Tales of South Africa

by H. A. Bryden

Jan Steyn was the first to move. He rose from his chair and plunged silently into his wagon for a rifle. But even he was not quick enough. Meredith, defenceless though he was, had already made up his mind. Flourishing his rod, and shouting objurgations on the lion at the top of his voice, he ran swiftly straight in the brute’s direction. To the utter surprise of all the watchers and the intense astonishment of Meredith himself, the lion, after baring his teeth in a savage defiance, suddenly changed his mind, turned tail, and disappeared like a yellow flash into the tall reeds. Meredith now picked up Hans, who, released from the strain of apprehension, burst into tears upon his shoulder, and carried him up to the camp. Vrouw Steyn first took the lad from his arms, pressed him to her breast, kissed him, and then, putting her arms round the captain’s neck, gave him two or three hearty kisses. That was the bravest thing, she said, she had ever heard of, much more seen, and she and her family would never forget it as long as they lived. Then the stout old vrouw resigned herself to a quiet flood of tears and went about her work. Jacoba came next. The tears were already streaming down her cheeks. Hans was her favourite brother, and very dear to her. She came softly to Meredith, took his hand, modestly kissed him on the right cheek, and thanked him again and again. Jan Steyn and his three big sons, ranging from fifteen to two-and-twenty, one after another followed, thrust their big hands into the captain’s, and in their gruff Boer manner did their best to convey their hearty if, somewhat uncouth, thanks.

After that episode the friendship between Boers and Englishman grew apace. The men hunted together as they moved slowly up the river, and brought in many a head of game. Once or twice they came up with elephants on the south bank of the river and secured some good teeth, and the Kaptein, or Hendrik, as they all now familiarly called him (his name was Henry), proved that, besides being a brave man, he was a first-rate hunter and shot—as good a man, the Steyn lads said, as their own father, which was their highest form of praise.

It was amusing to notice the domestic reforms that the Englishman and his ways introduced into the Boer family. Instead of for ever stewing lumps of game flesh in the big pot, or cooking dry karbonadjes over the embers, the captain persuaded the vrouw to follow his own example, and roast wild-duck or a joint of springbok in a Kaffir pot, with hot embers below and on the lid. Sometimes he persuaded her to cook springbok chops and “fry” in an open frying-pan, as had he taught his own native cook. He presented her with one of his two frying-pans for this purpose. He even inducted the good-wife and Jacoba into the mysteries of curry, and gave them a supply of powder which lasted them for a year or two later. In proof that these innovations were acceptable, you may find them to this day, thanks to Jacoba’s and Hans’s remembrance of the English captain, steadily practised in Hans’s household in Waterberg. Even Hans’s wife, obstinate Boer woman though she is, has long since admitted their merits. On the other hand, Meredith had to acknowledge that he could not improve upon the Steyns’ coffee-making, which, performed though it was in an ordinary iron kettle, was as good as could be. Many an Englishman, however, has discovered that fact.

As for Jacoba, she foregathered with Meredith as often as she had opportunity. It was a delightful thing for this simple, untaught Boer maiden to hear news of that vast, dim outer world, and to gather some little idea of modern civilisation. For the Transvaal Boers, you must understand, to this day, linger in their isolation at least a hundred years behind the average European. Sometimes, when the captain came home early from hunting, Jacoba would walk with him to the river-side, or to the spreading lagoons which were now everywhere forming upon the flats, and watch him shoot wild-duck and geese, or some rare specimen or curious bird. Those were delightful times for the girl, as she and her hero strolled home in the soft African twilight, with all the glamour of evening about them. For within the secret recesses of her maiden heart she had long since set up the handsome Englishman as her hero. Jacoba at seventeen was a very comely girl; her complexion was fresh and clear—a rare thing among Dutch Afrikanders. She looked, as indeed she was, always pleasant and good-tempered; her blue eyes were as clear and honest as an African winter morning; from beneath her big sun-bonnet (kapje) her plentiful fair hair fell in a single thick plait down her back. Her figure, it is true, was nothing to boast of; but then, in the faraway veldt, who troubles about an inch or two at the waist? Meredith liked this frank, comely, modest South African maiden; even he, man of the world though he was, could scarce help but feel a little flattered at the manifest preference she showed for his society. Then the child—for, measured by the European standard, she was but a child—had so many questions to ask him upon all sorts of subjects; and it really was a pleasure to answer some of these naïve, unsophisticated inquiries, and to try and teach her something of the life and thoughts of Europe. And so it befell that Jacoba’s heart insensibly slipped from her, and she grew in her secret soul to love and almost to worship this fascinating Englishman, who knew everything, and did everything—from shooting an elephant to inspanning an ox—better even than her father and brothers, and could teach her own mother how to cook. She loved to watch him as he saddled up in the early dawning and rode off across the plains, or into the bush veldt, with her father and brothers in search of game. How nimble was this Englishman, and how graceful! With what an air he sprang into his saddle, and sat his horse, and even carried his rifle! And how fresh and trim and clean the man always looked! I am afraid Jacoba began secretly to contrast the captain with her own heavy, untrimmed and not over-clean kindred—much to the detriment of the latter.

