R. M. Ballantyne

“ Then each cavalier essayed to reach the ball first. The sudden urging of the steeds to instant action seemed to confuse them. They did not spring, as they should have done like arrows from bows. One rider wildly kicked with his heels and shook his reins. The horse turned round, as if in contempt, from the ball. Another applied his whip with vehemence, but his horse only backed. A third shouted, having neither whip nor spur, and brought his polo-stick savagely down on his animal’s flank, but it plunged and reared. The only horse that behaved well was that of a gallant youth who wore spurs. ”

“ His tremendous legs are his only weapons, and his kick is almost, if not quite, equal to that of a horse. Possessing enormous feet, with two toes on each, the horny points of which can cut and rip like cold chisels, he rushes at an adversary and kicks, or hits out, straightforward, like a prize-fighter. No unarmed man on earth could stand long before a furious male ostrich without being killed. ”

“ No race-horse ever cleared the ground like David Marais! Johnny saw that the “game was up.” Applying his own long legs to the ground with a will, he rushed at the nest. The female bounced up, ran a few yards, and squatted in helpless stupidity. Johnny counted the eggs, turned, and fled. Not a moment too soon! Indeed he was too late, for the ostrich was already close up, and Johnny’s retreat by the way he had come was cut off; but he turned at a sharp angle, and made for another clump of bushes, through which he plunged with a wild hilarious laugh, into the safe retreat of the river-bed. ”

“ The Karroo-bush itself, which gives name to these plains, is a succulent plant, which thrives in the almost waterless soil, and forms a rich pasturage for sheep and cattle. Hobson’s garden—copiously watered by streams led out from his large dams—was a beautiful shady oasis of green and gold, in the midst of what, to some eyes, might have appeared a desert, but which, if irrigated properly, would become a perfect paradise of fertility. ”

“ We gained the opposite side. I saw the Hottentot’s horse rise before me as if mounting a staircase. He slipped, and floundered on his nose and knees. The led horse disconcerted him. Just then my own horse made a bound up the bank, and pawed the mud for a moment. “Slack the reins! give him his head!” shouted Edwards. I did so. With a mighty plunge and a groan the sturdy animal bore me to the top of the bank in safety. I turned and saw the Tottie’s horse throw up its head and fore legs, as if imploringly, to the skies, and fall backwards. ”

“ The south-easter is a sneezer, and a frequent visitor at the Cape in summer. Where it comes from no one can tell: where it goes to is best known to itself: what it does in passing is painfully obvious to all. Fresh from the Antarctic seas it swoops down on the southern shores of Africa, and sweeps over the land as if in search of a worthy foe. ”

“ They came ashore with a slow, regular, almost dancing gait, humming a low monotonous chant, as if to enable them to step in time, and making serio-comic motions with arms and hands, until they deposited safely in a cart a weight that might have tested Atlas himself!
It seemed obvious that these wild men, (for such they truly were) , had been gifted with all the powers that most white men lay claim to,—vigour, muscle, energy, pluck, fun, humour, resolution. Only principle is wanted to make them a respectable and useful portion of the human family. ”

“ All this time the sun shines intensely in a cloudless sky, and beautifies the “cloth” which floats on Table Mountain, undulating on its surface, or pouring over its edge like a Niagara of wool, to be warmed into invisibility before tumbling half-way down the mighty precipice that backs the town.
Although I have compared the south-easter to an enemy, he is in reality a friend. The inhabitants call him the “Cape doctor,” because in the general clearance he sweeps away bad smells, the natural result of bad drainage. ”

“ We cantered on over the plain, till the garden and the farm looked in the distance like ships at sea, and rode among the bushes that crowned a rising ground. We set up some guinea-fowl and other birds, and startled a hare, but let them go, as our aim was steenboks. The little boks, however, were not on the knoll that day, so away we went again at a gallop until the garden and the farm went down on the horizon. ”

“ Here I had arranged to await the arrival of the mail-cart, and proceed viâ Bedford to Grahamstown.
And here, with deep regret, I bade farewell to my friend Hobson—a true-hearted, well-educated Englishman, born in the colony; the son of one of the “1820 settlers;” a brave, bold, fearless, loving man, who hunted lions, leopards, elephants, zebras, and all the large game of Africa in his youth, and was “out” in the war,—a warm friend, a splendid type of those hardy men whose lot it is to subdue the wilderness. ”

“ Ostrich-farming is no child’s play. It involves risk in more ways than one, and sometimes taxes both the courage and strength of the farmer.
In ordinary circumstances the ostrich is a mild, inoffensive creature—indeed the female is always so; but when a male ostrich is what I may style nesting—when, enclosed in a large field or paddock, he guards his wives and his eggs—no lion of the desert, no tiger of the jungle or kloof, is more ferocious or more savagely bent on the death of any or all who dare to intrude on his domain. ”

“ One morning Hobson and his eldest son Six-foot Johnny and I mounted our steeds and rode away to the field in which one of the male ostriches dwelt with his meek brown wives. The wives are always brown, the husbands are jet-black, with the exception of those magnificent and pure white feathers in wings and tail which are so much prized and worn by the fair dames of Europe. Hobson carried a sack of mealies at his saddle-bow. ”

“ The whole party rose with marvellous celerity, and the sportsmen rushed towards the boundary wall, while Gouws scrambled on his long legs and ran after them. Had the distance been great, their chance of escape would have been small. As it was, Gouws overtook one of the party just as he reached a part of the wall which had been mended with mimosa-thorn bushes. With one tremendous kick he sent the unfortunate man into the midst of the thorns, where he would certainly have given him further punishment had he not been attracted by a yell of alarm from another of the party. ”

