Third start for the Zambesi--Again stopped by natives--Fresh
leave from the king--The journey resumed--Frank Oates’s
companion obliged to leave him--He goes forward
alone--Breakdown of his waggon--Annoyances from the
natives--Help from Tati--Return there--Letters home--Future
plans.
Leaving Tati on the evening of the 25th of July, on his third attempt
to reach the Zambesi, Frank Oates halted for the night a few miles
beyond the settlement, completing the distance to the Ramaqueban the
following morning. Here, whilst waiting a couple of days in search
of game and for other purposes, he was again unexpectedly stopped by
natives, professedly armed with authority from Lobengula to stop all
waggons from advancing northwards. The story of this encounter, with
its immediate consequences, is thus related in the Journal:--
“_July 27th_.--Fine and oppressively hot, after a cold night. The
days are now very hot, though the nights continue cold and frosty. I
was going to ride over to the Inkwesi to-day, with a letter from Brown
to Greit, and to see if Greit could let me have one of his drivers.
However, before I set off, a Matabele came down the Zambesi road,
bearing a shield, and accompanied by a Makalaka bearing another. A
second Makalaka appeared later, but the moment the Matabele arrived,
he came up to the waggons, and began interrogating us. On hearing that
we were going to the Zambesi, he began to leap and dance about like
a madman, brandishing a battle-axe. I thought it a case of temporary
insanity, brought on by smoking ‘dacha,’[48] but it appeared from his
statement he had been sent from the king to the Makalakas, with a fresh
order to stop waggons, and was now going on to Tati, to tell white men
there the same tale.
“I had difficulty in keeping the dogs from attacking him, and once
he brought his battle-axe within a few inches of Stoffel’s skull.
He became quiet, however, when Makabo (Manyami’s son)[49] told him
the facts of the case, and said I could go on, but my boys, who were
subjects of the king, would be killed, and if I went on I had better
pay them off here. I therefore decided on sending to the king,--first,
to ask for further security for my boys, second, for leave to take
Stoffel with me; and decided to send off Manyami’s son, with two
others, with a letter to the king and another to Thomson.
“At night there was a tremendous conflagration raging close to us. It
was a splendid sight, but made me a little nervous. However, it was
principally on the other side of the road, and died before it came
quite close. The effect of the burning trees and long line of fire was
very fine. One tree in particular, showing all its twigs red-hot or in
flame, reminded me of some part of a display of fireworks.”
The following morning Makabo was duly despatched with two
boys--Umfanimboozi and Umfan--to the King’s, and Frank Oates remained
hunting on the Ramaqueban, till their return a few days afterwards,
with a favourable answer to his message. On the 10th of August he was
once more moving northwards the same way as he had gone before, halting
again on the 11th for a couple of days’ hunting higher up the river,
at a point where game seemed more than usually abundant. This was the
place where the road branches off from the Ramaqueban across the veldt
again towards the Tati.
“I now feel,” he writes at this point, on August 13th, “to be realizing
almost for the first time some of my old visions of South African
sport. To-day, soon after starting, I ascended a kopje near the
waggons, and saw a large herd of quagga. Counting roughly, I made out
a hundred. It was a beautiful sight. All around was the sea of bush,
with here and there bare patches, and here and there kopjes--some of
the latter far distant. The winding spruits, too, lay as in a map. The
quaggas were quietly moving on, or standing and playing, or brushing
away the flies. It was a scene such as I used to fancy must be common,
and which probably was so when the accounts I have read were written,
and may occur often still in more remote districts.”
The day previous the traveller had shot koodoo, hartebeest, and pallah,
and seen an immense herd of quagga and blue wildebeest, numbering not
far from a hundred of each sort. Amongst the lesser antelopes, the
graceful klipspringer, found only in the hills, was met with in this
district.
[Illustration: KLIPSPRINGER.--_Oreotragus saltatrix._
(Height about 20 inches.)]
Resuming his journey to the north-west on the 15th, and travelling
through mopani veldt, he again struck the Tati River in the afternoon
at the same point where the pleasing character of the scenery had been
first observed by him when he was here two months before. A spring or
“fountain” of fresh water welled up at the foot of a picturesque kopje,
and a mile or two up the river was abundance of water in the river-bed.
“The river here,” writes the traveller at the latter point, “flows to
the south through a deep sandy bed, kopjes hemming it in on either
side. The scenery is remarkably pretty for South Africa, and the long
reach of river flowing away to the southward is an object to attract
the eye. The water actually runs in the bed here, though there is far
more sand than water, and big stones than either. Stoffel says there
used to be plenty of elephants here. This was the place where they
passed through the kopjes on their way south, and last year he and
Garland saw fresh spoor here. Out with rifle down river; pretty little
grassy parks amongst the kopjes, and on the kopjes themselves very
thick bush. The river where we have struck it--the ‘poort’ as Stoffel
calls it--would be a pretty subject for a sketch.”
