look on his face, which seemed to say lie wished he could go away with us and leave his “farm” to itself; but in answer to questions there was always the same forlorn hope that the rain would fall some day; the same assurance that when it did fall it would bring better times. It is a common opinion that the colony will never do much good as long as the Boer element predominates; but I could not help thinking that if it were not for them the Karroo, at any rate in its present state, would be uninhabited, for no Englishman, could live on hope, while his hands were idle at his side. He would at least attempt to store up, against a dry day, some of the superfluous moisture of the wet seasons.
As a sort of set-off, I suppose, to this parched-up condition of the Karroo, I was told that in Calvinia and Fraserburg there had been no rain for three years.
“Oh, that is nothing,” interposed a well-informed man who knew South Africa. Up in Namaqualand no rain has been known to fall for twelve years, and the natives are reported to have devoured their children in the madness of thirst and starvation; while in Great Namaqualand there is a district where rain has never fallen.”
“Ah! I felt sure, all the time, that Hell could not be a great way off this place,” was all the answer I could give; “and as for those who are obliged to spend their lives here, they need have no fear of a future punishment.”
Leaving Beaufort West, we got among the mountains again, and left the Karroo behind us; the first evidence of that fact being seen in the occasional occurrence of a giant cactus, still green, in spite of old Sol’s rays,
Stupid Birds.
and in the increased height of the bushes which grew here and there. Shortly after passing Victoria West, a station some distance from the town of that name, we came to an ostrich-farm, situated on a small plateau. In front of the house was a small garden, in which grew a few stunted castor-bean plants, irrigated by water from the tank which fed the railway engine. I counted about thirty black male ostriches and as many grey-coloured females, some of which had six or eight chicks beside them. The whole paddock was surrounded by a low fence of wire and brushwood, not more than two feet high, but high enough to enclose these ‘‘stupid” birds, which do not seem to have enough sense to attempt—or, from the breeder’s point of view, are so sensible as not to attempt—to lift their long legs over this mimic hedge and be off.
These ostriches were the only living creatures, save the vultures, we had seen in a journey of 400 miles. This little irrigation tank was the only attempt to store surplus water in the same distance, and that, apparently, was due more to the necessities of the railway than to the enterprise of the ostrich-farmer. Indeed, the only good thing I saw on the whole journey to Hope Town—600 miles—was the railway. Well built and ballasted, and kept in thoroughly good order, it ‘‘rode” easily, and admitted of a good rate of speed being kept up. The whole distance was traversed in thirty-two hours, including stoppages— not at all a bad pace, considering the gradients in many cases were as much as one in forty.
About 10 p.m. we arrived at a station called De Aar, the junction with the Port Elizabeth line. Here we had to change, and bundling our things out on the
A Tight Fit.
platform in the dark, had an hour to wait for the train from Middleburg to convey ns to the north.
Travelling all night, we arrived at Hope Town—or rather the Orange River Terminus,” about nine miles from the river and the same from Hope Town—at 4 a.m., and here we had to exchange the railway for the coach to Kimberley, a distance of seventy miles. The mail-cart was sent off without delay, passengers having their choice of two regular coaches, one “run” by the mail contractors, Messrs. Gibson, and the other by the old South African pioneer, Mr. De Witt. The ordinary fare for the distance is 2l. 10s. for each passenger, and 4d. per lb. for all baggage over 25 lbs.
Mr. Caldecott had his own trap waiting for him, and was off next. The two coaches were soon filled to overflowing, so some of us went shares in hiring a special mule-waggon, which Mr. De Witt offered to “conduct” himself. There was just room for eight of us, and we were congratulating ourselves on getting a conveyance “made to order,” when two ladies begged to be allowed to join. Of course we could not refuse, and had all got nicely packed together when a young lady—Miss Pullinger, the daughter of the principal owner of the Dutoitspan Diamond Mine, and her little sister and brother—came up in great haste, having received an urgent telegram to go to Kim- berley at once. There was no other conveyance; would we make room just for three little ones? Mr. De Witt made no objection on behalf of the mules, so we made none on behalf of ourselves; and with a little judicious squeezing we packed ourselves in somehow.
The banks of the river are so steep that great care has to be exercised in driving down; if anything goes
Crossing the Orange River.
wrong with the break, there is nothing to prevent you going straight into the water. So on reaching the edge we dismounted, while the coach was driven down to the pont (Anglice, ferry, or floating bridge)—a flat-bottomed scow, attached by a pulley-block to a wire stretched tightly across the river. When we were “all aboard,” the bow of the scow was turned a little up-stream, and the force of the current took us across to the opposite shore—or rather to the edge of a sandbank about fifty feet wide, over which the male passengers were carried on the shoulders of a stalwart Zulu, while the ladies had the privilege of resuming their seats in the coach.
After the succession of waterless river-beds, the sight of the noble Orange River was quite a treat. The stream was only half-full, but the wide shelving banks of deep white sand, through which the mules laboriously dragged the coach, showed what a grand volume of water must roll down during the rainy season.
Slaking our thirst with ginger-beer—bought in a little shanty of corrugated iron, the inside temperature of which was that of an oven just ready for the bread to be put in—we resumed our seats on the coach, and the “slasher began his work. It takes two coachmen to drive a team in South Africa, one man holding the reins, and another using the whip—a stout cane with a hide lash, some six yards or more in length, more like a clumsy fishing-rod-and-line than a whip. Out of the whole team only the leaders and wheelers are under the direct control of the driver, the reins being merely passed through a loop in the harness of the intervening pairs; but the driver’s efforts are quite
Taking French Leave.
surpassed by those of the slasher, who, taking his weapon of torture in both hands, rends the air with his shouts and with the swishes and cracks and snaps of his whip.
After some hours of this ear-splitting performance we outspanned opposite a Boer’s house—a structure of sun-dried mud-bricks, somewhat similar to the houses I had seen in Mexico, where they are called adobes. It was a relief to be able to get down and stretch one’s legs, after being packed thirteen—not counting the drivers—in a waggon constructed for eight. On attempting to alight I found my legs so inextricably mixed up with Miss Pullinger’s that I hardly knew whether to jump down on hers or on my own; but everybody took the squeezing in good part, Miss Pullinger especially exciting our admiration by the plucky manner in which she bore the discomfort, holding, as she did, her two little charges on her lap all the time, but never complaining, and declining every offer of relief with a pleasant smile. It seemed a shame that such a treasure should have her lot cast in this country, instead of enjoying the comforts of England.
Knocking at the door, through which we could see the family at dinner, with a minister occupying the seat of honour, and finding the table was well filled, I asked in my bad Dutch if we could have dinner.