“ All this time the sun was glowing as only a South African summer sun can glow, in a cloudless sky, and it was not until that sun had become red in the face, and sunk far down into the west, that the panting, but far from exhausted revellers saddled up and inspanned, and began to quit the scene. ”

“ Coming to a comparatively level stretch we sank into a silently reflective and forgetful mood, while the rain-drops dribbled down our noses, sopped from our mackintoshes to our saddles, whence they re-ascended, through the capillary influence of garments, to our necks, and soon equalised our humidity.
“Look out!” shouted Edwards, suddenly. We all obeyed, and saw a brown buck labouring up a slope so steep that running was out of the question. I stuck my heels into my steed and faced him at the slope. He took it. ”

“ The yell of the Kafir and the whizzing assagai afterwards disturbed the peace of Salem, and at that time the settlers proved that, though on peaceful plans intent, they could bravely hold their own; but it was peaceful enough, and beautiful, when I first beheld it.
At the door of a moderately handsome residence—which had succeeded the wattle-and-daub style of thing—I was heartily welcomed by my friend and his amiable spouse. Here I had the pleasure of enjoying a South African picnic.
A picnic is at all times interesting, doubly so when undertaken in peculiar circumstances. ”

“ Thus railways have created travellers and traffic. But they have done much more; they have turned road-side inns into “grand hotels”; they have clambered up on the world’s heights, and built palatial abodes on the home of the mountain-hare and the eagle, where weak and worn invalids may mount without exertion, and drink in health and happiness with the freshest air of heaven. ”

“ You may gaze round you far and near in the plains, and behold no sign of any bird; but kill one of your horses and leave it dead on the plain, and straightway, from various quarters of the heavens, you will see little specks which grow and float, and circle and grow, until they assume the ugly form and huge proportions of unclean vultures, which will perch on the carcass, and make away with it in a remarkably short space of time. ”

“ It was dark; the breakers roared around; the rugged and almost inaccessible shores of the Cape of Storms were on the one hand, the ocean on the other; men, women, and children were rushing about the decks in wild terror; sharks were known to be in these waters, and only two of the ship’s boats were available for service. In this moment of extremity God put it into the hearts of both officers and men to act with unexampled courage and wisdom.
To save all was manifestly out of the question. When people are in such circumstances it is too often “every man for himself;” ”

“ Remounting I rode to the edge of the clump of bushes and found several of my companions, some of whom carried the carcasses of springboks at their cruppers. Hope revived at once, and I set off with them in search of another flock.
“You’ve failed, I see,” remarked my friend Jonathan Hobson in a sympathetic tone.
Ah! what a blessed thing is sympathy!
“Yes,” said I; “my shots fell short.”
“Don’t let that discourage you,” returned Jonathan, “you’re not used to the Karroo. Distance is very deceptive. Sighting one’s rifle is the chief difficulty in these regions, but you’ll soon come to it.” ”

“ To keep the male bird in play while the search was being made, the father took his forked stick, met the cock in single combat, clapped the fork on his neck, and let him kick away. All might have gone well, for the father, besides being strong, was accustomed to such work; but the bird, instead of keeping up a straightforward assault, as it ought to have done, turned its back to its foe, wriggled its neck, in some inexplicable manner, out of the fork, and before it could be refixed had given Jonathan several tremendous kicks. ”

“ If railways ran over the Karroo, adventurous capitalists would come from all ends of the earth to see it; they would buy land when they found a convenient mode of running their produce to the markets of the large towns and the ports on the coast; they would start ostrich farms and breed horses, and grow wool, and build mighty dams, and sink artesian wells, as the French have done with some success I believe in Algiers. If railways were run up to the diamond-fields, adventurous diggers would crowd in hundreds to the great pit of Kimberley ”

“ I saw a ship-load of mules there, and it was a sight not to be forgotten.
Have you ever seen a fair stand-up fight between men and mules? It is not easy to say which of the two combatants is the more mulish. I went one day to the docks and chanced to witness a conflict. They were discharging the mules—the men were—from the hold of the small vessel which had brought them over sea from South America. “Victory or death” was undoubtedly the motto of each. Of course man prevailed because of superior power,—not obstinacy. ”

“ Six-foot Johnny made a cast. The lash grazed the leader’s flank with a crack that might have shamed a small revolver. The mules presented first their noses, then their heels to the sky; the cart leaped from the ground, and we were off—bumping, rattling, crashing, swinging, over the wild Karroo, followed by some half-dozen horses led by two mounted Hottentot attendants. ”

“ It lay between two rivers, was eight or ten miles wide and upwards of twenty miles in length—a mighty ocean, as it were, of short, compact Karroo, with a boundless horizon like the sea in all directions save one, where a great South African mountain range intercepted the view. Here and there a few clumps of mimosa bushes rose like islets, and lent additional interest to the scene.
We “outspanned”, that is, we unyoked, and “off-saddled” here for luncheon, and found shelter from the sun under a mimosa, which was large enough to merit being styled a tree. ”

“ It rattles roofs and windows, and all but overturns steeples and chimneys; it well-nigh blows the shops inside out, and fills them with dust; it storms the barracks and maltreats the soldiers; it compels the shutting up of sun-umbrellas, or reverses and blows them to ribbons; it removes hats and bonnets by the score, and sweeps up small pebbles in its mad career, so that one feels as if being painfully pelted with buck-shot ”

“ South Africans do not live upon air, by any means—though air has a good deal to do with their living. These comely maidens and strapping boys had not been brought up on water-gruel. These powerful men and ruddy matrons, to say nothing of the aged and the juvenile, would not have gone to that knoll on the plain without a prospect of “strong meat” of some sort. There were pies and joints, buns and beef, cakes and coffee, tea and tongues, sugar and sandwiches, hams and hampers, mounds of mealies, oceans of milk, and baskets of bread and butter. ”