years ago!—a quarter of a century! What changes have come over South Africa in that time! Natal was little-known and scarcely heard of in England. The white population did not exceed one-half its present number of 30,000, and the greater part was overrun by Kaffirs, who were Zulus, similar to those of Zululand. Game of various kinds in plenty, lions were common, elephants, buffaloes, elands, wildebeests, quagga, and other antelopes, were numerous on the plains and long flats; leopards—here called tigers—wolves, jackals, and other beasts of prey, were heard nightly in the bush; and in the open rolling plains, under the Drakensberg range of mountains, that flank the western and northern boundary of the colony, springbok and blesbok, quagga and the gnu could be counted in thousands. Where are they now? Cleared from the face of the earth by the rifle, so that scarcely one is left, and those preserved that they should not be entirely exterminated. Beyond that magnificent and grand mountain range that rises in parts ten thousand feet above the sea-level, and extending several hundred miles in length, rearing its noble head far up in the clouds, and looking down as if guarding the beautiful and peaceful Natal at its feet. The scenery, especially on the western side, taking in the Giant and Champagne Castle and the lofty peaks to the north, few landscapes on earth can compare with it. Here the wild Bushmen lived in all their pristine glory; their home—the caves and kloofs in the gorges of mountains—far away from any other tribe, living by their poisoned arrows on game that comes within bowshot, and upon fruits and roots, which will be more particularly described in another chapter. Where are they now? Much like the game, exterminated by the rifle. They were then a great pest to the colonial people who kept stock near the foot of the mountain, for they would come down, after watching for days, mounted or on foot, and steal the cattle, killing all they could not carry off.
These Bushmen became such a pest that it was necessary to hunt them down. Two forces of a dozen men or more each were sent out under Captains Allison and Giles, and they got on their spoor after they had stolen a number of fine English-bred cattle and horses, many of which when they first escaped to the hills were found killed, when unable to keep up.
They tracked these Bushmen about on the hills in snow for some days, and at last the two parties met, and just before dark saw the Bushmen’s fires in caves. The parties slept on the ground, and in the morning saw a Bushman come out with a bridle to catch a horse. Suddenly, like Robinson Crusoe, he stood aghast seeing their spoor, threw down his bridle, and bolted to give the alarm. The Bushmen fought with their poisoned arrows, and as their sexes could not be distinguished in the bush, as they dress alike, all were killed, except one old woman, shot through the knee, who rode in as if nothing was wrong with her. She was cured, carried near to another tribe and turned out. No other Bushmen were ever seen after that in Natal. Previously one lad was shot through the shoulder and caught. He was never of any service, not even as an after-rider, though a splendid horseman, being quite unteachable. He never attempted to escape to his tribe, though he might easily have done so; and when taken out to track them, and coming on their caves, he broke their pots, a sign of displeasure among Kaffirs; and he said all he wanted was, to catch and kill his mother.
Starting.
Before starting on my memorable expedition, I procured some sail-cloth, to make a side-tent to my waggon, which formed a very comfortable retreat for my boys on wet nights. My driver, a fine young Zulu, could handle an ox-whip and give the professional crack to perfection. If not able to accomplish this feat, they are not considered efficient drivers. His name was Panda, after the great Zulu chief, and he was from all accounts a descendant of that renowned warrior, his father having fled into Natal some time before. He was now working to collect a sufficient number of heifers together to buy his first wife, a young Zulu maid living in a large kraal half a mile from his master’s farm. The forelooper, one who leads the two front oxen in dangerous places, and looks after the span when in the Veldt feeding and assists in inspanning, another fine young Zulu about eighteen, a handsome lad, was named Shilling. The other and third boy, younger, also a Zulu, I named Jim, as his other name was too long to use or recollect. After seeing some of my friends and saying good-bye, we make the first afternoon trek over the Town hill towards Howick, a very steep and stony road, full of ruts made by the heavy rains, and out on the rising ground beyond; where a magnificent view is obtained of the surrounding country and distant hills, of which Table Mountain, some twenty miles on the east of the city, stands out boldly in the landscape. There are several table mountains in Natal, so-called from their flat heads. My object when I commenced this journey was to push on with all speed to the foot of the Drakensberg Mountains, a distance of over 100 miles, cross the Berg at Van Reenen’s Pass, and make for Harrysmith in the Orange Free State, then determine where I should commence my journey of exploration. But I did not reach the foot of the mountain until the 12th of September, 1863, having deviated from the main transport road to visit some farmer friends, and take up one of the sons of an old “Colonial,” who had lived many years in the country as a stock-farmer, and who offered me his son as a guide, he being well acquainted with the country and people I proposed visiting. As he was a good driver and a good shot, as all colonials are, I was pleased to have his company, and being young, only seventeen, just the age to enjoy a rough and ready kind of life, it suited me exactly, so John Talbot was added to my little family. This detained me six days; as his mother wished to bake some biscuits for the road, also bread, and get some butter and other good things, I was quite agreeable to stay and go out with the old man to look up some game also, to supply my larder. So whilst the mother and her pretty daughter of true English blood, a year older than her brother John, were busy in the house, we men were also busy outside with our guns; besides large game, such as elands, koodoo, blesbok and springbok, we had excellent sport with the shot-guns, there being plenty of hares, partridges, pheasants, snipe, and ducks. The farm is situated on the Tugela river, and being some two miles from the foot of one of the spurs of the mountain, was out of the way of all traffic, and was as pretty a locality as any one could desire to live in; there was any quantity of fish, consequently there was no lack of fish, flesh, or fowl in this beautiful and quiet retreat.
The second morning of my arrival there, Mr Talbot and I, after taking coffee, saddled-up, as the sun was just peeping over the distant mountain tops in a blaze of gold and crimson light, with an atmosphere pure and clear, casting a brilliant reflection on all around,—a glorious sight to behold. This part of the world is famed for the lovely and varied tints which the sun produces in the sky in rising and setting, more particularly in the summer, forming celestial landscapes, marvellous to look upon, and grand in the extreme. On leaving the farm-house for our ride into the open plains to see if we could discover some elands, we met a Dutchman on horseback, with the usual companion rifle. After the morning greeting and shaking hands, he inquired if we had seen any stray calves about; finding we had not, he suspected the Bushmen had been down again from the mountains and had carried off two. He informed us that a neighbour of his, another Dutch farmer, a week or so before had lost some sheep, and he had traced them up into a deep kloof of the mountain, and came upon a family of Bushmen in the act of driving three of his sheep towards the hills, where he shot the two men and took a woman and two children, and brought them to his farm, making them drive the sheep back with them, and they were at his farm now.
Wishing to see them, we rode over, a distance of some seven miles, where we found them confined in an outhouse, squatting on the floor, looking anything but amiable; they were poor specimens of humanity. We had them brought out for a closer inspection. The woman was not old or young, of a yellowish-white colour, a few little tufts of wool on the head; eyes she had, but the lids were so closed they were not to be seen, although she could see between them perfectly; no nose, only two orifices, through which she breathed, with thin projecting lips, and sharp chin, with broad cheek-bones, her spine curved in the most extraordinary manner, consequently the stomach protruded in the same proportion, with thin, calfless legs, and with that wonderful formation peculiar to this Bushmen tribe, and slightly developed in the Hottentot and Korannas. The two little girls—the eldest did not seem more than ten or twelve—were of the same type, the woman measured four feet one inch in height. The old Boer wanted to shoot them, but his vrow wished to keep and make servants of them. Their language was a succession of clicks with no guttural sound in the throat, like that of the Hottentot and Koranna tribes, but both languages assimilated so closely
