Tales of South Africa Part 5

Getting Jacobus to lead his horse quietly after him, Horace wandered hither and thither among the gra.s.s and flowers, every now and again sweeping up some b.u.t.terfly that took his fancy. Suddenly, as he opened his net to secure a new capture, he uttered an exclamation of intense surprise. "By all that's entomological!" he cried, looking up with a comical expression at the stolid and uninterested Hottentot boy, "I've done it, I've done it! I've hit upon the old Professor's new b.u.t.terfly!"

No man could well be more pleased with himself than Horace Maybold at that moment. In ten minutes he had within his box seven or eight more specimens, for the b.u.t.terfly--the wonderful, the undiscoverable _Achraea Parch.e.l.li_--seemed to be fairly plentiful.

"How far are we off Mr Gunton's place now, Jacobus?" asked Horace.

"Nie, var, nie, Baas," (Not so far, master), replied the boy in his Dutch _patois_. "'Bout one mile, I tink. See, dar kom another Baas!"

Horace shaded his eyes and looked. About one hundred and fifty yards off there appeared above the tall gra.s.s a curious figure, remarkable for a huge white helmet, loose light coat, and pink face and blue spectacles. A green b.u.t.terfly net was borne upon the figure's shoulder.

Horace knew in a moment whose was that quaint figure. He gave a soft whistle to himself. It was the Professor.

The old gentleman came straight on, and, presently, seeing, within fifty yards, strange people before him, walked up. He stood face to face with Horace Maybold, amazed, aghast, and finally very angry.

"Good-morning, Professor," said that young man. "I'm afraid I've stumbled by a sheer accident on your hunting-ground. I am staying with an old schoolfellow thirty miles away, and rode in this direction. I had no idea you were here."

The Professor was a sight to behold. Red as an enraged turkey-c.o.c.k, streaming with perspiration--for it was a hot afternoon--almost speechless with indignation, he at last blurted into tongue: "So, sir, this is what you have been doing--stealing a march upon me; following me up secretly; defrauding me of the prizes of my own labour and research.

I could not have believed it of any member of the Society. The thing is more than unhandsome. It is monstrous! an utterly monstrous proceeding!"

Horace attempted to explain matters again. It was useless; he might as well have argued with a buffalo bull at that moment.

"Mr Maybold," retorted the Professor, "the coincidence of your staying in the very locality in which my discovery was made, coupled with the fact that you endeavoured, at the last meeting of the Entomological Society, to extract from me the habitat of this new species, is quite too impossible. I have nothing more to say, for the present." And the irate old gentleman pa.s.sed on.

Horace felt excessively vexed. Yet he had done no wrong. Perhaps when the old gentleman had come to his senses he would listen to reason.

Jacobus now led the way to the farmhouse. It lay only a mile away, and they presently rode up towards the _stoep_. Two ladies were sitting under the shade of the ample thatched veranda--one was painting, the other reading. Horace could scarcely believe his eyes as he approached.

These were his two fellow-pa.s.sengers of the _Norham Castle_, Mrs Stacer and Rose Vanning, the latter looking, if possible, more charming than ever. The ladies recognised him in their turn, and rose with a little flutter. Horace jumped from his horse and shook hands with some warmth.

"Who on earth," he said, "could have expected to meet you in these wilds? I _am_ astonished--and delighted," he added, with a glance at Rose.

Explanations ensued. It seemed that the ladies were the sister and step-daughter of the Professor, who was a widower. They had been engaged by him in a mild conspiracy not to reveal his whereabouts, so fearful was he of his precious b.u.t.terfly's habitat being made known to the world; and so, all through the voyage, no mention had been made even of his name. It was his particular whim and request, and here was the mystery at an end. The Professor had moved from the farmhouse in which he had lodged the year before, and had secured quarters in Mr Gunton's roomy, comfortable ranch, where the ladies had joined him.

Horace, who had inwardly chafed at this unexpected turn, had now to explain his awkward rencontre with the Professor. To his great relief, Mrs Stacer and Rose took it much more philosophically than he could have hoped; indeed, they seemed rather amused than otherwise.

