Adventures in Swaziland Part 17

Although our trek had been miserable enough so far, we did not have any real trouble until we reached the Masuto River. It was swollen by the heavy rains and the ford was washed out. Instead of the usual clear rivulet, it had become a raging torrent of muddy water. We had to cross it or go back, so we made camp on its bank and held a council of war. All our blankets and supplies were soaked through, and a fire could not be started. We were just about as uncomfortable as we could be.

Just when we were beginning to despair, a Scotch civil engineer showed up. He was building a bridge over the Masuto, his entire working force consisting of kaffirs. He proved a cheerful person and made light of our troubles. This was well enough for him, since he had a good camp a short distance away, while we were marooned on a desert of dampness. I suggested to him that we would appreciate some hot tea or coffee, but he carefully refrained from inviting us to his camp to have some.

Instead, he told us that we could get what we wanted from Oom Van der Merwe, who had a farm not far distant. The Scotch are a careful and canny people!

We trudged over to the Boer farm and received a cordial welcome. They received us with open arms and insisted that we remain there for a few days, or at least until the rain stopped. This we could not do, since I had made the Zombode appointment with Tuys and did not want him to have to wait so long that he would give us up and leave Swaziland.

The farmer's womenfolk gave us all the hot coffee we would drink, and then supplied us with bread, b.u.t.ter, milk, and the hind quarter of a sheep. We returned to our thoroughly soaked camp very reluctantly and pa.s.sed a most miserable night.

Next morning we tackled the problem of getting across the Masuto, which had risen further during the night. The Scotch engineer came to our a.s.sistance with good advice, and this is all he would have offered had I not discovered that he had several cables stretched across the river. After much argument he agreed to let us use one of the cables to get the wagonette and supplies across. This was done, although with great difficulty.

Knowing we would have to swim for it, we white men had put our clothes in the wagonette. The kaffir boys did not wear enough to matter. The Scotchman consoled us by telling us that we were a ludicrous sight, and we must have been! There we stood, naked, cold, and disgusted, our entire possessions on the far bank and facing the prospect of swimming the turbulent river, driving the mules across at the same time.

However, it had to be done, so we plunged in. The current was strong and we crawled ash.o.r.e a full half mile below the wagonette.

True to his b.a.s.t.a.r.d breed, one of the mules turned back in midstream and proceeded calmly to the take-off bank of the river. We had to swim back and get him, but it was adding insult to injury when he tried to run away and we had to chase him through the long gra.s.s and undergrowth of the river's edge. Finally we captured the brute and then swam the river for the third time as his watchful escort.

We were dead tired when we reached the wagonette and faced the stiff climb to the top of a little mountain. The road was in the worst possible condition, so we decided to camp for a day or two until the weather became better. As things were, we could not have gone on, anyway.

As soon as camp was pitched, we looked about a bit and discovered the ruins of an old Boer farm-house a little way up the river. There was a trickle of smoke coming out of the chimney and this encouraged us to visit the place as soon as possible. The thought of fire was heartening; it meant hot things to drink and possibly warm food. When I came close to it I saw that there were two rooms, badly roofed over, but the blackened walls showed that the old house had been quite an imposing building.

My knock was answered by a young Boer with wild, hunted eyes. He looked us over as we stood there in the pouring rain, and a moment later smiled graciously and invited us in. When the door closed he ceremoniously extended his hand and we shook hands all around.

"Strangers seldom come during the storms," he said, "and I was surprised to hear your knock. I was cooking some coffee in the back room and now I shall add enough for all of us."

This was a welcome thought to us, and in a little while our drooping spirits were revived by the hot drink. Then we cooked the food we had brought with us and had a merry party. It seems the young fellow was quite bucked up over having visitors and he did well by the gin we had brought with us.

But still it rained outside! It came down as it only can in the Transvaal, and that means a steady, relentless downpour which looked as though it would last for days. We decided to make ourselves as comfortable as possible, and our host insisted that we take over his house. He was a very pleasant fellow and before long we were good friends.

It seems that the old house had been the home of his parents and grandparents. It was a pioneer homestead and had been burned by the British during the Boer War. Both his parents had died there and the place had never been rebuilt. He had been born in the room in which we rested and he told us that he hoped some day to rebuild and make his thousands of acres profitable.

Bit by bit we got the story of the place from him. It had been destroyed in retaliation for some act of treachery, for which, he a.s.sured us, his parents were not responsible. I asked him if he did not get lonesome living there by himself and suggested that he ought to get a wife to keep him company. My question opened up a queer side of his character, and then we understood the hunted look in his eyes.

