That name, Nooitgedacht (never give in), bestowed years ago upon the farm, well indicates the strong and stubborn character of old Cornelis Van Vuuren, its owner. There were some springboks and blesboks running on the place—remnants of those mighty herds of game which formerly blackened the Free State plains.
During the daytime I shot a few head of buck—I wanted some blesbok heads as specimens—and at evening, after supper, as we sat out beneath the warm starlight, Cornelis would open up, and yarn to me in a way that, until you know him well, the Boer seldom manifests to the rooinek (Literally, Red-neck—a Boer name for Englishmen).
What experiences the old man had had! In his youth he had been a great hunter, and had followed the elephants far into the interior before Gordon Cumming’s time. In those days ivory was plentiful throughout the north of the Transvaal. Many and many a rich load of tusks had Cornelis brought down-country. One of the first to penetrate into the Sabi River country and Gazaland, he had reaped a rich reward. So well had he done, that by 1863 he had practically retired from the hunting veldt, having amassed enough money and cattle to settle down on one of the best farms in the Free State. Here, at the time I knew him, he was living in a roomy, comfortable farmhouse—one of the best Dutch homesteads I have entered. Groves of fruit trees flourished round about; the well-tilled “lands” grew enough grain for a pastoral farmer’s needs; upon the 10,000 acre run large herds of cattle, sheep, goats, and horses flourished. Most of the children had grown up, and been duly married off long since. Only Franz Van Vuuren, the youngest son, whom I had met up-country, now lived with his parents.
By the second evening, as we sat at supper, old Cornelis and I had become fast friends. The old man knew from his son that I had shot pretty successfully in Mashonaland; and, in the old Dutch fashion, his simple soul went out at once to a hunter—especially to one who had done Franz a kindly turn. It was a warm evening in November. Vrouw Van Vuuren—a broad-faced, white-haired, portly old dame, still keen-eyed, brisk and sharp with her native servants—sat at the head of the table, endued with a clean print gown and her best black silk apron in honour of my coming. In front of her stood the great coffee urn. Her capacious feet, enveloped in soft velschoens, rested, spite of the warmth of the African evening, upon one of those curious chafing stools—a footstool filled with hot embers—so common in Boer houses. Franz sat at one side of the table, I at the other. Old Cornelis was at the top. I see him now in memory as he stood reverently pouring forth one of those long Dutch prayers, without which no good Boer will begin his meal. He was a magnificent old fellow, far better looking than the average run of Free State or Transvaal Boers. Cornelis Van Vuuren stood a good six feet in his velschoens, and, although now seventy years of age, was still erect and strong as an ancient oak. His thick masses of white hair—not too well trimmed—and his snowy beard well set off his strong, massive features. And the old man’s bright blue eye—merry, alert, and penetrating—showed that the fire of life still burned strong within that great old frame. Well might he be called by his fellows, “Sterk Cornelis” (strong Cornelis). I had often heard of the old man’s reputation far up in the interior—of his clear courage and unflagging resource; for Cornelis had been in many a tight place, whether in hunting or in native wars. Few men, even among the great English hunters, had been more reliable at need, whether facing an infuriated bull elephant, or standing up to a wounded and snarling lion—two of the most dangerous foes, I take it, that a man may expect to confront in Africa.
As we sat at the evening meal, the pretty Cape swallows, in their handsome livery of blue-black and rufous, flitted in and out of the chamber, through door or open window, hawking incessantly at the plague of flies, or sitting sometimes upon the top of the open door, cheeping their brief, cheerful song. As in many Boer houses, the Van Vuurens had fitted up, for cleanliness’ sake, directly under the swallows’ nests, which were fastened between the central roof timber and the reed thatch, immediately over the table, a broad, square, flat piece of wood. Thus the swallows never trouble the farmer; and, in return for a kindly toleration, the pretty, tame creatures do their best to rid the homesteads of those plagues of flies which are found at most cattle kraals near a Dutchman’s house. Sometimes I have seen the little, confiding creatures, as old Cornelis sat outside upon the stoep, with legs comfortably outstretched, stoop for an instant upon his shoe, and, like lightning, pick off some fly that had rested there.
I had long spoken Boer Dutch, and our conversation therefore flowed smoothly and merrily enough. Old Cornelis was in high spirits, and, in response to my queries, told several anecdotes of his early life in the far wilderness. He had been one of the “Voor-Trekkers,” quitting the Cape Colony in 1836, and passing beyond the Orange River to found a new home, and to seek fresh hunting-grounds beyond the reach of a British government. His young wife had fared forth with him, and for twenty years and more had shared his life of pioneer and hunter, with all its dangers, its roughs and tumbles, its wild pleasures, and its fierce occasional excitements. In the distant interior, in the big wagon, or in some temporary hartebeest house of reeds and clay, had the family of this sturdy pair been reared around them.
Presently, as he filled his great pipe, and pushed his coffee cup away, some amusing reminiscence flitted across the old Boer’s brain. A broad smile overspread his face, as he said to me, nodding mischievously at his wife, “Kerel (my boy), you have never by chance heard the story of the vrouw there and her Frenchman? It used to be pretty well-known in the veldt years ago.”
“No,” I answered, “I never heard the tale. What is it?”
“Almighty!” he returned. “It’s a good story, though an old one. I never think of it without laughing, though it happened forty years ago! I must tell it to him, vrouw; what say you?”
And then, as the merry recollection rose firmer before the old man’s mind, his broad palm smote his great thigh with a smack that resounded through the room, and he burst into a fit of laughing—so hearty and so long, that the tears started into his blue eyes.