The Settler and the Savage

“Bring ’em in, Jack,” shouted one of the other youths in the tent.

“Come inside,” said he who was styled Jack, “and have a glass of whisky. There’s nothing like whisky to dry a wet skin, is there, Scotty?”

To this familiar appeal Sandy replied, “m–h’m,” which word, we may add for the information of foreigners, is the Scotch for “Yes.”

“Sit down there on the blankets,” said the hospitable Jack, “we haven’t got our arm-chairs or tables made yet. Allow me to introduce my two brothers, James and Robert Skyd; my own name is the less common one of John. This young man of six feet two, with no money and less brain, is not a brother—only a chum—named Frank Dobson. Come, fill up and drink, else you’ll catch a cold, or a South African fever, if there is such a thing. Whom shall I pledge?”

“My name is Jerry Goldboy,” said the Englishman; “your health, gentlemen.”

“’Am Sandy Black,” said the Scot; “here’s t’ee.”

“Well, Mr Black and Mr Coldboy”—Goldboy, interposed Jerry—“I speak for my brothers and friend when I wish you all success in the new land.”

“Do talk less, Jack,” said Robert Skyd, the youngest brother, “and give our friends a chance of speaking—Have you come ashore lately!”

“Just arrived,” answered Jerry.

“I thought so. You belong to the Scotch party that goes to Baviaans River, I suppose?” asked Frank Dobson.

This question led at length to a full and free account of the circumstances and destination of each party, with which however we will not trouble the reader in detail.

“D’ee ken onything aboot Baviaans River?” inquired Sandy Black, after a variety of subjects had been discussed.

“Nothing whatever,” answered John Skyd, “save that it is between one and two hundred miles—more or less—inland among the mountains, and that its name, which is Dutch, means the River of Baboons, its fastnesses being filled with these gentry.”

“Ay, I’ve heard as much mysel’,” returned Sandy, “an’ they say the craters are gey fierce. Are there ony o’ the big puggies in the Albany district?”

“No, none. Albany is too level for them. It lies along the sea-coast, and is said to be a splendid country, though uncomfortably near the Kafirs.”

“The Kawfirs. Ay. H’m!” said Sandy, leaving his hearers to form their own judgment as to the meaning of his words.

“An’ what may

your

 tred be, sir?” he added, looking at John Skyd.

The three brothers laughed, and John replied—

“Trade? we have no trade. Our

profession

 is that of clerks—knights of the quill; at least such was our profession in the old country. In this new land, my brother Bob’s profession is fun, Jim’s is jollity, and mine is a compound of both, called joviality. As to our chum Dobson, his profession may be styled remonstrance, for he is perpetually checking our levity, as he calls it; always keeping us in order and snubbing us, nevertheless we couldn’t do without him. In fact, we may be likened to a social clock, of which Jim is the mainspring, Bob the weight, I the striking part of the works, and Dobson the pendulum. But we are not particular, we are ready for anything.”

“Ay, an’ fit for nothin’,” observed Sandy, with a peculiar smile and shrug, meant to indicate that his jest was more than half earnest.

The three brothers laughed again at this, and their friend Dobson smiled. Dobson’s smile was peculiar. The corners of his mouth turned down instead of up, thereby giving his grave countenance an unusually arch expression.

“Why, what do you mean, you cynical Scot!” demanded John Skyd. “Our shoulders are broad enough, are they not? nearly as broad as your own.”

“Oo’ ay, yer shoothers are weel aneugh, but I wadna gie much for yer heeds or haunds.”

Reply to this was interrupted by the appearance, in the opening of the tent, of a man whose solemn but kindly face checked the flow of flippant conversation.

“You look serious, Orpin; has anything gone wrong?” asked Frank Dobson.

“Our friend is dying,” replied the man, sadly. “He will soon meet his opponent in the land where all is light and where all disputes shall be ended in agreement.”

