No time was to be lost in preparing for their start, and also in
informing their landlord of their change of plans. This Gerard did with
some inward trepidation, knowing that they were expected to make a
longer stay. But he need have felt none. That philosophic individual
manifested neither surprise nor disappointment. Whether they left or
whether they stayed was a matter of supreme indifference to him. He
wished them good-bye and good luck in the same happy-go-lucky way in
which he had first greeted them, and filled up a fresh pipe.
Though only about a dozen miles from Durban, it took them upwards of an
hour to reach Pinetown. But they did not mind this. The line ran
through lovely bush country, winding round the hills often at a
remarkably steep gradient; now intersecting sugar plantations, with
deep-verandahed bungalow-like houses, and coolies in bright clothing and
large turbans at work among the tall canes; now plunging through a mass
of tangled forest. Every now and then, too, a glimpse was afforded of
the blue, land-locked bay, and the vessels rolling at their anchorage
beyond the lines of surf in the roadstead outside.
"There lies the old _Amatikulu_," said Gerard, as his ere caught the
black hull and schooner rig of a steamer among these. "We shan't see
the old barkie again, and perhaps the sea either, for many a long day."
Pinetown, as Mr Kingsland had said, was not much of a place, being a
large straggling village, greatly augmented by the huts and tents of a
cavalry regiment then quartered there, and they had no difficulty in
finding John Dawes. Him they ran to earth in the bar-room of an hotel,
where, with three or four cronies, he was drinking success to his trip
in a parting and friendly glass. He was a man of medium height,
straight and well proportioned. His face was tanned to the hue of
copper, and he wore a short sandy beard, cut to a point. He took the
letter which Gerard tendered him, glanced through the contents, then
nodded.
"All right; I start in two hours' time. How's Kingsland?"
Gerard replied that, to the best of his belief, the latter was extremely
well.
"Good chap, Kingsland!" pronounced the transport-rider, decisively.
"Say, mister, what'll you drink?"
"Well--thanks--I think I'll take a lemonade," answered Gerard; not that
he particularly wanted it, but he did not like to seem unfriendly by
refusing.
"Right. And what's yours?"
"Oh--a brandy and soda," said Harry.
"Mister, you ain't one of them Good Templar chaps, are you?" said
another man to Gerard.
"I don't know quite what they are, I'm afraid."
"Why, teetotalers, of course. Chaps who don't drink."
"Oh no. I'm not a teetotaler, but I don't go in much for spirits."
"Quite right, young fellow, quite right," said another. "You stick to
that, and you'll do. There's a sight too many chaps out here who are a
deal too fond of `lifting the elbow.' Take my advice, and let grog
alone, and you'll get along."
"Well, here's luck!" said the transport-rider, nodding over his glass.
"Now, you turn up at my waggon in two hours' time. It's away on the
flat there at the outspan just outside the town; any one'll tell you.
Got any traps?"
"Yes."
"Well, better pick up a couple of boys and trundle them across. And if
I were you I should get a good dinner here before you start. I believe
that's the gong going now. So long!"
Having taken the transport-rider's advice, and with the help of the
landlord procured a couple of native boys as porters, the two were
landed, bag and baggage, at Dawes's waggon. That worthy merely nodded,
with a word of greeting, and having seen their luggage safely stowed
among the bales and cases which, piled sky-high, constituted his cargo,
gave orders to inspan. Then Gerard, always observant, noted how the
oxen, to the number of sixteen, were driven up and ranged into line by
one native, and kept there while another and Dawes placed a noosed
_reim_, or thong of raw hide, round the horns of each, and in a trice
the yoke was adjusted to each neck, for the animals were veteran
roadsters, and each knew his place. The yoking was a simple process.
Two flat wooden pegs, called "skeys," passed through the yoke on each
side of the neck, which was kept in its place between them by a twisted
strip of raw hide passing underneath just below the throat, and hitched
in a nick in the "skey." The motive power is that of pushing, the yoke
resting against the slight hump above the animal's withers.
"Trek--Hamba--ke!" cried the native driver, raising his voice in a wild
long-drawn yell. "Englaand--Scotland--Mof--Bokvel--Kwaaiman--Tre-ek!"
The long whip cracked like pistol shots, again and again. As the driver
ran through the whole gamut of names, each ox instinctively started
forward at the sound of its own, and the ponderous, creaking, loaded-up
structure rolled heavily forward. Other waggons stood outspanned along
the flat, but mostly deserted, for their owners preferred the more
genial atmosphere of the hotel bar, and the native servants in charge
had all foregathered at one fire.
