Six Months at the Cape by Robert Michael Ballantyne (reading a book txt) 📖

Somerset wagon towards Grahamstown. This lad has turned out to be at
once a fool and a blackguard, and quite beyond hope of reform.

"_4th_.--A sharp frost last night blighted all our early potatoes,
pumpkins, melons, kidney-beans, etcetera. It appears we had sown some
of our seed too early.

"_8th, Sunday_.--A troop of about twenty quaggas galloped through the
corner of our gardens during divine service.

"_9th_.--A herd of hartebeests passed close to our huts, pursued by a
pack of six wild dogs (_Hyaena venatica_). Fired at the latter, but
without effect. This day Mr John Rennie, being out hunting on
Hyndhope Fells, fell in with two wild Bushmen, dressed in sheepskins.
They ran off on his approach, but made no demonstration of hostility.
He came upon six hyenas devouring a hartebeest, and brought me its
skull and horns.

"_11th_.--Visited by three Boers from the Tarka--desirous of
exchanging horses and cattle for guns and ammunition. Completed my
map of the location.

"_16th_.--Surprised by a slight fall of snow; weather chill and
cloudy. The laughing hyena heard near the folds last night. The
sound truly horrible.

"_21st_.--Fine weather. Killed a large yellow snake.

"_23rd_.--Received a visit from our district clergyman, the Reverend
J. Evans of Cradock. He brought a packet from the Landdrost conveying
letters from the Colonial Secretary, assuring me of the continued
support of the Government, and giving us the agreeable intelligence
that a party of emigrants from the West of Scotland were speedily
expected out, who would be located close beside us. Received also
very pleasant letters from Scotland, from Dr Philip, and from our
parted comrade Mr Elliott. Religious service in the evening by Mr
Evans. All much pleased and comforted.

"_24th_.--Mr G. Rennie, who at my request had gone with a party of
Hottentots to explore the country beyond the mountains towards the
Koonap River, returned with a very favourable report of it. Abundance
of wood, water, and rich pasturage. He saw a great deal of large
game, and the recent traces of elephants. Shot a gnu and hartebeest.

"_November 1st_.--The weather warm and serene, like the finest summer
weather in England. Two snakes and a large scorpion killed.
Turtle-doves, touracoos, thrushes, finches, and other birds of
beautiful plumage become numerous.

"_6th_.--Violent storm of thunder. The peals fearfully loud.
Magnificent clouds at sunset.

"_15th_.--A tiger-wolf broke into the kraal last night, and killed
several sheep.

"_22nd_.--A wolf-trap constructed, with the aid of the Hottentots, of
large stones and timber.

"_29th_.--A wolf caught in the trap.

"_December 4th_.--A heavy rain for three days swells the river to an
unfordable size. All the dry beds of torrents filled with furious
floods.

"_7th_.--Weather again warm and serene. Mr G. Rennie kills another
wild-boar at Glen Vair.

"_19th_.--My brother John finds stone fit for millstones, and with the
aid of one of the Hottentots begins to construct a small mill.

"_29th_.--My father narrowly escapes being gored by a furious ox.
Blight appears in the wheat.

"_30th_.--Receive a large packet of letters and newspapers from
Scotland. All deeply interested. This is the first packet of British
newspapers that has reached us."

How all the Robinson-Crusoe blood in one's veins is stirred by such a diary! Truly I sometimes almost regret that I was not born to become a pioneer settler in the African wilds!

However, it is some comfort to have the privilege of paying a flying visit to these same wilds, which in many respects are quite as wild now as they were then. The lions, elephants, quaggas, and some others of the large game, it is true, have taken themselves off to remoter wilds, but the leopards, hyenas, baboons, antelopes, still inhabit these kloofs, while snakes, scorpions, and the like are as plentiful as ever.

Talking of baboons reminds me that these creatures are said to sleep sometimes on a ledge of rock on the face of a precipice for security against lurking foes. I was assured that sometimes a row of them may be seen in such a situation sitting sound asleep, with their faces in their hands, against the precipice, and their tails hanging over the ledge. Of course I do not vouch for the truth of such reports. I am answerable only for what I profess to have seen.

The highest type of monkey suggests the lowest type of man in Africa. This is the Bushman, or, as the Dutch have it, Bosjesman. He is a branch of the Hottentot race, and a very miserable, stunted branch; nevertheless he is very far indeed removed from the baboon. He has no tail, for certain; at least if he has, he conceals it effectually. He wears garments, which no monkey does, and he speaks, which no monkey ever did.

No thanks to the white man, however, if the poor Bushman is not a baboon with the spirit of a tiger, for he has been most shamefully treated in time past. It is true the Bushmen were arrant thieves, and committed great havoc among the frontier farmers at various times, and it was both natural and right that these farmers should defend their homes and property. But it was neither right nor natural that these unfortunate natives should have been so cruelly dealt with.

