After walking about three miles I passed a fine brick-built store, owned by an enterprising trader named Colenbrander. A little further brought me to the favorite kraal of the king, where he chiefly resides, when, darkness overtaking me, I selected a spot under a large shady tree where we spent the night, sleeping round a blazing fire. The air of this elevated region is stimulating in the extreme; the dryness of the transparent atmosphere acting like a charm on the nervous system—every breath a draught of sparkling Burgundy or Champagne! Though ready for sleep as each nightfall came around, I never felt the exhaustion such as a low country produces. We started early next morning and walked on without resting until the middle of the day, when we came to a kraal where we were kindly received. Here we rested a couple of hours during the intense heat, refreshing ourselves with cool delicious “amasi” (sour milk), which we were fortunate enough to procure from the natives. Leaving this place just before sundown we struck the wagon-road running between the Tembi and New Scotland in Natal, which was as smooth and level as any colonial road I have seen. Between the kraal where I saw the king and my joining the main road, the country was mountainous, but the cross foot-path or “short cut” by which my guides brought me ran chiefly along the mountain ridges, thus giving views diversified and grand. I was much struck by the absence of all animal life—no birds, game, no animals either wild or tame, added to the beauty of the landscape, or relieved the monotony of our journey through these parts.
We were now able to walk much more quickly and more easily, so pushing along far into the night we again slept in the “veldt.” Resting uneasily, I persuaded my “boys” to start early, which we did by the light of the moon at three in the morning. The Lebombo range, some twenty miles distant, over which we had yet to climb, was ever before us and present to our view, walling in as it were the vast flat, thickly covered with mimosa trees, across which our road led us, while at our back lay the Umzimbi range of mountains we had journeyed over the day before, the towering summit of Mananga closing up the scene. About noon we arrived at the foot of the Lebombo range, where we stopped an hour for rest and refreshment; after that, a stiff climb and the summit of the Lebombo was reached. We walked on a few miles, then another night in the open and another day’s weary walk over a most precipitous country! I shall not forget in a hurry the descent of a tremendously steep and stony ravine, at the bottom of which ran the Umnyama, a rapid mountain stream, nor the wading through, nor the ascent beyond! The night rapidly came on, and everything was wrapped in a thick mist, when fortunately for us we fell into a foot-path, which led us to a house where we were most hospitably received and cared for until the morning.
Sunrise saw us all ready to start. A short walk through the veldt brought us to the main road along which the descent of the Lebombo range is made by the easiest gradients. On reaching the bottom and entering the valley below, the narrow road bordered by groves of trees, with the grass growing exuberantly rank, winded and turned like an English lane, the glaring sun and stillness of the air meanwhile making the stifling heat almost unbearable. Tramping on until the sun was nearly overhead we rested during the mid-day on the banks of a stream of crystal water which, murmuring its sweet music unseen through the forest glen, suddenly appeared flowing along its bed across our path. But as I had determined to reach the Tembi that night, where I was promised that a tug, which plied between this and Delagoa Bay. would be placed at my disposal, and many a long mile having yet to be covered, my readers can well suppose that not much time was lost. Everything in this world has an end, and so had this long day. I cannot describe the almost unutterable relief the faint shimmer of the river I had so long expected to see gave me, as in the clouded starlight I caught the first view of its waters. I eagerly looked for the steam-tug, which to my intense delight I found moored to the banks, but never did I more fully appreciate the truth of the saying in Holy Writ, that “Man is born to trouble” as when my hopes were suddenly shattered by learning from the only white man there, who, by the way, I found tossing in semi-delirium from malarial fever, that the master of the boat was away. I saw at once that there was no other alternative left me but to cross the Tembi and continue my walk next day. The poor fever-stricken fellow was very kind and invited me into his tent, where he gave me refreshment and a shake-down, and nothing gave me more pleasure than that this attention I was able in some measure to repay by persuading him to accept some medicine which I had brought with me to take in the case of a similar emergency.
The Tembi, a tidal estuary about one hundred yards broad, is here sixty miles from the sea, and has an ebb and flow of some eight feet. I got four of my boys to carry me across early next morning when it was fordable, and began what I thought would be my last day’s journey. Our path, a narrow Kafir one, lay for miles over what seemed an endless plain, where silence the most profound reigned supreme, and the thick tambooti grass waving far over our heads, the dew falling off like rain, and soaking us through and through. After four hours’ incessant walking, the monotony of the path being here and there broken by glimpses of the dark flowing Tembi, the landscape changed and we came to a part which I can compare only to an English park, interspersed ever and anon with cool and shady groves. Here we began to come across indications of an increased population; passing through tracts of cultivated land on which the mealies were growing most luxuriantly. Suddenly we arrived at a large Kafir kraal. The style of the huts was different from that of the Swazis or the Zulus, and showed at once we were among a different race from that we had left a few miles back beyond the Lebombo mountains. Entering one of the huts I was taken by surprise at seeing a Banyan (Arab trader) sitting on the floor and articles of European merchandise exposed for sale. This man could not speak a word of English, but my boys soon found means to communicate with him, or he perhaps guessed their requirements, as in less than a minute the main curse of civilization in the shape of brandy was introduced. This spirit, I afterwards learned, was imported in large quantities at a cheap rate from Chicago, and I could see was fast working its full share of evil among these Amatonga tribes.
