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diff --git a/36422.txt b/36422.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f97eb75 --- /dev/null +++ b/36422.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5072 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Lodges in the Wilderness, by William Charles Scully + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lodges in the Wilderness + +Author: William Charles Scully + +Release Date: June 13, 2011 [EBook #36422] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LODGES IN THE WILDERNESS *** + + + + +Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England + + + + +Lodges in the Wilderness +By William Charles Scully +Published by Herbert Jenkins Limited, London. +This edition dated 1915. + +Lodges in the Wilderness, by William Charles Scully. + +________________________________________________________________________ + +________________________________________________________________________ +LODGES IN THE WILDERNESS, BY WILLIAM CHARLES SCULLY. + + + +CHAPTER ONE. + +THE BUSHMANLAND DESERT--ITS NATURE AND EXTENT--DESERT TRAVELLING--THE +"TOA." + +The world moves rapidly and with increasing momentum. Even regions +remote from those communities which the stress of increasing population +and the curse of unleisured industrialism send spinning "down the +ringing grooves of change," are often so disturbed or overwhelmed by the +overflow of what threatens to be an almost worldwide current of morbid +energy, that within a strangely short period their character is apt +completely to alter and their individuality to become utterly destroyed. + +I do not know how the Great Bushmanland Desert has fared in this +respect--not having visited it for several years--but if some unlikely +combination of circumstances were to take me once more to Aroegas or +Koisabies,--to the tiny spring of living water that trickles from the +depths and lies like a precious jewel hidden in the dark, narrow cavern +at Inkruip,--or to where the flaming, red-belted cone of Bantom Berg +glares over the dragon-folds of the dune-devil sprawling at its feet, I +should go in fear of finding empty sardine-tins and broken bottles lying +among the fragments of prehistoric pottery and flint implements which +were but recently the only traces of man to be found in those abodes of +solitude. + +The Bushmanland Desert is but little-known. A few nomads--some of +European and some of mixed descent--hang on its fringe. Here and there +ephemeral mat-house villages, whose dwellers are dependent on the sparse +and uncertain bounty of the sky, will, perhaps, be found for a season. +But when the greedy sun has reclaimed the last drop of moisture from +shallow "pan" or sand-choked rock-saucer, the mat-houses are folded up +and, like the Arabs, these dwellers steal silently away from the +blighting visage of the Thirst King. But the greater portion of +Bushmanland may be ranked among the most complete solitudes of the +earth. The lion, the rhinoceros, and, in fact, most of the larger +indigenous fauna have disappeared from it--with the autochthonous pygmy +human inhabitants; nevertheless it is a region full of varied and +distinctive interest. The landscape consists either of vast plains, +mirage-haunted and as level as the sea,--arid mountain ranges--usually +mere piles of naked rock, or immense sand-dunes, massed and convoluted. +The latter often change their form and occasionally their location under +stress of the violent winds which sweep down from the torrid north. + +The tract is an extensive one, probably upwards of 50,000 square miles +lie within its limits. It is bounded on the north by the Gariep or +Orange River--but as that flows and eddies at the bottom of a tremendous +gorge which is cut off from the plains by a lofty, stark range of +mountains,--coal-black in colour for their greater extent and glowing +hot throughout the long, cloudless day, the traveller seldom sees it. +The western boundary is the Atlantic Ocean; the eastern an imaginary +line drawn approximately south from the Great Aughrabies Falls to the +Kat Kop Range. If we bisect this line with another drawn due east from +the coast to the Lange Berg, we shall get a sufficiently recognisable +boundary on the south. From the tract so defined must be deducted the +small area surrounding the Copper Mines, and a narrow strip of mountain +land running parallel with, and about sixty miles from the coast. This +strip is sparsely inhabited by European farmers. + +The occasional traversing of this vast tract lay within the scope of my +official duties. My invariable travelling companion was Field Cornet +Andries Esterhuizen (of whom more anon) and a small retinue of police, +drivers, and after-riders. We never escaped hardship; the sun scorched +fiercely and the sand over which we tramped was often hot enough to cook +an egg in. Water, excepting the supply we carried with us, was as a +rule unobtainable; consequently we had to eschew washing completely. We +often had to travel by night so as to spare the oxen, and as the +water-casks usually almost filled the wagon, we then had to tramp, +vainly longing for sleep, through long, weary hours, from sunset to +sunrise. And after the sun had arisen the heat, as a rule, made sleep +impossible. + +It was to the more inaccessible--and therefore comparatively inviolate-- +expanses of this wilderness that I was always tempted to penetrate. +Therein were to be found a scanty flora and a fauna--each unusual and +distinctive,--composed of hardy organisms, which an apprenticeship from +days unthinkably ancient had habituated to their most difficult +conditions of existence. If, somewhere near the margin of the great +central plain, we happened to cross the track of a vagrant thunderstorm, +we would see myriads of delicately-petalled blossoms miraculously +surviving, like the Faithful Rulers of Babylon in the Fiery Furnace. On +the flank of some flaming sand-dune we would find the tulip-like blooms +of the Gethyllis flourishing in leafless splendour. Their corollas were +of crystalline white splashed with vivid crimson; deep in each goblet +lay the clustered anthers,--a convoluted mass of glowing gold. Is this +flower a grail, bearing beauty too ineffable to die, through an arid +aeon from one cycle of fertility to another? + +Sometimes our course led over tracts of sand--sand so light and powdery +that the foot sank into it ankle-deep at every step. Occasionally we +crossed high, abrupt ridges of black or chocolate-hued rock, separated +from each other by gorges so deep that except at noontide, no sunbeam +penetrated them. But usually our course lay across plains, infinite in +extent. In the Summer season such were covered with heavy-headed shocks +of "toa" grass,--yellow or light green in hue, according to the more or +less scanty rainfall. But in Winter all the waving plumes crumbled +away, leaving the bases of the tussocks as black as pitch. Where the +hills and the plains met, stood groves of immense dragon aloes--some +cumbered with nests of the sociable grossbeak--each as large as a +hayrick. + +The lordly oryx crossed our path; the ungainly hartebeest lumbered away +to windward at a pace which made pursuit hopeless; the gazelles of the +desert fled before us like thistledown borne on an eddying wind. The +roofs of many a city of desert mice sank beneath our footsteps and the +horned adder hissed defiance at our caravan from his home at the +tussock's base. We crossed the zig-zag track made by the yellow cobra +when prowling in the darkness. The plumed ostrich scudded away at our +approach, the great bustard of the Kalihari spread his powerful wings +and flew forth heavily until he almost crossed the horizon, and the +"kapok vogeltje," no bigger than a wren, twittered at us from his seat +of cunning on the outside of the simulated snowball which is his nest. + +We did not fear the poisoned arrows of the Bushmen, for that strange +race which formerly occupied the scenes of our wanderings had long since +disappeared from the face of the earth. Within the wide bounds of that +tract to which the Bushman gave his name, there existed but two +individuals of his race,--an old, withered, toothless man, and a bent +and ancient crone. These wraiths, who subsisted on roots, reptiles and +insects, still haunted the mountains near Dabienoras, and levied a kind +of toll on the very occasional traveller. This took the form of a +trifling contribution of tobacco and sugar. + + + +CHAPTER TWO. + +ANDRIES ESTERHUIZEN--SILVERFONTEIN--THE KOEKER-BOOM--GAMOEP-- +SAND-GROUSE--OUR HORSES--KANXAS--NIGHT IN THE DESERT--DAWN--HEAT--THE +MIRAGE--BANTOM BERG--THE DUNE-MONSTER--THE FLIGHT OF THE OXEN. + +Andries Esterhuizen had lived all his life on the fringe of Bushmanland. +His farm, Silverfontein, which lay a little more than twenty miles from +the Ookiep Mines, had been for many years the principal jumping-off +place for expeditions to the desert. Andries was a Field Cornet,--an +office which empowered him to arrest offenders against the law. He was +a typical Boer of the better class. Large-boned and tall, his increased +bulk had for several years prevented his doing that which his soud loved +above all else,--riding down a herd of oryx. His blue, laughing eyes +shone from a ruddy face. His brown beard was streaked with grey. His +great fist could have felled an ox; the tempest of his laughter was like +the neighing of war-steeds. + +Andries sent his ox-wagon to fetch my guns and baggage. Next day I +followed in a cart drawn by four strong horses, for heavy stretches of +sand had to be crossed before reaching Silverfontein. + +On arrival there I met with a hearty welcome. The wagon stood, fully +packed, before the farm-house door. The heaviest and most important +item of the load was three casks of water, for we were about to enter +and encamp in the deadly dune-veld where Thirst is a king who has +reigned supreme since the world was young. We meant to storm his strong +city and occupy it for a season,--well knowing, however, that we should +soon have to retire, leaving his ancient realm unconquered and +unspoiled. As we did not mean to be luxurious, our commissariat list +only included coffee, sugar, salt and "Boer-biscuits" (a kind of coarse +but exceedingly palatable rusk). Of these Mrs Esterhuizen had +manufactured enough to fill three immense linen sacks. For meat we +should have to depend upon our guns. + +The country surrounding Silverfontein was wild and rugged. Long, dyked +ridges, foam-tipped with snow-white quartzite rocks, stretched away to +infinity, north and south; here and there a naked granite finger pointed +to the cloudless sky. On the western side these ridges seemed to break +like waves against the enormous bronze-hued bastions of the +Kamiesbergen; on the eastward they sank by degrees into the ocean-like +expanse of the desert. + +Huddled in irregular patches where the dykes sprang from the red sand +were the "koekerboome" ("quiver-trees,"--so called because the Bushmen +used pithed sections of the boughs as receptacles for their arrows.) +These were gigantic aloes of archaic form and immense age. As a rule +their height was from fifteen to twenty feet. Their ungainly trunks +were cone-shaped, groined and heavily buttressed. The rosette-crowned +ends of their dichotomous branches collectively formed a more or less +irregular oval. But at one spot, as we crossed the line where the hills +ended and the plains began, we noticed some with smooth, slender, white +boles rising to a height of nearly sixty feet,--each crowned with a +single cup-like whorl of leaves. + +Gamoep, where the last water was to be found, lay on the actual edge of +the level desert some distance to the south-east of Silverfontein. To +reach it involved a long day's trek, for the route was through soft +sand. At Gamoep was a permanent spring,--the water of which, although +fit for animals, was not quite suitable for human consumption. +Alongside the pool which the spring feeds we decided to rest for +twenty-four hours, for the oxen had a heavy strain to undergo and we +felt it necessary to cover as much as possible of the first part of our +journey during the cool hours of night. + +We slept soundly after our long tramp. Next morning, as the sun began +to soar, sand-grouse in flocks of almost incredible numbers came +sweeping in from the desert. The wearied birds alighted a few hundred +yards from the pool, and there rested for about ten minutes. Then they +arose, swooped down to the edge of the pool for a hurried sip, and sped +back whence they came. We shot sufficient of these for our immediate +needs. + +Late in the afternoon, when the sting had gone out of the sunshine, we +drove the oxen to the pool and let them drink their fill. We had +brought two horses--my old hunting-horse, "Prince," and another +"Swaitland," renamed "Bucephalus," for Hendrick, my after-rider. But +the horses had to remain for the present at Gamoep, in charge of +Danster, one of our Hottentots. Piet Noona, another Hottentot, and his +nephew,--a lad of about twelve years of age, were also left behind for +the purpose of taking charge of the oxen when they returned, maddened +with thirst, after being released from the yoke at the camping-place +under Bantom Berg and the Great Dune, which was our objective. + +Shortly before sundown we inspanned and made a start, shaping our course +north-east. Soon we had crossed the last rocky ridge,--the boundary +separating the hilly country from the plains. The latter were covered +with the shock-bearing tussocks of "toa,"--waving plumes at that time +bleached to a light-yellow by the ardours of the summer sun. We passed +the head of the Kanxas Gorge,--a miniature canyon whose rocky, +perpendicular sides contained caves which had been until a comparatively +recent date occupied by Bushmen. The walls of these caves shew records +of their former inhabitants in the form of black-pigmented script. This +consists mainly of groups of short, parallel lines crossed at various +angles by lines similar. But neither here nor in any of the haunts of +the now-vanished Bushmen I have visited in the north-western areas of +the Cape Province, have I seen paintings of men and animals such as are +to be found in other parts of South Africa. A spring had existed at +Kanxas within the memory of living Trek-Boers. Of this no vestige then +remained. Herein lies an additional item of evidence pointing to the +ominous conclusion that South Africa is slowly but surely drying up. + +Night fell; the primrose-yellow of the "toa" faded to ghostly white; not +a breath of wind stirred. Excepting the creak, creak, of the straining +yokes not a sound was audible. Day faded from the sky and the cupola of +stars seemed to descend around us like a curtain. We walked apart and +communed with our individual selves. When by night one enters the door +of the desert speech seems banal and incongruous. + +At about midnight we outspanned. The oxen were, however, kept tied to +the yokes; we meant to take but an hour's rest. The patient cattle laid +themselves down at once; an occasional long-drawn sigh being the only +evidence of their existence. Anon the flame of our candle-bush fire +ascended into the windless air,--straight as a column. Coffee was soon +ready and biscuits distributed. After we had eaten and drunk, pipes +were lit. Then we threw ourselves prone on the sand and gazed, wrapt, +into the glittering folds of the star-curtain. + +How unutterably still it was; how ineffably peaceful. The spell of +silence still sealed our lips. The world of men--with its fierce and +futile struggles, its crowded and ever-changing illusions, seemed but a +dream. Could it be that in other regions of that earth, which there +seemed so austere, so sinless and so ordered, men were struggling in +warren-like cities? For that night, however, the desert was the only +reality; there we seemed to have attained Nirvana. + +The hour of rest soon came to an end; once more the oxen were yoked and +our wagon lumbered on. There was no longer a track to guide us; our +wheels drew a double-furrow through soil that had never groaned to the +share of a plough forged by mortal hands,--that will never yield a crop +sown by man. There were no dangers to dread but snakes; no obstacles to +avoid--except an occasional tract, ten to fifteen yards in diameter, +which had been undermined by desert mice. Through the crust of such a +tract the wagon would have sunk to the axles; accordingly a Hottentot +was detailed to walk a few yards ahead and give notice of the fact +should a mouse-city lie in our course. We steered neither by the +compass nor the stars, not yet by any landmark. It was the instinct of +Andries and his desert-bred servants,--that "sense of direction" +possessed by men whose perceptions have not been destroyed by +civilisation,--which enabled them to steer us, straight as an arrow, +towards an unseen objective we should only reach two days later. + +A pallid gleam shot through the eastern sky; the stars grew faint; over +the blue firmament stole, as it were, a sheen of pearl. Soon the rising +moon touched the horizon's rim; as we gazed she soared above it. By the +first touch of her level beam-wand, fairy-land was created; the plains, +sombre since daylight had departed, became ivory-white to eastward; +across their immensity extended a broad strip of silver. This was due +to the sheen of the new moonlight on the dew-wet plumes arising from the +"toa" tussocks. + +As night wore slowly on the deep sand became a weariness. Sleep grew +importunate; her fingers pressed down our eyelids and the folds of her +trailing robe entangled our lead-shod feet. The moon, after her first +majestic soar above the horizon, seemed to climb slower and more slowly +towards the zenith. It would have been a luxury to fall prone on the +velvet-soft sand and sink at once into dreamless oblivion. + +But this might not be; our plan of campaign had been cunningly devised +and had to be strictly adhered to. We were about to contend with an +enemy who gave no quarter. The fiat of Andries had gone forth; we were +to travel on without pause until sunrise. Then we might sleep if the +sun permitted. + +At length the seemingly interminable night ended: "the phantom of false +morning," which so often had mocked us, gave place to dawn--virginal and +splendid. Then day came on rapid feet. Just as the sun cleared the rim +of the earth the wagon halted, and at once the yokes fell from the necks +of the tired oxen. Within a few minutes we lay fast asleep beneath a +hastily-constructed sun-screen. + +Scarcely more than an hour had elapsed before the heat awoke us and we +sprang to our feet with hardly a trace of fatigue. The strong sunshine +seemed to sting us to vigour; it was aether rather than air that we +breathed. Around us lay infinite expanses, glowing and quivering,-- +radiating fervour against fervour into the moveless atmosphere. Before +us and to our right and left the horizon was unbroken. Behind us could +still be faintly traced the contour of the hilly country from which we +had yesterday emerged. + +The oxen, after feeding a little, wandered about--attempting from time +to time to escape homeward. They dreaded this plunge into the waterless +waste. They instinctively anticipated the heavy sufferings to which +they were doomed. So far they were not painfully thirsty; cattle bred +on the borders of the desert in their search for pasturage often go +voluntarily waterless for forty-eight hours at a stretch. Even in +summer they do not feel this much of an inconvenience. Late in the +afternoon the team was driven up and once more inspanned. Again we +pressed forward on our course. + +The heat was still intense; we knew it would last until sundown. The +primrose-tinted carpet of the desert seemed to have turned to flame. +Before us some mocking genius of the sky painted mirage-pictures. Blue +seas gemmed with verdant islands, rocky beaches from which sprang groves +of lofty trees,--mountain ranges clothed with boskage and suggesting +cool streams in their valleys--enticed us onward. Now and then the +pictures grew distorted; occasionally they became inverted in the +twinkling of an eye. Then the mountains stood poised upon their summits +and the trees hung downward. Perhaps the operator of the magic lantern +which projected these phantasms on the sky-screen was the vizier of the +Thirst King--striving to lure the unwary to a terrible doom. + +Although the heat was so intense, we were not badly distressed by it. +The thrill of the unaccustomed exhilarated us; each breath we drew was +as a draught of new wine. Interesting and unusual incidents befel. +Ever and anon a troop of ostriches sped over the plains, their white +plumes outstretched and thrilling. On the right, arising from the +hollow of an undulation upwards of a mile away, could be seen a small +thicket of "black sticks." Irregularly grouped and standing at various +angles they shewed clear and distinct through the miraculously +transparent air. "Gemsbokke," said Andries, laconically. The bodies of +the oryx were out of sight; nothing was visible but their long and +almost straight horns. Soon the earth-tremor betrayed us, and the +thicket of "black sticks" became agitated. It broke up, scattered and +reformed in smaller thickets. Then a herd of about fifty oryx swung at +a gallop out of the hollow and sped up the wind, leaving a long trail of +dust to mark its course. + +Night fell again; again the star-curtain descended. At about ten +o'clock we once more outspanned. There was not a breath of wind. The +desert was vocal with unfamiliar sounds. The weird cries of the jackal +were borne from afar across the plains; the clucking lizards put out +their heads and conversed from burrow to burrow; the plaintive notes of +the night-flying grouse fell from the sky like a rain of echoes. Under +the protecting wing of darkness the solitude became populous and vocal +with strange tongues. + +We inspanned after an hour's rest. The longest and most wearying effort +of our pilgrimage had now to be undertaken; our journey's end had to be +reached before the yokes again were loosened. The night seemed endless; +we were spent from the long travail. The yearning for sleep became +acutely painful. We swayed and staggered as we followed the creaking +wagon. + +Dawn broke at length, but we were too weary, too undone to enjoy its +loveliness. As the light grew we became aware of an abrupt eminence of +granite on our left front; it arose, in the form of a steep cone, from a +monstrous, agglomerated mass of copper-tinted, shapeless hummocks. This +was Bantom Berg,--the "Belted Mountain,"--its red-cinctured bulk bathed +in the first sunbeams, its feet entangled in the illimitable coils of +the dune-tract. The latter at once seized and held the attention. + +When day had fully dissipated the faint haze of morning we endeavoured +to appraise the contours of this gross, amorphous entity,--for the +concept that it was one and indivisible had gradually but irresistibly +formed. It grew more and more enormous; more gross and inimical. +Irregular and convoluted ridges arose from it here and there; it +appeared to be absolutely bare of vegetation. In the centre was piled a +humped, bulging mass; out of this Bantom Berg lifted its clean-cut cone +of granite,--a soaring sphynx still waiting for the carver's chisel. +Here and there columns of dust--slender beneath but widely dilating +above at an enormous height, stalked slowly over the body of the prone +monster, marking each the path of a miniature whirlwind. As we drew +near, the face of the dune-tract once more became indefinite and +complicated; for a time the eye could not follow nor appraise its +details. But suddenly the thing explained itself; from the central +mass, the prostrate carcase of the obscene creature, a number of +league-long tentacles, consisting of sand-dunes, extended. These were +thick at the base, but they tapered away to nothingness. Like a +crouching spider or a half-huddled cuttle-fish the monstrosity +sprawled,--its talon-tentacles seeming to gather in the plains--to +infest them like a malignant cancer. + +The character of the country we were traversing had changed; again the +ground was hard beneath our feet; angular fragments of limestone were +strewn over its surface. It was as though the dune-devil had collected +and assimilated the surface sand so that its loathly limbs might +develop. Inexpressibly sinister was this creature,--this mysterious, +insatiable intruder from the desolate northern wastes. It seemed to be +endowed with some low-graded form of rudimentary life; otherwise it was +hard to account for the definite and arbitrary variations in the scheme +of its southward advance. For the tentacles did not all extend in the +same direction; occasionally one curved in its course and developed +against the prevailing wind. The dune-monster was the slow-pacing steed +of the Thirst King; it was his throne, his host and his strong city; it +was the abhorrent body of which he was the resistless and implacable +soul! + +Our camping-place lay within the curve of one of the tentacles; it was +expedient from the stand-point of the hunter to have the mounded sand +between us and the plains--thus affording concealment. The sun was high +when the yokes dropped once more. The unhappy oxen, now very thirsty, +wandered about emitting low moans of distress. Their fundamental +instincts told them that no water was near; their inherited faith in the +wisdom and power of man had, however, given them the thought that relief +might be provided. Suddenly, however, primordial instinct gained +ascendency; their minds were made up. They paced, lowing, to the trail; +then advanced along it at a trot. Soon the trot altered to a wild +gallop. To-morrow, before noon, they would charge down on Gamoep--and +woe to man or beast obstructing their course. Red-eyed, and with +blackened tongues extended from roaring, tortured throats, they would +fling themselves into the pool and drink their fill. At Gamoep they +would remain for four restful days; then they would be brought back to +our camp by Piet Noona and his nephew. + +So at length we were within the dominions of the Thirst King--our +gauntlet thrown down at the gates of his wrath; we were almost within +the grasp of his awful hand. The last link with the world inhabited by +men snapped when the hapless oxen disappeared over the rim of the +desert. Like a water-logged ship in a tideless sea--like a derelict +among the Sargossa weeds,--the wagon stood in the solitude and silence, +with the cloudless sky above and the sun-scorched earth beneath--with +the dune-fiend watching us from his lair. It was almost an insult to +the landscape--this wood-and-canvas construction of man, hauled jolting +and groaning across the pathless desert by tamed and tortured beasts. +It was a disfigurement on the face of Solitude,--an incorporate insult +flung like a guage against the ramparts of one of Nature's most +jealously guarded fortresses. + +Under the shadow of the wagon-sail we slept throughout the day; the sun +was down before we awoke. Once more night put on the garment of life. +It was a desert-dweller who wrote that the heavens declared the glory of +God; the first astrologer must have had his home in the wilderness. +Over the desert the stars, unfolding a glory not revealed elsewhere, +descend like a swarm of bees and seem to busy themselves with destiny. + +Whispers of ghostly voices close at hand,--faint and far-off cries,-- +flutters of spectral wings--pulsed through the darkness. In the desert, +the brighter the firmament at night, the more intensely darkness seems +to brood over the earth,--the more insistent becomes the idea that one +is surrounded by living beings, unhuman and unimaginable. + +Hark! a sound of sinister import; involuntarily one sprang to grasp the +rifle standing against the wagon-wheel. But an instant's reflection +brought reassurance; it was but the booming of an ostrich far out on the +plains that had conjured up scenes of other days,--when questing lions +prowled around camp fires, now long since quenched. The most +experienced ear can hardly distinguish the distant voice of a lion from +that of an ostrich. Here, however, we might rest unscathed by beasts of +prey; the only possible danger was from cobras and horned adders which, +being unable to sustain the heat of the earth's surface by day, remain +underground and emerge by night to practise their respective trades. + +Sleep, sudden and imperative, would not be denied; we had the arrears of +two wakeful nights to pay. Dune, desert and star,--past, present and +future--what were they? Where were they? Whither was the awakening +night-wind bearing us? + + + +CHAPTER THREE. + +THE SEARCH FOR MEAT--DEATH OF THE ORYX--THE FLANK OF THE DUNE-- +OUTWITTING A JACKAL--HENDRICK, MY GUARDIAN--THIRST--THE DISTANT RAIN-- +TYPHON--THE SOUTHERN SIMOOM. + +Daybreak found us sitting close to the candle-bush fire, for the air of +morning was chill. Soon the kettle boiled and coffee was prepared. +Meat was badly needed; we had eaten the last of the sand-grouse on the +previous day, and a diet of unrelieved rusks is apt to pall. So we +decided that I was to take my rifle and, accompanied by Hendrick, go +forth in search of something to shoot. + +Hendrick and I shaped our course along the western flank of the +dune-tentacle close to which we were camped, meaning to cross it near +its point of emergence from the main dune. On reaching a suitable spot +we climbed to the top, a height of some twenty feet vertically, and +carefully scanned the plain on the eastern side. The light was yet +faint and, as we were facing the east, otherwise unfavourable. While we +lay prone a jackal shambled up the steep slope of loose sand and met us, +face to face. The creature regarded us with quaint bewilderment for a +second, and then scampered back with a yelp of dismay. + +So far as we could ascertain the plain before us was empty of game. +Gloom, intensified by contrast with the developing pageant of morning, +still lurked among the shrubs and tussocks. In front, some six hundred +yards away, lay another dune-tentacle. This did not, however, extend in +quite the same direction as the one we occupied, its course being a few +degrees more to the southward for the greater length, while the +extremity curved slightly back towards us. The intervening space was +soon crossed. Once more we clambered up through loose sand that flowed +at a touch; then we lay prone on the flat top, searching with expectant +eyes the new expanse revealed. + +The light had now improved; a limitless plain opened to south and east. +Northward, the wind-scourged side of the main dune extended like a +sea-worn cliff. The faint, diaphanous suspicion of haze incidental to +newborn day, which lay film-wise over the yet-unawakened desert, did not +interfere with our vision. + +A twenty-foot elevation gives the eye an immense range. Game was now in +sight; five separate groups of ostriches could be located. These were +miles apart,--their units varying in number from five to twenty, or +thereabouts. Away in the dim distance southward some large animals were +visible; they moved slowly westward. These were almost certainly oryx. +About six hundred yards off, straight before us, was a small herd of +springbuck; they were busily grazing, moving to the right as they +grazed. This circumstance, combined with the fact that the oryx were +moving in the same direction, indicated that out on the plains there was +an air-current from westward; consequently there was some likelihood of +the day being fairly cool. + +The springbuck were too far away to fire at; probabilities would have +been too much in favour of a miss. On foot in the desert, missing one's +shot meant that one's chances of obtaining meat were practically at an +end for the day. So there was nothing for it but to wait. Perhaps a +paauw (bustard) might feed up to within range. We had seen many paauws +on the wing the previous day. + +What most surprised us was the number of jackals. Several of these +sneaking marauders were visible, loping here and there. One approached +the springbuck; a ram put down his head and charged straight at the +intruder. The latter fled, yelping dolorously. The buck, his head +still lowered, pursued, and gained easily upon the fugitive who, hard +pressed, doubled over and over again on his devious course. At length +the jackal took refuge in a burrow, and the buck trotted back to join +his mates, who had apparently taken no notice of the incident. + +Hendrick touched me slightly on the shoulder, and uttered a slow +"s-s-t." I glanced to the left; my heart leaped almost to my throat. +There, pacing towards us at a leisurely stroll, was a lordly oryx bull. +He was about eight hundred yards off; evidently he had been lying down +with his horns concealed behind one or other of the bushes that here and +there studded the plain. Most likely he was a rogue; an old bull turned +out of the herd on account of his bad temper,--or possibly a leader +deposed by a rival. However that might have been, he represented meat-- +a commodity we were badly in need of. Ever and anon the oryx halted and +gazed anxiously along the flank of the dune; then he resumed his +advance, pacing steadily on a course which should have brought him to +within about two hundred yards of our ambush. + +Nearer and nearer the bull approached; he seemed to be suspicious, for +his muzzle was held high and his large ears moved backward and forward. +Probably our camp had tainted the air for miles in every direction. +"Tshok-tshok" uttered a paauw which we now noticed for the first time. +The bird was sauntering on a zig-zag course and occasionally pecking +among the shrubs just beneath us. Its approach was from the right; thus +it was advancing towards the oryx. The moment was a critical one; +should the paauw have taken alarm and flown, the oryx would undoubtedly +have galloped straight out towards the plains as fast as his strong legs +could carry him. If, on the other hand, the paauw passed and remained +unaware of our presence, the oryx would have inferred that the coast in +our direction was clear, and accordingly have come unsuspiciously within +easy range. So we lay as still as mummies, Hendrick and I,--almost +afraid to breathe. + +The crisis passed. The paauw was soon well beyond us, and the bull, +accelerating his pace slightly, advanced to his doom. O! you of the +swift feet, the tireless thews and the long, sharp horns that even the +hungry lion dreaded,--you had run your last course, you had