"I have frequently been at the bedside of the sick and dying Hottentot, who has been a constant attendant at some missionary chapel, and I have asked him whether he has any fear of dying? He has smiled, and said,
"'None.'
"I have asked him whether he expected to go to heaven? and he has answered,
"'No.'
"'Where then?'
"'Nowhere.'
"I have endeavoured to explain to him that his minister must have taught him the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments. He has laughed and said, that perhaps it might be so, 'for the master, but not for him; he lies down and dies, that is all—that is enough.' This I have heard over and over again from the lips of some of the 'pet' Christians of missionaries—model men, whom they talk of and point out to every 'griffin' in the colony, and write long communications about, to their societies in England."
Professing Christians abound amongst the Hottentots, for the sake of the temporal advantages. Every missionary station has a tract of land belonging to it, on which the Hottentot who attends school and chapel regularly, and assumes a becoming appearance of piety, is permitted to build a hut, and plant a garden. Seeds and tools are given to him; and, with very little labour, he is enabled to pass the rest of his time in idleness.
"It is notorious," says Mr Cole, "that these people, living at the missionary stations, are the idlest and most useless set in the colony. You cannot frighten a farmer more seriously than by telling him that a missionary station is going to be established near him. Visions of daily desertion by his servants float across his mind's eye."
But if the Hottentot be a bad servant, and if, notwithstanding the well-meant but misdirected efforts of missionaries, whose zeal might find better employment at home, he still continues an idle, besotted, and filthy savage, there yet is to be found, in his immediate vicinity, a still more degraded and untractable race. These are the Boschjesmen, or Bushmen, of whom specimens have been exhibited in England. In their own land they live in a state of barbarism, without clothes, often without huts, growing no corn or vegetables, and subsisting upon such animals as they can kill with their arrows—also upon locusts.
"In the year 1844 or 1845, a traveller in their country came upon whole kraals, (or villages,) which appeared at first to be deserted; but he found, on searching, that 'most of the inhabitants were still there—dead! There were great quantities of dead locusts in their huts, and the supposition was, that they had died from eating them, either from some poison contained in them, or from a surfeit."
They are fierce and cruel, and as mischievous as monkeys, to which they bear a strong resemblance. On the first journey that he made in a waggon, Mr Cole had as "leader"—the name given to the boy who leads the two front oxen of the span—a Bushman lad, about four feet high, the most hideous monster, according to the description given of him, that ever walked on two legs. The expression of his countenance was diabolical, his disposition equally so. The lash was the only argument he understood; and even to that, owing to the extraordinary toughness of his hide, he was long callous.
"On one occasion the waggon came to the brow of a hill, when it was the leader's duty to stop the oxen, and see that the wheel was well locked. It may readily be imagined that a waggon which requires twelve oxen to draw it on level ground, could not be held back at all by two oxen, in its descent of a steep hill, unless with the wheel locked. My interesting Bushman, however, whom I had not yet offended in any manner, no sooner found himself at the top of the hill, than he let go the oxen with a yell and a whoop, which set them off at a gallop down the precipitous steep. The waggon flew from side to side of the road, destined, apparently, to be smashed to atoms every moment, together with myself, its luckless occupant. I was dashed about, almost unconscious of what could be the cause, so suddenly had we started on our mad career. Heaven only knows how I escaped destruction, but we positively reached the bottom of the hill uninjured.
"The Bushman was by the waggon-side in an instant, and went to his place at the oxen's head as coolly and unconcernedly as if he had just performed part of his ordinary duties. The Hottentot driver, on the contrary, came panting up, aghast with horror. I jumped out of the waggon, seized my young savage by the collar of his jacket, and, with a heavy sea-cow-hide whip, I belaboured him with all my strength, wherein, I trust the reader will think me justified, as the little wretch had made the most barefaced attempt on my life. I almost thought my strength would be exhausted before I could get a sign from the young gentleman that he felt my blows; but at length he uttered a yell of pain, and I knew he had had enough. Next day I dropped him at a village, and declined his farther services."
Waggon-travelling in the Cape Colony is a slow, but not a disagreeable, manner of locomotion. The same team of oxen takes you through, however great the distance; and as grass and water are all they get—and sometimes a scanty ration of these—the pace is necessarily very moderate, twenty miles a-day being considered good going. Of course you have abundant stores in your waggon; for inns are scarce, and it is not usual to quarter yourself on the farmers, as you do when travelling on horseback. A stretcher, with a mattress on it, is slung in the waggon, to lounge on by day and sleep on by night; or if the party be numerous, a tent is pitched at evening. The Hottentots sleep under the waggon or round the fire. The start is at six in the morning. At ten a two hours' halt is made, to eat and smoke, to sketch or shoot. At noon, the cattle, which have been turned out to graze, are "in-spanned," and the march continues till three or four o'clock. Then another halt and another meal; a pipe, a shot at an ostrich or bushbuck; and then once more on the road for two hours, before "out-spanning" for the night. The bivouac is delightful; the sky of a deep dark blue, the moon radiant, the magnificent Southern Cross glittering in the heavens, underfoot a carpet of scented and variegated blossoms, stillness over all, and in the dark shadow of the bush a bright fire, with the wayfarers stretched lazily around it. The whole thing is a pleasant sort of picnic party, and it is easy to believe Mr Cole when he declares that he never enjoyed a European trip so much as waggon-travelling in South Africa. Of course this is the sunny side of the picture. Disagreeable occurrences are by no means unfrequent. A bridgeless rivulet, swollen to a torrent by recent rains, detains you for a week upon its banks, on half rations or less. Your Hottentots discover a hedge tavern, and whilst you take a stroll with your gun during the "out-span," they get helplessly drunk, and you must halt for the day. You thrash them and stop their tobacco; they revenge themselves by accidentally upsetting you in the next river you cross; or they neglect to watch the grazing oxen, which are next heard of ten miles off, having been "pounded" by some surly landholder, with whose green corn they had taken a liberty. The traveller who dreads such mishaps and desires faster progress, packs a valise, straps it on his saddle, and throws his leg over a sturdy Cape horse, which will carry him fifty or sixty miles a day without flinching. Here is Mr Cole's sketch of these useful, ill-looking animals:—
"Generally speaking, a regular Cape horse, one whose pedigree cannot be traced to any imported stallion, is an ugly brute. He is about fourteen hands high, and his chief characteristics are, a low narrow shoulder, a ewe neck, and a goose rump. His 'pins' are generally pretty good. He is villanously broken; his mouth is as tough as an oak; his pace is a shuffling, tripping, wriggling abomination, between an amble and a canter, with a suspicion of a 'run' in it. Put him beyond this pace, and he gallops as awkwardly as a cow. As for walking, he is innocent of the pace beyond three miles an hour. Trotting, neither he, nor his breaker, nor breeder, nor owner (if a Dutchman) ever heard of. He is apt to be ill-tempered too—often given to kicking, and occasionally to 'bucking.' So much for his evil qualities."
Some of his good ones have been already implied. He is hardy, enduring, can live on grass, do without groom or stable. You may shoot off his back—or sleep on it, for his pace is the easiest of motions. He is never ill, save of one complaint, which resembles glanders, (although it is a different disease,) and is always fatal. This malady he evidently contracts in the pastures, for horses kept in the stable, and never allowed to graze, are not subject to it. He is cheap to buy.