Maritzburg, September 1, 1876.
I have had many pleasant cups of tea in my life, indoors and out of doors, but never a pleasanter cup than the one I had the other day in a wagon, or, to speak more exactly, by the side of a wagon—a wagon, too, upon which one looked with the deepest respect, for it had just come down from a long journey up the country, where it had been trekking these four months past—trekking night and day right up to the territory of the Ama-Swazies, through the Thorn country, over hundreds of miles of these endless billowy hills, rolling in wearying monotony day after day; but—and this “but” made up for every other shortcoming—amid hunting-grounds happier than often fall to the lot of even the South African explorer. And there were the spoils of the little campaign spread out before us. The first result, however, which struck me was the splendid health of the travelers. Sunburned indeed they were, especially the fair young English girl-face which had smiled good-bye to me from the depths of a sun-bonnet last April. But who would not risk a few shades of tan to have gone through such a novel and delightful journey? I never saw two people look so well in all my life as this adventurous couple, and it was with one voice they declared they had enjoyed every moment of the time. And what a pleasant time it must have been, rewarded as they were—and deserved to be—by splendid sport! On the fore part of the wagon lay a goodly pile of skins and quantities of magnificent horns, from the ponderous pair on the shaggy buffalo-skulls down to taper points which might have belonged to a fairy buck, so slender, so polished, so inexpressibly graceful, were they. But the trophy of trophies was the skin of a lion, which had been shot in the earliest morning light some twenty yards from the hunter’s tent. It was a splendid skin, and the curved claws are to be made into a necklace and earrings for the sportsman’s wife, who indeed deserves them for bearing her share of the dangers and discomforts of the expedition so cheerfully and bravely. It was very difficult to elicit the least hint of what the discomforts were, or might have been, until at last my eager questions raked out an admission that a week of wet weather (the only one, by the way, in all the four months) was tedious when cooped up under the tilt of the wagon, or that some of the places up and down which the lumbering, unwieldy conveyance had crept were fearful to look at and dangerous to travel, necessitating a lashing together of the wheels by iron chains, as well as the use of the ordinary heavy brake. Yet there had been no upset, no casualty, no serious trouble of any sort; and I think what these English travelers were more impressed with than anything else was the honesty of the Kafirs. The wagon with its stores of food and wine, of comforts and conveniences of all sorts, had been left absolutely alone by the side of a track crossed and recrossed every hour by Kafirs, and twenty miles short of the place whither the tent had been carried for greater facilities of getting at the big game. The oxen were twenty miles off in another direction, under no one’s care in particular; the wagon stood absolutely alone; and yet when the moment of reassembling came every bullock was forthcoming, and nothing whatever of any description was missing from the unguarded wagon. The great attraction to the Kafirs along the line of travel had been the empty tins of preserved milk or jam: with tops and bottoms knocked out they made the most resplendent bangles, and became a violent fashion up among the Thorns.
Nor was that grand lion’s skin the only one. There were quagga skins, wolf skins, buck skins of half a dozen different species, eland skins, buffalo skins, lynx and wild-cat skins enough to start a furrier’s shop, and all in excellent preservation, having been tightly pegged out and thoroughly dried. The horns—or rather the skulls—were still a little high, and needed to be heaped well to leeward before we settled down to tea, camping on kegs and boxes and whatever we could find. I was made proud and happy by being accommodated with a seat on the lion skin; and exactly opposite to me, tranquilly grazing on the young grass, was the identical donkey which had attracted the king of animals to the spot where his fate awaited him. Although camped in the very heart of the lion country, the hunter had neither seen nor heard anything of his big game until this donkey chanced to be added to the stud, and then the lions came roaring round, half a dozen at a time. A huge fire had to be kept up night and day, and close to this the unhappy ass was tethered, for his life would not have been worth much otherwise; and he seems to have been thoroughly alive to the perils of his situation. Lions can resist anything except ass-flesh, it appears; but it is so entirely their favorite delicacy that they forget their cunning, and become absolutely reckless in pursuit of it. When at the last extremity of terror, the poor donkey used to lift up his discordant voice, and so keep the prowling foe at bay for a while, though it invariably had the double effect of attracting all the lions within earshot. And so it was that in the early dawn the hunter, hearing the lion’s growls coming nearer and nearer, and the poor donkey’s brays more and more frequent, stole out, rifle in hand, just in time to get a steady shot at the splendid brute only fifteen yards away, who was hungrily eyeing the miserable ass on the other side of the blazing fire. In spite of all legends to the contrary, a lion never attacks a man first, and this lion turned and moved away directly he saw the sportsman’s leveled rifle. Only one shot was fired, for the dull thud of the bullet told that it had struck the lion, and nothing upon earth is so dangerous as a wounded lion. The huge beast walked slowly away, and when the full daylight had come the sportsman and a few Kafirs followed up the blood-flecked trail for a quarter of a mile, or less, to find the lion lying down as if asleep, with his head resting on his folded fore paw, quite dead. I don’t think I ever understood the weight of a lion until I was told that it took two strong Kafirs to lift one of its ponderous fore feet a few inches even from the ground, and it was almost more than ten men could manage to drag it along the ground by ropes back to the tent. Twenty men could scarcely have carried it, the size and weight of the muscle are so enormous. The Kafirs prize the fat of the lion very highly, and the headman of the expedition had claimed this as his perquisite, melting it down into gourds and selling it in infinitesimal portions as an unguent. I don’t know what the market-price up country was, but whilst we were laughing and chatting over our tea I saw the crafty Kafir scooping out the tiniest bits of lion’s fat in return for a shilling. One of my Kafirs asked leave to go down and buy some. “What for, Jack?” I asked. “Not for me, ma’—for my brudder: make him brave, ma’—able for plenty fight, ma’.” I am certain, however, that this was a ruse, and that Jack felt his own need of the courage-giving ointment.
