Kruger’s post, through Buffel forest, which is hilly, and splendid timber trees cover the entire country, the scenery is grand and wild; quartz reefs crop out in all directions, sandstone, shale, and in some places limestone overlap the granite formation, which compose these lofty ridges of the Drakensberg; shale, which indicates the existence of coal, is frequently seen in the valleys, and along the Pongola river and its several branches.
I left Harrysmith on the 20th September, 1863, arriving on the banks of the Pongola river on the 16th October. In that time I had treked 350 miles, being delayed on the road shooting and exploring.
The people at Wakkerstroom wanted to know what I was doing in the country, as I did not handel (trade), and was not a smouser, the term applied to those who went about the country in waggons to sell and buy. They would not believe I came into the country for pleasure and to shoot, but I was set down as an English spy, as I took notes and made sketches of the country. When I showed them a small drawing of the town with the hill at the backhand people walking about, they held it upside down, and said it was mooi (pretty). Most of the Boers are very slow in comprehending anything, the women are much quicker, and turned the picture round, and knew it at once, as also some Kaffir girls, pointing to the figures, naming whom they represented with expressions of delight. Some of the girls seem to have a natural gift for drawing and the beauties of nature, pointing out with their finger various objects, and explaining to those around what the drawing represented. I have often thought that many of these bright Kaffir girls might make good artists with proper training. Mrs Colenso taught some to draw, paint, and play and sing. When they were about sixteen their father came for them, and they, quite delighted, ran off, stripped off their clothes, and went off naked, and never returned, just like some wild pigeons I had once tamed. They are also quite alive to the ridiculous: in the sketch were two horses playing, one standing with his fore-feet in the air; this caught their attention at once, causing great amusement, and imitating their action. They belonged to the Mantatees or Mahowas tribe, which is divided into many kraals under various chiefs, all subject to the head chief Secocoene, who lives on the north of Lydenburg. The Pongola skirts the Swazi, or, as it is sometimes called, the Amaswasiland, a very mountainous country; the people are Zulus, their habits and mode of fighting being the same. Many of these people came to my waggon with milk, which I took in exchange for tobacco and beads. The men are a fine manly race, and the women, many of them, good-looking, but very scanty in their dress, which is only a little strip of beads an inch wide. The Swazi country is situated between the eastern boundary of the Transvaal and the Amatonga, which is the northern part of Zululand, up to the Portuguese settlement in Delagoa Bay on the east side. It is governed by an independent chief, their laws and language being the same as the Zulus. The country has every indication of being rich in gold, some specimens of quartz I obtained from reefs running through the country looked very promising. The Pongola Bush, as it is called, is a beautiful forest of fine timber trees. Some of the most valuable are the Bosch Gorrah, of a scarlet colour, fine grain; Ebenhout, a sort of ebony; Borrie yellow, Bockenhout, no regular grain; Assagaai, used for spear handles; Wild Almond, Grelhout, Saffraan, Stinkwood, Speckerhout, Wild Fig, Umghu, Witgatboom, Tambooti; White Ironwood, very hard, and many others of great use for many purposes. The Pongola river is very pretty; passing down through a richly-wooded district, with its tributaries, flowing east and then north it joins the beautiful river Usutu, which enters the south side of Delagoa Bay. The Usutu river drains the greater portion of the Amaswasiland with its many branches; it rises on the east side of the Veldt and Randsberg, that is the continuation of the watershed from Natal, already described, which separates the waters of the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, some of the springs of the Usutu rising within a few miles of the upper springs of the Vaal, near Lake Crissie. The principal tributaries of the former river are the Umtaloos, Lobombo, Assagaai, Impeloose, Umkonto, and Umkompies, all uniting in the Swazi country; then it flows east, through a beautiful break in the Lobombo Mountains, and enters Delagoa Bay, as before described. For beauty of scenery and picturesque views, with the deep glens, ravines, and thickly wooded kloofs of every variety of tint, few views in Africa will surpass them, and some day, when the country is prospected, if the Swazis will permit it, I believe it will be found to be a rich gold-bearing country, both alluvial and in the quartz. I went several times into the river-beds to prospect, the natives following me, watching my actions, but of course not knowing what I was looking for. As the time was drawing short I left the Pongola, and treked down to Eland’s Neck, where the country was more open, and on a small branch of that river, close to a very pretty waterfall, are many fine tree-ferns, that grow to a great size. Here we were again in the clouds on the Elandsberg, at an elevation of 6000 feet, and overlooking Zululand, with the distant mountain in the background. With my boys to feed—and no small quantity satisfies them—the rifles were in constant use, and in an unknown country it is never safe to go any distance from the waggon without one. The Zulus have no other weapons than the assagai or knobkerrie. Wolves were nightly visitors; several we shot, but not a lion was to be seen or heard. There were many leopards and panthers in the mountains, but they did not trouble us. My driver being a Zulu as well as the other boys, I got on very well with the people at the kraals I passed, and the girls came without any fear. In fact we always got on well with them, having provided myself with brass wire and beads, the principal articles in demand, as clothes they do not wear. They are exceedingly clean in their persons, and very fond of bathing. One afternoon I saddled-up, and started for the open to get a buck. Passing through the bush to the river, I came upon nearly fifty black women bathing in the stream. Some scampered out on the other side, then stood and looked at the white man; the greater number kept in the water splashing about, for it was not deep enough to swim, and laughing and cheering, showing their beautiful white teeth, not in the least afraid. It is true I had been nearly a week outspanned near their two separate kraals, and they were daily at my waggon with milk, so that I was to a certain extent known to them, few white men being seen down so far in that part of Zululand.
November 30th.—It was time to make a move homewards. I therefore prepared for a start, and the following morning took the road towards Natal, stopping at Deepkloof on my way, leaving on the right some very picturesque and lofty hills; not a farm-house to be seen. Having shot plenty of game for the road to last many days, by turning it into biltong, pushed on early the next morning, passing down one of the most stony and difficult passes to be met with in Africa, running against trees, which had to be cut down, breaking one of the oxen’s horns, which had got fixed in the branches of a tree, and with difficulty I saved the waggon from being smashed. The view from this hill, looking west, was very fine, an open plain beneath us with lofty hills on the right and left, open to the south and west, where a distant view of the lofty peaks of the Drakensberg could be seen; the distance in a straight line being over eighty miles; so clear is the atmosphere they did not seem more than half that distance.
The next day about noon I came to a Boer farm, where we procured some milk, a little butter, and some meal. The comfortless manner in which these people live is surprising, and the dirt displayed about the premises would shock many a poor labourer at home. The old Boer asked, which is always the first question put after shaking hands, “What’s your name? where from? what have I up to handel (sell)?” After replying, “Then what’s the news?” This is the usual salutation at every Boer farm, and considering their isolation, a very practical one. Coffee is then handed round, and the tobacco-bag produced, to fill your pipe, as a matter of course. The old Boer complained sadly of the heavy storms that had passed over the country, and loss of cattle from lightning, the old vrow putting in a word occasionally; their three buxom daughters sat on boxes, looking at the stranger as if he were some unknown kind of animal from a strange land.
We crossed a small branch of the Buffalo river, leaving the Belslaberg mountains, covered with bush, on our right. At the back of this range is a mineral spring on the White river, which is a tributary of the Pongola, the water being warm when it issues from the ground.
On the morning of the 4th of December, 1863, I started for Natal, on my backward journey, and treked over an open country in two inspans, and arrived in the evening on the banks of the Buffalo river, which divides Natal from the Zulu country, and outspanned for the night, as I never travel after dark for two reasons: the first, I cannot see the country, and the
