Shifts and expedients of camp life, travel & exploration

by William Barry Lord; Thomas Baines

In one case related to us, one of the travellers had been called a coward by his comrade because he failed to fire at a lion at the expected moment. His reply was, “We will not quarrel over it now; but we separate at the first opportunity, and meantime I may find a chance to prove that I have not deserved your reproach.” One day he who had been thus stigmatised remained at home; and, when his comrade returned, said to him—“I thought I should be able to show that your words were undeserved: a lion has attacked the camp.” “Where is he?” asked the other. “Lift up the covering, and you will see him here,” was the reply. There was but one wound—it was in the forehead—and from so short a distance had the death shot been discharged that the flash of the gun had singed the hair around the orifice it made. The accuser apologised for his hasty words; but the breach was never healed, and the separation took place soon after.

The choice of servants must be very much guided by the habits and disposition of the traveller himself; but if he can, as ought to be the case, dispense with many of the luxuries of civilised life, then we should consider it best for him to engage people accustomed to the duties they are required to perform from among the servants of the colonists or white residents, who know and can answer for their character and ability.

Many travellers who start for the Cape Colony like to have a white man as an overseer, and he generally acts also as cook and personal servant. Such men as these are to be found in most of the frontier towns, and one who is really competent to the work in hand is invaluable; but care must be exercised in the selection, for however inexperienced the traveller may be he had better command his own attendants than submit to the intervention of a man who is unfit to manage them. In the first case, they will at least look upon him as the “master,” who hires, who pays, and feeds them, and for whom they feel bound to work; in the latter, they have no hesitation in saying to an incompetent overseer, “You are not our master, but only a servant like ourselves, and we care nothing for you.” More especially is this the case if they find him ignorant of the management of oxen, an inefficient hunter, or too much dependent upon guides for indications of his way in the bush. Nor is this to be wondered at; the discipline of a ship may be carried on, though the captain be incompetent, if his first lieutenant be a thorough seaman; but if that officer is not up to his duty, even a first-rate captain can hardly atone for the deficiency.

If a man who, in his youth, has been a soldier or a sailor, enters the service of a traveller, he possesses many advantages over ordinary servants. The soldier ought to have learned something of the value of discipline and order, and to be able to combine respect for himself with obedience to his employers; while the sailor must have learned, during his probation, a thousand shifts and expedients; and, above all, have acquired a habit of self-reliance in difficulty and danger that cannot be too highly valued. Efficient men, however, must be sought out and well paid; it is of little use to expect them to flock to the intending traveller and ask employment; they are not of the class who generally hang about large towns, but are more likely to be found on the very borders of civilisation. Moreover, they are not too plentiful; they would be more likely to ask, as was the case in Australia, have you a good character from your last servant? and inquiry should be made in time among other travellers as to the character and reliability of such persons as they have reason to think fit for the charge.

Within a colony, in case of a dispute with a servant, an appeal to the magistrate is possible; though if, as is sometimes the case, the nearest justice should live from thirty to fifty miles away—not always convenient—the master perhaps inquires of his native herdsman respecting the fate of a missing ox or two or three sheep; and, the replies not being satisfactory, hints his suspicion that they have been killed and eaten; the herdsman indignantly denies it, shortens his knobkeerie in his right hand, and gathers his kaross, or blanket, over his left arm, as a Spaniard does his cloak. If the master be of quick temper, he closes with and disarms him, or perhaps gets knocked down. If otherwise, he takes the more prudent alternative of riding to the magistrate. If he does the first, the native, whose time is of no value to him, starts off at once to the magistrate, and obtains a summons against his master for assault. If he chooses the latter, his herdsman probably takes advantage of his absence to add as many more cattle as he can to the missing list, and before he can be legally summoned is far away from the power of the law, seeking refuge among remote tribes.

Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that occasionally the colonists took the law into their own hands; and of their manner of proceeding the following incident, related to us by a friend, may serve as a fair example. A native servant having transgressed in this manner, the people of the farm were assembled, and he was put upon his trial; the evidence was against him, and he was asked, “Will you be taken before the magistrate? Will you receive forty lashes at the waggon wheel, or will you be shot?” “They generally,” said our informant, “choose to take the flogging offhand.” “But how,” said we, “if some cunning fellow should choose to be shot?” “Oh,” said he, “that is not very likely; but a man once did so, and he was allowed to run a hundred yards, when a bullet was fired past him, but sufficiently near to let him hear the singing of it.”

