The Settler and the Savage
“What is’t, Jerry?” demanded Sandy Black, turning his eyes seaward, in which direction Jerry was gazing.
The question needed no reply, for Sandy, and indeed all the various people in the barge who stood high enough on its sides or lading to be able to look over the gunwale, observed a mighty wave coming up behind them like a green wall.
“Haul hard!” roared the seamen in charge.
“Ay, ay,” shouted the soldiers on shore.
As they spoke the billow lifted the boat as if it had been a cork, fell under it with a deafening roar and bore it shoreward in a tumult of seething foam. Next moment the wave let it down with a crash and retired, leaving it still, however, in two or three feet of water.
“Eh, man, but that was a dunt!” exclaimed Sandy, tightening his hold on the gunwale, while several of his less cautious or less powerful neighbours were sent sprawling into the bottom of the boat among terrified women and children.
All was now bustle and tenfold excitement, for the soldiers on the beach hurried waist-deep into the sea for the purpose of carrying the future settlers on shore.
Thomas Pringle, the leader of the Scotch party, and who afterwards became known as the “South African poet” had previously landed in a gig. He gave an opportune hint, in broad Scotch, to a tall corporal of the 72nd Highlanders to be careful of his countrymen.
“Scotch folk, are they?” exclaimed the corporal, with a look of surprise at Pringle. “Never fear, sir, but we sal be carefu’ o’ them.”
The corporal was as good as his word, for he and his comrades carried nearly the whole party ashore in safety. But there were others there who owned no allegiance to the corporal. One of these—a big sallow Hottentot—chanced to get Jerry, surnamed Goldboy, on his shoulders, and, either by mischance or design, stumbled and fell, pitching Jerry over his head, just as another billow from the Indian Ocean was rushing to the termination of its grand career. It caught Jerry up in a loving embrace as he rose, and pitched him with a noisy welcome on the shore.
“Weel done, Jerry!” cried Sandy Black, who had just been overturned by the same wave from the shoulders of a burly Englishman—a previously landed settler—“you an’ me’s made an impressive landin’. Come, let’s git oot o’ the bustle.”
So saying the stout Lowlander seized his little English friend by the arm and dragged him towards the town of canvas which had within a few weeks sprung up like mushrooms among the sandhills.
Although wet from head to foot, each forgot his condition in the interest awakened by the strange sights and sounds around him. Their immediate neighbourhood on the beach was crowded with emigrants, as party after party was carried ashore shoulder-high by the soldiers, who seemed to regard the whole affair as a huge practical joke.
The noise was indescribable, because compound. There was the boisterous hilarity of people who felt their feet once more on solid ground, after a long and weary voyage; the shouting of sailors and bargemen in the boats, and of soldiers and natives on the beach; the talking and laughing of men and women who had struck up sudden friendships on landing, as well as of those who had crossed the sea together; the gambolling and the shrieking delight of children freed from the restraints of shipboard; the shouts of indignant Government officials who could not get their orders attended to; the querulous demands of people whose luggage had gone astray in process of debarkation; the bawling of colonial Dutch by gigantic Dutch-African farmers, in broad-brimmed hats and leathern crackers, with big tobacco-pipes in their mouths; the bellowing of oxen in reply to the pistol-shot cuts applied to their flanks by half-naked Hottentots and Bushmen, whose whips were bamboos of twenty feet or so in length, with lashes twice as long; the creaking of Cape-waggons, the barking of dogs, and, as a measured accompaniment to all, the solemn regular booming of the restless sea.
Disengaging themselves from the crowded beach, Sandy Black and Jerry Goldboy proceeded towards the town of tents among the sandhills. On their way they passed several large tarpaulin-covered depots of agricultural implements, carpenter’s and blacksmith’s tools, and ironware of all descriptions, which had been provided by Government to be sold to the settlers at prime cost—for this grand effort at colonisation was originated and fostered by the British Government.
“Weel, weel, did ever ’ee see the like o’ that, noo?” observed Sandy Black, as he passed some sandhills covered with aloes and cactuses and rare exotics, such as one might expect to find in English greenhouses.
“Well, yes,” replied Jerry Goldboy, “them are hodd lookin’ wegitables. I can’t say that I’ve much knowledge of such-like myself, ’avin’ bin born an’ bred in London, as I’ve often told you, but they do seem pecooliar, even to me.—I say, look ’ere; I thought all the people ’ere was settlers.”
