Chapter VIII

Again at Tati--Fresh causes of delay--Lions on the
Motloutsi--Threatened by natives--Forthcoming prospects.

By the 21st of May Frank Oates was again back at Tati from Bamangwato, this time completing the journey without further mishap. Little worthy of note occurred upon the road. The weather was now settled; the rains had ceased, and the days were usually bright and fine. The general aspect of the country was bare and brown, though, where water was met with, there was still for the most part a corresponding freshness in the landscape, as was the case at “Tchakani Vlei,” a beautiful pond, surrounded by wood and covered with water-lilies, which was reached the second day of the journey. Again at the Palatswe River, further on, was water and abundance of fresh grass, the latter supplying excellent pasture for the oxen. But some days forced marches were required, to get from one watering-place to another, these in the winter season being few in number.

This scarcity of water sufficiently accounted for the general absence of game upon the route, only a few small antelope occasionally showing themselves the whole time. In crossing the Motloutsi two lions were observed quite close to the waggons, and Frank Oates gave them chase, but, as related below in a letter referring to the events of this period, was thrown off the scent by the wiles of the Dutchman, Van Roozen, who sought to avoid an encounter. The signs of animal life were rather more numerous on the Shashe River, where some fine water-holes were found in the sand, into one of which a crocodile had recently crawled, leaving the track of his tail behind him at the water’s edge. Here pallah and other game spoor was abundant, and three or four large monkeys were observed crossing the river-bed. Birds too were numerous, including herons, kingfishers, and bustards. In the course of the journey one or two curious snakes were met with, one of which was of a fine silvery hue upon the back, and salmon-coloured beneath. Another, quite black, and of a very deadly kind, evinced a remarkable facility for swelling out its head to an enormous size when alarmed or angry. This snake had a habit, it was said, of hanging down from the trees like one of their branches and attacking such creatures as might pass beneath.

On approaching Tati the traveller was struck with the fine autumnal tints of the trees, and observed ahead of him the picturesque range of hills towards the Ramaqueban. At Tati itself the grass was parched and yellow, and everything had already assumed its autumnal or winter garb. Here he was met on his arrival by Mr. Fairbairn from Gubuleweyo, from whom he learnt with pleasure that the king had sent leave for him to go to the Zambesi, a fresh permission having been required. The other travellers for the Zambesi, mentioned above in one of Frank Oates’s letters, had most of them already started northwards, but for one reason or another he was himself yet detained some days longer at the settlement.

The only incident of much novelty which occurred during this time was an angry scene with some Kafirs at the mine, arising out of a second attempt he had made, when last at Tati, to get possession of the Bushman remains he had failed to secure when hunting on the Ramaqueban in February. The story of his encounter with these men and other circumstances of the time are related by him at some length in the following letter home:--

“TATI, _May 29th, 1874_.

“I have been here just a week to-day en route for the Zambesi. I have been delayed, in the first instance, by the illness of Brown, who is managing Sir John Swinburne’s mine here in the absence of Nelson, who has gone to the colony; and since, by having something done to my waggon wheels. I have been able to be of a little use to Brown, and did not like to leave him as he was, but he is now better. It does not much matter losing a few days, as I always thought the 1st of June would be early enough to leave here, in order to reach the Zambesi as soon as the healthy season there has fairly set in. I may now wait two or three days longer, as there seems a possibility of my getting my waggon wheels shortened. I shall be glad if I can get this done, as wood in this country shrinks so much that the tire often becomes loose, and then a blacksmith is wanted to shorten the tire unless the wheel is wedged.

“I am fortunate in having secured the services of the Dutchman and his little boy, whose engagement I informed you of in my letter from Bamangwato. These people are very useful to have about a waggon. There are a thousand shifts, which any one who understands the subject can have recourse to. A Kafir is scarcely ever the slightest good, even if he has been working about waggons all his life. I have now, moreover, far more comfort in the waggon I appropriate to my own use, as it is no longer crammed to overflowing, half my cargo being stowed away in my second waggon, which the Boer occupies. My oxen too are, on the whole, in a very satisfactory state, and I have all the necessary stores. I don’t suppose I need be more than a month in reaching the place where my waggons must stand, and then it is two or three days on foot to the Victoria Falls; but of course I shall go slower than this, and may not be back here till November, or even later. I feel now as if all was going well.