It was not very far from the locality where this event happened that a flock-master began to find a steadily-increasing mortality among his sheep, the very healthiest of which, without any apparent cause, sickened, and in a short time died. Now, when merino or other wool-bearing rams are imported at a cost of 120l. each, it behoves a man to look well after the good condition of their progeny, but no symptom of disease marked the approaching deaths; the shepherds asked for the carcases, and, finding these, he proposed to serve them out as rations, but they refused, and insisted that sheep should be killed for them as usual. “Very good,” said he, “dig a pit and throw in the carcases, and I will kill for you.” Next morning he found the pit had been opened and its contents abstracted. When sheep were again brought in dead he threw quicklime into the pit with them; the mortality began to diminish, and a post-mortem examination resulted in the discovery that a very fine mimosa thorn, specimens of which may be had of all sizes, from that of a sewing-needle to 5in. or 6in. in length, had been thrust under the shoulder, and left to work its way to the heart of the animal.

Unless, in case of gross and insolent disobedience, which it is necessary to chastise with a strong hand upon the spot, some form of trial and examination of evidence for and against the culprit ought always to precede the punishment; and this course, so far as we have seen, is generally adopted by English travellers, a love of fair play being, we are fain to hope, in spite of occasional excesses, inherent among us.

One of the most marked instances we have known of this occurred not far from Objimbengue. A train of waggons was passing up country from the Bay; wine and spirits were flowing freely; and, as is usually the case where long-enforced abstinence is succeeded by opportunities of unlimited indulgence, some of the party were not quite as judges ought to be before dinner. Jealousy—that fruitful source of quarrels—produced one during the night, and an Englishman broke a Hottentot’s head—that is to say, inflicted a scalp wound half an inch wide and as deep as the thickness of the skin would permit. The inflictor of the blow (we never found out who was the actual aggressor) was confined in the room that had been assigned to us, and, with the exception of a few wild tricks inspired by the waning influence of the liquor, such, for instance, as drawing a sword-bayonet and giving point at a friend who entered, behaved with remarkable propriety, till a “raad” could be duly formed among the rest. Of evidence very little was required; there was the “tottie” with his wounded head; the defendant pleaded provocation and the influence of drink, and expressed his willingness to pay a fair compensation. Eight pounds sterling was proposed and consented to, and a bill drawn out and signed upon the spot. Rather exorbitant damages we thought for a wound which disabled the lad but for a day; but we were fresh in the country then, and thought the old hands knew best how to manage their own affairs. Extravagant and wild as was the scene, it was nevertheless a proof that wherever a number of Englishmen, or their colonial descendants, can be gathered together, a spirit of fair play will actuate the majority.

With native servants, very much must depend upon the custom of the country in which they are hired. Among some of the superior tribes, if men are well chosen, they may be left to perform their own duty in their own way; an occasional expression of approval from the master, and half an hour’s chat with them now and then, to show that, though he trusts them, he is not careless of his own interests nor unmindful of theirs, being nearly all that is required; while the power of withholding a good character or making a deduction from their pay at the end of the journey is enough to restrain any irregularity they might be tempted to. Sometimes they may be hired from the chiefs, who then transfers to the master, for the time being, his authority over them, and looks to him for the safe return of his men at the end of the stipulated time. In this case the traveller becomes pro tempore their chief, and may exercise his power in summary punishment of a culprit, or may reserve his right to appeal to the actual chief on his return. In other cases, as with Lascars or other natives of India, a gang may be hired with their own Serang, or Tindal, to whom all orders respecting them should be given, and from whom they will submit to any amount of punishment, though they would resent it as an insult, only to be atoned with blood, if inflicted by a white man. The Kroomen of the coast near Sierra Leone, who are usually employed on board our men-of-war, are generally engaged in this manner. We had twelve on the Zambesi expedition, under a very fine head man, called Tom Jumbo.