Paradise Camp perched on the very edge of the Berg. Behind us rolled green slopes to the feet of the higher peaks, and in front of us lay the Bushveld. From the broken battlements of the Berg we looked down three thousand feet, and eastward to the sea a hundred and fifty miles away, across the vast panorama. Black densely timbered kloofs broke the edge of the plateau into a long series of projecting turrets, in some places cutting far in, deep crevices into which the bigger waterfalls plunged and were lost. But the top of the Berg itself was bare of trees: the breeze blew cool and fresh for ever there; the waters trickled and splashed in every little break or tumbled with steady roar down the greater gorges; deep pools, fringed with masses of ferns, smooth as mirrors or flecked with dancing sunlight, were set like brilliants in the silver chain of each little stream; and rocks and pebbles, wonderful in their colours, were magnified and glorified into polished gems by the sparkling water.
But Nature has her moods, and it was not always thus at Paradise Camp. When the cold-mist rains, like wet grey fogs, swept over us and for a week blotted out creation, it was neither pleasant nor safe to grope along the edge of the Berg, in search of strayed cattle – wet and cold, unable to see, and checked from time to time by a keener straighter gust that leapt up over the unseen precipice a few yards off.
And there was still another mood when the summer rains set in and the storms burst over us, and the lightning stabbed viciously in all directions, and the crackling crash of the thunder seemed as if the very Berg itself must be split and shattered. Then the rivers rose; the roar of waters was all around us; and Paradise Camp was isolated from the rest by floods which no man would lightly face.
Paradise Camp stood on the edge of the kloof where the nearest timber grew; Tumbling Waters, where stood the thousand grey sandstone sentinels of strange fantastic shapes, was a couple of miles away facing Black Bluff, the highest point of all, and The Camel, The Wolf, The Sitting Hen and scores more, rough casts in rock by Nature’s hand, stood there. Close below us was the Bathing Pool, with its twenty feet of purest water, its three rock-ledge ‘springboards’, and its banks of moss and canopies of tree ferns. Further down the stream spread in a thousand pools and rapids over a mile of black bedrock and then poured in one broad sheet over Graskop Falls. And still further down were the Macmac Falls, three hundred feet straight drop into the rock-strewn gorge, where the straight walls were draped with staghorn moss, like countless folds of delicate green lace, bespangled by the spray. We were felling and slipping timber for the goldfields then, and it was in these surroundings that the work was done.
It was a Sunday morning, and I was lying on my back on a sack-stretcher taking it easy, when Jock gave a growl and trotted out. Presently I heard voices in the next hut and wondered who the visitors were – too lazily content to get up and see; then a cold nose was poked against my cheek and I looked round to see Jess’s little eyes and flickering ears within a few inches of my face. For the moment she did not look cross, but as if a faint smile of welcome were flitting across a soured face; then she trotted back to the other hut where Ted was patting Jock and trying to trace a likeness to The Rat.
It was a long time since mother and son had been together, and if the difference between them was remarkable, the likeness seemed to me more striking still. Jock had grown up by himself and made himself; he was so different from other dogs that I had forgotten how much he owed to good old Jess; but now that they were once more side by side everything he did and had done recalled the likeness and yet showed the difference between them. Many times as we moved about the camp or worked in the woods they walked or stood together, sometimes sniffing along some spoor and sometimes waiting and watching for us to come up – handsome son and ugly mother. Ugly she might be, with her little fretful hostile eyes and her uncertain ever-moving ears, and silent, sour and cross; but stubborn fidelity and reckless courage were hers too; and all the good Jock had in him came from Jess.
To see them side by side was enough: every line in his golden brindled coat had its counterpart in her dull markings; his jaw was hers, with a difference, every whit as determined but without the savage look; his eyes were hers – not yet fretful and cross, but serenely observant, when quiet, and black, hot and angry like hers, when roused – yet without the look of relentless cruelty; his ears were hers – and yet how different, not shifting, flickering and ever on the move, not flattened back with the look of most uncertain temper, but sure in their movements and faithful reflectors of more sober moods and more balanced temper, and so often cocked – one full and one half – with a look of genuinely friendly interest which, when he put his head on one side, seemed to change in a curiously comical way into an expression of quiet amusement.
The work kept us close to camp and we gave no thought to shooting; yet Jess and Jock had some good sport together. We gave them courses for breathers after oribi in the open, but these fleetest of little antelopes left them out of sight in very few minutes. Bushbuck too were plentiful enough, but so wily in keeping to the dark woods and deep kloofs that unless we organised a drive the only chance one got was to stalk them in the early morning as they fed on the fringes of the bush. I often wondered how the dogs would have fared with those desperate fighters that have injured and killed more dogs and more men than any other buck, save perhaps the sable.
Once they caught an antbear in the open and there was a rough and tumble; we had no weapons – not even sticks – with us, and the dogs had it all to themselves. The clumsy creature could do nothing with them; his powerful digging claws looked dangerous, but the dogs never gave him a chance; he tried hard to reach his hole, but they caught him as he somersaulted to dodge them and, one in front and one behind, worried the life out of him.
