The Autobiography of Eugen Mansfeld

by Eugen Mansfeld

  In Spitzkopje there was only a small number of animals, together with an ox-team and some cows, and a young man was sent from Swakopmund to look after them. I soon received an order to pack my belongings and quickly come to Swakopmund, where I expected to get another posting. And that was the end of my free life as a farmer, to which I have often looked back with nostalgia. I have often wondered how I endured one-and-a-half years alone as the only white man (my nearest white neighbour was about sixty kilometres away at Okombahe) surrounded by natives at Spitzkopje, and if it was not boring, lonely and dangerous. I can only conclude that I never felt bored or scared because the activity on a farm is so varied—from early morning to late evening, offering so many opportunities to create and try out new ideas, plans and improvements. I have realised that anybody who loves and desires this sort of challenge, who enjoys nature and the natural world and can do without the pleasures and comfort of big cities, will probably be happy on a farm.

  With natives I have never experienced difficulties or felt anxiety when dealing with them. I have always treated them in a firm but fair way; rewarding and recognising good service and punishing bad. I never participate in pointless violence or name-calling. As obtuse, obstinate and sneaky as the native may often be, he has a fine sense of feeling and understanding so long as one does not simply treat him as a beast of burden and his master understands his worries about his welfare; as well as having sympathy for his customs and traditions and his legitimate aspirations. Treated well, the native is willing to work hard, and to always recognise the white man as his master.

  I could not imagine what remote post I would be sent to next. On my arrival in Swakopmund, Dr Rhode informed me that the representative of the Company in Lüderitzbucht[18] had been sent back to Germany with a nervous breakdown; and I had been appointed as Company representative and head of the branch in Lüderitzbucht. So, something new and entirely different, and I said to myself, “Yes, I’ll do it,” sailing out on a Wörmann steamship just two days later.

  The settlement of Lüderitzbucht consisted of a large warehouse and store, independent of Swakopmund; a coaling station for the Imperial Navy; the only port landing operation for all incoming sea cargo; and water supply by means of a steam condenser, for there was no fresh water in Lüderitzbucht and the surrounding areas. There was no railway, and no telegraphic connection to Swakopmund, Cape Town or the interior. Once a month the steamer Leutwein came from Cape Town, and the monthly Wörmann steamer from Hamburg brought mail, but postal communication with outlying districts was only possibly by ox-cart or sending a messenger.

  There was a government building, with a station chief and two officers as police officers and customs officials; a Company warehouse and storage sheds with rooms for the employees, and his own house for the Company representative. There was also a warehouse with living accommodation for the companies Seidel & Mühle and Georg Hesselman. The Company had three store and office workers, a machinist for the condensing operation and a Norwegian boatswain for the landing operation, who was also a carpenter and cabinet-maker. There was no hotel nor any craftsmen: tailors, shoemakers, bakers etc etc; there were thirteen white men and one female cook and housekeeper in the whole place.

  For landing cargoes from steamers lying in the bay, the company had a short wooden jetty and owned a steam launch, two large lighters and several other boats. The protected bay did not have the same heavy surf as Swakopmund, but the almost constant strong south-westerly winds often caused a very choppy sea.

  Once again, as in Walvis Bay, all cargo destined for the interior had to be carried by ox-waggon—except that transport was much more difficult through the long belt of sand dunes lying behind Lüderitzbucht, while the poor oxen had the last watering place at Tsirub after three days, and then on the return journey too often a seven day run without water. Watering an waggon-span oftwentyto 24 animals from the condenser was an expensive game; the water cost twenty marks per cubic metre, and I have often observed thirsty oxen drink 40 litres of water.

  My predecessor, a sickly little man, was shot away by booze and head-over-heels in love with his housekeeper. At first I had a pretty hard time with the employees, over whom he had no authority, and who did exactly as they pleased. The engineer and the boatswain, especially, were devoted to drink, and believed themselves to be absolutely indispensible as nobody else knew anything about their work and replacements for them from Cape Town would take at the very least two months to arrive. It was not long before they were unashamedly playing up, and I did not spare their blushes. I sacked the engineer on the spot one day when I found him drunk at work, following repeated warnings. I banned him from entering the plant and I personally maintained the entire condenser system for two days.