fought your +last fight; the sands of your lordly life were running low! + +The great oryx bull was now only about two hundred and fifty yards off. +Something startled him; a whiff of tainted air stung his sensitive +nostrils. He stood half-facing us, his right shoulder exposed. My +rifle, a long Martini, had been trained on him for some seconds, +awaiting a favourable opportunity. "Crack"--and the bull fell huddled +on his left haunch. He sprang up, but floundered pitifully. Hendrick +and I were now over the dune and running towards him. As we approached, +his struggles ceased; he no longer attempted to escape. He was standing +on three legs, for his right shoulder had been smashed and the limb +dangled loosely. + +The bull was an awe-inspiring sight. Every separate one of the +wire-like hairs on his neck, shoulders and hump stood erect and +quivering. His wide nostrils shewed blood-red in their depths; his eyes +blazed with agony and wrath; he swayed his forty-inch-long horns +menacingly from side to side, as though to test their poise. + +The brave brute was evidently co-ordinating his maimed but still +formidable strength for a charge at his enemy. "Schiet, Baas--anders +kom hij" ("Shoot, Sir--or he will come") yelled Hendrick. I had the +bull carefully covered, and as he swayed forward in the first impulse of +attack, my bullet struck him in the middle of the neck and crashed +through the vertebral column. Then the strong, tense form collapsed and +sank impotently to earth. + +He was a noble beast,--this creature whose life I had wasted. Why had I +done it? Because I wanted meat; because I followed the law of my being +in obeying the hunters' instinct,--almost the deepest and strongest in +man. The answer was, of course, not quite a good one; I felt it could +not be supported on ethical grounds. But conventional ethics belonged, +after all, to an environment I no longer inhabited. Where I then lived +and moved and had my being, the unmoral standards of primeval man +prevailed. + +A shout from the top of the dune. It was from Andries and the others +who, on hearing the first shot, hurried over to see what my fortune had +been. We returned in triumph to the wagon, carrying the liver of the +slain oryx. This would be roasted on the embers for breakfast. +Hendrick and his assistants would see to it that the rest of the meat, +the head and the skin were removed and properly treated. Very soon the +carcase had been dismembered and carried piecemeal to the camp. After +the skin had been stretched out and spalked down to dry on the hot sand, +we cut up and slightly salted the meat, preparatory to its being packed +together and rolled in sacking. Next day it would be hung out on lines +to dry into "bultong." The head was a beauty; the horns measured 41.5 +inches. That night the jackals from far and near would pick up the +scent and prowl, yonking and yowling, about the camp. The less cowardly +among them would steal up--almost to our very hearth. Consequently we +should have to avoid leaving unprotected anything capable of being +chewed. The jackal is the Autolycus of the desert. + +In the afternoon I explored the south-western flank of the main dune. +So light was the sand that in parts I sank almost knee-deep. Jackals +were to be seen everywhere; one wondered how such a number could manage +to eke out a livelihood in so barren a locality. From one hollow,--a +cup-shaped depression scooped out by some recent wind-eddy, seventeen of +these animals emerged. They were too far away to fire at, for I had +left my rifle in camp and brought a shotgun. There was no other sign of +animal life. + +Fold upon fold--utterly, unspeakably arid--the flank of the main dune +sinuated away towards the north-west. On turning towards the north the +abomination of desolation grew more abominable at every step, so I +altered my course to the left and descended the steep side of the +red-hot dust-heap. Soon I found myself on the edge of a plain lying +between two dune-tentacles which were about a mile apart. In more or +less the centre of this plain was a small patch of low scrub, and +towards the latter a single jackal was loping. He was of the "silver" +variety; consequently his pelt was of value. I felt I wanted that pelt. +The only good jackal is a dead jackal. I had no qualms of conscience +about taking this creature's life. + +My slinking friend whose opulent coat of silver-striped fur I coveted, +reached the little patch of scrub and crouched down in it. But the +bushes were so low and sparse that I could distinctly see his erect, +pointed ears. Now,--I meant to have some amusement out of that +marauder, that prowling scoundrel who butchered young fawns and +plundered the nests of birds. So I lit my pipe and strolled,--not +towards the patch of scrub; that would have been far too obvious a thing +to do,--but as though I meant to pass it by some distance to the right. +I did pass it, but immediately afterwards inclined my course slightly to +the left, proceeding in a curve. The curve became a spiral; I walked +round and round the patch of scrub, gradually edging nearer. + +To look towards the jackal would have been to give myself away +absolutely. My game was to pretend to be unaware that such a thing as a +jackal existed in Bushmanland. However, out of the tail of my left eye +I could just see the pointed ears still erect; it was clear that the +owner of those ears was following my movements with careful but +perplexed attention. Was it possible that that villain, with all his +cunning, could have really believed that I was taking just an ordinary +stroll? The fact was,--he found himself face to face with a wholly +unprecedented situation. + +Of course I recognised that all my trouble might be for nothing; that +the jackal perhaps was sitting at the side of a convenient burrow, ready +to drop out of sight at my first suspicious gesture. But, on the other +hand, were no burrow available, my cunning friend's moments were drawing +to a tragic close,--his last springbuck fawn had been devoured, his last +smashing of ostrich-eggs perpetrated. + +I was now within sixty yards of the jackal; still there was no movement +on his part,--except that of the pointed ears which followed the +following eyes. The distance decreased as the spiral drew in; the +Lachesis-web was being spun fine; Atropos stood ready with her shears. +Fifty--forty yards--now he must be very uneasy indeed. There was +evidently no burrow available; otherwise he would long since have +disappeared into it. He had never seen anyone manoeuvre like this; how +he wished he had bolted when I first altered my course. Thirty--twenty +yards;--that was more than he could stand. He hurled himself forth-- +only to fall, riddled by a charge of buck-shot. + +Hendrick came running across the flat, his face beaming with delight. +There would be joy in the camp that night, for jackal-flesh is the +Hottentots' favourite delicacy. + +Try as I might, I never--in the course of my various Bushmanland trips-- +had been able to shake Hendrick off, for my friend Andries had issued +strict injunctions that he was never to lose my spoor. So whenever I +left camp, Hendrick made careful note of the direction I had taken and, +after an interval, followed me. No notice was taken of the protests I +made against this, as a rule, wholly unnecessary precaution, for Andries +had a strong arm and a sjambok for use when his servants disobeyed him. +Westward of Gamoep, Andries as a rule did what I told him to, but in the +desert he was an autocrat, and a severe one. I believe that in +Bushmanland he would have sjamboked me had there been no other way of +enforcing his will. + +Andries distrusted my desert craft, making no allowance for that "sense +of direction" which strenuous wanderings of early years in waste places +had developed in me. However, hunting in the desert was undoubtedly +fraught with danger. Under certain atmospheric conditions, if one had +suddenly to put forth exertion sufficient to induce perspiration, the +pores refused to close, and moisture was drawn out of the system at such +a rate that to drink presently or die was the alternative. + +The Bushmanland desert has taken a heavy toll of thirst-victims. Close +to Agenhuis I was shewn a little bush under which a strong young +fellow--the son of a man I knew well,--laid himself down and perished +miserably within a mile of his camp. The people at Agenhuis saw him +coming on, walking slowly. He turned out of the track and sank under a +bush; those who watched him thought he had paused to take a rest. +Wondering why he delayed so long, his friends strolled over to where he +lay. The man was dead. His tongue was blackened and shrunk; his lips +and eyelids cracked and caked with clotted blood. This is only one of +the many dismal instances of people perishing of thirst within short +distances of their camps. + +The day died gloriously. Far away to eastward a thunderstorm trailed +down from the north, its bastions and buttresses snow-white or +ebon-black--according as to whether the sunlight touched them or not. +When the last level beams smote through the banked masses of vapour, a +glory of rose, purple and gold transfigured the soaring turrets. That +night the firmament was clearer than ever; the satellites of Jupiter +could actually be seen with the naked eye. The eastern horizon was lit +by Aurora-like lightning,--soft, lambent and incessant. Eastern +Bushmanland must have been drenched. Even as I watched, the springbuck, +scattered over the western desert, had no doubt read the signal aright +and begun their hundred-mile flitting towards the regions blest with +rain. Already the Trek-Boers at Namies and Naramoep would be busy +pulling down their mat-houses and packing their wagons for the trek +eastward. The barometer shewed a heavy fall; this indicated unsettled +weather,--probably a strong wind from the north. + +Mute, ominous and black loomed the dune-devil. Who and what was he, +that unspeakable entity? Was he not Typhon, Lord of Evil and Autocrat +of Desert Places--that monstrous deity who was cast forth from the +councils of the Egyptian gods on account of his unspeakable iniquities? +Yes,--it was Typhon and none other; he wandered south in search of a +kingdom to usurp, and found it there. But the rain-god, whose throne is +the distant Drakensberg, stretched forth his silver sword, the Gariep, +and ham-strung the intruder. Otherwise the Kalihari might now be +stretching forth a hand to grasp l'Agulhas, and all the African +southland be a waste. + +That embodied malignity, crouched and huddled beneath the sumptuous +stars--what unspeakable outrage was his bestial and inchoate rudiment of +a mind devising? Perhaps that day he had sent a message bidding his +hag-handmaid, the north wind, come and help him to destroy us, +intruders. There was menace in the air. The temperature had hardly +fallen,--as it almost invariably did at night. + +At daybreak the atmosphere was tense, oppressive and phenomenally lucid. +Often the desert dawn is followed by a faint semi-opacity; an opaline +suggestion of vapourised moisture,--the diaphanous veil of evaporated +dew. But on the previous night no dew had fallen. Heaven had withheld +that gracious, healing touch with which it sometimes assuaged the scorch +inflicted by the ruthless sun on the patient wilderness. + +The plains lay hushed as though in anticipation of sinister happenings. +Soon the east grew suddenly splendid; shafts of faint gold and delicate +rose spread from the horizon half-way to the zenith. These were the +wheel-spokes of the still-hidden chariot of the sun-god. The flanks of +Typhon, the huddled shoulders between which his head was sunk, took on +the hue of glowing bronze. The Belted Mountain shone like a bale-fire. + +The sun arose; his first beams smote like the lash of a whip. In the +twinkling of an eye the glamour of morning had shrunk and shrivelled,-- +fallen to the dust and left no more trace than would a broken bubble. +The world was now a tortured plain on which the redoubled wrath of the +sky was poured forth. Typhon seemed to stir in his sleep,--to expand +and palpitate. The reason of his baleful and unbridled power was at +hand. That day he would be omnipotent and unquestioned Lord of the +Desert. + +A faint, hushing breath, less felt than heard, touched us and passed on +over the shuddering plain. Its course was from the north; it left +increasing heat on its track. Another, not so faint, but definitely +audible,--tangible as flame. It was indeed the breath of Typhon,--the +suspiration of his awakening fury. A fringe as of erect russet hair +plumed his hunched shoulders. Here and there immense tufts, like those +of a waving, quivering mane, were hurled aloft; they fell back in the +form of cataracts. Then--like the sudden smoke of a volcano, his +loosened locks streamed forth on the tempest. Typhon was awake and had +arisen in his blighting wrath. + +His breath had not yet reached us, but it was very near. His voice was +a penetrating, sibillant hiss, with a moaning undertone--the utterance +of fury rendered inarticulate by its own intensity. Now the sand-spouts +which had been flung upwards, rained on us in fine, almost impalpable +dust, that scorched where it fell. It filled the air we strove to +breathe; it blinded and baffled us as we vainly sought for shelter. + +Then darkness settled down and the moaning undertone swelled to a roar. +We crouched within the wagon, the tilt of which rocked and strained. +The air we gaspingly breathed had a horrible, acrid taste. + +Now and then a compensating current of air streamed back under the wing +of the tempest that overwhelmed us, and afforded relief for a space. It +was only during such intervals that we could venture to lift our eyes; +it was then we saw that the red-maned tentacles around us were alive and +writhing, and we knew that on the morrow their location and contours +would be different from what they were that morning. + +It was late in the afternoon when Typhon's rage subsided and we emerged +from our ravaged wagon, which stood half-buried in sand. The tentacle +near us had stretched out a feeler and grasped it to the axles. It took +several hours of hard digging before we were able to liberate the wheels +enough to admit of the wagon being drawn out and taken to a spot which +was free from drifted sand. + +Yes, the monster had moved; his shoulders were hunched at a different +curve; his long flank had taken on strange bends and bulges. But he was +once more prone after his terrific but impotent uprising. Typhon slept. + + + +CHAPTER FOUR. + +A WALK IN THE DARKNESS--DREAMS OF A MORNING--THE SCHERM--THE SLAYING OF +THE OSTRICH. + +Arched, sore, gritty and with overstrung nerves I sought my bed early, +hoping that sleep would come soon and obliterate the effects of that day +of turmoil. I meant to shoot an ostrich on the morrow. To make this +practicable I should have to rise at 2 a.m., for it was essential that I +should reach a locality at least six miles away before daybreak. + +But the fiery breath,--the tawny, tossing mane of Typhon seemed still to +envelop me; his moaning hiss yet filled my ears. I felt as if I had +stood face to face with one of the Lords of Hell. The reek of Tophet +was still in my nostrils. Midnight had passed before sleep came. + +When Hendrick wakened me I felt as though I had hardly lost +consciousness. It was the specified hour. Hendrick could no more read +the face of a clock than he could decipher a logarithm, but he knew what +it was we were going to attempt, and that if our adventure were to have +any chance of success, we should set about it without delay. + +Before waking me, Hendrick had brewed the coffee, so after hurriedly +emptying a pannikin and adding a few rusks to the contents of my +haversack, I seized a rifle and made a start. My course lay due south, +my objective being the vicinity in which the troops of ostriches had +been visible on the previous morning. It had been arranged that +Hendrick was to start an hour later and make a wide detour to the right, +for the purpose of stampeding any birds he could manage to get to the +westward of. It was trusted that such birds might run towards the spot +where I intended to lie concealed. + +The sky was clear as a crystal lens, for the copious dew had caught all +dust particles which were left suspended in the atmosphere after +yesterday's outburst, and carried them back to earth. The waning moon +had just arisen; fantastic shadows were cast by every shrub and tussock. +The air was cool--almost cold; not a breath stirred. Every few yards I +stumbled over irregular heaps of soft sand, varying in height, in size +and in contour. These were fragments of the ravaged locks of Typhon-- +locks torn out in his fury of yesterday and flung far and wide over the +desert. + +How still it was; how void my environment of the details of ordinary +experience. It was like a ramble through dreamland. The whirring +wheels of Time seemed to have become dislocated; each as it were turning +reversed on its axis--no two moving at the same speed. It seemed as +though the mill of which sequence is a product had fallen out of gear, +for yesterday joined hands with a day of twenty years old, while the +intervening myriads of days flew forth into the void like chaff from a +winnower. + +Space seemed to have taken on additional dimensions,--the impossible to +have become actual without an effort. Faces glimmered up through the +mists that hung over the dimming pathway of the past--through the steam +of long-shed tears--through the ghastly coffin-lid and the horrible six +feet of clay. They smiled for an instant, and vanished. Winds that had +slept for years arose laden with the laughter from lips whose warm red +faded with dawns long overblown. Surely I must have strayed into some +pallid Hades such as the ancients fabled of,--some zone where shadows +only were real and real things appeared as shadows. + +Mechanically I strode on, avoiding without conscious volition the shrubs +and tussocks. As the moon ascended the shadows shortened and became +less grotesque. Fancied resemblances to and suggestions of things +outside my own experience, but of which my mind had formed concepts that +had become familiar, switched thought on to other tracks; the pendulum +swung from the subjective to the objective. Imagination built up the +tiny, lithe, agile forms of that race we exterminated and whose barren +territory we annexed, but neither occupied nor made use of. I could +almost hear the sandalled, pattering feet of the aboriginal dwellers of +these plains,--those kings of the waste whose sceptre was the poisoned +dart. The Bushmen were in many respects a wonderful people. They +obeyed no chief; they had no political organisation whatsoever; each +family governed itself independently. Yet they had their fixed +customs,--their general traditional code of proprieties. They had +knowledge of the properties of plants which no others possessed; they +had a highly-developed dramatic art. As limners they excelled, and a +keen sense of humour is evinced in many of their paintings. Not alone +was this sense of humour keen, but it must have been very much akin to +our own. + +How many hot human hearts have searched for a clue to the nature of that +Power which energises as much through evil as through good,--which could +foster the development of a numerous people under painful and inexorable +laws until it harmonised with its rigorous environment,--that could +implant in its units the capacity for love, heroism and faithfulness-- +and then ordain or sanction its obliteration,--an obliteration so +absolute that, with the exception of one aged and senile pair, and a few +delineations on sheltered rocks, of animals that shared its doom, this +people has not left a trace behind. Literally, not a trace; hardly so +much evidence that it ever existed as afforded in the case of an extinct +sub-species of diatoms, the imprint of whose forms may be found on the +fractured face of a chalk-cliff. + +Musing thus, I suddenly became aware that day was at hand, for the +pallid moonlight grew paler and the thrill of approaching dawn pulsated +through the firmament. If all my trouble were not to be thrown away, I +should at once select a spot suitable for my ambush. But first I had to +look out for a certain shallow-rooted shrub of globular form which grew +in patches here and there throughout the desert. A few such shrubs had +to be pulled out of the ground and piled in the form of a low, circular +fence enclosing a space about six feet in diameter. This is the +"scherm" or screen so often used by those who hunt in the desert. +Within it the hunter lies prone, fully concealed from any approaching +quarry. + +I was in luck, for I had reached an almost imperceptible rise; a long +oval, the highest part of which was not more than thirty inches above +the general level of the plain. But those inches were of incalculable +value for my purpose, for they extended by miles the scope of my vision +in every direction and, should game have been afoot, enabled me to +prepare for the one and only shot. A single shot each day is the utmost +that the hunter on foot in the desert ever expects. + +In the vicinity of the rise shrubs were fairly plentiful, so I plucked +out a sufficient number of suitable size and drew them carefully to the +spot I had selected for my lair. This was just to westward of an +unusually high shrub, a "taaibosch" which, after the sun should have +arisen, would afford temporary shade for my head. But day came on +apace; no time was to be lost. + +Within a few minutes my scherm was complete, and I extended prone within +it. After consideration I ventured to light my pipe. There was no +wind; even had there been the ostrich has no sense of smell,--and on +that day I was not looking for buck. Even had an oryx approached and +sniffed at me, I would have let him go scathless. An ostrich, and a +super-excellent one at that, was what I wanted. No breeding bird with +plumes discoloured through contact with the sand, but a young, lusty, +unmarried male with peerless adornment of foam-white plumes,--the +crowning result of a long period of selection,--developed by +unrestricted Nature for the all-wise end of making him comely in the +eyes of the female of his species. + +It was now day, although the sun was not yet visible. I was in my +shirt-sleeves, having left my jacket at the camp. The faint wind of +morning was chill, the dew-soaked ground dank and cold. I longed for +the sun to rise, albeit well knowing that after it had risen my +discomfort from heat would be intense, and that I would look back to the +hour of the dew and the dawn with vain regret. + +Cautiously and very slowly I lifted my head until my eyes could search +the plain in the direction from which Hendrick was operating. But I +hardly expected to see him yet. Void, cold, passionless and austere the +still-sleeping desert stretched to the sky-line. The dominant note of +its colour-scheme was creamy yellow, with but a hint of sage-green,--for +the plumy shocks of the "toa" far outnumbered the sparsely-scattered +shrubs. A glance at Bantom Berg and Typhon shewed them to be touched by +the first sunbeams. The shoulder of the dune-monster shone as though a +radiant hand were laid upon it. The hand stole tenderly down the side +and flank, revealing unsuspected scars. It was as though the morning +were caressing the loathly creature,--trying to heal with pitying touch +his self-inflicted scars of yesterday. In the limitless expanse of +desert Typhon and his granite prisoner stood isolated,--the only +prominence, and the ungainly bulk of Typhon made manifest the immensity +of the kingdom he had usurped and the illimitable extent, of the +territory towards which his carking hands outstretched. + +The sun was now up and the resulting warmth was a physical delight. But +I could not avoid lugubrious anticipation of what all too soon was +coming,--that fierce ardour which would cause the sand to grow red-hot +and make my couch, then so comfortable, a bed of torment. Why should +this anticipation have almost destroyed my physical pleasure? why should +mind and body thus have been set at variance with each other as the +sense of grateful warmth penetrated my shivering limbs? It is this kind +of thing that places man at a disadvantage as compared with other +animals, who live in the immediately existing time. No matter how fair +the flowers or how rich the fruits of the present may be, a menacing +hand stretches back from the future and touches these with blight. When +the Apostle of the Gentiles wrote that he died daily, he merely cried +out under the lash of that curse of foreknowledge which is at once man's +glory and his doom. And the farther the eyes of man pierce into the +future, the more terrible will be the things revealed. + +A yelp; then many yelps,--faint, but clear as a tinkling bell. They +came from the side opposite the one from which I expected the game to be +driven. Cautiously I sank back, wormed myself round and looked over the +edge of the scherm in the direction from which the sound came. A +jackal, of course,--but why was he yelping? The reason was quickly +apparent. About seven hundred yards away stood two ostrich hens. +Running hither and thither, in hot pursuit of the jackal, was the cock +bird. Autolycus was hard pressed; it was only by constant and cunning +doubling and twisting that he was able to escape the sledgehammer +kicks,--any one of which, had it got home, would have broken his back or +ripped out his entrails. The chase trended in my direction; as the +pursued and the pursuer approached I had an excellent view of it. At +length the prowler reached his burrow and hurled himself incontinently +in, his brush describing a frantic arc as he disappeared. The ostrich, +fuming with disappointed wrath and flicking his wings alternately over +his back, to work off his indignation, stalked with stately gait back to +his wives. + +Evidently this was a breeding trio, and the nest was not far from where +the hens were standing. No doubt what happened was this: the birds +arose from the nest for the purpose of allowing the eggs to cool. Then +the jackal, who had made his burrow in the vicinity as soon as the nest +had been established, attempted to play off his old, well known, but +often effective trick. This consists in stealing up to the nest in an +unguarded moment, pawing out one of the eggs to the top of the circular +mound by which they are surrounded, and then butting it with his nose +hard down oft the others. If the contents of an egg thus broken were +fresh, the jackal would lap it up; if the chicken should already have +been formed, so much the better for the thief. + +These birds did not interest me that day; they and their nest formed a +domestic menage which should not be interfered with,--except of course, +by jackals and their confederates, the blackguardly white crows that +carry small, heavy stones high into the air, and drop them on the eggs. +An ostrich nursery in the desert requires much careful management and +must be a source of constant anxiety. + +I will not say that I had begun to regret my adventure; nevertheless the +sunshine had waxed fiercely hot. My head was still within the small and +decreasing patch of shadow cast by the taaibosch, but my back--and more +especially my shoulders--suffered badly. I wished Hendrick would hurry. +That game; was afoot was almost certain; otherwise he would long since +have appeared. My trusty scout evidently had seen the advisability of +making a detour wider than the one originally proposed. He was no doubt +exercising every wile of his comprehensive veld-craft towards getting me +a shot. His work was more arduous than mine; nevertheless I wished I +could have changed places with him if only for a few minutes. + +When I realised that my back was getting really overdone I turned over +and exposed in turn each side, and eventually the front of my body, to +the sun. Then I felt overdone all round. Moreover the vestige of +shadow in which my head cowered--that cast by the sparse top of the +taaibosch, through which the sunlight leaked freely--grew more and more +scanty. Oh! I breathed, for a return of that blessed coolness of +morning which my frame, softened by years of a semi-sedentary life, had +been unable to sustain without discomfort. Oh! for the gentle, healing +hand of the dew, which I so ungratefully contemned. If these desert +plants can feel and think, how they must long for the night,--for the +miracle of cool moisture which, perhaps, a beneficent planet distils in +some grove-garden of the asteroids and seals up in the crystal vats of +some celestial tavern known only to its sister spheres and the moon. + +Surely there is some hostel of mercy in whose cool cellars the precious +vintage lies hidden from the rapacity of the cruel sun,--held in +readiness to be poured out from the etherial beakers of the firmament on +the tortured tongues of the leaves and grass-blades, when the tyrant of +the skies departs for a season. + +My physical condition had become acutely serious on account of the +increasing heat and the more nearly vertical vantage of the sun's +arrows. The actual, immediate pain was bad enough,--but how about +consequences. Saint Lawrence no doubt ascended to Paradise from his +gridiron, but I should have to toil on foot over miles of desert after +arising from mine. Even if I thereafter soaked myself in olive oil, +days of blistered misery might have been in store for me. Oh! for a +cloud or for Hendrick. If he only had arrived within sight I might have +vacated my couch of anguish without forfeiting his respect or my own. +The loss of expected sport became unimportant. Ostrich shooting in the +desert from a scherm was far more than my fancy had painted it. + +Hist! What was that? It was not a sound; hardly was it a tremor. It +was rather a thrill not perceptible to any one sense; something +apprehended by the nameless perceptions of the noumenon-area lying deep +beneath the phenomena of sensation. I risked sunstroke by discarding my +hat; then I slowly lifted my head until I could look over the edge of +the scherm. At what I saw misery hid her face; mind once more assumed +command of body. + +The plain to the south-west was dotted with moving ostriches. Singly, +in twos, in threes, in tens--they were speeding north-eastward over the +desert; some on my right, some to the left. Ever and anon one or other +of the groups halted and its members stood at gaze. The ostrich cannot +keep on the move continuously for any length of time on a hot day. If +forced to attempt doing so, death from heat-apoplexy would inevitably +result. One troop, far in advance of all the others, seemed to be +approaching me, but it swerved and passed to the left. It contained +eleven birds, most of them young and immature; a few were full-grown +hens and one was a very large cock bird. However, his plumes were +sand-stained, so it is evident he had been dislodged from a nest. + +Far and near there must have been nearly a hundred birds in sight. No +doubt some favourite food was plentiful in the vicinity from which they +had been stampeded; possibly a swarm of locusts might have there hatched +out. Now the birds were beginning to scud past between me and the camp, +as though following a trail known to them. But they were too far off to +fire at. Could it be that after all I was not to have a shot. + +Another troop swerved to a course calculated to bring them fairly close +to the scherm; there were eight birds in it. They paused and stood at +gaze for a short interval, about a mile away. Then they resumed their +flight along a course which would, if they held it, bring them to within +less than three hundred yards of me, on my right. + +On they pressed with even, steady stride. Two were young but full-grown +cocks with snow-white, sumptuous plumes. Cautiously I laid my rifle +over the edge of the scherm and adjusted the sight to two hundred yards. +The steel barrel scorched my fingers. Would the birds stand,--that was +the question of importance. A running shot is always uncertain. + +They halted when some two hundred and fifty yards away. Of the two +gallant cocks one was manifestly superior; my bead was on him. I pulled +the trigger; there was a tremendous report and the recoil nearly stunned +me. My shot had missed. The birds sped away, at right angles to their +original course. They became confused and ran hither and thither, for +the near whiz of the bullet had alarmed them nearly as much as the +distant detonation. But soon the bird I had fired at was speeding +straight away from me. Within ten seconds I fired again, and he fell. +The explanation of my having missed the first and easier shot is simple: +I had foolishly allowed the cartridge to lie for a long time in the +sun-heated chamber of the rifle; consequently the powder (one of the +then new, smokeless varieties) had become too energetic. There was no +violent recoil from the second shot. + +I sprang from the scherm and ran to my quarry. There he lay, breast +downward, his long neck bent and his head concealed under the black, +bulky body. The wings were expanded, with the snowy plumes outspread, +fanlike, on each side. The bird was stone dead, for the bullet struck +the base of the spinal column and shattered it throughout the whole +length. No swifter death could have been devised. + +Carefully, one by one, I plucked out the lovely plumes. They were +surely the fairest and purest ornaments ever devised by that influence +which men, when the world was young, personified and worshipped as the +Goddess of Love,--the noblest concrete expression of that principle +which strives to draw sex relations to the higher planes of beauty. And +here had I, a decadent human, typical of a neuropathic age, destroyed +this exquisite embodied achievement for the purpose of reversing +Nature's plan. For I should transfer to the female, to my own +woman-kind, adornments developed naturally on the male for the +enhancement of his own proper beauty. The female ostrich, in her robe +of tender, greyish brown, is attractive enough to her prospective mate +without artificial aid. Were she to hang a wisp of human hair about her +graceful, undulating neck, she would rightly be regarded as a freak. + +Schopenhauer was right,--among human beings as among other animals the +male is essentially more beautiful than the female; it is the +sex-disturbance which confuses our canons. If it were otherwise women +would not find it necessary to ransack mineral, vegetable and animal +nature for the purpose of