Again pushing forward the following and two next succeeding days, still
by the same route already traversed, Frank Oates once more reached--on
August 18th--the first kraal of the Makalakas, the former scene of so
much trouble and vexation to him. A few days previously it had chanced
that Stoffel had slightly hurt his finger, and here, as it began to
give him pain, they waited a week before proceeding further from all
reach of help, to see what course the injury would take. Supplies of
corn had here to be obtained, and the interval of waiting was occupied,
partly in striking bargains with the natives, and partly in rearranging
the contents of the waggons, to receive the grain; neither of them
the most agreeable of occupations, as the following extract from the
Journal shows:--
“_August 20th._--Windy day; rather cloudy. The wind rose very much
towards night.... I am now lying in my waggon, glad to rest, wearied
out principally with worry, and the dissatisfaction of finding time
so miserably wasted as to-day has been; packing, unpacking, stooping,
watching lest things are stolen, and having one’s patience tried in
buying of the natives, putting up with their disagreeable presence and
impudence, to say nothing of the annoyances one is subjected to by
one’s own servants. I had to knock the disgusting servant of Makabo
off the dissel-boom before he would go. He was bothering me for a
snuff-box, and would not go away for civil speaking. I am not patient
or industrious enough for waggon life. To-day has been one of nothing
but unpleasantness to me.”
At length, on the 23d, it became evident that Stoffel must return and
seek advice from Mr. Thomson, the missionary, who had some skill in
surgery. This change of plan involved a corresponding change in all the
arrangements of the journey, and such of Frank Oates’s goods as had
hitherto been carried in the trader’s waggon had now to be taken in his
own, already sufficiently loaded when they left the settlement. On the
24th Stoffel took his departure southwards, and two days later Frank
Oates went on alone towards the Zambesi. It was a lovely moonlight
night when he resumed the journey, the waggon running heavy through
thick mopani veldt. The prospect of success in his present enterprise
now seemed nearing its fulfilment, yet in reality he was but on the
eve of a fresh misfortune. “We passed a kraal,” he writes in his
Journal, “on the left side of the road, perhaps two miles from where
we started, and had gone perhaps one mile more, when, in crossing a
small ‘sloot,’[50] one of the wheels gave way and came down, broken to
pieces. So much,” he concludes, “for the new waggon, and for my hopes
and expectations!”
The day after this catastrophe, which appeared in its results fatal to
all hope of his reaching the Zambesi that season, late as it had now
become, he arranged to send his driver--a Kafir named Klaas, whom he
had engaged from a Mr. Horn upon the Ramaqueban--and three boys, with
the broken wheel to Tati, and also with a note to Mr. Brown, asking for
assistance. The annoyances he suffered, during their absence of about
a fortnight, from the natives of the neighbouring kraals are described
at length in some of his letters, largely quoted from below. It is
therefore sufficient here to say that he was wilfully subjected by them
to every possible inconvenience, was in constant peril of being robbed,
and at one time even appeared to be in some danger of his life. The
whole of this time he could not leave his waggon, lest he should return
to find it plundered, and even his own boys were not all to be depended
on.
At last, on the 8th of September, the needful help arrived, and he was
released from his state of bondage. He had just had a most threatening
visit from a noisy crowd of natives, when the messengers he had sent
returned from Tati with all that he had asked for. After relating
in his Journal the incidents of this unpleasant interview, he thus
concludes the story:--
“They left me,” he says, “the noisy crew; and still, though I felt
relieved, a gloom hovered over my feelings, and I lay down to rest. It
was then with delight indeed that Maclinwon’s announcement, ‘incolo’
(waggon), broke on my ears, and that, rushing out, I beheld Klaas
driving a waggon to my scherm. True enough, Brown had managed to
procure an old waggon to help me out, sending me also a wheel of the
Scotch cart and four oxen, to ensure my having sufficient. There was
a long letter from him, and four newspapers sent for me from England,
with news of letters from home awaiting me at Tati.”
This was indeed a welcome release to the traveller from his present
troubles; but, with such information as he now possessed regarding the
period and duration of the healthy season for visiting the Zambesi, he
felt that by this time it was too late for him to attempt to reach the
river, and that, for the present at all events, he must abandon the
idea of getting there.
On the 10th of September, therefore, he once more unwillingly started
back on the return journey to Tati, where he arrived on the 18th,
to find, with delight, a large packet of letters awaiting him from
England. After the harass and annoyance of his recent experiences, he
was glad to rest here for a while, and was comfortably quartered the
chief part of his stay in the house usually occupied by Piet Jacobs,
the Dutchman, who was now absent in the hunting veldt. This house was
cool and airy, with a thatched roof extending far on every side, so as
to form a verandah.
The following entries in his Journal, soon after his arrival, relating
mostly to natural history subjects, may here be read with interest. He
writes:--
“_September 20th._--Rather windy, but pleasant day, after a cold night.
I liked my new quarters.... To-night, as last night, sat at Brown’s
talking. We discuss some questions in natural history....
“Wild dogs have been discussed. Dobie has seen them in packs, he says,
variegated in colour, with white patches here and there, differently
placed in different animals. Brown has seen them, and says they are
like what he imagines a European wolf to be--and I think he has a good
idea what the latter is like. Johnson says that, when coming here,
he saw a hare run against the waggon wheel when they were outspanned
at the Shashe, and kill herself; and by the light of the fire he saw
distinctly, standing twenty or thirty yards off, a wild dog. He says
it was a good deal like a European wolf--an animal he knows--with a
fine coat and bushy tail, upright ears, I think, and a long nose. Brown
says they often run pallah into the station here, when the natives,
hearing the cry of the pallah, rush out from the different white
men’s establishments to assegai it, and the dogs are usually found to
have torn at the place where such creatures generally commence their
attacks, and even dragged out a portion of the entrails. They must hunt
the pallah, he says, for hours with dogged perseverance and fairly
weary him out. I know myself what a fleet creature the pallah is, and
have no doubt for miles he would far outstrip a pack of dogs.