Orpin referred to two of the settlers whose careers in South Africa were destined to be cut short on the threshold. The two men had been earnestly religious, but, like all the rest of Adam’s fallen race, were troubled with the effects of original sin. They had disputed hotly, and had ultimately quarrelled, on religious subjects on the voyage out. One of them died before he landed; the other was the man of whom Orpin now spoke. The sudden change in the demeanour of the brothers Skyd surprised as well as gratified Sandy Black. That sedate, and literally as well as figuratively, long-headed Scot, had felt a growing distaste to the flippant young Englishers, as he styled them, but when he saw them throw off their light character, as one might throw off a garment, and rise eagerly and sadly to question Orpin about the dying man, he felt, as mankind is often forced to feel, that a first, and especially a hasty, judgment is often incorrect.

Stephen Orpin was a mechanic and a Wesleyan, in virtue of which latter connection, and a Christian spirit, he had been made a local preacher. He was on his way to offer his services as a watcher by the bedside of the dying man.

This man and his opponent were not the only emigrants who finished their course thus abruptly. Dr Cotton, the “Head” of the “Nottingham party,” Dr Caldecott and some others, merely came, as it were like Moses, in sight of the promised land, and then ended their earthly career. Yet some of these left a valuable contribution, in their children, to the future colony.

While Black and his friend Jerry were observing Orpin, as he conversed with the brothers Skyd, the tall burly Englishman from whose shoulders the former had been hurled into the sea, chanced to pass, and quietly grasped the Scot by the arm.

“Here you are at last! Why, man, I’ve been lookin’ for you ever since that unlucky accident, to offer you a change of clothes and a feed in my tent—or I should say

our

 tent, for I belong to a ‘party,’ like every one else here. Come along.”

“Thank ’ee kindly,” answered Sandy, “but what between haverin’ wi’ thae Englishers an’ drinkin’ their whusky, my freen’ Jerry an’ me’s dry aneugh already.”

The Englishman, however, would not listen to any excuse. He was one of those hearty men, with superabundant animal spirits—to say nothing of physique—who are not easily persuaded to let others follow their own inclinations, and who are so good-natured that it is difficult to feel offended with their kindly roughness. He introduced himself by the name of George Dally, and insisted on Black accompanying him to his tent. Sandy being a sociable, although a quiet man, offered little resistance, and Jerry, being a worshipper of Sandy, followed with gay nonchalance.

Chapter Four.

Further Particulars of “Settlers’ Town,” and a Start made for the Promised Land

Threading his way among the streets of “Settlers’ Town,” and pushing vigorously through the crowds of excited beings who peopled it, George Dally led his new acquaintances to a tent in the outskirts of the camp—a suburban tent, as it were.

Entering it, and ushering in his companions, he introduced them as the gentlemen who had been capsized into the sea on landing, at which operation he had had the honour to assist.

There were four individuals in the tent. A huge German labourer named Scholtz, and his wife. Mrs Scholtz was a substantial woman of forty. She was also a nurse, and, in soul, body, and spirit, was totally absorbed in a baby boy, whose wild career had begun four months before in a furious gale in the Bay of Biscay. As that infant “lay, on that day, in the Bay of Biscay O!” the elemental strife outside appeared to have found a lodgment in his soul, for he burst upon the astonished passengers with a squall which lasted longer than the gale, and was ultimately pronounced the worst that had visited the ship since she left England. Born in a storm, the infant was baptised in a stiff breeze by a Wesleyan minister, on and after which occasion he was understood to be Jabez Brook; but one of the sailors happening to call him Junkie on the second day of his existence, his nurse, Mrs Scholtz, leaped at the endearing name like a hungry trout at a gay fly, and “Junkie” he remained during the whole term of childhood.

Junkie’s main characteristic was strength of lungs, and his chief delight to make that fact known. Six passengers changed their berths for the worse in order to avoid him. One who could not change became nearly deranged towards the end of the voyage, and one, who was sea-sick all the way out, seriously thought of suicide, but incapacity for any physical effort whatever happily saved him. In short, Junkie was the innocent cause of many dreadful thoughts and much improper language on the unstable scene of his nativity.