"By day," he said slowly, "I don't mind being here alone. In good weather people cross the river and come to me to buy things. I have a store, you know, and sometimes as many as five or six come each week."

This was news to us. We did not see any evidence of a store, but this probably explained the small boxes and bundles in the back room.

"It is the night that is terrible," he went on, lowering his voice as though afraid of being overheard. "Those who died here come back and look into the windows and cry out with awful voices. They cannot rest, and must come back to this place where they were killed. Some of them are our people and others the British, and sometimes they fight the battle over again!"

For a moment I thought he was guying us, but a glance at his eyes told me that he was in deadly earnest. Snyman and Biddy caught his spirit and egged him on to tell more ghost stories. Now the ignorant Boer is very superst.i.tious, so that it was not long before we had all kinds of ghosts loose about the place. The young Boer took the stories seriously, and those two rascals soon had him quite terrified. A sudden burst of thunder made him jump as though he had been shot.

Well, we told ghost stories and tales of other supernatural visitations for some time. Then, the rain letting up a bit, we went back to our camp, to find that Sibijaan had finally succeeded in getting a fairly decent fire going. Before leaving we had bought the store out. It only contained quant.i.ties of "flag" cigarettes, coffee, and yellow sugar, but we took all we could get. The Boer a.s.sured us that he had sent to Ermelo for a large stock of goods which would be at our disposal as soon as the roads allowed it to be brought in.

Late that afternoon it looked as though the stormy weather was breaking away, and this cheered us up. We planned to start at dawn next morning and make up for lost time by forced marches. Shortly after dark Snyman announced that he was going to visit the young Boer again. He went out, leaving Biddy and me smoking our pipes in the tent.

Snyman had been gone for about half an hour when the stillness of the night was shattered by a succession of rifle shots. They came from the direction of the ruined house. We could hear some one shouting, also, and each outburst was followed by more shots.

With one motion I snuffed our candle and dived to the wet floor of the tent. Biddy was almost as quick, and swore softly when his face hit my heels. We neither of us could imagine what was taking place, but our training taught us that the ground was the safest place when people began shooting wildly.

We had hardly got our breath when Snyman dashed into the tent, falling over us and almost pulling it down. He had been running hard and was fairly gasping for breath. Presently he recovered sufficiently to loose a volley of profanity in Dutch and English. When he calmed down a little--the shooting had stopped by this time--we asked him what all the shooting was about and why he had returned in such haste.

"Why, that poor ignorant fool thought he could shoot a ghost!" he said, beginning to laugh. "I went to see if there were any ghosts around his old house, and when I didn't find any, I felt that he ought not to be disappointed, so I played ghost for him. I sneaked about the house and hid in the old ruins, making all sorts of creepy noises, I must have scared him until he went crazy.

"I was just beginning to enjoy myself when his light went out. Then I thought I had scared him off the map. But I was wrong, very wrong! He must have opened the door quietly, for when I started out of the ruins he opened up with his Mauser. I dropped flat, but it seemed to me that a volley of bullets crawled down my back. A moment later he started shooting in another direction, and then I got up and ran. I'll bet the springbok doesn't live that could have caught me!"

So this was the explanation of the sudden firing. We examined Snyman and found that two bullets had gone through his coat, showing that even in his fear the young fellow had shot like a true Boer. Snyman did not seem much upset over being shot at, but was quite indignant at the fact that the "ghost hunter" had used a rifle.

"It just shows the ignorance of these back-country Boers," he said, ruefully examining his torn coat. "This d.a.m.ned fool spends his nights quaking because he thinks his old farm is full of ghosts, and then he takes down the ancestral rifle and goes out and tries to kill them. As though he could shoot a ghost!"

Before dawn the next morning the young Boer arrived at our camp. While he was taking coffee with us he related his adventure of the night before. He seemed to have no suspicion of Snyman, who must have done a wonderful job. According to his story a whole battalion of British ghosts had attacked his stronghold. He described their wailing and threatening cries, and then told how he had finally driven them off with his father's rifle.

He was so earnest and pathetic that we all felt sorry for him. His ignorance was extraordinary, even when his isolation was considered.

We were sorry to leave him, and I remember looking back as we climbed the hill road to see him looking wistfully after us.

The roads were so bad that we had to walk, and it was not until the third day that we reached Mbabane, the official capital of Swaziland.

This is about fifteen miles over the border, and the village is on the top of a low mountain. Mbabane is the new capital of Swaziland and was founded in 1904. The old capital, Bremersdorp, was destroyed by our people during the Boer War.

