The Boers -- Their Treatment of the
Natives -- Seizure of native Children for Slaves -- English Traders -- Alarm of
the Boers -- Native Espionage -- The Tale of the Cannon -- The Boers
threaten Sechele -- In violation of Treaty, they stop English
Traders and expel Missionaries -- They attack the Bakwains -- Their Mode of
Fighting -- The Natives killed and the
School-children carried into Slavery -- Destruction of English Property --
African Housebuilding and Housekeeping -- Mode of Spending the Day -- Scarcity of
Food -- Locusts -- Edible Frogs -- Scavenger Beetle -- Continued Hostility
of the Boers -- The Journey north -- Preparations -- Fellow-travelers -- The
Kalahari Desert -- Vegetation -- Watermelons -- The
Inhabitants -- The Bushmen -- Their nomad Mode of Life -- Appearance --
The Bakalahari -- Their Love for Agriculture and for
domestic Animals -- Timid Character -- Mode of obtaining Water -- Female
Water-suckers -- The Desert -- Water hidden.
Another adverse influence with which the
mission had to contend was the vicinity of the Boers of the
Cashan Mountains, otherwise named "Magaliesberg". These are
not to be counfounded with the Cape colonists, who sometimes
pass by the name. The word Boer simply means "farmer", and
is not synonymous with our word boor. Indeed, to the Boers generally the latter
term would be quite inappropriate, for they are a sober, industrious, and
most hospitable body of peasantry. Those, however, who have fled from English
law on various pretexts, and have been joined by English deserters
and every other variety of bad character in their distant
localities, are unfortunately of a very different stamp. The great
objection many of the Boers had, and still have, to English law, is that it
makes no distinction between black men and white. They felt
aggrieved by their supposed losses in the emancipation of their Hottentot
slaves, and determined to erect themselves into a republic, in
which they might pursue, without molestation, the "proper treatment
of the blacks". It is almost needless to add that the
"proper treatment" has always contained in it the essential
element of slavery, namely, compulsory unpaid labor.One section of this body, under the late
Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter, penetrated the interior as far as the
Cashan Mountains, whence a Zulu or Caffre chief, named
Mosilikatze, had been expelled by the well-known Caffre Dingaan; and a
glad welcome was given them by the Bechuana tribes, who had just
escaped the hard sway of that cruel chieftain. They came with the
prestige of white men and deliverers; but the Bechuanas soon found, as they
expressed it, "that Mosilikatze was cruel to his enemies, and kind to
those he conquered; but that the Boers destroyed their
enemies, and made slaves of their friends." The tribes who still retain the semblance
of independence are forced to perform all the labor of the
fields, such as manuring the land, weeding, reaping, building, making dams
and canals, and at the same time to support themselves. I have myself been
an eye-witness of Boers coming to a village, and, according to
their usual custom, demanding twenty or thirty women to weed
their gardens, and have seen these women proceed to the
scene of unrequited toil, carrying their own food on their heads,
their children on their backs, and instruments of labor on their
shoulders. Nor have the Boers any wish to conceal the meanness of thus
employing unpaid labor; on the contrary, every one of them, from
Mr. Potgeiter and Mr. Gert Krieger, the commandants, downward, lauded his own
humanity and justice in making such an equitable regulation.
"We make the people work for us, in consideration of allowing them to live
in our country."
I can appeal to the Commandant Krieger if
the foregoing is not a fair and impartial statement of the
views of himself and his people. I am sensible of no mental bias toward or
against these Boers; and during the several journeys I made to
the poor enslaved tribes, I never avoided the whites, but tried to
cure and did administer remedies to their sick, without money and without
price. It is due to them to state that I was invariably treated with
respect; but it is most unfortunate that they should have been left by their
own Church for so many years to deteriorate and become as degraded as
the blacks, whom the stupid prejudice against color
leads them to detest. This new species of slavery which they
have adopted serves to supply the lack of field-labor only. The demand
for domestic servants must be met by forays on tribes which have
good supplies of cattle. The Portuguese can quote instances in
which blacks become so degraded by the love of strong drink as actually to
sell themselves; but never in any one case, within the
memory of man, has a Bechuana chief sold any of his
people, or a Bechuana man his child. Hence the necessity for a foray to seize
children. And those individual Boers who would not engage in it for the sake of
slaves can seldom resist the two-fold plea of a well-told story of
an intended uprising of the devoted tribe, and the prospect of
handsome pay in the division of the captured cattle
besides. It is difficult for a person in a
civilized country to conceive that any body of men possessing the common
attributes of humanity (and these Boers are by no means destitute
of the better feelings of our nature) should with one accord set
out, after loading their own wives and children with
caresses, and proceed to shoot down in cold blood men and women, of a
different color, it is true, but possessed of domestic feelings and
affections equal to their own. I saw and conversed with children in the
houses of Boers who had, by their own and their masters' account,
been captured, and in several instances I traced the
parents of these unfortunates, though the plan approved by the
long-headed among the burghers is to take children so young that they
soon forget their parents and their native language also. It was
long before I could give credit to the tales of bloodshed told by native
witnesses, and had I received no other testimony but theirs I should
probably have continued skeptical to this day as to the truth of the
accounts; but when I found the Boers themselves, some bewailing and
denouncing, others glorying in the bloody scenes in which they had been
themselves the actors, I was compelled to admit the validity of
the testimony, and try to account for the cruel anomaly. They are all
traditionally religious, tracing their descent from some of the
best men (Huguenots and Dutch) the world ever saw. Hence they claim to
themselves the title of "Christians", and all the colored race are "black
property" or "creatures". They being the chosen people of God, the
heathen are given to them for an inheritance, and they are the rod
of divine vengeance on the heathen, as were the Jews of old. Living in the
midst of a native population much larger than themselves, and at
fountains removed many miles from each other, they feel somewhat in the
same insecure position as do the Americans in the Southern
States. The first question put by them to strangers is respecting
peace; and when they receive reports from disaffected or envious natives
against any tribe, the case assumes all the appearance and proportions of a
regular insurrection. Severe measures then appear to the most
mildly disposed among them as imperatively called for, and, however
bloody the massacre that follows, no qualms of conscience ensue: it is a
dire necessity for the sake of peace. Indeed, the late Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter
most devoutly believed himself to be the great peacemaker of the country.