Besides these three, there was in the tent a pretty, dark-eyed, refined-looking girl of about twelve. She was Gertrude Brook, sister and idolater of Junkie. Her father, Edwin Brook, and her mother, dwelt in a tent close by. Brook was a gentleman of small means, but Mrs Brook was a very rich lady—rich in the possession of a happy temper, a loving disposition, a pretty face and figure, and a religious soul. Thus Edwin Brook, though poor, may be described as a man of inexhaustible wealth.

Gertrude had come into Dally’s tent to fetch Junkie to her father when Sandy Black and his friends entered, but Junkie had just touched the hot teapot, with the contents of which Mrs Scholtz was regaling herself and husband, and was not in an amiable humour. His outcries were deafening.

“Now

do

 hold its dear little tongue, and go to its popsy,” said Mrs Scholtz tenderly. (Mrs Scholtz was an Englishwoman.)

We need not say that Junkie declined obedience, neither would he listen to the silvery blandishments of Gertie.

“Zee chile vas born shrieking, ant he vill die shrieking,” growled Scholtz, who disliked Junkie.

The entrance of the strangers, however, unexpectedly stopped the shrieking, and before Junkie could recover his previous train of thought Gertie bore him off in triumph, leaving the hospitable Dally and Mrs Scholtz to entertain their visitors to small talk and tea.

While seated thus they became aware of a sudden increase of the din, whip-cracking, and ox-bellowing with which the camp of the settlers resounded.

“They seem fond o’ noise here,” observed Sandy Black, handing his cup to Mrs Scholtz to be refilled.

“I never ’eard such an ’owling before,” said Jerry Goldboy; “what is it all about?”

“New arrivals from zee interior,” answered Scholtz; “dere be always vaggins comin’ ant goin’.”

“The camp is a changin’ one,” said Dally, sipping his tea with the air of a connoisseur. “When you’ve been here as long as we have you’ll understand how it never increases much, for although ship after ship arrives with new swarms of emigrants from the old country, waggon after waggon comes from I don’t know where—somewheres inland anyhow—and every now an’ then long trains of these are seen leaving camp, loaded with goods and women and children, enough to sink a small schooner, and followed by crowds of men tramping away to their new homes in the wilderness—though what these same new homes or wilderness are like is more than I can tell.”

“Zee noise is great,” growled Scholtz, as another burst of whip-musketry, human roars, and bovine bellows broke on their ears, “ant zee confusion is indesgraibable.”

“The gentlemen whose business it is to keep order must have a hard time of it,” said Mrs Scholtz; “I can’t ever understand how they does it, what between landing parties and locating ’em, and feeding, supplying, advising, and despatching of ’em, to say nothing of scolding and snubbing, in the midst of all this Babel of bubbledom, quite surpasses my understanding. Do

you

 understand it, Mr Black?”

“Ay,” replied Sandy, clearing his throat and speaking somewhat oracularly. “’Ee must know, Mrs Scholtz, that it’s the result of organisation and gineralship. A serjeant or corporal can kick or drive a few men in ony direction that’s wanted, but it takes a gineral to move an army. If ’ee was to set a corporal to lead twunty thoosand men, he’d gie them orders that wad thraw them into a deed lock, an’ than naethin’ short o’ a miracle could git them oot o’t. Mony a battle’s been lost by brave men through bad gineralship, an’ mony a battle’s been won by puir enough bodies o’ men because of their leader’s administrative abeelity, Mrs Scholtz.”

“Very true, Mr Black,” replied Mrs Scholtz, with the assurance of one who thoroughly understands what she hears.

“Noo,” continued Sandy, with increased gravity, “if thae Kawfir bodies we hear aboot only had chiefs wi’ powers of organisation, an’ was a’ united thegither, they wad drive the haul o’ this colony into the sea like chaff before the wind. But they’ll niver do it; for, ’ee see, they want mind—an’ body withoot mind is but a puir thing after a’, Mrs Scholtz.”

