We passed that night at the house of a Boer, who was represented to me as being a man of wealth and repute in the country and as being peculiarly averse to English rule,—Dutch and republican to his heart’s core. And I was told soon after by a party who had travelled over the same road, among whom there were two Dutchmen, that he had been very uncourteous to them. No man could have been more gracious than he was to us, who had come in as strangers upon his hospitality, with all our wants for ourselves our servants and our horses. I am bound to say that his house was very dirty, and the bed of a nature to make the flesh creep, and to force a British occupant of the chamber to wrap himself round with further guards of his own in the shape of rugs and great coats, rather than divest himself of clothes before he would lay himself down. And the copious mess of meat which was prepared for the family supper was not appetising. But nothing could be more grandly courteous than the old man’s manner, or kinder than that of his wife. With this there was perhaps something of an air of rank,—just a touch of a consciousness of superiority,—as there might be with some old Earl at home who in the midst of his pleasant amenities could not quite forget his ancestors. Our host could not speak a word of English,—nor we of Dutch; but an Englishman was in the house,—one of the schoolmasters of whom I have before spoken,—and thus we were able to converse. Not a word was said about the annexation;—but much as to the farming prospects of the country. He had grown rich and was content with the condition of the land.
He was heartily abused to us afterwards by the party which contained the two Dutchmen as being a Boer by name and a boor by nature, as being a Boer all round and down to the ground. These were not Hollanders from Holland, but Dutchmen lately imported from the Cape Colony;—and as such were infinitely more antagonistic to the real Boer than would be any Englishman out from Europe. To them he was a dirty, ignorant, and arrogant Savage. To him they were presumptuous, new-fangled, vulgar upstarts. They were men of culture and of sense and of high standing in the new country,—but between them and him there were no sympathies.
I think that the English who have now taken the Transvaal will be able, after a while, to rule the Boers and to extort from them that respect without which there can be no comfort between the governors and the governed;—but the work must be done by English and not by Dutch hands. The Dutch Boer will not endure over him either a reforming Hollander from Europe, or a spick-and-span Dutch Africander from the Cape Colony. The reforming Hollander and the spick-and-span Dutch Africander are very intelligent people. It is not to be supposed that I am denying them any good qualities which are to be found in Englishmen. But the Boer does not love them.
Soon after starting from our aristocratic friend’s house one of our horses fell sick. He was the one that kicked,—a bright bay little pony,—and in spite of his kicking had been the favourite of the team. We dined that day about noon at a Boer’s house, and there we did all that we knew to relieve the poor brute. We gave him chlorodyne and alum,—in accordance with advice which had been given to us for our behoof along the road,—and when we started we hitched him on behind, and went the last stage for that day with a unicorn team. Then we gave him whisky, but it was of no use. That night he could not feed, and early the next morning he laid himself down when he was brought out of the stable and died at my feet. It was our first great misfortune. Our other three horses were not the better or the brighter for all the work they had done, and would certainly not be able to do what would be required of them without a fourth companion.
The place we were now at is called Wonder Fontein, and is remarkable, not specially for any delightfully springing run of water, but for a huge cave, which is supposed to go some miles underground. We went to visit it just at sunset, and being afraid of returning in the dark, had not time to see all of it that is known. But we climbed down into the hole, and lit our candles and wandered about for a time. Here and there, in every direction, there were branches and passages running under ground which had hitherto never been explored. The son of the Boer who owned the farm at which we were staying, was with us, and could guide us through certain ways;—but other streets of the place were unknown to him, and, as he assured us, had never yet been visited by man. The place was full of bats, but other animals we saw none. In getting down, the path was narrow, steep, low and disagreeable enough;—but when once we were in the cave we could walk without stooping. At certain periods when the rains had been heavy the caves would become full of water,—and then they would drain themselves when the rains had ceased. It was a hideously ugly place; and most uninteresting were it not that anything not customary interests us to some extent. The caves were very unlike those in the Cango district, which I described in the first volume.
