The floor of the apartment was made of hard earth, without carpet. The whitewashed walls were graced with various garments, as well as implements and trophies of the chase.
From the beams hung joints of meat, masses of dried flesh, and various kinds of game, large whips—termed sjamboks (pronounced shamboks)—made of rhinoceros or hippopotamus hide, leopard and lion skins, ostrich eggs and feathers, dried fruit, strings of onions, and other miscellaneous objects; on the floor stood a large deal table, and chairs of the same description—all home-made,—two waggon chests, a giant churn, a large iron pot, several wooden pitchers hooped with brass, and a side-table on which were a large brass-clasped Dutch Bible, a set of Dutch tea-cups, an urn, and a brass tea-kettle heated like a chafing-dish. On the walls and in corners were several flint-lock guns, and one or two of the short light javelins used by the Kafirs for throwing in battle, named assagais.
Three small doors led into three inner rooms, in which the entire family slept. There were no other apartments, the kitchen being an outhouse. On the centre table was spread a substantial breakfast, from which the various members of the family had risen on the arrival of the horsemen.
Considine was introduced to Mynheer Marais’ vrouw, a good-looking, fat, and motherly woman verging on forty,—and his daughter Bertha, a pretty little girl of eight or nine.
“What is Mynheer’s name?” was the matron’s first question.
Mynheer replied that it was Charles Considine.
“Was Mynheer English?”
“Yes,” Mynheer was proud to acknowledge the fact.
Mrs Marais followed up these questions with a host of others—such as, the age and profession of Mynheer, the number of his relatives, and the object of his visit to South Africa. Mynheer Marais himself, after getting a brief outline of his son’s meeting with the Englishman, backed the attack of his pleasant-faced vrouw by putting a number of questions as to the political state of Europe then existing, and the chances of the British Government seriously taking into consideration the unsatisfactory condition of the Cape frontier and its relations with the Kafirs.
To all of these and a multitude of other questions Charlie Considine replied with great readiness and good-humour, as far as his knowledge enabled him, for he began quickly to appreciate the fact that these isolated farmers, who almost never saw a newspaper were thirsting for information as to the world in general as well as with regard to himself in particular.