Tramp Royale

by Robert A. Heinlein

  "Buffalo," Mrs. Morgan said softly.

  I picked up my camera and rather shakily started to take pictures. We had not expected to find buffalo. Having found them I was not sure that I was glad we had. The African buffalo is mean, treacherous, stupid, and unpredictable. A high-velocity, steel-jacketed bullet will bounce off the boss of horn that protects his idiot brain. In size and muscle he gives much the impression of a medium tank.

  I took several pictures while the herd gazed and the bull of the herd stared at us. Finally he started ambling toward us, then broke into a trot. Mrs. Morgan let in the clutch and we got away from there as fast as possible. Apparently the bull decided that his duty was done in chasing us away from his family; he did not follow us down the track. I do not know whether or not a Henry J. can outdistance an African buffalo on a straight-away or not, and I don't ever want to find out.

  About twenty minutes and two hundred impala later we spotted two cars ahead of us, stopped under some trees. A car at rest is always a signal to approach cautiously and stop to see what they have stopped to look at; we did so. I craned my neck. "What are they look-umph!"

  I found myself so close to a male lion that I could look down on the top of his head.

  About ten feet beyond him was another male in the same pose, couchant. There should have been a flight of public library steps between them. There they lay, as steady as stone statues, and stared back at the dozen or so humans staring at them. They were both big, magnificent, black-maned beasts. I won't attempt to estimate their dimensions; I feel sure that the fact that they were uncaged distorted my judgment. But they were not small.

  Nor can I explain why three out of three males that we saw were black-maned, since black manes are supposed to be scarce.

  I should have been able to take a perfect close-up, save for one thing: the light was too poor for color film . . . late afternoon, under trees, and a fine drizzle. It would have required a flash bulb, and I certainly would not have fired off a flash in a lion's face even if I had had one-I don't claim to be bright but I am not suicidally stupid. Sure, sure, it says right here in the book that lions will not molest people in automobiles, but the lion might regard a flash bulb as a violation of protocol. Anyhow, lions have been known to take umbrage at the automobile itself and claw all four tires to ribbons. With lion no farther away than a parking meter I felt not at all anxious to call attention to myself.

  So we stared and they stared. I don't know how long we stayed. The lions seemed perfectly willing to sit through a second show. After a long time Mrs. Morgan suggested that we had better be moving on if we were to get to the hippo pool before dark.

  Either somebody moved the hippo pool or there was something wrong with the map we were using; we never did find it. Hippopotami are the only animals you are assured of seeing when you visit Kruger Park, because they always stay home in one curve of the Sabie River. Our guide had been there many times before; nevertheless we could not find it and lost so much time looking for it that we barely made it out the gate before sundown closing time.

  I didn't care-we had seen four lions.

  The booking clerk at the railroad station in Johannesburg had refused to give us a return booking from Nelspruit to Johannesburg and had given me a lecture instead. I had attempted to book our return as soon as we arrived in Nelspruit but had been told by the station agent there that it was too late to book except directly with the train conductor; he advised me to come down a bit early and see the conductor.

  I was baffled. How it could always be the wrong time to make a train reservation, when we disembarked in Cape Town, when we arrived in Johannesburg, and when we arrived in Nelspruit, I did not understand and still do not. But there it was-jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, never jam today. So we hurried through an excellent dinner at the Hotel Paragon in Nelspruit-the Paragon deserved its name-and Mrs. Morgan took us down to the train in good time. When the conductor stepped off the train we planned to buttonhole him.

  So did fifty other people. We didn't even get close to him.

  Not that it mattered, he was letting no one on. We did hear him tell one woman with a baby that she could stand up all night in the vestibule but that was the best he offered. It was a holiday crowd, returning from the seaside; even the seats in the dining car were occupied. The next train was twenty-four hours later and we had no assurance that we would be able to get on even that train-the station master either could not or would not issue reservations for it.