"Like to ride, eh? or would you rather walk?" said Dawes, lighting his
pipe. "Maybe, though, you'll find it a bit jolty riding, at first.
It's a fine night, though."
Gerard answered that they would rather walk; and, indeed, such
locomotion was infinitely preferable to the slow rumbling roll of the
waggon, crawling along at just under three miles per hour. And the
night was fine indeed. The air was deliciously cool, the dim outline of
the rolling downs was just visible in the light of the myriad shining
stars which spangled the heavens in all the lavish brilliance of their
tropical beauty. Here and there a grass fire glowed redly in the
distance. Now and again the weird cry of some strange bird or beast
arose from the surrounding _veldt_, and this, with the creaking ramble
of the waggon, the deep bass of the native voices, chatting in their own
tongue, made our two English lads realise that they were indeed in
Africa at last. There was a glorious sense of freedom and exhilaration
in the very novelty of the surroundings.
"Well, this is awfully jolly!" pronounced Gerard, looking round.
"Eh! Think so, do you?" said John Dawes. "How would you like to be a
transport-rider yourself?"
"I believe I'd like nothing better," came the prompt reply. "It must be
the jolliest, healthiest life in the world."
"So?" said the other, with a dry chuckle. "Especially when it's been
raining for three days, and the road is one big mudhole, when your
waggon's stuck wheel-deep, and no sooner do you dig it out than in goes
another wheel. Why, I've been stuck that way, coming over the Berg"--
the speaker meant the Drakensberg--"and haven't made a dozen miles in a
fortnight. And cold, too! Why, for a week at a time I've not known
what it was to have a dry stitch on me, and the rain wouldn't allow you
to light a fire. Jolly healthy life that, eh?"
"Cold!" broke from both the listeners, in astonishment. "Is it ever
cold here?"
"Isn't it? You just wait till you get away from this steaming old
sponge of a coast belt. Why, you get snow on the Berg, yards deep.
I've known fellows lose three full spans of oxen at a time, through an
unexpected fall of snow. Well, that's one of the sides of
transport-riding. Another is when there hasn't been rain for months,
and the _veldt's_ as bare as the skull of a bald-headed man. Then you
may crawl along, choking with dust, mile after mile, day after day, the
road strewn like a paper-chase, with the bones of oxen which have
dropped in the yoke or been turned adrift to die, too weak to go any
further--and every water-hole you come to nothing but a beastly mess of
pea-soup mud, lucky even if there isn't a dead dog in the middle of it.
My word for it, you get sick of the endless blue of the sky and the
red-brown of the _veldt_, of the poor devils of oxen, staggering along
with their tongues out--walking skeletons--creeping their six miles a
day, and sometimes not that. You get sick of your own very life
itself."
"That's another side to the picture with a vengeance," said Harry.
"Rather. Don't you jump away with the idea that the life of a
transport-rider, or any other life in this blessed country, is all
plum-jam; because, if so, you'll tumble into the most lively kind of
mistake."
Thus chatting, they travelled on; and, at length, after the regulation
four hours' _trek_, by which time it was nearly midnight, Dawes gave
orders to outspan.
The waggon was drawn just off the road, and the oxen, released from
their yokes, were turned loose for a short graze, preparatory to being
tied to the trek-chain for the night. Then, while the "leader" was
despatched to fill a bucket from the adjacent water-hole, Dawes produced
from a locker some bread and cold meat.
"Dare say you'll be glad of some supper," he said. "It's roughish feed
for you, maybe; but it's rougher still when there's none. Fall to."
They did so, with a will. Even Harry Maitland, who had started with an
inclination to turn up his nose at such dry provender, was astonished to
find how cold salt beef and rather stale bread could taste, when eaten
with an appetite born of four hours' night travel.
"Now, you'd better turn in," said the transport-rider, when they had
finished. "You'll get about four hours' clear snooze. We inspan at
daybreak, and trek on till about ten or eleven. Then we lie-by till
three or four in the afternoon, or maybe longer, and trek the best part
of the night. It depends a good deal on the sort of day it is."
A small portion of the back of the waggon was covered by a tilt; this
constituted the cabin of this ship of the _veldt_. It contained lockers
and bags to hold the larder supplies, and a _kartel_ or framework of
raw-hide thongs, stretched from side to side, supported a mattress and
blankets. This Dawes had given up to his two passengers, he himself
turning in upon the ground.
