CHAPTER FOUR.
FURTHER PARTICULARS OF "SETTLERS' TOWN," AND A START MADE FOR THEPROMISED LAND.
Threading his way among the streets of "Settlers' Town," and pushingvigorously through the crowds of excited beings who peopled it, GeorgeDally 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 thegentlemen who had been capsized into the sea on landing, at whichoperation he had had the honour to assist.
There were four individuals in the tent. A huge German labourer namedScholtz, and his wife. Mrs Scholtz was a substantial woman of forty.She was also a nurse, and, in soul, body, and spirit, was totallyabsorbed in a baby boy, whose wild career had begun four months beforein a furious gale in the Bay of Biscay. As that infant "lay, on thatday, in the Bay of Biscay O!" the elemental strife outside appeared tohave found a lodgment in his soul, for he burst upon the astonishedpassengers with a squall which lasted longer than the gale, and wasultimately pronounced the worst that had visited the ship since she leftEngland. Born in a storm, the infant was baptised in a stiff breeze bya Wesleyan minister, on and after which occasion he was understood to beJabez Brook; but one of the sailors happening to call him Junkie on thesecond day of his existence, his nurse, Mrs Scholtz, leaped at theendearing name like a hungry trout at a gay fly, and "Junkie" heremained during the whole term of childhood.
Junkie's main characteristic was strength of lungs, and his chiefdelight to make that fact known. Six passengers changed their berthsfor the worse in order to avoid him. One who could not change becamenearly deranged towards the end of the voyage, and one, who was sea-sickall the way out, seriously thought of suicide, but incapacity for anyphysical effort whatever happily saved him. In short, Junkie was theinnocent cause of many dreadful thoughts and much improper language onthe 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, sisterand idolater of Junkie. Her father, Edwin Brook, and her mother, dweltin a tent close by. Brook was a gentleman of small means, but MrsBrook was a very rich lady--rich in the possession of a happy temper, aloving disposition, a pretty face and figure, and a religious soul.Thus Edwin Brook, though poor, may be described as a man ofinexhaustible wealth.
Gertrude had come into Dally's tent to fetch Junkie to her father whenSandy Black and his friends entered, but Junkie had just touched the hotteapot, with the contents of which Mrs Scholtz was regaling herself andhusband, and was not in an amiable humour. His outcries were deafening.
"Now _do_ hold its dear little tongue, and go to its popsy," said MrsScholtz tenderly. (Mrs Scholtz was an Englishwoman.)
We need not say that Junkie declined obedience, neither would he listento the silvery blandishments of Gertie.
"Zee chile vas born shrieking, ant he vill die shrieking," growledScholtz, who disliked Junkie.
The entrance of the strangers, however, unexpectedly stopped theshrieking, and before Junkie could recover his previous train of thoughtGertie bore him off in triumph, leaving the hospitable Dally and MrsScholtz 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 settlersresounded.
"They seem fond o' noise here," observed Sandy Black, handing his cup toMrs Scholtz to be refilled.
"I never 'eard such an 'owling before," said Jerry Goldboy; "what is itall about?"
"New arrivals from zee interior," answered Scholtz; "dere be alwaysvaggins comin' ant goin'."
"The camp is a changin' one," said Dally, sipping his tea with the airof a connoisseur. "When you've been here as long as we have you'llunderstand how it never increases much, for although ship after shiparrives with new swarms of emigrants from the old country, waggon afterwaggon comes from I don't know where--somewheres inland anyhow--andevery now an' then long trains of these are seen leaving camp, loadedwith goods and women and children, enough to sink a small schooner, andfollowed by crowds of men tramping away to their new homes in thewilderness--though what these same new homes or wilderness are like ismore than I can tell."
"Zee noise is great," growled Scholtz, as another burst ofwhip-musketry, human roars, and bovine bellows broke on their ears, "antzee confusion is indesgraibable."
"The gentlemen whose business it is to keep order must have a hard timeof 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 andsnubbing, in the midst of all this Babel of bubbledom, quite surpassesmy understanding. Do _you_ understand it, Mr Black?"
"Ay," replied Sandy, clearing his throat and speaking somewhatoracularly. "'Ee must know, Mrs Scholtz, that it's the result oforganisation and gineralship. A serjeant or corporal can kick or drivea few men in ony direction that's wanted, but it takes a gineral to movean army. If 'ee was to set a corporal to lead twunty thoosand men, he'dgie 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 bybrave men through bad gineralship, an' mony a battle's been won by puirenough bodies o' men because of their leader's administrative abeelity,Mrs Scholtz."
"Very true, Mr Black," replied Mrs Scholtz, with the assurance of onewho thoroughly understands what she hears.
