“I think he is looking for a little black ox,” I answered guardedly.
“Ja, wohl, dat is it—ein leetel black ox, my tear” (I trust he meant G——).
“Oh, all right!” G—— shouted, springing up. “Osa (come), old gentleman. There’s rather a jolly little black bullock over there: I know, because I’ve been with Jack there looking for a snake.”
The goblin was on his feet in a moment, with every wrinkle on the alert. “Danks, my tear umfan: du air ein gut leetel boy. Früh in de morgen;” and so on with the whole story over again to G——, who understood him much better than I did, and gave me quite a minute account of the “leetel black ox’s” adventures. The last thing G—— saw of it it was taking a fence like a springbok, with the goblin and three Kafirs in full chase after it.
PART XI.
Maritzburg, August 1, 1876.
The brief winter season seems already ended and over, so far as the crisp, bracing atmosphere is concerned. For many days past it has been not only very hot in the sun, but a light hot air has brooded over everything. Not strong enough to be called a hot wind, it is yet like the quivering haze out of a furnace-mouth. I pity the poor trees: it is hard upon them. Not a drop of rain has fallen for three months to refresh their dried-up leaves and thirsting roots, and now the sun beats down with a fiercer fire than ever, and draws up the drop of moisture which haply may linger low down in the cool earth. Cool earth, did I say? I fear that is a figure of speech. It almost burns one’s feet through the soles of thin boots, and each particle of dust is like a tiny cinder. I think regretfully of the pleasant, sharp, frosty mornings and evenings, even though the days are lengthening, and one may now count by weeks the time before the rain will come, and fruits and vegetables, milk and butter, be once more obtainable with comparative ease. What I most long for, however, is a good pelting shower, a down-pour which will fill the tanks and make water plentiful. I am always rushing out in the sun to see that the horses and the fowls and all the animals have enough water to drink. In spite of all my care, they all seem in a chronic state of thirst, for the Kafirs are too lazy and careless to think that it matters if tubs get empty or if a horse comes home too late to be led down to the river with the rest. The water that I drink myself—and I drink nothing else—would give a sanitary inspector a fit to look at, even after it has passed through two filters. But it goes through many vicissitudes before it reaches this comparatively clean stage. It is brought from the river (which is barely able to move sluggishly over its ironstone bed) through clouds of dust. If the Kafir rests his pails for a moment outside before pouring their contents into the first large filter, the pony, who is always on the lookout for a chance, plunges his muzzle in among the green boughs with snorts of satisfaction; the pigeons fly in circles round the man’s head, trying to take advantage of the first favorable moment for a bath; and not only dogs, but even cats, press up for a drop. This is because it is cool, and not so dusty as that in pans outside. There is not a leaf anywhere yet large enough to give shade, and the water outside soon becomes loathsomely hot. Of course it is an exceptionally dry season. All the weather and all the seasons I have ever met with in the course of my life always have been quite out of the ordinary routine. Doubtless, it is kindly meant on the part of the inhabitants, and is probably intended as a consolation to the new-comer. But I am too well used to it to be comforted. Even when one comes back to dear old England after three or four years’ absence, and arrives, say, early in May, everybody professes to be amazed that there should be a keen east wind blowing, and apologizes for the black hard buds on the lilac trees and the iron-bound earth and sky by assurances that “There have been such east winds this year!” Just as if there are not “such” east winds every year!
After these last few amiable lines it will hardly surprise any one to hear that this is the irritating hot wind which is blowing so lightly. You must know we have hot winds from nearly opposite quarters. There is one from the north-east, which comes down from Delagoa Bay and all the fever-haunted region thereabouts, which is more unhealthy than this. That furnace-breath makes you languid and depressed: exertion is almost an impossibility, thought is an effort. But this light air represents the healthy hot wind, a nice rasping zephyr—a wind which dries you up like a Normandy pippin, and puts you and keeps you in the most peevish, discontented frame of mind. It has swept over the burning deserts of the interior, and comes from the north-west, and I can only say there is aggravation in every puff of it. The only person toward whom I feel at all kindly disposed when this wind is blowing is Jim. Jim is a new Kafir-lad, Tom’s successor, for Tom’s battles with Charlie became rather too frequent to be borne in a quiet household. Jim is such a nice boy, and Jim’s English is delightful. He began by impressing upon me through Maria that he had “no Inglis,” but added immediately, “Jim no sheeky.” Certainly he is not cheeky, but, on the contrary, the sweetest-tempered creature you could meet with anywhere. He must be about sixteen years old, but he is over six feet high, and as straight as a willow wand. To see Jim stride along by the side of my little carriage is to be reminded of the illustrations to the Seven-League-Boots story. At first, Jim tried to coil and fold and double his long legs into the small perch at the back of the pony-carriage, but he always tumbled out at a rut in the road, and kept me in perpetual terror of his snapping himself in two. Not that there are many ruts now in my road, I would have you know. It is all solid dust, about three feet deep everywhere. A road-party worked at it in their own peculiar way for many weeks this fall, and the old Dutch overseer used to assure me with much pride every time I passed that he “vas making my ladyships a boofler road mit grabels.” Of course it was the queen’s highway at which he and his Kafirs dug, but it pleased him to regard it as my private path, and this gave him greater courage to throw out “schnapps” as a suggestion worthy of my attention.