enhancing their attractiveness. + +My plucking came to an end. The long, foamy whites,--the short, glossy +blacks whose hue was deeper than that of the raven's wing,--were tied +into bundles with twine from my compendious haversack. There lay the +huddled, ruined, mangled body; there grinned the already dry and +blackened blood-clot defacing the desert's visage. Rifled of its +garment of harmonious and appropriate beauty, smitten and smashed into +an object of grisly horror,--this piteous sacrifice to woman's callous +vanity and the heartless cruelty of her mate seemed to make the +wilderness as foul as the altar of Cain. + +With an effort I passed from the stand-point of a somewhat inconsequent +and inconsistent Jekyll to that of a primeval Hyde. From my flask, the +contents of which had been carefully preserved intact up to the present, +I poured out a libation to the manes of the departed ostrich. Might his +freed spirit find refuge in some Elysian wilderness unvexed of prowlers +who call chemistry and machinery to the aid of their own physical +deficiencies, and slay because slaughter stimulates their debilitated +pulses. + +Far, far away to the south-west I saw faithful Hendrick approaching. I +would not wait for him; he was too distant. My paramount need just then +was shade--even if such could only be found under the tilt of a wagon +where the thermometer probably stood at 112 Fahrenheit. Hendrick's +needs were elementary; he would be delighted with the meat and the +inferior black feathers which I had not thought it worth while to pluck. +With the latter Hendrick and his kindred would adorn their disreputable +hats. But their actions would be less opposed to Nature's plan than +mine, for it was the men who would go sombrely gay, not their +woman-kind. + +The tramp back to camp was long and wearisome. Could it be that I +strode along the same course whereon a few short hours ago I had paced +hand in hand with gentle dreams? There,--on that dusty, gasping +sun-scorched flat? Could it be that the stars and the soothing dew lay +beyond that expanse of flaming sky, and that the laggard night, with +healing on her dusky wings, would draw them down once more? + +That day Danster was on his way from Gamoep with the horses. That +afternoon Piet Noona and his imp-like nephew would hurry the oxen over +the desert towards our camp; they should arrive the following night. On +the next day we intended to break camp and trek back westward. The +return journey would not be so arduous for the cattle; we should have +used up the greater part of the water, and the load would be +correspondingly lighter. + +The horses arrived soon after sundown,--old "Prince" with his deep +chest, his powerful quarters, and his broad, shoeless, almost spatulate +feet. The other horse, "Bucephalus," was a big, raw-boned black +stallion which Andries had in training. Hendrick was, so far, the only +one able to ride him. + +Night once more--with the recurrent miracle of the dew-fall and the +stars. Typhon slept. Of what was he dreaming? Of the far-off day when +the overflowing measure of his infamy caused the decree of his +banishment to be pronounced,--of the lands he ravaged and blighted on +his southward course,--of his enemy, the rain-god, who smote him with +the river-sword and thus crippled him for ever? + +But man also must sleep--and on the morrow I had to journey to the +Kanya-veld. + + + +CHAPTER FIVE. + +THE KANYA--THE SPELL OF THE DESERT--MY HORSE--THE TERROR OF NOON-- +EXECUTION OF A MARAUDER. + +Another glorious morning; the air was like cooled, sparkling wine. I +knew, both by the taste and the direction of the wind, that the day +would be as mild as it ever was in the desert at that season of the +year. Through the faint dew-haze a hint of invitation--with a tender, +enigmatic suggestion of a smile, shone out of the east. That was the +day set apart for my journey to the Kanya-veld, the fringe of which lay +about ten miles distant, beyond Typhon's eastern flank. + +This is a region which lies solitary in the very heart of solitude. +"Kanya," in the Hottentot tongue, means "round stone," and the +Kanya-veld is thickly paved with such stones. They measure, as a rule, +from four to eight inches in diameter, and they lie packed so closely +that they nearly touch each other. They are buried to the extent of +about two-thirds of their bulk in hard, red soil. Between them a +scanty, hard-bitten, salamander-like vegetation strikes root. The +Kanya-veld is hardly, if at all, higher than the rest of the desert. As +to what the geological explanation of this strange phenomenon may be, I +have no idea whatever. + +No one knew the extent of the Kanya-veld, for that part of the desert +had not then been surveyed, nor even roughly charted. Before reaching +the main Kanya-tract one crossed narrow strips of the closely-packed +spheres; these lay outside it, after the manner of reefs surrounding a +coral island. + +My journey of that day was to me the most important event of the +excursion,--yet it had no definite object beyond the assuagement of that +hunger for a realisation of the ultimate expression of solitude which +sometimes gnaws at my soul. It was of what I was then to realise that I +dreamt through night hours spent alone on a certain rocky hillside, when +the east wind, with the scent of the desert on its wings and the music +of the waste in its lightest whisper, streamed between me and the stars. +But why try to explain the inexplicable? You who have not felt a like +longing would never understand; you who have, will know without a word. + +Prince stood ready girthed. Swartland--renamed "Bucephalus," the black +stallion with the big head and the vicious, white-rimmed eye--was +recalcitrant and resented the approach of Hendrick with the saddle. But +I had decided to ride on; Hendrick was not to follow until the +afternoon. I threatened that faithful follower with grievous penalties +if so much as a silhouette of himself and his ugly steed shewed on my +sky-line until after the sun had passed the zenith. + +For we meant to be alone that day, Prince and I; to feel that we had got +close enough to the heart of Solitude to hear its beats,--to try and +capture in our ears, dulled by so-called civilisation, some syllables of +that lore with which the desert's murmuring undertone is so rich, but +which only the great of soul can fully understand. The cast of the +desert's message is epic rather than lyrical. The cloud-mantled +mountain and the green valley,--the forest, the stream and the foaming +sea teach the poet his sweeter songs. But it is the Prophet of God, the +law-giver and the warrior who listen for and learn their stern messages +from the tongues of the arid wilderness. + +The difference between the desert and the fertile tract is that between +the ascetic and the full-fed man. The desert appeals to the intellect; +the verdant, rain-nurtured valley to the emotions. The variance is as +that between percipience and sensation. The stimulation with which a +healthy organism responds to rigorous conditions expresses itself in an +increased efficiency that is usually invincible. Thus it is that from +the physically unfruitful desert all really great ideas have sprung. +The wilderness has ever been the rich storehouse of spiritual things. +Man gains corporeal, moral and intellectual power in the arid waste, and +loses them in the land of corn and wine. Dearth is the parent and the +tutor of thought, the desert is the harvest-field of wisdom. Solitude +is the fruitful mother of noble resolve,--the kind nurse of the spirit. + +I wished my horse had another, a more suitable name. "Prince" smacked +of the stable--the brougham. He should have been called by some term +expressive of steadfast endurance, of faithfulness,--of excellent skill +as a pursuer of the oryx. That elderly bay gelding with the spatulate +feet was an ideal desert mount. It was in the course of a long chase +after oryx that one appreciated him to the full. I had more than once +ridden him at a gallop for ten miles without a check; then, after a roll +in the sand, he was apparently as fresh as ever. + +One of the dangers of a desert chase lay in the mouse-city, in which on +getting entangled an ordinary horse was apt to check so suddenly in his +course that he rolled head-over-heels and crushed his rider. But Prince +had quite an original method of meeting the difficulty: he spread his +legs out in some extraordinary way, sank down until his belly almost +touched the ground, and floundered through. The strange thing was that +he did not seem to break his stride. There was no jerk; the rider was +in no way incommoded. I would have given a great deal for a side view +of the performance; it must have resembled somewhat the progress of an +heraldic griffin rampaging horizontally instead of vertically. + +Where the surface was suitable, neither too hard nor too soft, we +cantered slowly along,--careless as the wind that gently agitated the +shocks of "toa." Game was at times in sight, but very far off. Three +hartebeest sped away over the sky-line, their forms looming immense and +grotesque just as the mirage seized them. I wondered what they looked +like when thrown on the sky-screen and seen from a distance of fifty to +a hundred miles. Oryx spoor, but not very fresh, abounded. + +There were no ostriches visible. Those that on the previous day +stampeded eastward had no doubt gone back during the night to the +locality in which Hendrick had found them. A few springbuck were +occasionally to be seen, but they were exceedingly wild. One would have +had to manoeuvre to get within a thousand yards of them. Now and then a +paauw flew up,--a forerunner of that immense migration which would take +place a few weeks later. Then the whole paauw-population of the +Kalihari would cross the Orange River and move over the plains by an +oblique route towards the coast. They would return over the same course +after they had nested and hatched out their young. + +I had brought my rifle,--more from force of habit than anything else, +for I was not anxious to shoot. I was content to gaze on the +enthralling, impassive face with which the world there defied the +arrogant sun; to admire that quality in it which I most lacked,--its +steadfastness. I wanted to breathe the desert's breath, to drink of its +life,--to do it homage and to love it--not for any fleeting beauty, but +because my unsteadfast soul found it loveable and strong. + +I had been on foot for some time. Prince, with the reins fastened short +about his neck to prevent them trailing, followed like a faithful dog. +Should I pause for what he considered too long an interval, he pushed me +gently forward with his nose. He, too, wanted to explore--to wander on +listlessly whither the spirit of solitude beckoned. + +At length we reached the first strip of Kanya. It was hardly six feet +wide,--that even, regular pavement of ironstone spheres laid down by the +hand of Nature in furtherance of some aeon-old phase of +world-development. Were those spheres forged in some volcano-furnace or +turned in the lathe of the rolling waves in days when the temples of +Atlantis gleamed white over the ocean that is its tomb and that bears +its name? Were they slowly ground in the mill-vortex of some mighty +river that bore away the drainage of a boundless humid tract, where now +a rain-cloud is almost as rare as a comet? + +Straight ahead, a little more than a mile away, the continuous +Kanya-veld shewed like a darker wrinkle on the desert's brown face, for +we were now out of the region of "toa." The stony strips grew wider as +I advanced, and the intervening spaces narrower and narrower until they +disappeared altogether. + +Here Prince and I parted company for a while; I dared not risk the +possibility of injury to those faithful feet that had carried me so +swiftly and so far. Even proceeding at a walking pace in the Kanya, +unless every step were carefully picked, involved a risk of sprain to +ankle or fetlock. So I removed the saddle and tied my companion to a +bush--not because I feared his straying, but for the reason that it was +otherwise impossible to prevent his following me. + +It was far hotter there among the Kanya than outside, for the dark-hued +stones absorbed heat and radiated it fiercely. The desert's visage had +taken on a sinister, forbidding expression; almost as though it resented +intrusion--as though it had surrounded some shrine of secret horror with +flame-hot, laming obstacles. + +The only vegetation consisted of a few low, gnarled, bitter-looking +shrubs. What an apprenticeship to inimical conditions these eremites of +the vegetable world must have undergone to enable them to save their +scanty leaves alive,--rooted, as they were, in a pinch of brick-like +soil lying in narrow spaces between glowing spheres of stone, and +lacking rain, as they did, for periods of years at a stretch. Their +strength must have been as much greater than that of the oak as the +oak's is greater than that of a willow sapling. Did these shrubs ever +flower, I wondered. Perhaps, once in a thousand years, a miracle was +wrought on them as it was on Aaron's rod. Only one could I identify-- +even so far as the genus went. It was a kind of Rhus; the dark-green, +reticulated, trifid leaf--naked and deeply veined above and covered with +down beneath,--was quite typical. + +For what unspeakable cosmic sin was that titanic and seemingly eternal +punishment inflicted,--that withdrawal of living water from a region +built up and, no doubt, filled with abounding organic fecundity by the +craft of its strong, creative hand? Did multitudes of those fearsome +monsters of the prehistoric sea, which there swayed beneath the moon, +gasp out their lives on that sun-blasted tract when the great cataclysm +befel? Did a livid network of their colossal bones lie there for +unthinkable ages until the slow attrition of wind and changing +temperature transmuted them into that dust which vainly tried to scale +the immutable heavens in the car of the sand-spout? Did the unanealed +spirits of those long-dead creatures still people that haunted solitude +which made day more terrifying than midnight? Were the landscapes of +the mirage simulacra of those bounding an inland sea in which the dragon +and the kraken lived and multiplied? Was the thrilling fear, which read +menace in my own shadow, akin to that "terror of noon" which gripped the +heartstrings of the shepherd of Mount-Ida,--when he knew, by the +rustling of the brake that Pan was near? + +I hastened away--back to where the desert wore a friendlier face,--to +where old Prince was executing a kind of solemn dance before the +"taaibosch" to which he was tethered,--lifting his feet constantly, one +at a time, in a vain attempt to cool them. He welcomed me with a whinny +of relief. Perhaps the spirits of the Kanya had been filling him, too, +with indefinable dread. So the saddle was replaced, and I resumed my +pilgrimage on foot, the old horse pacing stolidly after me. + +We trended southward, for I wanted to get away from the Kanya; I began +to hate it--almost as I hated Typhon. Yet I should not have hated +either, for if it had not been for these two, the oryx, one of the +desert's noblest denizens,--the aristocrat of its depleted mammal +population--would long since have been exterminated. The Kanya is to +the oryx a strong city of refuge from pursuit, and he draws his scanty +but sufficient supply of moisture from the dunes coiled about Typhon's +flanks. This seeming paradox is explained by the circumstance that a +certain plant, the root of which somewhat resembles an exaggerated +turnip and is heavily charged with moisture, grows in the dune-veld. +This root the oryx scents out, and digs from out the sand with his +strong, sharp, heavy hoofs. + +The Kanya stones, which stop a galloping horse as effectively as would a +barbed wire fence, are no obstacle to the oryx, for the divisions of his +hoof expand widely and are connected by a strong membrane of muscle. +They stretch apart when he treads on a stone, the membrane lying over +the latter like a supporting spring. Yet, strangely enough, I once saw +an oryx break its leg in passing over a narrow strip of Kanya. This +occurred many miles from where I was that day; on the southern fringe of +the Kanya-tract, in fact. + +It happened in this wise. One morning Hendrick and I rode ahead of the +wagon. Five oryx emerged from a depression and stood at gaze about six +hundred yards away. I fired at the largest bull; he lurched half-way +round, sinking partly on his haunches. But he at once sprang up and +fled like the wind, completely distancing the other four. I followed, +putting old Prince on his mettle from the start, for the Kanya was only +about five miles away, and the wounded oryx was making straight for it. + +The speed of the wounded animal slackened; not to any great extent, but +enough to permit of the others slowly overtaking and then drawing ahead +of him. When he reached the edge of the Kanya-tract I was about to give +up the pursuit in despair, when the animal swayed in a peculiar way and +then stood still, so I rode up and finished him. Then I found that the +bone of his left fetlock had been freshly broken. My first bullet had, +without touching the bone, passed through his right hind leg just where +the great muscles of the haunch harden and thin down into sinew. The +stroke of the heavy, leaden missile must have caused a severe mechanical +shock. This, under stress of the gallop, evidently translated itself +into stiffness, which occasioned leaning with undue heaviness on the +sound leg. The oryx was crossing a strip of Kanya not more than twelve +feet wide when the accident happened. Probably no similar occurrence +has ever been witnessed by man. + +My guardian-centaur, Hendrick-cum-Bucephalus, appeared on the +north-western horizon. Yes,--it was time to turn back, for the sun had +long since passed the zenith. Hendrick, as usual, looked supercilious +when he found I had shot nothing. It would have been useless to have +attempted to explain that Prince and I had come out that day only to +talk secrets with the desert. Hendrick was too little removed from the +natural man to be capable of understanding such a thing. He was an +interesting creature, this Hendrick. A dash of Bushman blood in his +veins had made him taciturn; the pure-bred Hottentot is almost +invariably loquacious. But I found Hendrick an ideal companion. He, +too,--without being aware of it, loved the desert for its own sake. But +he delighted in seeing me make a good shot, and was almost pathetically +puzzled on the occasions when I refrained from slaughter. + +Hendrick did not on that day find it necessary to follow my sinuous +spoor, but came straight towards where he knew I most probably would be. +On his way he found an ostrich nest, with the inevitable jackal in its +vicinity. He had chased the marauder away, but the parent birds fled +too,--and in all probability Autolycus had, even before Hendrick found +me, returned to the nest with nefarious intent. There was decidedly +danger, for the birds, having fled after being disturbed, would not +return before night. Well,--I determined to call on that jackal and, if +possible, add him to the category of the righteous of his species. + +We soon found the nest. Yes, as I expected, the robber had been at +work. He must, in fact, have retired and concealed himself when he saw +us approaching, for the evidences of his crime were quite fresh. No +doubt he was peering at us from some cover close at hand while we were +examining the results of his turpitude. Two eggs had been broken; their +freshly-spilt contents were soaking into the sand. + +We circled round, seeking for Autolycus' spoor. How I wished I had +brought a shotgun instead of a rifle. Ha! there was the thief; he +sprang from the shadow of a large tussock and ran diagonally away, his +brush pointed contemptuously straight at us. What was his objective? I +saw it--a heap of ejected sand about two hundred yards off, which he was +heading straight for, evidently masked his burrow. I sat down, adjusted +the sight of my rifle and drew the bead on the heap of sand. + +When he reached the threshold of his refuge the jackal did exactly what +a long experience of the habits of his obnoxious tribe had led me to +expect,--that is to say he sank his hindquarters into the burrow and +then turned to look back, as though in derision,--his head, chest and +forelegs being exposed. Crack,--and he fell back and disappeared. But +I knew well enough that the bullet had fetched him; I heard its "klop" +distinctly. + +Hendrick hurried to the jackal's burrow; I returned to the nest. The +broken shells had to be removed and the spilt yolks sanded over; +otherwise the birds would most probably have abandoned the clutch. +There were three and twenty undamaged eggs remaining. Having put things +as straight as possible, I rejoined Hendrick. + +The jackal had disappeared into his burrow, but a big gout of blood just +inside the entrance told an unambiguous tale. Hendrick wormed his way +into the strait and narrow cavern as far as he thought he safely could; +he emerged empty-handed, but with traces of blood on his clothing. +However, Hendrick was not the Hottentot to forego a feast of +jackal-flesh without a further effort, so he uncoiled a reim from the +head-stall of Bucephalus, tied one end of it round his feet and gave me +the other to hold; then he re-entered the dark portal and passed out of +sight. Just afterwards I heard, as though from the bowels of the earth, +a muffled shout. I hauled strenuously at the reim and Hendrick emerged, +the dead jackal in his arms. In that cobra-haunted country I would not +have attempted Hendrick's feat for a jackal-skinful of gold. + +After this useful piece of police-work we rode back to camp at an easy +pace. Bucephalus always grew cantankerous at the smell of blood, so the +mortal remnants of Autolycus had to be tied behind my saddle,--a +circumstance which occasioned a good deal of chaff on the part of +Andries. + +That night I spread out my large-scale map of South Africa on boards +which I had brought for the purpose. It was my wont to fill in roughly +any physical data which I was able to determine. The air was so still +that the flame of a lit match hardly flickered. The vicinity of the +wagon was as bright as day, for we had built an enormous fire. The +flame of the candle-bush shone as clear as the electric arc, and arose +in a tall pyramid. Our shooting was at an end, so we did not mind our +presence being advertised throughout the desert. The oxen had returned +from Gamoep. All preparations for a start before dawn on the morrow had +been made. + +After finishing my amateur map-making, I roughly measured with a pair of +compasses the distance we had travelled from the vicinity of the Copper +Mines. Thus I found that if we were to travel only four times as far, +altering our course a little to the northward, we would reach +Johannesburg. A change, indeed. How great would have been the contrast +between Bushmanland, the abode of immemorial silence and solitude, and +what was probably the most intensely active (in a mechanical sense) +environment on earth. And yet, but a few short years before, when I +first crossed it, the Rand lay as lonely as Bantom Berg. But now I +could almost hear the ten-thousand-fold thudding of the stamps,--the +thunderous explosions vexing the bowels of the earth--the din of the +strenuous, diversified throng in the streets. + +They say that men soon wear themselves out in the city of gold and sin; +that the gravestones there are mostly those of the young. What is to be +the effect of this burning fever-spot on our body-politic, of this--to +change the metaphor--roaring maelstrom-mill into the hopper of which so +large a proportion of the youth of our country is flung? + +But in the nights that are coming,--when the rock-python pursues the +coney along the shattered pediments of the "Corner House," the +unchanging desert will lie, still void under the abiding scrutiny of the +stars. Bushmanland can never alter. + +The fire dimmed and died. One by one my companions sank into slumber. +The horses were resting,--except unquiet Bucephalus, who stamped and +whinnied at intervals. The oxen lay tethered to their yokes. Ever and +anon one of them uttered the deep, pathetic bovine sigh,--that +suspiration which seems to express perplexed resignation to the selfish +dominance of man,--to that hopeless slavery which is the doom of the +once-lordly bovine race. + +I seized my kaross and climbed the steep side of the nearest +dune-tentacle. Then I laboured along its soft, sinuous surface towards +the gross, inert body of Typhon, until far beyond the reach of +camp-sounds. In the yielding sand I made a lair. In this I laid me +down--apparently the only waking thing in Bushmanland, for most utter +silence reigned. Probably the soaring flames of our camp fire had +frightened away even the jackals and the night-jars from a wide +surrounding area. The stars seemed to sink earthward; so brightly did +they glow in the vault of liquid purple that the face of the desert was +masked in impenetrable gloom. That night the lips of the wilderness had +no message audible to human sense. + +Typhon slept--coiled about the feet of his granite prisoner, whose bulk +loomed menacingly against the wheeling galaxies. Did he, the belted +captive, sleep, or did he, haply, share vigil with the one solitary, +futile human soul which, maimed from the stress of days and deeds, +claimed with him brotherhood through pain and unrest. But slumber +seemed to brood over the desert like a dove and a far-off voice to +whisper across the shrouded plain: "Warte, nur--balde Ruhest du auch." + + + +CHAPTER SIX. + +HOMEWARD BOUND--FACES AROUND THE FIRE--THE BUSHMEN--PIET NOONA AND THE +SNAKE--THE LOVE OF THE DESERT--MY PREHISTORIC UNCLE AND AUNT--SCRUPLES-- +THE HUNTER'S INSTINCT. + +The ocean-plain to the south of Typhon and the camp we had broken up, is +probably the loneliest among the less frequented parts of Bushmanland. +No Trek Boer ever ventures there with his stock; the hunter pauses on +its undefined margin--well knowing that should he pursue the +disappearing herd of oryx much farther, he and his horse would +inevitably perish of thirst. For even on the rare occasions when rain +falls on this tract no water is conserved on its surface. Those +sand-choked, saucer-shaped depressions of the exposed bedrock found in +other parts of the desert, in which rain-water sometimes lodges, do not +there exist. + +The only people who ever visited the area in which we sojourned were +half-breed hunters. These had developed abnormal thirst-resisting +powers. They usually occupied a tract some hundred miles farther south, +and were incorrigible poachers of ostriches. By means of a flying +squadron of boys mounted on tough ponies, these half-breeds used to +round up herds, comprising birds of all ages, and mercilessly slaughter +them all on the edge of the Kanya-tract. + +We outspanned after a trek of about three hours. That night we intended +to take things easy,--at least I meant to try and persuade Andries to +consent to our so doing. The wagon was lightly laden, owing to our +having consumed most of the water,--the heat had not been excessive +since the oxen started from Gamoep; therefore they were not +over-thirsty. In fairly cool weather cattle bred on the borders of the +desert often voluntarily refrain from drinking water for several days at +a time. We were homeward bound after a prosperous voyage. Supper was +being got ready; Andries was busy preparing gemsbok soup, in which to +soak our rusks. The candle-bush fire flared aloft. Our pipes were +alight and the peace of the desert filled us with content. + +Hendrick and Danster had skinned the second jackal which, in +anticipation of the arrival of Piet Noona and his nephew with the +cattle, I had insisted should be reserved for that night's supper,--for +on the night previous we had trekked without a halt. The flesh of +Autolycus was soon roasting on the embers; all our Hottentots were +smacking their lips in anticipation of a feast. + +I formally presented both jackal skins to Piet Noona's nephew,--but +under an undertaking that they were not to be sold or otherwise +alienated. The skin of the first jackal was too thoroughly riddled with +buck-shot to be of much use to me; that of the second was badly torn by +the bullet. They were to be brayed, mended, and donned by the recipient +with as little delay as possible. + +This gift might have been described as an offering on the altar of +decency. I was not inclined to prudery, but Piet Noona's nephew was +beginning to grow up, and his sumptuary condition was shocking. In fact +his only available garment was a tattered fragment of sheepskin,--a +fragment so scanty that it would have barely sufficed to cover the +opening of a porcupine's burrow. Even then it could not have been +guaranteed to keep out the draught. The jackal skins were not large, +but compared with the sheepskin fragment they would have been as an +overcoat to a child's pinafore. I explained how they were to be worn: +one in front and one in the rear. The coverings of the hind paws were +to be joined, skin to skin, in such a way that the combined result would +hang from the wearer's shoulders, and the brushes were to be wound about +his neck when the weather was chilly. Piet Noona's nephew would thus be +reasonably protected, fore and aft, both from Mrs Grundy and the +weather. Crowned with a chaplet of Ghanna leaves and with his +knob-kerrie for thyrsus, he might have easily passed for a youthful but +disreputable Dionysus. + +As we drew out towards the borders of the desert the fingers of silence +seemed to press less heavily on our lips. Supper over, we laid +ourselves on the soft sand and conversed. But at first our conversation +was low-toned and very serious. The imminence of infinity abashed us; +it was as though earth and air were full of ears bent to catch every +word we uttered. I do not think anyone,--even the most feather-brained, +could be garrulous in the desert. + +The flames lit up the surrounding faces,--the ruddy, rugged countenance +of Andries, with its blue, laughing eyes and cropped beard streaked with +grey. The visage of Piet Noona was like that of an old baboon; his +nephew's resembled that of a young monkey. Danster's physiognomy +indicated a mixture of various strains; the result was quite +insignificant. + +The Mongolian features of Hendrick were distinctive and very +interesting. What was it that his appearance suggested; not exactly the +Chinaman, for his expression was not at all impassive; one could always +read his mood by it. His eyes were slightly oblique, his cheekbones +high, his head was as round as a Kanya stone. With remarkable muscular +development of the chest and shoulders, heavily hipped and very slightly +bandy-legged,--for long I was puzzled to discover what is was that +Hendrick reminded me of. He loved a horse and rode like a Centaur--or +the man-part thereof. Then I knew: it was a Hun that I was seeking +for,--one of the locusts of that Asiatic horde which swept over Europe +from the north-eastern steppes. I think that Attila, the Eraser of +Nations, who swayed the world from his saddle-throne, must have looked +somewhat like my scout. The most plausible theory as to the origin of +the Hottentot race is that its progenitors migrated hither from Asia. +Even van Riebeek noticed the resemblance between the aborigines of the +Cape and the Chinese. Yes, I was almost certain that Hendrick was a +Hun,--or rather that the tribe he was mainly descended from and the Huns +were twigs from the same bough of the great human tree. + +Hendrick, to be appreciated, should have been seen on the back of an +unrestrained or a vicious horse; it was then that he became a +personality. He rode as gracefully bare-back as with a saddle. I could +picture him galloping away from some sacked and smoking town--not on +raw-boned Bucephalus, but on some thickset, shaggy, steppe-bred mount. +Hanging limply across his tense, gripping thighs was a milk-white, +gently-nurtured Ildico maiden. Her wide blue eyes were stony with +horror,--her golden hair dabbled in the sweat of the horse's heaving +flank. She was bound and pinioned with shreds torn from her robe of +lawn. The other Huns were loaded with sacks of church plate, with +weapons and with merchandise. But Hendrick looked on the face of this +maiden, the daughter of what, but a few short hours before, had been a +proud and noble house,--and desired her alone. But I think and hope she +died of terror before the bivouac was reached. Hendrick was a tame, +kindly, obedient hunting-scout, but I am sure that the fierce, +conquering Hun lay sleeping within him. + +There is not a watering place in the Bushmanland desert which has not +some tragic story connected with it,--some reminiscence of a lonely +thirst-death, some tale having for its motif the shedding of blood-- +usually by treachery. But death, accidental or designed, was always the +theme. Not many miles from where we were camped that night one of the +earlier Wesleyan missionaries travelling from Warmbad to the half-breed +settlement on the Kamiesbergen had been shot to death with poisoned +arrows. This happened early in the nineteenth century. The murderer +was executed some time afterwards at Silverfontein. + +The first white man who crossed this tract did a venturesome thing. For +although at that time the Bushmen had already been considerably thinned +out by the Hottentots and half-breeds, many of them still lurked in the +less accessible parts. From time to time they emerged, singly or in +small parties, and wreaked a wild and often quite inconsequent revenge. + +Their mode of attacking travellers was to steal up at night among the +tussocks and discharge a flight of poisoned arrows at point-blank range, +among those surrounding the camp fire. They would then immediately +decamp and scatter in the darkness. Hours afterwards they might repeat +the attack. If the travellers were deep in the desert the repetition +would perhaps be delayed until the following night, for the Bushmen took +no avoidable risks. Usually the oxen or horses forming the span would +also be slain. One can imagine the plight of a party of travellers +under such circumstances: half of them dead or dying in agony, the +survivors cowering in a wagon as hopelessly tethered to a lonely spot in +a trackless waste as a wrecked ship is chained to the reef that gores +her side. They would have been ringed round with