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Updated: June 3, 2025
Some jester had chalked on its sides "H.M.S. Immovable"; and after tugging valiantly at it for nearly half an hour, the Maluka and Mac and Jackeroo proved the truth of the bushman's irony.
The dead bushman's name was Jim, apparently; but they found no portraits, nor locks of hair, nor any love letters, nor anything of that kind in his swag not even a reference to his mother; only some papers relating to Union matters. Most of us didn't know the name till we saw it on the coffin; we knew him as "that poor chap that got drowned yesterday."
With a sharp turn the road was clear of the scrub, and the open stretch rising to the top of the hill lay before them. In the centre one small dark object was on the ground, but there was no sign of the man they expected to see. Reining in as they came up to the small object, they saw it was an ordinary bushman's slouch hat.
It extended fifty miles along the coast from the Bushman's River to the Great Fish River, and was backed by an irregular line of mountains at an average distance of sixty miles from the sea.
The man laughed, and answered him in the bushman's slowest drawl. "You don't know much, or you wouldn't ask," said he. "He's Alton of Somasco, but if he lives long enough he will be one of the biggest men in this country." Hallam said nothing, but there was a curious look in his face which puzzled the rancher. It suggested that he had heard of Alton, and something more.
The sides were perpendicular, and of a soapy sort of clay, so that his attempts at climbing out proved altogether unsuccessful, thus greatly increasing the chagrin of his unphilosophic mind. He had heard the Bushman's screams of delight, and the sounds had contributed nothing to reconcile him to the mischance that had befallen him. Several minutes passed and he heard nothing of Swartboy.
"Yes; it's remarkably nice after living for nine years in the wilderness, with only an occasional visit to some little wooden town." A fresh dish was laid before him, and his companion smiled. "You didn't get things of this kind among the pines." "No," laughed Vane. "In fact, cookery is one of the bushman's trials; anyway, when he's working for himself.
Don't he look four, five, six times fool. I tole ye so." "Can you understand what the chief says?" asked Groot Willem. "Yaas, baas Willem; any Swartman know dat." "Then talk to him yourself. You know what we wish to learn from him." The Bushman's features now assumed a quizzically comical expression; and from this the hunters saw that he had become serious.
Excepting the Bible, Shakespeare, and Macaulay's 'Essays, the only literature within the bushman's reach are newspapers. The townsman deems them equally essential to his well-being. Nearly everybody can read, and nearly everybody has leisure to do so.
You will remember that in the camp at Bushman's River, before you rode with the late Pieter Retief to the chief Sikonyela, when you were given command of the Zulus who went with him, you took an oath to interpret truly and to be faithful in all things to the General Retief, to his companions and to his cause. That oath we hold gives this court jurisdiction over you."
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