Talking of Jack, reminds me of a visit I had the other day from a detachment of his friends and relatives. They did not come to see Jack: they came to see me, and very amusing visitors they were. First of all, there was a bride, who brought me a young hen as a present. She was attended by two or three scraggy girls of about fifteen, draped only in short mantles of coarse cloth. The bride herself was exceedingly smart, and had one of the prettiest faces imaginable. Her regular features, oval outline, dazzling teeth and charming expression were not a bit disfigured by her jet-black skin. Her hair was drawn straight up from her head like a tiara, stained red and ornamented with a profusion of bones and skewers, feathers, etc., stuck coquettishly over one ear, and a band of bead embroidery, studded with brass-headed nails, being worn like a fillet where the hair grew low on the forehead. She had a kilt—or series of aprons, rather—of lynx skins, a sort of bodice of calf skin, and over her shoulders, arranged with ineffable grace, a gay table-cover. Then there were strings of beads on her pretty, shapely throat and arms, and a bright scarlet ribbon tied tight round each ankle. All the rest of the party seemed immensely proud of this young person, and were very anxious to put her forward in every way. Indeed, all the others, mostly hard-working, hard-featured matrons, prematurely aged, took no more active part than the chorus of a Greek play, always excepting the old induna or headman of the village, who came as escort and in charge of the whole party. He was a most garrulous and amusing individual, full of reminiscences and anecdotes of his fighting days. He was rather more frank than most warriors who
Shoulder their crutch and show how fields are won,
for the usual end of his battle-stories was the naïve confession, “And then I thought I should be killed, and so I ran away.” He and I used up a great many interpreters in the course of the visit, for he wearied every one out, and nothing made him so angry as any attempt to condense his conversation in translating it to me. But he was great fun—polite, as became an old soldier, full of compliments and assurances that “now, the happiest day of his life having come, he desired to live no longer, but was ready for death.” The visit took place on the shady side of the verandah, and thither I brought my large musical-box and set it down on the ground to play. Never was there such a success. In a moment they were all down on their knees before it, listening with rapt delight, the old man telling them the music was caused by very little people inside the box, who were obliged to do exactly as I bade them. They were all in a perfect ecstasy of delight for ever so long, retreating rapidly, however, to a distance whenever I wound it up. The old induna took snuff copiously all the time, and made me affectionate speeches, which resulted in the gift of an old great-coat, which he assured me he never should live to wear out, because he was quite in a hurry to die and go to the white man’s land, now that he had seen me. We hunted up all manner of queer odds and ends for presents, and made everybody happy in turn. As a final ceremony, I took them through the house: tiny as it is, it filled them with amazement and delight. My long looking-glass was at once a terror and a pleasure to them, for they rather feared bewitchment; but I held up the baby to see himself in it, and then they were pacified, saying, “The chieftainess never would go and bewitch that nice little chieftain.” As usual, the pictures were what they most thoroughly enjoyed. Landseer’s prints of wild cattle elicited low cries of recognition and surprise: “Zipi in korno!” (“Behold the cows!”) My own favorite print of the three little foxes was much admired, but pronounced to be “lill catties.” The bride was anxious to know why I kept the beds of the establishment on the floor and allowed people to walk over them. She did not consider that a good arrangement evidently; nor could she understand how matting could be of any use except to sleep on. At last it became time for “scoff,” and they all retired to partake of that dainty, the old induna having begged leave to kiss my hands, which he did very gallantly, assuring me he had never been so happy before in all his life, and that he could quite believe now what I had told him about the great white queen over the sea being just as careful for and fond of her black children as of her white ones. I made a great point of this in my conversations with him, and showed them all Her Majesty’s picture, to which they cried “Moochlie!” (“Nice!”), and gave the royal salute. I must say I delight in these little glimpses of Kafir character; I find in those whom I come across, like my visitors of last week, so much simple dignity with shrewd common sense. Their minds, too, seem peculiarly adapted to receive and profit by anything like culture and civilization, and there certainly is a better foundation on which to build up both these things than in any other black race with which I am acquainted.