances—often thirty
or forty yards—at the rhinoceros. The consequence is that they “bag”
but very few, compared to the number that they fire at; the others most
likely linger on for a few days, and then lie down and die elsewhere.
One night Andersson and myself were lying out together when a rhinoceros
came, that I fired at. Something smaller was following at its heels; but
we could not see what, on account of the shade of the dark bushes. It was
a brilliant moonlight; and we were foolish enough to leave our screen,
and poke about after the animal, which luckily we never found. In the
early morning Andersson went to look for the game that had been shot; and
first followed the spoor of the rhinoceros we had been seeking. He soon
found the animal lying dead among the bushes; and he walked carelessly
up, with rifle over his shoulder, when as he was just upon the animal, a
full-grown calf rushed out from behind its dead mother right at him. He
had a very narrow escape, for the creature brushed by him in the narrow
pathway: he was about as large as an ox, and his spoor was half size. Had
we come upon them the preceding night, we should have run some risk. On
one occasion a rhinoceros that he fired at, brushed down the stones of
one side of his shooting-place.
If I were to travel again on a shooting-tour, I should certainly
take a large opera-glass with me. It is one of the most perfect of
night-glasses, besides being the most useful of telescopes. I should
think it would put a man’s sight in the dusk on a par with that of wild
beasts generally; and it is so portable and manageable an instrument,
that I should never lie out watching for animals without one.
Since my return to England I have often amused myself at night in trying
their powers, which certainly are marvellous. At sea they are coming into
general use, and more than one naval officer of considerable experience,
in chasing slavers, has assured me of their great superiority over the
ordinary cumbrous night telescope. Talking of these things, I may add,
that a powerfully magnifying telescope is of very little use in tropical
Africa; the air is always seething and waving from the heat, so that
images are seldom sufficiently distinct to be worth magnifying.
I generally used the “direct” telescope of my sextant for day purposes;
it is in fact a small single opera-glass, and I liked it very much.
Elephant shooting was out of the question at ’Tounobis for men in our
position, without horses and without dogs. The river-bed is perfectly
bare, and very light in colour, from the quantity of slabs of limestone.
I should be extremely sorry to be chased by any animal over it. The
Hottentots made such a noise that the elephants only came down twice
whilst I was there; the first time we ran up to them and fired among
their legs; there were fourteen in the herd, fine fellows, standing in a
row fronting us in the open moonshine. None of us dared go nearer than
sixty yards; we there had the shelter of a low slab in the limestone, but
beyond the ground was quite flat. I should think the legs were the best
part to fire at in these cases, because if the bullet strikes the bone it
is sure to break it, and an elephant on three legs is like a waggon on
three wheels, quite brought to a stand-still; and, again, if the bone be
missed, the wound, if any, is only a flesh wound, and does not kill the
animal. Our shots produced no effect, except some very angry trumpeting
from the elephants, who first faced us and then decamped. The second time
we let them alone, and a young bull fell into one of the wells, which
we shot. I think I would have given anything for horses at ’Tounobis. I
should have enjoyed myself amazingly if I had had them.
There were no lions whatever there; they and rhinoceroses do not hit
it off together, and are seldom found in numbers at the same place. A
rhinoceros is a sulky morose brute, and it is very ridiculous to watch a
sedate herd of gnus bullied by one of them. He runs among them and pokes
about with his horn, while they scamper and scurry away from him in great
alarm. He surely must often kill them.
For my own taste, I should like to spend nights perched up in some tree
with a powerful night glass watching these night frolics and attacks. I
really do not much care about shooting the animals, though it makes a
consummation to the night work, as the death of the fox does to a fox
hunt, but it is the least pleasurable part of the whole. Great fun seems
to go on among the different animals; jackals are always seen and are
always amusing; their impudence is intolerable; they know that you do
not want to shoot them, and will often sit in front of your screen and
stare you in the face. Sometimes, whilst straining your eyes at the dimly
seen bushes about you, the branched stem of one gradually forms itself
into the graceful head of some small antelope. The change is like that of
a dissolving view, the object had been under your notice for a minute,
yet you could not tell when it ceased to be a bush and became an animal.
