Letter 6. Over The Plains--Lion And Tiger Reminiscences...

________________________________________________
_ LETTER SIX. OVER THE PLAINS--LION AND TIGER REMINISCENCES--FRONTIER FORCES AND ESCAPED CONVICTS--MONKEYS AND PRICKLY PEARS--A VETERAN SETTLER'S EXPERIENCES OF KAFIR WARFARE--STORY OF THE DUTCH FARMERS' RISING IN 1815

It was a sad day that on which I left the Karroo and bade farewell to Ebenezer.

I had gone there in absolute ignorance of men and things, and had found a hearty welcome in the abode of a warm-hearted Christian family and a romantic region, full, to me, of new ideas, experiences, circumstances, and sensations.

Hobson drove me in his cart. Our destination was the mountain region of Baviaans, or Baboons, River.

The first part of our route lay across the Karroo and over the mountain range which separated us from the town of Somerset East. As we sped along, drawn by two powerful horses, over the ocean-like plains, we were silent at first, but gradually the cheering influence of rapid motion and fine weather began to tell. Our spirits rose, and Hobson related numerous anecdotes, historical and adventurous, from the rich stores of a good memory.

About noon we outspanned beside a stream and allowed the horses to have a roll. Under the shade of a bush we lay and chatted, while our eyes roamed over the rolling plains to the blue mountain range which formed its northern boundary.

"There," said my friend, pointing towards the mountains, "is the spot where one of the last lions was seen in this part of the country. There were plenty of them here once, and the last one disappeared in 1840, only thirty-six years ago."

He then related the incident connected with the lion referred to. The following is the substance of it.

Early in the year 1840 a runaway soldier was travelling through that part of the country. He was on his way to Graaff-Reinet in search of work. At that time farmhouses were very few and far between in that region. The wearied soldier came one evening to the house of a Boer named Smit, not many miles from the spot where Hobson and I were reposing.

Smit was a surly fellow, and refused shelter to the traveller, who was therefore obliged to continue his journey during the night. Next day the unfortunate man's mangled body was found not far off, a few yards from the foot of a small tree. The traces revealed clearly that he had been killed by a lion, whose footprints had been seen and voice heard for some time in the neighbourhood. On the approach of the lion the man had sought refuge in the small tree just mentioned, but being little better than a large bush, it failed him in the hour of need. Even when perched on the highest branch that would bear him, he was not beyond the spring of the lion. It had caught him, torn him down, and devoured his breast and arms, after which it left him.

This was the last lion in that region that succeeded in taking human life. Six months later the last lion of all made his appearance. He was evidently a less ferocious animal, and made his final exit in a rather humorous manner. In his prowling about he chanced to find an old Dutchman, and pounced upon him, but the old man had his wits about him. At first sight of his enemy he let himself go limp as if dead. Lions are particular. They don't like dead meals; they prefer to kill their own dinners. After pouncing on his prey the lion put his mouth to the old fellow's ear and roared. If he was not deaf for life after that he ought to have been! At all events he was deaf at the time to the remark, for he paid no attention to it whatever. Then the lion pawed him a little, lay down on him, rolled him about as a cat plays with a mouse, and ultimately couched a few yards off to watch jealously for the slightest sign of life. But the Dutchman was a splendid actor. Even in breathing he managed to remain motionless, and at last the lion sneaked away overwhelmed with disappointment. Then the old man slowly lifted his head, rose, congratulated himself, and returned home in a thankful state of mind.

Although lions had finally taken themselves off, and retired to safer and more distant retreats, the mountain glens of the neighbourhood were, as I have already said, still inhabited by leopards of large size and dangerous temper.

"They are powerful and savage fellows," said my friend, as he rose to inspan, "and few men like to face them unless assisted by a party, and with good dogs. One friend of mine, a doctor, used to boast that he could stare a leopard out of countenance. At last one was caught in a trap, and the doctor tried the experiment, but only got knocked over and his nose scratched for his pains. There was a curious instance, once, of a Fingo going mad in consequence of being bitten by a leopard. The madness took the form of his feigning to be a leopard, and there was no doubt as to his insanity, for he continually growled and scratched and snapped with his teeth, and finished off by jumping through a glass door.--Now then, the cart's ready; in you go."

I jumped in, and off we went again over the sweet-scented plain,--now on a good bit of road, now on a bad; often forsaking the track altogether, and occasionally plunging into holes that knocked our heads against the hood, and tried our springs to the uttermost, till evening at last found us among the hills, where a rough-and-ready inn afforded us shelter for the night.

Passing through Somerset we came to a place named Cookhouse Drift, where there is a bridge over the Great Fish River.

We also met here with seven troopers of the frontier, armed and mounted police, as tight and serviceable a set of young fellows as one could wish to see--clad in corduroy, thorough-going, rough-and-ready colonial cavalry--and well-trained to bush fighting. They were out after seven escaped convicts, and had caught one, a big Kafir, who was handcuffed, and seemed sulky when I looked at him.

At another place, where the prickly pear was very prolific, and the bush so dense that it formed a pretty safe retreat to escaped convicts, as well as baboons and tigers, we discovered a band of Kafirs celebrating a wedding.

The prickly pears, which were ripe at this time, we found to be very pleasant and refreshing, but we had to handle them with care, as they were covered with prickles so fine that they pierced the skin and broke off the pear with the least touch. The great evil of prickly pear thorns is that it is almost impossible to extract them, and although it can scarcely be said that they cause pain, the irritation they produce is great and prolonged. The monkeys know this well!

