THE MARBLE KRAALS
At length the last platform, or terrace, was reached, and we pulled up
outside the wall surrounding the central group of marble huts—for so I
must call them, for want of a better name. Our approach had been
observed by a crowd of natives, whose race I have never been able to
determine accurately; they belonged to the Basutu and peaceful section
of the Bantu peoples rather than to the Zulu and warlike. Several of
these ran up to take the horses, gazing on us with astonishment, not
unmixed with awe. We dismounted—speaking for myself, not without
difficulty—indeed, had it not been for Stella’s support I should have
fallen.
“Now you must come and see my father,” she said. “I wonder what he will
think of it, it is all so strange. Hendrika, take the child to my hut
and give her milk, then put her into my bed; I will come presently.”
Hendrika went off with a somewhat ugly grin to do her mistress’s
bidding, and Stella led the way through the narrow gateway in the
marble wall, which may have enclosed nearly half an “erf,” or
three-quarters of an acre of ground in all. It was beautifully planted
as a garden, many European vegetables and flowers were growing in it,
besides others with which I was not acquainted. Presently we came to
the centre hut, and it was then that I noticed the extraordinary beauty
and finish of the marble masonry. In the hut, and facing the gateway,
was a modern door, rather rudely fashioned of Buckenhout, a beautiful
reddish wood that has the appearance of having been sedulously pricked
with a pin. Stella opened it, and we entered. The interior of the hut
was the size of a large and lofty room, the walls being formed of plain
polished marble. It was lighted somewhat dimly, but quite effectively,
by peculiar openings in the roof, from which the rain was excluded by
overhanging eaves. The marble floor was strewn with native mats and
skins of animals. Bookcases filled with books were placed against the
walls, there was a table in the centre, chairs seated with rimpi or
strips of hide stood about, and beyond the table was a couch on which a
man was lying reading.
“Is that you, Stella?” said a voice, that even after so many years
seemed familiar to me. “Where have you been, my dear? I began to think
that you had lost yourself again.”
“No, father, dear, I have not lost myself, but I have found somebody
else.”
At that moment I stepped forward so that the light fell on me. The old
gentleman on the couch rose with some difficulty and bowed with much
courtesy. He was a fine-looking old man, with deep-set dark eyes, a
pale face that bore many traces of physical and mental suffering, and a
long white beard.
“Be welcome, sir,” he said. “It is long since we have seen a white face
in these wilds, and yours, if I am not mistaken, is that of an
Englishman. There has been but one Englishman here for twelve years,
and he, I grieve to say, was an outcast flying from justice,” and he
bowed again and stretched out his hand.
I looked at him, and then of a sudden his name flashed back into my
mind. I took his hand.
“How do you do, Mr. Carson?” I said.
He started as though he had been stung.
“Who told you that name?” he cried. “It is a dead name. Stella, is it
you? I forbade you to let it pass your lips.”
“I did not speak it, father. I have never spoken it,” she answered.
“Sir,” I broke in, “if you will allow me I will show you how I came to
know your name. Do you remember many years ago coming into the study of
a clergyman in Oxfordshire and telling him that you were going to leave
England for ever?”
He bowed his head.
“And do you remember a little boy who sat upon the hearthrug writing
with a pencil?”
“I do,” he said.
“Sir, I was that boy, and my name is Allan Quatermain. Those children
who lay sick are all dead, their mother is dead, and my father, your
old friend, is dead also. Like you he emigrated, and last year he died
in the Cape. But that is not all the story. After many adventures, I,
one Kaffir, and a little girl, lay senseless and dying in the Bad
Lands, where we had wandered for days without water, and there we
should have perished, but your daughter, Miss——”
“Call her Stella,” he broke in, hastily. “I cannot bear to hear that
name. I have forsworn it.”
“Miss Stella found us by chance and saved our lives.”
“By chance, did you say, Allan Quatermain?” he answered. “There is
little chance in all this; such chances spring from another will than
ours. Welcome, Allan, son of my old friend. Here we live as it were in
a hermitage, with Nature as our only friend, but such as we have is
yours, and for as long as you will take it. But you must be starving;
talk no more now. Stella, it is time to eat. To-morrow we will talk.”
To tell the truth I can recall very little of the events of that
evening. A kind of dizzy weariness overmastered me. I remember sitting
at a table next to Stella, and eating heartily, and then I remember
nothing more.
