Six Months at the Cape Part 6

The man replied he would die rather than submit. The Lieutenant endeavoured to persuade him to surrender, but he was obdurate. Night was approaching. The officer was anxious to get his men out of these dark kloofs in daylight. He therefore ordered them to ascend in two bodies. They did so, reached the cave, and rushed to the entrance, from which Bezuidenhout fired, but without effect, the muzzle of his rifle having been thrown up. At the same moment one of the soldiers fired into the cavern, and shot the farmer dead on the spot. The servant surrendered, and on entering the place it was found that a large quant.i.ty of ammunition had been collected there, evidently with a view to standing a siege.

After the departure of the military, the relations and friends of the unfortunate and misguided man a.s.sembled to bury him, and, over his grave, they vowed to avenge his death. A brother of Bezuidenhout spoke to them, and so wrought on their feelings that a great number of the farmers of that and the neighbouring districts ultimately a.s.sembled under arms, with the avowed intention of ridding themselves altogether of British interference! They went still further, and took a step which might have been much more serious. They sent Cornelius Faber, a brother-in-law of the Bezuidenhouts, to the Kafir chief Gaika for the purpose of rousing that savage and his hordes to attack the Colony.

Of course the Government was obliged to frustrate such an attempt with all possible speed. Troops were immediately sent against the rebels, under Colonel Cuyler. One of the rebel leaders, named Prinsloo, was captured at a critical moment, and the main body, amounting to between three and four hundred, was finally met with. But before proceeding to extremities, a field-commandant, William Nel, volunteered to go alone among the rebels, and reason with them. He did so, and was so far successful as to shake the resolution of some, for, although disaffected, many of these men were by no means so foolish as their leaders. Indeed, many of them had been threatened and coerced into rebellion. Seeing the effect of Nel's remonstrances, Faber, Bezuidenhout, and other leaders, a.s.sembled their forces at a place called Slachters Nek, and exacted from them an oath to remain faithful to each other until they had expelled the tyrants from the frontier.

Next morning Colonel Cuyler proceeded to attack them. On his approach thirty or more of them threw down their arms in token of surrender; the remainder, seeing that resistance would be hopeless, retired into the fastnesses of Baviaans River. There they were followed and surrounded, and an attempt was made to bring them to submission, but during the night most of them managed to escape by familiar mountain pa.s.ses.

The princ.i.p.al leaders, rejecting all terms, escaped with their wagons, families, and goods to the Winterberg Mountains, bordering on Kafirland, where they hoped to be safe; but, being followed up hotly by a body of troops under Major Fraser, they were eventually overtaken and surrounded in a deep kloof. Here six of them were brought to bay, among whom were Faber, with his wife, his son--a lad of fourteen years,--and John Bezuidenhout. These, retiring behind the wagons, a skirmish began, which was not concluded until one of the soldiers was killed, another wounded, Bezuidenhout shot, and Faber and his wife and son severely wounded. Then the party were taken prisoners.

Subsequently fifty or sixty of the other rebels were captured and taken to Capetown. Of these, thirty-nine of the most culpable were tried on the charge of high treason. Six were condemned to death; the others, after being compelled to witness the execution of their leaders, were to undergo various degrees of punishment, according to their proved guilt.

One of the six had the capital sentence commuted to transportation for life, and the remaining five ringleaders were executed.

LETTER SEVEN.

LION-HUNTING, ETCETERA, IN THE EARLY DAYS--BUSHMEN AND THEIR TROUBLES.

It is deeply interesting to tread in the footsteps of bold adventurous men, and visit the scenes which have been rendered cla.s.sic by their deeds of heroic daring or of patient endurance. So I found it during my brief sojourn in the regions of Baviaans River, where, upwards of fifty years before, my countrymen had faced, fought, and subdued the savage, the wilderness, and the wild-beast.

The every-day life of the early settlers of this region cannot be better ill.u.s.trated than by a brief quotation from the diary of one of them.