But how is it that the natives, being so
vastly superior in numbers to the Boers, do not rise and annihilate
them? The people among whom they live are Bechuanas, not Caffres, though no one
would ever learn that distinction from a Boer; and history does not contain
one single instance in which the Bechuanas, even those of them
who possess fire-arms, have attacked either the Boers or the
English. If there is such an instance, I am certain it is not generally known,
either beyond or in the Cape Colony. They have defended themselves when
attacked, as in the case of Sechele, but have never engaged in offensive war
with Europeans. We have a very different tale to tell of
the Caffres, and the difference has always been so
evident to these border Boers that, ever since those "magnificent savages"
[The "United Service Journal" so styles them.]
obtained possession of fire-arms, not one Boer has ever attempted to settle
in Caffreland, or even face them as an enemy in the field. The Boers have
generally manifested a marked antipathy to any thing but
"long-shot" warfare, and, sidling away in their emigrations
toward the more effeminate Bechuanas, have left their quarrels with the Caffres
to be settled by the English, and their wars to be paid for by English
gold.
The Bakwains at Kolobeng had the spectacle
of various tribes enslaved before their eyes -- the Bakatla,
the Batlokua, the Bahukeng, the Bamosetla, and two other tribes of
Bakwains were all groaning under the oppression of unrequited labor.
This would not have been felt as so great an evil but that the young men
of those tribes, anxious to obtain cattle, the only means of rising to
respectability and importance among their own people, were in the habit
of sallying forth, like our Irish and Highland reapers, to
procure work in the Cape Colony. After laboring there three or four years,
in building stone dikes and dams for the Dutch farmers, they were well
content if at the end of that time they could return with as many cows. On
presenting one to their chief, they ranked as respectable men in the
tribe ever afterward. These volunteers were highly esteemed among the Dutch,
under the name of Mantatees.
Today and a large loaf of bread between six of them. Numbers of them, who
had formerly seen me about twelve hundred miles inland from the
Cape, recognized me with the loud laughter of joy when I was
passing them at their work in i the Dutch Church, for whom to both parties. I do not believe that
there is one Boer, in the Cashan or Magaliesberg country, who
would deny that a law was made, in consequence of this labor passing to
the colony, to deprive these laborers of their hardly-earned cattle, for the
very cogent reason that, "if they want to work, let them work for
us their masters," though boasting that in their case it
would not be paid for. I can never cease to be most unfeignedly
thankful that I was not born in a land of slaves. No one can
understand the effect of the unutterable meanness of the
slave-system on the minds of those who, but for the strange obliquity which
prevents them from feeling the degradation of not being gentlemen
enough to pay for services rendered,
would be equal in virtue to ourselves.
Fraud becomes as natural to them as "paying one's way" is to the rest of
mankind.
Wherever a missionary lives, traders are
sure to come; they are mutually dependent, and each aids
in the work of the other; but experience shows that the two
employments can not very well be combined in the same person. Such a combination
would not be morally wrong, for nothing would be more fair, and
apostolical too, than that the man who devotes his time to the spiritual
welfare of a people should derive temporal advantage from
upright commerce, which traders, who aim exclusively at
their own enrichment, modestly imagine ought to be left to
them. But, though it is right for missionaries to trade, the present
system of missions renders it inexpedient to spend time in so
doing. No missionary with whom I ever came in contact, traded;
and while the traders, whom we introduced and rendered secure in
the country, waxed rich, the missionaries have invariably remained
poor, and have died so. The Jesuits, in Africa at least, were
wiser in their generation than we; theirs were large, influential
communities, proceeding on the system of turning the abilities of every brother
into that channel in which he was most likely to excel; one,
fond of natural history, was allowed to follow his bent; another,
fond of literature, found leisure to pursue his studies; and
he who was great in barter was sent in search of ivory and gold-dust;
so that while in the course of performing the religious acts of his
mission to distant tribes, he found the means of aiding effectually
the brethren whom he had left in the central
settlement. [The Dutch clergy, too, are not wanting in worldly
wisdom. A fountain is bought, and the lands which
it can irrigate parceled out and let to villagers. As
they increase in numbers, the rents rise and the church becomes
rich. With 200 Pounds per annum in addition from government, the salary
amounts to 400 or 500 Pounds a year. The clergymen then preach abstinence from
politics as a Christian duty. It is quite clear that, with 400 Pounds a
year, but little else except pure spirituality is required.]
We Protestants, with the comfortable conviction of
superiority, have sent out missionaries with a bare subsistence only, and are
unsparing in our laudations of some for not being worldly-minded whom our
niggardliness made to live as did the prodigal son. I do not speak
of myself, nor need I to do so, but for that very reason I feel at liberty
to interpose a word in behalf of others. I have before my
mind at this moment facts and instances which warrant my
putting the case in this way: The command to "go into all the world and
preach the Gospel to every creature" must be obeyed by Christians either
personally or by substitute. Now it is quite possible to find men whose
love for the heathen and devotion to the work will make them ready to go
forth on the terms "bare subsistence", but what can be thought of the justice, to
say nothing of the generosity, of Christians and churches who not only
work their substitutes at the lowest terms, but regard what they
give as charity! The matter is the more grave in respect to
the Protestant missionary, who may have a wife and family. The fact
is, there are many cases in which it is right, virtuous, and
praiseworthy for a man to sacrifice every thing for a great
object, but in which it would be very wrong for others, interested in the
object as much as he, to suffer or accept the sacrifice, if they
can prevent it.