  The railroads in South Africa are atrocious, not because of equipment but because of management-sort of a Long Island Railway on a grand scale. True, the equipment could be better in many ways, but the real defect seems to be a total absence of any notion of traffic management. The bureaucrats who run it seem to have borrowed a slogan from an earlier, ruggeder day in American industry: "The public be damned!"

  This weekend was the end of a school holiday; any traffic engineer owning a slipstick, having access to the records of previous years, and possessed of enough savvy to figure his own retirement pay could have predicted the service needed that weekend after finishing the morning paper and still have had time to take a long coffee break. But oh no! they had to run it like a game of musical chairs, with children left standing when the music stopped as an expected part of the game.

  I have already noted that it was Sam's hospitality and Sam's Pontiac that got us out of Cape Town; all trains were booked solid three days ahead-with no intention of adding more equipment. The same conditions prevailed all over the country. Compounding the annoyance was the barely veiled insolence of Afrikander civil servants, an attitude of who the hell are you to even expect to ride our railroads.

  I would have no right to complain if it were not that South Africa maintains tourist bureaus in our own country which publicize, among other things, how wonderful their railroads are.

  Sure, sure, I'm just a sorehead tourist who could not manage to get on the train he wanted-but note this: South Africa has plenty of coal and exports it. But Cape Town imports foreign coal, it being cheaper to do so than to bring it down from the north. Inasmuch as the country has a markedly unfavorable balance of trade and the government has a firm policy of preventing the importation of anything at all where it can possibly be avoided, this one fact seems to me to underline the inadequacy and inefficiency of their railroads.

  The same Transport Commission which runs the railroads also runs the bus lines and the air lines. Competition is intentionally eliminated.

  Never mind-I admit that their railroads, or any railroads, are better than the means Allan Quatermain used. Mrs. Morgan drove us back to the hotel; during the ride I arranged with her for her to drive us to Johannesburg the following day. We checked back in at the hotel and went into the bar lounge. We were soaked through from a drizzling rain while standing on the station platform, exhausted from a long day in the bushveld, disappointed at not being able to board the train, and we each needed about two ounces of universal solvent in a tall glass to place a warm glow over our homesickness.

  The bar was closed.

  It was the first time we had run into the British Commonwealth customs of "hours." I have been assured by others that "hours" are carefully arranged throughout the Queen's domain to keep a weary man from taking a drink when he needs it most. Actually, closing hours are not much trouble to travelers; they are exempt from most of the restrictions. I don't know how we got caught at Nelspruit as I don't know the rules.

  Presently the manager-owner, a very nice chap, found us, condoled with us at not getting the train, and was hospitable-so much so that I never did get up the courage to say, "Hey, Mac, how about a drink?" After a while we went to our room. The beds were good, there was plenty of hot water; the Paragon really is a good hotel.

  Mrs. Morgan picked us up in the morning and we set out for Johannesburg. This meant that we paid for another five hundred miles of taxi service, or a total of three days. One day by taxi to see lions seemed reasonable; that was what we we
re there for and we had already invested much time and money in the preparation. Two more days (one for her to drive us to Johannesburg, a second to return empty at our expense) seemed a little steep, especially as we held train tickets which had not been honored and which we could not cash. But it was either that or be stuck in the interior of Africa with a strong likelihood of missing our ship for Singapore.

  Actually Mrs. Morgan charged about half what the same service would have cost us in Colorado, even though her little Henry J. represented an investment equal to a Cadillac and petrol cost more (and gave poorer mileage) than does gasoline in the States.

  I have been told by South Africans that the Afrikander farmer is the laziest man on earth, given to sitting on his stoep, smoking his pipe, and watching his black farmhands make him rich. If so, Mrs. Morgan and her husband must have been exceptions. They owned and lived on a farm, which they worked through a black foreman. As is usual, his compensation was permission to crop part of the land for himself. They owned a general store for the natives, which was managed by a "coloured." Mrs. Morgan ran the Nelspruit Taxi Service and was its principal driver, although she had three children at home including a young baby whom she had to stop by to feed occasionally-she had, of course, a Bantu housekeeper-cook. And Papa had a full-time job as a boiler inspector on the railroad.