"But," said Horace with a rueful face, "the Professor's in a frantic rage with me. You don't quite realise that he absolutely discredits my story, and believes I have been playing the spy all along. And upon the top of all this I have a letter to Mr Gunton, and must sleep here somehow for the night. There's no other accommodation within twenty miles. Why, when the Professor comes back and finds me here, he'll go out of his mind!"

Here Mrs Stacer, good woman that she was, volunteered to put matters straight, for the night at all events. She at once saw Mr Gunton, and explained the _impa.s.se_ to him; and Horace was comfortably installed, away from the Professor's room, in the farmer's own quarters.

"Leave my brother to me," said Mrs Stacer, as she left Horace. "I daresay matters will come right."

At ten o'clock Mrs Stacer came to the door. Mr Gunton rose and went out as she entered. "H's.h.!.+" she said with mock-mystery as she addressed Horace. "I think," she went on, with a comical little smile, "the Professor begins to think he has done you an injustice. He is amazed at our knowing you, and we have attacked him all the evening, and he is visibly relenting."

"Mrs Stacer," said Horace warmly, "I can't thank you sufficiently.

I've had an inspiration since I saw you. I, too, have discovered, not far from here, a rather good new b.u.t.terfly--a species. .h.i.therto unknown.

Can't I make amends, by sharing my discovery with the Professor? I've got specimens here in my box, and there are plenty in a kloof fifteen miles away."

"Why, of course," answered Mrs Stacer. "It's the very thing. Your new b.u.t.terfly will turn the scale I'll go and tell my brother you have a matter of importance to communicate, and wish to make further explanations. Wait a moment."

In three minutes she returned. "I think it will be all right," she whispered. "Go and see him. Straight through the pa.s.sage you will find a door open, on the right. I'll wait here."

Horace went forward and came to the half-open door. The Professor, who had changed his loose, yellow, alpaca coat for a black one of the same material, sat by a reading-lamp. He wore now his gold-rimmed spectacles, in lieu of the blue "goggles." He looked clean, and pink, and comfortable, though a trifle severe--the pa.s.sion of the afternoon had vanished from his face. Horace spoke the first word. "I have again to reiterate Professor, how vexed I am to have disturbed your collecting-ground. I had not the smallest intention of doing it.

Indeed, my plans lay farther north. It was the pure accident of meeting my old school-friend, Marley, that led me here. In order to convince you of my sincere regret, I have here a new b.u.t.terfly--evidently a scarce and unknown _Eurema_--which I discovered a few days since, near here. My discovery is at your service. Here is the b.u.t.terfly. I trust you will consider it some slight set-off for the vexation I have unwittingly given you."

At sight of the b.u.t.terfly, which Horace took from his box, the Professor's eyes gleamed with interest. He took the insect, looked at it very carefully, then returned it.

"Mr Maybold," he said, rising and holding out his hand, "I believe I did you an injustice this afternoon. I lost my temper, and I regret it.

I understand from my sister and daughter that they are acquainted with you, and that they were fully aware of your original intention to travel to the Orange River. Your offer of the new b.u.t.terfly, which is, as you observe, a new and rare species, is very handsome, and I cry quits. I trust I may have the pleasure of seeing you to-morrow at breakfast, and accompanying you to the habitat of your very interesting and remarkable discovery."

Before breakfast next morning there was a very pleasant and even tender meeting between Horace Maybold and Rose Vanning; and, when Mrs Stacer joined them, there was a merry laugh over the adventures of yesterday.

After breakfast--they all sat down together, the Professor in his most genial mood--Horace and the old gentleman at once set off for the kloof where the new _Eurema_ was discovered. They returned late in the evening; the Professor had captured a number of specimens, and although fatigued, was triumphantly happy. Horace stayed a week with them after this, with the natural result that at the end of that time he and Rose Vanning were engaged, with the Professor's entire consent. The new b.u.t.terfly--which, partly out of compliment to Rose, partly from its own peculiar colouring, was unanimously christened _Eurema Rosa_--was exhibited by Horace and the Professor jointly and with great _eclat_ at an early meeting of the Entomological Society.

