Seven Years in South Africa/Volume 2/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV.
FROM SHOSHONG TO THE DIAMOND FIELDS.
RETURN TO THE DIAMOND FIELDS.
Not only did my kind friend Mr. Mackenzie give me a hearty welcome, but he insisted upon my becoming his guest for as long a time as he remained in Shoshong. I am sure that his hospitality, and that which I subsequently received from Mr. Jensen, did more than anything else towards re-establishing my shattered health. I remember that the first time I again tasted proper bread I felt as happy as a king.
On the very day of my arrival I went with Westbeech to visit Khame. To Westbeech’s surprise the king immediately began to interrogate him about Z.; he had heard that he had been travelling with us, and we were forced to acknowledge that he had only left us early that morning. Khame lost no time in sending out a body of armed men to capture him; and when they returned in the evening unsuccessful, he despatched a troop of horsemen with orders to search the whole district as far as the Khame Saltpan.
The men brought in their prisoner in the morning; they had been attracted by the glimmer of a fire in the bushveldt, and alighting from their horses, they had laid their hands upon Z. before he had time to make use of his revolver. He professed to be extremely indignant at his arrest; but the king upbraided him severely for his violation of his orders, and sentenced him to pay a fine of 100l. It was in vain for Z. to protest, and to assert that he had not the means to raise such a sum. Khame replied that he was quite aware that Westbeech had not yet paid him for the team and the waggon that he had bought of him, and that he should hand over the money to himself instead.
At the same sitting Khame publicly fined two traders’ agents 10l. apiece for having been found tipsy outside their quarters on the outskirts of the town, telling them that if they were determined to drink, they must confine themselves to their own houses or their own waggons; he for his part was quite resolved that they should not make an exhibition of themselves before his subjects.
The Matabele who had come with us were the bearers of a letter from Lo Bengula, inviting Khame to co-operate with the President of the Transvaal Republic in preventing the advance of the Damara emigrants.
My late travelling-companions only stayed at Shoshong two or three days, and then started for the south, leaving me with Mr. Mackenzie. Before his departure, Westbeech cleared out the ivory from a waggon of which he was not in immediate want, and placed the vehicle at my disposal. On the 25th and 26th I was feeling considerably better, and found much amusement in inspecting all the collections I had made. There was a Captain G. staying in the place, on his way back from a hunting-tour on the Limpopo, who expressed himself highly delighted with what I showed him. In the evening I wrote my journal, except when Mr. Mackenzie kept me in conversation, and supplied me with additional particulars about the Bamangwatos. It was a great satisfaction to me to find that I could now converse with Khame in Sechuana, without the aid of an interpreter.
Three weeks passed away without anything transpiring particularly to record, until the 13th of May, when the native postman brought the news that war had broken out in the Transvaal between the Boers and Sekokuni. During my leisure time I undertook, at Khame’s request, to prescribe for some of his people who were ill; Mr. Mackenzie  | ||
| VOL. II. | KORANNA HOMESTEAD NEAR MAMUSA. | Page 420. |
Almost daily at this time we received accounts of the atrocities that were being committed by the Bakuenas and Bakhatlas, the two rival tribes that were at war upon Sechele’s territory. Towards the end of the month the girls’ boguera was commenced at Shoshong, but Khame assured me it was for the last time.
At the beginning of June Mr. Mackenzie began to prepare for his move to Kuruman, whither he had been summoned to found a large training-college. I did what I could to assist him in his packing, but I was still so weak that I could not be of much service; indeed, during the hot weather I was so exhausted by visiting my patients, that I was obliged to ask the king to allow me the use of a horse.
We heard here that Matsheng and some other Bechuana chiefs had settled upon the right bank of the Limpopo without recognizing the authority of the Transvaal Republic, so that the Limpopo could hardly now be said to be the actual northern boundary of the country; and on the 15th we received the further intelligence that the Bakhatlas had been worsted in their attack upon Molopolole, the Bakuena capital, having been unable to make a stand against their opponents’ breech-loaders.
It was on the 17th that we started from Shoshong with a caravan of seven waggons. Besides Mr. Mackenzie and myself, there were Mr. Mackenzie’s colleague, Mr. Hepburn, and Mr. Thompson and Mr. Helm, the two missionaries from Matabele-land, who were going to attend a conference at Molopolole.
At Khame’s Saltpan we were honoured by a fare-well visit from the king himself, who said he could not resist coming once more to shake hands with Mr. Mackenzie, the friend to whom he owed so much. When he arrived he found several waggons belonging to a trader who asked permission to pass through his country, but recognizing him as a man who had been disposing of some brandy to his people about a year ago, he peremptorily refused to comply with his request, and sent him back immediately to the south.
The deficiency of water made our journey to the Limpopo extremely toilsome. Instead of crossing the Sirorume as usual, we made a circuit to avoid the arid and sandy woods upon its bank. We halted at the mouth of the Notuany for three days, and whilst there I made the acquaintance of Captain Grandy, the African explorer, then on his way to Matabele-land. He died some time afterwards of fever.