drought and famine; +close prisoners in a solitude only mitigated by the unseen presence of +implacable foes, the stroke of whose dart was as silent and deadly as +that of the snake. + +Yet these Bushmen had sufficient justification for all the terrible +reprisals they perpetrated. They were the original dwellers of the +soil; the Hottentots came, dispossessed them of their best water-places +and slaughtered them without mercy. When they migrated eastward they +met the Kaffirs, who proved a more formidable and quite as pitiless a +foe. In the storming of the Bushmen's strongholds their women and +children were speared or flung into the flames. They retired to the +most remote wastes,--to the sheer, black-chasmed fastnesses of the +Malutis, where snow lies thick for months at a time,--to torrid, +waterless deserts. But in every retreat, no matter how remote, their +foes sought them out. They invariably made a desperate resistance, and +sold their lives dearly. + +But the duel was between ferocity organised and ferocity deranged, so +the former was bound to prevail. It was a struggle of the clan against +a number of units which had no permanent cohesion; whose combinations +were fitful and occasional. There is no god but strength visible on the +checker-board of history. When the mighty is put down from his seat it +is not the humble and meek who is exalted, but one whose strength, being +of a more subtle order, is perhaps not at first recognised as such--one +whose cloak of humility may cover armour of proved temper. The strength +of the Bushmen, perfected through long ages of experience, was +all-potent against his one-time only adversary, the animal. But when +used against man, the intruder who had fought for his existence with +other men and learnt in the process the utility of combination, it +failed. The Bushman contended under one tremendous disability: he had +no tribal organisation,--the family was the independent unit. + +Piet Noona's nephew, having had the duty of collecting fuel assigned to +him, carried a considerable store of bushes to the vicinity of the fire +and there heaped them together. With the exception of the "toa," most +of the vegetation of the desert is globular in form, and, being usually +rooted in more or less soft sand, is easily pulled out. Andries reached +over and seized a bush-globe; one that was rather denser and larger than +usual. This he flung on the fire. Out of it glided, hissing, a snake-- +a horned adder. The reptile was quickly despatched. But upon seeing it +Piet Noona sprang into the air to a height of about four feet; then he +fled away into the darkness, bounding sideways as he ran and shrieking. +He had gone quite mad for the time being. This always happened when he +found himself in close proximity to a snake, and the madness invariably +manifested itself in the same way. Years ago Piet had been bitten by a +puff adder and narrowly escaped with his life. Ever since the sight of +a snake at close quarters has incontinently thrown his brain out of +gear. How far occasional bouts of brandy-drinking at the Copper Mines +has been responsible for this peculiarity, I cannot say. + +Some months previously I had played--to a great extent unwittingly--a +cruel trick on him. I had heard of Piet's being afraid of snakes, but +had no idea that his dread of them was so intense. One day when he was +saddling Prince I laid a recently-killed snake across the saddle. The +creature was practically dead, but was still squirming slightly--as +snakes are apt to do for a considerable time after they have been +rendered harmless, no matter how badly they may have been mangled. + +Piet's head, as he tightened the girth, was under the uplifted +saddle-flap. When he dropped the latter and found the snake close to +his face he sprang into the air and fled, bounding sideways and every +now and then striking his thigh diagonally with the palm of his right +hand. It was a most peculiar and uncanny manifestation. I did not see +Piet for three days afterwards. Then he emerged from the veld, red-eyed +and starving, but once more in his (comparatively) right mind. That +night, as his cries grew fainter in the distance, we concluded that we +should see no more of him during the trip. + +Once more our caravan was silently moving over the trackless waste. The +desert was now in one of her moods of tenderness,--the air full of soft +and subtle scent that was sweeter than myrrh--more grateful than wafts +from a garden of spices. A feeling of sadness gripped my heartstrings; +I was leaving the mistress I loved--the mistress beneath whose stern, +arid, monotonous day-mask I could discern the fair symmetry, the soft +and delicately-tinted curves of perfect and eternal youth. How often +had I breathlessly watched those features quicken and grow mobile as the +defacing sun departed. It was then that the breath of her mouth sought +mine; then that her eyes shone softly as the evening star. But it was +at full night, when the great dome above us was unvexed by the least +trace of day, that the desert's inhabiting soul came forth and +transfigured the littleness of my cribbed and cabined spirit. + +Sometimes for a season she smiled as though she relented, but the smile +was not for me. At dawn, when Zephyr and Aurora couched at the hem of +her robe, she let me lean against the softness of her bosom. At night +she lulled me to sleep and crooned into my ear dream-songs that were +great and strong with wisdom gleaned from the most ancient seasons. But +when day returned she flung me to the lions of the sun. Should they +have mangled me to death the mistress of my worship would not have +cared. She was too strong to feel compassion, too lofty to be moved by +grief or touched by any regret. My beloved was not mine, tho' I was +wholly hers, and the lilies at her breast were petalled with consuming +flame. "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, +clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners?" It was the desert. + +Spinoza's aphorism:--"Those who love God truly must not expect that God +will love them in return," roots deep in human experience. The loftiest +love is that which gets not nor expects requital. I used to believe +that this desert I love hated me. But I thought so no longer. It was +not hate nor any other emotion that she felt; she was filled with the +divine attribute of infinite indifference. + +I am subjectively certain that some ancestor of mine with prognathous +jaw, flat forehead and enormous thews, paddled over the sea that once +filled these plains and roamed over the far-separated hill-tracks. I +often saw him,--usually where the stark mountain range,--which in those +old days was covered with verdure,--arises like a rampart from the +northern limit of the plains. I have watched him crouching behind a +rock with a sling in his hairy hand and a stone-axe slung to his girdle +of twisted thongs,--his fierce eyes bent on a herd of Aurochs (or +whatever the local contemporary equivalent of those beasts may have +been) straying down to the entrance of a certain valley. There he had +constructed, and skilfully concealed, a staked pit. The mountains at +Agenhuis and the high kopjes at Gaams and Namies were then islands, and +he used to paddle from one to the other in a canoe made of Aurochs' hide +stretched over boughs. In the gorge that splits Agenhuis Mountain he +waged mighty and victorious war with such dragons of the prime as +attempted to lair therein,--for Agenhuis was one of his favourite +sojourning places, and in the days when he flourished, dragons had not +yet disappeared from earth. + +In view of the undoubted scientific foundation upon which the germ-plasm +theory rests, there is no limit to be set to atavistic memory. I am +quite persuaded that this ancestor of mine actually existed; as a matter +of fact I have over and over again seen him on the hunting trail, +attending to the all-important business of filling his larder. I have +watched him as he set forth in the early morning, empty and wrathful, +and as he returned towards evening--still empty but laden with +extraordinary spoil of antediluvian meat, and whooping an extempore +triumphal chant. + +He would fling the meat down at the mouth of his cave, and bellow for +the attendance of his by-no-means gentle mate. She, with the fear of +the stone-axe before her prehistoric eyes, would at once conceal the +prehistoric baby in a corner, and with almost feverish energy busy +herself with rudimentary cooking. A big fire would be already alight,-- +the embers containing stones in red-hot readiness for dropping into a +pot-shaped depression in the cave's floor, half-full of water. Into +this the meat and the stones would be flung together, but in the +meantime a tit-bit had been lightly and hurriedly broiled, cleaned of +ashes, and held out to the hunter on the end of a long stick, in a +propitiatory way. After this had been snatched and swallowed to the +accompaniment of savage growls, the cook seemed to be more at her ease. +All this time the baby kept as still as a mouse. Prehistoric babies did +not cry when papa was about, and hungry. In the exceptional cases where +they did, it only happened once. + +I trust my claim to such ancient lineage may not be put down to +snobbery. One always suspects those who dwell unduly on the deeds of +their ancestors. But my justification is this:--a germ charged with an +epitome of that creature's stormy life has come down to me through the +generations. It remained dormant until it met in my brain some solvent +which disintegrated its shell and thus set the sleeper free. Garrulous +after its long imprisonment the germ has told the story over and over +again to all the grey molecules of my cortex. For some time most of +these have known it off by heart. + +Accordingly this ancestor--or perhaps for the sake of convenience I +might term him my (many times removed) uncle--and I have been for some +time shouting to each other across the ages, until we have attained to +almost an intimacy. I have, in fact, by this means, acquired many +prehistoric forms of thought. As may be imagined this has somewhat +confused my ethical canons. Much of what I have learnt is difficult to +translate into terms of modern speech. + +I often long with all my soul to be prehistoric in certain matters, but +the prim hand of convention--otherwise the unimaginative policeman-- +holds me back. However, some of my uncle's views are still more or less +widely held. He was, for instance, what in modern speech would be +called a strong Conservative; that is abundantly clear from many of his +peculiarities. But in his day Imperialism had not yet been born; there +was so far no urgent necessity to provide for the younger sons of the +aristocracy. In fact there was still room in the world for everybody, +and as cultivation had not yet been invented, there was no such thing as +private ownership of land. Moreover, the pressure of over-population +was never really felt until cannibalism went out of fashion, and that +happened only quite recently. + +My uncle was, of course, an aristocrat,--his three-fold patent of +nobility being founded on his muscular strength, his skill in wielding +weapons and his unique talent for concentrating all the faculties of his +prehistoric mind on what I, his degenerate nephew, would call the main +chance. + +My aunt--there were several of them, of course, but you may take your +choice, they were all of the same type--was an extremely practical +woman. But she was not a Suffragette--or if she was she carefully +concealed the circumstance. She was quite devoid of any kind of +sentiment. In the matter of personal adornment, she affected the +jewellery of the period; this consisted of the scalps and ears of my +husband's deceased enemies--more or less dessicated--and the teeth of +the same persons, bored through and strung on thin thongs. Her wardrobe +was not extensive; in fact she never owned more than one garment at a +time, and that she only used in cold weather. My uncle's hunting +provided the material, so he had neither dressmakers' nor milliners' +bills to meet. + +My aunt was fiercely fond of her children so long as they depended upon +her for food and protection. Afterwards she rather disliked them than +otherwise. If one of them after reaching adolescence met her +accidentally when she took her walks abroad, that one would utter a howl +of dismay as loud as though he had met an angry odontosaurus, and flee, +leaping from side to side to avoid the slung stones. For my aunt also +carried a sling; she found it far more useful than a reticule. + +How Nietsche would have delighted in this family; what a joy it would be +to Mr Bernard Shaw. I can imagine my uncle dining with President +Roosevelt,--but it would hardly have done to invite Booker Washington to +meet him. + +About two hours after midnight I coerced Andries into being merciful and +calling a halt, for I felt that I must sleep or die. It was only when I +had thrown myself prone on the sand and told Hendrick to picket the +horses close by, that Andries relented. There was really no object in +pushing on at such rapid rate; by making an early start we could easily +reach Gamoep shortly after noon on the morrow. + +Both Danster and Piet Noona reported the presence of springbuck in this +vicinity. Mrs Esterhuizen would be disappointed and contemptuous if we +returned without meat other than the half-dried oryx-flesh. When, I +again asked myself, would repentance for the crimes I committed in +slaying those beautiful desert creatures become final and practical, +instead of intermittent? Saint Augustine once put up a prayer for the +grace of continence, but added a rider to the effect that he did not +desire it to be granted immediately. This somewhat suggested my state +of mind. But I meant some day to lay down my rifle finally--perhaps +after a particularly good bag or an unusually skilful shot. Afterwards +I should never kill another animal--unless in self-defence or because I +badly lacked meat. However, in the meantime, like Saint Augustine, I +knew I should continue certain practices which my conscience +reprehended. The hunter's instinct is the one most deeply rooted in the +mind of man; it is among those tendencies which persist after the +conditions which called them forth have disappeared--even from memory. +It is the true basis of that original sin over which the theologians +fumble, for in the absence of other available game men hunt each other. + +But I had, incontinently, to sleep. And hey--for a gallop over the +plains in the morning. + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN. + +THE SPRINGBUCK DRIVE--THE BUSHMAN CAVES--RETURN TO GAMOEP. + +Morning,--and the cool west wind, laden with refreshment, hastened over +the desert's rim to where I lay, still on the border-land of sleep. The +sweeping garments of the air-spirit were fragrant with the ichor of the +sea on whose breast it had slept. Its sandals whispered through the +swaying tussocks, its tresses trailed over the bending plumes of the +"toa" shocks. It gently tried to draw me back to the mistress I loved +and longed for, but was deserting because she would have slain me had I +lingered at her unpitying feet. + +At sunrise I gazed around for one ecstatic moment and again sank to +sleep--to a zone too deep for dreams to haunt. The long trampings of +the previous two nights had made further slumber an almost absolute +necessity. Andries might go hang; I would not move. + +The grateful aroma of coffee wakened me. I decided to breakfast in bed; +that is without emerging from my kaross. Andries determined to go on +with the wagon. Hendrick and the horses were to remain with me; also +Piet Noona's nephew who would, later, trot on and overtake the wagon +with my kaross and pannikin. After another hour's sleep the sun became +insupportable, for the wind had somewhat died down, so I ordered my +faithful Hun to saddle up. He had already located a herd of springbuck. +It had been settled that we were to try and drive these near enough to +the track to afford Andries some shooting. No one but Hendrick had seen +the game; he said they were too far off--away, ahead,--on the left-hand +side of the track,--for us to see. Andries was to lie in ambush at a +certain knoll, while the wagon went on to Kanxas,--there to be +outspanned. + +Hendrick's powers of vision were phenomenal; when objects at a distance +were in question, no one dreamt of disputing his verdict. His eyes were +equal, if not superior to the best prismatic binoculars ever turned out +by Dollond or Zeiss, and Nature had apparently corrected them for +chromatic and all other aberrations. + +The western hills could now be distinctly seen; we might even recognise +the contours of the ridge beyond the northern end of which Gamoep lay. +Soon we should pass from the kingdom of ancient silence to where the +squalid tents of nomadic men were temporarily pitched,--to where the +fat-tailed sheep crowded, with anxious eyes, around the creaking derrick +and the scanty trough. But to us, intruders as we were, the desert had +still to pay tribute. + +We started, Hendrick and I, riding quietly forth on a course a little to +the east of south, for we had a wide detour to make. I knew the +vicinity well; it was, literally speaking, a part of the desert, but I +found it hard to acknowledge it as such, for the reason that the western +hills were in sight. These seemed to link us with the conventional +world. + +We passed over a tract studded with small, dense patches of low scrub; +it looked like a miniature archipelago in the boundless ocean of "toa." +Here brown "duiker" antelopes were numerous. So far as I knew this was +the only part of Bushmanland where such were to be found. As we rode on +the little creatures sprang out, right and left, from the patches of +cover and bounded gracefully away. + +Far to the south-west the herd of springbuck was now clearly visible. +Most of them were quietly grazing in the mild sunshine. Now and then a +few detached themselves from the main body and, one behind the other, +bounded away for a few hundred yards on a course curved like the blade +of a scimitar--"pronking" with the sheer joy of unspoilt life. After +such an excursion they would rejoin the others and go on feeding. And I +had come to... But if I had let Jekyll climb to my crupper Andries +would have got no shooting. The herd was a small one; it did not number +more than about six hundred. It was curious that these bucks had not +joined in the general migration eastward towards where the lightning had +flashed its message of rain a few nights previously. + +The springbucks had not seen us as yet, for we were still about two +miles distant from them. The eyes of these animals seem to be +specialised to a definite range as the ear is tuned to a certain gamut +of sound. I will endeavour to explain what is meant by this. They do +not seem to notice anything at a greater distance than about fifteen +hundred yards. Conversely, should you be lying in ambush and the bucks +come to within fifty yards of you, they would evince far less alarm if +you shewed yourself than on seeing you at a distance of from two to +three hundred yards. + +This can easily be accounted for. The springbuck has always spent its +life in an environment of menace, but as conditions change the nature of +the menace changes with them. Formerly the danger-zone for these +creatures was that from which the lion, the leopard or the wild dog +could spring; it was only surprise at close quarters that the springbuck +had to guard against. Given a few seconds' notice of the approach of an +enemy, this creature's unsurpassed fleetness enabled it to laugh at +danger. This laughter is still expressed in the manner in which a small +herd of springbuck will circle round and round a pursuing dog that is +not especially swift--as porpoises sometimes circle around a moving +ship. + +We know from accounts left by the very old hunters that in early days, +when the killing range of a bullet was little more than a hundred yards, +springbuck would graze with apparent unconcern until approached to +within about that distance. But with the disappearance of the larger +carnivora before firearms, and the increase in the range of the rifle, a +wider danger-zone has been created, while the danger of an enemy at +close quarters has practically disappeared. The width of the +danger-zone has gone on increasing with the longer range of the rifle. + +Wild animals are quick to learn and to unlearn--which is not quite the +same as to forget. Thus the springbuck has ceased to dread the +springing enemy, the creature of teeth and claws that used to lie in +ambush; in fact he never contemplates the contingency of any enemy at +close quarters, and on the rare occasions when he meets one, the +experience appears to fill him with surprise rather than alarm. + +The distance between us and the herd had decreased to a little over two +thousand yards, so I detached Hendrick and instructed him to alter his +course to the left and endeavour to edge round the still unsuspecting +animals. The object was to stampede the herd so that it would pass me +on my right and head towards where Andries lay in ambush. Bucephalus +and Hendrick loomed immense and black against the background of yellow +shocks, but they were apparently unobserved by the game, for the latter +still grazed and "pronked" about as though they had the whole desert to +themselves,--as though no entangling web were being drawn about them. + +Hendrick had reached the limit of his arc; then the springbuck marked +him and evidently realised that there was danger. Apprehension touched +them; a quiver ran through the herd; they lifted their heads and gazed; +they moved to and fro. So far it was not fear that they felt; for they +knew their own fleetness and had trust in it. Then, suddenly, terror +seemed to strike them like a blast, for as dead leaves are caught by a +wind-eddy and whirled in a spiral, these imponderable-seeming, ethereal +desert creatures swerved over an area resembling in form the sweep of a +fan, and then streamed forth like a handful of white rose-petals before +a gale. + +Why is it, I wonder, that during the forenoon springbuck in the desert +appear to be white? For this is literally the case; these animals +seemed to be as white as snow, as imponderable as thistledown. The +fawn-tint of their necks and flanks, the broad, brown patches on their +sides, the black, lyre-formed horns,--all were drowned in the milky foam +of the dorsal manes. These were expanded laterally to their fullest +extent; each long silvery hair stood erect and quivering. + +The creatures' heads were depressed almost to the level of their feet. +With backs deeply arched they bounded over the face of the desert like +so many alabaster discs--mingling, separating and re-combining in a +tracery of flying arabesques. They had adopted the attitude and +movement usual to their kind in moments of sudden terror or delight. +Surely their flight was the highest expression of grace revealed by +animated nature in motion. It was a soundless melody; a symphony for +the eye. + +The torrent was streaming to my right, straight for Andries. Hendrick +thundered behind,--a black Centaur-monstrosity. How terrible he must +have appeared to the fugitives. I wished Hendrick then would trend to +_his_ right, for if the springbuck had swerved towards Kanxas and caught +sight of the wagon, they would have doubled on their tracks and made for +the depths of the desert. My object was to hold them on the course they +were following for as long as possible. Ha! they must have sighted the +wagon, for they wheeled to their right and attempted to escape past me, +about three thousand yards on my side of where Andries lay waiting for +his shot. The terror of death was upon them; their manes were down-- +hidden in the constricted dorsal tract. The eye could hardly follow the +movement of their limbs; distance died beneath the lightning of their +feet. + +The reins fell upon my horse's neck, I pressed my spurless heels to his +sides; he knew what was required of him. We dashed forward to cut the +herd off. While we had to cover a thousand yards the springbuck had to +cover nearly two--yet it was clear that they must win the race. When +the springbuck runs his best the speed he attains is almost incredible. +There remained but one thing to be done. + +After having altered my course so as to reach some slightly higher +ground, I rolled from the saddle on to the soft sand and began firing-- +not at the bucks, but so that my bullets would strike some twenty or +thirty yards in front of the leaders of the herd. Bullet after bullet +scarred the ground, sending up spouts of red sand--now here, now there. +The herd faltered in bewilderment, whirled round in a half-circle to the +left, and headed straight for the ambush. + +A distant shot--another; several in rapid succession. It was the rifle +of Andries speaking. It was Man taking toll of Nature, imposing his +age-long tribute of blood and pain. It was Death eliminating Beauty +become obsolete. It was like Autumn shedding the petals of a flower +that had lived its allotted day. + +The hunted creatures, in their dismay, completed the circle of frantic +effort; they sped back to the spot where they had been disturbed. They +passed it; they grew smaller and smaller until they melted into the +infinite mystery of the desert. + +Three bucks had fallen to Andries' rifle. I dismounted, and we piled +the carcases on Prince's patient back. Bucephalus, as usual, grew +frantic on being brought within smelling-distance of the slain game. +Then we strolled to where the wagon was waiting for us, at a spot some +three miles away, close to the head of the Kanxas Gorge. There we dined +sumptuously on roasted springbuck liver,--one of the best of desert +delicacies. + +Once more I explored the gorge--that deserted city which once teemed +with human life. It was narrow, it was neither long nor deep; a mere +scar it was on the desert's flank. The greatest depth was not more than +fifty feet; it was possibly a mile long and the width varied. The sides +contained caves, on the walls of which could still be seen traces of +fires lit long, long ago. And there, thickly traced on the ledges was +the mysterious, black-pigmented script--the groups of short, diagonal +lines crossing each other at various angles. What did they indicate; +was nothing to be read from them even by those who deciphered the graven +edict, five-and-twenty centuries old, of Mesha the Sheepmaster? + +Why was it that one did not find at Kanxas pictures of the eland, the +oryx and the rhinoceros; why were there no perspectiveless battle-pieces +depicting the successful defence of some cave-stronghold, with the +baffled invaders being hurled down precipices? Such pictures are found +distributed over vast areas of South Eastern Africa; it seemed +remarkable that none exist, so far as I am aware, in Bushmanland. + +Perhaps the plants from which the necessary pigments had to be extracted +do not grow on that side of South Africa. But, deep in the Orange River +gorge is a continuous strip of rich and varied woodland, in which most +of the South African forest flora is represented. Moreover, on the +islands which gem the river's course near its mouth are to be found +myriads of eastern plants, the progeny of seeds carried down by the +annual flood from far-off Basutoland and its environs,--and it is +precisely in that vicinity that Bushman paintings are most plentiful. +The thing remains a puzzle. + +And the strange, highly-evolved dramatic art of that vanished race,--a +drama in which human beings took the parts of animals,--how often had it +not found expression there in days of bygone plenty; days when the +baskets of dried-locust cakes crowded every ledge and the children went +pot-bellied and sleek. + +There was the stage; there the auditorium; yonder the ledge along which, +no doubt, the actors made their exits and their entrances. Was the +audience a critical one; did it generously applaud a nervous new actor +of evident talent; did it hurl stones, at one who bungled his part or +tried to make up in pretentiousness what he lacked in ability? Did the +author of a successful play advance to the proscenium and enjoy the +tribute of plaudits paid to a successful playwright? + +I fancy there must have been a chorus; possibly a semi-chorus as well. +Thespis and Aeschylus probably adopted those obvious aids to rudimentary +drama from the shepherd,--who is first-cousin to the savage. And the +more one sees of various savages, belong they to Bushmanland or to the +Bowery, the more astonishing is the kinship revealed between them. I +could find no box-office--no gallery from which the gods could have +jibed. The auditorium must have been all pit. + +And what dramas of real life must have been enacted in that rocky +valley; what rudimentary idylls had not the moon looked upon as her +slanting beams searched slowly down among the rocks on summer nights. +There men and women loved; there jealousy, cruel as the grave, had +brooded. There vengeance had stalked abroad and taken toll for Fate. +Finally, from there--after an age-long struggle--Death had evicted Life. +It was, after all, only appropriate that the Kanxas fountain should +have ceased to flow. + +How often had not some old lion--some gaunt, lonely brute with blunted +teeth and claws worn to the quick, crouched among those rocks, bent on +spoil of the cave-men? During how many nights of livid fear must not +the horrible purring of the man-eater, as he quested up the gorge, have +sunk to the deadlier horror of silence. For then every member of the +little community would have known that the prowler had at length +selected a dwelling from which presently to drag a shrieking victim. + +And later, the arch-enemy, the more cruel spoiler, man. Man--the +spoiler to-day,--to-morrow the spoiled. The European revenged the +Bushman on the Hottentot; who would revenge the Hottentot on the +European? "For that which hath been is, and that which will be hath +been, and there is no new thing." The thought made "a goblin of the +sun." "O stars that sway our fate; O orbs that should be very wise, for +you have circled the heavens and regarded the earth from the most +ancient days,--you who, impassively, have seen an endless succession of +civilisations arise, decline and die,--when, and at whose hand, will our +nemesis come?" + +A spirit of laziness had overcome us all. Andries lay fast asleep under +the wagon; his large frame was loosened, his placid, handsome, +weather-beaten face relaxed. He would have looked just as he did then, +had he been dead, for his days had been days of quietness and all his +pathways peaceful. Yet in that man's deliberate arteries flowed the +blood of those who withstood Alva in the Netherlands, and of others who +abandoned France, with all that seemed to make life worth the living, +rather than bend the knee at the shrine of a false god. I wondered +whether that large-boned, contented, easy-going farmer were capable of +standing on the ramparts of another Leyden and, from hunger-bitten, +indomitable lips roaring heroic and vitriolic defiance at a +seemingly-unconquerable foe. Would he have abandoned honour, riches, +comfort, roof-tree and friends for the sake of conscience,--that +discipliner whose whip-lash does not, unfortunately, bite as severely as +it once was wont to do? I wondered, and in wondering breathed one of +those wishes which are the essence of prayer, that he might never be put +to the test. + +The afternoon was young. I decided to stroll on, ahead. I found +Danster and Piet Noona's nephew just above the krantz--preventing, with +some difficulty, the oxen from stampeding to Gamoep, which was now only +about ten miles distant. I sent them back to the wagon with +instructions to do the thing my heart had failed of,--to waken a human +being from that highest condition of well-being--perfect sleep. But it +was now time to inspan; for the first time since they had last drunk the +oxen were really suffering from thirst. They, too, had their rights. +Andries, moreover, was one of those fortunate beings who could slumber +at will. + +So I again strolled on. I left the track and climbed to the top of the +Koeberg, the hill from which the big beacon--that farthest outpost of +the trigonometrical survey on this side--springs like a startled finger. +This was one of the actual portals of the desert. I was now, alas! +once more within sight of the dwellings of men. Several tents had been +pitched, and quite a number of mat-houses set up at Gamoep since we had +left it, a little more than a week previously. + +I turned eastward and cast mournful eyes back over the sun-bathed +immensity from which I had emerged, and from the deepest depths of which +sounded a call that I knew would for ever echo in my soul. What a +strange regret it was that tugged at my aching heartstrings... + +The wind had here died down. The morrow would be torrid,--perhaps with +a tornado from the north. As the last skirts of the sea-cooled breeze +trailed away into the infinite east, their track was marked by a line of +towering sand-spouts. So gently did these move across the plains that +it seemed as though they stood like a row of lofty columns sustaining +the temple-dome of the sky. Yet a careful eye might detect their +rhythmic and concerted movement. What was the stately measure they were +treading,--to what sphere-music did their gliding feet keep time? + +And then, O desert--O steadfast face that I loved--I had to bid you +farewell. These eyes would gaze upon you again, but the day was swiftly +coming when I should have to take leave of you for ever. But if when +the body dies the spirit still lives, this soul which was nourished by +your hand until it grew to a stature sufficient to enable it to realise +its own littleness, will return and merge itself in your immensity. + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT. + +THE SUMMER CLOUDS--NEWS OF RAIN--START FOR PELLA--THE VEDIC HYMNS-- +DIGGING FOR WATER--ARRIVAL AT PELLA--TERRIBLE HEAT--THE TRIBE--AQUINAS +IN THE WILDERNESS--THE MISSION--THE RIVER GORGE--THE TARANTULA INVASION. + +That mountain tract stretching like a back-bone through Namaqualand, +parallel with the coast upon which the Atlantic ceaselessly thunders, is +the region which catches the sparse, south-western winter rains,--but +which in summer is the abode of drought. On the in-lying Bushmanland +plains the winters are quite arid; it is only in summer, when occasional +thunderstorms stray down from the