  The same thing happened a few days later with the boatswain. He had been drunk when a steamer arrived, and I had ended up steering the launch with two heavily-laden barges, bringing them safely from the steamer to land despite rough seas and strong winds. This had helped the two of them see that I would manage without them, and they timidly came back, apologised and asked for their jobs back. From then on we were good friends, and I never again had to complain about them. I had also explained to them that I fully understood them feeling the need to get drunk now and then in this otherwise godforsaken place… but never during working hours.

  Lüderitzbucht was then a desolate spot. Apart from swimming and sometimes sailing in the bay it offered nothing, not a green blade of grass. During the summer months bare rock and sand, and constantly sharp winds from the southwest; in the winter often the terrible, scorching east wind.

  In mid-1902 the Imperial Navy survey ship Möwe (Gull) came to Lüderitzbucht. As a representative of the Company and the coaling station I immediately made my calls to the commander and officers. These were officially returned on the same afternoon, and from then onwards, I enjoyed daily social contact with the ship’s officers. The vessel carried out survey work on the coast every morning, coming back to the harbour at 6pm. Either the officers came to visit me on shore, or a boat brought me on board, and we were usually up till late, socialising. In fact, I was quite glad when the ship departed after six weeks, because although I was coping quite well, and all attempts by the officers to drink me under the table had failed, both my head and stomach were beginning to rebel against a surfeit of liquor.

  The condenser system in place had to be enlarged, and a large steam boiler duly arrived from Hamburg. It had to be fitted without disrupting the condenser’s operation or the water supply. All the equipment was stowed on board boats and barges, and could not be landed on shore, but the barges floated up to the shore on which the condenser station was built and the equipment hauled up the cliffs. A timber slipway was built on the cliffs, one of the side walls of the condenser station removed, and with much effort we succeeded in getting the new boiler to the right location to upgrade the condenser. Together with a mechanic from the steamship Leutwein, and drawing on my knowledge acquired from the old worsted spinning machine, we took four weeks to install the boiler and connect it to the old system.

  There was no doctor or medical assistant in the settlement, and I played doctor, nurse and veterinary surgeon. For this I had ordered from Germany immediately after my arrival in Lüderitzbucht a wide selection of medicines, bandages and surgical instruments. I mended a Hottentot’s leg fracture, and pulled a young settler woman’s tooth without anaesthetic gas or painkilling injection.

  In Kubub, about one hundred kilometres east of Lüderitzbucht we had a store and cattle posts, represented by Herr Klinghard, a kind old gentleman. Business affairs and negotiations with the district office necessitated a trip to Bethanien and Keetmanshoop. I was allowed three horses to Kubub, and rode on 30 September 1902 with a native boy and a packhorse with saddle, and arrived in Kubub on 1 October. There I was occupied for three days, and on 4 October left with fresh horses to continue my journey. Neither the boy nor I were paying attention overnight, and at daybreak we discovered t
hat our horses had run away. It wasn’t until the afternoon that the boy brought them back, finding them far from the camp. We rode the offenders hard for the next six hours, ensuring that they wouldn’t run away next time.

  Ubabis and Numis were within a day’s ride, and after a morning on horseback I went for lunch on 7 October on the Sinclair Mine. At that time it was being worked by the engineers Cronin and Hampton for the firm A. Görz & Co., Johannesburg, and was leased from our Company. With Mr Hampton I spent two days going over the whole place: riding over to see the other copper deposits and several farmers and business customers of the Company from Goas to Chamis, where we arrived on 10 October. Hampton rode from there back to the mine, while I continued my journey and arrived on the morning of 11 October in Bethanien. There I had three pleasant days to recover, staying with the station chief Leutnant Baron von Stempel, who had offered on his visits to Lüderitzbucht to put up me and my horses; his victuals put the latter into very high spirits.

