The White Chief of the Caffres

by Alfred W. Drayson

“Chief, you alone were correct and you alone knew me. I am the White Chief of the Umzimvubus, and I have come back to see you again, and to bring you some things you will like. I am going also to see my own tribe to the west.”

Umnini scarcely seemed surprised, as I told him who I was, but said he had been certain about it when he saw me.

Our conversation, which had not been heard outside of the hut, had been carried on in a low tone; so no one besides Umnini knew who I was. I told him I did not wish to be known at present, and asked him to keep my secret. He agreed to this, and when we crept out of the hut he did his acting splendidly, and spoke to my Caffre, asking him to enquire of me what I thought of the tusks.

I replied in Dutch, saying I would buy them. Then bidding good-bye to the people, I returned to the ship.

Two days afterwards I started with two Caffres and a Hottentot for my old residence near the Umzimvubu. The pony I rode was a good shooting pony, and on the first day I shot two coran and a red bush-buck, which supplied the party with plenty of food. On the second day I reached my old kraal, and was again anxious to see if I should be recognised. I was not long in doubt. Inyoni, my old boy-companion, had now grown into a fine young man, and was standing near the entrance to the kraal, watching me and my companions as we advanced. When close to him he looked at me for an instant, and then shouted, “Inkosi” (chief), and seized my hand. His shout had brought out all the people who were in the kraal, each of whom recognised me. Those whom I had left as boys, and little girls, were now young men and women, and all were delighted to see me. The Hottentot and Caffres, who had accompanied me from Natal, looked on with astonishment, and when they heard me speaking Caffre as well as they themselves spoke, they seemed to think it was witchcraft.

I had a busy time of it answering all the questions that were put to me by my old friends, who were anxious to know what I had been doing, where I had been, and whether I intended to again live with them. When I told them how I had passed day after day in a room, in the midst of a large city (London), and had rarely seen the sun, and had shot no buck, had not even seen a wild elephant, and had enjoyed no sport, they were astonished how it was I had gone through all this, when I could have come back at any time, and enjoyed the free, happy, exciting life of a chief with them.

The arguments used by my old friends have often been considered since that time by me, and the problem is a curious one, whether civilisation, with all its advantages, has not so many drawbacks as to render the wild, free, healthy life of so-called savages preferable.

At the date about which I write, there was no sport in the world finer than could be obtained in that part of Africa. Such sport as fox-hunting in England, deer-stalking in Scotland, pheasant, partridge, or grouse shooting, was as inferior to the sport in Africa as catching minnows is to salmon-fishing in a fine Canadian river. When a man has once followed the track of the giant elephant, through the mazes of an African bush, has come close to his formidable game, has fired at him, and heard the terrific sound of his angry trumpet, as he charges through the bush, he feels that he has enjoyed a class of sport superior to all other. Even stealthily approaching and slaying the formidable buffalo, in his forest stronghold, is a sport to be remembered all one’s life. To attempt to compare such sport as standing at the corner of a cover, and knocking over pheasants as they fly over you, with the sport formerly obtainable in the forests or on the plains of Africa is ridiculous.

“Why do you not come back to us, and enjoy life?” said Tembile;—“you, who could follow the tracks of a buck without a mistake, who could assagy a running buck, and hit with your knob-kerrie a bird on the wing. Here you could have plenty of cows, plenty of corn, several wives, and, as you are a chief, you could do all you wanted. What can there be in your country to compare with what we have here?”

As I listened to Tembile, and reflected on what he said, and then thought of the life I had led in my uncle’s office, I really began to think that civilisation was a mistake. What prince or duke in England could go out from his house, and within a few miles get a shot at a wild elephant or buffalo, or walk through as magnificent a forest as that near our kraal, and shoot antelope, or rare and beautiful birds? The freedom, too, of the life here was one of its greatest charms. Although the advantages of civilisation are great, yet the price we pay for these is enormous. Should I return to England and become a sort of slave to society, or should I remain in Africa? was really a question which I thought over frequently. The attraction at Wynberg, however, turned the scale.