Chapter Eight.
The Trek-Bokken.
The great annual “trek” of springbucks began, and Namies fell into a state of ferment. For about a week small droves of bucks had been seen passing to the westward. One morning clouds of dust were noticed arising into a windless sky about ten miles away to the south. By this it was known that the “trek” had really begun, and that the drove of game was passing unusually far to the northward. Within an hour after sunrise the Wagons were emptied of their contents, whilst every male of European descent above the age of ten was furbishing up a gun.
All sorts and conditions of firearms were to be seen, from the flint-lock of three-quarters of a century ago to the modern Martini and Express.
Breakfast over, the wagons, drawn by teams of oxen which had been standing in the yoke since early morning, moved off towards different points on the trek-line. No horses were taken; a waterless country was now to be entered, and a horse becomes useless in hot weather after a day and a half without water. On the other hand, an ox can endure thirst for a week without becoming incapable of work.
Each wagon carried a couple of small kegs of water, a pillow-case full of Boer biscuits, a small bag of ground coffee, and a kettle. The more luxuriously inclined among the hunters took with them karosses, made of the skins of fat-tailed sheep, to lie under at night. The majority, however, took nothing whatever in the way of bedding.
As the wagons cleared the circle of low kopjes it could be seen that the trek was an unusually large one. As far as the eye could range from north-east to south-west the horizon was obscured by rising clouds of dust. Here and there in the immense vista, a particularly dense cloud could be seen ascending slowly. This indicated a locality where a mob of more than average compactness was pressing westward, impelled by the strange trek instinct.
Old Schalk was a keen sportsman—as that term is understood among the Trek-Boers. In fact the “trek-bokken” were the only things he ever got very excited about. Sitting in his chair—which had been tied in the wagon—and accompanied by a youth whom he had provided with an old gun and some ammunition, and who had agreed to give up half of what he shot in payment, he was drawn towards the trek as fast as a fresh span of oxen could go with the almost empty wagon. Besides his gun Old Schalk took two large “slacht eizers,” or iron traps—cruel things with toothed iron jaws that would smash the leg of a horse.