Sandy, who was a grave man of few words, though not without a touch of sly humour, replied, “Weel, so they are—an’ what than?”
“Why, w’at are them there?” demanded Jerry, pointing to several marquees pitched apart among some evergreen bushes.
“H’m! ’ee may ask that,” replied the Scot; but as he did not add more, his companion was content to regard his words as a confession of ignorance, and passed on with the remark, “haristocrats.”
Jerry was so far right. The marquees referred to belonged to the higher class of settlers, who had resolved to forsake their native land and introduce refinement into the South African wilds. The position chosen by them on which to pitch their tents, and the neatness of everything around, evinced their taste, while one or two handsome carriages standing close by betokened wealth. Some of the occupants, elegantly dressed, were seated in camp-chairs, with books in their hands, while others were rambling among the shrubbery on the little eminences and looking down on the bustling beach and bay. The tents of these, however, formed an insignificant proportion of the canvas town in which Sandy Black and his friend soon found themselves involved.
“Settlers’ Camp,” as it was called, consisted of several hundred tents, pitched in parallel rows or streets, and was occupied by the middle and lower class of settlers—a motley crew, truly. There were jolly farmers and pale-visaged tradesmen from various parts of England, watermen from the Thames, fishermen from the seaports, artisans from town and country, agricultural labourers from everywhere, and ne’er-do-weels from nowhere in particular. England, Scotland, Ireland, were represented—in some cases misrepresented,—and, as character was varied, the expression of it produced infinite variety. Although the British Government had professedly favoured a select four thousand out of the luckless ninety thousand who had offered themselves for emigration, it is to be feared that either the selection had not been carefully made, or drunkenness and riotous conduct had been surprisingly developed on the voyage out. Charity, however, requires us to hope that much of the excitement displayed was due to the prospect of being speedily planted in rural felicity in the wilds of Africa. Conversation, at all events, ran largely on this theme, as our wanderers could easily distinguish—for people talked loudly, and all tent-doors were wide open.
After wandering for some time, Sandy Black paused, and looking down at his little friend with what may be called a grave smile, gave it as his opinion that they had got lost “in Settlers’-toon.”
“I do believe we ’ave,” assented Jerry. “What’s to be done?”
“Gang to the best hotel,” suggested Sandy.
“But where is the best ’otel?”
“H’m! ’ee may ask that.”
A burst of noisy laughter just behind them caused the lost ones to turn abruptly, when they observed four tall young men of gentlemanly aspect sitting in a small military tent, and much amused apparently at their moist condition.
“Why, where did you two fellows come from?” asked one of the youths, issuing from the tent.
“From England and Scotland,” replied Jerry Goldboy promptly.
“From the sea, I should say,” returned the youth, “to judge from your wet garments.”
“Ay, we’ve been drookit,” said Sandy Black.
“Bring ’em in, Jack,” shouted one of the other youths in the tent.
“Come inside,” said he who was styled Jack, “and have a glass of whisky. There’s nothing like whisky to dry a wet skin, is there, Scotty?”
To this familiar appeal Sandy replied, “m–h’m,” which word, we may add for the information of foreigners, is the Scotch for “Yes.”
“Sit down there on the blankets,” said the hospitable Jack, “we haven’t got our arm-chairs or tables made yet. Allow me to introduce my two brothers, James and Robert Skyd; my own name is the less common one of John. This young man of six feet two, with no money and less brain, is not a brother—only a chum—named Frank Dobson. Come, fill up and drink, else you’ll catch a cold, or a South African fever, if there is such a thing. Whom shall I pledge?”
“My name is Jerry Goldboy,” said the Englishman; “your health, gentlemen.”
“’Am Sandy Black,” said the Scot; “here’s t’ee.”
“Well, Mr Black and Mr Coldboy”—Goldboy, interposed Jerry—“I speak for my brothers and friend when I wish you all success in the new land.”
“Do talk less, Jack,” said Robert Skyd, the youngest brother, “and give our friends a chance of speaking—Have you come ashore lately!”
“Just arrived,” answered Jerry.
“I thought so. You belong to the Scotch party that goes to Baviaans River, I suppose?” asked Frank Dobson.
This question led at length to a full and free account of the circumstances and destination of each party, with which however we will not trouble the reader in detail.
“D’ee ken onything aboot Baviaans River?” inquired Sandy Black, after a variety of subjects had been discussed.