The young rhinoceroses must be much chased by the hyenas and wild dogs,
for you never find one, either young or old, whose ears do not show marks
of having been sadly bitten.
I do not think an elephant gives anything like the idea of bulk and power
that the white rhinoceros does. An elephant is so short, and so high upon
his legs, that he looks what jockeys would call “weedy” in comparison
to the low and solid rhinoceros. The largest of these that we shot was
eighteen feet long and six high; the head and neck forming, I should say,
a third of the entire length. If a creature of this size be imagined
against the wall of a room, an idea may be formed of his immense size.
Their rush is wonderfully quick; they seem to me to get up their speed
much quicker than a horse or any other animal I know. I really think
that if a rhinoceros and horse caught sight of one another at the same
instant, when not more than ten yards apart, the beast would catch the
steed. Their movements are amazingly rapid when they receive a bullet.
_Oct. 7th._ I had a most picturesque finale to a rhinoceros hunt. The
Bushmen came to tell me that a black rhinoceros was lying wounded under
some trees, about an hour off, and very savage, so I went to him and
put him up with a bullet as he lay twenty-five yards from me. After the
scrimmage which ensued, I ran after him, he going a lame trot and I as
hard as I could pelt, putting three or four bullets into him at long
distances, and loading as I ran. At length we came to the edge of an open
flat that was about 200 hundred yards across. At the further side of that
was a mound, on the top of which stood a fine overshadowing tree, and
in the middle of the flat was a scraggy rotten stump, and two or three
dead branches. The rhinoceros went across this, climbed the mound, and
stood at bay under the tree. I did not much like crossing the open flat,
but I thought I could certainly run two yards to his three, which would
take me back in safety among the bushes, so I went my best pace to the
middle of the flat, keeping the dead branches between me and him; they
were a mere nothing, but a rhinoceros’ sight is never keen, and his eyes
were, I dare say, dim from his wounds. As soon as I came to the tree,
I dropped down on my knee, steadied my shaking hand against one bough,
for I had run very far and was exhausted, and, resting the muzzle of my
heavy rifle in the fork of another, took a quick shot and gave the beast
a smart sharp sounding blow with a well-placed bullet. He did not start
nor flinch, but slowly raised his head, and then dropping it down, poured
volumes of crimson blood from his mouth. He did this again and again; at
length he staggered a very little, then he put his fore legs out and
apart from each other, and so stood for some seconds, when he slowly sunk
to the ground upon his broad chest and died. I sketched the scene from
memory when I returned, regretting that I had not had a pencil with me
at the time to do it more justice, for the dying beast with the branched
tree above him was quite a study for an artist. Having shot animals till
we were tired, a pleasant moonlight evening was spent on much smaller
game—the spring-hare, as the Dutch call it. It is a creature about two
feet long, shaped like a kangaroo in body and tail, but with a different
head; it burrows and lives in holes all day, but at night frisks about
and grazes.
We and the Bushmen arranged ourselves in large circles, enclosing fresh
patches of ground each time, and then beat up towards the centre. We
generally enclosed two or three of these funny creatures, who hopped
about in the oddest way, and we rushed in and assassinated them with
sticks. The sinews of their powerful tails form excellent materials for
sewing carosses.
I worked hard to fix the longitude of ’Tounobis, which I did more
successfully than I could have hoped, as my instrument was a small
and not very legible one, and for want of oil I had to read off the
observations by firelight.
The Bushmen assured me that the character of the country between that
place and the lake was of exactly the same description as that around us,
a sandy soil with not unfrequent dried-up vleys, and covered with trees,
but by no means so thickly as to impede the progress of a waggon.
