From Veldt Camp Fires

by H. A. Bryden

While the two men sit thus silent, let us look into the white man’s past—that past which at this moment he himself retraces within the mazes of his brain. James Fealton, fifteen years before, was a Namaqualand trader, who knew the interior and its natives well, and had prospered moderately. He had not a very good reputation. When diamonds were discovered and the rush took place to the Vaal River, he happened to be down-country. He joined the rush, and, chumming with an Englishman fresh from the old country, spent many months in digging. The two men lived hard, and had no luck for six months, by which time most of their capital had come to an end. Then came a big stroke of fortune. They found a huge stone of many carats, worth some thousands of pounds. Not a soul in the camp knew of the find. But one day Fealton had disappeared, his partner was found in their tent stabbed to the heart, and a hue and cry arose. The hue and cry did not last long; the camp was far too busy in those days with its own affairs to trouble greatly about bringing felons to justice. Fealton had carefully covered up his traces and the search presently died away. Fealton had, as a matter of fact, ridden off on a fleet horse by night and had secured three good days’ start. Avoiding all dwellings, he rode across the veldt, and presently reached a kraal on the north bank of the Orange River, where he had left a waggon, oxen, and some stores some six months earlier, just before he had been bitten with the diamond fever.

Within six hours of his arrival at the kraal he had inspanned his oxen and trekked away north into the heart of the Kalahari. At first he had luck; there were plenty of wild melons (tsama) about the desert, and, failing water, his oxen subsisted on these for some weeks. At Lehuditu, a Kalahari kraal, where the only native he had with him lived, he paid off the man and thence trekked on alone. But as he pressed yet north the tsama failed, and one after another the oxen fell in their yokes and died of thirst and exhaustion. It was a ghastly struggle for life. Fealton managed to reach the pleasant fountain where Kwaneet found him and there halted. He had reached a remote place, surrounded by “thirsts”—a place unknown to white men—here he would rest for a year or two. The remnant of his oxen, save two, soon after died from eating a poisonous plant—“Tulp,” as the Boers call it—and he was stranded whether he liked it or no. But the place suited him very well. He was haunted by the gnawing fear of detection. The crime itself—the foul murder of his friend—troubled him little at present in the haste and toil of flight, but the consequences of it, the terror of retribution and of justice, dwelt with him incessantly. He would stay here till things were forgotten, and then escape north far into Portuguese territory and so to Europe. Meanwhile there was plenty of game around him. He had a plentiful store of ammunition—enough for many years, with care—and was fond of sport. He would hunt ostrich feathers, and thus collect wealth to add to the value of that wonderful diamond, which he carried ever about him. And so he had built himself a hut, and made himself a home in the wilderness.

Rambling with his gun about the country near the place of his settlement, he had found one day a dry river-bed, where water had evidently run in ages past. Some of the gravel here and there, left uncovered by the light sand of the desert, struck him. He brought a spade and searched carefully, and presently from a washing picked out a small diamond. The discovery electrified him. That here in this secret place, happened upon by the merest accident in that desperate flight from the great diamond stretches of the Vaal River, he should have lit upon another field, seemed the wildest improbability of a dream. Yet so it was. He found a week or two later another stone. They were not large diamonds, but they were wonderfully pure gems, white and flawless. He now set to work with feverish energy. He would amass a huge fortune in a year or two and then get away to some civilised country and enjoy that life of luxury and indulgence for which inwardly his soul had always pined. He had a few trading tools on his waggon, among them picks and spades. These easily sufficed him. He worked steadily for three years in the dry river-bed, until the time when Kwaneet and his father had made their way to his hut. His success had not been very great, thus far the stones were scarce and far apart and not very large. Moreover, the toil of carrying the stuff to his fountain for washing purposes was great, and took up much time. But, four years after the Bushman’s visit, a turn came. Moving farther along the dry channel he had at length hit upon much richer soil. Fine diamonds of considerable size were occasionally to be found after the washings, and slowly the man’s store of gems increased. Yet, always hoping for some yet greater streak of luck, he toiled on. Now at last, in the leather bag, locked in a corner of his waggon-chest, he had a great fortune. But for the last two years his health had begun to fail. Some internal trouble sapped at his strong frame. He lost flesh and grew old and wrinkled. The fitful beating of his heart, palpitations, and even sudden pangs, alarmed him. He gave up digging, he had barely enough energy at times to shoot or snare game and keep himself in meat. He must escape from the desert, which he now loathed, and get to Europe and obtain medical advice. No doubt he could be put right again.

