By Veldt and Kopje

by W. C. Scully

“From my earliest boyhood I loved nothing so well as hunting, and my favourite ground was the forest at the back of the Didima Mountain, which was full of buffalo, koodoo, bushbuck, and other game. On the top of the big mountain beyond it, which you call the Katberg, herds of eland used often to browse. Other young men who loved the chase would accompany me, but I was always the leader.

“At a spot in the valley at the back of the Didima, far away from any other dwellings, lived a man called Bangeni, a great doctor. This man did not fear the Bushmen. For some reason or another they never interfered with him, even when they raided in the valleys far past his dwelling. He spoke their language, which sounded like the spitting of a nest of wild cats I once dug out of a hole. Men used to say that through his medicines Bangeni had the power of moving unseen from place to place, and that the Bushmen knew this and feared him accordingly. I do not know if this was the case, but it is certain that although the Bushmen were often seen in the rocks on the ridge above his kraal, and although they sometimes killed the herd-boys in the valley below, and drove off cattle, nothing of Bangeni’s was ever taken.

“We all feared this man, and no one ever went to his kraal unless for medicine. Over and over again have I passed it when returning from hunting, but no matter how tired or thirsty I was I would never stop.

“One day, being alone in the forest, I found a young girl sleeping. She had a beautiful face, and a bosom like that of a partridge when the millet is ripe in the fields. She arose when I approached, but did not show the least alarm. We sat together and talked from noon until the sun had nearly sunk. She was the daughter of Bangeni, and her name was Nongala. She spoke of sensible things in a low, soft voice. When we parted I already wished that my father had paid dowry for her instead of for the other one—Nathaniel’s grandmother.

“After that day I never passed Bangeni’s dwelling without calling. Nathaniel’s grandmother got to hear of the girl, and I had to break several sticks upon her before she left off troubling. You know Nathaniel? Well, he is just like what she was.

“As I grew older I hunted more and more. My father was rich, and I was his ‘great son,’ so, whenever I heard of a good dog I used to try and buy it. We had no guns, but we were expert with the assegai, and besides we used to drive the game into stalked pits. Mawo, but these were great days. In the valley, where the buffaloes used to crash through the forest with my dogs baying behind, the Hottentots now grow tobacco. And I am an old, old man without a single cow, and my Chief is dead, and Nathaniel says I am going to the pit to burn in this new kind of fire.

“The mischief committed by the Bushmen at length became so bad that the people could stand it no longer, so Makomo called out an army for the purpose of clearing the mountains of these vermin. The occasion was that they had one day killed six herd-boys and driven a large troop of cattle off. Then Makomo saw that if he wished to hold the country any longer he must destroy the Bushmen.

“Every man who could wield an assegai was called out, and the army was doctored on the night of the new moon. Next morning we went forth in three divisions, one of which held the level plateau which connects the Katberg Range with the great mountains farther back, and so cut off the retreat of the enemy. Another division went to the east of the Katberg and the third to the west of the Didima; then the three bodies moved towards each other in open order.

“The Bushmen retired without fighting when they saw how strong we were, and when they found their retreat cut off from the great mountain they took refuge in the caves and chasms of a high ridge which stood apart near the southern end of the plateau. We were joyful when we knew that at length we had the murderers where our hands could reach them.

“It was nearly nightfall when we formed in a ring around the rocks and scrubby bushes amidst which they lay, and our numbers were so great that no man was more than four paces from his companions on either side. Each carried a shield wherewith to ward off the poisoned arrows. For a long time it had been known that this attack must, some day, take place, and every man had been ordered to provide himself with a strong shield of ox-hide.