Part 1 (1/2)
From Veldt Camp Fires.
by H.A. Bryden.
CHAPTER ONE.
A SECRET OF THE ORANGE RIVER.
Many are the stories told at the outspan fires of the South African transport riders--some weird, some romantic, some of native wars, some of fierce encounters with the wild beasts of the land. Often have we stopped for a chat with the rugged transport riders, and some strange and interesting information is obtained in this way.
The transport rider--the carrier of Africa--with his stout waggon and span of oxen, travels, year after year, over the rough roads of Cape Colony and beyond, in all directions, and is constantly encountering all sorts and conditions of men--white, black and off-coloured; and in his wanderings, or over his evening camp fire, he picks up great store of legend and adventure from the pa.s.sing hunters, explorers and traders.
One night, after a day's journey through the bush-veldt, we lay at a farmhouse, near which was a public outspan. At this outspan two transport riders were sitting snugly over their evening meal; they seemed a couple of cheery, good fellows--one an English Afrikander, the other an Englishman, an old University man, and well-read, as we afterwards discovered--and nothing would suit them but that we should join them and take pot-luck. Attracted by their hospitable ways and the enticing smell of their game stow, for we were none of us anthobians, we sat us down and ate and drank with vigorous appet.i.tes. Their camp-pot contained the best part of a tender steinbok, and a brace or two of pheasants (francolins); and we heartily enjoyed the meal, washed down with the inevitable coffee.
Supper finished, some good old Cango (the best home-manufactured brandy of the Cape, made in the Oudtshoorn district) was produced, pipes were lighted, and then we began to ”yarn.” For an hour or more we talked upon a variety of topics--old days in England, the voyage to the Cape, the Colony, its prospects and its sport.
From these, our conversation wandered up-country, and we soon found that our acquaintances were old interior traders, who in the days when ivory and feathers were more plentiful and more accessible than now, had over and over again made the journey to 'Mangwato and back. 'Mangwato, it may be explained, is the trader's abbreviation for Bamangwato, Khama's country, the most northerly of the Bechuana States; and of Bamangwato, Shoshong was formerly the capital and seat of trade. Then we wandered in our talk to the Kalahari, that mysterious and little known desert land, and from the Kalahari back to the Orange River again.
”'Tis strange,” said one of our number, ”how little is known of the Orange River--at all events west of the falls; I don't think I ever met a man who had been down it. One would think the colonists would know something of their northern boundary; as a matter of fact they don't.”
”Ah! talking of the Orange River, reminds me,” said the younger of the transport riders, the ex-Oxonian, and the more loquacious of the two, ”of a most extraordinary yarn I heard from a man I fell in with some years back, stranded in the 'thirstland,' north-west of Shoshong. Poor chap! he was in a sorry plight; he was an English gentleman, who for years had, from sheer love of sport and a wild life, been hunting big game in the interior. That season he had stayed too late on the Chobi River, near where it runs into the Zambesi, and with most of his people had got fever badly. They had had a disastrous trek out, losing most of their oxen and all their horses, and when I came across them they were stuck fast in the doorst-land (thirstland) unable to move forward or back. For two and a half days they had been without water, and from being in bad health to begin with, hadn't half a chance; and, if I had not stumbled upon them, they must all have been dead within fifteen hours. I had luckily some water in my vatjes, and managed to pull them round, and that night, leaving their waggon in the desert in hopes of being saved subsequently, and taking as much of the ivory and valuables as we could manage and Mowbray's (the Englishman's) guns and ammunition, we made a good trek, and reached water on the afternoon of the next day.
I never saw a man so grateful as Mowbray; I believe he would have done anything in the world for me after he had pulled round a bit. Poor chap! during the short time I knew him I found him one of the best fellows and most delightful companions I ever met. Unlike most hunters, he had read much and could talk well upon almost any subject, and his stories of life and adventure in the far interior interested and impressed me wonderfully. But the Zambesi fever had got too strong a hold upon him. I dosed him with quinine and pulled him together till we got to Shoshong, where I wanted him to rest, but he seemed restless and anxious to get out into the open veldt again, and after a few days we started away. Before we had got half-way down to Griqualand, Mowbray grew suddenly worse and died one evening in my waggon just at sunset.
We buried him under a kameel doom tree, covering the grave with heavy stones, and fencing it strongly with thorns to keep away the jackals and hyenas.
”Many and many a talk I had with poor Mowbray before he died; sometimes he would brighten up wonderfully and insist on talking to me for hours, as he lay well wrapped up, in the evening, underneath my waggon sail.
One evening, in particular, he had seemed so much stronger and better, and, later on, as we sat before the camp fire on the dewless ground, where I had propped him up and made him comfortable, he told me a most strange story, a story so wonderful that most people would scout and laugh at it as wildly improbable; yet, remembering well the narrator and the circ.u.mstances under which he told it to me, with the shadow of death creeping over the short remaining vista of his life, I believe most firmly his story to be true as gospel.
”Poor chap! He began in this way: 'Felton, you have been a thundering kind friend to me, kind and tender as any woman (which, by the way, was all nonsense), and I feel I owe you more than I am ever likely to repay; yet, if you want wealth, I believe I can put it in your way. Do you know the northern bank of the Orange River, between the great falls and the sea? No! I don't suppose you do, for very few people have ever trekked down it; still fewer have ever got down to the water from the great walls of desolate and precipitous mountain that environ its course, and, except myself and two others, neither of whom can ever reveal its whereabouts, I believe no mortal soul upon this earth has ever set eyes upon the place I am going to tell you about. Listen!
