H. A. Bryden

“ Sometimes on the calm Sunday evenings up in Waterberg, when the cattle and goats are kraaled for the night and the still veldt lies golden beneath the kiss of sunset, when the bush koorhaan (bustards) are playing their half-hour of strange aerial pranks and evolutions yonder, just outside the dark fringe of bush, Jacoba wanders from the low homestead and sits up above the Falala River, dreaming upon an old, old tale. That tale was once full of mingled memories—bitter-sweet. You may tell now, from the clear, tender look on the good woman’s face, that her thoughts are mainly pleasant ones. ”

“ To the right the vast reed-beds of the Komadau marsh filled the view for miles. In front, outlined clear against the flaming sunset, stood up here and there a few tall palm trees, marking the course of the river. Beyond these the dry plains stretched to the north and west in illimitable monotony.
Just beyond where the Steyns had outspanned was the wagon of another traveller. And as Jacoba Steyn stood, stretching herself a little after the long wagon journey, and gazing about her, the owner of it walked up from the river. He was an Englishman, that was perfectly clear. ”

“ Oosthuysen, without moving his gaze, spoke again.
“No one should know better than you, Hendrika, why I am leaving Marico and going to tempt fortune in the unknown veldt. How can I rest? Ever since I saw you, ever since the sunny years of our childhood, I have thought of you, dreamed of you. I can never marry now, unless—well, unless you should ever become free again, which is not likely before we are old people. It was you, Hendrika, that broke my happiness and disturbed my lot. Allemaghte! I am sorry almost that you have joined this trek.” ”

“ Here, indeed, he told himself, was the typical English girl he had so often set before his mind; fresh, tallish, full of health, alert, vigorous in mind and body, yet a thorough and a perfect woman. On many a warm tropical evening, as they sat together on deck, while the big ship drove her way through the oil-like ocean, sending shoals of flying-fish scudding to right and left of her, the two chatted together, and day by day their intimacy quickened. It was clear to Horace, and it began, too, to dawn upon Mrs Stacer, that Rose Vanning found a more than ordinary pleasure in his presence. ”

“ Supper at length over, the coffee-kettle was banished to obscurity and the whisky produced. The travellers lit their pipes and toasted their absent friends and each other, and then ensued a long and delightful evening.
The traders were two capital, manly fellows, well versed in the sports and toils and pleasures of the far interior; the new-comers themselves had been in the hunting veldt before, and they had all, therefore, many things in common. Many and many a yarn of the chase and adventure they exchanged; many a head of gallant game they slew again by the cheerful blaze. ”

“ Whether roused to life again by the sharp severing of its tail, or by a last desperate stirring of nature, the giraffe—not yet dead after all—rose suddenly from its prone position, and, with Joe clinging in utter bewilderment to its long neck, staggered to its stilt-like legs. For another instant the great creature beat the air in its real death-agony, staggered, staggered again, and then, with a crash that shook the earth, fell truly dead. ”

“ Sinikwe paused in his operations—he was chopping ribs from the huge frame, and from head to foot was smeared and stained with blood. For once he was in a good humour; blood and meat had rendered him mellow, as with wine. The day passed in butchering and drying meat, in a continual round of feasting. At night, by the fire, Sinikwe, utterly gorged and drunk with flesh, lay down to sleep. Nakeesa had had enough, but she had not eaten in so gross a manner as her lord. Even to the woman of the desert there seem intuitively to come restraints and limits, which to the man are unknown. ”

“ Presently the weird, shrill wail of the jackal and the hideous cry of hyaenas told that even in these dry wastes the night creatures were wandering in search of food. These sounds disturbed not Nakeesa, though she heard them; she knew that the fire and the presence of human life would sufficiently protect the giraffe’s carcase. There were no lions so far from water. Towards midnight the risen moon, now nearly at her full, shone broad upon the veldt. Her intense brightness made clear all things upon the desert, and paled the stars. ”

