Twenty-Five Years in a Waggon in South Africa: Sport and Travel in South Africa. Andrew A. Anderson
said he knew two good boys in Ladysmith if I would let him go and get them, which I agreed to, and in five days he returned with two very likely lads who were used to waggons and anxious to be engaged—ten shillings a month and food. So far all was settled. The next step was to get my things from Maritzburg; this entailed a waggon journey.
Nearly every day we had thunderstorms, coming on in the afternoon, lasting nearly two hours, but not quite so violent as the one described, though severe enough, in their passage over, to make us glad when they had left us, as the lightning is most destructive and dangerous. We had a very narrow escape on our return journey from Maritzburg. We were treking past Doornkop, a lofty hill on the left of the road. A thunderstorm was gathering; consequently, anxious to outspan before it burst upon us, we were whipping up the oxen to reach an open space, when a flash descended perpendicularly, striking the road not twenty feet behind the waggon, where a few seconds before we were passing over. If our pace had been the slightest slackened, our lives would have been lost; as it was we felt the effect of the electricity for some days afterwards. When storms are prevalent, never outspan near trees or stony koptjies; the latter seem to attract lightning more frequently; where it strikes on the stones it splits them into several pieces.
A slight description of my travelling-house may give greater insight into African travelling. My waggon measured seventeen feet in length and five feet in width. In front is a waggon-box for holding such things as are required for immediate use, and also for the driver and another to sit on. Six feet of the front I reserve for my own special use; boxes arranged on the bed-plant, full of grocery and other things, upon which, a thick mattress and bed-clothes. On one side boxes are arranged to form tables for writing or drawing. Around the sides of the tent are side-pockets for holding all kinds of useful articles—powder-flasks, shot, caps, brushes, books, tools, and other things required at a moment’s notice. On each side of the waggon my rifles, shot-guns, and revolvers are conveniently slung, that in a moment either of them can be in the hand, three on each side. The back part of the waggon is kept for bags of flour, meal, bread, water-casks, and everything needed for the road. My driver and boys sleep under the waggon or in the tent, as they may think fit. Such is my travelling-house. Therefore, when on the trek, I am independent, asking no favours of any one, and far from civilisation I am at home and want for nothing, a grand thing for one who is going to explore unknown regions, on the dark continent of Africa, where the white man’s foot has never trod. What a field is before me!
On the 18th of March, 1864, having everything prepared, I started from the farm, after many farewells and good wishes for my success. I left with regret, feeling I had departed from true and valued friends, who had, to their utmost ability, helped me in my undertaking.
My oxen well rested, and horse fat and saucy, I had nothing to wish for but health and fair weather. The first part of my journey was back to Ladysmith, then on to Newcastle, crossing the Biggarsberg range of hills, going over the same ground I had recently travelled, and I arrived there on the 28th. My object was to make for the upper source of the Vaal river and commence my work at that point, but I found so much opposition with the Boers against my taking drawings on this second trip, that I changed my plans and settled to proceed to the westward and commence my surveys beyond their boundary, and finish the upper portion of the Vaal at some future time. Therefore I retraced my steps back from the upper Vaal by the road. I took the former route to Harrysmith; from thence treked across the Free State, a most desolate and uninteresting country, and reached the Vaal river, which I crossed below Potchefstroom, where I began my work, arriving on its banks on the 25th of July 1864. I have therefore omitted any reference to the country through the Orange Free State because I have nothing to relate, except that a more bleak, cheerless region could not be found; always excepting Walwich Bay, Angra Pequina, and the back of them. Every day’s trek like the other, shooting game, inspanning and outspanning; most monotonous to one wanting to arrive at the unknown region.
At the Boer farms I came to the people were very civil, and supplied me with milk, eggs, and butter if they had any; but few made any; if they did, it was only sufficient for a meal, the churn being an ordinary glass bottle, which is bumped on the thigh until the butter comes.
At one Boer farm in Natal, very early in the morning, the old man was turning out of bed when he opened the door which led into their principal sitting-room; the family, sons and daughters, were still what may be termed in bed, if sleeping on skins on the floor with old blankets and skins covering them, and in thin day dresses, can be called so, except the boys minus their coats, and the girls their frocks, without shoes or stockings, because they never wear them, except they go a-visiting. The old man asked me in and to take a seat. After the usual questions put and answered, a tall, well-grown Zulu girl brought in a wooden bowl with some water, and placed it on the table, with a small rag beside it. The old Boer got up from his chair, went to the bowl, and began to rub his hands, then his face, wiping them with this rag, which I afterwards found out was called a feod-hook. After the Boer, his three sons went through the same operation, and then I was invited to do the same, from which I politely excused myself, stating I had washed at the waggon. The four girls and the rugs had disappeared into the inner room. I was then about going to my waggon, when the old man told me to “sit,” coffee was coming, and presently the same Zulu girl brought in a cup of coffee for each. She was as black as she well could be, and without a particle of covering of any sort. The Zulu girls, as a general rule, wear some little bit of rag at their kraals, but this one had nothing. I found the Boers do this on purpose to show them they are an inferior race, and to keep them under. At many of the Boer houses I found their female servants were in the same way, as they have a wonderful prejudice against the black races, and treat them as dogs; and I found out afterwards that all Boers’ servants were slaves, and received no pay, their food being mealie, Indian corn, and milk. And as the boys and girls grew old enough to marry, any number of children would be seen on a farm.
On the whole, the Boers are kind to the Kaffirs, and are liked by them, because, though strict and sometimes cruel, they treat them more familiarly than we do. There is not such a gulf fixed between them as with us. Then, as to slavery, the work is light, and they have enough food, all they care about. In short, it is very much the same as in America formerly; there are good and bad masters, and the Kaffirs who work are really happier than those who are idle. Slavery is really extinct in Natal and the Cape, and rapidly becoming so in the Boer States.
Chapter Four.
The native country north of the Vaal river.
26th July, 1864.—On the banks of the Vaal, north of the river, I outspanned at a very pretty open piece of ground; not a house, hut, or living thing to be seen, except geese and ducks in the river, very tame and easily shot. The banks are very steep and covered with fine timber and bush. The water might rise forty feet and not overflow its banks. There are many deep sluits along the banks, where waggons cannot cross, therefore we have to go a long way round.
After travelling down the river for two days, we came to an old drift on one of the small rivers which rises in the north, and nearly overturned the waggon in getting through. There are some beautiful stones mixed in the gravel on the banks, some of the agates are very perfect. On the opposite bank was a small Koranna village, consisting of seven huts; the men came out to stare, the women and children kept hid in their huts; here my driver John became an important individual, for being of the same tribe, although calling himself a Hottentot, he could speak the same language, which was a succession of clicks with guttural sounds in the throat, quite unique in the world’s languages. From these people I got my bearings, and found I was on the spruit called Scoon Spruit; here I took my first observation in the Vaal below the upper sources of the river.
The weather was very cold, sufficiently to wear great-coat. The Korannas informed me through my John that the grass was scarce lower down the river. How these poor miserable-looking people existed was a puzzle to me, a few goats was all they possessed; half-naked, and what covering they had was nothing but rags and skins.
The third day after my arrival I inspanned, and took a little