English traders sold those articles which
the Boers most dread, namely, arms and ammunition; and when the
number of guns amounted to five, so much alarm was
excited among our neighbors that an expedition of several hundred
Boers was seriously planned to deprive the Bakwains of their guns.
Knowing that the latter would rather have fled to the Kalahari
Desert than deliver up their weapons and become slaves, I proceeded to the
commandant, Mr. Gert Krieger, and, representing the evils of any such
expedition, prevailed upon him to defer it; but that point being granted,
the Boer wished to gain another, which was that I should act as a spy over
the Bakwains. I explained the impossibility of my
complying with his wish, even though my principles as an Englishman
had not stood in the way, by referring to an instance in which
Sechele had gone with his whole force to punish an under-chief without my
knowledge. This man, whose name was Kake, rebelled, and was led
on in his rebellion by his father-in-law, who had been
regicide in the case of Sechele's father. Several of those who remained faithful to
that chief were maltreated by Kake while passing to the Desert in search of
skins. We had just come to live with the Bakwains when this happened, and
Sechele consulted me. I advised mild measures, but the
messengers he sent to Kake were taunted with the words, "He only
pretends to wish to follow the advice of the teacher: Sechele is a
coward; let him come and fight if he dare." The next time the offense
was repeated, Sechele told me he was going to hunt
elephants; and as I knew the system of espionage which prevails
among all the tribes, I never made inquiries that would convey
the opinion that I distrusted them. I gave credit to
his statement. He asked the loan of a black-metal pot to
cook with, as theirs of pottery are brittle. I gave it and a handful of
salt, and desired him
to send back two tit-bits, the proboscis
and fore-foot of the elephant. He set off, and I heard nothing more until
we saw the Bakwains carrying home their wounded, and heard some of the women
uttering the loud wail of sorrow for the dead, and others pealing forth the
clear scream of victory. It was then clear that Sechele had
attacked and driven away the rebel.
Mentioning this to the commandant in proof
of the impossibility of granting his request, I had soon an example how
quickly a story can grow among idle people. The five guns were,
within one month, multiplied into a tale of five hundred,
and the cooking-pot, now in a museum at Cape Town, was
magnified into a cannon; "I had myself confessed to the loan."
Where the five hundred guns came from, it was easy to divine; for, knowing that I
used a sextant, my connection with government was a thing
of course; and, as I must know all her majesty's counsels, I was
questioindistincpe. "What right has your government to set up
that large glass at the Cape to look after us behind the Cashan
Mountains?"
Many of the Boers visited us afterward at
Kolobeng, some for medical advice, and others to trade in those very articles
which their own laws and policy forbid. When I happened to
stumble upon any of them in the town, with his muskets and powder displayed, he
would begin an apology, on the ground that he was a poor man,
etc., which I always cut short by frankly saying that I had nothing to do
with either the Boers or their laws. Many attempts were made during these
visits to elicit the truth about the guns and cannon; and ignorant of the
system of espionage which prevails, eager inquiries were made by them among
those who could jabber a little Dutch. It is noticeable that the system of
espionage is as well developed among the savage tribes as in Austria or
Russia. It is a proof of barbarism. Every man in a tribe feels himself bound
to tell the chief every thing that comes to his knowledge,
and, when questioned by a stranger, either gives answers which exhibit the
utmost stupidity, or such as he knows will be agreeable to his chief. I believe
that in this way have arisen tales of their inability to
count more than ten, as was asserted of the Bechuanas about the
very time when Sechele's father counted out one thousand head of cattle as
a beginning of the stock of his young son.
In the present case, Sechele, knowing
every question put to his people, asked me how they ought to answer. My
reply was, "Tell the truth." Every one then declared that no cannon
existed there; and our friends, judging the answer by what they themselves
would in the circumstances have said, were confirmed in the opinion
that the Bakwains actually possessed artillery. This was in some
degree beneficial to us, inasmuch as fear prevented any foray in
our direction for eight years. During that time no winter passed without
one or two tribes in the East country being plundered of
both cattle and children by the Boers. The plan pursued is the following: one or
two friendly tribes are forced to accompany a party of mounted
Boers, and these expeditions can be got up only in the winter, when
horses may be used without danger of being lost by disease.
When they reach the tribe to be attacked, the friendly natives are
ranged in front, to form, as they say, "a shield"; the
Boers then coolly fire over their heads till the devoted people flee and leave
cattle, wives, and children to the captors. This was done in nine
cases during my residence in the interior, and on no occasion was a
drop of Boer's blood shed.
News of these deeds spread quickly among
the Bakwains, and letters were repeatedly sent by the Boers to
Sechele, ordering him to come and surrender himself as their
vassal, and stop English traders from proceeding into the country with
fire-arms for sale. But the discovery of Lake Ngami, hereafter
to be described, made the traders come in five-fold greater
numbers, and Sechele replied, "I was made an independent chief and
placed here by God, and not by you. I was never conquered by Mosilikatze, as
those tribes whom you rule over; and the English are my friends. I get
every thing I wish from them. I can not hinder them from going where
they like." Those who are old enough to remember the threatened invasion of our
own island may understand the effect which the constant danger of a
Boerish invasion had on the minds of the Bakwains; but no
others can conceive how worrying were the messages and threats from the
endless self-constituted authorities of the Magaliesberg Boers; and when to all
this harassing annoyance was added the scarcity produced by the
drought, we could not wonder at, though we felt sorry for, their
indisposition to receive instruction. The myth of the black pot assumed serious
proportions. I attempted to benefit the tribes among
the Boers of Magaliesberg by placing native teachers at different
points. "You must teach the blacks," said Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter, the
commandant in chief, "that they are not equal to us." Other
Boers told me, "I might as well teach the baboons on the
rocks as the Africans," but declined the test which I proposed,
namely, to examine whether they or my native attendants could read
best. Two of their clergymen came to baptize the children of the Boers;
so, supposing these good men would assist me in overcoming the
repugnance of their flock to the education of the blacks, I called
on them; but my visit ended in a `ruse' practiced by the Boerish
commandant, whereby I was led, by professions of the greatest friendship,
to retire to Kolobeng, while a letter passed me by another way to
the other missionaries in the south, demanding my instant recall
"for lending a cannon to their enemies." The colonial
government was also gravely informed that the story was true, and I came to be
looked upon as a most suspicious character in
consequence.