The long slopes leading up to the village are nearly all covered with plantations, which have been laid out by Robert L. d.i.c.kson, head of the Swaziland Trading Company. The settlement is a most picturesque and charming place, and there are a number of pleasant English people dwelling there. These white families live very well, and I can safely say that Mbabane is the most delightful place in that whole section of the Transvaal.

Mr. d.i.c.kson is a remarkable character who has lived in South Africa practically all his life. He is now about sixty-five years old, and no visit to Mbabane is complete without at least one cup of tea with him and his wife. Mrs. d.i.c.kson is a lovable old lady whose chief worries seem to consist of guarding her vegetable plantation and finding her gla.s.ses.

The morning we called on Mr. d.i.c.kson, she came in and asked if he had seen those errant gla.s.ses. His eyes twinkled when he answered, "No, my dear, but I'm sure you'll find them in the cabbage patch!" She had been there during the morning and his guess was correct, for one of the black boys found the gla.s.ses draped over a young and hopeful cabbage.

Of course Mr. d.i.c.kson invited us to dinner, and this led to a typical and amusing incident. Mrs. d.i.c.kson ordered her cook to prepare some chickens for the meal, and the cook sent some of the Swazi servants to get the fowls.

Now a friend of mine, John Pythian, engineer at the tin mines nearby, lived next door to the d.i.c.ksons. He was a chicken fancier and had some very fine birds. As luck or indolence would have it, Mrs. d.i.c.kson's servants caught some of his chickens instead of her own. Pythian's servant reported this to him--he was still in bed at the time--and he instructed his boy to tell Mrs. d.i.c.kson's Swazis to return the chickens.

Stronger in courage than judgment, the boy attacked the enemy and there was a battle. It was short, however, because Mrs. d.i.c.kson heard the row and chased Pythian's boy away. By the time he reported to his master, the chickens were slain. Pythian then sent his boy to get the native police, and these soon arrived.

Mrs. d.i.c.kson protested and argued that her boys were innocent, but about this time, Mr. Honey, British Royal Commissioner for Swaziland, came on the scene in all his majesty. He held an impromptu court and heard both sides of the case. After deliberation, in which we all tried to a.s.sist him, he delivered his verdict.

"From the evidence I judge that Mrs. d.i.c.kson's boys are innocent in that they did not realize they were killing Mr. Pythian's chickens,"

he said. "However, the chickens have been killed on the order of Mrs.

d.i.c.kson, so I think the only thing to do is to arrest Mrs. d.i.c.kson!"

Whereupon Mrs. d.i.c.kson became indignant and demanded that the commissioner carry out his sentence.

"If he does," she said threateningly, "I can guarantee that the High Commissioner for Swaziland is going to feel very low in his mind before I invite him to dinner again!"

Thus the chicken-stealing ended in a joke, and Pythian was one of the gayest at dinner that night. He remarked, however, that it was no wonder that the roast chicken was so choice, since the birds had been imported all the way from some place in India!

During the meal I sat next to the Commissioner and brought up the question of the crowning of the new Swazi king. I wanted to find out what the government thought about it before I made final arrangements at Zombode.

"There seems to be a difference of opinion regarding this pup, Sebuza," he said. "It looks as though there might be a row either before or soon after he is made king. Of course he is the heir to the job, so there can be no good reason for keeping him out. However, Labotsibeni has been a steady old girl and has kept fairly good order around Zombode, and it's a shame we can't keep her. But she's over one hundred years old, and now Lomwazi seems to be fairly running Swaziland. Sebuza will have to be king some day, but it will be good policy to maintain present conditions as long as possible. We have peace now, and I'd dislike to see anything happen that might start a war."

I could see that the Commissioner was none too anxious to have Sebuza take over the throne. This suited me, for I knew that it would be some time before I was equipped with the right outfit to take the pictures I was after. If Sebuza's coronation could be put off for a year, it would suit me even better.

All the white residents of Mbabane treated us with the greatest kindness and hospitality. They could not do too much for us. There are a number of interesting things about the settlement. It is essentially a little English village set down in the heart of the most primitive and savage princ.i.p.ality of the empire. Like all the rest of the English who exile themselves from home, these people had brought a little bit of the motherland with them.

The jail, or "gaol," as they insist on writing it, is an inst.i.tution in Mbabane, but I must say there is not much punishment about it. The prisoners wear the convict garb, but you meet them all over the village. They are usually working in the gardens, and I have often run across them three and four miles from their penitential abode. No prisoner has ever been known to escape; perhaps the regular food has something to do with this.