Horace and Rose's marriage is a very happy one. And, as they both laughingly agree--for the old gentleman often reminds them of the fact-- they may thank the Professor's b.u.t.terfly (the famous _Achraea Parch.e.l.li_) for the lucky chance that first threw them together.

CHAPTER FIVE.

A BOER PASTORAL.

It is dim early morning, and upon the vast plains of Great Bushmanland, in the far north-west of Cape Colony, the air blows fresh and chill, though the land is Africa, and the time summer. At 4:15 precisely the bright morning star shoots above the horizon, and rises steadily upward in a straight, rocket-like ascent.

Now a ruddy colouring tinges the pale grey of the eastern sky, to be followed by broad rays in delicate blues and greens that strike boldly for the zenith. The changes of dawn in Africa are swift and very subtle. Presently these colours fade, and a pale, subdued light rests upon the earth; the air is full of a clear but cold brightness. Soon follows the full red-orange, that so gorgeously paints the eastern horizon, and closely foreruns the sun; and then suddenly the huge burning disc itself is thrust upon the sky-line, and it is, in South African parlance, "sun up."

The plains here stretch in illimitable expanse to the horizon. Far to the west is a range of mountain, forty good miles away, which, in the clear morning air, stands out as sharply as if but a dozen miles distant. You may see the dark lines and patches of the time-worn seams and krantzes that scar its sides. This translucency of atmosphere is very common in Southern Africa.

The rains have lately fallen, and everywhere around the dry plains have started at the breath of moisture into a splendid, if short-lived, beauty. Miles upon miles of flats, all glowing and ablaze with purple and a rich, flame-like red, are spread around. The wonderful _Composites_ are in flower, and the barren, desert-like flats are for a few brief weeks transformed into a carpet of the n.o.blest colouring and pattern. Look closely, and you may see the bleached and blackened limbs of former growths of low shrub, which stand amid the gallant blaze-- gaunt reminders of the transitory existence of African flower life.

Near at hand lies a vlei, a shallow temporary lake recruited by the recent rains. At the end of this vlei, farthest removed from the group of wagons outspanned there, is gathered at this early hour a notable display of bird life. Duck, geese, widgeon, and teal are there, cackling and crying in a joyous plenty. Stints and sandpipers whirl hither and thither, and graceful black-and-white avocets, with their singular, upturned, slender bills, and long, red-legged stilt-plovers, haunt the shallows. Upon the plain some small birds have been afoot some time. You may see and hear the lively, inquisitive Jan Fredric thrush, with his pleasing song, and his curious note--"Jan-fredric-dric-dric-fredric." He is racing swiftly hither and thither through the shrub and flowers, bustling for his food supply.

There, too, are the thick-billed lark, the Sabota lark, with its clear, ringing call, and a few other--but not many--small birds. Aloft an eagle is already on the move, and a hawk or two, no doubt meditating descent upon some of the wildfowl on the vlei. Out upon the plains, half a mile distant from the wagons, are to be seen a knot or two of graceful springbok busily feeding in the choice herbage. But now there is a stir at the wagons yonder. For half an hour past "Ruyter," a little wizened Hottentot, has been busy blowing up the embers of the half-dead fire, and making coffee for the _baas_ and _meisje_.

From the biggest of the wagons descends a vast, uncouth figure--that of Klaas Stuurmann, the Trek-Boer. Almost at the same moment the _achter-klap_ (flap) at the hinder part of the wagon is thrown back, and the figure of a young woman, rather dishevelled--for, like her father, she has been manifestly sleeping in her day-clothes (night-clothes they have none)--descends. The two approach the fire, greet one another in stolid, almost mute fas.h.i.+on--the father kissing impa.s.sively the girl's proffered cheek--and then, standing, they drink the coffee handed to them by the little Hottentot man, and eat a few mouthfuls of bread.

Watch them well, these two figures; they are the representatives of a type slowly disappearing from the Cape Colony--the race of Trek-Boers, nomads, who for generations have had no home but their wagons, and who live (more often than not from absolute choice) the free vagrant life of the veldt, with their flocks and herds around them.