At Wonder Fontein there were six or seven guests besides the very large family with which the Boer and his wife were blessed, and we could not therefore have bedrooms apiece;—nor even beds. I and my young friend had one assigned to us, while the Attorney General of the Colony, who was on circuit and to whom we had given a lift in our cart to relieve him for a couple of days of the tedium of travelling with the Judge and the Sheriff by ox waggon, had a bench assigned to him in a corner of the room. In such circumstances a man lies down, but does not go to bed. We lay down,—and got up at break of day, to see our poor little horse die.
On leaving these farm houses the Boers, if asked, will make a charge for the accommodation afforded, generally demanding about 5s. for the supper, a night’s rest, and breakfast if the traveller chooses to wait for it. Others, English and Germans, will take nothing for their hospitality. Both the one and the other expect to be paid for what the horses may consume; and we thought we observed that forage with the English and Germans was dearer than with the Boers,—so that the cost came to much the same with the one as with the other. At the English houses,—or German,—it was possible to go to bed. In a Boer’s establishment we did not venture to do more than lie down.
Starting on the following day with our three horses we reached Potchefstroom, which, though not the capital, is the largest town in the Transvaal. The road all along had been of the same nature, and the country nearly of the same kind as that we had seen before reaching Pretoria. Here and there it was stony,—but for the most part capable of cultivation. None of it, however, was cultivated with the exception of small patches round the farm houses. These would be at any rate ten miles distant one from each other, and probably more. The roads are altogether unmade, and the “spruits” or streams are unbridged. But the traffic, though unfrequent, has been sufficient to mark the way and to keep it free from grass. Travelling in wet weather must often be impossible,—and in windy weather very disagreeable. We were most fortunate in avoiding both mud and dust, either of which, to the extent in which they sometimes prevail in the Transvaal, might have made our journey altogether impossible.
At Potchefstroom we found a decent hotel kept by an Englishman,—at which we could go to bed, though not indulged with the luxury of a room for each of us. The assizes were going on and we found ourselves to be lucky in not being forced to have a third with us. Here our first care was to buy a horse so as once again to complete our team. We felt that if we loudly proclaimed our want, the price of horses in Potchefstroom would be raised at once;—and yet it was difficult to take any step without proclaiming our want. We had only one day to stay in the town, and could not therefore dally with the difficulty as is generally the proper thing to do when horse-flesh is concerned. So we whispered our need into the landlord’s ear and he undertook to stand our friend,—acknowledging, however, that a horse in a hurry was of all things the most difficult to be had at Potchefstroom. Nevertheless within two hours of our arrival an entire team of four horses was standing in the hotel yard, from which we were to be allowed to choose one for £30. I had refused to have anything to do with the buying in regard to terms; but consented to select the one which should be bought, if we could agree as to price. When I went forth to make the choice I found that in spite of our secrecy a congregation of horse-fanciers had come to see what was being done. Four leaner, poorer, skinnier brutes I never saw standing together with halters round their necks;—but out of the four I did pick one, guided by the bigness of his leg bones and by the freedom of his pace. Everybody was against me,—our driver preferring a younger horse, and the vendor assuring me that in passing over an old grey animal I was altogether cutting my own throat. But I was firm, and then left the conclave, desiring my young friend to go into the money question.
The seller at first seemed to think that the price was a thing settled. Had he not told the landlord that we might select one for £30;—and had not the selection been made? He assumed a look of injured innocence as though the astute Briton were endeavouring to get the better of the poor Dutchman most dishonourably. Eventually, however, he consented to accept £23, and the money was paid. Then came the criticism of the bystanders thick and hard upon us. £23 for that brute! Was it true that we had given the man £23 for an animal worth at the most £7 10s.? They had allowed the seller to have his luck while the sale was going on, but could not smother their envy when the money was absolutely in his pocket. However we had our horse, whose capabilities were much better than his appearance, and who stood to us gallantly in some after difficulties in which his co-operation was much needed.