“Nothing whatever,” answered John Skyd, “save that it is between one and two hundred miles—more or less—inland among the mountains, and that its name, which is Dutch, means the River of Baboons, its fastnesses being filled with these gentry.”
“Ay, I’ve heard as much mysel’,” returned Sandy, “an’ they say the craters are gey fierce. Are there ony o’ the big puggies in the Albany district?”
“No, none. Albany is too level for them. It lies along the sea-coast, and is said to be a splendid country, though uncomfortably near the Kafirs.”
“The Kawfirs. Ay. H’m!” said Sandy, leaving his hearers to form their own judgment as to the meaning of his words.
“An’ what may your tred be, sir?” he added, looking at John Skyd.
The three brothers laughed, and John replied—
“Trade? we have no trade. Our profession is that of clerks—knights of the quill; at least such was our profession in the old country. In this new land, my brother Bob’s profession is fun, Jim’s is jollity, and mine is a compound of both, called joviality. As to our chum Dobson, his profession may be styled remonstrance, for he is perpetually checking our levity, as he calls it; always keeping us in order and snubbing us, nevertheless we couldn’t do without him. In fact, we may be likened to a social clock, of which Jim is the mainspring, Bob the weight, I the striking part of the works, and Dobson the pendulum. But we are not particular, we are ready for anything.”
“Ay, an’ fit for nothin’,” observed Sandy, with a peculiar smile and shrug, meant to indicate that his jest was more than half earnest.
The three brothers laughed again at this, and their friend Dobson smiled. Dobson’s smile was peculiar. The corners of his mouth turned down instead of up, thereby giving his grave countenance an unusually arch expression.
“Why, what do you mean, you cynical Scot!” demanded John Skyd. “Our shoulders are broad enough, are they not? nearly as broad as your own.”
“Oo’ ay, yer shoothers are weel aneugh, but I wadna gie much for yer heeds or haunds.”
Reply to this was interrupted by the appearance, in the opening of the tent, of a man whose solemn but kindly face checked the flow of flippant conversation.
“You look serious, Orpin; has anything gone wrong?” asked Frank Dobson.
“Our friend is dying,” replied the man, sadly. “He will soon meet his opponent in the land where all is light and where all disputes shall be ended in agreement.”
Orpin referred to two of the settlers whose careers in South Africa were destined to be cut short on the threshold. The two men had been earnestly religious, but, like all the rest of Adam’s fallen race, were troubled with the effects of original sin. They had disputed hotly, and had ultimately quarrelled, on religious subjects on the voyage out. One of them died before he landed; the other was the man of whom Orpin now spoke. The sudden change in the demeanour of the brothers Skyd surprised as well as gratified Sandy Black. That sedate, and literally as well as figuratively, long-headed Scot, had felt a growing distaste to the flippant young Englishers, as he styled them, but when he saw them throw off their light character, as one might throw off a garment, and rise eagerly and sadly to question Orpin about the dying man, he felt, as mankind is often forced to feel, that a first, and especially a hasty, judgment is often incorrect.
Stephen Orpin was a mechanic and a Wesleyan, in virtue of which latter connection, and a Christian spirit, he had been made a local preacher. He was on his way to offer his services as a watcher by the bedside of the dying man.
This man and his opponent were not the only emigrants who finished their course thus abruptly. Dr Cotton, the “Head” of the “Nottingham party,” Dr Caldecott and some others, merely came, as it were like Moses, in sight of the promised land, and then ended their earthly career. Yet some of these left a valuable contribution, in their children, to the future colony.
While Black and his friend Jerry were observing Orpin, as he conversed with the brothers Skyd, the tall burly Englishman from whose shoulders the former had been hurled into the sea, chanced to pass, and quietly grasped the Scot by the arm.
“Here you are at last! Why, man, I’ve been lookin’ for you ever since that unlucky accident, to offer you a change of clothes and a feed in my tent—or I should say our tent, for I belong to a ‘party,’ like every one else here. Come along.”
“Thank ’ee kindly,” answered Sandy, “but what between haverin’ wi’ thae Englishers an’ drinkin’ their whusky, my freen’ Jerry an’ me’s dry aneugh already.”
The Englishman, however, would not listen to any excuse. He was one of those hearty men, with superabundant animal spirits—to say nothing of physique—who are not easily persuaded to let others follow their own inclinations, and who are so good-natured that it is difficult to feel offended with their kindly roughness. He introduced himself by the name of George Dally, and insisted on Black accompanying him to his tent. Sandy being a sociable, although a quiet man, offered little resistance, and Jerry, being a worshipper of Sandy, followed with gay nonchalance.
