All was now bustle and tenfold excitement, for the soldiers on the beach hurried waist-deep into the sea for the purpose of carrying the future settlers on shore.
Thomas Pringle, the leader of the Scotch party, and who afterwards became known as the “South African poet” had previously landed in a gig. He gave an opportune hint, in broad Scotch, to a tall corporal of the 72nd Highlanders to be careful of his countrymen.
“Scotch folk, are they?” exclaimed the corporal, with a look of surprise at Pringle. “Never fear, sir, but we sal be carefu’ o’ them.”
The corporal was as good as his word, for he and his comrades carried nearly the whole party ashore in safety. But there were others there who owned no allegiance to the corporal. One of these—a big sallow Hottentot—chanced to get Jerry, surnamed Goldboy, on his shoulders, and, either by mischance or design, stumbled and fell, pitching Jerry over his head, just as another billow from the Indian Ocean was rushing to the termination of its grand career. It caught Jerry up in a loving embrace as he rose, and pitched him with a noisy welcome on the shore.
“Weel done, Jerry!” cried Sandy Black, who had just been overturned by the same wave from the shoulders of a burly Englishman—a previously landed settler—“you an’ me’s made an impressive landin’. Come, let’s git oot o’ the bustle.”
So saying the stout Lowlander seized his little English friend by the arm and dragged him towards the town of canvas which had within a few weeks sprung up like mushrooms among the sandhills.
Although wet from head to foot, each forgot his condition in the interest awakened by the strange sights and sounds around him. Their immediate neighbourhood on the beach was crowded with emigrants, as party after party was carried ashore shoulder-high by the soldiers, who seemed to regard the whole affair as a huge practical joke.
The noise was indescribable, because compound. There was the boisterous hilarity of people who felt their feet once more on solid ground, after a long and weary voyage; the shouting of sailors and bargemen in the boats, and of soldiers and natives on the beach; the talking and laughing of men and women who had struck up sudden friendships on landing, as well as of those who had crossed the sea together; the gambolling and the shrieking delight of children freed from the restraints of shipboard; the shouts of indignant Government officials who could not get their orders attended to; the querulous demands of people whose luggage had gone astray in process of debarkation; the bawling of colonial Dutch by gigantic Dutch-African farmers, in broad-brimmed hats and leathern crackers, with big tobacco-pipes in their mouths; the bellowing of oxen in reply to the pistol-shot cuts applied to their flanks by half-naked Hottentots and Bushmen, whose whips were bamboos of twenty feet or so in length, with lashes twice as long; the creaking of Cape-waggons, the barking of dogs, and, as a measured accompaniment to all, the solemn regular booming of the restless sea.
Disengaging themselves from the crowded beach, Sandy Black and Jerry Goldboy proceeded towards the town of tents among the sandhills. On their way they passed several large tarpaulin-covered depots of agricultural implements, carpenter’s and blacksmith’s tools, and ironware of all descriptions, which had been provided by Government to be sold to the settlers at prime cost—for this grand effort at colonisation was originated and fostered by the British Government.
“Weel, weel, did ever ’ee see the like o’ that, noo?” observed Sandy Black, as he passed some sandhills covered with aloes and cactuses and rare exotics, such as one might expect to find in English greenhouses.