"_October 1st_.--Arrival of the Somerset wagon with flour, seed-corn, etcetera. I discharged the servant Sandy from the party, gave him a pa.s.s, countersigned by the Deputy-Landdrost, and sent him off with the Somerset wagon towards Grahamstown. This lad has turned out to be at once a fool and a blackguard, and quite beyond hope of reform.

"_4th_.--A sharp frost last night blighted all our early potatoes, pumpkins, melons, kidney-beans, etcetera. It appears we had sown some of our seed too early.

"_8th, Sunday_.--A troop of about twenty quaggas galloped through the corner of our gardens during divine service.

"_9th_.--A herd of hartebeests pa.s.sed close to our huts, pursued by a pack of six wild dogs (_Hyaena venatica_). Fired at the latter, but without effect. This day Mr John Rennie, being out hunting on Hyndhope Fells, fell in with two wild Bushmen, dressed in sheepskins.

They ran off on his approach, but made no demonstration of hostility.

He came upon six hyenas devouring a hartebeest, and brought me its skull and horns.

"_11th_.--Visited by three Boers from the Tarka--desirous of exchanging horses and cattle for guns and ammunition. Completed my map of the location.

"_16th_.--Surprised by a slight fall of snow; weather chill and cloudy. The laughing hyena heard near the folds last night. The sound truly horrible.

"_21st_.--Fine weather. Killed a large yellow snake.

"_23rd_.--Received a visit from our district clergyman, the Reverend J. Evans of Cradock. He brought a packet from the Landdrost conveying letters from the Colonial Secretary, a.s.suring me of the continued support of the Government, and giving us the agreeable intelligence that a party of emigrants from the West of Scotland were speedily expected out, who would be located close beside us. Received also very pleasant letters from Scotland, from Dr Philip, and from our parted comrade Mr Elliott. Religious service in the evening by Mr Evans. All much pleased and comforted.

"_24th_.--Mr G. Rennie, who at my request had gone with a party of Hottentots to explore the country beyond the mountains towards the Koonap River, returned with a very favourable report of it. Abundance of wood, water, and rich pasturage. He saw a great deal of large game, and the recent traces of elephants. Shot a gnu and hartebeest.

"_November 1st_.--The weather warm and serene, like the finest summer weather in England. Two snakes and a large scorpion killed.

Turtle-doves, touracoos, thrushes, finches, and other birds of beautiful plumage become numerous.

"_6th_.--Violent storm of thunder. The peals fearfully loud.

Magnificent clouds at sunset.

"_15th_.--A tiger-wolf broke into the kraal last night, and killed several sheep.

"_22nd_.--A wolf-trap constructed, with the aid of the Hottentots, of large stones and timber.

"_29th_.--A wolf caught in the trap.

"_December 4th_.--A heavy rain for three days swells the river to an unfordable size. All the dry beds of torrents filled with furious floods.

"_7th_.--Weather again warm and serene. Mr G. Rennie kills another wild-boar at Glen Vair.

"_19th_.--My brother John finds stone fit for millstones, and with the aid of one of the Hottentots begins to construct a small mill.

"_29th_.--My father narrowly escapes being gored by a furious ox.

Blight appears in the wheat.

"_30th_.--Receive a large packet of letters and newspapers from Scotland. All deeply interested. This is the first packet of British newspapers that has reached us."

How all the Robinson-Crusoe blood in one's veins is stirred by such a diary! Truly I sometimes almost regret that I was not born to become a pioneer settler in the African wilds!

However, it is some comfort to have the privilege of paying a flying visit to these same wilds, which in many respects are quite as wild now as they were then. The lions, elephants, quaggas, and some others of the large game, it is true, have taken themselves off to remoter wilds, but the leopards, hyenas, baboons, antelopes, still inhabit these kloofs, while snakes, scorpions, and the like are as plentiful as ever.

Talking of baboons reminds me that these creatures are said to sleep sometimes on a ledge of rock on the face of a precipice for security against lurking foes. I was a.s.sured that sometimes a row of them may be seen in such a situation sitting sound asleep, with their faces in their hands, against the precipice, and their tails hanging over the ledge.