“I’m not so shure of zat,” put in Scholtz, stretching his huge frame and regarding it complacently; “it vould please me better to have body vidout mint, zan mint vidout body.”

“H’m! ’ee’ve reason to be pleased then,” muttered Black, drily.

This compliment was either not appreciated by Scholtz, or he was prevented from acknowledging it by an interruption from without; for just at the moment a voice was heard asking a passer-by if he could tell where the tents of the Scotch party were pitched. Those in the tent rose at once, and Sandy Black, issuing out found that the questioner was a handsome young Englishman, who would have appeared, what he really was, both stout and tall, if he had not been dwarfed by his companion, a Cape-Dutchman of unusually gigantic proportions.

“We are in search of the Scottish party,” said the youth, turning to Sandy with a polite bow; “can you direct us to its whereabouts?”

“I’m no’ sure that I can, sir, though I’m wan o’ the Scotch pairty mysel’, for me an’ my freen hae lost oorsels, but doobtless Mister Dally here can help us. May I ask what ’ee want wi’ us?”

“Certainly,” replied the Englishman, with a smile. “Mr Marais and I have been commissioned to transport you to Baviaans river in bullock-waggons, and we wish to see Mr Pringle, the head of your party, to make arrangements.—Can you guide us, Mr Dally?”

“Have you been to the deputy-quartermaster-general’s office?” asked Dally.

“Yes, and they directed us to a spot said to be surrounded by evergreen bushes near this quarter of the camp.”

“

I

 know it—just outside the ridge between the camp and the Government offices.—Come along, sir,” said Dally; “I’ll show you the way.”

In a few minutes Dally led the party to a group of seven or eight tents which were surrounded by Scotch ploughs, cart-wheels, harrows, cooking utensils fire-arms, and various implements of husbandry and ironware.

“Here come the lost ones!” exclaimed Kenneth McTavish, who, with his active wife and sprightly daughter Jessie, was busy arranging the interior of his tent, “and bringing strangers with them too!”

While Sandy Black and his friend Jerry were explaining the cause of their absence to some of the Scotch party, the young Englishman introduced his friend and himself as Charles Considine and Hans Marais, to the leader, Mr Pringle, a gentleman who, besides being a good poet, afterwards took a prominent part in the first acts of that great drama—the colonisation of the eastern frontier of South Africa.

It is unnecessary to trouble the reader with all that was said and done. Suffice it to say that arrangements were soon made. The acting Governor, Sir Rufane Donkin, arrived on the 6th of June from a visit to Albany, the district near the sea on which a large number of the settlers were afterwards located, and from him Mr Pringle learned that the whole of the Scotch emigrants were to be located in the mountainous country watered by some of the eastern branches of the Great Fish River, close to the Kafir frontier. The upper part of the Baviaans, or Baboons, River had been fixed for the reception of his particular section. It was also intended by Government that a piece of unoccupied territory still farther to the eastward should be settled by a party of five hundred Highlanders, who, it was conjectured, would prove the most effective buffer available to meet the first shock of invasion, should the savages ever attempt another inroad.

Mr Pringle laid this proposed arrangement before a council of the heads of families under his charge; it was heartily agreed to, and preparations for an early start were actively begun.

On the day of his arrival Sir Rufane Donkin laid the foundation of the first house of the now wealthy and flourishing, though not very imposing, town of Port Elizabeth, so named after his deceased wife, to whose memory an obelisk was subsequently erected on the adjacent heights.

A week later, a train of seven waggons stood with the oxen “inspanned,” or yoked, ready to leave the camp, from which many similar trains had previously set out. The length of such a train may be conceived when it is told that each waggon was drawn by twelve or sixteen oxen. These were fastened in pairs to a single trace or “trektow” of twisted thongs of bullock or buffalo hide, strong enough for a ship’s cable. Each waggon had a canvas cover or “till” to protect its goods and occupants from the sun and rain, and each was driven by a tall Dutchman, who carried a bamboo whip like a salmon fishing-rod with a lash of thirty feet or more. A slave, Hottentot or Bushman, led the two front oxen of each span.