“ For 150 years Klaas Stuurmann and his ancestors have led the wandering life of the Trek-Boer, knowing no hearth but the pleasant camp-fire, no roof but the glaring blue of the unchanging African sky and the tents of their wagons, no floor but the wild veldt. Many among the more settled Dutch farmers wonder how these uneasy nomads, with their shiftless ways and habits of unrest, first came to pursue such an existence. ”

“ She measures seventeen good feet from the base of her hoofs to the tip of her false horns, as she stands there, and you may search all Africa—ay, all the world—for a more wonderful, more beautiful picture of feral life in its most primaeval form.
There is no air of wind blowing from the Masarwas towards the giraffe; the breeze trends rather the other way, and they are safe from betrayal by that foe. They are concealed from sight by the screen of bush beneath which they crouch, and a few handfuls of sand, cast by Sinikwe upon the smouldering fire, silently destroys that evidence of human life. ”

“ The blinding glare thrown up from the flat white surface of the pan makes even the seasoned eyes of a Bushwoman throb and smart, and the heat is terrible.
There is a gleam of satisfaction even upon the salt pan, however. Nakeesa sees plainly enough by the spoor that the giraffe cow is in sore trouble. Here she has reeled, there spurned the smooth white sand as she starts off again at speed, galled into frenzy by the poison that now runs riot through her veins. And ever, like bloodhound upon a trail, run the footprints of Sinikwe side by side with the giraffe spoor. ”

“ I lay long that night in my wagon, thinking out some solution of the puzzle, until sleep at last overcame me. While I lay asleep, I had a very singular dream. I dreamed that I sat upon a high cliff of rock, looking down upon a fair lake of water, which lay girt in part by a sandy shore, and surrounded by a ring of mountains. It was sunset, and one end of this lake was white with pelicans. At other parts were gathered flocks of wild-duck, and round about flew bands of the swift desert sand-grouse—Namaqua partridge, as the colonists call them. ”

“ For the Transvaal Boers, you must understand, to this day, linger in their isolation at least a hundred years behind the average European. Sometimes, when the captain came home early from hunting, Jacoba would walk with him to the river-side, or to the spreading lagoons which were now everywhere forming upon the flats, and watch him shoot wild-duck and geese, or some rare specimen or curious bird. Those were delightful times for the girl, as she and her hero strolled home in the soft African twilight, with all the glamour of evening about them. ”

“ She had refused to save the life of Sinikwe (the man who treated her ill, and whom she loathed) from the puff-adder—an act as good as murder, most men will say. And for Kwaneet, who had treated her with some kindliness, and whom she loved with as much love as a Masarwa is capable of, she had given her whole being—life itself. She could do no more.
As for Kwaneet, having satisfied himself, without much emotion, at a later period of the day, of the death of his wife and child, and having taken as much zebra meat as the lion had left, he went his way. ”

“ Boer women are not, as a rule, impressionable; they give little heed to the sights that surround them, and have no eye for the picturesque. But this evening, of all others, will, for a particular reason, remain imprinted deep in the tablets of Jacoba’s remembrance. Below the wagons lay the Lake River, now somewhat shrunk within its low banks, and teeming with bird life. Just here the tall reeds had been burnt down, and there was a clear view. Flamingoes, ibises, coots, great gaudy geese, thousands of wild-duck, widgeon, and teal thronged the shallows and darkened the river surface. ”

“ Bill Vincent and Ralph Jenner, the two men who sat by the pleasant camp-fire in the far South African interior, were old friends, now engaged on a hunting expedition towards the Okavango.
Nowadays you may find, scattered about that vast mysterious land, many scores of well-educated gentlemen knocking about in the veldt, often dressed in clothes and engaged in work that a British navvy would scorn, yet, barring a slight access of strong language, born of the wilderness, still gentlemen at heart, and capable of returning to civilisation without loss or deterioration. ”