For months he had been casting about for some means of escape from what was now in his weakened state a prison. He doubted whether he could struggle on foot to the next water—sixty long miles of heat and thirst—and there were other long thirsts to be traversed before he could even strike a native settlement and buy a horse or oxen. And here, in the midst of his perplexities, the Bushman had turned up! Nothing could have been more fortunate, it was absolutely providential. Fealton felt that evening more cheerful than he had done for years past. His troubles would vanish now. That night he treated Kwaneet to a magnificent feed—for a Bushman—opened his last bottle of brandy—the long-treasured remnant from a case of two dozen—and, under the mellowing influence of the liquor and companionship, his spirits rose immensely. The old bright dreams, which had been fading in the last year or two, rose clear before him. He understood the Koranna dialect, which much resembles Masarwa, and he had no difficulty in conversing with the Bushman. From him he gleaned a little—a very little—of what was passing in the native states around him. Moremi reigned at Lake Ngami. Khama had succeeded Macheng and ruled the Bamangwato. Secheli still lived. The white men came oftener into the country, the game grew scarcer. He could glean little else than these bare facts from the desert man. Yet it was wonderfully pleasant to use his tongue, to break the long silence of the lonely wilderness, to exchange ideas even with a Masarwa. The two men talked for a couple of hours, then Fealton motioned Kwaneet into a corner of the hut, and himself lay down upon his rough bed.

Kwaneet curled himself up under his hartebeest skin cloak and was soon fast asleep. He woke as usual very early, but Fealton was awake before him. Peering from under his cloak, Kwaneet saw in the dim light of early morning that the white man was sitting on his bed. He had in his hands a skin bag. He opened this and poured out its contents on the couch. The Bushman could not see all, but he saw a little heap of pebbles, which the hand of the white man levelled and spread over the blanket. Several of the larger stones he picked up and examined closely and weighed in his hand. It was clear to Kwaneet from the white man’s movement that he set great store by these pebbles. The Bushman stirred. Fealton swept the stones into the skin bag again, put them into his waggon-chest, which stood close to the bed, and locked it.

That morning, after breakfast, Fealton unfolded his plans to the Masarwa. He was to go with some ostrich feathers to a trader at Lake Ngami and barter two good pack oxen on which the white man could make his escape. He could ride one and pack his belongings on the other. The Masarwa had more than once tended cattle for the Bechuanas, and understood them. Oxen would traverse the “thirst” better than horses—even if horses could be obtained, which was doubtful—and Kwaneet did not understand horses. For the Bushman’s protection in this business—lest he should be robbed or cheated of the feathers by the way—Fealton wrote a note in an assumed name and hand, authorising the cattle to be delivered in exchange for feathers. He represented himself briefly as a traveller who had broken down in the desert. He enjoined upon Kwaneet complete secrecy as to his long settlement in the Kalahari. The reward to Kwaneet for the due despatch of this piece of business was in the Bushman’s eyes a very great one. The white man promised him a breech-loading rifle and ammunition and some goats. Kwaneet had ambitions, for a Masarwa, and began to look forward to setting up as an aristocrat, such, for instance, as the Batauana or Bamangwato people, who lorded it so greatly over the poor children of the desert.