“Brown says a fine dog in a wild state once hung about here for some
time, stealing meat at night, and playing with the tame dogs. He was
very cunning, and was off at the slightest indication of danger. If he
was heard outside the house and the least noise made inside, he was
off. Many shots were fired at him, and he escaped for a long time, but
at length was shot when on one of his visits. He lived in the veldt,
and always rushed into the bush, just like a hyæna, which he resembled
closely in his habits. This was no doubt some white man’s dog that had
run wild and acquired the habits of a wild animal to a certain extent.
“_September 23d._--Pleasant breeze. Did not do much, or feel up
to much. Another chat at Brown’s in the evening. Brown tells me that
once four young guinea-fowls were brought him, which became extremely
tame. One only, a hen, survived. She became wonderfully tame, and would
follow the Tati people about. When a Tati waggon was sent out for
wood, or for any other purpose, she would go and return with it, not
following strange waggons. She would follow Nelson when he rode to the
‘Blue Jacket,’[51] wait for him, and return home with him. Latterly
she got into the habit of going with the oxen when they went into the
veldt, would start with them, remain all day, and return at night with
them, marching in front. She would even join wild guinea-fowl, if she
came across them in the veldt, and would leave them as soon as she
found she was getting too far from the waggon or person she was with at
the time. She is supposed to have been killed at last by a nigger by
mistake. Brown had had her eight or ten months.”
With these extracts the present period of the traveller’s wanderings,
so far as his Journal is concerned, may be allowed to terminate. The
weather, which had up to this time continued cool at night, began
towards the end of September to be intensely hot and oppressive, though
still liable to considerable variation; so much so indeed that one day
about the middle of October the extreme cold brought the swallows into
the houses for shelter and protection.
The Zambesi now abandoned, Frank Oates, on the 8th of October, sent
two boys with a message to the king, asking for leave to hunt a few
weeks on the Shashani, which was readily accorded him; but he did
not start immediately--his waggon required some repairs, and he was
not feeling well. Whilst thus waiting a while longer, to recruit his
health and complete his preparations, two gentlemen--Messrs. Bond and
Robertson--arrived on their return from the Zambesi, having gone there
early in the year. They had shot elephants near the river, and the
former had made some pretty sketches of the Falls. Other parties also
now came in from the Zambesi.
At length, on the 3d of November, Frank Oates once more set off into
the veldt--not to the Shashani, however, as he had intended, but again
in a northerly direction, for reasons shortly to be stated. Before
starting on this occasion, he wrote home some letters of considerable
length, reviewing his experiences of the past three months, since the
date of his last departure from Tati on the 25th of July, which may
here be given almost as they stand, entire. The first of these, written
to his mother, is as follows:--
“TATI, _October 1st, 1874_.
“When you see the above date, you will perhaps think that I have
returned from the Zambesi; but the fates seem to have conspired against
my reaching that river. After last writing home I left here on the
25th of July in company with Stoffel, the trader I told you of, and
with every prospect of a most successful trip. The series of mishaps
which led to my final (for this season at any rate) return here on
the 18th of September, I will presently relate. I say, ‘this season
at any rate,’ but I think I shall now give up the Zambesi altogether,
consoling myself with the adage--‘Tis not in mortals to _command_
success.’ I read somewhere of some one replying to this--‘But they can
_deserve_ it;’ and a third party, who I think showed his wisdom,
suggested, as an amendment, that they could ‘_do without_ it.’
Now, I think, to a certain extent, I deserved it for my persistent
efforts to attain it, and may hope to march out with the honours of
war, and ‘do without it.’
“I can scarcely express the pleasure it gave me to receive, on
returning here, a large packet of letters bearing dates from the
4th of August 1873, to the 25th of April 1874; some to Willie and
some to myself, and some which Willie had written to me on his way
home. I suppose he had read, and sent on for my perusal, those of
the letters which are addressed to him. The letters seem to form a
connected series, and I doubt whether any have failed to reach me.
After hastily looking over a few of them I proceeded to arrange them
according to date, and then to read them through in order. I scarcely
hoped that there would be no bad news.... Skelton’s death must be a
terrible blow to his family, who, when I saw them last, were looking
forward to a visit from him. It seems only the other day he was at
Oxford distinguishing himself in the athletic sports, in which he was
generally a successful competitor. I believe every one liked him, and
that he was worthy of their high opinion.[52]
“To-day waggons have arrived from Bamangwato, and, to my great joy,
another letter was fished up for me from the bag. Hathorn writes from
Maritzburg on the 4th of August, enclosing a letter from Willie, dated
June 2d, and a line from Charley, dated June 4th. It is very delightful
to be brought in contact with you all once more after so long an
interruption to communication. I don’t believe anything can make one
appreciate home and friends like a long absence from them. Indeed,
things we think nothing of at home are often dwelt upon in memory when
one is in the midst of the wilderness. The packet of letters, which
I have referred to as awaiting me when I came here, arrived at Tati
before the end of August, and the latest written of them bears date
April 25th; so that, in both instances, about four months have elapsed
between the time the letters were posted in England and that of their
delivery here. It is the fact of one’s moving about that makes the
communication with home so desultory.[53]
“To-day the rains may be said to have begun, but there will probably
not be much rain for some time yet. However, this morning was dark and
gloomy enough, though there are now signs of an improvement in the
weather. I have been here a fortnight, and am waiting till certain
necessary repairs are made in my waggon, my idea being to spend a few
weeks in this neighbourhood before finally leaving for Maritzburg....
