Part 12 (2/2)
CHAPTER NINE.
OFF TO THE HIGHLANDS AND BLACK SNAKES IN THE BUSH.
While the settlers of this section were thus scattering far and wide, in more or less numerous groups, over the fertile plains of Lower Albany, the Scotch party was slowly, laboriously, toiling on over hill and dale, jungle and plain, towards the highlands of the interior.
The country through which the long line of waggons pa.s.sed was as varied as can well be imagined, being one of the wildest and least inhabited tracts of the frontier districts. The features of the landscape changed continually from dark jungle to rich park-like scenery, embellished with graceful clumps of evergreens, and from that again to the sterility of savage mountains or parched and desert plains. Sometimes they plodded wearily over the karroo for twenty miles or more at a stretch without seeing a drop of water. At other times they came to a wretched mud hovel, the farm-house of a boer, near a permanent spring of water.
Again, they were entangled among the rugged, roadless gorges and precipices of a mountain range, through which no vehicle of European construction could have pa.s.sed without absolute demolition, and up parts of which the Cape-waggons were sometimes compelled to go by means of two teams,--that is, from twenty to thirty or more oxen,--being attached to each. At other times they had to descend and re-ascend the precipitous banks of rivers whose beds were sometimes quite dry and paved with mighty boulders.
”It's an unco' rough country,” observed Sandy Black to Charlie Considine, as they stood watching the efforts of a double team to haul one of their waggons up a slope so rugged and steep that the mere attempt appeared absolute madness in their eyes.
Considine a.s.sented, but was too much interested in the process to indulge in further remark.
”Gin the rope brek,” continued Sandy, ”I wadna gie muckle for the waggon. It'll come rowin' an' stottin' doon the hill like a bairn's ba'.”
”No fear of the rope,” said Hans Marais, as he pa.s.sed at the moment to render a.s.sistance to Ruyter, Jemalee, b.o.o.by, and some others, who were shouting at the pitch of their voices, and plying the long waggon-whips, or the short sjamboks, with unmerciful vigour.
Hans was right. The powerful ”trektow” stood the enormous strain, and the equally powerful waggon groaned and jolted up the stony steep until it had nearly gained the top, when an unfortunate drop of the right front wheel into a deep hollow, combined with an unlucky and simultaneous elevation of the left back wheel by a stone, turned the vehicle completely over on its side. The hoops of the tilt were broken, and much of the lading was deposited in a hollow beside the waggon, but a few of the lighter and smaller articles went hopping, or, according to Sandy Black, ”stottin'” down the slope, and were smashed to atoms at the bottom.
Ruyter, b.o.o.by, and Jemalee turned towards Hans Marais with a shrinking action, as if they expected to feel the sjambok on their shoulders, for their own cruel master was wont on occasions of mischance such as this to visit his men with summary punishment; but Hans was a good specimen of another, and, we believe, much more numerous cla.s.s of Cape-Dutchmen.
After the first short frown of annoyance had pa.s.sed, he went actively to work, to set the example of unloading the waggon and repairing the damage, administering at the same time, however, a pretty sharp rebuke to the drivers for their carelessness in not taking better note of the form of the ground.
That night in talking over the incident with Ruyter, Considine ventured again to comment on the wrongs which the former endured, and the possibility of redress being obtained from the proper authorities.
”For I am told,” he said, ”that the laws of the colony do not now permit masters to lash and maltreat their slaves as they once did.”
Ruyter, though by nature a good-humoured, easy-going fellow, was possessed of an unusually high spirit for one of his race, and could never listen to any reference to the wrongs of the Hottentots without a dark frown of indignation. In general he avoided the subject, but on the night in question either his wonted reticence had fled, or he felt disposed to confide in the kindly youth, from whom on the previous journey from Capetown he had experienced many marks of sympathy and good-will.
”There be no way to make tings better,” he replied fiercely. ”I knows noting 'bout your laws. Only knows dey don't work somehow. Allers de same wid _me_ anyhow, kick and cuff and lash w'en I's wrong--sometimes w'en I's right--and nebber git tanks for noting.”
”But that is because your master is an unusually bad fellow,” replied Considine. ”Few Cape farmers are so bad as he. You have yourself had experience of Hans Marais, now, who is kind to every one.”
”Ja, he is good master--an' so's him's fadder, an' all him's peepil--but what good dat doos to me!” returned the Hottentot gloomily. ”It is true your laws do not allow us to be bought and sold like de slaves, but dat very ting makes de masters hate us and hurt us more dan de slaves.”
This was to some extent true. At the time we write of, slavery, being still permitted in the British colonies, the Dutch, and other Cape colonists, possessed great numbers of negro slaves, whom it was their interest to treat well, as being valuable ”property,” and whom most of them probably did treat well, as a man will treat a useful horse or ox, though of course there were--as there always must be in the circ.u.mstances--many instances of cruelty, by pa.s.sionate and brutal owners. But the Hottentots, or original natives of the South African soil, having been declared unsaleable, and therefore not ”property,”
were in many cases treated with greater degradation by their masters than the slaves, were made to work like them, but not cared for or fed like them, because not so valuable. At the same time, although not absolute slaves, the Hottentots were practically in a state of servitude, in which the freedom accorded to them by Government had, by one subterfuge or another, been rendered inoperative. Not long before this period the colonists possessed absolute power over the Hottentots, and although recent efforts had been made to legislate in their favour, their wrongs had only been mitigated,--by no means redressed. Masters were, it is true, held accountable by the law for the treatment of their Hottentots, but were rarely called to account; and the Hottentots knew too well, from sad experience, that to make a complaint would be in many cases worse than useless, as it would only rouse the ire of their masters and make them doubly severe.
”You say de Hottentots are not slaves, but you treat us all de same as slaves--anyhow, Jan Smit does.”
”That is the sin of Jan Smit, not of the British law,” replied Considine.
Ruyter's face grew darker as he rejoined fiercely, ”What de use of your laws if dey won't work? Besides, what right hab de white scoundril to make slave at all--whether you call him slave or no call him slave.
Look at Jemalee!”
The Hottentot pointed with violent action to the Malay, who, with a calm and sad but dignified mien, stood listening to the small-talk of b.o.o.by, while the light of the camp-fire played fitfully on their swarthy features.
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