On the 7th of August Gabriel Buys and the Knobnose Waiwai returned from Delagoa Bay. No one there could read Triegard’s letter, but the Portuguese officer in command of the fort, understanding that the emigrants wished to visit him, sent two black soldiers to show them the way. Accordingly on the 23rd of that month they broke up their camp, and set out on the journey to the coast, with the intention, however, of returning and settling permanently in the goodly locality they had found. From Gabriel Buys and the men who accompanied him they obtained only a vague idea of the distance they would have to travel or of the obstacles in their way. They were in reality about three hundred and thirty-six kilometres or two hundred and ten English miles in a straight line from Lourenço Marques, which lay almost due south-east, for without knowing it they had gone fully a hundred and ninety kilometres farther north than its latitude. So far they had enjoyed excellent health, as after passing the Stormberg they had been on the high plateau, and travelling from south to north they had not met with any serious obstacles. They were now to have a very different experience.
Historical Sketches.
They travelled past the mountains, since so famous as the strongholds of the Bapedi, where Sekwati, who was then a very petty chief, was living, and who sent them a kindly greeting. They came next to the great range, which lay between them and the coast terraces, where trouble of no ordinary kind was before them. The black Portuguese soldiers had traversed the range on foot, and had no conception of waggon traffic, so they were absolutely useless as guides. A road had to be made, and they managed to obtain some Bantu labourers by paying them in sheep, but when it was completed it was just passable in most places and so dangerous at one spot that some of the party rather than venture on it preferred to take their waggons to pieces and lower the separate parts down the face of a precipice.
In the mountains their cattle were attacked by the tsetse, an insect a little larger than a common fly, but though they had once before suffered loss from this destructive pest, they did not pay much attention to it at first. They were doubtful of its being the same as that they had formerly seen, but soon their oxen began to pine away and die, when they found themselves in a deplorable condition. Still they pushed on, and by dint of almost superhuman exertions, managed to get through the Lebombo, the last range on their way. The cattle were dying fast, when on the 8th of April 1838, to their great joy, they were met by a messenger from the commandant of the Portuguese fort at Lourenço Marques. This messenger had come up the river Umbelosi in a boat, and had brought a present of provisions, rum, medicines, and even some articles of clothing, which were most acceptable.
Suffering at Delagoa Bay.
Triegard now transferred his ivory and other heavy effects to the boat, and with his lightened waggons pushed on to the fort, which he reached on the 15th of April 1838, two hundred and thirty-five days after leaving Makapan’s Poort at the Zoutpansberg. The party then consisted of fifty-seven individuals, namely five married men and their wives, two widowers, one widow, eight lads over sixteen years of age, fourteen lads under sixteen years of age, four girls over sixteen years of age, seven girls under sixteen years of age, four half-caste children of Albacht, and seven Betshuana and Bushman servants.
The Portuguese received them with much kindness, though they were required at first to give up their guns. These, however, were soon restored to them, and whatever could be thought of to make them comfortable was done. Triegard informed the commandant of the fort that he had left the Cape Colony because the frontier had been ruined by the Xosas, the slaves had been set free by the English, and the government desired to make soldiers of the Afrikanders. It was evident that they could not return to the Zoutpansberg, but they had not decided what next to undertake when they were attacked by fever. The first to die was old. Daniel Pfeffer, who expired on the 21st of April, at the age of 78 years. He was followed on the 29th of April by P. J. Hendrik Botha, who was 37 years of age. Next came Louis Triegard’s wife, who died on the 1st of May. When she fell ill the Portuguese commandant had her carried into the best room in the fort, and his own wife tended her day after day with the utmost kindness until she died. With a great cry of anguish over his terrible loss Triegard closed his journal, and no particulars can be ascertained of occurrences during the next fifteen months that the party remained at Lourenço Marques. Months of intense suffering, physical and mental, they must have been, of this there can be no doubt. Actual hunger may have been averted by the kindness of the Portuguese officers, but the resources of these good people were very limited, and such food as was obtainable must have consisted mainly, if not entirely, of millet and other produce of the gardens of the Bantu.
Historical Sketches.
Their number was constantly diminishing by fever, till at length the emigrants who had settled in Natal, hearing where and in what condition they were, chartered the schooner Mazeppa to proceed to Delagoa Bay to their relief, and in July 1839 the remnant of the party, consisting of Mrs. H. Botha and five children, Mrs. G. Scheepers and five children, Mrs. J. Pretorius and two children, three young men, and seven orphan children, were landed at Durban. One young man, son of Louis Triegard, had gone to Mozambique in a Portuguese vessel before the Mazeppa reached the bay, but in the following year he managed to travel overland to his friends in Natal. Thus of the ninety-eight individuals who formed the first party of emigrants all had perished except the twenty-six who reached Natal in a state of utter destitution.