“I was eight days in coming here from the place where I last broke down, and had few incidents on the road. Van Roozen, the Dutchman, however, got a fright one morning from a couple of lions, and showed himself to be rather a coward. We were entering the dry bed of the Motloutsi River about two hours before sunrise, and I was asleep in the waggon. It appears that Van Roozen had gone across the river in front of the waggons to ascertain the nature of the opposite bank, which he had just climbed when the roar of a lion resounded in his ears, and he asserts that he was chased by a couple of them, and ‘ran like a horse.’ The latter part of his statement, no doubt, is perfectly correct, and also it was true that there had been two lions within a yard or two of him at one time, as we saw by the spoor at sunrise. I found the remains of a pallah they had killed in the bed of the river, and the spoor of the lions going away into the bush, and set off to follow it with the dogs and the Dutchman. The latter was in a great fright. I should have thought nothing of it if he had candidly admitted as much, but he thought to put me off by making believe to follow the spoor, and then conveniently losing it. The Kafirs too are most terribly afraid of lions, and will always lose the spoor; indeed it is almost useless to attempt to follow it with them, but I had thought better things of a Dutchman calling himself a ‘hunter.’ The fact is, for one man to go alone, or only accompanied by Kafirs, may be dangerous, but for two white men with double-barrelled rifles the danger is very slight; as, in the remote contingency of an attack, one could help the other, but really Dutchmen are only a degree better than Kafirs. Still they are wonderfully useful about a waggon, and my having this one with me takes a great deal of bother off my hands, and may save me no end of trouble and delay. My grand mistake was not taking a good man with me from Natal in the first instance at £8 or £10 a month.

“I have had a row with some rascally Kafirs here in this wise. Last year a party of unfortunate Bushmen--men, women, and children--were killed by a party of Matabele. The Bushmen were supposed to have been hunting where they had no right, or committing some other offence--probably an imaginary one. Hearing of this, I thought if I could find the place I could take a sack and fill it with bones, and I instituted inquiries accordingly as to the locality, offering a blanket to any Kafir who would take me to the spot. A Dutchman, who lives here, when he is not away with his wife and daughters in his waggon on a hunting expedition, offered to act as my guide, and it was settled that I should give him £5 for doing so. He, however, changed his mind about going, but told me he had got one of the Matabele who killed the Bushmen to go with me in his stead. This fellow was working here at the mine, but when he was brought to me he also refused to go, evidently thinking I had some ulterior object in wanting to go to the place--perhaps to get him punished. These people, too, are very superstitious about going to places where others have been killed.

“This occurred when I was last here, but on my return I was waited on by another coloured gentleman, who said he too had helped to kill the Bushmen (and a ferocious beast he looked)--What business was it of _mine_ to visit the bones? All this, of course, arose from the Dutchman having made it known that I wanted the bones. The ferocious-looking Kafir further went on to say that he should complain of my conduct to the king, the only way to avoid which catastrophe being to give him something out of my waggon, to bribe his silence. Moreover, he hinted that if I did not comply, he should not stick at helping himself, and went through a pantomime with his knob-kerry (a stick with a round knob at one end, with which Kafirs knock their enemies on the head), illustrating what he would do to _me_. All this was bounce, though no doubt he would have liked to do it had he dared, and he thought to frighten me. My pusillanimous Dutchman at once begged me to give the fellow something. This I stoutly refused, not only as a disgraceful proceeding on my part, but as an act of bad policy. I knew better than to show him I was afraid of him, and I knew the king was not likely to go against me, even if the worst came to the worst. There were two other Kafirs with this one, also from the mine, to back him up. Finding the Dutchman disposed to be friendly with them, the spokesman asked him for a cigar, seeing us smoking, and the Dutchman wanted me to comply, as a preliminary to talking the matter over. All I said, however, to the Kafir was a word or two of his own language, meaning ‘Go away, you scoundrel.’