The man, Klaas Stuurmann, is a Boer of loose, ungainly frame. He stands six feet one; is about fifty-two years of age; has a broad, deeply tanned face, in which are planted two watery-blue eyes; a shock of hay-coloured hair; and a long beard of the same uninteresting hue. He wears _veldt-broeks_ (field-trousers) of soft home-tanned skin. He is about the last Dutchman in Cape Colony to use these old-world garments; but his father and grandfather wore such clothes, and they are good enough for him. He has no socks or stockings, and a pair of rude, home-made, hide _velschoens_ cover his feet. He has a flannel s.h.i.+rt to his back, and over that a short jacket of much-worn corduroy. Upon his head is the usual tall-crowned, broad-brimmed, felt hat, which carries a hideous band of broad, rusty c.r.a.pe in memory of his deceased wife. The man's face is dirty, to be sure; but, besides the dirt, there is a dull, vacant, unthinking look, rather painful to see. It is the look of one bred through dull, listless generations of men, self-banished from their own kind, whose only interests have been in sheep and goats and trek oxen, their only excitement an occasional hunt, or a scrimmage with Bushmen in time gone by. Such a listless and vacant look you may see even now in some of the more remote _dals_ of Norway, among the poorer of the peasant-farmer folk. It is the look of men who gaze always without a spark of interest upon the silent face of nature around them, and who for generations have seldom exchanged an idea with their fellows.

For 150 years Klaas Stuurmann and his ancestors have led the wandering life of the Trek-Boer, knowing no hearth but the pleasant camp-fire, no roof but the glaring blue of the unchanging African sky and the tents of their wagons, no floor but the wild veldt. Many among the more settled Dutch farmers wonder how these uneasy nomads, with their s.h.i.+ftless ways and habits of unrest, first came to pursue such an existence. In the present instance it happened much in this wise: Klaas Stuurmann's great-great-grandfather, a restless spirit, farming near the old settlement at Cape Town, became, like many others, tired of the petty and exasperating restrictions of the then Batavian governor. And so he trekked in search of fresh pastures, beyond the reach of taxes and monopolies. He was a sportsman, and the land opening before him disclosed the most wonderful and redundant fauna the world has ever seen. Still carrying his flocks and family with him, the Boer wandered from veldt to veldt, always in a country virgin to the hunter, and teeming with the n.o.blest game.

Year after year went by, his family grew up around him--how, he himself would have been puzzled to explain--and still the open-air, hand-to-mouth existence pleased him, the splendid liberty, and the free, unfettered chase in that vast, crowded, game preserve. At the beginning he sometimes cast his eye here and there in search of a farm, but somehow no _plants_ suited him. He wandered ever farther in search of his ideal, and finally the _veldt_ life had so bitten into him that he preferred to live and die in it. If he wanted powder and lead, some coffee and sugar, or a piece of stuff for his wife's and daughters'

gowns, or a new _roer_ (gun) for his growing lads, he had but to trek with a load of ivory and feathers to "Kaapstad" (Cape Town), and get what he desired. For the rest, the earth and her plenty sufficed to him. And so the years rolled on. The old Karel Stuurmann died, and was buried near a fountain on the wild karroo, and his sons and daughters became Trek-Boers, or the wives of Trek-Boers, after him. For many a year all went well: the game was still there to pursue; the land was lonely, yet pleasant; and the _verdoemed uitlander_ [accursed foreigner]

