Note 1. “Outspann.” The word has a general meaning, and refers not only to detaching the animals from the vehicles, but making halt either temporarily or for the night.
Note 2. “Tulp.” The Dutch name for “tulip,” of which it is but an abbreviated form. The plant itself is so called from its resemblance to the tulip, both in leaf and flower. It is of the iris family, and the genus morosa.
Note 3. “Trek-touw.” The long cable-like rope of raw hide continuing the “tongue,” or pole, of the waggons, and to which the forward pairs of oxen are attached. They are also made fast to it at night, when there is any fear of their straying from the camp.
Note 4. The “milk-baskets” of the Caffres are frequently in use among the Vee-Boers, when on trek, their lightness making them more convenient than vessels of a heavier kind. They are made of the stems of a species of “cyperus,” a rush allied to the “Paper-reed,” sewed so closely together that when dry they will hold water. The Caffres use them as milk pails, and, when emptied, their dogs are allowed to lick them clean. The cleaning is still further carried out by an insect—a species of cockroach (Blatta), which eats what remains of the milk from the interstices between the rushes. So important are these roaches regarded for this purpose, that a Caffre on erecting a new hut, will take his milk-baskets into an old one, and, as soon as a sufficient number of the insects have entered them, will carry the vessels back to where their services are required.
Chapter Five.
Under the Mowana.
Three waggons drawn up under the shade of a gigantic mowana (Note 1)—the waggons of the Vee-Boers after their long, toilsome, and perilous journey across the karoo. They are again out-spanned, but now in laager, which tells of an intention to remain there for some little time. The vehicles are set in such fashion as to enclose a rectangular space, open at one end; while around them, at some distance off, a circular fence of thorny bushes roughly form a chevaux-de-frise, to hinder lions, hyaenas, and other marauders from approaching too near. Seemingly, the ground has been judiciously chosen, with an eye to the three chief requisites of a camp—grass, wood, and water. It is contiguous to the bank of a clear, running stream, on each side fringed with a belt of timber, trees of many different kinds; while landward, far as eye can reach, extends an open veldt, (Note 2), grass-covered, and affording plenteous pasturage for their cattle. These are all now on it; oxen and milch-kine; the horses, too, hoppled neck-and-knee, to keep them from straying. But just now there is little fear of that, the animals not yet having recovered from the Karoo journey, and all are browsing tranquilly.