Of course I do not vouch for the truth of such reports. I am answerable only for what I profess to have seen.

The highest type of monkey suggests the lowest type of man in Africa.

This is the Bushman, or, as the Dutch have it, Bosjesman. He is a branch of the Hottentot race, and a very miserable, stunted branch; nevertheless he is very far indeed removed from the baboon. He has no tail, for certain; at least if he has, he conceals it effectually. He wears garments, which no monkey does, and he speaks, which no monkey ever did.

No thanks to the white man, however, if the poor Bushman is not a baboon with the spirit of a tiger, for he has been most shamefully treated in time past. It is true the Bushmen were arrant thieves, and committed great havoc among the frontier farmers at various times, and it was both natural and right that these farmers should defend their homes and property. But it was neither right nor natural that these unfortunate natives should have been so cruelly dealt with.

When the Scotch party settled at Glen Lynden, their troubles with wild-beast pilferers were augmented occasionally by the appearance of Bosjesman-thieves.

"In the beginning of October," writes Mr Pringle, "we were somewhat alarmed by the discovery of a band of predatory Bushmen, lurking among the rocks and caverns of the wild mountains between us and the valley of the Tarka. Lieutenant Pettingal, an officer of engineers, who was then in our valley, engaged in the Government survey of the country, discovered this horde in searching for some of his horses that were missing. Suspecting, from the traces, that they had been carried off by Bushmen, he went out with an armed troop in pursuit, and came upon a party of these wild marauders in one of the most savage recesses of the neighbouring mountains. They were at breakfast, on a grey horse which they had slaughtered, and had steaks roasting on the fire cut out of the flank, with the hide still upon them. Pettingal, enraged by the supposed loss of his best blood-horse, poured in a volley upon them; but, apparently, without effect, for they all scrambled off with inconceivable agility among the rocks and bushes. He recovered, however, some of his own horses, and eight belonging to our neighbour which were tied up under an overhanging cliff near the top of a mountain."

There were no Bushmen running wild among the beautiful hills and valleys of Glen Lynden when Hobson and I entered it, but the region was not free, as I have related, from naked Kafirs, and it is still noted for its population of hairy baboons.

LETTER EIGHT.

RAIN! RAIN! RAIN!--BABOONS RIVER--SEAHORSE KLOOF--WE HUNT THE HILLS ON HORSEBACK IN SPITE OF RAIN--FLOODS AND ACCIDENTS--PART FROM HOBSON-- MAIL-CARTS AND DIAMOND-DIGGERS.

Rain is a blessed refreshment to the thirsty land; it is a life-giving cordial to the thirsty soul; but when rain descends in torrents and without cessation during the greater part of one's brief holiday, or at any other very unseasonable period, and when one is _not_ thirsty, it becomes depressing, to say the least.

Thus was I treated by rain during my week in Baviaans River. Hobson and I had at last pushed up into the very heart of that wild mountain region,--the allotted home of the Scottish settlers of 1820, the scene of many Kafir raids and battles.

For months before we had lived in perpetual suns.h.i.+ne. Hobson had sighed for a drop of rain. Sometimes South Africans have to sigh for a twelve-month before relief is sent. Even while I write, the colony is suffering excessively from drought, and many farmers have been ruined.

On the Karroo I had almost come to forget the sensation of being rained upon, and an umbrella there would have appeared as great an impropriety as a muslin overcoat in Nova Zembla. Nevertheless, no sooner did we arrive at Seahorse Kloof than the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain came down steadily night and day, while the sky presented a universal grey that would have done credit to the Scottish Highlands.

It was too bad!

My main object in penetrating to these rugged wilds was to visit one of the Pringles, a relative of personal friends on the borders of my own land. Finding that Mr Pringle was absent from home, we turned aside to visit a cousin of Hobson's, a Mr John Edwards, who dwelt in what appeared to me the f.a.g-end of the world,--a lonely farmhouse, at the head of the mountain gorge named Seahorse Kloof.