When the Scotch party settled at Glen Lynden, their troubles with wild-beast pilferers were augmented occasionally by the appearance of Bosjesman-thieves.

"In the beginning of October," writes Mr Pringle, "we were somewhat alarmed by the discovery of a band of predatory Bushmen, lurking among the rocks and caverns of the wild mountains between us and the valley of the Tarka. Lieutenant Pettingal, an officer of engineers, who was then in our valley, engaged in the Government survey of the country, discovered this horde in searching for some of his horses that were missing. Suspecting, from the traces, that they had been carried off by Bushmen, he went out with an armed troop in pursuit, and came upon a party of these wild marauders in one of the most savage recesses of the neighbouring mountains. They were at breakfast, on a grey horse which they had slaughtered, and had steaks roasting on the fire cut out of the flank, with the hide still upon them. Pettingal, enraged by the supposed loss of his best blood-horse, poured in a volley upon them; but, apparently, without effect, for they all scrambled off with inconceivable agility among the rocks and bushes. He recovered, however, some of his own horses, and eight belonging to our neighbour which were tied up under an overhanging cliff near the top of a mountain."

There were no Bushmen running wild among the beautiful hills and valleys of Glen Lynden when Hobson and I entered it, but the region was not free, as I have related, from naked Kafirs, and it is still noted for its population of hairy baboons.


LETTER EIGHT.


RAIN! RAIN! RAIN!--BABOONS RIVER--SEAHORSE KLOOF--WE HUNT THE HILLS ON HORSEBACK IN SPITE OF RAIN--FLOODS AND ACCIDENTS--PART FROM HOBSON-- MAIL-CARTS AND DIAMOND-DIGGERS.

Rain is a blessed refreshment to the thirsty land; it is a life-giving cordial to the thirsty soul; but when rain descends in torrents and without cessation during the greater part of one's brief holiday, or at any other very unseasonable period, and when one is _not_ thirsty, it becomes depressing, to say the least.

Thus was I treated by rain during my week in Baviaans River. Hobson and I had at last pushed up into the very heart of that wild mountain region,--the allotted home of the Scottish settlers of 1820, the scene of many Kafir raids and battles.

For months before we had lived in perpetual sunshine. Hobson had sighed for a drop of rain. Sometimes South Africans have to sigh for a twelve-month before relief is sent. Even while I write, the colony is suffering excessively from drought, and many farmers have been ruined. On the Karroo I had almost come to forget the sensation of being rained upon, and an umbrella there would have appeared as great an impropriety as a muslin overcoat in Nova Zembla. Nevertheless, no sooner did we arrive at Seahorse Kloof than the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain came down steadily night and day, while the sky presented a universal grey that would have done credit to the Scottish Highlands. It was too bad!

My main object in penetrating to these rugged wilds was to visit one of the Pringles, a relative of personal friends on the borders of my own land. Finding that Mr Pringle was absent from home, we turned aside to visit a cousin of Hobson's, a Mr John Edwards, who dwelt in what appeared to me the fag-end of the world,--a lonely farmhouse, at the head of the mountain gorge named Seahorse Kloof.

"It's a splendid country," said Hobson, "with lots of game, and Edwards is a noted hunter, besides being a capital fellow."

What more could man desire? We arrived full of hope and spirits, received a hearty welcome, and awoke next day to find the sky grey, as I have said, and the rain descending steadily.

Of course we hoped against hope, but as day after day came and went, our hopes and spirits sank. Then there came a reaction that is not uncommon in the circumstances,--we grew desperate, and began to enjoy our misery. We got out our rifles, took up a sheltered position in the shed of an outhouse, and blazed away from dripping morn to pouring eve at empty bottles, amongst which we did tremendous execution.

Of course, also, we relieved the tedium of enforced indoor life by song and talk, but these resources could not make up for lost time, and the depth to which I had been sunk was revealed to me by the sudden rebound of joy when, after a week of heavy wet, there was a break in the universal grey and the sun came feebly out. Blessed sun, if thou wert to roast me alive, methinks I would love thee still!

Before this happened, however, we had a few brief intervals of modified dripping. During one of these, in which the rain all but ceased for a forenoon, I resolved to go out into one of the mountain gorges for a ramble alone. My host lent me his double barrel--one barrel being for shot, the other rifled.

"It is loaded," said he, "the right with shot, the left with ball."

"Very good," said I; "expect a tiger when I return."

My host smiled. Leopards were there, truly, but as he knew, and as I have elsewhere mentioned, they never show themselves except when driven out of their retreats by dogs. To say truth, I only wanted a walk, expected to kill a rabbit or a crow, and hoped faintly for a buck. None of