  She told us quite simply that they wanted to make a lot of money. I'm sure they will.

  Inside of ten minutes after leaving Nelspruit we were glad that the train had gone off without us. It was a glorious day and glorious countryside. The Transvaal is some of the lushest rolling farm land on this globe and I can understand how the Voortrekkers felt that they had reached the promised land when they reached it after crossing the grand but pitiless Karoo. All they asked of life was fertile land, cattle, and plenty of slaves to do the work-the simple things in life.

  Nelspruit is not much above sea level. We climbed through the low veld, the middle veld, and the high veld in the course of the day, gaining more than a mile in altitude but so gradually as to be not noticeable. It was rolling, open prairie, lightly sprinkled with trees, like the best of our middle west farm country. The wide, almost flat-topped flamboyant tree, a trademark of South Africa, was usually in sight somewhere, reminding us that this was not the middle west, but a page out of the National Geographic.

  There was also a little bird which did not look like home. It was known locally as the widow-of-paradise bird and looked much like a redwinged blackbird save that it had two long, black, floppy tail feathers, perhaps three times the length of its little body. These gave it quite unfavorable aerodynamic characteristics and it proceeded in series of frantic attempts to gain altitude to overcome the drag, then pulled down again, so that it traced a sine curve through the air. Nevertheless it seemed quite happy and no doubt thought that was the only way there was to fly.

  In late afternoon we drove through Pretoria without stopping and turned south toward Johannesburg. Pretoria is a clean and beautiful small city of gardens and fine public buildings and is one of the three capitals of the Union, the seat of government-the supreme court is in Bloemfontein and the legislature is in Cape Town. In the outskirts to the south is the Voortrekker Monument and for this we did stop, it being a world-famous Afrikander shrine.

  The monument is a large, square, ugly building of great dignity. It sits on a hilltop surrounded by a sculptured circle of covered wagons. The interior is empty save for an altar on a lower level which is struck by sunlight through a hole in the roof only at noon on December 16th, their national holiday. There are bas reliefs running around the inside which portray the struggles of crossing the desert, fighting natives, coping with broken wagons, etc. Ticky and I were struck by the strong resemblance in equipment and costume between these pictured pioneers and those of our own old west. Only in that the "hostiles" were shown as flat-nosed rather than hook-nosed could a difference readily be seen. The men wore spade beards, the women wore Mother Hubbards, the prairie schooners looked like ours. It made us think of the pictures and statuary of the Mormon Trek as seen in Salt Lake City-not really surprising since the Mormons trekked in 1847 and the Cape Dutch in 1838 and following. I could not forget, however, that the two sets of pioneers trekked for very different reasons: the Mormons were attempting to escape religious persecution whereas the Voortrekkers moved on (in part at least) because the British had freed their slaves.

  Of course it does not look that way to the Afrikanders and no doubt this book will be added to the long list of books banned by law in South Africa. Mrs. Morgan evidenced the first emotion I had seen her show; she looked around at scenes of Boers fighting Bantus and said very solemnly and softly, "They did it for us."

  The Voortrekkers seem to have won. The edict from London emancipating the slaves is still law but Dr. Malan's government has succeeded in substituting a serfdom for the entire black race which leaves the black man no more free than he was more than a century ago without putting the Voortrekkers' descendants to the inconvenience and expense of being personally responsible for the welfare of chattel slaves. (And on the other side of the world we are still persecuting the polygamous dissident Mormons of the Arizona Strip.)

  There was a sign outside giving visiting hours and limiting "non-Europeans" to one afternoon a week. I wonder if any of them visit it.

  Before I am accused of a double standard let me say that I am aware that our own treatment of the American Indians was in many instances a scandal and a crime, but we have made many amends. There is now no legal distinction between the red man and the white, save that the Indian may, if he wishes, avail himself of certain legal privileges denied to the whites. But he is not required to.