north-east, that the level desert gets +rain. + +In a season when the Storm Gods go forth mightily to war on the aether +seas, and the capricious heavens are bountiful, it is a striking +experience to climb, on a torrid afternoon, some peak jutting from the +eastern margin of the mountain tract, and from there to watch the +ordered procession of the thunder-ships as they sweep down from their +far-off port of assembly. Like great battle-craft, black beneath and +equipped with dreadful artillery,--their dazzling decks heaped and laden +with ocean-gleaned merchandise of crudded white,--they charge menacingly +across the illimitable plains as though to overwhelm the granite ranges. +But each stately vessel barely touches some outlying buttress; then the +aery hull swerves and changes its course due south, bearing its most +precious freight to more fortunate regions. It is as though some +immense, invisible fender were being lowered from the sky to guard the +range from the shock of impact. + +There came good news from Bushmanland; thunderstorm after thunder-storm +had trailed over the plains, each marking its path with verdure and +filling every rock-depression with water. The drought had broken, so my +long-postponed trip to Pella, that remote outpost of French-Roman +Catholicism, could be undertaken. Pella lies where the iron mountains, +like a leash of black panthers, spring from the northern margin of the +plains,--and then sink to their lair in that great gorge through whose +depths the Orange River swirls and eddies with its drainage of a million +hills. + +We were to travel with horses along a route I had special reasons for +wishing to take, but which, had the drought still prevailed, we would +not have dared to traverse. But under the existing circumstances it +would never be necessary to travel more than twenty miles without +finding a spot where a water-pit might be dug. + +So Andries brought his spring-wagon in to the Copper Mines and we made +busy preparations for a start. Our wagon-team numbered eight, four +belonging to Andries and four to me. Old Prince pulled as a wheeler; my +two young chestnuts as leaders. Besides the wagon we had another +vehicle,--a strange, springless, nondescript contraption knocked +together by Andries out of the remains of an old horse-wagon which he +had broken up. It had low, strong wheels set very wide apart, with a +rough framework of yellow-wood boards superimposed. There was no seat, +but a box-like rim of woodwork edged the frame. To this vehicle four +half-trained horses were yoked. It was intended to be used in pursuing +springbuck over the plains. Hendrick was to be the driver; his task +would not be an easy one. Andries owned a mob of over sixty horses, the +greater number of which had been taught but the merest rudiments of +service. + +We reached the outer periphery of the hills late in the afternoon, and +camped on the margin of the pale-green ocean of feathery "toa." +Far-off, to eastward, we marked the rose-litten turrets of a +thunder-cloud. When the sun went down these were illuminated by +incessant lightnings, symbols of destruction heralding the advent of the +only giver of life-rain. + +I had formerly been accustomed to bring books to Bushmanland, but, with +one exception, I did so no longer. The exception was Ludwig's +translation of the Vedic Hymns. The open Volume of the desert, so +insistent to be read, was sufficient; nevertheless those large, +primordial utterances of the Vedas seemed appropriate whenever one was +brought into contact with unspoilt Nature in her vaster aspects. +Although they originated under conditions very dissimilar to the local +ones, the Vedic Hymns are tuned to the desert's pitch. In India, as in +Bushmanland, rain is the paramount necessity. When the rain-gods forget +Bushmanland a few thousand fat-tailed sheep may perish; a hundred +families may have to retire from its margins and live for a season by +digging wild tubers among the granite hills, or by robbing the ants of +their underground store of "toa" seed. But if a similar thing happen in +India, perhaps ten millions of human beings die a horrible death. + +In the desert,--away from man and everything that suggested him, the +Hebrew Scriptures seemed to be too overloaded with ethics, too exigent +towards enlisting the services of the deity on the side of tribe against +tribe. But the Vedic Hymnist was a worshipper who imposed no conditions +upon his gods. He had passionately realised the fundamental fact that +his own continued existence, as well as that of all organic life, +depended upon the beneficient fury of the sky, so he offered awed and +unconditioned adoration to Indra, Agni and the "golden-breasted" Storm +Gods through a symbolism of sincere and homely dignity. Submissive, he +accepted death or life, the thunder-bolt or the Soma-flower,--the +drought that slew its millions or the rain that brought a bounteous +harvest. + +We started at break of day. Although rain had fallen, we felt it +necessary to plan our course carefully, for water was only to be found +in the sand-covered rock-depressions--and these, albeit more than +ordinarily frequent in that section of the desert over which our route +lay, were nevertheless few and far between. The weather was hot; +therefore the horses, unlike oxen, had to drink at least once a day. +Even where it existed, water could only be obtained by digging to a +depth of from five to eight feet; then it had to be scooped up in +pannikins after having trickled in from the sides and collected at the +bottom of the pit. Thus, even under favourable conditions, it took +about two hours' hard work to provide sufficient water to quench the +thirst of twelve animals. + +With cocked ears and anxious looks the horses would crowd to where the +smell of wet sand told them that relief was near; it became necessary to +keep them off with a whip. Once I narrowly escaped being badly hurt +owing to a mule flinging itself into a pit in which I was digging for +water. + +We decided not to delay on our forward journey; therefore the various +herds of game seen in the distance were not interfered with. We +intended, after finishing our business at Pella, to seek out some +temporary oasis favourably situated, pitch our camp there and spend a +few days shooting in the vicinity. + +On the forenoon of the fourth day,--a day of terrible heat, we sighted +the mission buildings of Pella in the far distance. These stood on a +limestone ridge in a crescent-shaped bend of that stark range of +mountains on the northern side of which the Orange River has carved its +tremendous earth-scar. Here the colour of the mountains changed; they +were no longer jet-black as I had found those a hundred miles to +westward, but a deep chocolate brown. From Pella ran a steep ravine +which cleft the range almost to its base. Down this a crooked track led +to the river, which was said to be about nine miles away. + +It seemed as though we should never reach the mission; the trek over +red-hot sand through which angular chunks of limestone were thickly +distributed, seemed interminable in the fierce heat. But at length the +journey ended, and the panting horses were released for their sand-bath, +preliminary to a much-needed drink. The half-dozen low houses of the +mission, built of unburnt brick and livid-grey in colour, lay huddled +around the unfinished walls of what was intended to eventually be a +church. That bare, sun-scourged, glaring ridge which had been selected +as the site for the institution lacked every attribute tempting to man-- +save one: and that the all-essential,--water. For thither, to the midst +of a howling desolation, Nature, in one of her moods of whimsical +paradox, had enticed from the depths a spring of living crystal. +Through torrid day and frosty night,--through short, adventitious rainy +season and long, inevitable period of aridity which filled man and brute +with dismay,--"ohne hast, ohne rast" the gentle fountain welled out, +cold and clear. It seemed as though some spirit whose dwelling was deep +in a zone untroubled by the moods of the changeful sky stretched forth a +pitiful hand to touch the scarred forehead of the waste with comfort and +with healing. + +The heat in the wagon had been a burthen and almost a misery, yet I was +able to sustain it while we were in motion. But the stillness of the +atmosphere and the glare from the limestone surrounding the mission, +made one desperate. Shade--coolness--where were they to be found? Even +mere darkness would have been a relief. I sought refuge under a +verandah, but got no assuagement. I longed for some corner into which +to creep--for somewhere to hide, if only from the blistering light. +Father Simon, the Director of the Mission, kindly vacated his house and +placed it at my disposal. The building contained but one room. + +I entered and closed the door. For a few seconds the darkness brought a +sense of easement, but the closeness, the thick stagnation of the air, +made me gasp. And the heat was nearly as bad as it was outside. How +was that? I put my hand to one of the clod-like bricks of which the +walls were built. It was quite uncomfortably hot to the touch; the +force of the sun had penetrated it. + +Something approaching despair seized me; it was then nearly noon--could +I live through another six hours of such torture? I began to speculate +as to what were the initial symptoms of heat-apoplexy. The labouring +blood thundered in my ears; I felt perilously near delirium. It was as +though one were being suffocated in the cellar of a burning house. I +stripped off my clothes and grovelled naked on the clay floor, seeking +relief in cobwebby corners. In the gloom I caught sight of a bucket of +water. I tore a sheet from the bed, soaked it and wrapped it around me. +In all my life I had never felt in such physical extremity. However, +lying on the ground wrapped in the wet sheet brought a measure of +relief. But the miseries of that day will never be forgotten. + +At length the sun went down--sank in golden ruin among the fang-like +peaks of the umber-tinted western mountains. Soon the quivering earth +flung off its Nessus-garment and a delicious interval followed. But +shortly after nightfall the chilliness of the air became so +uncomfortable that I overhauled my belongings in the wagon, seeking a +warmer coat. Father Simon, with a smile, produced his thermometer; the +mercury stood at 86 Fahrenheit. I learned that five hours previously it +had reached 119 in the shade. + +Next day brought practically no diminution of temperature; but somehow I +seemed to have acquired resisting power. The fear of possible collapse, +even of death, which came upon me the previous day, had gone. Perhaps +the fatigues of the long journey--more especially the heavy digging in +the water-pits--may have lowered my vitality. Presently we had another +severe ordeal to undergo, for we decided to make our way down the gorge +and spend a night on the bank of the river. It seemed as though it +would be like descending to the Gehenna-pit. + +But first to bend an examining eye upon that strange community of men +and women,--those adventurers from the Old World to a world immeasurably +older and less changeful. So far as I could gather, the personnel +consisted of three priests, four lay-brothers and five nuns. It was to +those women that my pity went out; they were so pallid, so +debilitated,--so incongruous with their surroundings. As they flitted +silently about, busied with hospitable service towards the guests, their +hands looked like faded leaves. How the conventual habit, albeit the +material had been lightened to accord with local conditions, must have +weighed them down. The low-roofed, livid-grey brick building in which +they lived must have got heated through and through as Father Simon's +dwelling did. One of those nuns had, so I was told, lost her reason and +was shortly to be removed. Their lot must have been one of continuous +martyrdom. + +Father Simon was suave in manner; I could judge him to be shrewd and +clear-headed; evidently he was a man of affairs. His pallor was +apparently congenital; it by no means suggested physical weakness. +Salamander-like, he had habituated himself to the torrid climate. Like +an Arab chief he ruled his clan of about two hundred subjects. This was +as mixed a lot of human beings as one would find anywhere--even in South +Africa, that land of varied human blends. Among them were pure-bred +Europeans,--some bearing names held in honour from Cape Town to +Pretoria. Others were frankly black,--and there were all intermediate +shades. + +Just then the mat-houses of the tribe were pitched at one of the +outlying water-places; I did not learn how far off, for distance is an +unimportant detail in the desert. But it was some place where a +thunderstorm had recently burst and, therefore, where pasturage existed. +The wealth of the community consisted of fat-tailed sheep, horses, +goats and a few cattle. The Pella lands were held by the Mission on +ownership tenure; consequently the Superintendent was an autocrat. A +community of that kind was as little fitted to govern itself as a +reformatory would have been. The territory over which Father Simon held +sway contained all the water-places which were to be found in that +corner of the desert. The water in some of these was permanent, the +severest drought occasioning no diminution in its flow. It was this +circumstance, more than anything else, which rendered the autocracy +effective. + +Acceptance of the forms of the Roman Catholic ritual was the only +condition of membership; faith appeared to be taken on trust. It was +told me that when Bushmanland happened to be blest with a few +consecutive good seasons, scruples on points of dogma became prevalent +and the tribe thinned out. But when the inevitable drought recurred, +the doubters repented, returned to the forgiving bosom of Mother Church +and recommenced, with more or less fervour, the practice of their +religious duties. I was shewn one patriarch who, with his numerous +family, had three times fallen from grace and had as often been received +back as an erring but repentant sheep. + +Besides Father Simon and the nuns I met only two members of the +community who interested me. One was an elderly, thickset priest with a +dense, brown beard. I found him sitting, in a dingy hut, at a +packing-case table. He was smoking an extremely black pipe and reading +at an early 17th Century folio of Thomas Aquinas. His person was +generally unclean; his coarse, stumpy hands were sickening to look upon. + +The reading was clearly a pretence; from the appearance of the volume I +should say it had not been previously opened for a very long time. I +felt instinctively that Father Simon, too, knew this, for he addressed a +few sentences in French to the reader,--speaking in a low, even, firm +voice. At once the folio was closed and put back on a cobwebby shelf. + +The episode interested me; I sympathised with that priest. In spite of +his unsavoury physical condition my heart went out to him. His life +must have been appallingly empty, for he had not, like Father Simon, the +saving grace of responsibility and the opportunity of expressing his +individuality in administrative work. He was nothing but a more or less +superfluous cog in the wheel of a cranky machine driven by a despotic +hand. The Adam within him cried out for an opportunity of attracting +the attention of the only visitor from the outside world he was likely +to see for the next six months. I found that little trifle of deception +very human--very pitiful. I wonder did he, after all, read his Aquinas +at times; perhaps he did. But I fear his development would rather have +been in the direction of the "dumb ox" than towards the angels. Poor, +lonely, unwashed human creature. + +The only way to save one's soul alive in the desert is to wrestle with +and overcome difficulties--as Jacob wrestled with the angel, and all the +cobwebs ever spun by all the Schoolmen would not give so much strength +to the human spirit as a gallop of ten miles over the plains, among the +whispering shocks of the "toa." That this was the case was evinced by a +young lay-brother with whom I was able to converse in Dutch. He, of +peasant origin and with quite a lot of fire glowing through his clay, +found scope for his abounding energies in looking after the stock +belonging to the Mission and generally carrying on the outside +administrative work. It was he who shepherded the tribe from one +water-place to another; it was he who took venturesome journeys across +wide stretches of desert for the purpose of reporting as to the +condition of the pasturage surrounding the far-outlying oases. + +This man was brown and muscular; his eye was steady and masterful-- +because his life was spent in action, not in futile dreaming. If he +should have looked upon one of the daughters of the desert and found her +fair, I would not have given much for his vocation. I sincerely hoped +he might do so. The daughters of the desert are not, as a rule, +comely--but, after all, beauty is relative. I imply nothing +discreditable; this man had taken no irrevocable vow of celibacy. + +The Pella Mission was engaged in the hopeless task of endeavouring to +make oil and water mix--or rather, to change the metaphor--to graft an +archaic but vigorous and highly-specialised organism upon a rudimentary +one of thin blood and low vitality. A creed rooted in and nourished by +the most ancient human traditions could not possibly develop among +people who possessed no traditions and had not enough positive original +sin in them to make their asthenic souls worth the saving. + +On this desert tract where men are blown to and fro by the fiery breath +of recurrent drought, they should be left to sink in the sand or swim in +the aether,--to develop body and soul of a tenacious fibre, or else to +be eliminated by the adverse conditions under which they exist. Subject +to tuition, kept erect by outside support, they must presently stagnate +and ultimately perish. From my point of view their preservation was not +nearly so important as that of the herd of oryx I was endeavouring to +protect from its legioned enemies in central Bushmanland. + +But the case of the Pella tribe was hopeless. Could these people have +gone to war, had the desert they inhabited been ten times as wide and +had its bounds contained tribes that raided one another, and thus made +valour-cum-skill-in-arms the alternative to extinction, they might have +developed positive virtues and vices. They might even have lifted their +eyes to the stars and uttered songs of love and death. + +The blistering sun of noon was almost over our heads when we started on +our pilgrimage to the river. A crooked pathway choked with sand, into +which one's feet sank deep at every step, led down the wedge-formed +cleft between the towering mountains. We found the course fatiguing in +the descent; what would it be when we came to retrace our steps? As we +proceeded the gorge bent to the right and the glowing cliffs closed in. + +At length the stupendous mountain range on the other side of the river +again sprang into view. Soon we caught a glimpse of the rich-green +forest strip which fringed, on either side, the wide course of the +stream. There at least we would find shade. The heat had become +frightful; it was as though one breathed flame. + +We reached the river bank. The great torrent of a few weeks back had +shrunk to a network of rivulets which swirled and eddied among the rocks +and islanded sand-banks with a soothing murmur. The trees just there +had been much thinned out; in places the undergrowth had completely +disappeared,--eaten away by the stock which was sent thither in seasons +of exceptional drought. A recent freshet had carpeted the shaded ground +with soft, white sand. A dip in the tepid water refreshed one; the +gentle, lapping wavelets whispered of coolness to come. But the river, +so gentle that day, could at times arise like a wrathful Titan. In a +high cliff-crevice hung a large tree-trunk flung up and wedged there +during some recent flood. + +Who could paint the terrific desolation of that home of chaos,--the +towering peaks, the jutting ledges, the Cyclopean, bulging +protuberances? That amphitheatre was surely the haunt of some +ferocious, inimical Nature-spirit--brother to Death and a hater of Life. +Yet life flourished even here, for the river, like a mother holding her +children with tender clasp, led westward her progeny of trees over +strait and perilous pathways. But the feet of the brood dared not stray +from the hem of her garment. + +The sun sank; as the glare was withdrawn each salient detail of the +Titanic arena grew clearer and more definite against the background of +darkening blue. Then shadow gathered all into her fold, and it was upon +a pit whose black sides threatened to fall in and crush us, that the +stars of the zenith looked down. + +It was deep in the night, but the heat still raged, for the sides of the +glowing rock-pit in which we lay continued to radiate what energy they +had absorbed while the sun still smote on them. We had emerged from +among the trees and built a large fire of drift-wood on a sandbank,--our +object being to obtain illumination. It was quite necessary to have a +bright light; from many of the logs poisonous centipedes, and an +occasional scorpion, were emerging. But even comparatively close to the +fire we could feel no increase of heat. My gun stood against a stone +some distance away. I picked the weapon up, but involuntarily dropped +it, for the barrel almost scorched my hand. And this at nearly +midnight! + +But what were those creatures darting here and there; anon rushing +towards us over the livid surface of the sand? Horror. They were +tarantulas,--red, hairy creatures, larger than mice. Within a few +seconds there were hundreds of them circling around the fire with almost +incredible swiftness. The firelight had attracted them from the +cliff-chasms which yawned around us. + +This was too much for flesh and blood to endure, so I beat a retreat to +the river and waded out until I reached a flat rock. This proved to be +uncomfortably hot, but the soles of my boots were thick, and I could +every now and then cool them in the water. However, a few yards away +lay a small island of sand, and on this I took refuge. From my retreat +I could see the fire and its environs. I did not think Africa contained +so many tarantulas as were then visible. They had the fire to +themselves, for every member of the party had fled. + +The air still felt as though one were in a closed room. But the murmur +of the river became audible to an increasing degree on the western side, +and soon a hot breath of air struck us. After a fitful succession of +puffs a continuous wind set in,--a steady current, momentarily growing +cooler. This was the sea-breeze stealing up the river gorge from the +far-off Atlantic, rolling the mass of heated air before it and cooling +the piled rocks,--helping them to fling off the yoke of torment put upon +them by the cruel, arrogant sun. Soon the temperature began to fall +rapidly, so I waded back, made a wide detour so as to avoid the +tarantula-infested area, and fetched my kaross from where it lay among +the trees. I then returned to my sand-islet and there sank into blessed +sleep with the tepid water murmuring within a few feet of my weary head. + +I awoke soon after 3 a.m. The wind had turned perishingly cold,--so +cold that I decided to retire from my exposed situation and seek for +some spot more or less sheltered from the streaming air-current. So I +once more waded back through the tepid water and sought a refuge among +the trees. The fire was still alight; I had to pass it. Not a single +tarantula was visible; no doubt they had retired to their lairs among +the rocks on account of the fall in the temperature. Yet I do not +suppose the latter was below 80 Fahrenheit; the susceptibility of one's +skin is relative; my discomfort was due to the sudden change. I wished +I had not left my thermometer at the wagon; it would have been +interesting to take a reading at midnight. + +Once more I fell asleep, with the tree-trunks groaning around me, as the +boughs swayed in the ever-freshening gale. + + + +CHAPTER NINE. + +MORNING IN THE GORGE--DEPARTURE FROM PELLA--JOURNEY TO BRABIES-- +PROTECTION OF THE ORYX--ITS PECULIARITIES--ANTELOPES OF THE DESERT AND +THE FOREST--CAMPING AT BRABIES. + +Daybreak,--and the chill sea-wind was still surging up the gorge. It +was delightful; nevertheless, even among the sheltering trees, a fire +was very comforting. The pageant of growing day was a wonder and a +delight. The upper tiers of that titanic rock-city became glorious +"under the opening eyelids of the morn." They were refulgent with +hitherto unsuspected beauty. Those acre-large splashes of vermilion, +blue and amber-brown must have been due to lichen. It was strange that +on the previous evening we had not noticed these. Perhaps they paled +under the flames of day and only revived when the cool, moist sea-wind +bathed them. + +After a hurried dip in the still-tepid water, followed by breakfast, we +started on our journey back to Pella. The wind sank momentarily, but +the air was still deliciously cool, for the bow of the sun-archer could +not yet be depressed enough to send its searching arrows into the depths +of the cleft through which our course lay. Soon the sea-wind folded its +wings; not a breath stirred. From their eyries in the towering rock +bastions the brown eagles swooped down as though to rend us, uttering +wild and menacing cries. + +The relentless sunbeams searched ever lower upon the western face of the +chasm. From the crannies gorgeous-hued lizards crept forth to bask. +Their lovely colours--vivid crimson or deep, gentian blue seemed +incongruous with their ungainly form and ferocious expression. Here and +there rock-rabbits darted from ledge to ledge. Crossing our sandy +pathway we occasionally noticed the spoor of a leopard, a badger or a +snake. For such creatures night is the season of activity; by day they +could choose the climate best suited to them,--among the deep, dark +cavern-clefts with which this tumbled chaos is honeycombed. + +We were now beyond the area of shade; no longer did the cliff protect +us. For an hour we laboured up the widening gorge, over the yielding +sand,--in the glaring, unmitigated sunshine. It was with a grateful +sense of relief that we reached Pella, somewhat breathless, but none the +worse for our adventure. + +The teams were soon inspanned, so after thanking Father Simon and the +nuns for their kind entertainment, and paying a farewell visit to the +student of Aquinas in his dingy hut, we made a start for Brabies,--"the +place of the withered flower," as the Bushmen named it. At Brabies it +was that we had decided to pitch our hunting camp, for we heard good +reports as to the water in the vley there. No one, so far as we knew, +had been there lately, but a heavy thunderstorm had been observed to +pass over the vicinity of Brabies about a week previously. Our +objective was about thirty miles away. There was a slight improvement +in the weather. The cool spell of the distant sea, owing to last +night's wind, still lay upon the grateful desert. + +We pushed on steadily but could not travel fast, for the sand was heavy +and the angular limestone fragments lay thick upon our course. However, +we reached our destination just as the sun was going down. Brabies had +no rock-saucer; its water was held in a vley, or shallow depression with +a hard clay bottom. This vley was several hundred yards in +circumference. It lay on an almost imperceptible rise; nevertheless +this circumstance enabled anyone camping on its margin to gain a view +over an immense area of desert. Usually, we had been told, at least one +heavy thunderstorm broke over Brabies early in each season, and then the +vley held water for about three weeks. + +With the exception of a few small troops of ostriches, immensely far +off, no game was in sight. However, a long, low ridge--rising so +slightly above the general level that the eye had difficulty in +recognising it as an elevation at all--lay to the northward, some six +miles away. We knew that the tract just on the other side of that ridge +was one of the favourite feeding-grounds of the oryx. And it was oryx +and nothing else that we were just then interested in. Judging by the +amount of spoor, some of it quite fresh, our game could not be very far +off. + +This more or less central area of Bushmanland,--a tract from ten to +twelve hundred square miles in extent--was practically the last refuge +of the oryx south of the Orange River. It is almost absolutely flat,-- +except on its northern and eastern margins, where the dunes intrude for +an inconsiderable distance over its bounds. The tract is quite arid, +but occasionally, in perhaps half-a-dozen spots, the underground +rock-saucers hold water for from three to five weeks. So far as I had +been able to ascertain, Brabies and one other, but nameless, vley were +the only places in the whole enormous northern section of the desert +where water ever lay on the surface. Brabies, as has been stated, +usually contained water once, at least, during each season, but the +other vley sometimes remained dry for years at a stretch. As might be +imagined, the region was of no economic value. + +Owing to the circumstance that a measure of informal police protection +had been afforded to the vicinity of Brabies during the previous two +years, practically all the oryx in the desert had there congregated. I +estimated their number at about twelve hundred. There was no reason why +those animals should not have increased and multiplied. Andries was a +Field Cornet,--an office combining the functions of a constable with +those of a justice of the peace. I had appointed him Warden of the +Desert Marches and Chief Protector of the Oryx and the Ostrich. Between +us, we managed to protect these animals more or less effectively. +But--"thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn." + +The oryx evinces several interesting peculiarities. I have mentioned in +a previous chapter the remarkable formation of its foot,--the membrane +connecting the wide-spreading toes, which enables it to gallop scathless +over the Kanya stones which cripple all other animals. Another +abnormality is shewn in the way the hair lies. If one wished to stroke +the back of an oryx one would have to do so from back to front, as the +hair slopes in a reverse direction as compared with all other antelopes. +The oryx fawn is born with horns about four inches long, but the points +are capped with a plug-like mass of horny substance. This falls off +when the animal is about three weeks old. + +An oryx fawn, until it has reached the age of from three to four months, +is a most extraordinary object. Its neck, chest and flanks are covered +with long hair, vivid red in hue. It has a shaggy red mane and a big, +black, muzzle; its ears are of enormous size. The first time I saw +these creatures I almost mistook them for lions. Three of them stood up +suddenly at a distance of about sixty yards and gazed at me. My horse +was terrified to such an extent that he became unmanageable. It was +only with difficulty that Andries was able to persuade me as to the true +nature of the animals. + +The male and female oryx are identical in the matter of marking and are +of approximately the same height, but the male is the heavier in build. +The horns of the female are longer and straighter than those of the +male, but are not so thick. + +Occasionally, in the cool season of the year, one used dogs in hunting +the oryx. But unless a dog had been specially trained to the business, +it was speedily killed. Under ordinary circumstances a dog most +effectively attacks an animal behind or on the flank, but the oryx, +without breaking his stride, can give a lightning-quick sweep with his +formidable horns and impale anything within four feet of his heels or on +either side. The dog that knows its business runs in front of the oryx, +for the latter cannot depress his head sufficiently forward to make the +horns effective against anything before it which is low on the ground. +A trained dog can thus easily bring an oryx to bay, and hold him engaged +until the hunter comes to close quarters. + +Here may be noted a contrast between the habits of the larger desert +antelopes and of those antelopes which live in the forest. In the +desert it is the males which head the flight, leaving the females and +the weaklings to fend for themselves. But in the forest the male covers +the retreat of his family and is always the last to flee. There is +probably some connexion between the foregoing rule and the circumstance +that the female of the antelope of the desert,--the oryx, the hartebeest +and the blesbuck--is horned more or less as the male is, whereas the +females of the forest dwellers,--the bushbuck, the koodoo and the +impala--are hornless. + +The horses had been watered, fed and picketed; we had eaten our supper +and finished our pipes. I took my kaross and wandered away for a few +hundred yards so as to be alone and undisturbed by snoring men or +snorting horses. The only possible cause of anxiety was in respect of +snakes. We killed a large yellow cobra just at dusk. The spoor of the +cobra,--the hooded yellow death,--could be seen among the tussocks in +every direction. The previous year one of my men had had a horse killed +by a snake close to where the wagon then stood; the skeleton of the +animal was still in evidence. + +In the vicinity of the Brabies vley the sand was rather firmer than in +most other parts of the desert; consequently cities of the desert mice +abounded. Where mice were plentiful, so were snakes; they seemed to +live together underground on the best of terms. In summer it was only +at night that the snakes emerged and wandered abroad. However, cobras +or no cobras, I intended to camp by myself. + +And then--once more the unutterable peace, the sumptuous palace of the +night,--the purple curtains of infinity excluding all that made for +discord,--the music of the whispering tongues that filled the void. How +the limitless, made manifest in the throbbing universe of stars, +responds to the infinite which the most insignificant human soul +contains. These are the transcendent wonders which the mighty Kant +bracketed together. + +An utterance of Shakespeare--embodying one of those cosmic imaginings +only he or Goethe could have expressed, came to my mind--"the prophetic +soul of the