was as yet unknown. But presently came the British, and after them percussion-guns, and later the deadly breech-loader. The game began to vanish, the country became more settled, and, except for the remote wildernesses of the north-west, the Cape Colony was no longer the Trek-Boer's paradise. Slavery was abolished, and even the native servants, the Hottentots and Kaffirs--nay, even the captive Bushboys, mere baboons the Boers called them, torn young from their slaughtered parents--could no longer be treated quite as of yore. Many of these Trek-Boers joined the emigrant farmers, and pa.s.sed beyond the Orange and the Vaal Rivers. Some of them helped to found the Orange Free State and Transvaal Republics; some of them still pursued the old wandering life, and, as elephant-hunters, dared the unknown wilds and the dangers of the remote regions towards the Zambesi. But still a leaven of them clung to the old Cape Colony. The life became ever more sombre and less alluring. The great game had gone; only the springboks and smaller antelopes remained to remind them of the teeming plenty of the brave days of smooth-bores and flint-locks. These Trek-Boers of the colony sank lower in the social scale; they had to depend only on their scant flocks and herds; their more settled and richer neighbours learned to look upon them with dislike and even hate, for the reason that they often, by means of their flocks and herds, carried disease--scab and lung-sickness, and red-water--from one farm to another. And so in these latter days the Trek-Boer of the Cape Colony is looked upon as little better than the gipsy of Europe. Many of them are miserably poor; their flocks are reduced and deteriorated from disease and in-and-in breeding; their wagons are battered and dilapidated; they themselves look degraded and sunken and miserable. Some of them burn ashes from certain of the karroo bushes, and sell them to the settled farmers to make soap with.

Some collect salt from the pans, and with a few springbok skins earn a trifle to eke out their wretchedness. Some few, like the Stuurmanns, still have decent wagons and fair flocks. But in the Cape Colony they are a declining race, and twenty or thirty years more will see the last of them. Yet even the poorest of them still retain their pure European blood, still lord it over their miserable native servants, and at times--perhaps thrice in the year--still trek to the nearest village for _Nachtmaal_ (communion). And still the great Bible, more often than not two hundred years old, is carried in the wagon-chest and cherished. For these Trek-Boers of Cape Colony, the unpeopled solitudes of Bushmanland--that is, the northern portion of the divisions of Little Namaqualand, Calvinia, Fraserburg, and Carnarvon, bordering on the Orange River--are still a last stronghold. Here, after the rains, they can range freely with their flocks and pursue the trekking springboks, and live the old wild life. Elsewhere, if they halt for the night on the farm of another, they must pay for the privilege, and a goat or sheep or two have to be handed over in exchange for pasture and right of water.

I have hinted at the darker aspect of the latter-day life of the Trek-Boers of Cape Colony. Let us glance at the more pleasant part of it.

Their coffee finished, Klaas Stuurmann moves to the temporary kraals, a hundred yards away, where his flocks are confined for the night. There are two kraals--one for the sheep, one for goats--and they are simply made of bush and branches of the acacia and wait-a-bit thorns, fas.h.i.+oned into a light ring-fencing, just sufficient to keep the flocks within and prowling hyaenas and jackals without. Already the native herd-boys are there waiting for their charges; and the hungry kraal-denizens, knowing their breakfast-hour is nigh, bleat loudly for the near freedom of the veldt. The tall Dutchman now plants himself by the entrance of the sheep-kraal, from which a herdsman drags away the thorns. Forth flock the impatient sheep, and as their stream issues through the narrow exit, Klaas Stuurmann numbers them head by head. As a rule the Boer is a bad hand at figures; but in the necessary ancient custom of counting flocks night and morning, he can reckon with as much skill as any man.

Practice makes perfect, and so Klaas Stuurmann finds no difficulty in taking his fleecy census, fast as the sheep pa.s.s forth.

The sheep--600 of them--are checked and found in order, and the same process is gone through at the other kraal, whence, to the number of 800, the goats go forth, in the ancient African fas.h.i.+on of five thousand years, to pasture in the wild. The warm air, full of the rich, aromatic scent of the veldt vegetation, now springing in its prime, comes alluringly into the nostrils of these nomadic flocks, and soon they are scattered upon the plain feeding vigorously, their silent, patient herd-boys tending them for the hot, livelong day.

What do these dusky herd-boys think of, day after day, as they follow their flocks? Heaven knows! As well ask the bird and beast of the great plains what are their thoughts! Sometimes in the days of the Pharaohs there sprang a great warrior or statesman from the brown-skinned herdsmen and hunters of the far Land of Cush; nay, Egypt herself was ruled not seldom during these remote ages by almost pure Ethiopian blood. But nowadays there be no black Hampdens, or yellow Miltons, still less, possible Pharaohs, from among the lazy Kaffirs and poor besotted Hottentots of the Cape Colony.