These notices of the Boers are not
intended to produce a sneer at their ignorance, but to excite the
compassion of their friends. They are perpetually talking about their
laws; but practically theirs is only the law of the strongest.
The Bechuanas could never understand the changes which took place in their
commandants. "Why, one can never know who is the chief among these Boers. Like
the Bushmen, they have no king -- they must be the Bushmen of the English."
The idea that any tribe of men could be so senseless as not to have an
hereditary chief was so absurd to these people, that, in
order not to appear equally stupid, I was obliged to tell them that we English
were so anxious to preserve the royal blood, that we had
made a young lady our chief. This seemed to them a most convincing
proof of our sound sense. We shall see farther on the confidence my
account of our queen inspired. The Boers, encouraged by the accession of
Mr. Pretorius, determined at last to put a stop to
English traders going past Kolobeng, by dispersing the tribe of Bakwains, and
expelling all the missionaries. Sir George Cathcart proclaimed the
independence of the Boers, the best thing that could have been done had they been
between us and the Caffres.
A treaty was entered into with these
Boers; an article for the free passage of Englishmen to the
country beyond, and also another, that no slavery should be allowed in the
independent territory, were duly inserted, as expressive of the
views of her majesty's government at home. "But what about the
missionaries?" inquired the Boers. "YOU MAY DO AS YOU PLEASE WITH THEM," is
said to have been the answer of the "Commissioner". This
remark, if uttered at all, was probably made in joke: designing men,
however, circulated it, and caused the general belief in its accuracy which
now prevails all over the country, and doubtless led to the destruction of
three mission stations immediately after. The Boers, four
hundred in number, were sent by the late Mr. Pretorius to
attack the Bakwains in 1852. Boasting that the English had given up all
the blacks into their power, and had agreed to aid them in their
subjugation by preventing all supplies of ammunition from coming
into the Bechuana country, they assaulted the Bakwains, and, besides
killing a considerable number of adults, carried off two hundred
of our school children into slavery. The natives under Sechele defended
themselves till the approach of night enabled them to flee to the mountains; and
having in that defense killed a number of the enemy, the very first ever
slain in this country by Bechuanas, I received the credit of having taught the
tribe to kill Boers!
My house, which had stood perfectly secure
for years
under the protection of the natives, was
plundered in revenge. English gentlemen, who had come in the
footsteps of Mr. Cumming to hunt in the country beyond, and had
deposited large quantities of stores in the same keeping, and upward of eighty
head of cattle as relays for the return journeys, were robbed of
all, and, when they came back to Kolobeng, found the skeletons of the
guardians strewed all over the place. The books of a good library -- my solace
in our solitude -- were not taken away, but handfuls of the
leaves were torn out and scattered over the place. My stock of
medicines was smashed; and all our furniture and clothing carried
off and sold at public auction to pay the expenses of the foray.
I do not mention these things by way of
making a pitiful wail over my losses, nor in order to excite commiseration; for,
though I do feel sorry for the loss of lexicons, dictionaries,
&c., which had been the companions of my boyhood, yet, after
all, the plundering only set me entirely free for my expedition to the
north, and I have never since had a moment's concern for any thing I
left behind. The Boers resolved to shut up the interior, and I determined
to open the country, and we shall see who have been most
successful in resolution, they or I.
A short sketch of African housekeeping may
not prove uninteresting to the reader. The entire absence of
shops led us to make every thing we needed from the raw
materials. You want bricks to build a house, and must forthwith
proceed to the field, cut down a tree, and saw it into planks to
make the brick-moulds; the materials for doors and windows, too,
are standing in the forest; and, if you want to be respected by the
natives, a house of decent dimensions, costing an immense amount of manual labor,
must be built. The people can not assist you much; for,
though most willing to labor for wages, the Bakwains have a
curious inability to make or put things square: like all
Bechuanas, their dwellings are made round. In the case of three
large houses, erected by myself at different times, every brick and stick
had to be put square by my own right hand.
Having got the meal ground, the wife
proceeds to make it into bread; an extempore oven is often constructed by
scooping out a large hole in an anthill, and using a slab of stone
for a door. Another plan, which might be adopted by the Australians
to produce something better than their "dampers", is to make a good
fire on a level piece of ground, and, when the ground is thoroughly heated,
place the dough in a small, short-handled frying-pan, or
simply on the hot ashes; invert any sort of metal pot over it, draw
the ashes around, and then make a small fire on the top.
Dough, mixed with a little leaven
from a former baking, and allowed to stand
an hour or two in the sun, will by this process become excellent
bread. We made our own butter, a jar serving as a
churn; and our own candles by means of moulds; and soap was procured
from the ashes of the plant salsola, or from wood-ashes, which in Africa
contain so little alkaline matter that the boiling of successive leys has to be
continued for a month or six weeks before the fat is saponified. There is
not much hardship in being almost entirely dependent on ourselves;
there is something of the feeling which must have animated Alexander Selkirk
on seeing conveniences springing up before him from his own
ingenuity; and married life is all the sweeter when so many comforts
emanate directly from the thrifty striving housewife's
hands.
