On returning to camp I found a small party of men who had been all night seeking us. They had caught a Kaffir, belonging probably to Sandilli’s party, seated near the spot where we had slept that night, and around which lay strewn remnants of a newspaper in which Dix had wrapped our late meal. They concluded from these shreds that we had been pitched over the cliff, and that these tokens of civilisation were all that remained of their captain, and, in revenge, they had hanged the poor devil on an adjoining tree.
It was really high time that the war should come to a speedy end. The knowledge that this end was close at hand had sadly relaxed discipline. The stirring events of war had left a craving for excitement not easily satisfied. Life had been so freely exposed, that it was looked upon as of very hazardous value. Men were ready to give or take it on the most trivial pretexts. I have seen a party of my own men firing at one another, at long distances, from behind rocks, merely to find out the range of their Minie rifles. At other times I have known them throw assegais at one another for the same purpose, and more than once inflict dangerous wounds.
I naturally had more difficulty in keeping my men in order than other officers experienced in that part of the colony. My men were a rougher lot, and had only enlisted for a war that they now considered finished: Lieut. H—— had resigned; Lieut. —— had been sent about his business; Lieut. P—— was often as riotous as the men; Lieut. C—— was too young and reckless to possess the tact and persistent energy necessary for the management of so unruly a set with security to himself or satisfaction to them.
CHAPTER XI.
RETURN OF GENERAL CATHCART FROM BASUTOLAND—END OF THE WAR—SPORTING ADVENTURES—LOVING TORTOISES—EVENING REVERIES—A SUDDEN ATTACK FROM AN UNKNOWN ENEMY—PLANS FOR HIS CAPTURE—UNSUCCESSFUL—ANOTHER ATTEMPT—NIGHT VIGILS—CLOSE QUARTERS—DEATH OF THE LEOPARD—WILD-BOAR HUNTING—BABOONS—MY PACK OF HOUNDS—THEY ARE ATTACKED BY BABOONS—POOR DASH’S FATE—SNAKES.
General Cathcart now returned from his Basutoland expedition, where British soldiers proved once more their many sterling qualities. I shall not, however, attempt to describe the work done, for I had no actual share in it. The war now, so far as active operations were concerned, had virtually come to an end; my own occupation was gone. “Grim-visaged war had smoothed his wrinkled front,” as humpbacked Richard said, and I began to seek for excitement in a quarter which had always possessed attractions for me.
Hitherto my experiences of sport at the Cape had been of a somewhat tame description, consisting of coursing and partridge-shooting, such as I had often enjoyed, though on a larger scale, in Old England. But at that time my thoughts were on larger subjects bent, and I gave myself up thoroughly to these. My battery consisted of a Lancaster double-barrelled, oval-bored rifle, of great precision and length of range, but small in calibre; a Rigby twelve-bored fowling-piece; and a double-barrelled Barnett Minie, also twelve-bored. With these I bowled over lots of fur and feather, mostly pea-fowl, stein and bush buck. Sometimes I went in for bigger game; but as there were no lion, elephant, or buffalo within several days’ journey, I was obliged to content myself with trying my ’prentice hand on some stray leopards, whose tracks I had noticed about, as well as those of wild-boar, or rather, as I believe, of farmers’ pigs run wild during the war, and which in very fair numbers ploughed up the wet kloofs and the abandoned gardens around the farms.
There were plenty of hyenas and jackals about, but I was tired of trying to get up any excitement about them. They were a set of sneaking marauders, who used to prowl about the camp by night for the sake of the offal and scraps to be found, and who would scamper off on the slightest appearance of danger. My English spaniel, “Dash,” would often bow-wow them almost any distance away.
Amongst other traces of game, I had observed the spoor of a leopard, or some other soft-footed member of the feline tribe, around a pool of water at the head of the kloof on which Blakeway’s Farm was situated. It was about two miles off, in a very dank, secluded spot, almost as dark under the big cliffs and heavy foliage as an underground cavern. It was a favourite resort for blue-buck and baboons, whose footprints had stamped and puddled the ground all around. I selected a spot under a boulder of rock that advanced almost to the margin of the pool, where I placed, day after day, as I had seen it done in Algeria, branch after branch of prickly cactus, until I had made quite a porcupine shield, big enough to shelter a man. In the centre of this I dug a small circular hole, for a seat, and ensconced thereon, I one night took my place, awaiting the arrival of my supposed game.
The grandeur of the scenery, huge grey rocks, gigantic trees, and an awe-inspiring stillness which weighed upon one’s spirits, made me feel extremely small in my solitary hole. The only life moving amid these gloomy surroundings was a merry singing cloud of mosquitoes, circling round and round above my head. Had I not remembered the enormous bumps their whispering kisses used to raise on my poor face, I should have felt tempted to let some of them in under the muslin I had spread across the bushes overhead, in order to have something to occupy my attention and break the monotony, were it only these denizens of the insect world.