Letter 2.
Hunting Springboks on the Karroo

To start for the hunting-field at seven in the morning in a carriage and six, smacks of royalty and sounds luxurious, but in South Africa there are drawbacks connected therewith.

Hobson’s farm is, as I have said, on the Karroo—those vast plains which at some seasons resemble a sandy desert, and at others are covered with rich verdure and gorgeous flowers. They are named after the small, succulent, Karroo-bush, which represents the grass of other plains, and is excellent food for cattle, sheep, and ostriches.

These plains embrace a considerable portion of the territory of the Cape. The Karroo is pre-eminently lumpy. Its roads in most places are merely the result of traffic. They, also, are lumpy. Our carriage was a native “cart,” by which is meant a plain and powerful machine with springs that are too strong readily to yield. Five of our team were mules, the sixth was a pony.

Our party at starting numbered five, but grew as we progressed. We took with us provisions and fodder for two days. The driving was undertaken by Hobson’s nephew, assisted by his eldest son—“Six-foot Johnny.” There was a double necessity for two drivers. To hold the reins of five kicking mules and a prancing pony required both hands as well as all the strength of the cousin, though he was a powerful fellow, and the management of the whip claimed both arms, and all the strength, as well as the undivided attention of his assistant. The whip was a salmon-rod in appearance, without exaggeration. It had a bamboo handle somewhere between twelve and fourteen feet long, with a proportionate lash. The operator sometimes found it convenient to stand when he made a cast with his fishing-rod weapon. He was an adept with it; capable, it seemed to me, of picking a fly off one of the leader’s ears.

There was some trouble in keeping our team quiet while rifles, ammunition, provisions, etcetera, were being stowed in the cart.

At last the cousin gave the word. Six-foot Johnny made a cast. The lash grazed the leader’s flank with a crack that might have shamed a small revolver. The mules presented first their noses, then their heels to the sky; the cart leaped from the ground, and we were off—bumping, rattling, crashing, swinging, over the wild Karroo, followed by some half-dozen horses led by two mounted Hottentot attendants.

My friend Hobson, greatly to our grief, did not accompany us, owing to inflamed eyes, but I shared the back seat of the cart with his brother Jonathan, a tall strapping man of middle age and modest mien, who seemed to me the perfect type of a colonial hero.

In an hour or so we came to the solitary farm of a Mr Green, who regaled us with a sumptuous breakfast, and lent me a spur. I had the liberal offer of two spurs, but as, in hunting with the rifle, it is sometimes advisable to sit on one’s right heel, and memory during the excitement of the chase is apt to prove faithless, I contented myself with one spur,—feeling pretty confident that if I persuaded the left side of my horse to go, the right side could not well remain behind.

Mr Green joined us. Thereafter we came to the residence of a Mr Priest, who also joined us with his son, and thus we sped on over the flat sandy plains, inhaling the sweet scent of mimosa blossom, glowing in the fervid sunshine, and picking up comrades here and there, until about noon we reached the scene of our intended operations.

This was a vast, almost level plain named the Plaat River Flats. It lay between two rivers, was eight or ten miles wide and upwards of twenty miles in length—a mighty ocean, as it were, of short, compact Karroo, with a boundless horizon like the sea in all directions save one, where a great South African mountain range intercepted the view. Here and there a few clumps of mimosa bushes rose like islets, and lent additional interest to the scene.

We “outspanned”, that is, we unyoked, and “off-saddled” here for luncheon, and found shelter from the sun under a mimosa, which was large enough to merit being styled a tree. Its thorns were from four to six inches in length.

The party had now swelled to fourteen—all stout hardy descendants of the English, Scotch, or Dutch settlers, who had originally peopled the land; good rifle shots, and splendid horsemen. One of them was conspicuous by his brawny arms, which were burnt to a deep brown in consequence of his preferring to hunt and work at all times with shirt sleeves rolled up above the elbows. Another struck me as having the broadest pair of shoulders I ever saw in a man of his size.

“Capital water here,” said Green to me, on alighting beside the mimosa-thorn.

“Indeed,” said I, thirsting for some, “where is it?”

“Here! come; I’ll show you.”

He led me to a spot among the bushes where lay a small pond of thin mud the colour of weak tea with milk.

“There you are,” said Green.

I looked at him inquiringly.

He looked at me and smiled.

I laughed.

Green grinned, and assured me that it was “first-rate water.”

He dipped a cup, as he spoke, and drank it. So did his comrades, with evident satisfaction, though the liquid was so opaque that I could not see the bottom of a tea-cup when it was full.