To some it may appear quite a romantic
mode of life; it is one of active benevolence, such as
the good may enjoy at home. Take a single day as a sample of the
whole. We rose early, because, however hot the day may have
been, the evening, night, and morning at Kolobeng were deliciously refreshing;
cool is not the word, where you have neither an increase of cold
nor heat to desire, and where you can sit out till midnight
with no fear of coughs or rheumatism. After family worship and breakfast between
six and seven, we went to keep school for all who would
attend -- men, women, and children being all invited. School over at eleven
o'clock, while the missionary's wife was occupied in domestic matters, the
missionary himself had some manual labor as a smith,
carpenter, or gardener, according to whatever was needed for
ourselves or for the people; if for the latter, they worked for us in
the garden, or at some other employment; skilled labor was thus
exchanged for the unskilled.
After dinner and an hour's rest, the wife
attended her infant-school, which the young, who were left by their
parents entirely to their own caprice, liked amazingly, and generally mustered a
hundred strong; or she varied that with a sewing-school,
having classes of girls to learn the art; this, too, was equally
well relished. During the day every operation must be superintended, and
both husband and wife must labor till the sun declines. After
sunset the husband went into the town to converse with any one willing to do so,
sometimes on general subjects, at other times on religion. On three
nights of the week, as soon as the milking of the cows was
over and it had become dark, we had a public religious service, and one
of instruction on secular subjects, aided by pictures and specimens. These
services were diversified by attending upon the sick and prescribing
for them, giving food, and otherwise assisting the
poor and wretched. We tried to gain their affections by
attending to the wants of the body. The smallest acts of friendship, an
obliging word and civil look, are, as St. Xavier thought, no despicable
part of the missionary armor. Nor ought the good opinion of the most
abject to be uncared for, when politeness may secure it. Their good
word in the aggregate forms a reputation which may be well employed in
procuring favor for the Gospel. Show kind attention to the reckless
opponents of Christianity on the bed of sickness and pain, and they
never can become your personal enemies. Here, if any
where, love begets love.
When at Kolobeng, during the droughts we
were entirely dependent on Kuruman for supplies of corn. Once we were
reduced to living on bran, to convert which into fine meal we had to
grind it three times over. We were much in want of animal food, which
seems to be a greater necessary of life there than
vegetarians would imagine. Being alone, we could not divide the
butcher-meat of a slaughtered animal with a prospect of getting a return with
regularity. Sechele had, by right of chieftainship, the breast of
every animal slaughtered either at home or abroad, and he most
obligingly sent us a liberal share during the whole period of our sojourn.
But these supplies were necessarily so irregular that we were
sometimes fain to accept a dish of locusts. These are quite a
blessing in the country, so much so that the RAIN-DOCTORS sometimes
promised to bring them by their incantations. The locusts are
strongly vegetable in taste, the flavor varying with the plants on
which they feed. There is a physiological reason why locusts and
honey should be eaten together. Some are roasted and pounded into meal,
which, eaten with a little salt, is palatable. It will keep thus for
months. Boiled, they are disagreeable; but when they are roasted I should much
prefer locusts to shrimps, though I would avoid both if possible.
In traveling we sometimes suffered
considerably from scarcity of meat, though not from absolute want of food.
This was felt more especially by my children; and the natives, to show
their sympathy, often gave them a large kind of
caterpillar, which they seemed to relish; these insects could not be unwholesome,
for the natives devoured them in large quantities themselves. Another article of which our children
partook with eagerness was a very large frog, called
"Matlametlo". [The Pyxicephalus adspersus of Dr. Smith.
Length of head and body, 5-1/2 inches; fore legs, 3 inches; hind
legs, 6 inches. Width of head posteriorly, 3 inches; of
body, 4-1/2 inches.] These enormous frogs, which, when cooked,
look like chickens, are supposed by the natives to fall down
from thunder-clouds, because after a heavy thunder-shower the
pools, which are filled and retain water a few days, become
instantly alive with this loud-croaking, pugnacious game. This phenomenon takes
place in the driest parts of the desert, and in places where, to an
ordinary observer, there is not a sign of life. Having been
once benighted in a district of the Kalahari where there
was no prospect of getting water for our cattle for a day or two, I was
surprised to hear in the fine still evening the croaking of
frogs. Walking out until I was certain that the musicians
were between me and our fire, I found that they could be merry on
nothing else but a prospect of rain.
From the Bushmen I afterward learned that
the matlametlo makes a hole at the root of certain bushes, and there
ensconces himself during the months of drought. As he
seldom emerges, a large variety of spider takes advantage of the hole, and makes its
web across the orifice. He is thus furnished with a window and
screen gratis; and no one but a Bushman would think of searching beneath a
spider's web for a frog. They completely eluded my search on the
occasion referred to; and as they rush forth into the hollows
filled by the thunder-shower when the rain is actually falling, and the
Bechuanas are cowering under their skin garments, the sudden chorus
struck up simultaneously from all sides seems to indicate a descent from the
clouds.
The presence of these matlametlo in the
desert in a time of drought was rather a disappointment, for I had
been accustomed to suppose that the note was always emitted by them
when they were chin-deep in water. Their music was always regarded in other
spots as the most pleasant sound that met the ear after crossing portions
of the thirsty desert; and I could fully appreciate the sympathy
for these animals shown by Aesop, himself an African, in his fable of the
"Boys and the Frogs". It is remarkable that attempts have not
been made to any extent to domesticate some of the noble and
useful creatures of Africa in England. The eland, which is the most magnificent
of all antelopes, would grace the parks of our nobility more
than deer. This animal, from the excellence of its flesh, would be
appropriate to our own country; and as there is also a splendid esculent
frog nearly as large as a chicken, it would no doubt tend to perpetuate the
present alliance if we made a gift of that to France.