wide world dreaming on things to come." If there be a +spirit proper to our globe--a thinking and informing spirit--surely the +desert should be its habitation. If such ever dwelt where men +congregate, it does so no longer, for men have no longer leisure to +think; they spend their strength in continuous futile labour, the fruits +of which are ashes and dust. Leisure, opportunity to collate experience +and appraise its results,--surely that is necessary to balanced +thought,--towards being able to see things in their true proportions. +But so-called progress has killed leisure. + +Where, to-day, is the voice of Truth to be heard? Not in the frantic +and contradictory shoutings of the forum or the market place, nor in the +groans of those doomed to unrequited and unleisured toil,--but I think +that an attentive ear may sometimes hear her voice whispering in the +wilderness. And this I know: that when a spent and wounded soul steals +out and sinks humbly at the feet of Solitude, some kind and bountiful +hand holds out to it the cup of Peace,--and often the pearl of Wisdom is +dissolved in that cup for the spirit's refreshment. + + + +CHAPTER TEN. + +THE ORYX HUNT--TERRIBLE THIRST--PREHISTORIC WEAPONS. + +Soon after daybreak we saddled up. That day our hunting was to be +northward, for thither all the oryx spoor trended. Andries, Hendrick +and I rode off together. We had to pass the western end of the long, +low ridge noted on the previous evening. Hendrick, just before we +started, declared that he saw some "black sticks" protruding near the +ridge's eastern extremity. This was difficult to credit when one took +the distance into consideration, yet we could not help admitting that +the Hun had never yet misled us. So we proceeded on the reasonable +assumption that his eyes had not on this occasion played him false. + +Assuming the oryx to be where Hendrick affirmed he had seen their horns, +we had to endeavour to give the animals our wind from the proper +distance. In hunting the oryx one has to follow a method opposite to +that followed in the case of all other game. If one got their wind, +failure was a foregone conclusion, for the oryx cannot run down the +wind. To keep up the necessary supply of oxygenated blood to his mighty +muscles he must run--his wide nostrils expanded like funnels--against +the air-current. Should he attempt to run down the wind he would +smother when hard pressed. This both he and the hunter know, so the +great art in the noble sport of oryx-hunting lies in manoeuvring so as +to prevent the game from taking the only course on which his powers will +have full play. + +The day promised to be hot; when the Kalihari wind blows in summer there +is no possibility of cool weather in the desert. We advanced at a +walking pace, for the strength of our horses had to be conserved against +that long pursuit which, in hunting the oryx, is almost inevitable. The +heat grew greater every moment. The morning was at seven; what would +the sunshine be like at noon? + +We reached the western limit of the ridge,--where the gentle slope +merged itself almost imperceptibly into the plain. This was the +juncture at which to exercise caution; one false move then, and our day +would have been wasted. We dismounted and stole cautiously to our +right--Hendrick and I,--Andries remaining with the horses. A low +"s-s-s-t" from Hendrick, and we dropped in our tracks to the ground. +The keen-eyed Hun had again discerned the tips of the "black sticks" +over the rim of the earth-curve. We crept back to Andries and the +horses, held a council of war and finally decided upon our strategy. + +Andries was heavily built; almost corpulent. This to him was a matter +of great grief. His mount was strong, but no horse that ever was foaled +could, with sixteen stone on its back, run down a herd of oryx. + +Hendrick and I, accordingly, were to do the riding. The game was still +several miles away, on our left front as we turned and faced the camp, +but it nevertheless was necessary that we should make another wide sweep +so as to get further to windward. So we rode off northward, leaving +Andries behind. He decided to remain where he was, it being an even +chance as to whether the herd, after it had started, would break past +him or to the north-eastward. In any event its course would not be more +than 45 degrees on either side of the point from which the wind was +blowing. Andries, moreover, had an almost uncanny knack of forecasting +the movements of wild animals. + +Hendrick and I had got to within about three miles of the herd, and well +to windward, when it sighted us. It was a fairly large one,--numbering +about eighty head. Until the oryx started running we would continue to +ride diagonally away from them, edging slightly to our right and +proceeding at a walking pace. But I kept my head turned far enough over +my right shoulder to enable me to keep one careful eye on the herd, +which stood at gaze, every head pointing northward against the wind. + +Our plans had been carefully laid. When the herd started running, as it +now soon would, Hendrick, on his fierce black stallion, was to ride due +east at full gallop, so as to cut clean across its course. My own +actions would be governed by the behaviour of the game. I was anxious, +if possible, to secure Andries a shot. At length the herd started and +Hendrick, tense with desire, loosened his reins and thundered away. The +course of the flight was, as we expected, a little to the east of north. +It is remarkable how experience teaches one to anticipate what game +will do when disturbed. I edged to my right at a moderate canter. Old +Prince tried to break into a gallop, but the time for that was not yet. + +The herd inclined its course still more to the eastward, but Hendrick +had too much of a start for that to matter; he had, so far, the hunt +completely in hand. Should the oryx have adhered to the course they +started on, they would soon have been in a dilemma: that of having to +choose between passing Hendrick at close quarters and running down the +wind. So the inevitable alteration in their course was now only a +matter of seconds. Ha! they swerved; they were now heading for the +opening between Andries, whom, being behind the end of the ridge, they +could not see, and myself. This was precisely what we had been +manoeuvring for. + +I let Prince out and galloped towards the advancing herd, pressing it +gently away from the wind. Were I to have pressed the oryx too hard, +they would have again swerved to their right and rushed for the opening +between Hendrick and me. This would have suited me, personally, well +enough, but would have spoilt Andries' chance. On they came--the +full-grown bulls, about thirty of them--leading in a close phalanx. +Then came the cows; behind these the fawns. I trended slightly to my +right and gave Prince a looser rein. I had the herd fully in hand at +about five hundred yards; I was easily holding their wind and could have +closed with them whenever I liked. But, disregarding Andries' +oft-repeated advice, I yielded to temptation. After gaining another +hundred yards I rolled from my horse and opened fire. It seemed +impossible to miss such a mark, but my first wind had gone and the +second had not yet taken its place. My bullets went all over the veld, +every shot missed. + +As I remounted, with shame and sorrow in my heart, I heard a shot from +the other side of the herd; it was followed by a thud. Then a bull +turned out of the press; it faltered, staggered and fell. Once more I +let Prince out at his best gallop, keeping his nose on the flank of the +phalanx. I had, through my foolish impatience, largely lost my +advantage; now my only chance of a favourable shot was to ride for all I +was worth, strenuously pressing the leaders of the herd away from the +wind. + +The herd was then about nine hundred yards away. All I could do was to +continue the pressure, so as to defer the now inevitable stern chase for +as long as possible. I was just barely holding my own, but that was +good enough for the current stage. The oryx did not as yet venture to +turn up wind; they well knew that an attempt to do so would have enabled +me to close with them by putting on a spurt. + +Prince knew his work and had settled down to that steady, tireless +stride I knew and loved so well, and which he could easily keep up for +ten miles without a rest. The wind sang as we cleft it, rushing through +the swaying "toa." The desert lay before us as level as the sea. A few +springbucks, waifs from some trekking herd, stood at gaze as we swept +by. They knew quite well what my objective was and accordingly were not +alarmed. Paauws arose here and there on heavy wings; the flight of one +startled all others in sight. Ostriches scudded away in various +directions. The desert was awake; word of the presence of man,--of the +arch-enemy on the war-path--had been borne to its farthest bounds. + +The course of the herd was a segment of the periphery of a wide circle; +my course was also a curve, but an elliptical one,--for it continually +impinged on the leaders so as to continue pressing them away from the +wind for every possible yard. But it was clear that very soon the oryx +would be able to attain the course which was the object of their swift +endeavour; this was rendered inevitable from the moment of my stupid +blunder in dismounting too soon and thus throwing away my rare +advantage. At length they had it; I could press them no longer. Now +the flight is almost dead against the wind; now the trumpet-like +nostrils are opened wide against the streaming current of air. This +seems to stimulate the fugitives, for the distance between us has +perceptibly increased. + +Prince, unbidden, swerved to the right course and we followed hard on +the heels of the flying game. It was at length a stern chase. A word +to my faithful horse and his stride quickened. Soon it was clear that +we were gaining. Herein was an illustration of how the instinct of +animals, usually so true, may occasionally mislead them. These +creatures, in the hour of danger blindly surrendering to the gregarious +idea ingrained through the experience of ages, crowded so hard on each +other that they got half-smothered in their own dust. Hence it is far +more easy to ride down a large herd of oryx than a small one. When it +is a case of a single animal, or even of two or three, a stern chase is +almost hopeless, no matter how swift one's mount. + +I was gaining rapidly; I overhauled the fawns and immature animals and +pressed through, passing some of them within a few yards. One I had to +turn out of my way by leaning forward from the saddle and prodding it +with the muzzle of my rifle. Those young things followed after me, bent +only on overtaking their elders; apparently oblivious of the +circumstance that I was their enemy. I overtook the crowd of cows; it +opened out and scattered on either hand. I was now riding in a cloud of +dust, the phalanx of bulls being only about a hundred and fifty yards +ahead; the animals could be but dimly discerned through the dust-cloud. +I had to gain another hundred yards without attempting to dismount; not +again would I yield to impatience. + +The hundred yards were soon gained; Prince shewed signs of flagging, so +I had to look out for a soft place whereon I could roll from the saddle +without hurting myself. My second wind had come; I was as steady as a +rock, but eyes, throat and nostrils were smarting from the acrid, +pungent dust. I dropped the reins on Prince's neck; he shortened his +stride and I rolled from his back on my right-hand side. I could just +see the bulls, but the dust was so thick that it was impossible to pick +an animal, so I fired into the brown of the moving mass. My bullet +thudded hard; that was enough,--I would not fire again. + +The herd of oryx sped on; I remounted and followed at a slow canter. +Yes,--there was my quarry,--a bull turned out of the press and faltered +in his course. I rode towards him; he still cantered but his gait was +laboured. He stood, turned and faced me. + +He was a noble brute,--a leader among the oryx people. Still as a +statue he stood, defying his enemy. His wire-like hair was erect and +quivering; his red, trumpet-formed nostrils seemed to exude defiance; +his shoulders and flanks were heavily banded with streaks of foam. In +spite of the long chase he did not appear to pant. + +I dismounted when within about sixty yards and advanced towards the +doomed and stricken creature. Now it behoved me to be wary, for had the +bull charged and my shot failed to disable him, my death would +inevitably have resulted. So I took careful aim at a spot just above +where his neck emerged from his chest, and fired. The bull sank to the +ground in a huddled heap. + +I now became aware for the first time that I was suffering from raging +thirst. To my dismay I found that the small flask of weak whiskey and +water I had slung to the side of my saddle had got smashed in the course +of the gallop. Away--in the far distance--I saw Hendrick approaching at +a walk. + +I disembowelled the oryx and covered the carcase with bushes so as to +conceal it from the vultures. Among the bushes I burnt a few charges of +gunpowder; this would serve to keep off the jackals--at all events for a +few hours. Then I mounted and rode slowly towards the wagon. Hendrick +altered his course and joined me, en route. Black Bucephalus looked +piebald as he approached, so flaked was he with dried sweat. + +The wagon was about twelve miles from where the oryx had fallen. It +took us over three hours--hours of intense physical anguish--to travel +those miles. My mouth was so parched that the saliva had ceased to +exude, my lips were cracked and bleeding. For a considerable portion of +the time spent on that dolorous journey I was on the verge of delirium. +Hendrick also suffered, but in a somewhat less degree, for his fibre was +tougher than mine. When about half-way to the wagon he asked my +permission to ride apart, stating as his reason that he could not bear +the sight of my torment. Brabies and the white tilt of the wagon seemed +to recede before us. I then realised clearly how people might die on +the threshold of relief. For untold gold I would not undergo another +such experience. + +But the journey came to an end at length, and the long drink which +followed was unspeakably delicious. Soon the wagon was emptied of its +contents and, with a team of eight fresh horses, despatched to fetch in +the game. It was nightfall when the wagon returned with its heavy +load,--the carcases of two large oryx bulls. + +The morrow we spent at Brabies for the purpose of giving the horses a +rest. We occupied ourselves in the prosaic process of cutting up and +salting the oryx meat. On the following day we would start for home. +The water of the vley was rapidly drying up under the fierce heat; in +another week there would not be a drop left. + +There were several features of interest connected with the vley. The +water had shrunk to a series of small puddles. Swimming about in every +one of these were large numbers of tiny organisms, each with a single, +immense eye. These creatures belonged to a species of "Apus,"--a genus +of one of the crustacean sub-families. On a trip undertaken during the +previous year I had found an Apus of another species in a vley less than +thirty miles from Brabies,--a vley which probably does not contain water +more than once in five years. This development of separate species in +localities so close to each other, suggested that local conditions had +not materially changed for a very long period. No vley was found to +contain more than a single variety. These quaint creatures swim through +their little hour of fully developed life and, when the drying up of the +water kills them, the eggs they contain are freed. Then these are blown +hither and thither among the dust of the desert until another +adventitious shower fills the vley in which they were generated, and +some chance wind-gust carries a few of them into the water. The +indefinite preservation of the life-germ on the occasionally almost +red-hot surface of the desert is little short of miraculous. + +Yes,--the Brabies vley must have existed under approximately similar +conditions from an immensely remote antiquity. It is probable that in +comparatively recent times rain was more plentiful in Bushmanland (as +there is reason to believe it was generally throughout South Africa), +than it now is. For there were evidences that Brabies was once a centre +of population. Pottery, obviously of Bushman manufacture, abounded. If +one broke a fragment, the charred fibres of the woven grass-blades on +which the clay design had been formed, could be clearly seen. In the +low, stone ledges surrounding the vley were to be seen grooves evidently +caused by the sharpening of weapons. Some of these grooves were very +deep, and as the Bushmen's arrow-heads were made of bone, the scores +must have been the result of sharpening by many generations. A few of +them looked as fresh as if they had been used the previous day. + +A careful search discovered stone implements of various types,-- +palaeolithic as well as neolithic. These suggested a receding +succession of prehistoric peoples to days unthinkably remote. Some of +the weapons were very peculiar,--they were either spear-heads or +arrow-heads. But they seemed too small for the former and too large for +the latter. If they were spear-heads they must have been used by +pygmies; if arrow-heads by giants. + +As there were apparently no springbucks worth the hunting on that side +of the desert, we decided to return home at once. We thus had +no opportunity of testing the qualities of the fearsome +hunting-chariot-contraption constructed by Andries. I was not +altogether sorry; my bones ached in anticipation of our probable +experiences in it,--behind the half-broken team. + +Each morning when the sun first grew hot, the vley was invaded by +countless myriads of desert grouse. Of these we shot some hundreds, +which we salted down for home consumption. + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN. + +THE RICHTERSVELD--KUBOOS--THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD REDIVIVUS-- +GOLD-SEEKING--THE RAAD--MORBID SENSIBILITY--START FOR EL DORADO. + +Just before the Orange River, wearied from its long travail, slides into +the Atlantic, it bends in a sickle-shaped curve. Its course for the +previous three hundred miles has been through the tremendous and almost +inaccessible gorge into whose depths it hurled itself at the Augrabies +Falls. + +The incidence of those aggregates of men which pass, like the +individual, through the successive stages of youth, maturity and decay, +and which we are accustomed to term civilisations, is as much a question +of geology as of geography. Accadia and Egypt grew great and stained +many pages of the record we term history by virtue of the circumstance +that the Euphrates and the Nile, after leaving the mountains that gave +them birth, flowed respectively through low, level countries which they +enriched with precious alluvium. The Orange River was, however, sped +oceanwards over a vast plateau of hard-grained rock, several thousand +feet above sea-level. Into this the stream has been slowly biting, and +the alluvium--that meat upon which material civilisation is nourished, +was hurled through the channel and flung wastefully into the maw of the +all-consuming waves. Under different physiographical circumstances +another Alexandria might have arisen where to-day the flamingo nests +among the misty dunes at the Orange River's mouth, "and another Sphinx, +of Hottentot or Bantu physiognomy, might have stood, gazing through +forgotten centuries, across the waste of Bushmanland." [_Between Sun +and Sand_.] + +The tract lying within the sickle-bend is called the Richtersveld. +Little is known of this tract or of its inhabitants. Half a century ago +prospecting for copper ore was carried on in the vicinity. Indications +of the metal abounded, but no payable deposit was discovered. + +I decided to organise an expedition to the Richtersveld. There were +several reasons for doing this. One was a complaint which had been made +to the Attorney General of the Cape Colony respecting the alleged +flogging of a man under orders of the missionary at Kuboos, which is +still haunted by the ghost of an institution established by the London +Missionary Society in years long gone by. Another was a reported +discovery of gold. This, as a matter of fact was my ostensible excuse +for starting at the time I did. Third and last was my own keen desire +to explore a little-known tract and make the acquaintance of its human +and other inhabitants. + +The Richtersveld, according to report, was extremely mountainous and was +said to contain only some two hundred people of Koranna-Bushman and +Hottentot descent. So remote and isolated was this region that its +dwellers were tacitly permitted to govern themselves. They had a "raad" +or council of elders which, under presidency of the missionary, settled +all disputes and generally administered justice,--informal, but none the +less just on that account. The language spoken by the Richtersvelders +is an almost extinct Hottentot dialect, full of clicks, gutterals and +phonetic excursions impossible to the average European tongue. Only a +few of the people had even the merest smattering of Dutch. + +That excursion involved more difficulties than any other I had +undertaken. There was, it is true, not more than a bare hundred miles +of desert to cross, but the only definite information we had been able +to gain as to the route was to the effect that it led through a tract +practically waterless and extremely difficult to traverse. Moreover, it +was reported to be absolutely uninhabited. One thing was quite clear,-- +we should have to travel with oxen; horses would have been useless under +the conditions as described. + +Andries arrived bringing--not the comfortable, tilted, spring-wagon,-- +but the strong, heavy, tentless "buck" wagon, with a team of sixteen +picked oxen. He seemed uneasy as to our prospects, for the coast desert +had a bad reputation and we were about to plunge into a wilderness with +the conditions of which he was unfamiliar. The map was produced, but +Andries rather despises maps. This one shewed little beyond "gaps" and +"unhabitable downs." But it indicated, roughly, our obvious route. We +would travel alongside the copper-trolley-line as far as Anenous, which +lay at the foot of the mountain range and thus on the inner margin of +the coast desert,--which is little, if at all, above the level of the +sea. From Anenous we had to trend to the north-west, past Tarabies, +Lekkersing and the northern trigonometrical beacon. Thence via Hell +Gate to Kuboos, where the wagon would have to remain. Any further +journeyings would apparently have to be undertaken on foot. Possibly, +however, we might be able to obtain pack-oxen. + +Judging by the map, the course looked obvious and easy, but we knew that +the surface of the coast desert was composed of deep, soft sand, into +which the wheels of the heavy wagon would sink deeply, and that through +the sandy tract the northern range of mountains sent out spines or dykes +of rock, many miles in length. These, we were told, often took the form +of abrupt ridges extremely difficult to negotiate with any vehicle, no +matter how strongly built. + +The officials of the Cape Copper Company at Anenous (which was the +jumping-off place for our hundred-mile sand-swim) knew nothing of the +country two miles on either side of the trolley-line. All they were +definite about was that no one had ever been known to arrive at Anenous +from the northward or north-westward. + +Such Hottentots as we were able to consult all declared that it was only +under very exceptional circumstances that water was to be found between +the trolley-line and the Orange River. + +Andries' feelings must have resembled those of a seaman ordered to +navigate his ship through an uncharted archipelago. Owing to our +absolute lack of local knowledge we should be constrained to do all our +travelling by day, and this meant severe suffering for the cattle. In +the old days of prospecting for copper ore, all communication with the +Richtersveld was effected by a route along the actual sea-shore from +Port Nolloth to the Orange River's mouth and thence inland along the +river bank to the sickle-bend. + +We started from Anenous very early in the morning. On the previous day +we had kept the oxen without water, so that almost to the moment of +commencing the journey they might be very thirsty, and accordingly drink +their fill. We at once plunged into the waste of sand; this proved to +be so heavy that we were unable to travel at a higher rate than two +miles an hour. The country was quite different from the Bushmanland +plains; there was no "toa," but succulent plants of great variety were +plentiful. One Mesembryanthemum had the dimensions of a large cabbage. +In spite of its succulence the oxen would not eat of this vegetation. + +The climate, also, was different from that of the Bushmanland plains; +the heat was not so great, but what there was of it proved exhausting. +A haze brooded over the earth; through it the north-western mountain +range loomed gigantic and mysterious. There were no roads,--unless a +wide-meshed network of half-obliterated tracks--probably old +game-paths--could be described as such. One strange peculiarity of the +coastal desert is the extraordinary persistence of spoor and other +markings on the surface of the ground. Near Walfish Bay the clear +tracks of elephants may still be seen,--and there has not been an +elephant in the vicinity for upwards of half a century. + +After desperate efforts we reached Kuboos on the afternoon of the fourth +day. I never thought it possible that a wagon could travel where ours +did. We ploughed through calamitous expanses of sand, we floundered +through dusty dongas. We bumped and clattered over high, steep-sided +ramparts of rock. But the skill of Andries as a driver, the endurance +of the oxen and the strength of the wagon brought us safely through. + +The quaint little collection of ramshackle buildings forming the missing +station, was perched on a ledge just below where the more or less +gradual descent of the T'Oums Mountain falls steeply into the gorge, at +the bottom of which the dry bed of the Anys River lies. In the centre +stood, skeleton-like, the inevitable unfinished church, its narrow +gables uplifted like clamorous hands to heaven in an apparently vain +appeal for funds. + +The groaning, bumping wagon came to a halt before a low cottage built of +sun-dried bricks and thatched with reeds. From it emerged a figure +startling in its incongruity. This was a tall, elderly, erect man +dressed in black broad-cloth, with a bell-topper and a very voluminous +white choker. He was coloured; that was quite evident, but the stately +dignity of his stride as he advanced, and the courtly grace of his +demeanour when he greeted us, could not have been improved upon by a +Chesterfield. Self-confidence and a complete ease of manner were +apparent in every word, in every graceful gesture. He spoke in High +Dutch, before which my homely "taal" faltered, abashed. I should say +his age was nearer seventy than sixty. This was the Reverend Mr Hein, +Resident Missionary of Kuboos and Dictator of the Richtersveld. + +Feeling somewhat subdued, we followed Mr Hein to his dwelling, where he +ushered us through the lowly portal. The room we entered was small and +poorly furnished, but scrupulously clean. The thong-bottomed sofa and +chairs were evidently home-made; although rough in point of workmanship +they were strong and comfortable. The walls were garnished with +illuminated Bible texts and portraits of the Royal Family. The floor +was of clay; the thatch of the roof could be seen through a gridiron of +rafters. + +Mr Hein took the head of the table and played the host to perfection. +We had evidently been expected,--but how information as to our projected +visit could have reached Kuboos, was more than I could fathom. However, +we sat at the hospitable board and regaled ourselves with excellent +coffee, rye bread and honey. The members of the family,--two fairly +young men and two middle-aged damsels,--joined us. Mrs Hein was, alas, +no more. She had died under a weight of years, so we were informed, a +few months previously. The sons and daughters were darker in hue than +their father. They were obviously ill at ease before us, strangers. + +The host kept the conversational ball rolling without an effort. +Andries was pathetically puzzled; the situation had got beyond him. He +was as prejudiced on the Colour Question as are most colonists; in the +abstract he hated the idea of sitting at table with coloured people. +But on this occasion he felt himself to be completely outclassed in the +items of manners and culture; consequently he became acutely +embarrassed. However, he appreciated the coffee (he told me afterwards +that his own wife, who had a wide reputation as a coffee-maker, could +not have made it better) and the bread and honey were delicious. + +Of whom was it that Mr Hein reminded me? His personality set some +familiar chord vibrating. Was it--yes, it was--Parson Primrose; it was +he and none other. I tried to extend the parallel. Either of the sons +might, at a pitch, have passed for Moses. George? Well,--hardly. +Olivia and Sophia?