even in the profoundest peace, a cattle-lifter lurks in every kloof or ravine. When the oxen are required, the foreloper seeks an eminence and cracks his whip loudly three times; the docile beasts, if not hurried by the guard, graze their way slowly in to be inspanned or harnessed for the road. A ride along the river's banks during this interval, an inquisitive loitering in the footsteps of the hippopotamus, a few glimpses of smaller game, an unsuccessful attempt upon the stronghold of a panther, a sultry march resumed-and that night my detachment of grenadiers rejoining their comrades, many a marvellous tale was interchanged of this new land of wonders. Long ere we reached Graham's Town the next day, whence our head quarters were about to march to embark for Cape Town, my brother subaltern and myself had taken council together, and resolved to procure leave of absence, and journey there overland. We had begun at the remote outposts beyond, it was now our desire to explore within the colony. The few days of thirsty marching from Algoa Bay, where we had been landed, to the scene of our late adventures, had given us little insight into the characteristics of the colony; that march had been through Albany, the most recent settlement, and almost exclusively English, our curiosity was directed more towards the Dutch provinces, about which we were determined to wander as long as our horses would last, keeping Cape Town lazily in view as our ultimate object. We were both dead lame, I from spurring a jaded hack on patrol after some Kafir robbers, my companion from rheumatism, a malady which frequently afflicts those to whom the bush habits of South Africa are new, neither had either of us yet made ourselves acquainted with the discordant intricacies of Cape Dutch, nevertheless we girded up our loins for the journey. Our preparations were few, our introduction to the gipsy life of the frontier had been sudden, but we had become thereby better used to roughing it, and our wants were the fewer. Equipped with our guns, and riding one horse each and leading another, which carried a pack, we made our first step, but we had not gone a hundred yards before the contents of the latter were flying in every direction about the road. To arrange a packsaddle, though a simple operation, requires no small skill, and we only became perfect in its mysteries by repeated disasters. Off at length we went, and turned our backs upon the melancholy metropolis of the frontiers. Graham's Town, though a populous and flourishing town, has a singularly desolate aspect; through the improvidence of its first founders, the neighbourhood is entirely denuded of timber and bush, and the nakedness is becoming daily more extended with the increasing demand for fire-wood. Never shall I forget the dreary sensations with which, from the latter part of the hundred miles' march from Algoa Bay, I looked down upon its straggling entanglement of whitewashed walls at the intersection of half-a-dozen broad barren tracks, the highways to and fro, and contemplated my future dwelling-place, but that fate is averted, and Graham's Town is now out of sight; on we went at a canter, the usual travelling pace of the country, along a road where art had done little, but where nature had furnished a hard clay surface, the best possible for riding; in the champaign country a single waggon first traces a line of road, a few others in succession following its wheel-marks, soon obliterate the scanty vegetation, and the road is established brown and palpable. In bush and forest the elephants were the first road-makers, man has only adapted the old game tracks to his waggon wheels. Bathurst is about thirty miles from Graham's Town; the scenery about is parkish, and as we passed along ruined cottages, torn hedges of pommegranite, fig-trees, peach blossoms and flowering shrubs sprouting up," where once the garden smiled," attested the marauding hand of the Kafir, and new buildings in progress, gardens freshly fenced in, and rising crops, the fertility of the soil and the happy effects of the infant peace. Unlike any part that we had hitherto seen, the country seemed well watered; a detachment of our regiment here occupied the church; we pulled up under the shade of our brother officer's fig-tree, which he had established before a rural cottage, not far distant, amid better fare than had fallen to our lot in our remote outposts, where my portion at least had been tough goats' flesh and wild onions. The bush, along the banks of the Kowie, which runs near Bathurst, is full of game, not being yet deserted even by the elephant and buffalo. The river is navigable for small vessels some miles up, but is afflicted with a locked jaw, in the shape of a bar at the mouth, devices for the cure of which seemed to engross the ingenuity of the inhabitants, and upon their success it was to depend whether Bathurst was to rise among towns or to be numbered among villages for ever. Lemons, limes, oranges, fruit, and vegetables of all kinds seemed to luxuriate in the convalescent gardens of the inhabitants. The churchyard was yet fortified and filled with the tents of our detachment, two small store forts overlooking the town. We started next morning accompanied by our brother officer and a Cape mounted rifleman guide, traversed the Kowie bush and emerged into a prairie country beyond, agreeably interspersed with patches of bush. We had gained the brow of a hill, and were looking down into a green valley below, along which ran a rivulet half concealed by clumps of mimosas and willows, when we were challenged by a baboon, and immediately a duiker antelope bounding