Emil Holub

“ VOYAGE TO THE CAPE—CAPE TOWN—PORT ELIZABETH.
However fair and favourable the voyage between Southampton and South Africa, a thrill of new life, a sudden shaking off of lethargy, alike physical and mental, ever responds to the crisp, dry announcement of the captain that the long-looked-for land is actually in sight. As the time draws near when the cry of “Land” may any moment be expected from the mast-head, many is the rush that is made from the luxurious cabin to the deck of the splendid steamer, when with straining eyes the passengers eagerly scan the distant horizon ”

“ Except around the pools where the grass grew high, the plain was covered with a rich carpet of new green sward, thickly studded with brown ant-hills, and forming the habitat of numerous sorts of game. Darkbrown, light-brown, tawny, yellow, motley, and
black, were the robes in which a fanciful nature had bedecked her children. There were striped gnus and black gnus, blessbocks and hartebeests, springbocks and zebras; some were grazing, others gambolling, whilst here and there a herd would stalk solemnly along in single file, as though wrapped in meditation. ”

“ Wearing only a small piece of hide round his loins, and carrying nothing more than a little shield of eland-hide, the Masarwa suffers a good deal from cold; but instead of putting his fireplace within an enclosure, like the Bechuana, or inside his hut, like the Koranna, he lights his fire in the open air, and squats down so close to it in order to feel its glow, that as he sleeps with his head on his knees, he is always getting frightfully scorched, and his skin becomes burnt to the colour of an ostrich’s legs. ”

“ Along the river-side was a thicket of saro-palms, and between these and the rising ground lay the valley proper, overgrown with long grass, bushes, and trees, amidst which majestic fan-palms and huge baobabs rose predominant.
In spite of the suffering which I continued to endure from the state of my feet, I look upon the three days which I spent in the vicinity of the falls as the most satisfying and enjoyable part of my sojourn in South Africa. To my mind the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi are one of the most imposing phenomena of the world. ”

“ Æolus and all his crew have spent their efforts upon its sides; floods of water, that deadliest foe to all the strongholds of earth, have done their utmost to sap its foundations; but yet it stands immovable; it holds its dry valley inviolate, and imperiously bids the rushing stream to seek another channel.
Nor can the waters of the torrent itself fail to arrest our attention as they tear along, with the speed of an arrow, through the deep ravine. ”

“ Happening to say something about the cowardice imputed to his race, I saw him shake his head and smile. “No,” he replied, “we are not timid pallahs, nor ever have been; but we love our village life and our hunting; we catch our game in pits and not by arms; we give up our elephants’ tusks to the remorseless Matabele; we show them where to hunt the elephants; let them hunt as they will; we want not the blood of the beasts, much less do we thirst for the blood of men!” ”

“ Except where deep chines break in, too precipitous to be crossed, it is not difficult to walk along the edge and to see how perpetually the rugged walls of rock present some fresh diversity of form; at one time they are absolutely perpendicular as though they had been hewn by a mason’s hand, at the next turn they slope like the glacis of a gloomy rampart, and then suddenly they assume the aspect of a huge garden-wall dotted over with clusters of green and crimson in striking contrast with the dull brown ground. ”

“ Stretching far away in the distance are the numerous islands with which the river-bed is studded, the gorgeous verdure of their fan-palms and’ saro-palms standing out in striking contrast to the subdued azure of the hills behind. All around them, furnishing a deep blue bordering, lies the expanse of the mighty stream that moves so placidly and silently that at first it might seem to be without movement at all ”

“ On the tops of the waggon-trees, hawks and shrikes, beautiful in plumage, keep their sharp look-out, each bird presiding over its own domain; and no sooner does a mouse, a blindworm, or a beetle expose itself to view, than the bird pounces down upon its prey; its movement so sudden, that the bough on which it sat rebounds again as though rejoicing in its freedom from its burden. The leafy mimosas, too, covered with insects of many hues, attract a large number of birds. ”

“ We left Molopolole by the Koboque-pass, and proceeded northwards along the valley of an affluent of the Tshanyana. The vegetation around us was luxuriant, the river-banks, valleys, and hill-sides being partially wooded with shrubs and trees, and clothed with flowers and grasses of many varieties. The steep cliffs, here red, there yellow, there again grey or dark brown, formed natural terraces of rock, whilst the great loose boulders, some sharp at the edges, some rounded, were set in a framework of verdure, spangled with blossoms of every hue. ”

“ Whether seen from the sea, or viewed from inland, the environs of Cape Town are equally charming in their aspect. Approached from the shore, the numerous white specks along the foot of the Lion’s Head gradually resolve themselves into villas standing in the midst of luxuriant gardens, sometimes situated on the grassy slopes, and sometimes picturesquely placed upon the summit of a steep bare rock. The well-to-do residents, especially the merchants, are conveyed from this suburb into the town by a horse-tramway, which is in constant use from six in the morning until ten at night. ”

“ It was time to retire; the oxen that had been grazing at a distance had returned, and of their own accord had reclined on the ground close to the waggon; spreading out our coverings, all of us lay down upon the grass, and sheltered by its stems and breathing its fragrance, we were soon enjoying our well-earned slumber.
In good time next morning we were again on our way. Judging from what the guide told me, I reckoned that the distance to Gassibone’s quarters must be about thirty-five miles, but I was somewhat disconcerted on hearing that on our way we should find water extremely scarce. ”

“ Of the jets of water some are so thin that they are dispersed before they reach the lower flood, and bound up again in vapour; others are from ten to fifteen feet in breadth; these dash down with tremendous fury, their edges curled up and broken into angry foam and spray; the largest streams, especially those that pour along from the eastern shore, are caught by the jagged peaks and torn asunder, ending their career by rolling over and over in cascades. In the diversity of the forms the water takes, I believe that the beauty of the Victoria Falls is quite unparalleled. ”