--Oh, well--hm--that was another matter. But at all +events there was the dear old Vicar, reincarnated under a yellow skin, +in that citadel of loneliness that had a hundred-mile fosse of desert +sand and a rampart of all-but-impassible mountains,--that most remote +corner of the habitable world. Chamisso was right:-- + +"Alle menschen sind einander gleich." + +Next morning I met the "Raad," and we discussed the matter of the +flogging. That Raad was a quaint assemblage; surely the most peculiar +parliament on earth. It was composed of elderly men, all of a more or +less monkeylike physiognomy. Mr Hein took the chair and filled it with +the utmost dignity. The members were restrained in manner, temperate in +discussion and logical in all they said. Their delivery was pleasing, +the rules of debate were strictly observed. Several of the speeches +were made in Dutch; those given in the Hottentot tongue were interpreted +into Dutch for my benefit. + +The individual who had received the flogging was present. He was a +young married man with a weak chin, a shifty eye and a voluble tongue. +His face possessed a certain measure of meretricious good-looks, +evidently he was a lady-killer; one of the cheaper varieties of that +species. He, an officer of the church, had committed an offence against +the moral law. The partner in his guilt was present, looking +sufficiently woe-begone. She did not possess the fatal gift of +beauty,--at all events according to Caucasian standards. The injured +spouse, attired in a goatskin robe, was present and wept softly at +intervals throughout the proceedings. She was distinctly less uncomely +than the erring sister. + +The Raad had dealt with the case and sentenced the culprit, who had +admitted his guilt, to receive three dozen with a "strop," which were +immediately and energetically inflicted. The punishment, although +illegal, had been richly deserved. I considered that the Raad had acted +with propriety,--but it was necessary to be guarded in what I said. If +the principle involved had been given formal official sanction, it might +have been logically applied to more serious cases,--those, for instance, +in which capital punishment would have been due. If, at some future +time, the Vicar under my implied authority had erected a gallows and +engaged the services of a Lord High Executioner, it would have been +awkward, to say the least of it. + +Accordingly I temporised. Lothario of the shifty eye was informed that +his case would be duly considered at head-quarters. So it would,--by +the moths inhabiting the pigeonholes of the Record Office in Cape Town. +Nevertheless I should have to deal cunningly with this episode so as to +avoid raising a humanitarian howl. However, I meant, so far as I could +to support the authority of the Raad. The result of discrediting that +would have been to loosen the bonds of the moral law,--to hand the +Richtersveld over to be exploited by the violent and lawless. This Raad +interested me extremely; it was so wise and so conscientious. The +Colonial Parliament might really have learnt quite a lot of useful +things from it. + +We are a curious people. The solicitude we are apt to evince for the +posterior of a blackguard is really marvellous--considering how little +we have for the victims of an industrial system under which hundreds of +thousands of men, women and children are leading lives of the most +degrading slavery. We see, with complacency, whole generations growing +stunted and vacant-eyed under stress of their bitter lot; we know--or +should know, for we have been told it often enough--that one of the +pillars in the edifice of our commercial prosperity is the sweated woman +in the garret,--old, haggard and hopeless at thirty. She stitches or +pastes for fourteen hours a day in the blind, numbing effort to keep her +blighted soul in her stunted body, and we complacently draw the +dividends her long-drawn torture helps to swell. But we forget it is +that woman's grandchildren who may have to defend ours from the Huns. + +Yes,--a fatal habit of acquiescing in demoralising conditions permits us +to look on at, without attempting to prevent, the slow, relentless +murder of a race. But the blackguard's back--that is something sacred; +the mere idea of its being defiled by the richly deserved lash fills us +with horror. The divine force of indignation which is in the heart of +every man,--a holy thing when used for the right purpose--is thus +wasted, dissipated--fired off at a straw dummy held aloft, as it were, +by Commercialism for the purpose of drawing our attention from its own +foul works. + +And if we came to honestly examine our own feelings on the subject we +should find that it was not so much the blackguard who was in question +as our own morbid sensibility. We--that is the ones who live on the +labour of others,--the small minority who, feasting on the deck of the +ship of western civilisation which is being steered straight for the +abyss--have sunk into what Schiller called "_der weichlichen Schoss der +Verfeinerung_" our hyperaesthesia has grown so morbid that every stripe +we see administered raises a weal on ourselves. This is a condition +perilously near that in which the contemplation of suffering becomes the +sole channel of pleasure, for morbid sensibility and cruelty have +usually hobnobbed at the same inn. It is the healthy man who does not +shrink from either enduring or inflicting necessary pain. + +The Raad was dissolved--dismissed with my blessing which, however, I +felt constrained to express in more or less guarded terms. I regarded +that body with deep and sincere admiration. It might be of incalculable +benefit to the British Empire if the speakers of the respective +parliaments of the self-governing Colonies, led by the speaker of the +House of Commons, were to visit the Richtersveld and sit on that arid +hillside listening to the Raad's deliberations. I should be prepared +personally to conduct the tour. + +With the Vicar's kind assistance I proceeded with the necessary +preparations for my gold-seeking adventure. He lent me some carpenter's +tools, and I soon altered a small gin-case I had brought into a very +fair imitation of a gold-digger's cradle. The next step was to hire two +pack-oxen and secure the services of a few labourers. On the following +morning we would start for the supposed El Dorado. In the meantime I +again called on my interesting friend the Vicar, drank some more of his +excellent coffee, and, after contributing according to my means towards +the building fund of the unfinished church, bade my host a cordial +farewell. + +It was a quaint caravan which next morning scarped the north-eastern +shoulder of the T'Oums Mountain, in search of El Dorado. The guide--a +little, wizened creature, certainly more than half Bushman--and I, led +the procession. Next came the pack-oxen, conducted by their respective +owners, but generally under Hendrick's charge. The loads were +miscellaneous in character, but not heavy. They comprised my bedding, +provisions, delving tools and receptacles for such reptiles, insects and +plants as we might find it worth while to collect. From the top of one +load the handle of the cradle pointed towards heaven--or rather it would +have had it not swayed so much from the gait of the ox. I wished for a +small flag to attach to it. Next came a mixed crowd, about twenty in +number. These were mere camp followers, but they insisted on +accompanying me. They included men, women and children. Among the +latter were two ape-like babies, slung on their mothers' backs. +Andries, for the time, had remained behind with the wagon. + +The track was unexpectedly good; much better in fact than the one over +which we had travelled before reaching Kuboos. To the left, in the +direction of the Orange River, the scenery was comparatively tame,--that +is to say it looked as though one might pass over the country without +inevitably breaking one's neck. But to the right lay chaos, confused +and titanic. The strata were completely inverted--in some instances +almost turned upside down. But the general suggestion was as though +several miles of the earth's surface-crust had been placed on end. The +soft layers had disappeared; the hard remained standing. Alternate deep +chasms and jutting, mountainous buttresses of rock were the consequence. + +That sickle-bend must have been the result of a tremendous cosmic +upheaval--an earth-throe which flung aside like a wisp the from thirty +to forty miles of double mountains bounding the then-steep river gorge. +A good deal of the former surface of the bend had disappeared. Then the +river, no longer a captive in adamant bonds (as it still is farther +inland) doubtless took advantage of the unstable conditions brought +about by the cataclysm, laid hands on the shattered earth-ribs and +hurled them, piecemeal, from its path. So that there, although the +mountains were even loftier than those farther to the eastward, they did +not press upon the river as though trying to strangle it. + +So far as I could make out El Dorado was about twenty miles from Kuboos. +As we proceeded the track improved. The guide now calmly informed me +that we had passed the worst of it. Therefore all the trouble and +expense of hiring the pack-oxen and their owners was unnecessary. Here +evaporated another illusion; these people had developed business +instincts; the serpent of guile had found its way even to the +Richtersveld paradise. I scribbled a note asking Andries to follow on +our spoor with the wagon. This note I sent back by one of the camp +followers. + +It was fairly late in the afternoon when we reached our destination. +The guide pointed out to me the exact spot where the nugget was alleged +to have been picked up. It was on the side of a little gully which +scarred the terraced bank of the dry T'Cuidabees River. The bedrock was +of soft shale; it almost protruded from the surface, so sparse was the +covering soil. There was no such thing as "wash" in the ordinary sense, +but merely earth to the depth of a few inches, with which a good many +angular quartz pebbles were mixed. I had once found gold, in an almost +exactly similar formation, at a spot in the north-eastern Transvaal. + +But how to test the ground; that was the question. My principal object +in sending for the wagon was the conveyance of a few loads of gravel to +the nearest water,--wherever that might be. In the meantime I set a +party of my followers to work loosening the soil and picking out the +stones. By the time darkness set in we had as much "wash" ready as we +would be able to deal with. + +The Trek-Boers used to say that rain always followed me to Bushmanland. +It had apparently followed me to the Richtersveld, for as we sat at the +camp fire a menacing black cloud climbed into and filled the northern +sky over the mountains of Great Namaqualand; every few seconds it was +illuminated by fantastic lightning explosions. As the cloud drew nearer +the thunder began to speak. Soon a black fog rolled down on us and a +veritable thunderstorm set in. For upwards of an hour the rain fell +heavily. We got wet through, but I was much consoled in the discomfort +by information from the Hottentots to the effect that there was a deep +hole some few hundred yards down the river-course, which held water for +several days after the rare occasions upon which rain fell. Soon the +storm had passed away, so we built up a huge fire and got our clothes +more or less dried. Then to sleep. + +In the morning the cradle was conveyed down the valley to where the +water was supposed to be. Sure enough, the hole was as described; we +found it full to the brim of muddy water. Although only a few feet in +width it was deep. Probably it held four hundred gallons. Work was +started at once,--all my followers, male as well as female, carrying +down the loosened gravel in their skin garments which, to my +embarrassment, they discarded (as clothing) for the occasion. The +cradle stood at the side of the pool, so that the water, after it had +passed through the sieve and over the trays, could run back. One of the +men lifted the water in a bucket and poured it slowly into the top of +the cradle, while I rocked. After running through the equivalent of a +few barrow-loads I removed the top tray and examined what lay behind the +lip. Yes, veritably--there were a few tiny specks of gold. + +This was what gold-diggers call "a pay prospect," for the gold was rough +and not water-worn. It was quite evident that this gold had never been +under the influence of water at all, but had lain _in situ_ where the +decomposing matrix had deposited it. I kept the cradle going until the +water in the pool had the consistency of pea-soup; then I perforce +stopped. The result was a nice little "prospect" of some seven or eight +pennyweights. This was distinctly a payable proposition--or rather it +would have been had permanent water existed in the vicinity. + +Andries arrived with the wagon at about midday; he was much impressed by +the find. Then we began an examination of the surrounding country, +taking small quantities of "wash" here and there from likely-looking +spots. These were sent back to the water-hole with instructions that +the various lots were to be kept separate. When the liquid had cleared +a little I recommenced cradling. However, except in one instance, I did +not find a single "colour." The exception was in respect of a parcel of +"wash" taken from the margin of the dry bed of the river. This was +found to contain a small speck,--one most likely washed down from the +terrace where we had worked in the first instance. However, the +existence of a practically payable gold-field in that vicinity was +inconceivable, in view of the almost unmitigated aridity. + +The country had the appearance of being highly mineralised; quartz reefs +ran like white threads in every direction. Copper-carbonate stains were +to be seen on many of the rock-ledges and I was able to trace a narrow +vein of galena for a considerable distance. A systematic examination of +the geological formation of that region would have been of great +interest. + +There was little or no animal life, and what little existed did not add +to one's comfort. While the sun was shining existence was made a +burthen by a blue fly which continually fed on one; it was about the +size of a horse-fly. The bite, not felt at the time, was followed by a +flow of blood and afterwards caused considerable irritation. We killed +several poisonous snakes. The only antelopes we saw were klipspringers, +but they were too far off to shoot, and our time was too limited to +admit of our pursuing them. + +Mr Hein had told me that there was a small troop of zebras to be found +high up on the T'Oums Mountain. The mountain zebra is the wariest +animal alive; it never lies down, but sleeps in a standing posture, with +the muzzle resting on a stone. + +I spent another day prospecting in the vicinity but could find no more +gold. When, in the evening, we were sitting at the camp fire, an idea +struck me. I then determined to take some food, a kaross, the guns and +the collecting plant, and pay a flying visit to the area contained +within the sickle-bend. With Hendrick and a couple of bearers I should +be able to cover twenty miles a day. My plan was to strike north-east +across the veld until I reached the river; then to follow, so far as +possible, the course of the latter down to Arris, beyond Kuboos. +Andries was to take the wagon back to Kuboos and thence to Arris, where +he would wait for me. My journey, if I put my best foot forward, should +not consume more than three days, and it would take Andries fully two by +the more direct route. + +I could but ill afford the time, but really all that was involved was +the loss of one day. In all probability I should never have another +opportunity of exploring the Richtersveld. + +Andries grumbled at first, but eventually gave in. I reminded him that +he might fill in his day of waiting by taking a walk from Arris to the +mouth of the Orange River. An inspection of our stores shewed that we +were still fairly well off. So Hendrick was sent to the scherms of our +followers to call for volunteers--men who knew the country well--who +would act as guides as well as carry our baggage. + +My only regret was that I should lose the opportunity of bidding +farewell to my excellent friend the Vicar. + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE. + +EXPEDITION TO THE RIVER--FLORA AND FAUNA--THE PNEUMORAS--ABNORMAL +SPRINGBUCK--THE SEA-FOG--WILD HORSES--FAUNA AND BIMINI. + +In the grey dawn I arose and resumed preparations for the expedition. +When, after breakfast, I sent word to the scherms that I wished the +guides to report themselves for duty, I was both flattered and +embarrassed to find that every man, woman and child of my camp following +was not only willing, but apparently determined to join my colours. The +previous day had seen a considerable increase to the contingent, which +now included two members of the Raad. The number was alarming; nearly +twenty-five per cent, of the estimated population of the Richtersveld +must have been in the vicinity of the camp. The fame of my liberality +had gone forth; I had distributed some tobacco among the adults and with +a few dates had gladdened the hearts of the children. But I could not +afford to bestow largesse upon the crowd which at my call eagerly stood +forth. + +It was a strange gathering. The people reminded me of gnomes, so ugly +were they--and their personal uncleanliness I fear corresponded with +their looks. Yet I found them lovable, because they were natural, +ingenuous and unspoilt. There was not a pair of breeches nor a +petticoat among the lot; men and women were dressed either in brayed +skins or ancient gunny-bags. The children were hardly dressed at all. + +I think it was the feeling that I was honoured and appreciated far above +my deserts by those people that caused me to like them so much. They +looked upon me as a powerful and beneficent being of fabulous +resources,--just because I had treated them with common fairness and +given away a few pounds of cheap tobacco and some handfuls of dates. + +One thing was clear: my influence was increasing; every hour fresh +arrivals testified to the growth of my fame. I felt almost sure I could +organise a successful revolution in the Richtersveld, attack Kuboos and +sack it, depose Mr Hein, and reign in his stead. However, I at once +put the temptation behind me. I had eaten the Vicar's honey and drunk +his coffee; therefore, I would not rob him of his crown and kingdom. +Besides,--who knew but that when my supply of tobacco and dates ran out, +my popularity might not wane? + +The immediate question as to who was to accompany me was a delicate one. +Hendrick, of course, was chief of my staff. I only required two +others, but ten--of whom four were women--clamoured insistently for +enlistment, declaring that Hendrick had, the previous night, contracted +with them individually and collectively for the intended trip. I +explained the inadequacy of my reserve of food; I laid stress on the +local scarcity of game. I was informed that at that time of year +"veld-kost," the uncultivated produce of Nature's vegetable garden, was +plentiful, and that monkeys abounded in the river forest. In despair I +called up the two members of the Raad and begged of them to arbitrate. +These men were diplomatists; they were accustomed to dealing with +important questions. + +A violent disputation followed; in the course of it the clicks of the +Hottentot tongue flew about like fire-crackers. Eventually a most +preposterous award was given. Five Richtersvelders--three men and two +women--were to be enrolled as my corps of guides. One of the women was +old; she might have passed for a revised edition of the Witch of Endor. +However, she looked wiry. The other was young--not more than thirty. +Was she married? Yes. Where was her husband? There he sat, with +downcast visage, among the rejected. Then I would not take her. The +lady was neither well-favoured nor savoury; nevertheless I had my +character to consider, and the punishment locally prescribed for the +abduction of a married woman--even with her husband's consent--might +have been three dozen with a strop. + +But the members of the Raad had selected her. She threw the tanned skin +over her head and wailed. Beauty in distress prevailed; but her husband +also had to be included in the contingent. The two ladies had names, +but such were difficult to remember and almost impossible to pronounce, +so I decided to substitute for them, respectively, Fauna and Flora. The +special work of these insistent females was to be the collection of +natural history specimens. + +Very early that morning I sent some of the children out to look for +reptiles, insects and miscellaneous small deer. It was principally +beetles and lizards they brought back. None were very rare. _Julodis +Gariepina_, a beetle somewhat resembling a green and yellow +bottle-brush, I was glad to add to my stock for distribution. Of this +there were a number of specimens. But one of the boys had brought three +examples of an Orthopterous insect,--a _pneumora_, which was new to me. +The _pneumora_ is a large, green, bladder-like creature, whose whole +body has been converted into a musical instrument; there is, in fact, a +complete key-board on each flank. Using its trochanter as a plectrum, +this insect makes weird music, which can be heard at a considerable +distance. The youngster who had brought these quaint creatures +received, in addition to the ordinary currency of dates, a special +reward of three pence. The nearest shop where these could be spent was +at Port Nolloth, upwards of a hundred miles away. This reckless +liberality on my part was fraught with seriously embarrassing +consequences. The _pneumora_ is colloquially known as the "ghoonya." + +At length we made a start. Andries was so amused at the details of my +caravan that he almost became apoplectic. I felt sure that the regard +my old friend had for me was often mitigated by doubts as to my sanity. +The outlook of Andries was limited; however, he possessed the saving +grace of a sense of humour. + +Our course lay along the western side of the long, diminishing spur +which almost connects the T'Oums range with the river, its +compass-bearing being north-east by north. Fauna, the elder of the two +ladies, was ordered to devote her attention to collecting zoological +specimens. She was given a strong metal receptacle half filled with +methylated spirits in which corrosive sublimate had been dissolved. In +this she had to souse her trove of lizards, scorpions, centipedes and +such snakes as were not too large. She also carried a cyanide bottle in +which to immolate beetles and other insects. Flora was entrusted with a +portfolio and directed to gather botanical specimens. She wandered far +afield, gleaning the arid pastures. Fauna begged hard for permission to +accompany her, but this I sternly refused. I was positive that--in +spite of my solemn warnings on the subject--as soon as these women had +got out of sight they would have drunk the poisoned spirit. If this had +happened, the Raad might have hanged me. I realised what a dangerous +precedent I had established in tacitly approving of the punishment +inflicted on Lothario. Whilst Fauna carried that tank, she should not +stir from my side. + +We passed over some broken country and then reached a more or less level +plateau, which seemed to extend almost to the river. Anon we crossed +the ancient bed of what had once been a tributary river. It was as dry +as the Bone-Valley of Ezekiel. Yet undoubtedly water had flowed +therein, continuously, and that not so very long before. The course was +full of deep, water-rounded drift. It was this kind of thing that +brought home to one the circumstance that a great change in the +direction of aridity must have taken place in South Africa within a +comparatively short period. It was clear that not long previously this +valley had carried a constantly-flowing stream,--one that took its +source from the great T'Oums range. The latter, not more than ten miles +away, was now arid as a heap of cinders. + +As we approached the river the naked and enormous ramparts of the Great +Namaqualand Mountains came more and more into evidence. They seemed to +spring sheer from the narrow strip of forest at the water side. From a +distance the upper strata appeared to be of black basalt. The purple +mystery which so richly filled their vast chasms was a feast to the eye. + +In the middle of the afternoon we reached the river. It was at +half-flood. In the mass, the water looked muddy, but one could see the +bottom of a pannikin filled with it, and the taste was delicious. The +lovely, dark-green fringe of forest--generally continuous on both sides, +but occasionally adorning one only--was soothing to gaze on. We rested +for a while, and then took our course along the left-hand curve of the +sickle-bend,--thus trending more to the north-westward. The way was +extremely rough. When it was practicable to keep close to the river +bank we made good progress, but now and then were obliged to recede for +the purpose of avoiding rocky bluffs. Then our experiences were +purgatorial, for we had to plunge into and climb out of a succession of +deep, sand-choked clefts. On the southern bank of the river there was +comparatively little forest. + +Just about sundown we reached a wide terrace of stone below a cliff, and +close to the water's edge, so we decided to camp there for the night. +The only game we had seen was a covey of pheasants; of these I managed +to bag three. I also shot two monkeys in the forest. I felt like a +murderer in consequence,--but my followers had to be fed. They had had +little or no opportunity of gathering "veld-kost." + +I examined the collections of Flora and Fauna and carefully took +possession of the tank of poisoned spirit. The spoil did not amount to +very much. The most interesting item was a locust--very like those +which occasionally over-run the Cape Colony, and do such enormous +damage. It was, however, clearly a separate species, being larger and +lighter in colour than the much-dreaded migratory insect. + +Soon after we halted three boys approached along our trail, each +carrying something with great care. They drew near, and with an air of +conscious virtue, deposited their offerings at my feet. + +One had brought a small, elongated, circular basket made of rushes, with +the top carefully closed. I opened this and found it full of green, +bladdery ghoonyas. There were dozens and dozens of them, squirming and +crawling over one another. The next boy carried a rusty, battered +nail-keg. This, likewise, contained ghoonyas. The third boy had +denuded himself of his goatskin and tied a bunch in it, big enough to +hold a moderate plum-pudding. This, too, was full of ghoonyas--green +and bladdery, alive and squirming. The situation had got beyond me; +words could not express my over-wrought feelings. + +The _pneumoras_--several hundred of them--impatient after their long +confinement and irritated at having been shaken about on the journey, +climbed out of their respective prisons and began crawling about over +the face of the rock, endeavouring to escape. The three boys, aided by +Flora and Fauna, shepherded them back with twigs plucked for the +occasion. I searched the remotest fastnesses of memory for a precedent +to guide me, but could find none. Hendrick and the others looked on +gravely. Had anyone laughed, murder would most likely have been +committed. By my direction the shepherding operations were suspended +and the ghoonyas fully restored to liberty. + +Obviously, something had to be done. So as soon as my feelings were +sufficiently under control I called up the interpreter and made a +speech. I declared with emphasis that I did not want these ghoonyas; +that I had been anxious to secure only a few specimens--half-a-dozen at +most, but that I really and truly did not require or desire any more. +However (and here is where I made a blunder) as that lot of insects had +been collected on my behalf in good faith, I would reward the collectors +to the extent of three pence each, plus a few dates. The gifts were +joyfully accepted and the boys departed. + +My enjoyment of the evening was largely spoilt by tarantulas. Hundreds +of these, attracted by the light of the fire, came out from among the +rocks and ran fearlessly among us. However, I managed to relish my +supper of roast pheasant; while my followers indulged in a +semi-cannibalistic repast of barbecued monkey. Then I lit my pipe, took +my kaross and sought for a suitable couch some distance away. After +lying down I felt something crawling on my neck; I sprang up, imagining +it to be a tarantula, but it turned out to be only a ghoonya. + +Dawn broke deliciously. The chanting falcons swooped from their +cliff-eyries, and filled the morning with wild music. A swim in the +swirling current would be a joy. I gave Hendrick my clothes in a bundle +and sent him with them along the bank to a rocky point about a quarter +of a mile down stream. I entered the water, swimming carefully while +near the bank, for fear of snags. The current carried me luxuriously +away. I emerged at the spot where my clothes were, and returned to camp +for breakfast. All hands were foraging for "veld-kost" among the +kopjes. Soon they returned, laden with strange vegetable spoil. + +The previous day had been unusually cool, but that morning opened with a +breath from the Kalihari,--the definite and unalterable promise of +severe heat. This would last until the sea-breeze reached us, late in +the afternoon. We marched along the river bank, admiring the towering +bluffs that glowed in the sunshine and then allowing our eyes to sink +down and drink refreshment from the delicious greenery of the forest. +We were now well round the eastern section of the bend, and were +travelling almost due west. More pheasants and monkeys fell to my gun. +An army on the march must levy tribute on the territory it passes +through. + +The character of the country somewhat changed as the river curved +southward. On the northern side of the river the mountains were not +quite so high; on the southern, they now sprang steeply from the river +bed. Here and there, under the overhanging edges of the higher +terraces, we noticed caves. A murmur stole up the gorge and waxed as we +advanced. It came from the steep and tortuous foaming rapids where the +mighty chasm remade itself for a space. Here the river was as though +flung like a ringlet among the menacing ranges. + +But in view of the fact that we had not been able to make quite as much +headway as I had anticipated, I regretfully felt constrained to leave +the vicinity of the river for a time and take a course across some very +rough country behind the south-western bluffs. We could not get from +the guides an assurance of being able to make our way down through the +tortuous gorge. + +We soon reached a large, broken plateau, on which several small flocks +of goats were grazing. Later, we found some scherms occupied by human +beings. These rudimentary dwellings consisted of a few bushes piled, +crescent-wise, against the wind. A rush mat, its position being altered +with the changing hours, afforded shelter from the sun. Rain falls so +seldom that it is not taken into account in the architecture of the +Richtersveld. The dwellers in these scherms were of the same +ill-favoured type as my guides. They were filled with curiosity as to +the object of my expedition. But curiosity paled in the joy of +receiving a little tobacco. And I found I could still spare a few dates +for the children. + +In one of the scherms was a newly-born baby, a girl. It weirdly +resembled a hairless, light-yellow monkey. I made the mother very happy +by presenting her with a shilling and my only pocket-handkerchief,--a +red bandana. The shilling judiciously invested at compound interest, +might provide the youngster with a dowry. + +After a long, monotonous and extremely hot walk, we got beyond the +convoluted gorge and once more began to descend towards the river. We +now had a view of the level coast desert--or would have had if the +landscape had not been to a great extent shrouded in fog. The river had +widened and apparently become deeper. After its plunge into the abyss +at Aughrabies, its struggle for many hundred miles through the depths of +the black, torrid gorge,--it advanced with silent, stately, deliberate +stride to rejoin the ocean--the mother that gave it birth. + +The landscape ahead had completely altered its character. On the +northern side of the river it was still mountainous, but the mountains +had receded somewhat, and they rapidly decreased in height to the +westward. On the southern side the mountain range came to an abrupt +ending. Rounded hillocks emerged here and there from the plain which, +as it approached the coast, was carpeted with patches of white, +slowly-drifting fog. This made the detail difficult to appraise. + +We descended the flank of the last really high mountain, intending to +rest just below the lordly gate of the immense labyrinth from which we +had emerged,--from the threshold of which the mist-shrouded plains +extend to the Atlantic. For when the hot winds of the desert stream +over the cold antarctic current that washes this coast, they draw up +moisture which is blown back landward in the form of vapour. Herein +lies the explanation of the circumstance that the coast desert is +occasionally, for months at a time, densely shrouded in mist. + +There--before the mountain gate--where the wearied water glided away in +thankful silence from the last of the thunderous rapids that vexed its +course,--was one of the favourite resorts of the only remaining school +of sea-cows on that side of Africa, south of the tropical line. Of all +the myriad hosts of wonderful wild creatures that until lately populated +these desert plains and mountains, only this one school of hippopotami +and a few hundred springbuck survive. I could hardly hope to find the +sea-cows--at all events while daylight lasted; it would suffice if at +night I might listen to their snorting and blowing--to the rustling in +the reed-brakes as the huge creatures emerged from the water in search +of food. These sounds would bring back memories of days long past--of +adventures in other pastures of South Africa's rich and varied +wonderland. + +Before the sun had set we camped in a sandy hollow, a few hundred yards +from the river's bank. There were no rocks in the immediate vicinity so +we hoped to escape the usual plague of tarantulas. After a long, +luxurious swim in the placid river, I returned to examine the +collections of Flora and Fauna. The latter had been permitted to wander +afield that day. The number of centipedes, scorpions and miscellaneous +reptiles which had been soused in the poisoned spirit was so great that +I no longer feared her attempting to sample it as a beverage. The +harvest was more rich and interesting than usual. Flora had found a +gorgeous stapelia with a more than ordinarily atrocious smell, and Fauna +had captured a beetle infested with a most extraordinary parasite; also +a small, speckled toad--a novelty, I thought--and a scorpion which, when +stretched out, measured eight and a half inches. Well done, Fauna! + +Hendrick had roasted a pheasant to a turn. I was savagely hungry; just +as I was about to begin eating I noticed some people approaching along +our trail. These comprised a man, two women and several children. I +was filled with foreboding. The strangers approached, each carrying +something with carefulness. They set offerings before me. These +consisted of ghoonyas, and nothing else. + +What did these people take me for; did they suppose I lived on a ghoonya +diet--that I fed my caravan on ghoonya soup? Was I to have the +extinction of an innocent species of orthoptera on my already burthened +conscience; or would the result of all this be the adoption of the +ghoonya as the totem of the Richtersveld Tribe? Those unlucky +threepenny pieces,--my unfortunate enthusiasm over the first specimens-- +these seemed to have set the whole of the local population on the +hunting trail for ghoonyas. Anger gave way to despair. I spoke a few +words of appeal to Hendrick, seized my fragrant pheasant and hurriedly +made for the open veld. When I returned, half an hour later, the +ghoonyas and the strangers had disappeared. I never enquired as to how +Hendrick had disposed of them. + +After darkness had fallen I took my kaross and strolled down to the +water's edge. There I spent some peaceful, contemplative hours waiting +for the sea-cows which, however, did not come. Then, with a contented +heart I welcomed the touch of the wing of sleep upon my eyelids, and +turned over to compose my tired thews for recuperative repose against +the fatigues of the morrow. + +Just before dawn I woke up cold and very damp. A thick fog had rolled +in with the westerly breeze. My kaross was soaked through. So dense +was the vapour that I had to wait, shivering, until it was broad +daylight before attempting to find my way back to the camp. Even then I +had to bend down and trace, step by step, my spoor of the previous +night. + +Hendrick, who brought no blanket, cowered miserably over a few +inadequate embers. He was wet through. The fuel collected when we +camped had been all consumed. The candle-bush--that boon to travellers +in Bushmanland--does not grow in the coast desert. I roused up the +guides and ordered them out for fatigue duty in the form of collecting +firewood. They attempted to shift the responsibility to Flora and +Fauna, but I sternly repudiated this. The men, one and all, had to turn +out. Flora was young; she could accompany them, but the venerable Fauna +might, if she so desired, stay behind and keep the fading embers alive. +I assigned to her a duty--she had to become a fog-horn for the occasion. +She was ordered to shout at intervals and continuously bang one of our +two tin pannikins on our only tin plate. This would prevent any members +of the scattered contingent getting lost. So dense was the fog that +objects were invisible at the distance of a yard. + +Soon we had a roaring fire. As we would reach Arris that afternoon, I +used up all the remaining coffee in a general treat. Hendrick's +pannikin was the only one available for use in the distribution of the +precious fluid, so after regaling Fauna first and then Flora, the four +men drew lots to determine who was to drink next. The last man claimed +the grounds as his perquisite. His claim was disputed, but after +carefully weighing the circumstances, I decided in his favour. + +Soon the wind dropped and the mist thinned out. We made a start and, +after walking for about an hour, reached a camp. It comprised an +ancient wagon of the wooden-axle type, a mat-house and a small +goat-kraal full of stock. The establishment belonged to the most +well-to-do man in the Richtersveld. He was pointed out to me as such +sitting among the members of the Raad. I then noticed that he wore a +good pair of breeches and an air of prosperity. This man was the local +representative of Capital. He was the possessor of a pony--a creature +hardly as big as a middling-sized donkey. + +I enquired about game. Yes, there were springbuck in the vicinity--not +more than two or three miles from the camp, and not far from out of our +course to Arris. They were said to be comparatively tame. Probably +they had acquired a contempt for the Richtersveld guns, which, I +fancied, were of an antiquated type. + +I hired the pony for the day. My principal