Adventures in Swaziland. Owen Rowe O'Neil
and then would reply, always addressing the deposed king as "Nkoos," which has the same meaning to our kaffirs as "Your Majesty the King" has to the average Britisher.
The silk hat was very important in Jafta's eyes. It meant much more than a mere personal adornment. My father always wears silk hats, even when traveling about the farm, and Jafta attached much significance to the one he wore and always guarded it most carefully. In fact, one of the greatest honors he could confer on any of his officers was to make one of them official guardian of the hat when he was not wearing it. This was the savage conception of the coveted post of "Keeper of the Crown Jewels" that is found in some present-day monarchies.
However, Jafta finally came on more evil days. Owing to certain outside influences which were brought to bear upon him and to which he acceded, it became necessary to take severe measures, and he and his small band of followers were removed from the territory my father had loaned them. This was rather sad, because this land had been the site of the royal kraal of the Mapors since time immemorial.
Nevertheless, we have continued to employ Mapors on the farm and have a number of families there now. My old nurse was a Mapor woman. She was faithfulness personified, and I led her a merry dance. Her only garment was a loin cloth made of a duiker skin, and on account of her scant clothing my older brothers nick-named her "Jass," which means "overcoat." Jass was the mother of several little Mapors, the scars on her forehead showing their number. Like all the other savages in the Transvaal, the Mapors practice scarification to a great extent. The women are scarred either on the forehead or breasts, while the men are entitled to a scar on the forehead for each enemy they have killed.
Until I was sent to boarding-school in Grahamstown, that is, until I was well into my teens, my only companions were little kaffir boys. My best pal was Sibijaan, whose name means "The Skunk," and even today he is my body servant when I am at home. How we came to possess him is illustrative of conditions in the district surrounding Rietvlei.
Sibijaan and two other little kaffirs were brought to our home early one morning by a neighbor of ours who had captured them on our property. It seems they belonged to some tribe that had recently been wiped out by the Zulus and had been fleeing north to get away from the death that caught their people. I have never seen so miserable a trio as these poor little natives. They were almost starved and were unutterably dirty. In addition, they were in a state of most pitiable terror. They regarded the white men with bulging eyes and seemed only to want a place to hide.
Since they had been captured on our farm, they belonged to us. My mother was at home at the time, and the neighbor and she had a pretty argument as to the disposal of the captives. I listened to all of it, keeping one eye on the little boys and wondering how I would feel if I were in their place.
Finally my mother agreed that the neighbor should have the largest of the three, since he was big enough to be of some use in herding cattle and sheep. The two little fellows were to belong to us, and subsequent events proved that we had much the best of the bargain. The one taken by our neighbor soon escaped, while our captives quickly became devoted to us and are with us yet. The elder of the two was Sibijaan, and my mother gave him to me for my own servant and playmate. Several of my brothers happened to be spending a few days at the farm at this time and they gave Sibijaan his name. Dick did the naming when he said, "The little nigger would make a skunk blush with envy. Let's call him The Skunk!"
Sibijaan and I soon had definite tasks assigned to us. On a Boer farm no one rests—all have their work, even to the women and children. We were sent out to mind the sheep, of which my father had thousands, and were given about a dozen other little kaffirs as assistants. I was about seven years old at this time, big and strong for my age.
During those years there was a great lack of traders in our section of the Transvaal. This was due to the continuous wars in which the native tribes fought one another and now and then raided a Boer farm. Traders had been killed and their goods stolen, and none ever stopped at the Valley of Reeds. This meant that my father had to outfit expeditions and make the long journey to the coast and back again, if we were to have any of the civilized necessities or luxuries.
Our neighbors would join in these expeditions, and often there would be a score of ox-wagons and several score Boers in the parties. I remember these expeditions well for many reasons—my mother used to spend anxious months during my father's absence and about this time there was an expedition which brought me my first pair of trousers. These, in turn, were the cause of my receiving an injury to one of my eyes from which I never fully recovered. My father had been away for seven months this time and we had begun to fear that hostile natives had attacked the caravan and done him some harm. Many and many such an outfit had been wiped out by the Zulus, Makateese, or other hostile tribes, and there never was any assurance that the few rifles of the Boers could stop the rush of the savage impis.
On this occasion Sibijaan and I were minding a small herd of sheep on the little plateau that overlooks the heart of Rietvlei. We were quite busy trying to drive the flock to a better feeding-ground when Sibijaan suddenly stopped and listened.
"Strangers coming!" he shouted. "I smell oxen and wagons. White men coming up the Rietvlei!"
We looked in the direction he indicated and saw a cloud of dust creeping along the rough road. A second later a man in a silk hat, riding a familiar horse, emerged from the dust. Even at that distance I could see the rifle across his saddle. It was Slim Gert O'Neil, my father.
Sibijaan and I, followed by all the other little kaffirs, raced to the wagons, where my father swung me on his horse and greeted me most affectionately. A few moments later occurred the first really great event of my life—I received my first trousers! My father took me back to one of the wagons and presented me with a stout pair of corduroys. I was overjoyed and danced up and down, Sibijaan and the other little savages joining me, as though at a celebration. Now, I felt, at last I am a real white man, and the distance between my black playmates and myself seemed to become immense.
A little later I had slipped into the trousers and was proudly marching at the head of my little impi. We saw the wagons into the home kraal and then went back to our sheep. I was the hero of the hour among my playmates, and this led to the injury that has affected my eye ever since.
Sibijaan, who had always shared with me the leadership of our impi, lost caste when I donned the trousers and instinctively became the kaffir. This hurt him, and late in the afternoon he made me the following proposition:
"Klein Baas (meaning 'Little Boss')," he said, in his pathetic earnestness forgetting to address me by my native name, "Mzaan Bakoor," "you have been wearing the trousers all day. Don't you think it is my turn to wear them? We are both indunas (leaders) of our impi; it is not right that one should be better than the other. Let me wear the trousers until sundown and show our men that we are brothers-in-arms!"
This seemed reasonable to me. Sibijaan and I had shared our joys and woes for several years and there was no reason for my refusing him the honor of wearing the wonderful corduroys. We changed. I put on his beads and he got into my corduroys. Then came a perfect exhibition of the kaffir temperament. Sibijaan became insufferably arrogant. He gave orders to our impi, and for a moment I thought he was going to try and command me. The more he lorded it over the others, the more sullen and angered they became.
Of course the inevitable happened. Several of the little lads demanded that they be allowed their turn at wearing the trousers, the badge of authority, as it were. Sibijaan refused.
"No, no, you cannot wear them!" he shouted. "Now I am a man; I am almost white! I am a man and you are little boys! Who am I that I should take notice of such dirt?"
But he did. This last insult was too much. The indignant lads attacked Sibijaan, and in a second there was a squirming mass of black legs, arms, and bodies, with my precious trousers in danger of destruction. We all had assegais, or short stabbing spears, and regardless of these I dashed into the mêlée. Death or wounds were little things compared to the loss of those trousers.
When the fight was over I had been stabbed in the eye, but I had the trousers! Practically every boy had at least one wound, and one of the little fellows died before we got him back to the house