In the meantime I mean to give you a little account of my doings
since my last letter to you, encouraged by Charley’s assurance that
my descriptions of the country and the account of my wanderings are
read with some little interest, though I fear I can only thank the
friendliness of my critics for anything interesting being found in
them. As, however, I receive the flattering assurance that they do
afford a little amusement I will proceed without further apology. A
mail is leaving here very shortly, as traders are now here on their
way to Mungwato, and will take letters. By the way, I am writing with
some of the desiccated ink I brought with me. I had a grand brew of
it yesterday, and it is an undoubted success. My table is formed by a
packing-case, and my chair is a box of gunpowder--but I am not smoking.
I am inhabiting a deserted house made by one of the former gold-diggers
here, and appropriated by a Dutch family, who, however, are from home.
The paterfamilias has gone to hunt for ivory in the Zambesi direction,
and taken his ‘vrouw,’ family, and furniture with him in his waggon.”
The narrative, here broken off, was again resumed, some days later:--
“_October 20th._
“I again take up my pen to continue the letter I began on the 1st of
this month, and which I hoped would have been a long way south of
Bamangwato by this time. The delay has been occasioned by the drought,
rendering the journey full of risk for the oxen. I promised you a short
_résumé_ of my doings and sufferings since I last wrote to you.
By sufferings, I don’t of course mean bodily ones, but what I have
suffered from rascally Kafirs, and which are only entitled to be called
annoyances.
“After last writing to you, I left here on the 25th of July in company
with the trader I told you of. Some delay ensued when we were one day
from here, occasioned by reports of the road being stopped by the king.
I had with me the man given me by his Majesty to see me safely through
the Makalakas on my way to the Zambesi, and a precious rascal he was.
Some people came up to the waggons with great demonstrations, one of
them rushing about and flourishing a battle-axe. I adopted my usual
course, in such cases, of lighting a pipe and sitting on the front-box
of my waggon, watching the performance, varying my tactics by turning
my back on him. He professed to have authority from the king to stop
all waggons going to the Zambesi, and lugged in poor old Mosilikatze’s
name, as is usual in grand orations, and made my boys shake in their
shoes, metaphorically speaking, by informing them that the order was
that any of the king’s subjects accompanying white men to the Zambesi
were to be killed.
“The son of Manyami, the man given me expressly to shut up this sort
of bounce, suggested that this might be some new order from the
king. I therefore lost no time in sending him off with a letter to
headquarters, requesting full instructions, as Manyami’s son had not
seen the king at all about the affair, but I had simply taken him, as
the king told me, from his father’s kraal on my way from Gubuleweyo to
Tati. Old Manyami is the man who used to stop all waggons coming into
the country till the king had given leave for them to proceed, and he
stopped me when I first came myself, as I dare say I told you at the
time. This is done, however, at a different kraal now--the first one
passed by any waggons going from here to Gubuleweyo, about forty miles
north-east of Tati. In the meantime I remained on the Ramaqueban, my
ally riding over to Tati once or twice.
“Whilst I was here a trader of the name of Horn passed, and had to wait
when he was a few miles on the road to ask leave to proceed, as all
waggons from Natal are now stopped for fear of the disease, and Horn
had to explain who he was and where he came from. Horn, I think, is the
man who opened the Zambesi trade, but is at present trading with the
Matabele. A lion killed one of his oxen on the Inkwesi one night whilst
he was waiting here, and a dozen of them took fright and ran away. I
assisted in looking for them, and followed up the spoor next day till
late in the afternoon, and must have been close to the oxen, but there
was a Scotch mist, and it was a wretched evening, so, leaving three
Kafirs to follow and sleep on the spoor, I returned to the waggons.
Next day the Kafirs returned without the oxen, and thus much time was
lost. The day after this Horn’s partner followed the spoor to the
water, but from the water followed up, by mistake, some fresh buffalo
spoor, and slept on it, to come the following morning on to a herd of
buffalo, which rather astonished him. At last Stoffel set off with
him, about four or five days after the oxen had strayed, and they
succeeded in recovering them.
[Illustration: DRY BED OF THE INKWESI RIVER.]
“Whilst Stoffel was away the dogs began to bark late one night, and a
man appeared at the fire in a miserable plight. He was a rebellious
induna, or headman, whom the king had ordered to be killed. There are
a certain number of indunas, who have certain districts given them
to rule over under the king, and if they presume too much on their
authority they are put to death without much trial. Some of them would
be insufferable in their conduct to white men if the king did not keep
them in order. This particular man, I believe, the king had given fair
warning to, and told him to take a horse and fly the country, but
instead of taking one he took two, and he was brought before the king,
who thought it best to make an end of the matter. They took him outside
the town, and hacked him with their axes, leaving him for dead. What
must have been intended for the _coup de grâce_ was a cut in the
back of the head, which had chipped a large piece out of the skull, and
must have been meant to cut the spinal cord where it joins the brain.
It had, however, been made a little higher than this, but had left
such a wound as I should have thought no one could have survived. It
is wonderful, however, how hard Kafirs are. When I held the lanthorn
to investigate the wound I started back in amazement to see a hole at
the base of the skull, perhaps two inches long and an inch and a half
wide, and I will not venture to say how deep, but the depth too must
have been an affair of inches. Of course this hole penetrated into the
substance of the brain, and probably for some distance. I dare say a
mouse could have sat in it.
