From Veldt Camp Fires

by H. A. Bryden

Now Kwaneet had plenty of time upon his hands and no settled plan. The mystery of the lone white man had always fascinated him. He would go now and see if he still lived. It was some winters ago, but he might still be there. So Kwaneet filled three ostrich eggs and a calabash with water, made fresh snuff against the journey, and next morning, long before the clear star of dawn had leaped above the horizon, started upon his quest. He was well equipped for a Masarwa. His giraffe hide sandals, not needed till the thorns were traversed, and his little skin cloak, neatly folded, were fastened to one end of his assegai. At the other end hung the full calabash of water. His tiny bow, quiver of reed arrows, bone-tipped and strongly poisoned, and a rude net of fibre containing three ostrich eggs of water were slung over his back. Some meat and a supply of ground-nuts, the latter skewered up in the dried crops of guinea-fowls, completed his outfit.

It was a long, long journey, but Kwaneet, travelling leisurely at the rate of twenty or thirty miles a day—he was in no violent hurry—steadily progressed. He had not been through that part of the Kalahari since, as a lad, he had accompanied his father; yet, thanks to the wonderful Bushman instinct, the way through the flat and pathless wilderness seemed as plain to him as the white man’s waggon road from Khama’s to Lake Ngami. Despite the thirst, it was not an unpleasant journey. The various acacias, hack-thorn, wait-a-bit, hook-and-stick thorn, and the common thorny acacia, with its long, smooth ivory needles, were all putting forth their round, sweet-scented blooms, some greenish, some yellow, against the coming of the rains. Leagues upon leagues of forest of spreading giraffe-acacia (mokaala) were in flower, and their big, round, plush-like pompons of rich orange-yellow blossom scented the veldt for miles with a delicious perfume. Even to the dulled senses of the Bushman these symptoms of renewed life at the end of a long drought were very pleasant. As the Masarwa plunged further and further into the heart of the wilderness, game was very plentiful. Great troops of giraffe wandered and fed among the mokaala forests; steinbuck and duiker were everywhere amid grass and bush. Upon the great grass plains, or in the more open forest glades, herds of magnificent gemsbok and of brilliant bay hartebeests grazed peacefully in an undisturbed freedom; not seldom fifty or sixty noble elands were encountered in a single troop. All these animals are almost entirely independent of water, and found here a welcome sanctuary. The country was absolutely devoid of mankind. Many years before a number of Masarwas had been massacred at a water-pit by a band of Sebituane’s Makololo, then crossing the desert. The tradition of fear had been perpetuated and the region was seldom visited by Bushmen.

One morning, after sleeping within the welcome shelter of some thick bush, Kwaneet steps forth upon a great open plain of grass. Kwaneet remembers the plain at once. Upon it his father and he had slain ostriches years before, on their way to the white man’s; and across the broad, thirty-mile flat lay a water-pit, the last before the white man’s dwelling was reached. The Bushman looks with a keen interest out upon the plain. He expects to see ostriches, and he is not disappointed. He at once begins preparation for a hunt. First he takes from his neck three curious-looking flat pieces of bone, triangular in shape, scored with a rude pattern. One of these is more pointed than the others. He pulls them from the hide strip on which they are threaded, shakes them rapidly between his two palms, and casts them upon the earth, after which he stares with intense concentration for a long half minute. These are his dice, his oracles, which disclose to him whether the hunt is to be a good or an unsuccessful one. Apparently the result of the first throw is doubtful. The Bushman picks up the dice, shakes them, and throws them again. This time the more acute-angled piece points away from the rest. The Bushman’s eyes gleam, he mutters to himself in that odd, high, complaining voice which these people have, giving a cluck or two with his tongue as he does so, and throws once more. Again the oracle is propitious. Well pleased, the Masarwa re-strings his dice, fastens them about his neck, and hastens his preparations.

