A loud “hurrah!” proclaimed the victory, and the six yägers now rode up and alighted by the huge body of the borelé, that, prostrate and lifeless, no longer caused them alarm.
An axe was obtained from the wagon, and his long anterior horn—a splendid trophy—was hacked off from his snout, and carried away; while another journey was made for the meat and horns of the blauw-wildebeest, which were packed behind the hunters upon the croups of their horses, and brought safely into camp.
Chapter Twenty Two.
The Interrupted Breakfast.
Next morning the young yägers slept late—because they had nothing particular to do. They did not purpose continuing their journey before the following morning; and on that day they intended to lie up, so that their horses, might rest and be fresh for the road.
They rose, therefore, a little later than usual, and breakfasted on the tongue of the brindled gnoo, with hot coffee and hard bread; a stock of which they had brought along in their wagons, and which still held out. It would not have been as great a deprivation to the young yägers to have gone without bread, as it would to you, boy reader. There live many people in South Africa to whom bread is a luxury almost unknown. Many tribes of the native people never eat such a thing, and there are thousands of the frontier Dutch colonists, that do without it altogether. The people of South Africa, both native and colonial, are not an agricultural but a pastoral people, and therefore pay but little attention to the cultivation of the soil. Their herds of horned cattle, their horses, their flocks of big-tailed sheep and goats, engross all their time, and agricultural farming is not to their taste. Although the wealthier among the boors plant a few acres of Kaffir corn—a variety of the “Indian corn,” or maize—and sow some bushels of “buckwheat,” yet this is principally for their own use. This class also cultivate many kinds of vegetables in their gardens, and have large orchards containing apples, peaches, pomegranates, pears, and quinces, with vineyards for the grape, and enclosures for melons, cucumbers, and pumpkins. But among the poorer classes, and particularly on the remote frontier, such things are hardly thought of; and their cattle kraals are the only enclosures around the dwelling of the “vee-boor,” or stock-farmer. Among these people, bread is a rarity, and their staple food is “biltong,” and fresh beef or mutton cooked in a variety of ways, and so as to be quite palatable—for the cuisine of the boor is by no means to be despised.
In many parts the staple food of the frontier boor is venison—that is, in districts where the ordinary game has not yet been exterminated. Within the frontier districts, springboks are plenty, as also the common wildebeests; and piles of the horns of these may be seen lying around the kraals of every vee-boor. The flesh of the wildebeests, as already stated, is more like beef than venison, and when fat, or cooked in the delicious fat of the great sheep’s tails, is excellent eating.
The quagga, which is also common in these parts, is killed for its flesh; but this is rank and oily, and only eaten by the Hottentot servants.