“His voice was weak, but he evidently enjoyed his supper and the
warmth of the fire. My boys said he was a ‘wolf’--the term applied to
outlaws--and that he ought to be killed or driven away. He told me that
it was five days since he had been set upon; and that, after he had
been left for dead, he got up and ran away on coming to himself. He
wanted to go under my protection to the Zambesi, an honour, however,
which I declined, but I gave him a blanket and some things to buy food
with, and told him he must go next morning, and advised him to make
for Mungwato. He asked for a pipe, and for a drink of brandy, which
reminded me of Old King Cole; and if he had been given to amusing
himself by listening to the violin, I have no doubt he would have asked
for a tune, as he seemed disposed to take things very philosophically.
I poured some arnica and water into the hole, and when he lifted up his
head a perfect stream of it ran down his back. He said if he was not
killed he should see me at Mungwato when I returned. I believe he did
reach Mungwato alive, but I don’t know whether he remained there.[54]
“A perfectly favourable communication having been received from the
king, I was all ready to continue my journey towards the Zambesi,
which I fondly hoped to see in a few weeks. On the 10th of August I
was again _en route_, and on the 18th I reached the first Makalaka
kraal, travelling slowly. This was the same point I reached before,
when I started with the Boer and his boy. Here we decided to stay, to
lay in our store of corn,--enough to keep our Kafirs when game could
not be got, our dogs, and, above all, our horses. At the place where
the waggons stand where they are left by people going to the Zambesi,
the journey having to be completed on foot, no corn is to be bought,
nor any on the road, as there are no corn-growing people between these
Makalakas and the Zambesi. Therefore enough must be taken at this point
to last till one is amongst the Makalakas again on one’s way back.
“Here my companion was laid up with a bad finger. He had run the head
of a needle into it whilst sewing, and not feeling much at the time
had taken very little notice of it till it began to give him pain, and
then he suffered terribly. The end of the finger appeared dead, and I
was so much afraid of mortification setting in that I advised him to
lose no time in trying to reach Thomson, the missionary, in order that
he might have the first joint of the finger amputated if necessary. I
should have gone back with him, but he begged me not to do so, assuring
me that I should be of no use to him, which indeed seemed likely to be
the case. I therefore determined to push on.
“Unfortunately my waggon was quite sufficiently loaded at starting,
as I had never contemplated having to travel with only one waggon, in
which case I should have left everything I could spare at Tati. As it
was, I not only had to add to my own load the things belonging to me
which were in Stoffel’s waggon, but to take besides a large supply of
corn and meal, which we had arranged at starting should be taken in
his waggon also. The result was, that my waggon was overloaded; and I
had not gone more than two or three miles when one of the hind wheels
broke, and the weight coming down on it, it was flattened under the
waggon, with every spoke smashed. I felt instinctively that it was a
hopeless case; and, as I stood looking at it, came to the conclusion
that my Zambesi trip was at an end. Now that the season was so late,
I was sure no help could arrive in time for me to proceed to the
Zambesi, and therefore I saw the best thing was to take the mishap
philosophically. It was one of the waggons I had bought in Bamangwato,
the wood of which proved rotten. My only wish after this was to get
back to Tati as quickly as possible.
“The man that the king had given me to see me safe through the
Makalakas now refused to stay any longer, though I did not tell him I
should not attempt to proceed. I therefore paid him as the king had
directed me, giving him more, in fact, than the latter had said. He
was extremely insolent, and demanded double what I gave him. However,
I knew he must submit, as the king had sent him with me, and he dared
not go against his orders. He left me in dudgeon, and I was glad to be
rid of him. I had a very slight attack of fever at the time, and his
noise and insolence were very annoying.
“After this I sent off my driver with a span of oxen, to take the
broken wheel on a sledge of boughs to Tati, and wrote to Brown asking
him to send me a waggon, if possible, to bring me out, and a spare
wheel also for my own waggon; or, if not, to get the wheel I sent him
mended for me. The oxen that I still had left had to go many miles for
water every day. The mare and the goats had nothing but filthy water
to drink from holes dug in the ground. For my own use I got water
from the pits, where the people dig for it, for I was in the midst of
the Makalakas. I myself was a prisoner in my own kraal, for I dared
not leave the waggon. I had with me three of my Matabele slave-boys
and one Bushman. We got on pretty well for a few days, but soon the
people began to drive my boys from the water, which they claimed the
right to, having made the pits. This was the water for my own use,
and it appeared also that the water at which their own goats drank
was denied to mine, and they and my mare driven away from it. I sent
for the induna, an old Makalaka, with whom I had hitherto refused to
speak in consequence of his having stopped me the first time I tried
to go through. I gave him a present of ammunition on condition of his
allowing my boys to get water; and, after promising to see that all
was right, he asked for more presents, which I refused, and the boys
were driven away just as much as they had been before. All I could do
was to buy water for my own use of the women, who brought it every
morning, and to hope that the animals managed to get a little now and
then. I had also had a disagreement with the people about some goats
which I had bought for a gun. The day after I bought them the gun had
been brought back and the goats demanded, which I refused to give up,
threatening to shoot any one who touched them. However, as soon as they
went out to feed, the goats were seized, as I fully expected they would
be, but the gun had been left. After this I refused to trade any more,
and drove all the people away except those who brought water.