The scavenger beetle is one of the most
useful of all insects, as it effectually answers the object
indicated by the name. Where they abound, as at Kuruman, the
villages are sweet and clean, for no sooner are animal excretions
dropped than, attracted by the scent, the scavengers are heard coming booming up
the wind. They roll away the droppings of cattle at once, in round
pieces often as large as billiard-balls; and when they reach a
place proper by its softness for the deposit of their eggs and the
safety of their young, they dig the soil out from beneath the
ball till they have quite let it down and covered it: they then lay their eggs
within the mass. While the larvae are growing, they devour
the inside of the ball before coming above ground to begin the
world for themselves. The beetles with their gigantic balls look
like Atlas with the world on his back; only they go
backward, and, with their heads down, push with the hind legs, as if a boy
should roll a snow-ball with his legs while standing on his head. As we
recommend the eland to John Bull, and the gigantic frog to France, we can
confidently recommend this beetle to the dirty Italian towns and our own
Sanitary Commissioners.
In trying to benefit the tribes living
under the Boers of the Cashan Mountains, I twice performed
a journey of about three hundred miles to the eastward of
Kolobeng. Sechele had become so obnoxious to the Boers that, though
anxious to accompany me in my journey, he dared not trust himself among them.
This did not arise from the crime of cattle-stealing; for that
crime, so common among the Caffres, was never charged against his tribe, nor,
indeed, against any Bechuana tribe. It is, in fact, unknown in the country,
except during actual warfare. His independence and love of the English
were his only faults. In my last journey there, of about two
hundred miles, on parting at the River Marikwe he gave me
two servants, "to be," as he said, "his arms to serve
me," and expressed regret that he could not come himself. "Suppose we
went north," I said, "would you come?" He then told me the story of Sebituane
having saved his life, and expatiated on the far-famed generosity
of that really great man. This was the first time I had thought of
crossing the Desert to Lake Ngami. The conduct of the Boers, who, as will be
remembered, had sent a letter designed to procure my
removal out of the country, and their well-known settled policy which
I have already described, became more fully developed on this than
on any former occasion.
When I spoke to Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter of
the danger of hindering the Gospel of Christ among these poor
savages, he became greatly excited, and called one of his followers to answer
me. He threatened to attack any tribe that might receive a native
teacher, yet he promised to use his influence to prevent those
under him from throwing obstacles in our way. I could perceive plainly that
nothing more could be done in that direction, so I commenced
collecting all the information I could about the desert, with the intention of
crossing it, if possible. Sekomi, the chief of the Bamangwato, was
acquainted with a route
which he kept carefully to himself,
because the Lake country abounded in ivory, and he drew large
quantities thence periodically at but small cost to himself.
Sechele, who valued highly every thing
European, and was always fully alive to his own interest, was
naturally anxious to get a share of that inviting field. He was
most anxious to visit Sebituane too, partly, perhaps, from a wish to show off
his new acquirements, but chiefly, I believe, from having very
exalted ideas of the benefits he would derive from the liberality of
that renowned chieftain. In age and family Sechele is the elder and
superior of Sekomi; for when the original tribe broke up into
Bamangwato, Bangwaketse, and Bakwains, the Bakwains retained the
hereditary chieftainship; so their chief, Sechele, possesses certain
advantages over Sekomi, the chief of the Bamangwato. If the two
were traveling or hunting together, Sechele would take, by right, the heads of
the game shot by Sekomi. There are several vestiges, besides, of
very ancient partitions and lordships of tribes. The elder
brother of Sechele's father, becoming blind, gave over the
chieftainship to Sechele's father. The descendants of this man pay no tribute
to Sechele, though he is the actual ruler, and
superior to the head of that family; and Sechele, while in every other respect
supreme, calls him Kosi, or Chief. The other tribes will not begin to eat the
early pumpkins of a new crop until they hear that the Bahurutse have
"bitten it", and there is a public ceremony on the occasion -- the
son of the chief being the first to taste of the new harvest.
Sechele, by my advice, sent men to Sekomi,
asking leave for me to pass along his path, accompanying the request
with the present of an ox. Sekomi's mother, who possesses great
influence over him, refused permission, because she had not been propitiated.
This produced a fresh message; and the most honorable man in the Bakwain
tribe, next to Sechele, was sent with an ox for both Sekomi and his
mother. This, too, was met by refusal. It was said, "The Matebele, the mortal
enemies of the Bechuanas, are in the direction of the lake, and,
should they kill the white man, we shall incur great blame from all his
nation." The exact position of the Lake Ngami had,
for half a century at least, been correctly pointed out by the natives,
who had visited it when rains were more copious in the Desert
than in more recent times, and many attempts had been made to reach
it by passing through the Desert in the direction indicated; but it was
found impossible, even for Griquas, who, having some Bushman
blood in them, may be supposed more capable of enduring
thirst than Europeans.
It was clear, then, that our only chance
of success was by going round, instead of through, the Desert. The best
time for the attempt would have been about the end of the rainy
season, in March or April, for then we should have been likely to
meet with pools of rain-water, which always dry up during the rainless
winter. I communicated my intention to an African traveler, Colonel Steele,
then aid-de-camp to the Marquis of Tweedale at Madras, and
he made it known to two other gentlemen, whose friendship we had
gained during their African travel, namely, Major Vardon and Mr. Oswell. All
of these gentlemen were so enamored with African hunting and
African discovery that the two former must have envied the
latter his good fortune in being able to leave India to undertake afresh the
pleasures and pains of desert life. I believe Mr. Oswell came from his high
position at a very considerable pecuniary sacrifice, and with no other end
in view but to extend the boundaries of geographical knowledge.
