They had now arrived at the mouth of the Baboons or Baviaans river, one of the affluents of the Great Fish River, and had already seen many of the wild inhabitants of its rugged glen.
Their particular location was a beautiful well-watered region among the mountains which had been forfeited by some of the frontier boers at the time of their insurrection against the English Government some years before. They had now crossed the Great Fish River, and, though still within the old boundary of the colony, were upon its utmost eastern verge. The country beyond, as we are told by Pringle, in his graphic account of the expedition, (see Note 1) “for a distance of seventy miles, to the new frontier at the Chumi and Keisi rivers, had been, the preceding year, forcibly depeopled of its native inhabitants, the Kafirs and Ghonaquas, and now lay waste and void, ‘a howling wilderness,’ occupied only by wild beasts, and haunted occasionally by wandering banditti of the Bushman race (Bosjesmen), who were represented as being even more wild and savage than the beasts of prey with whom they shared the dominion of the desert.”
Just before their arrival at this point, the old waggons, with the drivers who had accompanied them from Algoa Bay, were exchanged for fresh teams and men, and here Ruyter, Jemalee, and Booby left them, to proceed over a spur of one of the mountain ranges to Jan Smit’s farm on the karroo. But Hans Marais, having taken a fancy to some of the Scotch men, determined to proceed with them until he had seen them fairly established in their new homes. Of course Charlie Considine accompanied Hans.
In a wild spot among the mountains they were hospitably received at the solitary abode of a field-cornet named Opperman, who said that he had orders to assist them with an escort of armed boers over the remaining portion of their journey, and to place them in safety on their allotted ground. This remaining portion, he told them, was up the Baviaans River glen, and, although little more than twenty-five miles, would prove to be harder than any part of the journey they had yet encountered.
Remembering some of the breakneck gorges of the Zuurberg, Jerry Goldboy said that he didn’t believe it possible for any route to be worse than that over which they had already passed, to which Sandy Black replied with a “humph!” and an opinion that “the field-cornet o’ the distric’ was likely to know what he was speakin’ aboot.” But Jerry never had been, and of course never could be, convinced by reason. “Nothing,” he candidly admitted, “but hard facts had the least weight with him.”
“’Ee’ve got hard fac’s noo, Jerry,” said Sandy, about noon of the following day, as he threw down the axe with which he had been hewing the jungle, and pulled off his hat, from the crown of which he took a red cotton handkerchief wherewith to wipe his thickly-beaded brow.
Jerry could not deny the truth of this, for he also had been engaged since early morning with a South African axe nearly as large as himself, in assisting to out a passage up the glen.
Not only was there no road up this mountain gorge, but in some parts it was scarcely possible to make one, so rugged was the ground, so dense the jungle. But the preliminary difficulties were as nothing compared to those which met them further up; yet it was observable that the Dutch waggoners faced them with the quiet resolution of men accustomed to the overcoming of obstacles.
“You’d go up a precipice, Hans, I do believe, if there was no way round it,” said Considine, as he gazed in admiring wonder at his tall friend driving his oxen up an acclivity that threatened destruction to waggon, beasts, and men.
“At ony rate he’d try,” remarked Sandy Black, with one of his grave smiles.