  American Indian blood is a matter of pride with us today, e.g., Will Rogers. And we have had an Indian Vice President. I will concede that the Afrikanders treat the Bantus "no worse" than we have treated the American aborigines the day Dr. Malan has a black deputy prime minister. Oh, that will be a day!

  Before somebody points out that the barefoot Bantu savage is not capable of full modern citizenship as he is let me concede the point-and let me add that he never will raise himself up to the status of Dr. Ralph Bunche or of Dr. George Washington Carver as things are now; the Nationalist Party is firmly determined not to let him.

  And in answer to that raucous voice in the back-the man with the sheet over his arm-let me say that my sister is already married. Anyway, it's her business, not mine. The meeting is adjourned.

  South Africa has wonderful roads even if the railroads are a practical joke. We were in Johannesburg well before dark. It is a modern city even to its traffic jams, which would do credit to New York; it was well past dark before we reached our hotel. We took a quick tub and grabbed another taxi to a lovely home in the suburbs, owned by people we had met in the Ruys. We had cocktails by a swimming pool in a beautiful walled garden, dinner by candle light which was served by white-gloved black servants. I noticed that our hostess called her butler "Sixpence" and asked her what his real name was?

  "Why, 'Sixpence,' " she told me.

  "I mean his Bantu name."

  She shrugged. "So far as I know, that is the only name he has." Then she changed the subject.

  I learned later that "Sixpence" is the usual nickname of any Bantu male house servant. I had again shown a gauche ignorance of local custom. But in the United States even the goldfish have names.

  In that household wardrobes and cupboards are kept locked, inner doors as well as outer are locked at night, the grounds are surrounded by a high wall and can be floodlighted. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, about a South African lady in Durban who was disturbed at the rumors of an impending native uprising. She called in her houseboy and said, "Sixpence, you wouldn't cut my throat-would you?"

  He opened his eyes wide in horror. "Oh, no, Missy! I cut throat of lady missy next door-her boy cut your throat."

  You hear this story in South Africa but the laugh is a little forced.

  T
he next day we flew to Durban to join the Ruys. The ship was a DC-6B, a plane which appears to be the work horse of the world at present, just as its smaller and older sister, the DC-3, was for so long-not but what there are plenty of DC-3s still flying all over the world. Like the Model-T Ford, it is necessary to bury a DC-3 at a crossroads with a holly stake through its heart to make it quit flying.

  As we took off from Johannesburg we saw that it was surrounded by manmade mountains of sulphur-colored mine tailings. That was the last of the scenery, as we saw nothing but the top sides of clouds from there to the coast. As a means of sightseeing airplanes are better than subways, but not much. So I looked at the hostess instead. As always, she was well worth looking at. I like to look at pretty girls and Ticky indulges me in this hobby, one which is, after all, inexpensive, harmless, and does not damage the goods. I hope to live to be a nasty old man, with that as my last pleasure in life.

  The most nearly perfectly beautiful airline hostess we saw on this trip was a Polynesian girl, but this Springbok hostess was well up in the money. Presently she came over and talked with us. We learned that she was engaged to a doctor who had just left for postgraduate work in San Francisco. She had been unable to go with him because the terms of his fellowship required him not to marry for two years, and now she was worrying that he might forget her for some American girl. We assured her solemnly that if he did, he had rocks in his head-an obvious truth. But it did not console her. She told us that she would have been happy to go with him without being married, but she had not been able to arrange a visa that would let her work.

  Sometimes I think the rules are rigged to require at least one fly in every bowl of soup. This planet is not too well run.

  After the balmy veld and cool Johannesburg, landing in Durban was like being plunged in a steam bath. By the time we had landed and taken a long, hot, sticky ride to the docks we were tired and irritable. We then had to go through outgoing customs, a practice infuriating through its sheer uselessness, but one which I learned to take with a fixed smile and mendacious good nature.