Once they killed a tiger-cat. We heard the rush and the row, and scrambled down through the tangled woods as fast as we could, but they fought on, tumbling and rolling downhill before us, and when we came up to them it was all over and they were tugging and tearing at the lifeless black and white body. The cat was as big as either of them and armed with most formidable claws which it had used to some purpose, for both dogs were torn and bleeding freely in several places. Still they thoroughly enjoyed it and searched the place afresh every time we passed it, as regularly as a boy looks about where he once picked up a sixpence.
Then the dainty little klipspringers led them many a crazy dance along the crags and ledges of the mountain face, jumping from rock to rock with the utmost ease and certainty and looking down with calm curiosity at the clumsy scrambling dogs as they vainly tried to follow. The dassies too – watchful, silent and rubber-footed – played hide and seek with them in the cracks and crevices; but the dogs had no chance there.
Often there were races after baboons. There were thousands of them along the Berg but, except when a few were found in the open, we always called the dogs in. Among a troop of baboons the best of dogs would have no show at all. Ugly, savage and treacherous as they are, they have at least one quality which compels admiration – they stand by each other. If one is attacked or wounded, the others will often turn back and help, and they will literally tear a dog to pieces. Even against one full-grown male a dog has little or no chance; for they are very powerful, quick as lightning and fierce fighters. Their enormous jaws and teeth outmatch a dog’s, and with four ‘hands’ to help them the advantage is altogether too great. Their method of fighting is to hold the dog with all four feet and tear pieces out of him with their teeth.
We knew the danger well, for there was a fighting baboon at a wayside place not far from us – a savage brute, owned by a still greater savage. It was kept chained up to a pole with its house on the top of the pole; and what the owner considered to be a good joke was to entice dogs up, either to attack the baboon or at least to come sniffing about within reach of it, and then see them worried to death. The excuse was always the same: ‘Your dog attacked the baboon. I can’t help it.’ Sometimes the dogs were rescued by their owners; but many were killed
. To its native cunning this brute added all the tricks that experience had taught, sometimes hiding up in its box to induce the dog to come sniffing close up; sometimes grubbing in the sand for food, pretending not to see the intruder until he was well within reach; sometimes running back in feigned alarm to draw him on. Once it got a grip, the baboon threw itself on its side or back and, with all four feet holding the dog off, tore lumps out of the helpless animal. A plucky dog that would try to make a fight of it had no chance; the only hope was to get away, if possible.
Not every baboon is a fighter like this, but in almost every troop there will be at least one terrible old fellow, and the biggest, strongest and fiercest always dominate and lead the others; and their hostility and audacity are such that they will loiter behind the retreating troop and face a man on foot or on horseback, slowly and reluctantly giving way, or sometimes moving along abreast, a hostile escort, giving loud roars of defiance and hoarse challenges as though ready on the least provocation or excuse to charge. It is not a pleasant position for an unarmed man, as at the first move or call from the leader the whole troop would come charging down again. It is not actual danger that impresses one, but the uncanny effect of the short defiant roars, the savage half-human look of the repulsive creatures, their still more human methods of facial expression and threatening attitudes, their tactics in encircling their object and using cover to approach and peer out cautiously from behind it, and their evident cooperation and obedience to the leader’s directions and example.
One day while at work in the woods there came to us a grizzled worn-looking old kaffir, whose headring of polished black wax attested his dignity as a kehla. He carried an old musket and was attended by two youngsters armed with throwing sticks and a hunting assegai each. He appeared to be a ‘somebody’ in a small way, and we knew at a glance that he had not come for nothing.
There is a certain courtesy and a good deal of formality observed among the natives, which is appreciated by but few of the white men who come in contact with them. One reason for this failure in appreciation is that native courtesy is in its method and expression sometimes just the reverse of what we consider proper; and if actions which seem suggestive of disrespect were judged from the native’s standpoint, and according to his code, there would be no misunderstanding. The old man, passing and ignoring the group of boys, came towards us as we sat in the shade for the midday rest, and slowly came to a stand a few yards off, leaning on his long flintlock quietly taking stock of each of us in turn, and waiting for us to inspect him. Then, after three or four minutes of this, he proceeded to salute us separately with ‘Sakubona, Umlungu!’ delivered with measured deliberation at intervals of about a quarter of a minute, each salutation being accompanied by the customary upward movement of the head – their respectful equivalent of our nod or bow. When he had done the round, his two attendants took their turns, and when this was over, and another long pause had served to mark his respect, he drew back a few paces to a spot about halfway between us and where the kaffirs sat and, tucking his loinskins comfortably under him, squatted down. Ten minutes more elapsed before he allowed his eyes to wander absently round towards the boys and finally to settle on them for a repetition of the performance that we had been favoured with. But in this case it was they who led off with the ‘Sakubona, Umganaam!’ which he acknowledged with the raising of the head and a soft murmur of recognition, ‘A-hé.’