Like pistol-shots the formidable whips went off; the oxen pulled, tossed their unwieldy horns, and bellowed; the Dutchmen growled and shouted; the half-naked “Totties” and Bushmen flung their arms and legs about, glared and gasped like demons; the monstrous waggons moved; “Settlers’ Town” was slowly left behind, and our adventurers, heading for the thorny jungles of the Zwartkops River, began their toilsome journey into the land of hope and promise.

“It’s a queer beginning!” remarked Sandy Black, as he trudged between Hans Marais and Charlie Considine.

“I hope it will have a good ending,” said Considine.

Whether that hope was fulfilled the reader shall find out in the sequel.

Meanwhile some of the English parties took their departure by the same route, and journeyed in company till points of divergence were reached, where many temporary friendships were brought to a close, though some there were which, although very recently formed, withstood firmly the damaging effects of time, trial, sorrow, and separation.

Chapter Five.

Adventures and Incidents of the First Night in the “Bush”

A Night-Bivouac under the mimosa-bushes of the Zwartkops River. The Cape-waggons are drawn up in various comfortable nooks; the oxen are turned loose to graze; camp-fires are kindled. Round these men and women group themselves very much as they do in ordinary society. Classes keep by themselves, not because one class wishes to exclude the other, but because habits, sympathies, interests, and circumstances draw like to like. The ruddy glare of the camp-fires contrasts pleasantly with the cold light of the moon, which casts into deepest shadow the wild recesses of bush and brake, inducing many a furtive glance from the more timid of the settlers, who see an elephant, a buffalo, or a Cape “tiger” in every bank and stump and stone. Their suspicions are not so wild as one might suppose, for the neighbouring jungle, called the Addo Bush, swarms with these and other wild animals.

The distance travelled on this first day was not great; the travellers were not much fatigued, but were greatly excited by novelty, which rendered them wakeful. If one had gone round to the numerous fires and played eavesdropper, what eager discussion on the new land he would have heard; what anxious speculations; what sanguine hopes; what noble plans; what ridiculous ideas; what mad anticipations—for all were hopeful and enthusiastic.

Round one of these fires was assembled the family and retainers of our Highland farmer, Kenneth McTavish, among whom were Sandy Black and Jerry Goldboy. They had been joined by Charlie Considine, who felt drawn somewhat to Sandy. Quite close to these, round another fire, were grouped the three bachelor brothers Skyd, with their friend Dobson. At another, within earshot of these, were Edwin Brook and his wife, his daughter Gertrude, Scholtz and his wife, Junkie, George Dally, and Stephen Orpin, with bluff Hans Marais, who had somehow got acquainted with the Brook family, and seemed to prefer their society to that of any other.

Down in a hollow under a thick spreading mimosa bush was the noisiest fire of all, for there were assembled some of the natives belonging to the waggons of Hans and Jan Smit. These carried on an uproarious discussion of some sort, appealing frequently to our friend Ruyter the Hottentot, who appeared to be regarded by them as an umpire or an oracle. The Hottentot race is a very inferior one, both mentally and physically, but there are among them individuals who rise much above the ordinary level. Ruyter was one of these. He had indeed the sallow visage, high cheek-bones, and dots of curly wool scattered thinly over his head, peculiar to his race, but his countenance was unusually intelligent, his frame well made and very powerful, and his expression good. He entered heartily into the fun of attempting to teach the Hottentot klick to some of the younger men among the emigrants, who were attracted to his fire by the shouts of laughter in which the swarthy slaves and others indulged. Abdul Jemalee, the Malay slave, was there; also Booby the Bushman—the former grave and silent, almost sad; the latter conducting himself like a monkey—to which animal he seemed closely related—and evoking shouts of laughter from a few youths, for whose special benefit he kept in the background and mimicked every one else.