Hardly had the heads of our two friends touched the pillow than they
were sound asleep, and hardly were they asleep--at least, so it seemed
to them--than they were rudely awakened. Their first confused
impression was that they were aboard the _Amatikulu_ again in a gale of
wind. The heaving and swaying motion which seemed half to fling them
from their bed, with every now and again a sickening jolt, the close,
hot atmosphere, the harsh yells, and the ramble, exactly bore out this
idea. Then Gerard sat upright with a start. It was broad daylight.
"Hallo!" quoth Dawes, putting his head into the waggon-tent. "Had a
good sleep? We've been on trek about half an hour. I didn't see the
use in waking you, but there's a roughish bit of road just here. I
expect the stones shook you awake--eh?"
"Rather. Oh-h!" groaned Harry, whom at that moment a violent jerk
banged against the side of the waggon. "Let's get out of this, though.
It's awful!"
"Hold on a minute. We are just going through a drift."
They looked out. The road sloped steeply down to the edge of a small
river which swept purling between reed-fringed banks. The foremost oxen
were already in the water. There was a little extra yelling and
whip-cracking, and the great vehicle rolled ponderously through, and
began toilsomely to mount the steep ascent on the other side. Gerard's
glance looked longingly at the water.
"Better wait till we outspan," said Dawes, reading this. "We can't stop
now, and by the time you overtook us you'd be so fagged and hot you'd
get no good at all out of your swim."
The sun was hardly an hour high, and already it was more than warm. The
sky was an unbroken and dazzling blue, and on every side lay the roll of
the open _veldt_ in a shimmer of heat, with here and there a farmhouse
standing amid a cluster of blue gum-trees. The road seemed to be making
a gradual ascent. Our two friends felt little inclined for walking now,
for the beat of the morning, combined with short allowance of sleep
during the past two nights, was beginning to tell.
"Jump up here, now," said Dawes, flinging a couple of rugs on top of the
load of goods. "Sun or no sun, you'll be better off than in the tent.
Canvas, with the sun on it, is almost as baking as corrugated iron.
Hold hard. Wait till she stops," he warned, having given orders to that
effect. "Old stagers, like me, can jump on and off while trekking
along, but you'd get under the wheels--sure--and then what'd Kingsland
say?"
"You see," he went on, when they were safely and comfortably on their
perch, "in getting up and down by the disselboom you have to be fairly
smart. You just get inside the fore wheel and walk along with the
machine, and jump quietly up. Getting down's the worst, because, if you
hit the disselboom or slip on it, ten to one you get shot off bang in
front of the wheel, and then nothing on earth'll save you, for you can't
stop one of these waggons under fifty yards, sometimes not even then."
"By Jove! Do many fellows come to grief that way?" asked Gerard.
"Heaps. You can hardly take up a paper anywhere without seeing a
paragraph headed `The Disselboom again.' But generally it's when
fellows are rather full up--taken a drop too much--you understand. Not
always, of course. And when you think of the weight these waggons
carry--this one's loaded close on eleven thousand pounds, now--No,
you've no show at all."
Then at the morning's outspan Gerard, always observant, and now keenly
thirsting for experience, noted every detail--how there was a regular
routine even in this apparently happy-go-lucky species of travel; how
when the oxen were turned out to graze, the "driver" set to work to
build the fire, while the "leader" took the bucket and went away to
fetch water from the nearest stream or water-hole; how the natives
received their daily ration of Indian corn meal, subsequently to be made
into a thick stir-about and eaten piping hot from the three-legged pot
in which it was cooked. He noted, too, with considerable satisfaction,
how Dawes produced from a locker a goodly supply of raw mutton-chops,
which were set to frizzle on the fire against the time they should have
returned from their swim, which with the remainder of last night's loaf
and a steaming kettle of strong black coffee, made up the most succulent
breakfast he thought he had ever eaten in his life, so thorough an
appetiser is open air, and novelty, and travel. And then, after a long
lie-by and a nap in the heat of the day, he begged to be allowed to bear
a hand in the process of inspanning, and felt as proud as Punch when he
found himself holding a couple of _reims_, at the end of which were as
many big black oxen, even though he had but a confused idea as to what
he should do with them. Still, he was doing something, and that was
what he wanted to realise.
