Through the Kalahari Desert. G.A. Farini
distance was traversed in thirty-two hours, including stoppages— not at all a bad pace, considering the gradients in many cases were as much as one in forty.
About 10 p.m. we arrived at a station called De Aar, the junction with the Port Elizabeth line. Here we had to change, and bundling our things out on the
A Tight Fit.
platform in the dark, had an hour to wait for the train from Middleburg to convey ns to the north.
Travelling all night, we arrived at Hope Town—or rather the Orange River Terminus,” about nine miles from the river and the same from Hope Town—at 4 a.m., and here we had to exchange the railway for the coach to Kimberley, a distance of seventy miles. The mail-cart was sent off without delay, passengers having their choice of two regular coaches, one “run” by the mail contractors, Messrs. Gibson, and the other by the old South African pioneer, Mr. De Witt. The ordinary fare for the distance is 2l. 10s. for each passenger, and 4d. per lb. for all baggage over 25 lbs.
Mr. Caldecott had his own trap waiting for him, and was off next. The two coaches were soon filled to overflowing, so some of us went shares in hiring a special mule-waggon, which Mr. De Witt offered to “conduct” himself. There was just room for eight of us, and we were congratulating ourselves on getting a conveyance “made to order,” when two ladies begged to be allowed to join. Of course we could not refuse, and had all got nicely packed together when a young lady—Miss Pullinger, the daughter of the principal owner of the Dutoitspan Diamond Mine, and her little sister and brother—came up in great haste, having received an urgent telegram to go to Kim- berley at once. There was no other conveyance; would we make room just for three little ones? Mr. De Witt made no objection on behalf of the mules, so we made none on behalf of ourselves; and with a little judicious squeezing we packed ourselves in somehow.
The banks of the river are so steep that great care has to be exercised in driving down; if anything goes
Crossing the Orange River.
wrong with the break, there is nothing to prevent you going straight into the water. So on reaching the edge we dismounted, while the coach was driven down to the pont (Anglice, ferry, or floating bridge)—a flat-bottomed scow, attached by a pulley-block to a wire stretched tightly across the river. When we were “all aboard,” the bow of the scow was turned a little up-stream, and the force of the current took us across to the opposite shore—or rather to the edge of a sandbank about fifty feet wide, over which the male passengers were carried on the shoulders of a stalwart Zulu, while the ladies had the privilege of resuming their seats in the coach.
After the succession of waterless river-beds, the sight of the noble Orange River was quite a treat. The stream was only half-full, but the wide shelving banks of deep white sand, through which the mules laboriously dragged the coach, showed what a grand volume of water must roll down during the rainy season.
Slaking our thirst with ginger-beer—bought in a little shanty of corrugated iron, the inside temperature of which was that of an oven just ready for the bread to be put in—we resumed our seats on the coach, and the “slasher began his work. It takes two coachmen to drive a team in South Africa, one man holding the reins, and another using the whip—a stout cane with a hide lash, some six yards or more in length, more like a clumsy fishing-rod-and-line than a whip. Out of the whole team only the leaders and wheelers are under the direct control of the driver, the reins being merely passed through a loop in the harness of the intervening pairs; but the driver’s efforts are quite
Taking French Leave.
surpassed by those of the slasher, who, taking his weapon of torture in both hands, rends the air with his shouts and with the swishes and cracks and snaps of his whip.
After some hours of this ear-splitting performance we outspanned opposite a Boer’s house—a structure of sun-dried mud-bricks, somewhat similar to the houses I had seen in Mexico, where they are called adobes. It was a relief to be able to get down and stretch one’s legs, after being packed thirteen—not counting the drivers—in a waggon constructed for eight. On attempting to alight I found my legs so inextricably mixed up with Miss Pullinger’s that I hardly knew whether to jump down on hers or on my own; but everybody took the squeezing in good part, Miss Pullinger especially exciting our admiration by the plucky manner in which she bore the discomfort, holding, as she did, her two little charges on her lap all the time, but never complaining, and declining every offer of relief with a pleasant smile. It seemed a shame that such a treasure should have her lot cast in this country, instead of enjoying the comforts of England.
Knocking at the door, through which we could see the family at dinner, with a minister occupying the seat of honour, and finding the table was well filled, I asked in my bad Dutch if we could have dinner.
“Nein,” replied the farmer; “det es nie hotel nie.” But I was particularly hungry, so I walked in and shook hands all round, which I was told was the proper thing to do, and called the old Boer and his wife “uncle*’ and “aunt,” and the younger ones “nephews” and “nieces.” Then spying a pail of milk with a dipper in it I took a dong drink, and asked,
An Oasis.
“How much?” One of the girls answered, Six- pence.” So I called the others in, and the pail was soon empty; and then, shaking hands and laying our sixpences on the table, we filed out and took our de- parture. I don’t think the old Boer quite liked it, because we were English ‘P but, if we were glad to get his milk, he was glad enough to receive our coins. And he was not particular about the manner in which these latter got into his possession; for, unless I do the worthy man great injustice, he was the richer by a good many more sixpences than we had bargained for, for we had not gone more than half a mile on our journey when Miss Pullinger discovered that her purse was gone. She was certain she had it when she paid her sixpence, and she must have dropped it at the house. So we all voted that De Witt should walk back after it, which he at once agreed to do. But his mid-day march through the burning sand—with the thermometer at 140o—was in vain. The purse was nowhere to be found, and the unanimous verdict was that Froude’s honest Boer” had annexed it.
About 1 p.m. we arrived at Thomas’s Farm, where we found dinner awaiting us, the coach ahead of us having happily given warning of our approach. The farm was quite an oasis in the desert. A large dam, fed by a spring, was used to irrigate a garden of about a quarter of an acre, the outer boundary of which was a thicket of fig -trees laden with fruit, with an inner fence of grape-vines from which hung luscious bunches. There were, besides, peach-trees, the fruit of which was however insipid, a plentiful stock of well-flavoured melons, and various vegetables, specimens of which graced our dinner-table.
The Benefits of Water Storage.
What astonished me more than anything else was the fact that the goats and cattle drinking at the dam were actually fat; not like the transparent, kiln-dried, living skeletons that had appeared here and there like ghosts amid the desolation of the country round about. No grass, no leaves on the stunted bushes, how could they lay up those stores of flesh and fat? Mr. Thomas explained that he had 300 horses, 200 goats, 500 cattle, and 5000 sheep, and that it required all his extensive range of 40,000 acres to keep them in condition during the drought. Even then, although they had water every day by means of his irrigation system, some of them had died; but not many more than he lost every year from “lung-sickness,” and the disease known as “stiff-sickness.” His water supply was the salvation of his stock.
Leaving this oasis, we were soon passing through the same monotony of a parched-up landscape. At one spot, going down a slight slope, at the foot of which there was probably a little moisture, we saw half a dozen of the graceful and gorgeously plumaged large crested crane; and presently old Kert espied a stein-bok, and got quite excited because his rifle was packed up in the bottom of the waggon, and he could not shoot it.
Our mules were getting tired, and were gradually slackening speed, notwithstanding the blandishments of the whip. But yet, towards evening, we