He now divests himself of all his encumbrances; water vessels, food, cloak, assegai, and sandals are all left behind. Stark naked, except for the hide patch about his middle, and armed only with his bow, arrows, and knife, he sets forth. The nearest ostrich is feeding more than a mile away, and there is no covert but the long, sun-dried, yellow grass, but that is enough for the Bushman. Worming himself over the ground with the greatest caution, he crawls flat on his belly towards the bird. No serpent could traverse the grass with less disturbance. In the space of an hour and a half he has approached within a hundred yards of the tall bird. Nearer he dare not creep on this bare plain, and at more than twenty-five paces he cannot trust his light reed arrows. He lies patiently hidden in the grass, his bow and arrows ready in front of him, trusting that the ostrich may draw nearer. It is a long wait under the blazing sun, close on two hours, but his instinct serves him, and at last, as the sun shifts a little, the great ostrich feeds that way. It is a splendid male bird, jet black as to its body plumage, and adorned with magnificent white feathers upon the wings and tail. Kwaneet’s eyes glisten, but he moves not a muscle. Closer and closer the ostrich approaches. Thirty paces, twenty-five, twenty. There is a light musical twang upon the hot air, and a tiny yellowish arrow sticks well into the breast of the gigantic bird. The ostrich feels a sharp pang and turns at once. In that same instant a second arrow is lodged in its side, just under the wing feathers. Now the stricken bird raises its wings from its body and speeds forth into the plain. But Kwaneet is quite content. The poison of those two arrows will do his work effectually. He gets up, follows the ostrich, tracking it, after it has disappeared from sight, by its spoor, and in two hours the game lies there before him amid the grass, dead as a stone. The Bushman carefully skins the whole of the upper plumage of the bird, cuts off the long neck at its base, takes what meat he requires, and walks back to his camping-place. There he skins the neck of the bird, extracting the muscles and vertebra; and, leaving the head, sews up the neck again, inserting into it a long stick and some dry grass, and lays it on one side. The hunt and these preparations have consumed most of the day. Kwaneet now feeds heartily, drinks a little water, indulges himself in a pinch or two of snuff, and then, nestling in his skin cloak close to his fire, his back sheltered by a thick bush, sleeps soundly till early morning.

So soon as it is light an ostrich stalks from the Bushman’s “scherm” and moves quietly on to the plain. All its motions are as natural as possible. It holds its head erect, looking abroad for any possible danger, as these wary creatures will, puts its head down to feed at times, scratches itself, all in the most natural fashion. The ostrich is no other than Kwaneet, disguised with the greatest care and deftness in the skin of the slain bird. He manoeuvres the neck and head on the long stick inserted yesterday. All this is part of a Bushman’s education, and Kwaneet is merely profiting by desert lessons acquired from his father years before. The Bushman-ostrich moves quietly out on to the flat, and presently joins a knot of birds feeding amid the grass. His approach is so skilful that he is able, without suspicion, to lodge an arrow in the finest male bird of the troop. From this troop, moving as they move when alarmed and keeping always with them, he kills four birds during the morning, all of which he rifles of their best feathers. During three days’ hunting upon the plain Kwaneet thus kills eight fine cock ostriches, and gains a noble booty of prime feathers. These feathers having carefully fastened together, he proceeds on his journey. It takes him a long day to cross the plain. He rests at the limestone water-pit on the other side, recruits his water calabash and eggshells, and then sets himself for the wearisome two days of waterless journey to the white man’s settlement. He travels faster now, and late in the second afternoon reaches the well-remembered spot. The digging upon the grass plain seems to him as he passes it much larger than of old. Many heaps are now grass-covered and even overgrown with low bushes. But chiefly Kwaneet notices that the dry bed of an ancient stream, which ages since ran here, has been greatly excavated. The banks are piled up with soil, and the channel is much deeper than when he last saw it. Kwaneet smiles to himself and marvels at the white man’s profitless labour. The man is alive, that is certain, his spoor plainly tells that tale. In another mile, following the path worn long since, the Masarwa walks into the pleasant open glade just upon the outskirts of the camelthorn forest, where the dwelling stands. It is exactly as Kwaneet remembers it, a low cottage of wattle and daub, neatly thatched. The old waggon still stands there under the spreading acacia fifty yards to the left. It is now rotten and dilapidated, almost falling to pieces; the white ants have been busy with it. There are signs of cultivation. Away to the right, near the fountain, a patch of mealie and tobacco ground is almost ready for the rains that soon must fall.

In front of the red mud walls of the hut, now glowing warmly beneath the rays of the dying sun, sits the white man in an old waggon chair. As Kwaneet walks up, he starts, rises, and, looking hard at the Bushman, says: “Who is it?” Then, looking still harder, “Surely Dwar, the Masarwa?”

“Nay,” answers Kwaneet, “it is not Dwar, but Kwaneet, the son of Dwar. Dwar died in the drought, in the season that three lions pulled down the giraffe by the pool of Maqua.”

The white man laughs grimly. “That is the answer of a true Masarwa,” he says. “How can I tell when Dwar died? But now I remember you, Kwaneet. You were here as a lad with your father, and you are as like Dwar as one kiewitje’s egg is like another. What do you do here? The Masarwa seldom comes this way.”

“Oh, my lord,” returned Kwaneet, “I lost my wife on the Tamalakan River and I wished to wander again. I thought I would hunt this way and see if the white man still abode here. Here are feathers which he may wish to buy.”

The white man was long silent and gazed hard at Kwaneet, and as he gazed his eyes seemed to wander dreamingly into the past. Meanwhile Kwaneet, squatting there in the red sand in front of him, had time to observe him well. The white man had changed a good deal. His glance, which the Masarwa remembered as shifting and uneasy, was the same, but otherwise he was different from the strong man he had last seen. He stooped and was very thin, his face was deeply lined, the flesh followed tightly the contour of the bones. The beard and hair, which the Bushman remembered as an intense black, were now thickly streaked with white.