“What a noisy set they are over there!” observed Edwin Brook, who had for some time been quietly contemplating the energetic George Dally, as he performed the duties of cook and waiter to his party.

“They are, sir,” replied Dally, “like niggers in general, fond of showing their white teeth.”

“Come, Gertie, your mother can spare you now; let’s go over and listen to them.”

Gertie complied with alacrity, and took her father’s arm.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, with a little scream, as a thorn full five inches long gave her a wicked probe on the left shoulder.

Hans Marais sprang up and gallantly raised the branch which had touched her.

“It is only Kafirs who can run against mimosa thorns with impunity,” said the handsome young Dutchman.

Gertie laughed, remarked that mimosa thorns, like South African gentlemen, were unusually long and sharp, and passed on.

Hans sat down on the ground, filled his large pipe, and gazed dreamily into the fire, with something of the sensation of a hunter when he makes a bad shot.

“Now then, Goliath,” said the ever busy George Dally; “move your long legs out o’ that. Don’t you see the pot’s about to bile over?”

Hans quietly obeyed.

“If I chanced to be alongside o’ that Tottie over there just now,” continued George, “I’d be inclined to stop his noise with a rap on his spotted pate.”

“You’d have to make it a heavy rap, then, to produce any effect,” said Hans, taking a long draw at his pipe, “for he belongs to a hard-headed race.”

The truth of the young farmer’s words was verified just then in a way that was alarming as well as unexpected.

One of the heavy waggons, which had been delayed behind the others by some trifling accident, came lumbering up just as Hans spoke. There was a softish sandy spot in advance of it, into which one of the front wheels plunged. The tilt caught on part of the waggon to which Ruyter belonged. To prevent damage the active Hottentot sprang forward. In doing so he tripped and fell. At the same instant a tremendous crack of the whip and a shout produced a wrench at the waggon, the hind wheel of which went over Ruyter’s head and crushed it into the ground!

A roar of consternation followed, and several eager hands carefully dug out the poor man’s head. To the surprise of all, the five-ton waggon had

not

 flattened it! The sand was so soft that it had not been squeezed at all—at least to any damaging extent,—a round stone having opportunely taken much of the pressure on itself, so that the Hottentot soon revived, and, beyond a headache, was little the worse of the accident. He returned to his place at the fire, but did not resume his part in the discussions, which were continued as noisily as before.

In strong contrast with the other groups were those of the Dutch-African boers who had brought the waggons to the Bay. Most of them were men of colossal stature. They sat apart, smoking their huge pipes in silent complacency and comfort, amused a little at the scenes going on around them, but apparently disinclined to trouble themselves about anything in particular.

Supper produced a lull in the general hum of conversation, but when pipes were lit the storm revived and continued far into the night. At last symptoms of weariness appeared, and people began to make arrangements for going to rest.

These arrangements were as varied as the characters of the emigrants.

Charlie Considine and Hans Marais, now become inseparable comrades, cleared and levelled the ground under a mimosa-bush, and, spreading their kaross thereon, lay down to sleep. George Dally, being an adaptable man, looked at the old campaigners for a few minutes, and then imitated their example. Little Jerry Goldboy, being naturally a nervous creature, and having his imagination filled with snakes, scorpions, tarantulas, etcetera, would fain have slept in one of the waggons above the baggage—as did many of the women and children—if he had not been laughed out of his desire by Dally, and induced to spread his couch manfully on the bare ground.

It must not be supposed, however, that Jerry, although timid, was cowardly. On the contrary, he was bold as a lion. He could not control his sensitively-strung nervous system, but instead of running away, like the coward, he was prone to rush furiously at whatever startled him, and grapple with it.

Some families pitched their tents, others, deeming curtains a needless luxury in such magnificent weather, contented themselves with the shelter of the bushes.

Meanwhile the Hottentot attendants replenished the fires, while the boers unslung their huge guns and placed them so as to be handy; for, although elephants and lions were not nearly so numerous as they once had been in that particular locality, there was still sufficient possibility of their presence, as well as of other nocturnal wanderer