“ The vegetation was already becoming more luxuriant. A large number of shrubs that from the diamond-fields had looked mere specks turned out to be camel-thorn acacias, their broad-spreading crowns and great flat seed-pods declaring them akin to the mimosas. Since that date most of them have fallen under the axe, and they have been reduced to ashes as fuel at the diggings. Their trunks are often two feet thick, covered with a rough dark-grey bark, full of knots, and yielding a sound hard wood. ”

“ It is of great advantage to a hunter, particularly to a novice in the pursuit, to see a lion before the lion sees him, even though it be for ever so short an interval. The most experienced hunter is only too likely to lose his composure if one of the giants of the forest is found face to face with him before he has time to prepare his weapon. No more unfortunate plight can be imagined, than that of a naturalist or a botanist engrossed in his studies, and suddenly disturbed by the growl of a lion close beside him. ”

“ Although the town has no pretensions to architectural beauty, yet the places of business are thoroughly commodious, and the private residences are often quite elegant villas. The great charm, however, of them all, even of the most modest, lies in the well-kept orchards and gardens with which they are surrounded, the hedges being gay with myriads of roses, with fig-bushes, and with the bright leaves and fiery blossoms of the pomegranate, which turn to their large and luscious fruit. ”

“ As missionary in Shoshong during the incessant discords in the royal family, he had a most difficult position to maintain. But he was the right man in the right place: with much circumspection he acted as mediator between the contending parties; gifted with discretion, and full of sympathy for all that is noble, he succeeded in smoothing down many difficulties, and arousing something like a proper sense of justice and humanity. It is entirely owing to him that Sekhomo’s son, Khame, is now one of the best native sovereigns in the whole of South Africa. ”

“ By white hunters they are often chased promiscuously with elephants, ostriches, and other wild game.
So obscured were all the waggon-tracks by the ashes left by the fire, that it was a matter of no little difficulty for our guide to distinguish the proper way towards the native settlements. The trials of the day seemed never coming to an end. Our thirst became more and more painful, our throats being parched, and our tongues cleaving to our mouths. Our sufferings enforced a melancholy silence. ”

“ It is high treason for any subject to retain possession of an article that is either more handsome or more valuable than what belongs to the king, and anything of exceptional quality, whether it has been purchased from neighbouring tribes or from white men, or even manufactured in the country, belongs to the king, or at least is free for him to claim as a matter of course. I could not offer anybody a present of anything the least unusual without finding it invariably refused, the excuse being that no one dared to take for himself what he was not quite sure that Sepopo already possessed. ”

“ To every tribe alike the shape of the beads is quite a matter of indifference. No matter how ill a traveller in the Marutse district may be, nor how many bearers he may require, if only he has a good stock of blue beads he may always be sure of commanding the best attention and of securing the amplest services; his beads will prove an attraction irresistible to sovereign and subject, to man, woman, and child, to freeman and bondsman alike. ”

“ Some white specks in the distance, on the steep rocky cliffs overhanging the Vaal, marked the sites of New Kierke Rush, and other places that a few years since had been the prosperous settlements of the river-diggings. The journey from Gong Gong to Delportshope, which is about a mile from the mouth of the Harts, was one of the most uncomfortable that I have ever made in a bullock-waggon, and I was at a loss to comprehend how, in the flourishing times of the diggings, such a road could have sufficed for the requirements of a population of some thousands. ”

“ The man undoubtedly was Kapella, no longer the powerful commander, but a sad and dejected fugitive. I was too weak to alight from the waggon and go to meet him, but he was immediately at my side. “Help me, help me, intate (friend) ,” he cried; “I am hungry; my wife, my child, my brother are starving in the woods!” Probably he would have said more, but his keen ear caught the sound of the Masupias singing almost close at hand, and he paused; his face, ordinarily beaming with good nature, became distorted with terror. ”

“ The streets, as the open spaces between the enclosures might be called, were full of life; women were hastening down to the water with great clay pitchers on their heads, or toiling along towards their homes breathless under loads of dried grass or brushwood; while children, all naked, were either tending the cattle in the pasture-land, or playing in swarms upon the river’s edge. ”

“ The vision of the city of the dead dissolves into the scene of a teeming ant-hill; all is life and eagerness and bustle. The very eye grows confused at the labyrinth of wires stretching out like a giant cobweb over the space below, while the movements of the countless buckets making their transit backwards and forwards only add to the bewilderment. ”

“ I was taking an afternoon stroll along the riverside, when I saw a crowd of natives manifestly in great excitement; it appeared that the body of a girl, who had been killed by a crocodile a few days before, had just been washed ashore. Crocodiles have the habit of drowning human beings, or any animals that they are unable to swallow, by holding them down at the bottom of the water until the cessation of all struggling seems to make them aware that no resistance is to be expected, when they open their jaws and let free their prey. ”

“ On the plains on either side of the river I found the white-eared bustard, the commonest kind of wild-fowl in all South Africa; its cry, from the first day of my journey through the Orange Free State and the Transvaal to the last, rarely ceased to be heard. It affords a good meal, and may easily be brought down by the most inexperienced marksman. As soon as it becomes aware of the approach of a pursuer, it turns its head with an inquiring look in all directions, and suddenly dives down ”

“ Amongst the clumps of reeds we observed the hanging nests of sedge-warblers, of the bright red, black-spotted fire-finch, and of the handsome longtailed king-finch (Vidua Capensis) , one of the largest of the finch tribe. In winter the king-finch assumes a brownish hue, but in the summer its plumage is a rich velvet-black, to which an orange spot on each shoulder stands out in brilliant contrast. The change of plumage is not the only transformation with which Nature during its period of luxuriance endues this charming bird ”