The track that we followed up the Limpopo valley bore every indication of not having been used for years; it was painfully bad, being everywhere either blockaded by stones or covered with deep sand. On the 1st of July we halted, and stayed the next day as well, at one of the pools on the Notuany, that I have elsewhere described as being fed by springs as well as by the overflow of the river, and consequently contain water long after the stream itself is dry. This pool was about 150 yards long, and about twenty yards wide, and full of fish.
One of the wheels of the waggon in which Mr. Mackenzie was travelling having broken, we had to wait while Mr. Hepburn went forward to Mochuri, the next town on our route, belonging to the western Bakhatlas, to procure a new one from the traders there. The damage being made good, we all proceeded to Mochuri, where we learnt the full particulars of the late engagement—the remnant of the Bakhatla defeated force having returned there on the preceding day. They had succeeded so far as to approach Molopolole unawares. They had killed sixteen Kalahari herdsmen, and had made themselves masters of all their cattle. They had defied all the efforts of the residents to recover their herds, and it was only at last, when they found themselves face to face with the breech-loaders which the Bakuenas had procured from the traders, that they were obliged to retreat and abandon their booty. Ten of them had fallen on the spot; four of the wounded had made their way home; but numbers of them, in spite of Sechele, the Bakuena king, being a Christian, were overtaken and massacred according to the custom of the tribe. They had, they avowed, been goaded on to make their attack because the Bakuenas had pillaged their cattle-stations, and cut off the hands and feet of many of the women.
Formerly the Bakhatlas had resided in the Transvaal; but after the occupation of the Boers, most of them left, and settled under two separate chiefs in Sechele’s territory, becoming known respectively as the eastern and western Bakhatlas. Sechele had now demanded the same tribute from them as he exacted from the Makhosi and the Batlokas, and it was their refusal to pay this that had brought them into their present contention.
MISSION HOUSE IN MOLOPOLOLE.
Mochuri struck me as one of the cleanest Bechuana towns that I ever saw. It is situated in a depression between two hills, being surrounded bya high thorn-fence, and having all the enclosures about its farmsteads well cemented and neatly preserved. Until 1876 the Bakhatlas were the only central Bechuana tribe that cultivated tobacco and used it as an article of commerce. Besides being agriculturists, they spend a good deal of their time in tanning leather. Nearly all of them speak Dutch.
Here I had to part with Mr. Mackenzie and the other missionaries. It was with a heavy heart that I said good-bye. They had to turn off for about thirty miles to the east to go to Mololopole; I had to continue my way south towards Chwene-Chwene. As a farewell kindness, Mr. Mackenzie induced the chief to let me have a couple of young lions.
After leaving the valley of the Notuany I had to cross a wide plain, where the soil was salt, and consequently the growth of grass was very scanty. I did not stay longer than was absolutely necessary at Chwene-Chwene, as it was suffering so much from drought that holes thirty feet deep had to be dug in the rocky beds of the spruits before any water could be obtained. While we were halting next upon the northern slope of the Dwars Mountains, we incautiously allowed my two little lions to make their escape. It took us two hours to catch them; nor could we put them back into their cage again without getting our hands scratched and bitten considerably.
Instead of proceeding south-west from Brackfontein through Buisport, I turned due south across the bushveldt to Linokana, noticing on the way that the little Morupa stream quite lost itself in the shallow depressions of its bed, so that it is only after heavy rain that it makes its way over the grass plains to the Great Marico.
Mr. Jensen welcomed me most cordially when I arrived at Linokana on the 8th. I was also highly delighted to have a visit from my old friend Eberwald, who had come all the way from the Leydenburg gold-fields on purpose to see me. He was of great assistance to me while I remained in the place, and proceeded with me on my way south. He did his best to acknowledge the hospitality that he received from Mr. Jensen by working for him in his garden.
Moilo, the chief, was dead, and had been succeeded by his nephew, who came from Moshaneng. His name was Kopani. He was a Baharutse chief, subordinate to the Transvaal government. The war was still going on in the east, the whites decidedly getting the worst of it. In the Marico district, as elsewhere, there had been a conscription of men, cattle, and waggons, much to the dissatisfaction of the agriculturists.
I had a roomy cage made for my two lions, but unfortunately just as it was finished the female died.
Mr. Mackenzie joined me again unexpectedly on the 5th of August. He was on his way to Kuruman, and was accompanied by Mr. Wilhams, who had come from Molopolole to consult me about his health. Next day I paid my four servants—To, Narri, Burilli, and Chukuru—their wages, telling them they might now go back to the Zambesi; and in the prospect of again securing their services, I gave them something more than was really their due. As two of them were Matongas, I had taken the opportunity, while they were with me, of turning my slight knowledge of the Senansa and Sesuto-Serotse dialects to account, to acquire something of the Setonga.
Mr. Wehrmann, a missionary who resided amongst the eastern Bakhatlas, informed me that their town Melorane was a few miles to the west of the Great Marico. The chief of the western Bakhatlas was a son of Rhamananis, named Linsh.