Chapter Four.
Further Particulars of “Settlers’ Town,” and a Start made for the Promised Land
Threading his way among the streets of “Settlers’ Town,” and pushing vigorously through the crowds of excited beings who peopled it, George Dally led his new acquaintances to a tent in the outskirts of the camp—a suburban tent, as it were.
Entering it, and ushering in his companions, he introduced them as the gentlemen who had been capsized into the sea on landing, at which operation he had had the honour to assist.
There were four individuals in the tent. A huge German labourer named Scholtz, and his wife. Mrs Scholtz was a substantial woman of forty. She was also a nurse, and, in soul, body, and spirit, was totally absorbed in a baby boy, whose wild career had begun four months before in a furious gale in the Bay of Biscay. As that infant “lay, on that day, in the Bay of Biscay O!” the elemental strife outside appeared to have found a lodgment in his soul, for he burst upon the astonished passengers with a squall which lasted longer than the gale, and was ultimately pronounced the worst that had visited the ship since she left England. Born in a storm, the infant was baptised in a stiff breeze by a Wesleyan minister, on and after which occasion he was understood to be Jabez Brook; but one of the sailors happening to call him Junkie on the second day of his existence, his nurse, Mrs Scholtz, leaped at the endearing name like a hungry trout at a gay fly, and “Junkie” he remained during the whole term of childhood.
Junkie’s main characteristic was strength of lungs, and his chief delight to make that fact known. Six passengers changed their berths for the worse in order to avoid him. One who could not change became nearly deranged towards the end of the voyage, and one, who was sea-sick all the way out, seriously thought of suicide, but incapacity for any physical effort whatever happily saved him. In short, Junkie was the innocent cause of many dreadful thoughts and much improper language on the unstable scene of his nativity.
Besides these three, there was in the tent a pretty, dark-eyed, refined-looking girl of about twelve. She was Gertrude Brook, sister and idolater of Junkie. Her father, Edwin Brook, and her mother, dwelt in a tent close by. Brook was a gentleman of small means, but Mrs Brook was a very rich lady—rich in the possession of a happy temper, a loving disposition, a pretty face and figure, and a religious soul. Thus Edwin Brook, though poor, may be described as a man of inexhaustible wealth.
Gertrude had come into Dally’s tent to fetch Junkie to her father when Sandy Black and his friends entered, but Junkie had just touched the hot teapot, with the contents of which Mrs Scholtz was regaling herself and husband, and was not in an amiable humour. His outcries were deafening.
“Now do hold its dear little tongue, and go to its popsy,” said Mrs Scholtz tenderly. (Mrs Scholtz was an Englishwoman.)
We need not say that Junkie declined obedience, neither would he listen to the silvery blandishments of Gertie.
“Zee chile vas born shrieking, ant he vill die shrieking,” growled Scholtz, who disliked Junkie.
The entrance of the strangers, however, unexpectedly stopped the shrieking, and before Junkie could recover his previous train of thought Gertie bore him off in triumph, leaving the hospitable Dally and Mrs Scholtz to entertain their visitors to small talk and tea.
While seated thus they became aware of a sudden increase of the din, whip-cracking, and ox-bellowing with which the camp of the settlers resounded.
“They seem fond o’ noise here,” observed Sandy Black, handing his cup to Mrs Scholtz to be refilled.
“I never ’eard such an ’owling before,” said Jerry Goldboy; “what is it all about?”
“New arrivals from zee interior,” answered Scholtz; “dere be always vaggins comin’ ant goin’.”
“The camp is a changin’ one,” said Dally, sipping his tea with the air of a connoisseur. “When you’ve been here as long as we have you’ll understand how it never increases much, for although ship after ship arrives with new swarms of emigrants from the old country, waggon after waggon comes from I don’t know where—somewheres inland anyhow—and every now an’ then long trains of these are seen leaving camp, loaded with goods and women and children, enough to sink a small schooner, and followed by crowds of men tramping away to their new homes in the wilderness—though what these same new homes or wilderness are like is more than I can tell.”
“Zee noise is great,” growled Scholtz, as another burst of whip-musketry, human roars, and bovine bellows broke on their ears, “ant zee confusion is indesgraibable.”
