CHAPTER I.ON THE BANKS OF THE ORANGE RIVER.[edit]
On the 27th of January, 1854, two men lay stretched at
the foot of an immense weeping willow, chatting, and at
the same time watching most attentively the waters of the
Orange River. This river, the Groote of the Dutch, and
the Gariep of the Hottentots, may well vie with the other
three great arteries of Africa—the Nile, the Niger, and the
Zambesi. Like those, it has its periodical risings, its rapids
and cataracts. Travellers whose names are known over
part of its course, Thompson, Alexander, and Burchell,
have each in their turn praised the clearness of its waters,
and the beauty of its shores.
At this point the river, as it approached the Duke of
York Mountains, offered a magnificent spectacle to the
view. Insurmountable rocks, imposing masses of stone,
and trunks of trees that had become mineralized by the
action of the weather, deep caverns, impenetrable forests,
not yet disturbed by the settler's axe, all these, shut in by
a background formed by the mountains of the Gariep, made
up a scene matchless in its magnificence. There, too, the
waters of the river, on account of the extreme narrowness
of their bed, and the sudden falling away of the soil, rushed
down from a height of 400 feet. Above the fall there were
only surging sheets of water, broken here and there by
points of rock wreathed with green boughs; below, there
was only a dark whirlpool of tumultuous waters, crowned
with a thick cloud of damp vapour, and striped with all
the colours of the rainbow. From this gulf there arose a
deafening roar, increased and varied by the echoes of the
valley.
Of these two men, who had evidently been brought into
this part of South Africa by the chances of an exploration,
one lent only a vague attention to the beauties of nature
that were opened to his view. This indifferent traveller was
a hunting bushman, a fine type of that brave, bright-eyed,
rapidly-gesticulating race of men, who lead a wandering life
in the woods. Bushman, a word derived from the Dutch
“Bochjesman,” is literally “a man of the bushes,” and is
applied to the wandering tribes that scour the country in
the N.W. of Cape Colony. Not a family of these bushmen
is sedentary; they pass their lives in roaming over the region
lying between the Orange River and the mountains of
the East, in pillaging farms, and in destroying the crops of
the overbearing colonists, by whom they have been driven
back towards the interior of the country, where more rocks
than plants abound.
This bushman, a man of about forty years of age, was
very tall, and evidently possessed great muscular strength,
for even when at rest his body presented the attitude of
action. The clearness, ease, and freedom of his movements
stamped him as an energetic character, a man cast in the
same mould as the celebrated “Leather-stocking,” the hero
of the Canadian prairies, though perhaps possessing less
calmness than Cooper's favourite hunter, as could be seen
by the transient deepening of colour in his face, whenever he
was animated by any unusual emotion.
The bushman was no longer a savage like the rest of his
race, the ancient Laquas; for, born of an English father
and a Hottentot mother, the half-breed, through his association
with strangers, had gained more than he had lost, and
spoke the paternal tongue fluently. His costume, half-Hottentot,
half-European, consisted of a red flannel shirt,
a loose coat and breeches of antelope hide, and leggings
made of the skin of a wild cat; from his neck hung a little
bag containing a knife, a pipe, and some tobacco; he wore
on his head a kind of skull-cap of sheep-skin; a belt, made
from the thick thong of some wild animal, encircled his
waist; and on his naked wrists were rings of ivory,
wrought with remarkable skill. From his shoulders flowed
a “kross,” a kind of hanging mantle, cut out of a tiger's
skin, and falling as low as the knees. A dog of native
breed was sleeping near him, while he himself was smoking
a bone pipe in quick puffs, giving unequivocal signs of impatience.
“Come, let's be calm, Mokoum,” said his interlocutor.
“You are truly the most impatient of mortals whenever
you are not hunting; but do understand, my worthy companion,
that we can't change what is. Those whom we
are expecting will come sooner or later—to-morrow, if
not to-day.”
The bushman's companion was a young man, from twenty-five
to twenty-six years of age, and quite a contrast to him.
His calm temperament was shown in every action; and it
could be decided without a moment's hesitation that he
was an Englishman. His much too homely costume proved
him to be unaccustomed to travelling. He gave one the
idea of a clerk who had wandered into a savage country,
and one looked involuntarily to see if he carried a pen
behind his ear, like a cashier, clerk, accountant, or some
other variety of the great family of the bureaucracy.
In truth, this young man was not a traveller, but a
distinguished savant, William Emery, an astronomer attached
to the Observatory at the Cape—a useful establishment,
which has for a long time rendered true services to
science.
The scholar, rather out of his element, perhaps, in this
uninhabited region of South Africa, several hundred miles
from Cape Town, could hardly manage to curb the impatience
of his companion.