“Now, whether it was Manyami’s son, or whether it was the Makalakas, or
whether it was a mere chance, a party of Matabele heard that my waggon
was broken, and determined to make capital out of my misfortunes. It
was the 7th of September. The weather was extremely sultry, and I lay
nearly all my time in the waggon, reading. This evening, however, a
heavy shower of rain, with thunder and lightning, cooled the air--the
first rain of the season. I had been a short walk, keeping near the
waggon, and looking for a pheasant or partridge. Immediately after my
return I was disgusted beyond measure to see a party of Matabele, some
twenty in number, filing past with shields and assegais, and sitting
down in front of the waggon, after which the oration began. However,
the sun set and the rain descended very opportunely, and they left,
saying they would return in the morning. They told my boys that I
must pay for the road to the Zambesi, and that if I did not do so they
would break into my waggon and help themselves. My boys, having seen no
disposition on my part to give way, were in a great fright, and said if
I did not give the Matabele what they wanted they would run away and
leave me. In my situation this would have been worse than anything, so
I resolved to conciliate my persecutors, and next day gave them what
they wanted, amounting in value to a mere trifle, £5 perhaps, and not
a quarter of what I had made up my mind to give them rather than have
a row. I should have felt much more humiliated had I first refused and
finally had to give way, but it was bad enough as it was. I afterwards
informed the king of the whole affair, and perhaps a number of similar
complaints may at last bring punishment on the offenders, who are
known. I believe it was my firm demeanour of the night before that
stood me in such good stead next day, as, when I voluntarily conversed
with them, and asked them what they wanted, they thought it best to be
civil, and said I must bring out something and they would see if it
was enough. After some consultation they accepted what I gave for the
induna of their kraal, and then asked for presents for themselves. I
therefore added something; and when they saw I had given all I meant
they went away, leaving me much relieved in mind.
“Soon afterwards, to my great joy, I heard the boys say that a waggon
was coming; and, sure enough, my driver appeared, bringing a waggon
borrowed for me by Brown, and an extra wheel for my own waggon. Brown
sent me a note informing me that he had letters for me from home, and
sending me an instalment of four papers, two others remaining for me in
his hands with the letters. I divided my load between the two waggons,
and breathed again freely when I was fairly past the Makalaka kraals
on my way back. I felt like a prisoner who had regained his freedom.
Before reaching Tati, however, I had another little adventure, which I
must yet add to this already overgrown letter.
“I had one day left the waggon on horseback with a number of my Kafirs
to shoot, as we were rather hard up for food, and had been galloping
after some eland. It was late in the afternoon, and when I pulled up I
saw nothing of my boys, and turned the horse’s head in the direction I
had come from, expecting to meet them. However, they had lagged, and
I began to think I might not be going quite in the right direction.
The mare strengthened this fancy, and kept working round, and wanted,
I thought, to take a short cut to the waggon. I trusted implicitly
to her, and let her have her head, thinking I would leave the Kafirs
to go back by themselves. She, however, went in the same direction I
had been galloping in just before, which puzzled me. Still she kept
on in a straight, undeviating course, as I could see by the sun, and
I thought if it were wrong I could easily return as I had come, when
I had let her go on her own way long enough. So I gave her a fair
chance and on she went. The sun set, and she still kept on as before,
the stars now showing me the direction. I began to suspect something
wrong, but decided to see what she really would do, as I knew I must
sleep in the veldt. At last we came to a broad river without water in
it, and, without pausing to look for any, she crossed it, and kept on
as before. I thought it must be the Ramaqueban, which is near where I
started from, and therefore, after going on some time longer, I turned
her and went back to the river, hoping to find water by scraping a hole
in the sand, in which I failed. I then tied the mare to a tree, and,
making a big fire, had a good night. Next day I was moving at sunrise,
and kept down the river, still thinking it the Ramaqueban, when, to my
surprise, I suddenly came on the drift where the waggon-road crosses
it, and found it to be the Impakwe, the next river that you cross
beyond the Ramaqueban in going to the King’s. It was now nine or ten
o’clock in the morning, and getting very hot. My waggon was thirty
miles away, and the mare and myself tired and hungry. I let her feed
and drink, for there was plenty of good water. By the time I had gone
ten miles towards the waggon she wanted another rest, being much too
small for my weight. I therefore gave her a good rest on reaching the
Ramaqueban, and it was late in the afternoon when I started off again.
By good fortune I met some Boers returning from hunting in the Zambesi
direction, and came in for some meat which a Kafir was cooking in the
ashes. I never enjoyed anything more. I got back to the waggon late
that night, and soon afterwards reached Tati, where I have been ever
since. Incidents are rather scarce, and I have therefore made the most
of the foregoing insignificant ones.
“I have now a new driver, my old one having refused to go with me after
my first repulse by the Makalakas. My present man is a huge creature,
civil enough, but too fond of brandy. He one evening made a raid when
I was absent, and broke open some of my boxes, not leaving a single
bottle of brandy in my possession, but how many bottles I had I have no
idea. He shared the spoils with his friends, and they were at it all
night. Next day I cross-examined him closely, and got a confession out
of him. I then fined him £5, and reduced his wages from £4 a month to
£3. He got off cheap, as it is common in such cases to tie the offender
up and whip him. The whole race of waggon-drivers, with scarcely an
exception, are worthless wretches--dissipated, lazy, impudent, and
dishonest. It really seems that civilization has no other effect upon
Kafirs than to make them worse than they naturally are.
“I must now wind up this terrible letter. I know it is far too long,
but it is too late now to obviate that defect.”
Another of Frank Oates’s letters, written home to one of his brothers
about this time, adds yet some further particulars of his late
experiences. He says:--
“TATI, _October 16th, 1874_.