Once more there was silence for a spell, while he waited to be questioned in the customary manner, and to give an account of himself, before it would be courteous or proper to introduce the subject of his visit. It was Jim’s voice that broke the silence – clear and imperative, as usual, but not uncivil. It was always Jim who cut in, as those do who are naturally impatient of delays and formalities.
‘Velapi, Umganaam?’ (Where do you come from, friend?) he asked, putting the question which is recognised as courteously providing the stranger with an opening to give an account of himself; and he is expected and required to do so to their satisfaction before he in turn can ask all about them, their occupations, homes, destination and master, and his occupation, purpose and possessions.
The talk went round in low exchanges until at last the old man moved closer and joined the circle; and then the other voices dropped out, only to be heard once in a while in some brief question or that briefest of all comments – the kaffir click and ‘Ow!’ It may mean anything, according to the tone, but it was clearly sympathetic on that occasion. The old man’s voice went on monotonously in a low-pitched impassive tone; but the boys hung intent on every word to the end. Then one or two questions, briefly answered in the same tone of detached philosophic indifference, brought their talk to a close. The old fellow tapped his carved wood snuffbox with the carefully preserved long yellowish nail of one forefinger, and pouring some snuff into the palm of his hand, drew it into each nostril in turn with long luxurious sniffs; and then, resting his arms on his knees, he relapsed into complete silence.
We called the boys to start work again, and they came away, as is their custom, without a word or look towards the man whose story had held them for the last half hour. Nor did he speak or stir, but sat on unmoved, a picture of stoical indifference. But who can say if it be indifference or fatalism or the most astute diplomacy? Among white men opinions differ: I put it down as fatalism.
We asked no questions, for we knew it was no accident that had brought the old man our way: he wanted something, and we would learn soon enough what it was. So we waited.
As we gathered round the fallen tree to finish the cleaning and slip it down to the track Jim remarked irrelevantly that tigers were ‘schelms’, as it was his conviction that there were a great many in the kloofs round about. At intervals during the next hour or so he dropped other scraps about tigers and their ways, and how to get at them and what good sport it was, winding up with a short account of how two seasons back an English ‘Capitaine’ had been killed by one only a few miles away.
Jim was no diplomatist: he had tiger on the brain and showed it; so when I asked him bluntly what the old man had been talking about, the whole story came out. There was a tiger – it was of course the biggest ever seen – which had been preying on the old chief’s kraal for the last six months: dogs, goats and kaffir sheep innumerable had disappeared, even fowls were not despised; and only two days ago the climax had been reached when, in the cool of the afternoon and in defiance of the yelling herdboy, it had slipped into the herd at the drinking place and carried off a calf – a heifer calf too! The old man was poor: the tiger had nearly ruined him; and he had come to see if we, ‘who were great hunters’, would come down and kill the thief, or at least lend him a tiger trap, as he could not afford to buy one.
In the evening when we returned to camp we found the old fellow there, and heard the story told with the same patient resignation or stoical indifference with which he had told it to the boys; and, if there was something inscrutable in the smoky eyes that might have hidden a more calculating spirit, it did not trouble us – the tiger was what we wanted; the chance seemed good enough; and we decided to go. Tigers – as they are almost invariably called, but properly leopards – were plentiful enough and were often to be heard at night in the kloofs below; but they are extremely wary animals and in the inhabited parts rarely move about by day; however, the marauding habits and the audacity of this fellow were full of promise.
The following afternoon we set off with our guns and blankets, a little food for two days and the tiger trap; and by nightfall we had reached the foot of the Berg by paths and ways which you might think only a baboon could follow.
It was moonlight, and we moved along through the heavily timbered kloofs in single file behind the shadowy figure of the shrivelled old chief. His years seemed no handicap to him, as with long easy soft-footed strides he went on hour after hour. The air was delightfully cool and sweet with the fresh smells of the woods; the damp carpet of moss and dead leaves dulled the sounds of our more
blundering steps; now and again through the thick canopy of evergreens we caught glimpses of the moon, and in odd places the light threw stumps or rocks into quaint relief or turned some tall bare trunk into a ghostly sentinel of the forest.
We had crossed the last of the many mountain streams and reached open ground when the old chief stopped and, pointing to the face of a high krantz – black and threatening in the shadow, as it seemed to overhang us – said that somewhere up there was a cave which was the tiger’s home, and it was from this safe refuge that he raided the countryside.
The kraal was not far off. From the top of the spur we could look round, as from the pit of some vast coliseum, and see the huge wall of the Berg towering up above and half enclosing us, the whole arena roofed over by a star-spattered sky. The brilliant moonlight picked out every ridge and hill, deepening the velvet black of the shadowy valleys, and on the rise before us there was the twinkling light of a small fire, and the sound of voices came to us, borne on the still night air, so clearly that words picked out here and there were repeated by our boys with grunting comments and chuckles of amusement.
Jock of the Bushveld Page 20