“Mr. Emery,” replied the hunter in good English,
“here we have been for eight days at the place appointed
on the Orange, the cataract of Morgheda. It is indeed
a long time since it has befallen a member of my
family to remain eight days in one place: you forget
that we are rovers, and that our feet burn at lingering
here.”
“My friend Mokoum,” replied the astronomer, “those
we are waiting for are coming from England, and surely
we can allow them eight days of grace: we must take into
account the length of the passage, and the hindrances
which a steam-vessel must meet with in ascending the
Orange; and, in short, the thousand difficulties belonging
to such an undertaking. We have been told to make every
preparation for a journey of exploration in South Africa,
and that being done, to come here to the Falls of Morgheda
and wait for my colleague. Colonel Everest, of the Cambridge
Observatory. Well, here are the Falls of Morgheda,
we are at the place appointed, and we are waiting: what
more do you want, my worthy bushman?”
The hunter doubtless did want more, for his fingers
played feverishly with the lock of his rifle, an excellent
Manton, a weapon of precision with conical shot, and
which could bring down a wild cat or an antelope at a
distance of eight or nine hundred yards. Thus it may be
seen that the bushman had put aside the quiver of aloes
and the poisoned darts of his fellow-countrymen for the use
of European weapons.
“But are you not mistaken, Mr. Emery?” replied Mokoum.
“Is it really at the Falls of Morgheda, and towards
the end of this month of January, that they have appointed
to meet you?”
“Yes, my friend,” quietly answered William Emery,
“and here is the letter from Mr. Airy, the director of the
Greenwich Observatory, which will show you that I am not
mistaken.”
The bushman took the letter that his companion gave
him. He turned it over and over like a man not very
familiar with the mysteries of penmanship; then giving it
back to William Emery, he said,
“Tell me again what the blotted piece of paper says.”
The young astronomer, endowed with a patience proof
against every thing, began again, for the twentieth time,
the story he had so often told to his friend the hunter. At
the end of the foregoing year, William Emery had received
a letter telling him of the approaching arrival of Colonel
Everest, and an international scientific commission in Southern
Africa. What the plans of the commission were, and
why it came to the extremity of the continent of Africa,
Emery could not say, Mr. Airy's letter being silent on that
point; but following the instructions that he had received,
he hastened to Lattakoo, one of the most northern stations
in the Hottentot country, to prepare waggons, provisions,
and, in short, every thing that could be wanted for the victualling
of a Bochjesman caravan. Then, as he knew the
reputation of the native hunter, Mokoum, who had accompanied
Anderson in his hunting expeditions in Western
Africa, and the intrepid David Livingstone on his first
journey of exploration to Lake Ngami and the falls of
the Zambesi, he offered him the command of this same
caravan.
This done, it was arranged that the bushman, who knew
the country perfectly, should lead William Emery along
the banks of the Orange to the Morgheda Falls, the place
appointed for the scientific commission to join them. This
commission was to take its passage in the British frigate
“Augusta,” to reach the mouth of the Orange on the
western coast of Africa, as high as Cape Voltas, and to
ascend the river as far as the cataracts. William Emery
and Mokoum had therefore brought a waggon, which they
had left at the bottom of the valley, to carry the strangers
and their baggage to Lattakoo, unless they preferred
getting there by the Orange and its affluents, after they
had avoided the Falls of Morgheda by a land journey of
some miles.
This story ended, and at length really impressed on the
bushman's mind, he advanced to the edge of the gulf to
whose bottom the foaming river threw itself with a crash:
the astronomer followed, for there a projecting point commanded
a view of the river, below the cataract, for a distance
of several miles.
For some minutes Mokoum and his
companion gazed attentively at the part of the river where
it resumed its tranquillity about a quarter of a mile below
them, but not an object, either boat or pirogue, disturbed
its course. It was then three o'clock. The month of
January here corresponds to the July of northern countries,
and the sun, almost vertical in lat. 29°, heated the atmosphere
till the thermometer stood at 105° Fahrenheit in the
shade. If it had not been for the westerly breeze, which
moderated the heat a little, the temperature would have
been unbearable for any but a bushman. Still, the young
astronomer, with his cool temperament, all bone and all
nerves, did not feel it too much: the thick foliage of the
trees which overhung the abyss protected him from the
direct attacks of the sun's rays. Not a bird enlivened the
solitude during these hot hours of the day; not an animal
left the cool shade of the bushes to trust itself along the
glades; not a sound would have been heard in this deserted
region, even if the cataract had not filled the whole air with
its roar.
After gazing for ten minutes, Mokoum turned to William
Emery, stamping impatiently with his large foot; his penetrating
eyes had discovered nothing.