  On 14 October I rode on to Kosis, trying to take a detour to shorten the route and leading the horses on a climb over high mountains. After riding some more, and having failed to find water during the day, we spent the night in an unknown riverbed. The next morning we followed the compass and finally came on to Kaxmas. After filling our water bottles and bellies with water, we went on by way of the Fish River to the Slangkop. There we stayed the night and arrived in Keetmanshoop on 16 October. I stayed there with the Burmester family, who had spent about ten days with me in Lüderitzbucht on their return from Germany in August, and now accommodated me with enormous kindness. It took several days to complete my business matters and official tasks; I was often in the officer’s mess, and even spent pleasant days with the local medical officer and missionary.

  On 21 October I began the return journey, over the Slangkop, Fish River and Neiams, along the Kuibis River, over the Kuibis and on 25 October to Kubub where I met Leutnant Ritter. [19] On the 26 and 27 October I was in Kubub, and with Klinghard rode across the whole area to find a suitable new place for our new cattle post until we selected Aus as the most appropriate spot, being both uninhabited and also having the only water source.

  On 20 October I rode off with Leutnant Ritter along the route of the new railway planned by the government, always travelling cross-country without path or road. On 29 October we arrived back in Lüderitzbucht, where Ritter stayed with me for the next eight days. The journey was a total of 1,100 kilometres, and was both difficult and exhausting. During the great drought there was almost never enough pasture available in the bush for horses, and often you use a pack saddle to carry along oats and sacks with grass, when by good fortune you could get it. And the costs of transporting food by ox-waggon were enormous: thirty marks per 100lbs. In Keetmanshoop I had to pay 125 marks for a 140lb sack of oats.

  In 1903 Dr Rhode stood down from the Company Board, and his place was taken by Herr von Bennigsen,[20] former governor of New Guinea. They decided in Berlin to convert the Lüderitz branch into a separate company, going into partnership with Herr Ludwig Scholz, who had been in Cameroon for years, and the Lüderitzbucht L Scholz & Co Company was founded (75% DKG, 25% Scholz).

  I only learned about this in February 1903, when Herr von Bennigsen and Herr Scholz arrived in Lüderitzbucht and told me that Herr Scholz was taking charge of the new company. I had a thoroughly-deserved six months’ leave to Germany and should then be transferred to Swakopmund. The leave with full pay and first class travel was very much to my taste, so naturally I didn’t cause any headaches.

  We had six weeks’ strenuous work carrying out a full stock take, with Scholz naturally going by the valuation and I trying to represent the company’s interests. I had to show Scholz all the operations of the business, and then finally during the second half of March 1903 I said goodbye to Lüderitzbucht and took the steamship Hans Wörmann, under my old friend Captain Becher, returning to my German homeland after eight years away in Africa.

  The journey was interesting and enjoyable, with the ship travelling along the entire West Coast, up through the Congo, Cameroon, Togo, Gold Coast, Liberia, Fernando Po etc. I landed in each of the ports with Captain Becher in the launch, visiting the country and going to the warehouses inland to collect cargo. After a journey of four and a half weeks we arrived in Hamburg, where I spent three days of big-city life before going by rail to my parents in Tetschen. I spent my leave there, enjoying Dresden, Berlin, Prague, Leipzig and Hamburg, and (as anyone can probably imagine) I did not miss out any of the pleasures and amusements that I had been away from for so long.

  I cured my malaria, which I had in the blood, and my rheumatism, which I had in the bones, through a four-day cure at Teplitz.[21] While I was on leave my younger brother Ernst celebrated his wedding. All the beautiful girls in Tetschen were friends of his bride, and as an “old Africa hand” I had a good time, since I was considered to be a good catch. The mother of one of the nicest young women frequently invited me to their house, but I soon became suspicious when they began suggesting that it was probably time for me to get married. I explained that I was still too young and carefree, and they gave me up as a hopeless case.

  From the managers of the company in Berlin I heard that they were dissatisfied with their commercial general manager in Swakopmund, and had dismissed him, and that I was to take over things. The contract that I had for Lüderitzbucht was immediately renewed for Swakopmund. On 30 September 1903 I stepped on board the old steamer Adolph Wörmann again to depart for Swakopmund. We had a lovely dinner party at the captain’s table and the trip was pleasant and peaceful; the North Sea and the Bay of Biscay were stormy and after Mossamedes we came across a storm with such heavy seas that we arrived two days late in Swakopmund on 29 October.