“The mail is in, and with it a letter from you, appreciated as usual,
which I need not say is not a little. It is dated July 3d. I am sorry
you seem to doubt my getting your letters. In my letter to the Mater
I mention the hoard of letters, containing a complete and connected
history of home affairs, which met my delighted eyes when I returned
here from my third attempt to reach the Zambesi, of which I have given
her an account. The road between here and Bamangwato is all but closed
from the drought now, as it is the end of the dry season. The waggons
that brought this mail in were delayed, and suffered considerably.
Several of the oxen died, and one waggon is still in the veldt at the
Gokwe River, where there is a little water, and which is the half-way
house between Mungwato and here. In distance it is more than half way,
but it is always a stopping-place, on either side of which stretches a
parched-up country. On the first day of this month I began a letter to
the Mater, expecting it would be taken on in a day or two. However, the
waggons that were to take it did not set off, preferring to wait for
rain, so the letter has been lying unfinished. Now, however, another
arrives from you, and sets me off into the writing vein. Moreover, I
am expecting very shortly to start into the veldt for a month or two,
which means two months, of course, before I fairly set off home. I
have in the meantime been collecting birds here, and reflecting on the
vanity of human ambition. It may surprise you that I don’t hurry home,
now that the Zambesi affair is over. It is certainly not that I don’t
long to see all the familiar faces once more, and feast my eyes with
English scenery....[55]
“The weather is now fairly broken, and it has begun to rain again this
evening, with gusts of wind, which flutter my papers from time to time.
It has been dreadfully hot the last few days. After the heavy rain
at the beginning of the month we have been having a spell of really
warm weather, the thermometer often reaching several degrees above 100
in the shade. I have been busy having my waggon patched up and made
weather-tight. It was finished to-day, and to-day the old Boer returned
to his happy home and found me in possession. I said I would pack up
at once, to enable him to establish himself in his house this evening,
but I found I could not be ready, so he and his family are encamped
outside, inhabiting their waggons. However, I held out hopes to him of
vacating the place to-morrow, which seemed to satisfy him. In fact the
Boers are just as much at home at their waggons as in a house. They
have little primitive camp-stools, on which they sit round the fire,
and the women go about their household duties, and the children play
about, and they seem quite at home. Of course when it rains they sit
in the waggons like rats in holes--as I have already done myself, and
shall now begin to do again. You have no idea how much a home a waggon
becomes. I have my books and all my _et ceteras_ within reach;
and, though it is a little cramping, the pleasure of stretching the
limbs when you do get out repays you to a certain extent.
[Illustration: VERREAUX’S WHYDAH BIRD.--_Vidua
Verreauxi._
SHAFT-TAILED WHYDAH BIRD.--_Vidua regia._]
“I expect in a day or two a reply from the king, giving me permission
to hunt in his veldt. I only wish to go a short distance from here, to
the Ramaqueban, and Shashani, and thereabouts--a tract of country that
I know pretty well, and for which I have a real affection, so often
have I roamed through its wilds. Rivers that I know well I look upon as
friends. I wish, indeed, I could be set down now where I was last year,
when I was sent by the king into his favourite veldt on failing to
reach the Zambesi, but it is too far, and I should have to traverse the
thickly-populated part of the country to reach it. The loathing with
which I regard this people is in itself sufficient to deter me. The
king himself is well enough, and rules the Kafirs with a rod of iron,
but the Kafirs, as a nation, I abominate, and not without good reason.
The amount of pride you must pocket when sojourning amongst these
scantily-dressed gentlemen is something not to be forgotten. I don’t
know whether their condescensions or aggressions are the more difficult
to bear with patience. Without patience it is hopeless to think of
getting on at all. A long string of them filed past my abode lately,
and making for Brown’s store requested to be fed. This of course
Brown complied with, as the land here is only held on sufferance, and
these Matabele were supposed to be out on particular business--to
murder a lot of poor Bushmen, as we were told afterwards. The latter
are constantly being killed, and their life is one long struggle for
existence. A gun is almost useless to them, as the brutal conquerors of
the country are pretty sure to bag it, and ten to one knock the owner
of it on the head into the bargain.
“The Bushmen are the real wild men of the country, living in temporary
huts, and subsisting entirely on what the veldt produces. They are
wonderful runners, and possess certain mysterious instincts, raising
them in that respect nearly to the level of some of the noblest
animals. The Matabele, on the other hand, think themselves the lords
of creation, and speak of the slaves (Makalakas) as ‘dogs;’ and the
Bushmen are only looked upon as game. I have one remarkably small
creature of the Bushman race with me, who is working for a gun. He
always takes to his heels and hides when he sees any Matabele, unless
he is with his master and at the waggon. A kraal of these people was
lately driven from the Shashe, and is now encamped close to the
settlement here. I rode through their camp the other day, and felt
that I was amongst the true children of the forest, resembling more
the North American Indians than the usual Kafir races of this country.
Their huts are made of poles, converging together at the top, these
laid over with branches, and finally rudely thatched with long grass. I
should say there were between fifty and a hundred of them in the camp.”
To this letter, here cut short, he adds the following, four days
later:--
“_October 20th._
“Last night my two Kafirs, whom I had sent to the king, to ask leave
for me to hunt a little on the Shashani, returned with a favourable
answer. I gave the king a shot gun on first entering his country, much
to his satisfaction, and I believe it is now his favourite gun out of
the armoury he possesses. I had two cases of 200 cartridges each, and
gave him one with the gun, and shall now leave the other, together with
the rest of his present, with Brown, to be forwarded to him when a
waggon goes up. It is everything here to have the king on one’s side,
as without it one would have a miserable chance of getting on. Even
the king does not care to have too many white men in his country, but
likes a few, to enable him to trade. He has a great objection to the
Boers, who come only to hunt for skins, thus wasting all the meat, but
he knows with me it is a different case, and he does not care where
I go, as long as I keep him in good humour by giving him presents.