I awoke to find myself lying on a comfortable bed in a hut built and
fashioned on the same model as the centre one. While I was wondering
what time it was, a native came bringing some clean clothes on his arm,
and, luxury of luxuries, produced a bath hollowed from wood. I rose,
feeling a very different man, my strength had come back again to me; I
dressed, and following a covered passage found myself in the centre
hut. Here the table was set for breakfast with all manner of good
things, such as I had not seen for many a month, which I contemplated
with healthy satisfaction. Presently I looked up, and there before me
was a more delightful sight, for standing in one of the doorways which
led to the sleeping huts was Stella, leading little Tota by the hand.
She was very simply dressed in a loose blue gown, with a wide collar,
and girdled in at the waist by a little leather belt. In the bosom of
her robe was a bunch of orange blooms, and her rippling hair was tied
in a single knot behind her shapely head. She greeted me with a smile,
asking how I had slept, and then held Tota up for me to kiss. Under her
loving care the child had been quite transformed. She was neatly
dressed in a garment of the same blue stuff that Stella wore, her fair
hair was brushed; indeed, had it not been for the sun blisters on her
face and hands, one would scarcely have believed that this was the same
child whom Indaba-zimbi and I had dragged for hour after hour through
the burning, waterless desert.
“We must breakfast alone, Mr. Allan,” she said; “my father is so upset
by your arrival that he will not get up yet. Oh, you cannot tell how
thankful I am that you have come. I have been so anxious about him of
late. He grows weaker and weaker; it seems to me as though the strength
were ebbing away from him. Now he scarcely leaves the kraal, I have to
manage everything about the farm; he does nothing but read and think.”
Just then Hendrika entered, bearing a jug of coffee in one hand and of
milk in the other, which she set down upon the table, casting a look of
little love at me as she did so.
“Be careful, Hendrika; you are spilling the coffee,” said Stella.
“Don’t you wonder how we come to have coffee here, Mr. Allan? I will
tell you—we grow it. That was my idea. Oh, I have lots of things to
show you. You don’t know what we have managed to do in the time that we
have been here. You see we have plenty of labour, for the people about
look upon my father as their chief.”
“Yes,” I said, “but how do you get all these luxuries of civilization?”
and I pointed to the books, the crockery, and the knives and forks.
“Very simply. Most of the books my father brought with him when we
first trekked into the wilds; there was nearly a waggon load of them.
But every few years we have sent an expedition of three waggons right
down to Port Natal. The waggons are loaded with ivory and other goods,
and come back with all kinds of things that have been sent out from
England for us. So you see, although we live in this wild place, we are
not altogether cut off. We can send runners to Natal and back in three
months, and the waggons get there and back in a year. The last lot
arrived quite safe about three months ago. Our servants are very
faithful, and some of them speak Dutch well.”
“Have you ever been with the waggons?” I asked.
“Since I was a child I have never been more than thirty miles from
Babyan’s Peak,” she answered. “Do you know, Mr. Allan, that you are,
with one exception, the first Englishman that I have known out of a
book. I suppose that I must seem very wild and savage to you, but I
have had one advantage—a good education. My father has taught me
everything, and perhaps I know some things that you don’t. I can read
French and German, for instance. I think that my father’s first idea
was to let me run wild altogether, but he gave it up.”
“And don’t you wish to go into the world?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” she said, “when I get lonely. But perhaps my father is
right—perhaps it would frighten and bewilder me. At any rate he would
never return to civilization; it is his idea, you know, although I am
sure I do not know where he got it from, nor why he cannot bear that
our name should be spoken. In short, Mr. Quatermain, we do not make our
lives, we must take them as we find them. Have you done your breakfast?
Let us go out, and I will show you our home.”
I rose and went to my sleeping-place to fetch my hat. When I returned,
Mr. Carson—for after all that was his name, though he would never allow
it to be spoken—had come into the hut. He felt better now, he said, and
would accompany us on our walk if Stella would give him an arm.
So we started, and after us came Hendrika with Tota and old
Indaba-zimbi whom I found sitting outside as fresh as paint. Nothing
could tire that old man.
The view from the platform was almost as beautiful as that from the
lower ground looking up to the peak. The marble kraals, as I have said,
faced west, consequently all the upper terrace lay in the shadow of the
great peak till nearly eleven o’clock in the morning—a great advantage
in that warm latitude. First we walked through the garden, which was
beautifully cultivated, and one of the most productive that I ever saw.
There were three or four natives working in it, and they all saluted my
host as “Baba,” or father. Then we visited the other two groups of
marble huts. One of these was used for stables and outbuildings, the
other as storehouses, the centre hut having been, however, turned into
a chapel. Mr. Carson was not ordained, but he earnestly tried to
convert the natives, most of whom were refugees who had come to him for
shelter, and he had practised the more elementary rites of the church
for so long that I think he began to believe that he really was a
clergyman. For instance, he always married those of his people who
would consent to a monogamous existence, and baptized their children.