  The Swakopmund branch had the biggest goods business in the country. Wholesale and retail sales, a bank department and management of the company’s land and mineral rights, with each department under a general manager. As our department measured the plots and farms sold by the company, the general manager and surveyor R. Schettler were constantly out working with two or three other surveyors. Lots of new work began for me; the department had to be reorganised because my predecessor in the credit business had guaranteed absurdly high credit in respect of the traders and farmers; I had to liquidate the business and pursue a number of new plans for the company. As always when a new manager competes for a position, he meets with some resistance from the staff who were sympathetic to his predecessor. I had to learn that this was especially the case with the manager of the Banking department, which included the accounting of goods received. I left it however to be proved by a trial of ability, and eased him out. He treacherously tried to blacken the character of myself and Schettler behind our backs, however Berlin took our side and he was dismissed. In November 1903 the Bondelswarts Hottentots rose up in the south of the country; this brought great upheaval and uncertainty to the country, and in January 1904 the Herero rose in revolt.

  The Herero Rebellion 1904

  After the Bonsdelswarts Uprising broke out in November 1903, the whole Schutztruppe was brought together in the south. We had already received word of several battles, and the uprising seemed to be taking on greater dimensions when the reserve conscripts of the German forces were notified to be ready for an eventual mobilisation. Suddenly on 11 January 1904 a telegraphic message arrived from Windhoek to say that three to four thousand armed and mounted Hereros were at Okahandja, their intention was not yet known, but there was no doubt that they were assembled, and that quite a hostile attitude prevailed. In Swakopmund all available reservists were immediately mobilised; I got my call-up at nine in the morning and by the afternoon we were all in uniform, a total of sixty men under the command of Oberleutnant von Zülow. The next morning after we had received weapons and supplies, the company set off by rail into the interior to rousing cheers from the population. In the rush, the wrong ammunition had been taken, and we had to wait at the station until the correct .808 rifle ca
rtridges were sent on. Five-and-a-half hours later we arrived at Jakalswater Station; food was kept ready, and by seven o’clock we steamed on.

  13 January 1904

  Arrived at three o’clock in the morning at Karibib, we heard that a revolt of the Hereros had actually broken out, last night general murder had already begun in the country. Dickmann and his wife[22] and two other settlers were killed in Okahandja, and the garrison at Okahandja besieged by the Hereros. Karibib is on alert; there are 70 men there fit for service, of whom we are taking 30. Officers’ swords and rank badges are put away, everyone is armed only with rifle, ammunition and bayonets, a precaution we have always observed because the Hereros knew the badge exactly and always focus their fire first on the officers’ badges. At seven in the morning we go again, collect the settlers who have arrived at individual stations, and send warnings to those people staying. At Johann-Albrechtshöhe (Otjimakoko) the force is split into three companies. I am in One Company, under Oberveterinär Rickmann,[23] who is at the same time commanding the squads in the second company. We found the nearest station, Wilhelmshöhe, already abandoned and completely plundered by the Hereros. We had split the train in a station, stopping about 500 metres before it. Our first train, which had two carriages, crept out and inspected the station and the surrounding terrain, and lay there as cover while the locomotives took on water. The nearest station, Okasise, was also destroyed. The stationmaster and his assistant were lying dead in front of the house; we buried the two corpses. At six o’clock in the evening we arrived at Waldau. There everything was in readiness for war. Fourteen men had arrived from Karibib the previous day to protect the station, and the station buildings were already as well barricaded as possible. The rocks lying close behind the station were occupied by Herero troops. We had to stay in Waldau that night because we expected an attack and had to make preparations to continue the journey. Waldau is just twenty-three kilometres from Okahandja. The telegraph to Okahandja and back to Karibib was destroyed. I brought my company of twenty men to stay in the machine shed; I set four pairs of guards to keep watch, and twice during the night we were woken by the sentries shooting. At four in the morning the first enemy bullets whistled into the shed, and I ordered a quick withdrawal.