In fact, if a person wanted to go from Walfisch Bay to the lake, he
would have an excellent waggon-road after he had left Eikhams (Jonker’s
place), one day behind him. He should follow the Quieep River as far as
it goes eastwards, and then make a straight course for Kurrikoop, taking
the chance of vley water by the road; from Kurrikoop, through Elephant’s
Fountain to ’Twas, all is excellent; thence he should follow the foot
of the ridge and not the top of it, as we had done, sending the oxen to
water up the gorges. In the twenty-one hours’ journey to ’Tounobis, three
or four large vleys are passed, in which water would lie for many months.
From there onwards I should have no fear whatever in the rainy season,
even if the Bushmen refused to guide me, because the character of the
country is adapted for holding water; but from Damara-land to the Ovampo
no person could think of travelling without guides, unless there was a
recent track to follow. If he once strayed from the path he would be
hopelessly involved in the thorn thicket.
I fancy that the Bushmen spoke truth about the want of water ahead,
as the droves of animals who had congregated in the neighbourhood of
’Tounobis continued drinking every night, the repeated firing being
insufficient to drive them away; it seemed as though they had no other
neighbouring watering-place to go to.
As the Bushmen learnt to understand our Hottentot a little better, we had
some long talks about the animals on the river that joins the western
end of the lake; that there are many there quite new to the Hottentots
is beyond doubt, as several carosses were stolen by the Kubabees and
brought back south, and the skins that many of these were made from were
quite unknown to them. The Bushmen, without any leading question or
previous talk upon the subject, mentioned the unicorn. I cross-questioned
them thoroughly, but they persisted in describing a one-horned animal,
something like a gemsbok in shape and size, whose horn was in the middle
of its forehead, and pointed forwards. The spoor of the animal was, they
said, like that of a zebra. The horn was in shape like a gemsbok’s, but
shorter. They spoke of the animal as though they knew of it, but were not
at all familiar with it. It will indeed be strange if, after all, the
creature has a real existence. There are recent travellers in the north
of tropical Africa who have heard of it there, and believe in it, and
there is surely plenty of room to find something new in the vast belt of
_terra incognita_ that lies in this continent.
Of another fabulous monster, the cockatrice, a most widely spread belief
exists. The Ovampo, the Bushmen of this place, and Timboo, all protested
that there is such a creature, and that they had often seen it. They
described it as a snake, sometimes twelve feet long, and as thick as the
arm; slender for its length, with a brilliantly variegated skin; it has
a comb on the head exactly like a guinea-fowl, but red, and has also
wattles; its cry is very like the noise that fowls make when roosting—I
do not mean crowing, but a subdued chucking; its bite is highly
venomous, and it is a tree snake. I heard an instance of ten cows having
been bitten one after the other; they said that sometimes people when on
their way home at night hear a chucking in the tree, and think that their
fowls have strayed, and as they are peering about under the branches to
see where they are, the snake darts down upon them and bites them. It
appears to be a particularly vicious snake. I have generally heard it
called “hangara.” I never heard of its possessing wings.
Since my return I have had my attention directed to a recent book,
Mr. Gosse’s “Notes of a Naturalist in Jamaica,” in which he mentions
the prevalence of the same belief there, and relates several reported
facts relative to the creature. In the Penny Cyclopædia, under the head
cockatrice, many old drawings of these snakes are reproduced, and are
worth looking at; they differ much in character from one another, and
seem to have been derived from different originals. I can give no clue to
the fable of the cockatrice’s eggs.
The Bushmen of ’Tounobis are far superior to the Damaras in the art of
catching animals; their springe is a very simple one. I admired the
simplicity of the method by which the antelopes were induced to leap into
the middle of it; an unpractised hand would have made a fence as though
he were laying out a steeple-chase course, but the Bushmen simply bend a
twig across the pathway, which does not in the least frighten the animal,
but which, in the gaiety of his heart, he overleaps. The pitfalls
are neatly made; there is, however, nothing in them which an English
gamekeeper would not contrive as well.
