Chapter Fifteen.
The waggons had stopped for the night, the oxen were outspanned, and the native servants were engaged in knee-haltering their masters’ horses, which were then turned into the veldt to graze. They had not yet advanced far enough into the Transvaal country for any danger to be apprehended from wild animals. George and Margetts, assisted by Hardy, were engaged in lighting two large fires, partly to cook the supper, partly to dispel the chill which they felt creeping over them; for, though winter was now past, and the early spring was usually mild and balmy, yet after nightfall it is apt to become extremely cold. There is no country in the world, it may be remarked, more liable to sudden and rapid changes from cold to heat, and again from heat to cold, than that which they were now traversing.
They had left Zululand—that is, Vander Heyden, George, and Redgy had left it—a day or two after the capture of Cetewayo, and proceeded straight to Luneberg, whither the waggons had been despatched from Newcastle to join them. Annchen had travelled under the charge of her brother’s two chief Hottentot servants, Koboo and Utango. Matamo and Haxo had been despatched by their respective masters to join the party at Newcastle, and Hardy arrived the following day from Landman’s Drift. The whole party being assembled, they set off about the end of the first week of September.
There were two waggons, each with its full team of oxen and four servants attached to each. All these belonged to Vander Heyden, and contained valuables of all kinds, household furniture, farm implements, guns and ammunition, and a considerable supply of provisions, it being difficult and sometimes impossible to procure even the commonest articles at various places on their route. They were to proceed first to Heidelberg, by Elandsberg and Standerton; afterwards journeying north of Potchefstroom to Lichtenberg, and so to Zeerust. Supposing them to be able to travel every day, and no casualties to delay them, it would probably be five or six weeks before they would reach their destination. But there might be obstacles of all descriptions to encounter. Heavy rains might oblige them to remain inactive for days together. Disease might attack the cattle, especially the lung disease, of which mention has already been made, to which horses were so liable in that country. There was also a risk from wild animals. The more dangerous beasts, the lion, the rhinoceros, and the like, had become very scarce of late years in all the southern portion of the Transvaal, unable to endure the vicinity of the white man and his rifle. Still they might be met with at various points of their route, and the tiger (that is, the African leopard, which is so-called in that country) and the hyena were still numerous. Annchen and her attendant were accommodated in the best waggon. Vander Heyden and Hardy usually slept in the other, as did the others indeed also, Vander Heyden having courteously offered sleeping berths to George and Margetts. The native servants usually made their bed on the ground outside.
It was now the end of the second day of their journey, and they were beginning to make their way into the wilder country of the Transvaal, leaving the more civilised parts behind them. The road during the greater part of the day had lain across lonely tracts of country—such kraals and farmhouses as they had fallen in with being few and far between. The main features of the scenery had been long undulating downs, over which the tall coarse grass was growing up in abundance, diversified now and then by masses of rock rising abruptly into sharp eminences, and crossed occasionally by deep watercourses overgrown with weeds. These were, in general, difficult and sometimes dangerous to pass. Every now and then herds of springboks came by, bounding straight up into the air, as they caught sight of the travellers, like Jacks-in-the-box, to an astonishing height, and then rushing away with the fleetness of the wind. More rarely elands and hartebeests appeared, and once a number of gnus—these strange animals, which seem to be something half-way between the horse and the ox—went by at their awkward gallop. George and Matamo rode in pursuit and succeeded in killing a hartebeest and two springboks, the more dainty parts of which were cooked for the evening meal.
Annchen took her supper with the rest of the party, but soon afterwards retired to her waggon; and the four Europeans, sitting round the largest fire, for the night was unusually cold, began to converse together.
“This is near the place where that disaster occurred—Intombe—isn’t it?” asked Margetts, knocking the ashes out of his pipe.
“Yes,” answered Hardy; “the spot where the massacre took place is down on the bank of the river, only a little way from this. One would have thought that Isandhlwana would have been enough to teach even our countrymen common prudence. But I suppose nothing ever will.”