An accident befalling a clumsy little fellow as he stumbled on the branch of an iron-wood tree, he came to the ground with a thud. In one minute the poor chap was torn to pieces by the dogs. This was more than his parents could stand; down they came to the ground, followed closely by the rest of the tribe, and a real battle ensued between them and the dogs.
The baboons got the best of the fight,—poor Woden was ridden off the field by two jabbering jockeys on his back, who laboured his sides most unmercifully with tooth and nail. Dhula was too nimble and clever with his teeth to be caught, nevertheless he had to submit from his many persecutors with the loss of several inches of his tail. Fly, a remarkably fine red Kaffir bitch, which I afterwards took home and gave to the Zoological Gardens, was ripped up and her sides laid bare. But the worst of all occurred to poor Dash: he was carried of by a huge baboon almost as big as a totty, and I arrived to his rescue too late. I saw that he was dead, and forthwith shot his destroyer upon him. Napoleon made good use of his assegai and my spade; and after a fight far more exciting than glorious, we remained masters of the field.
I am thoroughly convinced, had the baboons shown any unity of action, I should not have been relating this incident to-day.
These are about the only events in my sporting life at the Cape worthy of narration; many milder incidents occurred which I pass over, judging them insufficient to be of interest to the reader.
I know but little about snakes—they were of almost everyday acquaintance; but as neither my men nor I were ever bitten by one, I have nothing sensational to write about them. One short episode I may perhaps relate. In creeping over some rocks to have a shot at a stein-buck, I cautiously looked over a ledge of stone, and fancying there was a curious garlic smell about the place, I looked down, and there, lazily stretched out at full length, almost touching my throat, was a huge cobra di capello. I drew back much less hesitatingly than I had peeped, and, retiring a few feet, shot it as it was rearing its head in the act of preparing to strike. This little event gave the hitherto slight attention I had paid them a more repulsive form, and ever afterwards I destroyed all that came in my way. Up to that day I had handled them as I had seen others do—henceforth their touch became too loathsome. Kaffirs believe that after a puff-adder, whip-snake, or cobra has bitten, it must within a short space of time wash out its mouth with water (which these snakes invariably do, if it is at hand), else it would die from the poison that oozes afterwards from its fangs. They also think that white men, if bitten by snakes, invariably cause the death of the snake itself—for they say the white man’s blood is poisonous to all serpents.
CHAPTER XII.
KAFFIR KNOWLEDGE OF SURGERY—MANNERS MORE ARTIFICIAL THAN NATURAL—PEACE CONCLUDED WITH SANDILLI AND MACOMO—INDIFFERENT CHARACTER OF THE TREATY OF PEACE—THE CORPS DISBANDED—THANKS OF COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF—RETURN TOWARDS THE CAPE—ADDRESSES FROM THE INHABITANTS OF FORT BEAUFORT AND GRAHAM’S TOWN—ENGINEERING TASTES—SAM ROWE—THE MARY JANE—I EMBARK FOR CAPE TOWN.
Kaffir witchcraft assumes so many fantastic forms, that it is difficult to give a notion as to any guiding principle in it. Hatred of the European seems to play a large part in all their superstitions.
A piece of stick is supposed, after blessing and incantations, to become a talisman, having the power to save the wearer from all danger the white man can attempt to inflict against him; but it is thought to be powerless in warding off a danger coming from a neighbouring tribe. They believe that we are born of the foam of the sea, and we should all perish if driven back to our ships, which they suppose to be the cradles in which we are brought up. Like almost all magicians, they believe they can raise plagues of all sorts, and inflict sores and different forms of leprosy by merely casting an evil eye upon any one.
Their knowledge of medicine and surgery is greater than may be supposed. I have known them cure headaches and neuralgia, hitherto incurable, by putting a leather band round the head, and adding underneath small smooth pebbles at certain distances, then placing a weight upon the head, which is usually a bowl of supposed mesmerised water, weighing down the whole until the head becomes completely numbed, and all pain ceases.