Before I knew of his coming, I had arranged that the payment for the
guides furnished by Sechele should be the loan of my wagon, to bring
back whatever ivory he might obtain from the chief at the lake. When, at
last, Mr. Oswell came, bringing Mr. Murray with him, he undertook
to defray the entire expenses of the guides, and
fully executed his generous intention. Sechele himself would have come with us,
but, fearing that the much-talked-of assault of the Boers
might take place during our absence, and blame be attached to me for taking him
away, I dissuaded him against it by saying that he knew Mr. Oswell "would
be as determined as himself to get through the Desert."
Before narrating the incidents of this
journey, I may give some account of the great Kalahari Desert, in order
that the reader may understand in some degree the nature of the
difficulties we had to encounter. The space from the Orange River in the
south, lat. 29 Degrees, to Lake Ngami in the north, and from about
24 Degrees east long. to near the west coast, has been called a
desert simply because it contains no running water, and very
little water in wells. It is by no means destitute of vegetation
and inhabitants, for it is covered with grass and a great
variety of creeping plants; besides which there are large patches of
bushes, and even trees. It is remarkably flat, but interesected in
different parts by the beds of ancient rivers; and
prodigious herds of certain antelopes, which require little or no water, roam
over the trackless plains. The inhabitants, Bushmen and Bakalahari,
prey on the game and on the countless rodentia and small
species of the feline race which subsist on these. In general, the
soil is light-colored soft sand, nearly pure silica. The beds of the
ancient rivers contain
much alluvial soil; and as that is baked
hard by the burning sun, rain-water stands in pools in some of them
for several months in the year. The quantity of grass which grows on this
remarkable region is astonishing, even to those who are familiar with
India. It usually rises in tufts with bare spaces between, or the intervals
are occupied by creeping plants, which, having their roots buried far
beneath the soil, feel little the effects of the scorching
sun. The number of these which have tuberous roots is very great;
and their structure is intended to supply nutriment and moisture, when,
during the long droughts, they can be obtained nowhere else. Here
we have an example of a plant, not generally tuber-bearing, becoming so
under circumstances where that appendage is necessary to act as a
reservoir for preserving its life; and the same thing occurs in Angola to a
species of grape-bearing vine, which is so furnished for the same
purpose. The plant to which I at present refer is one of the
cucurbitaceae, which bears a small, scarlet-colored, eatable cucumber.
Another plant, named Leroshua, is a blessing to the inhabitants of the
Desert. We see a small plant with linear leaves, and a stalk not
thicker than a crow's quill; on digging down a foot or eighteen inches
beneath, we come to a tuber, often as large as the head of a young
child; when the rind is removed, we find it to be a mass of cellular
tissue, filled with fluid much like that in a young turnip. Owing
to the depth beneath the soil at which it is found, it is generally
deliciously cool and refreshing. Another kind, named Mokuri, is seen in
other parts of the country, where long-continued heat parches the
soil. This plant is an herbaceous creeper, and deposits
under ground a number of tubers, some as large as a man's head, at spots in
a circle a yard or more, horizontally, from the stem. The natives
strike the ground on the circumference of the circle with
stones, till, by hearing a difference of sound, they know the
water-bearing tuber to be beneath. They then dig down a foot or so, and find
it. But the most surprising plant of the
Desert is the "Kengwe or Keme" (`Cucumis caffer'), the watermelon. In
years when more than the usual quantity of rain falls, vast tracts of the
country are literally covered with these melons; this was the case
annually when the fall of rain was greater than it is now, and the
Bakwains sent trading parties every year to the lake. It happens commonly once
every ten or eleven years, and for the last three times its
occurrence has coincided with an extraordinarily wet season. Then
animals of every sort and name, including man, rejoice in the rich
supply. The elephant, true lord of the forest, revels in this
fruit, and so do the different species of rhinoceros,
although naturally so diverse in their choice of pasture. The various
kinds of antelopes feed on them
with equal avidity, and lions, hyaenas,
jackals, and mice, all seem to know and appreciate the common
blessing. These melons are not, however, all of them eatable; some are
sweet, and others so bitter that the whole are named by the Boers the
"bitter watermelon". The natives select them by striking one
melon after another with a hatchet, and applying the tongue to the gashes.
They thus readily distinguish between the bitter and sweet. The bitter
are deleterious, but the sweet are quite wholesome. This
peculiarity of one species of plant bearing both sweet and bitter fruits
occurs also in a red, eatable cucumber, often met with in the country. It is
about four inches long, and about an inch and a half in diameter.
It is of a bright scarlet color when ripe. Many are bitter, others quite
sweet. Even melons in a garden may be made bitter by a few bitter kengwe
in the vicinity. The bees convey the pollen from one to the
other.
The human inhabitants of this tract of
country consist of Bushmen and Bakalahari. The former are
probably the aborigines of the southern portion of the continent,
the latter the remnants of the first emigration of Bechuanas. The
Bushmen live in the Desert from choice, the Bakalahari from
compulsion, and both possess an intense love of liberty. The Bushmen
are exceptions in language, race, habits, and appearance. They are the only
real nomads in the country; they never cultivate the soil, nor rear
any domestic animal save wretched dogs. They are so
intimately acquainted with the habits of the game that they
follow them in their migrations, and prey upon them from place to place,
and thus prove as complete a check upon their inordinate
increase as the other carnivora. The chief subsistence of the Bushmen is
the flesh of game, but that is eked out by what the women
collect of roots and beans, and fruits of the Desert. Those who
inhabit the hot sandy plains of the Desert possess generally
thin, wiry forms, capable of great exertion and of severe
privations. Many are of low stature, though not dwarfish; the specimens brought
to Europe have been selected, like costermongers' dogs, on account of
their extreme ugliness; consequently, English ideas of the whole
tribe are formed in the same way as if the ugliest specimens of the English
were exhibited in Africa as characteristic of the entire British
nation. That they are like baboons is in some degree true, just as these and
other simiae are in some points frightfully human.
