CHAPTER XXVII.
Leave the Orange River.—Arrival at Komaggas.—Gardening and Agriculture.—The Author starts alone for the Cape.—Colony Horses.—Enmity of the Boers to “Britishers.”—Dutch Salutation.—The Author must have been at Timbuctoo, whether or no.—He arrives at Cape-Town.—Cuts a sorry figure.—Is run away with.—A Feast of Oranges.—Ghost Stories.—Cattle Auction.—Hans and John Allen proceed to Australia.—Preparations for Journey to the Ngami.—Departure from the Cape.
On the 25th of August we left the inhospitable banks of the Orange River. After rather more than a week’s slow travel through dreary and uninteresting tracts of land, covered by a deep, yielding sandy soil, bearing a dwarfish vegetation, we arrived at Komaggas, also a Rhenish missionary station. The Rev. Mr. Weich now officiated here.[67] The congregation consists of a promiscuous collection of Hottentots and the offspring of other dark-colored natives.
Komaggas is picturesquely situated, and well supplied with water. Gardening is brought almost to perfection; and, notwithstanding the dryness of the atmosphere, corn is cultivated with success in the neighborhood. Indeed, the best wheat in the west part of the colony, I am informed, is grown here; but its cultivation is attended with much labor, since it can only be raised on the summit of hills (which retain moisture longer than the lowlands) rising not unfrequently several thousand feet above the sea.
Except at the station and one or two other spots, the extensive grounds are scantily watered and ill adapted for grazing. During our visit, numbers of cattle were dying from starvation. The region is, moreover, in some seasons infected by diseases fatal to beasts of pasture, and these maladies, of late years, have been of so destructive a character as nearly to exterminate the cattle. Indeed, many of the Bastards and Hottentots, who chiefly inhabit these parts, and who were formerly living in great abundance, are reduced to beggary from this cause.
I now determined to leave Hans, and proceed in advance to Cape-Town, with a view of making arrangements about the sale of the cattle and the intended expedition to the Ngami. As we were now in a locality where horses might be obtained, I procured three or four of these animals without delay, partly for cash and partly for cattle. The rate of exchange was from five to ten oxen, according to the qualities of the horse; or, if money, 100 rix doll. (£7.10). A first-rate hack might be purchased for £10, though, of course, high-bred horses were more expensive.
The Cape Colony horse is a wonderful beast. He is supposed to be of Spanish descent, but of late years has been much crossed by various breeds. Without any pretension to beauty, he is, perhaps, unrivaled in docility, hardiness, and endurance. In eight days (one of which was devoted to rest) I rode, accompanied by a Hottentot servant, from near Komaggas to Cape-Town, a distance of upward of four hundred miles by road, thus averaging fifty miles per day. On an after occasion I remember to have performed upward of ninety miles at a very great pace, only once or twice removing the saddle for a few minutes. And be it borne in mind that the animals were young, indifferently broken-in, unshod, and had never been stall-fed.
A most striking instance of the extraordinary endurance of Colony horses occurred a few years ago in Great Namaqua-land. The animal in question belonged to a son of the Hottentot chief Zwartbooi, who one day, while hunting in an open tract of country, fell in with a troop of eleven giraffes, to which he immediately gave chase, and the whole of which he rode down and shot in succession. But the immense exertion was too much for the gallant creature, whose life was thus sacrificed.
This remarkable horse was well known throughout Great Namaqua-land, and is said to have been quite mad with excitement when he observed a wild animal. He only ceased to pursue when the game was either killed or no longer in sight.