“Supposing your people don't come?” he asked the
astronomer.
“They'll come, my brave hunter,” answered William
Emery: “they are men of their word, and punctual, like
all astronomers. Besides, what fault do you find with
them? The letter says they are to arrive at the end of
January; this is the 27th, and these gentlemen have still a
right to four more days before they need to reach the
Morgheda Falls.”
“And supposing they have not come at the end of those
four days?” asked the bushman.
“Well! then, master hunter, there will be a chance for
us to show our patience, for we will wait for them until I have
certain proof that they are not coming at all.”
“By our god Ko!” cried the bushman in a sonorous
voice, “you are a man who would wait until the Gariep had
emptied all its roaring waters into that abyss!”
“No, hunter, no,” replied Emery in his ever quiet tone;
“but we must let reason govern our actions; and what does
reason tell us? This:—that if Colonel Everest and his companions,
wearied with a tiresome journey, in want perhaps,
and lost in this lonely country, were not to find us at the
place of rendezvous, we should be to blame in every way.
If any thing went wrong, the responsibility would rest on
us; we ought, therefore, to stay at our post as long as it is
our duty to do so. And besides, we want for nothing here:
our waggon is waiting for us at the bottom of the valley,
and gives us shelter at night; we have plenty of provisions;
nature here is magnificent and worthy of our admiration;
and it is quite a new pleasure to me to spend a few days in
these splendid forests on the banks of this matchless river.
As for you, Mokoum, what can you want more. Game,
both hairy and feathered, abounds in the forests, and your
rifle keeps us supplied with venison. Hunt, my brave hunter!
kill time by killing deer and buffaloes! Go, my good bushman;
I'll watch for the loiterers meanwhile, and your feet,
at any rate, will run no risk of taking root.”
The hunter thought the astronomer's advice was good,
and decided that he would go for a few hours and beat the
neighbouring bushes and brushwood. Lions, hyenas, and
leopards would not disturb such a Nimrod as he, so well
accustomed to the African forests. He whistled to his dog
Top, an animal of the hyena breed from the desert of
Kalahari, and a descendant of that race of which the
Balabas formerly made pointers. The intelligent creature,
as impatient, seemingly, as his master, bounded up, and
showed by his joyous barking how much he was gratified
at the bushman's intention. Soon both man and dog disappeared
among the thick masses of wood which crowned the
background of the cataract.
William Emery, now alone,
again stretched himself at the foot of the willow, and while
he was waiting for the heat to send him to sleep, began to
think over his actual position. Here he was, far away from
any inhabited spot, on the banks of the Orange river,
a river as yet but little explored. He was waiting for
Europeans, fellow-countrymen who had left their homes to
run the risks of a distant expedition. But what was the
expedition for? What scientific problem could it want to
solve in the deserts of South Africa? What observation
could it be trying to take in lat. 30° S.? That was just
what Mr. Airy, the director of the Greenwich Observatory,
did not tell in his letter. As for Emery himself, they asked
for his co-operation as for that of a scientific man who was
familiar with the climate of those southern latitudes, and as
he was openly engaged in scientific labours, he was quite at
the disposal of his colleagues in the United Kingdom.
As the young astronomer lay musing over all these things,
and asking himself a thousand questions which he could not
answer, his eyelids became heavy, and at length he slept
soundly. When he awoke, the sun was already hidden
behind the western hills, whose picturesque outline stood
out sharply against the bright horizon. Some gnawings of
hunger told him that supper-time was near; it was, in fact,
six o'clock, and just the hour for returning to the waggon
at the bottom of the valley.
At that very moment a report
resounded from a grove of arborescent heaths, from twelve
to fifteen feet high, which was growing along the slope of
the hills on the right. Almost immediately the bushman
and Top made their appearance at the edge of the wood,
the former dragging behind him the animal that he had
just shot.
“Come, come, master purveyor!” cried Emery,
“what have you got for supper?”
“A springbok, Mr. William,” replied the hunter, throwing
down an animal with horns curved like a lyre.
It was a
kind of antelope, more generally known by the name of
“leaping buck,” and which is to be met with in every part
of South Africa. It is a charming animal, with its cinnamon-coloured
back, and its croup covered with tufts of silky
hair of a dazzling whiteness, whilst its under part is in
shades of chestnut brown; its flesh, always excellent eating,
was on this occasion to form the evening repast.
The hunter and the astronomer, lifting the beast by
means of a pole placed across their shoulders, now left the
head of the cataract, and in half an hour reached their
encampment in a narrow gorge of the valley, where the
waggon, guarded by two Bochjesman drivers, was waiting
for them.