The Ruined Cities of Zululand. Hugh Mulleneux Walmsley
beings, the soil is abundantly fertile, and the land is intersected by rivers.”
“You are speaking of Natal, but what about this part of the country?”
“Between the Coastland and the Drakenburgh range every variety of tropical and European productions can be cultivated, from the pine apple to the gooseberry, and I have seen wheat, too, unequalled in size and quality, grown near where we now are.”
“I thought,” replied Hughes, “that wherever the sugar cane prospers the climate is unhealthy?”
“The single exception is that of Natal. The pasture land is eminently adapted for sheep, and nothing but capital is required—capital and labour. As we go more north towards the Zambesi, the nature of the land will alter.”
“And Mozelkatse—will he keep his word, think you?”
“He is known for never breaking it,” replied the missionary, “he is—.” The sentence was not finished, for a black arm and hand seemed to glide out of the darkness, and was laid on the missionary’s shoulder.
Starting up, he seized the intruder by the throat, but instantly released him, laughing. It was Masheesh, the Matabele brave, who had presented them that day to Mozelkatse, and as it may be easily imagined that the king, though able to create the sun and moon, was readier with his spear than his pen; the credentials, which were to make his protection of the party known, assumed the tangible form of the chief who thus unceremoniously startled them, and who soon, squatted beside the blaze, proceeded gravely to light his pipe and smoke in silence. The fire grew low, the two Europeans retired into the tent, but Masheesh smoked on quietly and composedly. One by one the Kaffirs and Hottentots lay down, but still the glow of the chief’s tobacco could be seen by the fire side. Rising at last, he heaped fresh wood on the embers, and calmly taking his place by the tent door and outside, though he had but to lift it to enter, Masheesh rolled himself in his buffalo hide, and, gorged with meat and tobacco, soon slept as soundly as the rest.
The Matabele Hunt.
Masheesh had been deputed by Mozelkatse to accompany them, and there was now nothing to stay their progress northward. The country, too, at the foot of the mountains, was comparatively bare of game, so early the following morning the small party outspanned, and took their way across the plain to strike the banks of the Limpopo.
“How easily the Matabele falls into our ways!” said Wyzinski; as on the morning of the second day after leaving the mountains, the two were riding about half a mile ahead of the waggon, which was coming lumbering along behind them, the shouts of the drivers and the cracking of the long whip reaching their ears.
“It seems strange to see him take the management of our people, and at the same time associate himself with us on a footing of perfect equality,” replied Hughes, “he a half-naked and totally uneducated savage.”
“Turn it the other way, Hughes; he is a chief in the land, known and respected; we are strangers, with nothing but the white man’s prestige placing us at all on the footing of his equal. Masheesh is naturally the leader of our party, and is responsible to his chief for our safety. It is on this I rely.”
The Matabele rode well, and he now came dashing along bestriding a small horse which had been given him. He disdained the use of a saddle, and as he came along at full speed, his ostrich feather streaming on the wind, the loose panther skin floating behind, and his long black legs nearly touching the ground, there was something grotesque and yet striking in his appearance. He held his slender assegai in his hand. Dashing up to the two in front, he checked his horse suddenly, bringing it instantly to a standstill, and sending the ground and grit beneath its hoofs flying into the air. Bending down over its shoulder, the savage pointed with the spear head to some marks on the earth, and then looking up into the soldier’s face, uttered some words in a low guttural tone, and laughed.
“The track of elephants,” said the missionary, who spoke the Zulu tongue, though imperfectly. In a moment Hughes was off his horse, and stooping low as he examined for the first time the footprint of the mighty denizen of the African forests. Masheesh rode on, and in a few moments, a low guttural cry was heard, and the Matabele was seen, halting under a tree, and signing with his spear for the rest to come on. The path had led through a forest, the trees not growing thickly together, but at intervals, and now and then broken by rich undulating plains. Following the direction of the chief’s assegai, the two halting by his side under the shade of the mohunno trees, saw stretched before them the winding silver line of the Limpopo, one of the favourite hunting grounds of the Bazizulu.
Herds of antelope, and of hartebeest, were feeding over the vast plain. They could be counted by thousands, and it was indeed a glorious sight for the hunter’s eye, that vast undulating plain, whose gentle rises concealed the distance, and were covered with rich pasture, over which were feeding great herds of cattle, who owned no master. About five miles distant the line of the Limpopo bordered by trees, was seen glistening through the foliage as it sparkled in the morning sun. To the right and close to them a large snake was curling along the ground like a big black sinuous branch, making off for the shelter of the wood, while a troop of monkeys over head were grinning and chattering at the intruders, and flights of parrots were screaming among the branches.
A sense of wildness and of vastness creeps over those who look upon these wide plains in their native grandeur and stillness—a feeling of freedom, and of liberty, and at the same time of respect and adoration for the great Creator of all. Deeply feeling this for several minutes, the three gazed in silence, then as the distant shout of the drivers came on the breeze, the nearest troops of antelope stopped feeding, raised their heads, sniffed the air, and moved off—the next taking alarm in the same way—until the whole plain, far as the eye could roam, was covered with droves of antelope, galloping here and there, and crossing each other in wild confusion. It looked like an intricate and mazy dance, the performers in the wild ballet on the plains of South Africa being the antelope.
“His are the cattle on a thousand hills,” exclaimed the missionary, breaking silence at last, and reverently uncovering himself.
“Some of them shall be mine before long,” replied the matter-of-fact soldier; “if you will get the chief to ride back and stop those fellows shouting.”
“I’ll do so myself,” answered the missionary. “I will halt them here, give you an hour’s advance, and then move straight forward for the Limpopo, where we will outspan. We want meat in the camp.”
“And shall have it. Come along, Masheesh,” cried Hughes, elated beyond measure, and letting the Arab he rode feel the spur, he dashed away followed by the Matabele brandishing his assegai. It looked very easy to procure meat among such countless herds, but an hour of violent exertion proved it was not so. The Arab was untrained, could not be brought to a standstill instantly, and was fidgety, so that it was impossible to aim from the saddle. Shy and timid, the hartebeest moved along in herds seldom exceeding ten in number, ever led by some old and cautious buck.
Of a yellowish orange colour, striped with black under the horns and down the forehead, they had seemed heavy, lumbering animals. The thighs and extremities were tinged with black, and the horns most curiously formed, curving at first backward and outward, but subsequently sweeping inwards, the eyes being like most of the antelope tribe, large and full. Ever on the watch, the hunters quite failed to get near them, and just as after long and cautious labour, they would be almost within shot, away would scamper the herd, in Indian file, and clumsy and ungainly as they were in their movements, all attempts to cut them off utterly failed. Convinced at last of the impossibility, Hughes followed the advice given him by the Matabele, and, dismounting, concealed himself behind a clump of trees, Masheesh, Luji, and others of the hunters who had now found them, making a long sweep to drive the antelope towards him. This at last proved successful.
A herd of hartebeest came cantering along, the leader pausing within ten paces of the clump where he lay hid. The moment sufficed, as a ball crashed through his skull, and he fell heavily, stone dead. The herd instantly turned to fly, but not before another shot had bowled over a second deer.
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