“The gentlemen whose business it is to keep order must have a hard time of it,” said Mrs Scholtz; “I can’t ever understand how they does it, what between landing parties and locating ’em, and feeding, supplying, advising, and despatching of ’em, to say nothing of scolding and snubbing, in the midst of all this Babel of bubbledom, quite surpasses my understanding. Do you understand it, Mr Black?”
“Ay,” replied Sandy, clearing his throat and speaking somewhat oracularly. “’Ee must know, Mrs Scholtz, that it’s the result of organisation and gineralship. A serjeant or corporal can kick or drive a few men in ony direction that’s wanted, but it takes a gineral to move an army. If ’ee was to set a corporal to lead twunty thoosand men, he’d gie them orders that wad thraw them into a deed lock, an’ than naethin’ short o’ a miracle could git them oot o’t. Mony a battle’s been lost by brave men through bad gineralship, an’ mony a battle’s been won by puir enough bodies o’ men because of their leader’s administrative abeelity, Mrs Scholtz.”
“Very true, Mr Black,” replied Mrs Scholtz, with the assurance of one who thoroughly understands what she hears.
“Noo,” continued Sandy, with increased gravity, “if thae Kawfir bodies we hear aboot only had chiefs wi’ powers of organisation, an’ was a’ united thegither, they wad drive the haul o’ this colony into the sea like chaff before the wind. But they’ll niver do it; for, ’ee see, they want mind—an’ body withoot mind is but a puir thing after a’, Mrs Scholtz.”
“I’m not so shure of zat,” put in Scholtz, stretching his huge frame and regarding it complacently; “it vould please me better to have body vidout mint, zan mint vidout body.”
“H’m! ’ee’ve reason to be pleased then,” muttered Black, drily.
This compliment was either not appreciated by Scholtz, or he was prevented from acknowledging it by an interruption from without; for just at the moment a voice was heard asking a passer-by if he could tell where the tents of the Scotch party were pitched. Those in the tent rose at once, and Sandy Black, issuing out found that the questioner was a handsome young Englishman, who would have appeared, what he really was, both stout and tall, if he had not been dwarfed by his companion, a Cape-Dutchman of unusually gigantic proportions.
“We are in search of the Scottish party,” said the youth, turning to Sandy with a polite bow; “can you direct us to its whereabouts?”
“I’m no’ sure that I can, sir, though I’m wan o’ the Scotch pairty mysel’, for me an’ my freen hae lost oorsels, but doobtless Mister Dally here can help us. May I ask what ’ee want wi’ us?”
“Certainly,” replied the Englishman, with a smile. “Mr Marais and I have been commissioned to transport you to Baviaans river in bullock-waggons, and we wish to see Mr Pringle, the head of your party, to make arrangements.—Can you guide us, Mr Dally?”
“Have you been to the deputy-quartermaster-general’s office?” asked Dally.
“Yes, and they directed us to a spot said to be surrounded by evergreen bushes near this quarter of the camp.”
“I know it—just outside the ridge between the camp and the Government offices.—Come along, sir,” said Dally; “I’ll show you the way.”
In a few minutes Dally led the party to a group of seven or eight tents which were surrounded by Scotch ploughs, cart-wheels, harrows, cooking utensils fire-arms, and various implements of husbandry and ironware.
“Here come the lost ones!” exclaimed Kenneth McTavish, who, with his active wife and sprightly daughter Jessie, was busy arranging the interior of his tent, “and bringing strangers with them too!”
While Sandy Black and his friend Jerry were explaining the cause of their absence to some of the Scotch party, the young Englishman introduced his friend and himself as Charles Considine and Hans Marais, to the leader, Mr Pringle, a gentleman who, besides being a good poet, afterwards took a prominent part in the first acts of that great drama—the colonisation of the eastern frontier of South Africa.
It is unnecessary to trouble the reader with all that was said and done. Suffice it to say that arrangements were soon made. The acting Governor, Sir Rufane Donkin, arrived on the 6th of June from a visit to Albany, the district near the sea on which a large number of the settlers were afterwards located, and from him Mr Pringle learned that the whole of the Scotch emigrants were to be located in the mountainous country watered by some of the eastern branches of the Great Fish River, close to the Kafir frontier. The upper part of the Baviaans, or Baboons, River had been fixed for the reception of his particular section. It was also intended by Government that a piece of unoccupied territory still farther to the eastward should be settled by a party of five hundred Highlanders, who, it was conjectured, would prove the most effective buffer available to meet the first shock of invasion, should the savages ever attempt another inroad.