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Having filled their water-kegs, the next morning at daylight they yoked the oxen and left the banks of the Cradock or Black River, to proceed more to the northward, through the Bushmen's country; but as they were aware that there was no water to be procured, if they quitted the stream altogether, till they arrived at the Vaal or Yellow River, they decided upon following the course of the Black River to the westward for some time, before they struck off for the Vaal or Yellow River, near to which they expected to fall in with plenty of game, and particularly the giraffe and rhinoceros.
It was certainly a haunted land. Finding that there was no more to be learnt from the bushmen, Leonard suffered them to depart, which they did at considerable speed, and ordered the Settlement men to make ready to march. But now a fresh difficulty arose. The interpreter had repeated all the bushmen's story to his companions, among whom, it is needless to say, it produced no small effect.
F objected to put them also in his pocket, assuring me that I could make very good tea by putting my packet of the fragrant leaves into the bushmen's kettle, and drinking it afterwards out of one of their pannikins. He tried to bribe me to this latter piece of simplicity by promising to wash the tin pannikin out for me first.
That is to say, they waded up to a collection of little tents, not unlike bushmen's tents in Australia, and stood knee deep at the entrances, looking into them speechless. They were not much by way of tents at the best of times. There was nearly as much mud inside as there was outside.
Now I was not dainty or over particular; I could not have enjoyed my New Zealand life so thoroughly if I had been either; but I did not like the idea of using the bushmen's tea equipage.
Over another fire, a little way to leeward, hung the bushmen's kettle on an iron tripod, and, so soon as it boiled, my little teapot was filled before Domville threw in his great fist-full of tea. I had brought a tiny phial of cream in the pocket of my saddle, but the men thought it spoiled the flavour of the tea, which they always drink "neat," as they call it.
During the last half-hour of our slow and cat-like climb, we could hear the ring of the bushmen's axes, and the warning shouts preceding the crashing fall of a Black Birch.
How well we can imagine the thoughtful inhabitant of this country Anno Domini 7500 or thereabouts disinterring from the crumbling remains of a fireproof safe a Christmas number of the /Illustrated London News/ or the /Graphic/. The archaic letters would perhaps be unintelligible to him, but he would look at the pictures with much the same interest that we regard bushmen's drawings or the primitive clay figures of Peru, and though his whole artistic seventy-sixth century soul would be revolted at the crudeness of the colouring, surely he would moralise thus: "Oh, happy race of primitive men, how I, the child of light and civilisation, envy you your long-forgotten days!
One soon presented itself. Early one afternoon they arrived at a settlement of Bushmen, a kraal of their kind, containing about fifty families. On learning that they would have a long distance to travel, before finding a place to encamp, our adventurers resolved to stay by the Bushmen's village for the night.
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