"Noo," continued Sandy, with increased gravity, "if thae Kawfir bodieswe hear aboot only had chiefs wi' powers of organisation, an' was a'united thegither, they wad drive the haul o' this colony into the sealike chaff before the wind. But they'll niver do it; for, 'ee see, theywant mind--an' body withoot mind is but a puir thing after a', MrsScholtz."
"I'm not so shure of zat," put in Scholtz, stretching his huge frame andregarding it complacently; "it vould please me better to have bodyvidout 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 wasprevented from acknowledging it by an interruption from without; forjust at the moment a voice was heard asking a passer-by if he could tellwhere the tents of the Scotch party were pitched. Those in the tentrose at once, and Sandy Black, issuing out found that the questioner wasa handsome young Englishman, who would have appeared, what he reallywas, both stout and tall, if he had not been dwarfed by his companion, aCape-Dutchman of unusually gigantic proportions.
"We are in search of the Scottish party," said the youth, turning toSandy 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 pairtymysel', for me an' my freen hae lost oorsels, but doobtless Mister Dallyhere can help us. May I ask what 'ee want wi' us?"
"Certainly," replied the Englishman, with a smile. "Mr Marais and Ihave been commissioned to transport you to Baviaans river inbullock-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?" askedDally.
"Yes, and they directed us to a spot said to be surrounded by evergreenbushes near this quarter of the camp."
"_I_ know it--just outside the ridge between the camp and the Governmentoffices.--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 tentswhich were surrounded by Scotch ploughs, cart-wheels, harrows, cookingutensils fire-arms, and various implements of husbandry and ironware.
"Here come the lost ones!" exclaimed Kenneth McTavish, who, with hisactive wife and sprightly daughter Jessie, was busy arranging theinterior of his tent, "and bringing strangers with them too!"
While Sandy Black and his friend Jerry were explaining the cause oftheir absence to some of the Scotch party, the young Englishmanintroduced hi
s 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 actingGovernor, Sir Rufane Donkin, arrived on the 6th of June from a visit toAlbany, the district near the sea on which a large number of thesettlers were afterwards located, and from him Mr Pringle learned thatthe whole of the Scotch emigrants were to be located in the mountainouscountry watered by some of the eastern branches of the Great Fish River,close to the Kafir frontier. The upper part of the Baviaans, orBaboons, River had been fixed for the reception of his particularsection. It was also intended by Government that a piece of unoccupiedterritory still farther to the eastward should be settled by a party offive hundred Highlanders, who, it was conjectured, would prove the mosteffective buffer available to meet the first shock of invasion, shouldthe savages ever attempt another inroad.
Mr Pringle laid this proposed arrangement before a council of the headsof families under his charge; it was heartily agreed to, andpreparations for an early start were actively begun.
On the day of his arrival Sir Rufane Donkin laid the foundation of thefirst house of the now wealthy and flourishing, though not veryimposing, town of Port Elizabeth, so named after his deceased wife, towhose memory an obelisk was subsequently erected on the adjacentheights.
A week later, a train of seven waggons stood with the oxen "inspanned,"or yoked, ready to leave the camp, from which many similar trains hadpreviously set out. The length of such a train may be conceived when itis told that each waggon was drawn by twelve or sixteen oxen. Thesewere fastened in pairs to a single trace or "trektow" of twisted thongsof bullock or buffalo hide, strong enough for a ship's cable. Eachwaggon had a canvas cover or "till" to protect its goods and occupantsfrom the sun and rain, and each was driven by a tall Dutchman, whocarried a bamboo whip like a salmon fishing-rod with a lash of thirtyfeet or more. A slave, Hottentot or Bushman, led the two front oxen ofeach span.
Like pistol-shots the formidable whips went off; the oxen pulled, tossedtheir unwieldy horns, and bellowed; the Dutchmen growled and shouted;the half-naked "Totties" and Bushmen flung their arms and legs about,glared and gasped like demons; the monstrous waggons moved; "Settlers'Town" was slowly left behind, and our adventurers, heading for thethorny jungles of the Zwartkops River, began their toilsome journey intothe land of hope and promise.
"It's a queer beginning!" remarked Sandy Black, as he trudged betweenHans Marais and Charlie Considine.
"I hope it will have a good ending," said Considine.
Whether that hope was fulfilled the reader shall find out in the sequel.
Meanwhile some of the English parties took their departure by the sameroute, and journeyed in company till points of divergence were reached,where many temporary friendships were brought to a close, though somethere were which, although very recently formed, withstood firmly thedamaging effects of time, trial, sorrow, and separation.
The Settler and the Savage Page 4