There could be no further doubt on the point. These reckless and jovial South Africans—European by extraction though they were, and without a drop of black blood in their veins—had actually accommodated themselves to circumstances so far as to consider liquid mud good water! More than that, I found that most of the party deemed it a sufficient beverage, for they were all temperance men, if not total abstainers. Still further, I followed their example, drank of that yellow pond, and actually enjoyed it. Subsequently I made the discovery that there were small animals in it; after that I preferred it in the form of tea, which was quickly infused by our active Hottentots.

The discovery above referred to was made when Green, (or Brownarms, or Broadshoulders, I forget which), was quaffing a cup of the cold element. Having drained it he spat out the last mouthful, and along with it a lively creature like a small shrimp, with something like a screw-propeller under its tail!

Enjoying our tea under the shade of the mimosa, we rested for an hour, and then, saddling our steeds and slinging on rifles and cartridge-pouches, we mounted, and sallied forth upon the plain.

A glorious sensation of freedom came over me as I felt my horse’s springy step,—a sensation which brought powerfully back the memory of those days when I first galloped over the American prairies. Surely there must be a sympathy, a mesmeric influence, between a horse and his rider which sends a thrill through each. Hobson had lent me his own favourite horse, Rob Roy. He was a charming creature; well made, active, willing, and tender in the mouth, but, best of all, he “trippled” splendidly.

Trippling is a favourite gait in South Africa, especially among the Dutch farmers. It is something between pacing and ambling, a motion so easy that one scarce rises at all from the saddle. We trippled off into the vast plain towards the horizon, each horseman diverging a little from his comrades, like a fleet of fishing-boats putting out to sea. Most of the party rode without coats, for the sky was cloudless, and we looked for a broiling day. Brownarms, I observed, had his sleeves rolled up, as usual, to the shoulder. Six-foot Johnny rode a cream-coloured pony, which, like himself, enjoyed itself intensely, and seemed ready for anything. Each man grasped his rifle by the middle with the right hand, and rested the stock on his thigh.

Being a stranger to the work, I had been supplied with a Hottentot as well as a horse,—to guide me and carry my rifle; but I scorned to ride without my weapon, and did not at first see the necessity of a guide in the circumstances. Ultimately I was only too glad to avail myself of his services!

The South Africans call Hottentots “boys,” whatever their age or size may be. My “boy” was named Michael. He was a small wiry man of twenty or thirty,—more or less,—with a dirty brown face, dirty brown garments, and a dirty brown horse. Though a bad one to look at, it was a marvellous horse to go. Michael had a cavernous red mouth, and magnificent white teeth. Likewise he was gifted with a strong sense of the ludicrous, as I have reason to know.

We advanced slowly into the plain at first, and gradually scattered until some of the party began to look like mere specks in the distance. Presently I saw two or three of them break into a gallop, and observed a few moving spots of white on the horizon. I looked anxiously at my boy. He returned the gaze with glittering eyes and said “bok.”

“Boks! are they?” said I, applying my spur and making a leap over an ant-bear hole.

Rob Roy stretched his legs with a will, but a howl from Michael caused me to look round. He was trending off in another direction, and pointing violently towards something. He spoke nothing but Dutch. My acquaintance with that tongue was limited to the single word “Ja.”

He was aware of this, and his visage became all eyes and mouth in his frantic effort to assure me it would be wise were I to follow his lead.

I turned at once and galloped alongside of him in faith.

It soon became clear what he aimed at. The horsemen on the far off horizon were driving the springboks towards the stream which bounded one side of the great plain, Mike was making for the bushes that bordered that stream in the hope of reaching them before the boks should observe us.

Oh! it was a glorious burst, that first race over the wild Karroo, on a spirited steed, in the freshness of early morning—

With the silent bushboy alone by my side,

for he was silent, though tremendously excited. His brown rags fluttered in the self-made breeze, and his brown pony scrambled over the ground quite as fast as Rob Roy. We reached a clump of underwood in time, and pulled up, panting, beside a bush which was high enough to conceal the horses.

Anxiously we watched here, and carefully did I look to my rifle,—a double-barrelled breech-loading “Soaper-Henry,”—to see that it was loaded and cocked, and frequently did I take aim at stump and stone to get my hand and eye well “in,” and admiringly, with hope in every lineament, did Michael observe me.

“See anything of them, Mike?” I asked.

I might as well have asked a baboon. Mike only grinned, but Mike’s grin once seen was not easily forgotten.