Kwaneet performed his mission secretly and well, he procured the two pack oxen, got them safely across the desert—luckily it was the beginning of the rains—and arrived one day at the white man’s hut. He approached the place with a swelling sense of satisfaction. He had accomplished a difficult mission for a desert-bred man. The white man would be vastly pleased. The reward, that magnificent Snider rifle, which always he had carried in his mind’s eye, the cartridges, the goats—all, all were soon to be his. Within fifty yards of the hut something caught the eye of the Masarwa—something that sent a thrill down his back. Here was now, since the rain had fallen, fair green grass starred with flowers. Big pink and white lilies stood in their short-lived bravery near the fountain, and amid these wild lilies lay bleached bones and pieces of torn cloth. The white man was dead, and here was the last of him. Kwaneet turned over the bones. Many of them were broken by hyenas and jackals, but there was no mistaking the fragments of clothing amid which they lay. The Bushman’s aid had come too late. Fealton’s fate had at last overtaken him. He had died suddenly of the ailment that had been so long sapping at his life, and the birds and beasts of the desert had been his undertakers.

Here at first was a bitter disappointment for Kwaneet. Presently, however, on thinking it all over, the affair looked not quite so blank for him. Here in this secret place was wealth—a good rifle, some ammunition still remaining, as he knew, the two oxen he had brought. Why should not he himself live here and enjoy this pleasant spot and these good things? So Kwaneet took possession of the hut and its contents, clothed himself in an old pair of trousers and a flannel shirt, and entered upon the life of a great man. He built a little kraal for his two oxen, and for a time was as happy as an English squire with a heavy rent roll in the good days. He tried the rifle, and after a time even overcame the alarming difficulty of letting it off. But it was a serious undertaking, and upon the whole he preferred his bow and arrows.

Presently Kwaneet, Masarwa though he was, yearned once more for companionship. He would try to get a wife again. He had found the white man’s bag of pebbles. He felt convinced somehow, from the care the man had bestowed upon them, that they were valuable. He would take these and the best of the ostrich feathers to the trader and obtain more cattle for them, and on his way thither he would pick up a wife at the water of Ghansi. This last was not a difficult task. At Ghansi he bought the girl he needed, paying for her his father’s old hunting-knife, which he had replaced by a better one found in the white man’s hut. Kwaneet’s appearance with a couple of pack oxen and a big load of feathers, and other indications of immense wealth, created some sensation among the Masarwas squatting at Ghansi. One of them in particular, Sakwan, made it his business to inquire further into the matter. He had an old grudge against Kwaneet—it had happened over a stray tusk of ivory found in the desert; it irked him yet more to see his rival thus prospering. After Kwaneet with his new wife had left Ghansi for the Lake, therefore, Sakwan followed secretly upon their spoor. Kwaneet found no difficulty in marketing his wares at the end of his journey. He interviewed the trader by night. The man was staggered at sight of the magnificent lot of ostrich feathers which Kwaneet turned out of the skin coverings that enveloped them; yet more staggered was he when the Bushman produced his bag of pebbles, and poured them upon the deal table. The trader knew diamonds in the rough perfectly well. Here, he assured himself, was the price of a king’s ransom. Where did they come from? Were there more of them? To these questions Kwaneet returned evasive answers. He knew nothing more than that he had found them in the desert. There were no more of them. What then, asked the trader, did Kwaneet want for the lot—feathers and pebbles? They were not worth much to him, but he would buy them. Kwaneet had thought all this out His fortune was worth to him, he conceived, ten head of cows, a bull, twenty goats, some Snider ammunition, a hat, a suit of trade clothes, and a shawl for his wife. He shook a little with excitement as he proposed these enormous terms. The trader laughed to himself at the Masarwa’s idea of wealth; he knew well that that wonderful bag of diamonds alone was worth some tens of thousands of pounds. And the feathers—magnificent “prime bloods,” long and snow-white, represented three or four hundred pounds at least. He haggled a little to save appearances, and finally closed the bargain.

Two days later, Kwaneet and his wife started away from a quiet cattle post belonging to the trader, which lay at some distance from the native town. It was part of the bargain that the trader should see the coast clear, so that the Bushman might get away unknown to the Batauana. This was safely accomplished. The two bush people, driving their fortune before them, plunged straightway into the desert. It was an anxious yet a delightful journey for Kwaneet. He had made his pile; henceforth he would rear flocks and herds in that dim corner of the desert and grow ever richer—as rich as a Bechuana. What Masarwa before him had ever accomplished, had ever even dreamt so much?