off plunged into the bush at one side, and an awkward scamper took place along the water's edge at the other, this turned out to be the troop of baboons whose sentry had given the alarm; they made straight for the opposite hill where there was a patch of jungle, and were on the point of reaching it, when a greyhound which had followed us out and had immediately rushed after the troop, overtook and seized one of the young ones, which lagged behind. The whole troop turned without hesitation, rushed upon the dog, and we rode up barely in time to rescue him from the angry relatives; the greyhound held on gallantly till his victim squealed his last squeal. Deceased measured three feet and a half from head to heel, and as he had appeared very small among the troop, some of the full grown satyrs must have been formidable fellows. baboon has immense jaws and powerful arms, and is well able to use both. Our dog would have got off but badly if his victim had arrived at man's estate. We here off saddled to give our horses a roll and a mouthful of grass and handed over the little libel upon humanity to the Cape mounted guide to flay. The Here our companion turned back with the guide, and we were left to pursue our route alone; on we galloped over extensive plains, where many a herd of spring bocs, starting into motion as we appeared in sight, moved warily off to our right and left, and occasionally a reit boc, roused by the distant clatter of our horses' hoofs would spring out of the sedge and bound across our path. The plains became thinly scattered with mimosa bushes, and we reached Salem, a pretty village, like Bathurst, fast recovering from the Kafir irruption; pushing on hence without a halt, we missed our path, and getting entangled among a succession of kloofs, or ravines clad in intricate jungle, we were obliged, towards sunset, to select a spot where there was wood and water for a bivouac. We picketed our horses where the grass was thickest, built a gipsy tent of our cloaks and a few boughs, lighted a fire, cooked our coffee, and made the most of the scanty contents of our saddle bags. The night was fine; we heard the moan of the hyæna and the jackal's querulous bark, but our slumbers were not on that account much abridged; although a simultaneous snorting and uneasiness among our horses did oblige us once to get up in some doubt as to whether the intentions of the former were honourable. We found the spoor, or footprint along the edge of a pool, within a few paces of us the next morning, but the hyæna will seldom attack a horse that is tied, when being unable to use his heels in running away, he has them all to spare for kicking; and the savage has no stomach for mankind except in a posthumous form. We rose with the first dawn. To be benighted in so fine a climate as that of the Cape is no great misfortune at any time, but in such weather as we now enjoyed the mischance only heightened the enjoyment of our journey. Off we started across a broad plain, a few straggling spring bocs or an unfrequent oreby alone giving life to the still scene, or a Kafir finch labouring under the weight of his long black tail, and fluttering among the patches of reeds, or a party of graceful blue cranes (the same whose drooping elbow plumes are used for the head dress of the Kafir warrior), which kept at a respectful distance, receding as we advanced. The sun became intensely hot, and our horizon was occasionally broken by the glancing mirage; a few farm houses, abandoned, and far between, were passed, and we at length joined the high road or track. Here, as we rested ourselves by a muddy pool or vley, called by some unintelligible but tantalising figure of speech, Sweet milk Fountain, the day being excessively sultry, and the reverberation from the deep sands intolerable, the friendly interposition of Providence sent us by the hand of a fair widow who was travelling in her waggon, and whose husband had been killed in the Kafir war, a bottle of beer, the true nepenthe under a scorching sun, to gladden our hearts. The memory of her name, alas! is gone from me, but that of her benevolence, her beauty, and her beer is deposited in an oasis of oblivion's waste, and the act is no doubt noted to her credit by the recording angel. On went the saddles again, and our course was resumed till we arrived at Bosjesman's River (the river being invisible), here the Kafirs had received their first check from the colonial force, and consequently the spot was classic ground for the time: we remained an hour or two at the small inn conversing with the crazy hostess, and galloped off to a farmer's on the Quagga Flats to spend the night. The worthy host, an English settler, himself a keen sportsman, entered at once into our views, which were directed towards the game, said to abound in the plains around, and which we wanted to see at least; he willingly shared with us his "res angusta domi," and the conversation ran till a late hour upon gunpowder and wild beasts. The Quagga Flats were, a few years ago, the fabulous ground for the wild sports of South Africa. The quagga has retreated over the border. The eland, several hundred miles further, a few herds of spring boc are all that now remain, and a few elephants, buffaloes, and ostriches yet linger between these plains and the jungle of Sunday's River. The spring boc, which in some parts of the colony is so numerous as to form migratory herds as much dreaded as the plague of locusts, is the most beautiful of the antelope kind. His height is somewhat less than that of the fallow deer, and his horns are curved gracefully into the form of a lyre; at rest he is of