In the neighbourhood of Klipdrift I made an exchange which seemed to me advisable. I bartered four of my horses for a team of six oxen, and although I was a pecuniary loser by the transaction, I could not be otherwise than satisfied when the bargain was concluded, as the horse disease, which rages every year, had broken out in the district, and I had observed several carcasses bleaching in the sun. Had it not been for this disease, I could have obtained a far better price for my horses, but under the circumstances the owner of the oxen hesitated long before he would entertain the proposal for exchange at all. He assured me that I should find the whole six to be quiet and docile, and all that draught-oxen ought to be; however, I soon discovered that two of them were so wild as to be almost unmanageable. My change of team consequently involved me in engaging two additional black servants—one to lead the foremost of the three pairs, another to urge them on by the free use of the whip.
I had no difficulty in finding what I required. In the Koranna village, one of my companions had fallen in with a German, who had taken up his residence there, and I applied to him to inquire among the natives for a couple of strong young men, who would come up the country with me for a few weeks. In the course of the day he brought me a Koranna lad of about sixteen, and a Koranna half-breed, named Gert, both of whom professed themselves ready to engage themselves to me for the work I wanted. I was to pay them at the rate of 8s. 6d. a week each.
After laying in an adequate stock of tea, sugar, and meal, we left Klipdrift, and, according to my scheme, proceeded northwards towards the confluence of the rivers, to the district inhabited by the western Batlapins—where I wished to explore the deserted river-diggings—taking Gong Gong on the way. The country over which we passed was a high table-land, wooded in parts, and dotted at intervals with settlements, both of Korannas and Batlapins; it was slightly undulated, and sloped sharply down on the west towards the Vaal.
A special interest, both to the sportsman and the naturalist, is awakened by the fact that the district lying between the Harts and Vaal Rivers is the first in which, approached from the south, herds of the striped grey gnu (Catoblepas Gorgon) are to be seen. By the Boers called “the blue wildebeest,” and by the Bechuanas known as the “kokon,” this animal ranges northwards all over the Orange Free State, and beyond the Zambesi. It is, although larger, less wild than the black or common gnu, and its horns are of a different shape, being bent downwards and forwards, more like those of our own shorthorns. Huntsmen distinguish the two species by the colour of their tails; the black gnus have white tails, whilst the blue-grey gnus can be recognized at a great distance by their black tails, and by the black stripes on the upper and front parts of their bodies. They must rank with the springbock and blessbock gazelles, in being the most common game on the treeless plains, from the western region of Cape Colony as far as lat. 23° north.
Late in the afternoon we turned into a small glen, at its opening into the Vaal valley. A few little canvas huts, and some tents, could be seen peeping gracefully from the dark green foliage, and constituted all that now remained of the once flourishing town of Gong Gong.
Hence we proceeded still northwards. Some white specks in the distance, on the steep rocky cliffs overhanging the Vaal, marked the sites of New Kierke Rush, and other places that a few years since had been the prosperous settlements of the river-diggings. The journey from Gong Gong to Delportshope, which is about a mile from the mouth of the Harts, was one of the most uncomfortable that I have ever made in a bullock-waggon, and I was at a loss to comprehend how, in the flourishing times of the diggings, such a road could have sufficed for the requirements of a population of some thousands. It was no better than the channel of a boulder-stream, and travelling along it was equally difficult and painful. No sooner had one of our back wheels, by the combined efforts of the six oxen goaded on mercilessly by the driver’s whip, been dragged out of a hole left by a rain-pool, than one of the front wheels would come in contact with a huge stone a foot high, which it was impossible to surmount. To add to our difficulties, the oxen began to be restive, and to get beyond control; and so violent was the jolting, that my barometer was ruined. It was not surprising that the journey occupied about three times as long as we had calculated; nor was it much consolation to perceive, from the fragments of broken waggons which we passed, that others before us had fared even worse than ourselves.
BATLAPIN BOYS THROWING THE KIRI.
Page 109.
My attention was for a while diverted from my own affairs, by meeting a Batlapin carrying a leveret, and the “kiri” with which he had killed it. This is a very favourite weapon of both the Zulus and the Bechuanas. It is generally made of wood, but amongst the northern Bamangwato it is sometimes formed of rhinoceros horn; it varies from a foot to a yard in length, having at one end a knob, either plain or carved, as large as a hen’s egg, or occasionally as large as a man’s fist. In hand to hand conflicts it is a very effectual and deadly weapon, but it is chiefly used for hunting, and is hurled, by some tribes, with a marvellous precision. It was with the “kiri” that the Matabele Zulus dashed in the skulls of the male adult population of the rebel Makalaka villages.