In order to get sufficient money to carry me back to the diamond fields I had to resort to medical practice. Amongst my patients was a trader, who had been thrown out of a waggon through West-beech’s bad driving, and had been a good deal hurt. Another patient was the Dutch minister, De Vries, and by curing him I made a number of friends in the neighbourhood, where he was much beloved.
About this time I received a very courteous answer from Lord Derby in reply to the letter which I had sent him from Shoshong. A few days after-wards I took my departure from Linokana; and choosing the nearest route to Mamusa, went past Oisthuizen’s Farm, and along the southern portion of the west frontier of the Marico district. The stony condition of the road made the whole journey very toilsome.
Whilst rambling about in the neighbourhood of Dornplace Farm on the Molapo, I came to a rocky lake, named Joubert’s Lake, after the owner of the farm. It is probably the smallest of all the lakes in South Africa, and lies in a deep hollow, about a hundred yards long by fifty yards wide; less than twenty yards from the shore it was 800 feet deep, and the farmer informed me that in the rainy season the water rose some four or five feet higher than it was when I saw it; he likewise expressed his belief that the lake was in communication with the Molapo, which flows at no great distance, and on a lower level. I formed an opinion that the lower rocks are of hard grey limestone, and that at the bottom there are caves and grottoes by which the lake is fed. The shores, which were both steep and rocky, were all alive with large bright-brown rock-rabbits, rock-pigeons, and starlings, as well as with innumerable bees. Mr. Joubert related to me some interesting hunting-adventures, and gave graphic descriptions of three very exciting lion-hunts. In former times lions, especially of the maneless breed, seem to have been very numerous on the Molapo. In common with other farmers, Mr. Joubert expressed great dissatisfaction with the Transvaal Republic. He held the post of field-cornet, and tried to induce me to employ any influence I might have in urging the British Government to annex the Molapo valley. The complaints of the way in which justice was administered were very bitter; the farmers murmuring, moreover, that after the Republic had conceded to them the purchase of farms and land, it was impotent to protect them from the Barolongs, to whom the territory by ancient right belonged.
Starting off again on the 30th, I was not long in reaching Rietvley Farms, where several families resided, but I made no stay, leaving again the same afternoon for Poolfontein. This was formerly a farm, but is now a settlement of Barolongs, who migrated from the neighbourhood of Potchefstroom under their chief Matlabe, and are industrious agriculturists. Mr. Hansen was here working very hard on behalf of the Hermannsburg Mission, but the majority of the population were Wesleyans. A spring that I saw in the neighbourhood was issuing from one of the deep cavities in the hard limestone, and at no great distance from this I noticed a small rock-pool, on the surface of which was a little floating island of grass.
Hence to the Harts River, which we crossed about a day’s journey from Mamusa, our way led over the Quagga Flats. The grass was low and the soil dry, consequently the game, which is generally very abundant, had retreated to moister and better concealed districts. I found the underwood very dense in the shallow valley at the source of the Maretsane.
Water-birds were plentiful at a saltpan at which I arrived on the 1st of November, but unfortunately at this date I had so many indications of a return of fever, that neither here nor at the Calvert or Helmore lakes, was I in a condition to enjoy any sport.
Continuing my journey three days later, I paid a visit to the Harm Saltlake, where some Boers contrive to make a miserable livelihood by hunting and by selling salt.
The Mackenzie and the Livingstone saltpans lay in the next day’s route, and after a drive of some hours over marshy soil, we came to a pond encircled by tall sedge, in the middle of which there seemed to be a rock-pool; as far as I know, it is the only one of the kind on the plain between the Harts and Molapo. As we approached we were almost deafened by the chorus of bird-cries that rose from its banks. We put up for the night in two deserted huts that had belonged to some Dutch hunters, who had left the tokens of their calling behind them in a great accumulation of the bones of the gnus and antelopes they had killed. I was sorry that there was no boat at hand in which I could make an investigation of the bottom of the pond. Besides the numerous swamp-birds and water-fowl, there was a great variety of finches in the sedge; and before night closed in, it was a remarkable sight to see the thousands of swallows that came back from their day’s flight across the boundless plains.
NIGHT JOURNEY.
Crossing the Harts River on the 9th, we found it so swollen by the rain that the transit was somewhat dangerous, but we arrived safely at Mamusa on the next day, and at Houmansvley on the day after. Mr. Houman, the resident proprietor, gave me a courteous welcome, and I stayed with him until the 14th, when I continued my way south, till I came to Hallwater Farm, where there were a good many Korannas.
The nearer I approached the diamond-fields, the more disheartened and out of spirits I felt. I had not 2l. in my possession, and I owed Mr. Jensen 120l., a sum considerably more than I could realize by the sale of my waggon and team, which would fetch much less here than they would if I could have sold them in the Transvaal.
While I was in Christiana I was pleased to make the acquaintance of a trader named Sanders, who had been travelling in the tropical parts of the west coast.
On my way down the Vaal valley I had another attack of fever, which came on so violently, that when I arrived at Kimberley on the 26th, I was thoroughly ill.