The ox-waggon of the Cape is a four-wheeled vehicle with a canvas tilt; it is completely a necessary of the South-African resident: it is his house, his ship, and in many cases his income. Until he builds a house, he lives in the waggon, keeps all he possesses there, and travels from spot to spot independent of inns or other habitations. From the general suppleness of the vehicle, owing to the very small quantity of iron which is used in its construction, it is well adapted for the purposes of crossing the steep-banked rivers and stony roads that are here so frequent.
Fourteen oxen are generally used for a team, each having his regular place, and answering to his wonderful name. A miserable Hottentot boy or Fingo is employed to perform the part of leader: he is called “forelouper;” his duty being to hold a small rope that is fastened to the horns of the two front oxen, and to lead them in the right road.
The inspanning or coupling completed, the rope by which, the team pulls the waggon is then stretched, and the driver, whirling his gigantic whip round his victims, and with a shrill yell that a demon might utter, shouts, “Trek! Trek! Achterman! Roeberg!” (the names of two oxen) “Trek ye!”
The long whip is then brought down with a neat flip on the flank of some refractory animal who is hanging back, and out of whose hide a strip of several inches in length is thus taken.
A shout at Englishman—generally so named from being the most obstinate in the team—Zwartland, Wit Kop, etcetera, is followed by a steady pull all together, and the waggon moves off. When the driver has flogged a few more of the oxen to let off his superfluous anger, he mounts on the waggon-box, and exchanges his long whip for a short strip of sea-cow-hide, called the “achter sjambok,” with which he touches up occasionally the two wheelers. Lighting his pipe, he then complacently views the performance of his stud through its balmy atmosphere. Should there be an ox so obstinate as to refuse to move on, or wish to lie down, etc., who can paint the refined pleasure this same Hottentot driver feels in thrashing the obstinacy out of the animal, or how entire is his satisfaction as he kicks the poor brute in the stomach, and raps him over the nose with the yokes-key, or twists his tail in a knot, and then tears it with his teeth. Martin’s Act is a dead letter in Africa.
A few days in Graham’s Town were quite enough to satisfy my curiosity; in this part of the world, the sooner one gets beyond the half-civilisation the better.
I joined two friends, and started for Fort Beaufort, a day’s ride distant. I was much amused at the cool manner in which our dinner was provided at the inn on the road. “What will you have, gentlemen?” was asked: “beef, a turkey, or—” “Turkey roast I vote,” said one, in answer to the landlord’s question. “Piet!” cried the landlord, “knock over that turkey in the corner.”
“Ja bas,” answered a Hottentot servant. A log of wood flew at the turkey’s head indicated, and, with unerring aim, he was knocked over, plucked, drawn, and roasted in about an hour and a half, and was very good and tender.
The frontier of the Cape colony is a very wild and rather barren district, and in many parts there is a scarcity of water and verdure. At certain seasons of the year quail come in abundance, thirty or forty brace for one pair of barrels being by no means an uncommon bag. One or two of the bustard tribe are also found here, and are called the diccop, coran, and pouw. I saw but little game besides those creatures which I have just mentioned, as we were at war with the Amakosa tribes, and it was not prudent to venture far from our forts. I employed my time in making portraits of the friendly Kaffirs who came in to see us, and also in acquiring their language, which struck me as particularly harmonious and expressive. Frequently thirty or forty men would come in of a day under some pretence or other, and I had good opportunities of watching their manners and attire, the latter, by the bye, being particularly simple.