I was greatly amused once, while delayed at a road-side inn, by the antics of a monkey with a prickly pear. I had fed him with part of one, of which he seemed passionately fond. Wishing to know whether monkeys as well as men were cautious in handling the fruit, I pulled another by means of a couple of sticks. The usual mode of proceeding is to rub the pear on the ground with a bunch of grass, and thus remove the prickles, when it may be handled with impunity. Without doing this, however, I lifted the pear with my sticks and handed it to Jacko. He looked at it earnestly for a few seconds, then at me with a round mouth and reproachful eyes, as though to say, "You don't mean _that_, do you?"

I smiled and nodded.

Jacko looked again at the pear and put one finger towards it with great caution, but drew back and looked up at me again, as if to say, "_Won't_ you help me?"

I smiled again and shook my head, whereupon he went to work with the most gingerly and delicate touches, as if he were handling red-hot iron. At last he managed to tear a hole in the skin, into which he inserted his black nose, and greedily devoured the contents. Despite his caution, however, I noticed that Jacko kept scratching his hands pretty steadily for some time afterwards.

As we advanced into the hills the roads became unimaginably bad. In one place our track had been carried away by a flood, and the boulder-covered bed of the torrent was our only road.

At last we got up into the mountain region of Glen Lynden, the place to which the Scotch settlers were sent by Government in 1820, under the care of Thomas Pringle, the "African poet," who, among other pieces, wrote the beautiful poem which begins:

"Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent bushboy alone by my side."

The descendants of the 1820 men now occupy these valleys. Both in physique and character they do credit to their sires.

Here I met one of the few survivors of the original settlers, Mr Dodds Pringle, and brother to the poet. [This happened about 1876.] Although upwards of seventy, and a large, stout man, I saw him mount his horse with the activity of a man of thirty. At his house in Glen Lynedock, where I spent a night, they showed me an assagai, or Kafir spear, which had been bent into the form of a half-moon against his, (Mr Pringle's), stomach! It happened thus:

He was out fighting with the rest of the farmers in the war of 1851, and one day was attacked by Kafirs, one of whom flung his assagai at him with tremendous force. Mr Pringle had just fired his rifle, and was reloading when the assagai struck him. It was arrested, however, in its deadly flight by his belt and bullet-pouch. The savage rushed forward, intending to finish his adversary by a thrust from a short spear, but old Pringle guarded the thrust with one hand, while, with the other, he drew a pistol and shot the Kafir through the heart. At that moment another savage ran at him, but a comrade of Pringle suddenly came on the scene and the savage turned to fly. The comrade took aim at him.

"Be cool, and take him low," said Pringle, undoing his belt to examine his wound.

The comrade fired, and the savage fell.

"Are you killed?" asked the comrade, turning to Pringle and glancing at the bent assagai.

"I don't know," replied the other, with a serious look, as he thrust his hand under his waist-belt, "there's no hole that I can find, anyhow."

The hand, when withdrawn, was covered with blood, but it was found on examination that the wound was slight, thanks to the providential interposition of the thick bullet-pouch. The old gentleman is now naturally fond of showing the weapon which had so nearly proved fatal.

Advancing into the Baviaans River District we passed through many places of historic interest, and scenery that must have reminded the Scottish settlers of the rugged glens to which they had bidden farewell for ever.

Among other places, Hobson pointed out a small cavern, high up on the cliffs, which was the scene of a cruel affray not many years before the arrival of the Scotch settlers in the district.

As it illustrates the wild frontier life of those times, and bears on the subject of the grievances of early colonists, I shall relate it.

There was a Dutch Boer, a farmer named Bezuidenhout, who, in the year 1815, dwelt in the lonely and wild recesses of the Baviaans River District. He seems to have been a passionate, headstrong man. The Dutch Boers were generally honest, sterling men, though at that time very ignorant, being far removed from the means of instruction. But the Dutchmen, not less than others, had wild and foolish men amongst them who were easily misled by unprincipled adventurers.

Bezuidenhout seems to have been one of these; at all events he was savage enough to treat one of his Hottentot servants so ill that he was cited to appear before the Court of his district, and was foolish enough to resist the summons. A messenger was therefore sent to arrest him, and as he was known to be a daring character, and had threatened to shoot any limb of the law who should dare to approach his residence, twenty men of the Cape Corps, under Lieutenant Rousseau accompanied the messenger.

On reaching the mountain home of Bezuidenhout they found him prepared. He and a powerful half-caste in his employment were found sheltered behind the high wall of a cattle enclosure, well armed. The Dutchman called to the soldiers to stop, else he would shoot the first man. Disregarding the threat, the lieutenant extended his men in skirmishing order, and attacked. Bezuidenhout fired, happily missed, and retreated into his house, whence he passed by a back-door into the thick jungle in rear. They lost him for a time, but finally traced him to a steep krantz, or precipice, up the almost inaccessible face of which he and his follower had taken refuge in a small cavern. The muzzles of their rifles were seen protruding from the entrance. Lieutenant Rousseau therefore crept up warily, until he reached a ledge above the aperture, from which point he challenged the farmer to surrender, telling him the reason of his being there, and assuring him of personal safety.

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 quantity 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 assembled 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 assembled 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, assembled 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 passes.

The principal 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. _

Read next: Letter 7. Lion-Hunting, Etcetera...

Read previous: Letter 5. More About Ostriches--Karroo Gardens...

Table of content of Six Months at the Cape; Letters to his friend Periwinkle


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book