When we had examined those wonderful remains of antiquity, the marble
huts, and admired the orange trees, the vines and fruits which thrive
like weeds in this marvellous soil and climate, we descended to the
next platform, and saw the farming operations in full swing. I think
that it was the best farm I have ever seen in Africa. There was ample
water for purposes of irrigation, the grass lands below gave pasturage
for hundreds of head of cattle and horses, and, for natives, the people
were most industrious. Moreover, the whole place was managed by Mr.
Carson on the co-operative system; he only took a tithe of the
produce—indeed, in this land of teeming plenty, what was he to do with
more? Consequently the tribesmen, who, by the way, called themselves
the “Children of Thomas,” were able to accumulate considerable wealth.
All their disputes were referred to their “father,” and he also was
judge of offences and crimes. Some were punished by imprisonment,
whipping, and loss of goods, other and graver transgressions by
expulsion from the community, a fiat which to one of these favoured
natives must have seemed as heavy as the decree that drove Adam from
the Garden of Eden.
Old Mr. Carson leaned upon his daughter’s arm and contemplated the
scene with pride.
“I have done all this, Allan Quatermain,” he said. “When renouncing
civilization, I wandered here by chance; seeking a home in the remotest
places of the world, I found this lonely spot a wilderness. Nothing was
to be seen except the site, the domes of the marble huts, and the
waterfalls. I took possession of the huts. I cleared the path of garden
land and planted the orange grove. I had only six natives then, but by
degrees others joined me, now my tribe is a thousand strong. Here we
live in profound peace and plenty. I have all I need, and I seek no
more. Heaven has prospered me so far—may it do so to the end, which for
me draws nigh. And now I am tired and will go back. If you wish to see
the old quarry and the mouth of the ancient mines, Stella will show
them to you. No, my love, you need not trouble to come, I can manage.
Look! some of the headmen are waiting to see me.”
So he went; but still followed by Hendrika and Indaba-zimbi, we turned,
and, walking along the bank of one of the rivers, passed up behind the
marble kraals, and came to the quarry, whence the material of which
they were built had been cut in some remote age. The pit opened up a
very thick seam of the whitest and most beautiful marble. I know
another like it in Natal. But by whom it had been worked I cannot say;
not by natives, that is certain, though the builders of these kraals
had condescended to borrow the shape of native huts for their model. By
the way, the only relic of those builders that I ever saw was a highly
finished bronze pick-axe which Stella had found one day in the quarry.
After we had examined this quarry we climbed the slope of the hill till
we came to the mouth of the ancient mines which were situated in a
gorge. I believe them to have been silver mines. The gorge was long and
narrow, and the moment we entered it there rose from every side a sound
of groaning and barking that was almost enough to deafen us. I knew
what it was at once: the whole place was filled with baboons, which
clambered down the rocks towards us from every direction, and in a
manner that struck me as being unnaturally fearless. Stella turned a
little pale and clung to my arm.
“It is very silly of me,” she whispered. “I am not at all nervous, but
ever since they killed Hendrik I cannot bear the sight of those
animals. I always think that there is something human about them.”
Meanwhile the baboons drew nearer, talking to each other as they came.
Tota began to cry, and clung to Stella. Stella clung to me, while I and
Indaba-zimbi put as bold a front on the matter as we could. Only
Hendrika stood looking at the brutes with an unconcerned smile on her
monkey face. When the great apes were quite near, she suddenly called
aloud. Instantly they stopped their hideous clamour as though at a word
of command. Then Hendrika addressed them: I can only describe it so.
That is to say, she began to make a noise such as baboons do when they
converse with each other. I have known Hottentots and Bushmen who said
that they could talk with the baboons and understand their language,
but I confess I never heard it done before or since.
From the mouth of Hendrika came a succession of grunts, groans,
squeals, clicks, and every other abominable noise that can be
conceived, conveying to my mind a general idea of expostulation. At any
rate the baboons listened. One of them grunted back some answer, and
then the whole mob drew off to the rocks.
I stood astonished, and without a word we turned back to the kraal, for
Hendrika was too close to allow me to speak. When we reached the dining
hut Stella went in, followed by Hendrika. But Indaba-zimbi plucked me
by the sleeve, and I stopped outside.
“Macumazahn,” he said. “Baboon-woman—devil-woman. Be careful,
Macumazahn. She loves that Star (the natives aptly enough called Stella
the Star), and is jealous. Be careful, Macumazahn, or the Star will
set!”