I must take this opportunity of explaining to the uninitiated how to
set a common gun (as a spring-gun) to shoot game in the night. The use
of such a contrivance is obvious. Hyenas, perhaps, vex and trouble you
night after night, and it is a horrid bore to sit up through the cold
when sleep is in these tropical climes so peculiarly grateful, simply
for the chance of shooting the worthless animal; it is far simpler to
have a gun in his path, and let him pull the trigger himself, to his
own destruction. Again, as to lions, they do real mischief; and, after
all, they are not noble animals whose character entitles them to the
privilege of a code of honour, but skulking, troublesome creatures, who
give infinite annoyance, and will seldom wait to be shot at. In England
one thinks differently, but a traveller who has large herds of cattle
with him is only too glad to exterminate lions out of the land, and a
spring-gun is the best way of doing this. This is my creed, though I
personally am guiltless of its use upon the king of beasts. The way of
setting a gun is very simple; everybody has a sort of general conception
how an animal when he chests a string shall in some way pull the trigger,
and be shot, but without a more definite notion considerable difficulty
would in practice be found in making the necessary adjustments. The plate
(next page) will explain how to do it. A piece of stick is lashed across
the narrow part of the stock of the gun in such a way as to have a
slight play backwards and forwards; a string from the lower part of the
stick is fastened to the trigger, one from the upper leads through the
ramrod tubes (the ramrod being taken out), and passes across the pathway;
it is evident that when an animal pushes the string the gun will go off.
A few points have to be observed; one is, that the string should not be
too tight, else as soon as it is touched the trigger will be pulled, and
the bullet make only a skin wound in front of the animal’s chest. The
other, a very important point, is that the height to which the gun is
lashed should be such as to send the bullet through the beast’s heart, or
thereabouts. The rule is, that for a hyena the barrel should be as high
as a man’s knee from the ground, but for a lion a span (or eight inches)
higher. Neither the string nor the stick that is lashed to the stock, and
which acts as a lever, should be too strong, lest, if the animal carries
all before him in a rush, they should not break, but the gun be torn from
its supports and smashed.
When a lion’s death is determined upon by means of a spring-gun,
advantage is taken of the first animal that he kills; this is probably
found half eaten, and the lion is sure to return to his prey the ensuing
night. Bushes are then put round the carcase, a doorway is made to one
side of a couple of posts, against these two posts the gun is lashed, and
the trigger-string passes across the doorway to the opposite side (see
plate).
[Illustration: SETTING A COMMON GUN AS A SPRING-GUN.]
[Illustration: HOTTENTOT METHOD OF CARRYING A GUN ON HORSE OR OX-BACK.
Drawn on Stone by W. L. Walton. Printed by Hullmandel & Walton.
John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1853]
I have never seen instances of native poison doing much mischief; that of
the Damaras is in practice very harmless. I have seen plenty of people
who had been wounded by poisoned arrows, and have dressed their wounds,
but saw no great harm experienced from them. The poison becomes so hard
and dry on the arrows that it will not dissolve. The Bushman poison is
far stronger and more complicated; the manufacture of it is kept secret,
but many ingredients are put into the composition. Beside vegetable
poisons the Bushmen assured me that the poisonous black spider (a kind
of tarantula) is an important ingredient. It seems to be for its size,
the most venomous of creatures. Death is very frequently the consequence
of its bite. Amiral’s son, who was with me, had lingered between life
and death for a long time after having been bit by one, and his escape
was considered as a singular piece of good fortune. I saw one once; it
happened to be among my bed clothes, and was a nasty creature with huge
nippers; though a very quick runner it had comparatively short legs. When
I teased it with a little twig it snapped its nippers together and made
quite a noise with them.
Throughout our journey we have had great good luck as regards poisonous
animals, nobody but Timboo having been bitten, and that only by a
scorpion, but we suffered pretty severely from hornet’s stings, both at
Otjimbinguè and elsewhere; the oil from our tobacco pipes was the panacea
in all these cases.