The Bakalahari are traditionally reported
to be the oldest of the Bechuana tribes, and they are said
to have possessed enormous herds of the large horned cattle
mentioned by Bruce, until they were despoiled of them and
driven into the Desert by a fresh migration of their own nation.
Living ever since
on the same plains with the Bushmen,
subjected to the same influences of climate, enduring the same
thirst, and subsisting on similar food for centuries, they seem
to supply a standing proof that locality is not always sufficient of
itself to account for difference in races. The Bakalahari
retain in undying vigor the Bechuana love for agriculture and
domestic animals. They hoe their gardens annually, though
often all they can hope for is a supply of melons and pumpkins. And
they carefully rear small herds of goats, though I have seen
them lift water for them out of small wells with a bit of ostrich
egg-shell, or by spoonfuls. They generally attach themselves to
influential men in the different Bechuana tribes living
adjacent to their desert home, in order to obtain supplies of spears,
knives, tobacco, and dogs, in exchange for the skins of the animals they may
kill. These are small carnivora of the feline species, including two species
of jackal, the dark and the golden; the former, "motlose" (`Megalotis
capensis' or `Cape fennec'), has the warmest fur the country yields;
the latter, "pukuye" (`Canis mesomelas' and `C.
aureus'), is very handsome when made into the skin mantle called
kaross. Next in value follow the "tsipa" or small ocelot (`Felis
nigripes'), the "tuane" or lynx, the wild cat, the
spotted cat, and other small animals. Great numbers of `puti' (`duiker') and
`puruhuru' (`steinbuck') skins are got too, besides those of lions,
leopards, panthers, and hyaenas. During the time I was in the
Bechuana country, between twenty and thirty thousand skins
were made up into karosses; part of them were worn by the inhabitants,
and part sold to traders: many, I believe, find their way to China.
The Bakwains bought tobacco from the eastern tribes, then purchased
skins with it from the Bakalahari, tanned them, and sewed them into karosses,
then went south to purchase heifer-calves with them, cows being the
highest form of riches known, as I have often noticed from their asking
"if Queen Victoria had many cows."
The compact they enter into is mutually
beneficial, but injustice and wrong are often perpetrated by one tribe of
Bechuanas going among the Bakalahari of another tribe, and
compelling them to deliver up the skins which they may be keeping for their
friends. They are a timid race, and in bodily development often resemble
the aborigines of Australia. They have thin legs and arms, and large,
protruding abdomens, caused by the coarse, indigestible food
they eat. Their children's eyes lack lustre. I never saw them at play. A
few Bechuanas may go into a village of Bakalahari, and domineer over
the whole with impunity; but when these same adventurers meet the
Bushmen, they are fain to change their manners to fawning
sycophancy; they know that, if the request for tobacco is refused,
these free sons of the Desert may settle the point as to its possession
by a poisoned arrow.
The dread of visits from Bechuanas of
strange tribes causes the Bakalahari to choose their residences far from water;
and they not unfrequently hide their supplies by filling the pits
with sand and making a fire over the spot. When they wish to draw
water for use, the women come with twenty or thirty of their
water-vessels in a bag or net on their backs. These water-vessels consist of ostrich
egg-shells, with a hole in the end of each, such as would admit
one's finger. The women tie a bunch of grass to one end
of a reed about two feet long, and insert it in a hole dug as deep as the
arm will reach; then ram down the wet sand firmly round
it. Applying the mouth to the free end of the reed, they form a
vacuum in the grass beneath, in which the water collects, and in a
short time rises into the mouth. An egg-shell is placed on the ground
alongside the reed, some inches below the mouth of the sucker.
A straw guides the water into the hole of the vessel, as she draws
mouthful after mouthful from below. The water is made to pass along the
outside, not through the straw. If any one will attempt to squirt water
into a bottle placed some distance below his mouth, he
will soon perceive the wisdom of the Bushwoman's contrivance
for giving the stream direction by means of a straw. The whole stock of
water is thus passed through the woman's mouth as a pump, and,
when taken home, is carefully buried. I have come into
villages where, had we acted a domineering part, and rummaged every
hut, we should have found nothing; but by sitting down quietly, and waiting
with patience until the villagers were led to form a
favorable opinion of us, a woman would bring out a shellful of the
precious fluid from I know not where.
The so-called Desert, it may be observed,
is by no means a useless tract of country. Besides
supporting multitudes of both small and large animals, it sends
something to the market of the world, and has proved a refuge to many a fugitive
tribe -- to the Bakalahari first, and to the other Bechuanas in turn -- as
their lands were overrun by the tribe of true Caffres, called
Matebele. The Bakwains, the Bangwaketze, and the Bamangwato all fled thither; and
the Matebele marauders, who came from the well-watered east,
perished by hundreds in their attempts to follow them. One of
the Bangwaketze chiefs, more wily than the rest, sent false guides
to lead them on a track where, for hundreds of miles, not a drop of water
could be found, and they perished in consequence. Many
Bakwains perished too. Their old men, who could have told us
ancient stories, perished in these flights. An intelligent
Mokwain related to me how the Bushmen effectually balked a party
of his tribe which lighted on their village in a state
of burning thirst. Believing, as he said, that nothing human
could subsist without water,
they demanded some, but were coolly told by
these Bushmen that they had none, and never drank any. Expecting to find them
out, they resolved to watch them night and day. They persevered for some
days, thinking that at last the water must come forth; but,
notwithstanding their watchfulness, kept alive by most tormenting thirst, the
Bakwains were compelled to exclaim, "Yak! yak! these are not men; let us go."
Probably the Bushmen had been subsisting on a store hidden under
ground, which had eluded the vigilance of their visitors.
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