In a little while the girl had come to look forward to Meredith’s return from hunting as the one great pleasure in the long day. Sometimes, when the men were in pursuit of elephants, and slept out on the spoor, it seemed as if the slothful hours would never pass. Her mother noticed the change in Jacoba’s demeanour, and would sometimes rate her for her forgetfulness and absent ways. “Jacoba,” she would say, from her low chair under the shady lee of the wagon, “your mind is always running on that English ‘Kaptein.’ Wake up, child, and think what you are doing, or I shall send him packing.”

Yet it must be confessed that the big ponderous vrouw was, in truth, almost as taken with the stranger as her own child. She liked, as every one else in the camp liked, his pleasant, hearty ways, and the air of novelty and briskness that his presence brought into the dull lives of herself and her folk. She liked his friendship for her child most of all, stout anti-Briton though she was in the abstract. It would be a fine thing indeed, she whispered to herself, if the captain should ask the girl in marriage, and set her up as a great lady. Vrouw Steyn had very faint ideas of what great ladies did, and how they comported themselves; yet as a child she remembered seeing the wife of the Governor of the Cape, and other official dames, at Graaff Reinet. And besides, she had once or twice seen old copies of the Illustrated London News, from which she assisted her own misty and fantastic glimmerings upon the subject.

It was curious to note in these days how particular Jacoba had grown about her clothes and person. It would be hard to say how she managed it. She had but two print gowns, and yet now she always appeared in a spotless frock in the afternoons. After all, even hunting Boers carry soap, and in the hot sunshine and parching winds of South Africa you can dry a print dress on a bush in a very little while. The captain had presented her, among other feminine treasures, with a brand-new pair of nail-scissors, and her hands were now kept as daintily as a Cape Town meisje’s. Even her brothers could scarcely help noticing the smart ribbons that, especially on Sundays, decked her gown and hair.

It must be said on the captain’s side that he behaved fairly well in a somewhat difficult position. He was an honourable man, and he had no intention in the world of stealing this simple girl’s affections. He was, in truth, much too keenly occupied in the wild pleasures of hunting big game to think about her affections at all. To him she was a mere child, and as such he had grown to treat her. It is true that it was a pleasant thing to find, even in this faraway desert—tolerable in many respects only for the game it held—a pretty fresh-eyed maid such as Jacoba, Dutch and semi-civilised though she was. Perhaps, if he had reflected a little, his friendship for the girl might have been somewhat less intimate. He treated her, indeed, in a careless brotherly, or perhaps, rather, cousinly way. When he came home from the hunt, often towards 3 o’clock, after a cup of coffee and a snack of food, he would exchange his heavy gun for the fowling-piece, whistle for Juno, the pointer, and stroll off arm-in-arm with Jacoba down to the river-side or the nearest lagoon. Sometimes little Hans would accompany them; sometimes he was lazy and stayed behind. It must be said that insensibly the captain and Jacoba grew to prefer their expeditions alone. When Meredith had shot enough wildfowl and red-billed francolin, he and Jacoba would stroll up to the camp-fire as the dusk fell. I am afraid, somehow, that the captain’s arm often wandered to the maid’s waist; sometimes even he took a kiss quite unresistingly from Jacoba’s fresh lips and soft cheek. It was thoughtless of him, which was perhaps the worst that could be said. For Jacoba those evening walks were full of unfading joy; to this hour she cherishes every incident of them, middle-aged woman though she is.

As the wagons moved up the river, elephants became more plentiful. On several occasions the hunters had crossed the water and followed the great tusk-bearers into the jungles beyond. They had had first-rate sport, and secured some magnificent teeth. One morning, at earliest dawn, some Makobas punted their dug-out canoes across the river, and reported that a good troop of elephants had drunk during the night. For a consideration they would take the hunters across. All was now bustle and excitement in the camp. Jan Steyn and his two eldest sons and the captain were soon equipped. They swallowed a hasty breakfast, and then, walking their horses down to the river, got into the boats and swam their nags over behind them. There was some risk from crocodiles, but the feat was safely accomplished. Then they took up the spoor in earnest. Some Masarwa bushmen tracked for them, and they rode at a brisk pace upon the trail, hour after hour, until noon had come and the sun lay midway in the sky between north-east and north-west. At half-past twelve they came suddenly upon the elephants in some troublesome thorny bush. There were eighteen in all, and some good bulls among them. Meredith quickly got to work and slew two magnificent bulls, carrying long, even teeth, after a hot and most exciting chase. He next tackled a big cow, furnished with a capital pair of tusks. After a sharp gallop he got alongside and put a four-ounce ball, backed with seven drachms of powder (those were the days of smooth-bores and heavy charges), behind her shoulder. But, stricken though she was, the cow was by no means finished. She turned short in her tracks, and, spouting blood, came with a ferocious scream straight for her tormentor.

Meredith had instantly turned his horse and spurred for flight. But, as it happened, in a hundred yards he was met by an absolutely impassable cul-de-sac of thorn-bush. Almost before horse and man knew where they were, they were caught up and flung to earth. The great cow drove her left tusk deep into the off flank of the horse, and hurled the poor brute and its rider away from her in one confused and bleeding mass. Before she could halt and turn again, the impetus of her ferocious charge took her thirty yards farther, right through that seemingly impenetrable wall of bush. It was her last effort. The heavy bullet had done its work. Thrice she lifted her blood-dripping trunk as if for air. Then she swayed softly to and fro, and suddenly sank down upon all-fours, as if kneeling, and so yielded up her fifty years of life.