“Mynheer Vander Heyden, Mynheer Moritz, let me introduce you to Mr Rivers and Mr Margetts. You will have much in common with them, I fancy, as their destination is only a few hundred miles short of your own.”
Vander Heyden bowed distantly. “English settlers, I suppose,” he said. “Do you propose to establish yourselves, gentlemen, in Natal, or Zululand?”
“In neither,” replied Rivers a little stiffly, for he did not like the tone in which Vander Heyden spoke. “The place to which I am proceeding is in the Transvaal.”
“I thought as much,” muttered Vander Heyden. Rivers only half caught the words, but there could be no mistake as to Vander Heyden’s demeanour. Some unpleasant altercation might have ensued, if Moritz had not stept forward and said pleasantly, “The Transvaal! that is our country, and it is a very fine one to settle in. May I ask what is the name of your station?”
“Dykeman’s Hollow,” replied Rivers. “It lies, I am told, some twenty miles from the Zulu frontier.”
“Yes, at Umvalosa,” assented Moritz. “I know where it is, and have often been by it, though I have never visited there. I believe the land is very good in that neighbourhood.”
“Is the hunting good there?” asked Redgy; “are there plenty of wild animals about there?”
“More than perhaps you would desire,” returned Moritz, smiling. “The lions and the elephants are not often to be seen; they never continue long in any neighbourhood in which Europeans have settled. Still, in the northern parts of the Transvaal you will meet with them—occasionally, at all events. But of the tigers—or rather the leopards, for that is what they really are—and of the hyenas, there are plenty. There is also no lack of snakes—cobras, ondaras, and puff-adders; there is no dearth of any of them.”
“I shall enjoy the lion-hunting, at all events,” said Redgy.
“I hardly think you will,” observed Vander Heyden with something of a sneer. “You will find that a different matter from what you in England are pleased to call sport—hunting a hare or a fox, or shooting at a bird. Hunting in the Transvaal requires both skill and courage.”