a bright fawn colour, with a dark brown band extending from the elbow to the hip, but when excited he possesses the power of erecting an under coat of long hair of dazzling whiteness, extending over his back and croup, and displaying this he goes off with a succession of bounds, from which he derives his name. The surface of the Quagga Flats is undulating, and by riding hard up to the tops of each ridge, and creeping over their brows under cover of an ant hill, we managed to get some shots at the straggling herds beneath. The ant hills form a marked feature in an African scene, the surface is covered with them in myriads three or four feet high, and each with a large hole at its base, the burrow of the ant bear; in following the game I became separated from the rest of my party; I had left my horse, which I had imagined to be a steady shooting horse, to look over one of these ant hills into the valley beyond. Now the duty of a Cape shooting horse is, if pulled up after a sharp gallop, and left with his bridle over his head, to stand as steady as a rock, even for half an hour till his rider returns to seek him. When I returned for mine he allowed me to come within a few paces, then gave me an impertinent look, and leisurely trotting off with his head on one side that the trailing-reins might not interfere with his action, he resumed his grazing a hundred paces off. The horse was evidently a rogue; here I found myself alone, lame, and under a burning sun, compelled to follow and find myself baffled at each effort to remount. I was on the point of giving up in despair when the distant crack of a waggon whip struck upon my ear; the waggon shortly made its appearance over the horizon, and with the assistance of the driver I effected a recapture, and ascertained the bearing of the farmer's house. I rejoined the rest of the party as the farmer's horses were being driven into the horse kraal. The farmer pointed out two or three colts that had been torn by the hyænas, and spoke bitterly of one enormously large, which had hitherto eluded all his devices for its capture, vowing that the first time they met it should be a mortal conflict. The hyæna, or wolf, as he is here called, has here, as well as among the ancients, the vulgar reputation of being an hermaphrodite; he is heard in great numbers at night but is seldom seen by day; the Hottentots expressively say of them that "they are ashamed," to look any one straight in the face; they are partial to horse-flesh, but never attack an animal that will face them. They are known to follow travellers on horseback for hours at night, cantering behind them, in hopes of one of the led horses taking fright and breaking away, in which case it is their custom, being both strong and swift, to seize him by the flank and drag him down. An acquaintance whom I had met during my brief sojourn in Kafirland, had been followed during an entire night by five or six of them, at whom he fired several times, but with uncertain aim, the night being dark, and still, whenever he looked behind him the same gloomy savage figures were pattering along close at his heels. We left the worthy farmer's in the cool of the evening, when two hours' canter through alternate belts of bush and tracts of brown barrenness brought us to Sunday's River, the river not being quite invisible like the Bosjesman's, but a chain of pools, though subject at times like the Fish River, to violent floods. We found here an indifferent inn, where the hostess was very voluble, and where the ostler, who was called Mr. Watts, could with difficulty be induced to look after our horses. The country around was covered with a dense bush of the thorny mimosa with its six-inch spines, flowering shrubs, and aloes with long cone-shaped orange blossoms, and green gray monkeys frolicked about the banks of the river, and sat in the boughs watching us as we passed the ford, with their arms affectionately round each other's necks. Our journey onwards lay through dry rocky hills each greener spot marked by the fires of a bivouac or outspan of waggons, while the sluggish vulture rose from his feast upon the carcase of some luckless bullock that had perished upon the roadside from fatigue and bad weather, and soared with his broad wings lazily over our heads. Descending the hills we traversed a wide tract, the surface of which was creeping with small tortoises and thinlyclad in a scanty vegetation of Hottentot figs, or mesembrianthimum, with gaudy blossoms of yellow and pink; the note of a bugle struck our ears, we passed through a dark jungle, and emerging upon the brow of a hill, espied below us the white tents and red uniforms of our regiment encamped picturesquely upon the Swart Kops River. That night we made a sacrifice to the jolly god, and before the sun arose next day we were on our march for Fort Elizabeth. At the entrance of that most villanous of towns, the band being met by the female rabble of the place, the latter naked, half-naked, and threequarter naked, black, brown, yellow, and brindled-Kafir, Hottentot, Bosjeswoman, and mongrel-but all rejoicing in that extravagant development before alluded to, to which the flesh of woman and sheep is heir at the Cape; these all preceded us in a barbaresque polonaise, in which all kept admirable time, breaking occasionally into a waltz with a great deal of laughable grace, and these wild figurantes continued the extempore ballet, shaking their fragrance to the gale before us till the regiment drew up along the beach for embarkation. GOOD NIGHT! BY F. A. B. Good night, but dream not, lest the clinging form, In that long look of helpless, hopeless pain. |