He never objects to people who are in the country hunting for meat.
However, he is down on you if he sees any ostrich egg-shells lying on
the breakfast-table, and asks how you can expect to get feathers if you
eat the eggs. He is also very sensible in his denunciation of killing
cow and young elephants, the ivory of which is scarcely worth taking.
The Boers, wherever they go, shoot everything, big or little, on the
principle that all’s fish that comes to the net.
“We have just had a heavy shower, and there was one last night; in fact
the rainy season is setting in. Rain is very much wanted, and all the
livestock requires fresh grass.”
Amongst the letters, twice alluded to above, which Frank Oates had
found awaiting him at Tati, was one from his brother William, who was
just about to start at the time he wrote (in the June previous) on
a three months’ yachting trip to Spitzbergen; after his return from
which he contemplated again coming out to Natal, early in the following
year, there to rejoin his brother on his way back from the Zambesi,
and accompany him--if he cared to go--on a short hunting expedition in
Zululand, or, going north as far as Zanzibar, strike inland with him
thence instead. To this proposal Frank Oates replied as follows:--
“TATI, _October 27th, 1874_.
“I have been delighted to get your letters, and to find there is a
chance of our uniting our forces once more. When you wrote of coming
out to me I was both pleased and sorry--sorry, because I thought it
would be best for me to return home when I reached the coast, and
yet, if you had actually met me there, I could not have resisted the
temptation of setting off again with you.
“I have often wished I had you with me, and remember, when I got to
Mungwato last April, to outfit, as I drove up to Gray’s store, I
thought if I could have a wish it would be to see your waggon coming in
from the opposite direction. I did not even know that you were yourself
thinking the same thing about the same time. The same idea occurred
to me the last time my waggon broke down on the Zambesi road, and I
was left to the mercy of the natives of that part of the country. I
thought, if your waggon suddenly appeared, how I could turn the tables
on my persecutors, and how we could go on together to the Zambesi. Of
course, I felt certain such a thing would not occur, but somehow it got
into my head....
“You will be glad to hear that I endorse your theory that trying to
trade, when on a sporting tour or exploring, is an utter failure,
and that, had we brought up light waggons, we should have been
wiser--knowing all I know now. I have been allied with Dutch Boers
since parting from you, and the more I see _of_ them, the more
I see _through_ them. I have still some of my old Maritzburg
bullocks left, a rare good sort, but from time to time upon the journey
have bought and broken young ones. I have now a good span of fourteen
and a couple of supernumeraries, and have likewise bought a heifer, to
give me milk. She is of the peculiar small breed, less than Alderneys,
bred by the Mashonas. My dogs are invaluable to me. ‘Rail’ and ‘Rock’
require the greatest care, and get it.
“I shall wonder how you get on amongst the Spitzbergen game. If as
successful as you must have been here, you can claim to count amongst
the Nimrods. I don’t know what to say to your letter of June 2d. Of
course, if you should come out as you propose, it will be very pleasant
to meet, and we might spend a month or two together in the Zulu country
before I leave Africa, or, returning _viâ_ Zanzibar, spend a month
or two there, as you suggest. I should not care to be very much longer
than this, and if, after all, you should not come now, we must do
something else again together in the course of time.”
The whole of these letters, above quoted from, were despatched to
England about the end of October. To one of them a postscript was
added on the 28th, to the effect that the trader, Stoffel Kennedy,
whose finger, it appears, had had to be amputated on returning from
the veldt, had just arrived at Tati, and that he and Dorehill, the
young trader of that name, already mentioned in these pages, were
intending to start immediately with two waggons for the Zambesi, and
wanted Frank Oates to accompany them. “I hardly think, however, that
I shall do so,” he writes, “as the season is so far advanced. I am
principally afraid for my boys, who are far more likely to suffer than
a white man is, who has a snug dry bed to lie on, and other comforts;
and I distrust my old waggon, which has played me false once already.”
On further discussing the subject with Stoffel and his companion, he
found, moreover, that he had somewhat misunderstood their plan, which
was only to be travelling towards the Zambesi now, and wait about upon
the road till April or May, when they would go forward to the river.
It was too late, they considered, to attempt to reach the Zambesi the
present season. Though strongly tempted on some accounts to fall in
with their proposal and accompany them, upon reflection he decided not
to do so. It was the result, however, of what had passed with them upon
the subject that led him to abandon, as intimated above, his projected
trip to the Shashani, and accompany the trading party instead, as far
upon the road towards the Zambesi as they meant to travel before coming
to a stand. This would give him an opportunity of seeing an entirely
fresh part of the country beyond the Makalakas, and he could return
when it suited him. It is probable, too, that he still--if hardly
acknowledging it to himself--may have entertained an ill-defined hope
that by travelling in the direction of the Zambesi he might even yet,
through some unlooked-for turn of circumstances, find himself enabled
to reach that river before the commencement of another year. That hope,
assuming its existence, was one destined to be realized, little likely
as it appeared to be so at the time he left the settlement. It was the
3d of November when the united party started on their journey, and for
the fourth time Frank Oates turned his face towards the Zambesi.
[Illustration: BLUE WILDEBEEST.--_Catoblepas taurina._]