reason for doing this was to +save my boots, which were rapidly wearing out. Flora, Fauna and Flora's +husband were loaded up with the baggage and sent on to Arris. Hendrick, +the three remaining guides, the Capitalist owner of the pony and I went +to look for the springbuck. + +Our course lay south-west. The fog had receded but not disappeared; it +hung more or less thickly over the plains before us. But it lifted and +fell in a most peculiar way; slow undulations, and graceful, deliberate +eddies played along its indefinite fringe. Soon we noticed game spoor. +Yes,--the Capitalist was right. But how large the spoor was; it +suggested blesbuck rather than springbuck. + +What was that looming through the fog-fringe? It looked almost as large +as a cow. But the brown stripe and the lyre-formed horns shewed up +clearly every now and then; the creature was indubitably a springbuck. +It was not more than two hundred yards away. I supposed it was the +changing drift of vapour that distorted and magnified the animal. +However, I fired and it fell. + +When we approached the struggling creature I gazed upon it with +astonishment; it was so immense. Why, it must have been nearly twice as +large as the springbuck of the desert. I asked the Capitalist if this +were not an extraordinary specimen. No, he said, all the bucks in the +vicinity were about as large. Then I recalled having read in Francis +Galton's book that he shot a springbuck weighing a hundred and sixty +pounds near Walfish Bay. These Richtersveld bucks,--so the Capitalist +informed me, do not trek. They must belong to a distinct sub-species,-- +the range of which is restricted to the Coast Desert. + +As we wandered on towards Arris, the fog-curtain kept ascending and +again settling down. But it did not lift to any great extent; one could +never see farther than from three to four hundred yards ahead. I shot +three more bucks; all were of the same type. One young animal, with +horns not more than a hands-breadth long, which I shot by mistake when +the fog was more than usually thick, was larger than the ordinary buck +of the inland desert. I presented one of the four bucks to the +Capitalist; he hid it among some bushes, intending to pick it up as he +returned from Arris with the pony. The other three carcases we took on +with us. I meant to cut one up and divide it among the guides. It +would not have done to have left the carcase to be dismembered on the +return journey; these people were so jealous of each other that a fight +would surely have resulted. + +We reached Arris late in the afternoon. I learnt that some people had +been there with ghoonyas, but Fauna so terrified them with a description +of my wrath on the occasion of the last gatherers turning up, that they +fled. To prevent misunderstanding it had better be explained that Arris +is not a city--not even a hamlet. It is merely a place where, in +specially favourable seasons, a few of the Richtersvelders sojourn with +their goats. The locality is usually known by another name; one that is +more realistic than refined. + +Andries had rather chafed under the delay. Not knowing that springbuck +were to be found in the vicinity he undertook the suggested expedition +to the mouth of the Orange River, but turned back on account of the +dense fog. However, he saw what I should dearly love to have seen: a +troop of those wild horses which roam over that section of the desert. + +He had been walking along the river shore about ten miles from here when +the fog partially lifted. Within about two hundred yards of him he saw +eight shaggy horses with long, flowing manes and tails. They at once +plunged into the water and swam out to the celebrated islands--that +forest-covered archipelago which there enriches the river's widened +course. I much regretted having missed that sight. Descended as they +are from tame animals which escaped from man's control, these horses are +as wild as the oryx. They have so far evaded capture by invariably +taking to the water when pursued, and seeking refuge in the extensive +island labyrinth. Long may they continue to do so. + +The hour had now arrived for disbanding my corps of guides. I think I +may truthfully say that we parted with genuine mutual esteem. The +carcase of one of the springbuck had been dismembered and divided by lot +among the faithful six. Pay had been distributed; likewise tobacco. I +delivered a valedictory address. + +With evident reluctance these people picked up their portions of meat +and prepared to depart. Fauna apparently desired to communicate with me +privately; she stood apart and gazed with appeal in her eyes. I went to +her; she asked in a low, nervous voice--speaking in much-broken Dutch-- +if I would not send her some of the medicine made from the reptiles and +insects which had been collected. + +At length I caught the drift of her meaning: she thought I was about to +prepare from these ingredients some philtre that would bring back +vanished youth. Truly, the mind of man is one when the crust of +convention is pierced. This poor old creature, like Ponce de Leon, +dreamt of Bimini and longed for a return of the thrilling ecstasies of +life's morning. It cut me to the heart to have to shatter the fabric of +her dream. + +We decided to start for home on the following morning. I was sorry not +to be able to visit the Orange River mouth and its flamingo-haunted +dunes--the Vigita Magna of the old geographers. Strange, that I should +again have had to miss it when only a few miles away. But I was really +pressed for time; other duties insistently called me hundreds of miles +thence. Nevertheless, had it not been for the fog, I would have +expended another day. But the fog towards the coast was denser than +ever, and there did not appear to be any reasonable likelihood of its +clearing. So I would forego the barren privilege of being able to say +that I had actually visited Vigita Magna. + +Our homeward course lay more to the westward, for we travelled along the +coast until close to Port Nolloth. We found fresh water at various +spots, trickling out of sand hummocks in the immediate vicinity of the +sea. We had a comparatively easy journey, for there were no steep, +rocky ridges to cross. + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN. + +KAMIEBIES--THE BLOSSOMING WILDERNESS--THE OSTRICH POACHERS--HAIL +STORMS--THE SPRINGBUCK BEHIND THE DUNE--HOW ANDRIES FOUND ME. + +Reliable information reached me to the effect that the Half-Breed +ostrich poachers had again been at their nefarious work. So we decided, +Andries and I, to make a swoop upon the camp which these people had +established in southern Bushmanland. This camp was in the vicinity of +some wells, the water of which was brackish to such an extent that only +men or animals who had gradually accustomed themselves to its flavour +and properties, could consume it. Thus the gang of poachers had for a +long time been able to defy us. After rain, however, the water grew +somewhat less brackish. On the rare occasions when rain fell heavily, +the proportion of brack decreased so much that the water became, for a +few weeks, more or less fit for ordinary consumption. + +The reason was a phenomenal one; the rains had set in a month before +their usual time throughout the western desert and the mountain tract. +It was then the end of March, and rain had been falling, off and on, for +the previous fortnight. Rarely, indeed, did the drought break before +the middle of April. + +There was also news of the springbucks. The great migration was not due +to take place for months, but word had reached Andries to the effect +that in the desert somewhere to the east of Kamiebies a moderately large +herd had been seen. If the news were true, that herd must have been the +first wave of an early-coming tide. Thus we might be able to settle +accounts with the poachers and provide our year's supply of "bultong" in +the course of one expedition. + +The annual migration of springbucks across the desert is, I am positive, +an institution of immemorial antiquity. The reason for it is obvious. +The fawns are born in winter, and it is necessary that at the time the +does should have green food to eat. But Bushmanland, excepting its +extreme western fringe, is far drier in winter than in summer. In +winter the feathery plumes of the "toa" crumble away to dust and the +stumps of the tussocks turn jet-black. Then the plains become +unmitigated desert. + +Winter is the season during which rain falls among the mountains lying +between Bushmanland and the coast desert. Then for a few short weeks +the mountain range covers itself with verdure and flowers. Therefore +the trek. However, of late years the mountain tract has been largely +taken up by farmers, so the springbuck, as a rule, invade only its +eastern margin. The western fringe of the plains usually get a slight +sprinkling from the mountain rains. The exception happens when the +trek, instead of being distributed over a wide extent, concentrates. +Then the springbuck, in their myriads, over-run hundreds of square miles +of the mountain tract, and clear the face of the country of vegetation +as completely as would a swarm of locusts. + +The term "springbuck" is not a satisfying one for this ethereal +creature--this most lovely and graceful of the animals whose home is in +the desert. The name is too obvious; why not call it what it really is, +a "gazelle?" But the early Dutch inhabitants of South Africa not alone +lacked imagination, but shewed positive ineptitude in the names they +bestowed on the various wild animals. Take for instance the term +"gemsbok," as applied to the oryx; what could be more inappropriate? +"Gemsbok" means "Chamois"--and we have in South Africa an antelope which +is a chamois to all intents and purposes, but which is called a +"klipspringer." Again,--the tall, heavy, sober-tinted desert bustard is +called the "paauw," a word which means "peacock." However, these names +are so firmly fixed in the South African vocabulary that any endeavour +to change them would be a hopeless task. + +We trekked south-east from Silverfontein in the spring-wagon, behind a +team of eight spanking horses. We slept at Kamiebies, which is an +uncertain water-place a few miles over the edge of the desert and a +short day's journey south of Gamoep. During the day we rested; in the +night we had to make a dash of some forty miles for our objective. We +meant to take the poachers by surprise,--to drop on them just at +daybreak, as though from the clouds. So in the mean time I lazed +through the long, delicious day. + +The rains had not alone been earlier and heavier than usual, but they +had fallen throughout an unusually extensive area. The mountain tract +was ablaze with flowers; even Bushmanland stirred in its aeon-old sleep, +for the skirts of the last rain-cloud had trailed well over its borders, +and the latent life of the waste had leaped, responsive, to the surface. +Now a whole flora that had slept for years in tubers and dry stalks +sent forth blossoms in million-fold rivalry to attract the replete, +drowsy insects. + +Here, from a dense, thorny, involuted mass of gnarled, shapeless stems +that must have been many centuries old, arose the delicate, fairy-like +petals of a scented pelargonium. The corolla was snow-white, except for +a minute, sagittate marking of bright cerise on the lower lip. If you +had examined ten thousand of these flowers you would not have found one +in which that little mark varied to the extent of the ten-thousandth +part of an inch. The thought of which that blossom was the +manifestation--the afterthought of which the tiny cerise arrowhead was +the expression--dwelt down in the unlovely labyrinth of the monstrous +stems, and had been adhered to with steady persistence through +successions of long arid-year periods. It was whispered to the +silk-winged seed from which that hoary patriarch had birth,--perhaps +when Alaric was thundering at the gates of Rome. And it would be as +unerringly transmitted to blossoms making sweet the breeze in days when +men will hold this generation to be as remote as we hold the dwellers of +the Solutre Cavern. + +There swayed a slender heliophila--the modest sunlover who, in the +course of age-long, patient vigils, had drawn down and ensnared the hue +of the desert sky in her petals. Far and near the plain was starred +with beauty. The small, inornate, thirst-land butterflies had ventured +out from the hills; they flitted to and fro, lazy and listless. They +sported with Amaryllis in the sunshine and then tried to flirt +shamelessly with Iris, the shy maiden on the nodding, hair-like stem-- +who veiled her visage in sober brown by day, but revealed it, white and +eager to the stars whilst she made the wings of the night-wind faint +with perfume. + +An oval shrub attracted one's attention--not through its beauty, but +because it was an object startling and bizarre. It looked as though +covered with rags of various tints. This was that criminal among +vegetables--the Roridula. A close inspection almost filled one with +horror; the plant was like a shambles. The leaves resembled toothed +traps; in most of them insects were tightly gripped. After these had +been sucked dry,--drained of blood and of every vestige of bodily +juices, the leaves opened, dropped the mangled and dessicated frames to +the ground and cynically opened their fell jaws for more victims. +Undeterred by the litter of corpses that cumbered the surrounding +ground, other insects crowded in to taste of the viscid juice which the +leaves exuded. This was the bait tempting to their doom moths, +butterflies, beetles and other minor fauna. Here was Capitalism playing +on the greed and credulity of the crowd,--gorging on the life-blood of +its hapless dupes,--flourishing and waxing strong amid the ruin of its +countless victims. + +My eye was caught by a quivering twig; on it was a chameleon. The +reptile was nearly nine inches long. His colour was brown, of a shade +exactly the same as that of the twig. He moved forward with slow, +hesitating steps; he paced like an amateur on the tight-rope, as though +afraid of falling. His swivel eye-cases, each with a tiny, +diamond-bright speck in the centre, moved about independently of each +other. One was focussed on a little green insect waving its antennae on +a leaf six inches in front of him; the other was carefully trained +backwards over his left shoulder at me. Flick--and his tongue shot out +and in so rapidly that the eye could hardly follow its motion. But the +insect was no longer on the leaf, and the chameleon was munching +something with solemn enjoyment. When night fell he would climb to the +top of a strong, dry twig, roll and tuck himself into the shape of a +pear, with his head in the centre of the bulge. Then he would change +his hue to white and open his mouth, which was bright orange internally. +The night-flying lepidoptera would take him for a white, yellow-centred +flower, and pop in, seeking nectar. But they would not pop out again. + +And the greatest wonder of all,--I bent down to examine a gazania; its +inch-long golden rays expanded like a wheel of perfect symmetry. Just +where the ray bent over the edge of the green, fleshy cup in which the +myriad florets were nested, was a small, dark spot. I brought a simple +magnifying glass to bear on this,--and what did I see? A labyrinthine +crater of many-coloured fire opened. Curve melted and mingled into +reluctant curve, zone into rainbow zone, until the plummet of vision was +lost in the radiant abyss. I lifted the flower gently; its texture was +thinner than the thinnest paper; beneath it was the desert sand. It had +hardly any material thickness, yet infinity lay in its depths. I sought +for a gazania of another species and found its petals eyed like the +peacock's tail. Yet another,--it shewed the rose-ardours of dawn +contending with the purple of a sea on whose surface night still +brooded. Every species had its own colour-scheme--its maze of splendour +more intricate than the labyrinth of King Minos. + +Old Mr Von Schlicht of Klipfontein--who had spent most of his life in +Namaqualand, had recently been endeavouring to recall for me details of +the desert journeys of Ecklon and Drege, who did so much for South +African botany. I ascertained that Ecklon visited Kamiebies. How his +heart must have leaped when his eyes first gathered in the winter glory +of those mountains. When he afterwards stood, begging his bread at the +corner of the Heerengracht, Cape Town,--did he ever recall that scene? +Strange world of men that so often lets its noblest, after lives of +heroic toil for the highest and most unselfish ends, die in the gutter-- +if it does not more mercifully slay them--and pays tribute of corn, wine +and oil, of jewels and fine raiment, to the company-monger or other +chartered robber adroit enough to squeeze through the meshes of the law. + +We inspanned at sunset, and plunged straight into the desert, travelling +slightly to the south of east. Our objective was lower Pof Adder--which +must not be confounded with the northern Pof Adder beyond Namies. We +were out of the region of "toa"; the plain was covered with small +shrub,--half of which were soft and succulent and the others hard and +thorny. There were no intermediate kinds; the desert is a region of +extremes. + +In spite of the jolting I managed to get a few hours' sleep. We +outspanned for an hour at midnight and made coffee. Now we had some +heavy sand-tracts to cross,--with jolty stretches lying between them. +But we reached the camp of the half-breeds just at dawn, as had been +intended. + +They were caught--if not exactly red-handed, yet with ample proof of +their guilt. In the mat-houses of the suspected men we found boxes and +bags packed full of feathers. These were of all kinds--from the long +white plumes and the short blacks of the male bird, to the browns of the +hens and chicks. The culprits pleaded guilty; retributive justice was +forthwith satisfied at the wagon-wheel. + +The camp was quite a large one; I should say it contained over sixty +souls, men, women and children included. These people were all of the +same colour, light-yellow; they even seemed to shew signs of +type-inception. Lean, sinewy and tough, they were not beautiful either +in form or feature. In neither sex did the sallow skin give any hint of +blood beneath. However, anaemic as they were, whatever fluid circulated +in their arteries must have been of good quality, for their capacity for +physical endurance was considerable. + +It was the eyes of those half-breeds that were most distinctive. These +were dusky and deep, with an expression--not exactly furtive; rather +expressive of haunting apprehension. This was hardly to be wondered at, +for they had ceaselessly to watch for every change in the desert's +pitiless visage--to note each alteration in the moods of earth and sky. +Their lives were spent in answering a succession of riddles propounded +by the terrible sphinx between whose taloned paws they existed as +playthings. + +Their dwellings--ordinary mat-houses and ramshackle wagons--as well as +the furniture thereof, indicated that they must have become habituated +to extremes of heat and cold. They were cleanly in their persons; this +I knew through having vaccinated them all,--from the patriarch to the +youngest baby. Small-pox at the time was reported to be raging among +the Bondleswartz Tribe, just beyond the Orange River. + +But these people can never develop a type that will persist; the desert +they inhabit is too small. Besides, their sons and daughters are +continually being enticed away to regions with a kinder soil and a less +severe climate. There they further complicate the South African race +question. This question will not be confined to South Africa; it will +soon be one of worldwide import, and one that is not necessarily to be +answered in favour of the Caucasian, whose birth-rate statistics read +like Mene Tekel. I am often inclined to think it would have been better +in the long run had Charles Martel lost the Battle of Tours. In that +case there would at all events have been no colour question. + +But those deep, dusky eyes haunted me. They were as enigmatic as the +only landscape over which they ranged. If one could only have stripped +the scales from them, what wonders might they not have seen? +Incalculable potencies might have been in their depths. Others, +desert-bred, have caught glimpses of eternal verities which prompted +them to utter words that became the hinges of history. However, up to +the present, there is no sign of a prophet arising in Bushmanland with a +message for a land that sorely needs it. + +The half-breeds had heard of the springbuck; a few days previously the +latter were credibly reported to be somewhere about thirty miles to the +northward, near Kat Vley. And we were assured of the almost incredible +fact that Kat Vley contained water. That was certainly an _annus +mirabilis_ in the desert. + +At midday we took our departure, making for the vicinity where the +springbuck were said to be. In the afternoon dense clouds rolled up +from the south-westward and a deluge of hail struck us. Within the +memory of men no similar thing had happened in Bushmanland. Andries and +I were comfortable enough in the wagon; Hendrick and Piet Noona fixed a +sail to the windward wheels and lit a big candle-bush fire to leeward. +After travelling about twenty miles we had camped for the night, for the +hail-clouds had been rolling up at intervals of about half an hour, and +there appeared to be no likelihood of the weather clearing. The poor +horses,--they were in for a time of misery! + +Morning broke with drifting clouds and a high wind from the south-west. +We inspanned and altered our course slightly to the westward. The hail +showers had been so heavy that all spoor was obliterated; accordingly we +could not tell whether game was about or not. The day was bitterly +cold; over and over again the hail showers recurred. Several times we +got so perished that we halted and lit fires of candle-bush just to thaw +our hands at. Night fell with a slight improvement in the weather; the +wind dropped and only a thin drizzle was falling. We camped again and +gave the horses a liberal feed of corn. They did not appear to suffer +much from the cold. Such weather was the very last thing one could have +expected. But surely the sky would be clear on the morrow. + +Again a cloudy morning, but the clouds were high and there was no rain. +At last we saw signs of game, for we crossed the spoor of several small +troops of springbuck; these had apparently been making in the direction +of Kamiebies. Later we found more spoor--that of a really considerable +herd making due westward. + +The desert here was not quite so flat as usual; the brown expanse +undulated in long, low ridges running parallel to our course. These +were often several miles apart and in the spaces between, narrow +sand-dunes, flat-topped and steep, extended indefinitely, east and west. +At about three in the afternoon we again struck spoor. It was +apparently that of the large herd whose track we had crossed a few hours +previously. Now it led north-east, straight over the dune about a mile +away on our right--the dune parallel to which we had been travelling for +upwards of an hour. The spoor was quite fresh; it could not have been +more than half an hour since the herd had passed. + +We halted and outspanned. After the horses had indulged in a roll +Andries and I saddled up. We rode on the spoor; soon this led us almost +due north, straight to the dune, which it crossed at right angles. The +herd had evidently been stampeded; it was clear they had been at a run +when they passed. Their hoofs had struck deep into the wet soil and +there was a distinct series of wide gaps in the dune where the crossing +had been effected. We dismounted and clambered up the steep sand-slope. +We looked carefully over, being heedful not to reveal ourselves. The +plain before us lay empty, but about a mile to the right the herd of +springbuck were visible. It was evidently one of the flying patrols of +the great migratory army and apparently numbered from eight to nine +thousand head. + +We remounted and cantered along close to the base of the dune until we +were abreast of the centre of the herd--only the dune separating us from +it. Here Andries remained, while I rode on for about half a mile +further. This brought me to a spot just ahead of the foremost of the +game. It had been agreed that when I reached this spot Andries would +cross the dune and open his attack. As soon as the herd was on the +move, I would begin mine. + +I dismounted, tied old Prince to a shrub, climbed the dune and laid +myself flat on the top. Just to my left were the springbuck, grazing +quietly and utterly unsuspicious of danger. They appeared to be all +rams. This we expected, for most of the rams congregate in separate +herds in the trek season. Some were grazing within less than two +hundred yards of me. + +When Andries' rifle spoke a thrill ran through the multitude. Looking +to the left I saw the bucks beginning to stream in my direction, but the +impulse had not yet been communicated to those at my end of the herd. +Rythmically the impetus of flight developed towards me. Now all were on +the move. I fired and a buck rolled over. Then I descended from the +dune and ran forward into the plain. + +The herd was now streaming past me from the direction in which the knell +of Andries' regular bombardment sounded. The dense stream bent in its +course before my advance, and for a few minutes took the form of a +crescent at a distance of about four hundred yards. It was as though I +were firing at a wall. Once I got my range nearly every bullet thudded. +Soon the last of the stream flowed past, but its course for several +hundred yards was marked by prone white and fawn forms. + +Andries was busy collecting his dead at a spot about eight hundred yards +away. I re-crossed the dune and led Prince over it at a flounder. Soon +Andries came cantering up, his hands and arms red with the blood of the +slain. He had killed eight bucks. I had had better chances and a +longer innings, so my bag was larger, but I did not as yet know to what +extent. + +The sun was now almost down; my spoil was scattered over a large area. +It was decided that I should gather up my dead, load the carcases upon +Prince and convey them to where Andries had piled his. He started off +to fetch the wagon. The team would now number only six, but the wagon +was light, for the horses had consumed most of the grain. I loaded up +three carcases and deposited them on the heap formed by those of +Andries. Another load of three I also fetched. But night was rapidly +falling so I could only negotiate one more load. This time I piled up +four. When I reached the carcases depot there was little or no light. +However, as long as it was possible to see what I was doing, I collected +candle-bushes. The result, however, was lamentably meagre. + +The wagon was only about four miles away--as the crow flies. But +unfortunately the wagon was not a crow--and goodness only knew how far +westward that wretched dune extended. However, even if it reached to +Gamoep Andries would have to keep on its southern flank until he rounded +the extremity. I began to feel miserably cold, for I had no jacket. To +complete my misery the sky again clouded over and a thin rain commenced +to fall. + +I tied old Prince to a bush and removed his saddle. But means of the +latter I should, at all events, be able to protect my neck and shoulders +from the wet. Then I sat on the ground among the carcases and piled +them around me; only my head emerged from the mass. The whole lot, +numbering eighteen, were requisitioned for this unusual service. The +water trickled in but the dead bucks still retained some heat and for a +time I was fairly comfortable. + +But as the hours passed the carcases grew cold and colder; my misery +became acute. The night was pitch black. I had enough candle-bush to +make a flare for about half-an-hour, but prudence prompted me to delay +this operation so as to give Andries time to get round the extremity of +the dune--wherever that might be. I fired my rifle occasionally, but +the wind was blowing steadily and Andries' course was down to windward. + +At length, after a seemingly interminable period of wretchedness, I lit +my candle-bush flares one by one. They blazed brightly and gave out a +certain amount of grateful heat, but soon they came to an end, and I +stole back to my sepulchre among the now stone-cold carcases. + +The steady rain trickled down; I was by this time wet through. I +wondered as to whether I would be able to endure the misery until +morning. I had quite made up my mind that Andries would not be able to +find me. The night was too black; there were no hills nor other salient +landmarks to guide him to the spot. Looking to westward before we +started I could see that the dune was full of forks and branches in that +direction. I tried to comfort myself with anticipation of the enormous +candle-bush fire I would make as soon as day broke, and the breakfast of +broiled springbuck liver I would consume. My matches were safe in a +waterproof pouch. How leaden-footed is time when one is miserable! + +An earth-tremor; a telephone-message thrilling along the earth's +sensitive surface--telling of hoofs and wheels in rythmic motion. Had +the miracle happened? Yes,--the wagon rolled up and my martyrdom was at +an end. _Deo gratias_! + +But how did Andries manage it? He heard no shot, he saw none of my +flares. He could not tell me; as a matter of fact he, himself, did not +know. His feat could only be explained through some theory of +unconscious cerebration. Andries was elderly, stout and somewhat +lethargic, he had never read any book but the Bible, and of that there +was quite a lot he did not understand. But the trackless desert was to +him as familiar as my study was to me, and he had been able to pilot his +wagon-ship straight to that spot--through the inky darkness--with as +little uncertainty as though the sun had been shining. The experience +of a lifetime would not have taught me to perform that marvel which +Andries did quite as a matter of course. + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN. + +L'ENVOI. + +My eyes have gazed their last upon the face of the desert. Although I +love her still,--although the memory of her burning ardour, her splendid +indifference and her wealth of illusive charm is my abiding and most +valued possession, we shall meet no more. She is not a mistress to be +lightly courted. As Brunhild slew Siegfried so would the Desert +inevitably slay one who remained her lover after desire had outlasted +strength. Her lioness-like caresses are not for those whose blood slows +down as it nears the ocean of eternal silence--even as the force and +fury of the Gariep sink to tranquillity when the mighty stream nears the +Atlantic--and extinction. + +Good-bye, Andries,--best of comrades. I have not told of all our +adventures--of how we pursued the springbuck at full gallop across the +trackless plains in your springless, home-made rattletrap, behind four +wild, half-trained horses,--until we were black and blue. I have not +told of how we were lured by men who desired our death to a spot sixty +miles deep in the waste, and of how we had to struggle back again in the +burning heat because we found the promised water to be brine, and the +edges of the pools containing it thickly caked with salt. I have not +told of your consistent unselfishness in giving me the best chances in +the matter of shooting, nor of how generously you placed the riches of +your desert lore at my disposal. + +The world for us is not the same as it was--even a few years ago, for at +our time of life a very few years make a considerable difference where +physical endurance is concerned. Although on the verge of middle life +we could still, in the days I have told of, gallop ten miles at a +stretch and hold a rifle straight at the end of the race--we could +endure thirst, hunger and fatigue without wilting. + +In the matter of shooting I am, perhaps, like the reformed rake who +coined virtue out of inability further to sin. Nevertheless, I could no +longer take pleasure in slaughtering the few of Nature's lovely wild +creatures that survive our cruelly scientific machines of precision. It +is true my eyesight is not quite what it was. To what extent this +circumstance should be reckoned as a factor towards my abstention, I +will not attempt to say. + +We shall soon be old, you and I; in fact it is almost stretching a point +to call ourselves still only middle-aged. We are just a couple of +ineffective veterans who can only draw comfort from the bank of our +experiences. _Aber "wir haben geloebt und geliebet_." + +Good-bye, Hendrick. No more will your keen and faithful eyes hold my +vagrant spoor over sand and kanya. No more shall I see your +bullet-shaped, pepper-corned head with its oblique eyes and gleaming +teeth arising unexpectedly from among the tussocks. For all I know you +may have saved me from a dreadful death. I can recall at least one +occasion on which I was positively sure you were wrong in your idea as +to the direction in which the camp lay,--yet the event proved you to be +right. Had I then been alone, my bones might now be lying white in the +heart of Bushmanland. + +And you, Typhon,--I suppose you have awakened to wrath--that your +hunched shoulders have heaved many times since that day on which my awed +eyes beheld your russet mane flung streaming southward on the tempest,-- +I suppose your impotent tentacles still strive to gather up the plains +into their blighting grip. + +Sometimes, when the firmament is very clear and the fingers of the wind +stray gently through the tresses of the night, I lift my eyes to the +familiar stars and realise that again the sky has gathered the throbbing +desert to its breast and covered Bushmanland with the folds of its +purple mantle. It is then I unlock my storehouse of dreams and live +once more through vanished days of strenuous effort and nights of +wonderful mystery. + +The End. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Lodges in the Wilderness, by William Charles Scully + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LODGES IN THE WILDERNESS *** + +***** This file should be named 36422.txt or 36422.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/4/2/36422/ + +Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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