“It was Sunday, and at this moment a white man who works at the mine came up, and I told him the case. He knew the Kafirs, and at once ordered them off, giving one of them a good slap on the side of the head, which upset him. Then they all jumped to their feet and brandished their knob-kerries. I threw off my coat, and my ally and I stood ready and waited for the first blow to be struck, whilst Van Roozen stood afar off. This attitude decided the Kafirs not to risk a fight, and they said they would go with me to Brown and talk the matter over. We went accordingly, and Brown told them if they wanted to do so to take the case before the king, and they soon subsided and slunk away. I might have had the greatest possible annoyance if it had not been for the plucky conduct of Dobie from the mine.

“Fairbairn’s waggon was stopped when he came here by some Matabele, and he gave them some goods, but vowed he would complain to the king and get them into trouble. I suppose these three Kafirs thought they too could get something. The king, I believe, would kill them if he knew. There are, of course, no prisons; and when any of his subjects go too far they get put to death, and thrown out to the hyænas. He is an excellent friend to the white men here, and his people live in fear and trembling of their lives. Since I was at the royal residence, I am told he has killed some dozen of the leading men of the country for making suggestions to him. ‘I must show them,’ said he, ‘who is king,’--and he showed them.

“Winter has now fairly set in; it is extremely cold at night, and not hot even during the day--at least not hot for Africa. The rivers are dry and the bush withered, and all is yellow and autumnal looking, and will remain so till the rains fall in October, and the fresh vegetation springs up. Then the trees will soon be all green, and many of them blossoming, and there will be many wild flowers. Now things are bleak and barren looking enough.

“Before I leave here I shall write a few lines more.... I hope every one is well, and shall live in hope, for what else can I do? I can’t expect to get any more letters till my return from the Zambesi. It may be some little time before you hear from me again, as I don’t know that any waggons will return till November, though there are no end of them gone to the Zambesi. Should any precede me back I can send a letter by them. If, however, you don’t hear, you must take for granted all is going well with me. Humanly speaking, there seems no reason for uneasiness.”

On the 8th of June, his waggon at last ready, Frank Oates added a few lines to this letter, announcing his intended departure on the following day, and on the 9th he started for the Zambesi. There seemed now no reasonable probability of anything occurring to interfere with the successful issue of his journey, yet in reality, as things turned out, this was only the first of three separate attempts he made to reach the Zambesi from this point the present season. By the shorter route now to be adopted--for he was not going by Gubuleweyo--he would proceed pretty direct northwards, passing through the country of the Makalakas, who are subject to the Matabele, and hold the key to the Zambesi country by this approach. Before crossing the boundaries of these people, it is necessary for travellers to have first obtained permission from the king to proceed, and such a permission Frank Oates distinctly had; yet, in spite of all remonstrances on his part, the Makalakas refused to let him pass, thinking, perhaps, to reap some profit from his discomfiture, or, it may be, that Lobengula would in reality be no worse pleased if he were stopped. Indeed the traveller did not himself entirely exonerate the king from blame, but suspected at one time he was playing a double game--on the one hand giving him leave to proceed to the Zambesi, whilst on the other purposely neglecting to send the needful instructions to his subjects to let him pass. The king was anxious to encourage a certain number of traders in his country, but may have looked with suspicion on one whose objects were less intelligible to him.

At all events, be this as it may, it is perfectly certain that these Makalakas threw every possible obstacle in the way of his advance--and not once only, but each time he reached their boundaries--whilst several traders, going and coming, were permitted to proceed upon their journey, and the final fatal issue of his expedition to the Zambesi was practically the result of the behaviour of these people. It is true that other circumstances, irrespective of their proceedings, combined to hinder and delay him, again throwing his journey into the unhealthy season of the year; but these alone would not have been of the same vital consequence, and the period of his misfortunes dates from the time when the Makalakas--the king’s permission already plainly granted--first turned him back, as related in the succeeding chapter, and forced him to seek a fresh interview with Lobengula. In such a country, with but a brief healthy season, delays like this were little short of fatal.

But it is time to follow him in the first of these ill-starred journeys.