And then, again, when they were on the move, he induced Dawes to
initiate him into the mysteries of waggon-driving. These, as that
worthy explained, did not consist, as many stupid Kafirs and some
stupider white men seemed to think, in running alongside of the span and
flourishing the whip, and frantically yelling and slashing away
indiscriminately. A good driver, with an average well-broken span, need
hardly yell inordinately, or use the whip at all. Each ox would
instinctively start forward at the sound of its own name, and if it grew
slack or negligent a touch with the _voerslag_ [the cutting, tapering
end of the lash.] was sufficient. A clever driver could put his
_voerslag_ as deftly and surely as a trout-fisher could his fly--at
least, as to the latter, so he had heard, added Dawes; for he had never
been in England himself--and, of course, had never seen trout fishing.
But Gerard, who was a very fair fly-fisher, saw the point at once, and
soon came to handle the whip in such fashion as to show promise of
eventually becoming as proficient as Dawes himself. True, he managed to
clip himself over the ear two or three times; but then every beginner is
bound to do this, so he didn't mind. On Harry, however, such reverses
produced a different effect. He gave up the whole thing in disgust, and
voted waggon-driving a beastly difficult thing and not at all in his
line. Wherein, again, the diversity of their respective characters came
out.
Now and again they would pass other waggons on the road, either in
motion or outspanned, or would pass through a small township, where John
Dawes would drop behind for half an hour for a glass of grog with a few
of his fellow-craftsmen and a chat at the hotel bar. These would always
extend a frank hand and a hearty greeting to the two young strangers;
for, however rough externally it may occasionally be, the bearing of the
South African colonist towards the newly arrived "Britisher," especially
if the latter be young and inexperienced, is, as a rule, all that is
kindly and good-natured. But it was the time of the evening outspan
that these two would enjoy most heartily. Then it was that with the
darkness, and the wide and to them still mysterious _veldt_ stretching
around, with the stars burning bright and clear in the dusky vault
above, and the red glow of the camp-fire shedding a circle of light
which intensified the surrounding gloom--then it was that they realised
that they were indeed "camping out," and no make-believe. And John
Dawes, with his pipe in full blast, made a first-rate camp-fire
companion, for his experiences in his own line had been large and
chequered. He knew every inch of the country for hundreds of miles. He
had been away to the north, past Swaziland, and had tried his luck on
the new gold-fields in the Zoutpansberg. He had made a couple of
trading trips in the Zulu country, and knew many of the Zulu chiefs and
_indunas_. Many a tale and strange incident would he narrate in his own
dry fashion--of flooded rivers and the perils of the road; of whole
spans of oxen laid low in the yoke by one stroke of lightning, or of a
comrade struck down at his side in the same way; of lively ructions with
surly Boers and their retainers, when the latter strove to interfere
with their right of outspan; of critical situations arising out of the
craft and greed of native chieftains, while practically in the power of
lawless and turbulent bands of savages during trading operations--and to
these our two wayfarers listened with the most unfeigned delight.
But from Pinetown to Pietermaritzburg is no great distance even for a
bullock-waggon, and on the afternoon of the second day they came in
sight of the capital, an area of blue gums and straggling iron roofs,
lying in a vast hollow. Both were unfeignedly sorry that the journey
was over. They felt like being cast adrift again, and said as much to
their new friend as they took a right cordial leave of him.
"Well, I've been very glad to have you," said the latter. "Been sort of
company like. What do you think you're likely to be doing with
yourselves now you are here, if I may ask?"
"I want first of all to find out a relative of mine," said Gerard.
"I've a letter to him. Anstey, his name is. Do you know him?"
A queer smile came into the transport-rider's face at the name.
"Anstey, is it?" he said. "So he's a relation of yours? Well, he's
easily found. He runs a Kafir store out beyond Howick, near the Umgeni
Fall. Does he know you're coming?"
"He knows I'm coming some time, but not to the day."
Again that queer expression in John Dawes's weather-beaten countenance.
Gerard thought nothing of it then; afterwards he had reason to remember
it.
"Umjilo's the name of his place. You can't miss it. Well, good-bye,
both of you. We may knock up against each other again or we may not;
it's a ram world, and not a very big one either. I wish you good luck.
I'll send your traps down first thing in the morning."
With which adieu, cordial if practical, John Dawes turned away to greet
a batch of old acquaintances who had just hailed him; while his late
passengers took their way townwards, both agreeing thoroughly upon one
point, viz. that the transport-rider was "a downright real jolly good
fellow."