The blazing sun, and the puffs of heated air every now and again blowing across our path, tempted us, later in the afternoon, to halt at another kraal. The head man at once came out and offered to sell us many delicacies which we had not tasted for days. Fresh milk, honey, eggs, etc., were brought us, but when a haunch of venison was produced, my boys fell into such raptures that I could not resist buying it and staying to let them cook it, making up my mind to divide the journey and arrive at Delagoa Bay the next day. By sundown our luxurious repast was finished, and we all lay down to sleep under the branches of a large tree that stood in the centre of the kraal. The misery and discomfort of that sultry night will ever remain a vivid memory. After a few hours’ rest I was roused up by the patter of heavy rain-drops on the leaves of the tree above, and the almost pitchy darkness, now and again illuminated by flashes of lightning, told me a storm was brewing. To what agony and well-nigh maddening torture was I not awakened! All around, advancing and retreating. buzzing and singing like a swarm of angry bees, were millions on millions of mosquitoes, which, as if suffering from unappeasable hunger and insatiable thirst, were stinging, biting, and sucking my blood, pitiless creatures that they were! Now I began to understand why some would rather hear the lion’s roar than the hum of the mosquito, as from the one prudence or courage could be a defence, while nothing but some “mean” contrivance, as grease, sand, smoky smudge or nets could be a protection from the other. So insignificant an assailant, yet so venomous and intolerable a little demon, is he! My clothes, I soon found, were useless, as these “swamp angels” revelling in the prospect of the “Carnival of Blood” in store, pierced their powerful, insinuating barbs through everything I had on, although, seeing the small proportion of them that could ever have tasted human blood, I thought that so many need not have made merry at my expense.
To lie down again and sleep was an utter impossibility, to rouse my natives from the state of perfect oblivion into which their supper had assisted them seemed cruel, and to remain at the mercy of my tormentors was too great an act of self-denial to exercise. The struggle in my mind was not long. I roused them quickly up, when piteous were their complaints, until the jingle of gold silenced their reluctance to moving on. The rain had ceased, but yet the night was densely overcast. Not a foot-path could be seen. Not a breath stirred the thick and stifling air, a dead stillness prevailed, the flame of my candle even burning without a flicker, and so carrying it, unprotected in my hand, I pantingly led the way for hours. Again the sullen drops of rain fell here and there, and my poor candle did not long escape—one big drop, and darkness covered all. I had now to trust to the bare feet and tact of the South African native to keep me in the narrow path, and my confidence was not misplaced, the light of the candle after all being no real loss. The rain now began to pour down in driving torrents, as it can do in the tropics only, the heavy leaden clouds shutting out the faintest streak of light, while to add to the novelty of the situation our path led us into dense bush through which we groped in line, holding on, as we walked, to one another, until daybreak. The incessant rain still continuing, and my boys seeing a kraal in the distance, made up their minds they would take shelter and with until the worst had passed. For a long time I could not dissuade them from stopping, but shivering and shaking as I was in all my limbs from the cold and rain, and in the centre of one of the most malarious districts in South Africa, I knew that delay meant fever, so on I determined to go. Money again proved successful in providing the “sinews of war.” Soon we came to some low marshy ground which the Tembi overflows according to the tide. Through these I had to wade, when on crossing one part which did not present anything particular to my attention. I suddenly sank up to my waist in the alluvial deposit. Umhlatusi quickly pulled me out, but not before the stinking malaria I had stirred up thoroughly sickened me. A little further on we ascended a bank bordering this morass, and then crossing a narrow, flat and climbing a sandy ridge struck the shores of the Tembi near its mouth, Lourenço Marques lying exactly opposite, two miles away.
Taking a ferry-boat we sailed across, and a few minutes more saw me snugly ensconced in Mr. Otto Berg’s hotel, nine days from Barberton.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
LOURENÇO MARQUES.—THE CHANGES IT HAS SEEN.—HARBOR.—CLIMATE.—RAILWAY PLANT IMPORTED BY PRESIDENT BURGERS.—ADVANTAGES OF THE DELAGOA BAY ROUTE TO THE GOLD FIELDS.
Lourenço Marques, the name given by the Portuguese to the town they have built at the head of Delagoa Bay, is the most southerly point of their possessions, which have a long coast line extending northwards 1,100 miles. Delagoa Bay, which is one of the finest harbors in the world, was discovered by the Portuguese in 1544, who realizing its importance at once took possession and erected a fort and factories. It was early converted into a penal settlement, which by strict letter of the law it still remains, although at the present time the authorities at Lisbon have ceased to use it for that purpose. The white population does not number I should think more than one hundred souls,[[115]] and this is comprised of government officials, officers commanding the garrison, which is composed of black troops from Mozambique or Goa, merchants and their clerks, and the staff of the Eastern Telegraph Company. The town lies quite low, almost level with the beach, and contains a fine government house (the Governor Senor Antonio de Azevedo Vasconcellos, to whom I paid my respects, is very popular), several well-built trading establishments, a handsome church and hospital and a good hotel. The telegraph station is situated on a bold headland facing, at a considerable elevation, the Indian Ocean, and commands a splendid view of the peninsula of Inyack, the Elephant Islands, and the Maputa country across the Tembi. Delagoa Bay has seen many changes. In 1721 and 1735 the Dutch encroached upon the Portuguese, but had ultimately to retire; again in 1777 an Austrian trading company, which had established itself there, was driven out by the Portuguese Governor General who came from Goa; then in 1796 the place was taken and destroyed by the French. Once more, in 1833, the fortress was besieged and the town entirely sacked by Kafirs; after this, in 1850, internal dissensions almost ruined the place, until at last a threatened annexation by the English led to a dispute in 1861, which was not decided until Marshal MacMahon, Duc de Magenta, to whom the question had been referred, decided in favor of the Portuguese in 1875.