”In 1871, about the time the diamond fields were discovered, and people began to flock to Griqualand West, I was rather bitten with the mania, and for some months worked like a n.i.g.g.e.r on the fields; during that time I got to know a good deal about stones. I soon tired of the life, however, and finally sold my claim and what diamonds I had acquired, fitted up a waggon, gathered together some native servants, and trekked again for those glorious hunting grounds of the interior, glad enough to resume my old and ever-charming life. Amongst my servants was a little Bushman, Klaas by name, whom I afterwards found a perfect treasure at spooring and hunting. Like all true Bushmen, he was dauntless as a wounded lion, and determined as a rhinoceros, which is saying a good deal. I suppose Klaas had had more varied experience of South African life than any native I ever met. Originally, he had come as a child from the borders of the Orange River, where he had been taken prisoner in a Boer foray, in which nearly all his relations were shot down. He had then been 'apprenticed' in the family of one of his captors, where he had acquired a certain knowledge of semi-civilised life. From the Boer family of the back-country, he had subsequently drifted farther down into the colony, and thence into an elephant hunter's retinue. He had accompanied expeditions with Griquas, Dutch and Englishmen all over the far interior. The Kalahari desert, Ovampo-land, Lake Ngami, the Mababi veldt, and the Zambesi country, were all well known to him, for in all of them he had traded, hunted and, on occasion, fought. As for the Western Orange River and its mysteries--for it is a mysterious region--he knew it, as I afterwards discovered, better than any man in the world. Well, we trekked up to Matabeleland and, after some trouble, got permission to hunt there; and a fine time we had, getting a quant.i.ty of ivory, and magnificent sport among lions, elephants, buffaloes, rhinoceros, sable and roan antelopes, koodoo, eland, Burch.e.l.l's zebras, pallah and all manner of smaller game.
”One day, Klaas, who was sometimes a bit too venturesome, got caught in the open by a black rhinoceros, a savage old bull. The old brute charged and slightly tossed him, making a nasty gash in his right thigh, but not fairly getting his horn under him, and was just turning to finish the poor little, beggar, when I luckily nicked in. I had seen the business and had had time to rush out on to the plain, and, just as Borele charged at poor Klaas to finish him off as he lay, I got up within forty yards, let drive, and, as luck would have it, dropped him with a 500 Express bullet behind the shoulder. Even then the fierce brute recovered himself and tried to charge me in turn, but he was now disabled and I soon settled his game. After that episode Klaas proved himself about the only grateful native I ever heard of, and seemed as if he couldn't do enough for me.
”One day, after he had got over his wound, he came to me, and said, 'Sieur! you said one day that you would like to know whether there are diamonds anywhere else than at New Rush (as Kimberley was then called).
Well, sieur, I have been working at New Rush and I know what diamonds are like; and I can tell you where you can find as many of them in a week's search as you may like to pick up. Allemaghte! Ja, it is as true, sieur, as a wilde honde on a hartebeest's spoor.'
”'What the devil do you mean, Klaas!' said I, turning sharply round--for I was mending the disselboom (waggon-pole)--to see if the Bushman was joking. But on the contrary, Klaas's little weazened monkey face wore an expression perfectly serious and apparently truthful. The statement seemed strange, for I knew the little beggar was not given to 'blowing,'
as so many of the Kaffirs and Totties are.
”'Ja, sieur, it is truth; if ye will so trek with me to the Groote (Orange) River, three or four days beyond the falls, I will show you a place where there are hundreds and hundreds of diamonds, big ones, too, many of them to be found lying about in the gravel. I have played with them and with other ”mooi steins” too, often and often as a boy, when I used to poke about here and there, up and down the Groote River. My father and grandfather lived near the place I speak of, and I know the way to the ”vallei” where these diamonds are well, though no one but myself knows of them; for I found them by a chance, and, selfish like, never told of my child's secret. I will take you to the place if you like.'
”'Are you really speaking truth, Klaas?' said I severely.
”'Ja! Ja! sieur, I am, I am,' he earnestly and vehemently reiterated, 'you saved my life from the ”rhenoster” the other day, and I don't forget it.'
”Again and again I questioned and cross-questioned the little Bushman, and finally convinced myself of his truth; and I had too much respect for his keen intelligence to think he was himself misled or mistaken.
”'Well, Klaas,' said I at last, 'I believe you, and we'll trek down to the Orange River and see this wonderful diamond valley of yours.'
”Shortly after this conversation we came back to Shoshong, where I sold my ivory, and then, with empty waggon and the oxen refreshed by a good rest, set our faces for the river. From Shoshong, in Bamangwato, we trekked straight away across the south-eastern corner of the Kalahari, in an oblique direction, pointing south-west; it was a frightfully waterless and tedious journey, especially after pa.s.sing the Langeberg, which we kept on our left hand. Towards the end of the journey we found no water at a fountain where we had expected to obtain it, and thereby lost four out of twenty-two oxen (for I had six spare ones), and at last, after trekking over a burning and most broken country, we were beyond measure thankful to strike the river some way below the great falls. Klaas had led us to a most beautiful spot, where the terrain slopes gradually to the river (the only place for perhaps thirty or forty miles where the water, shut in by mighty mountain walls, can be approached), and where we could rest and refresh ourselves and our oxen.