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Updated: June 14, 2025
It was difficult enough for even a strong warrior to force his way through that district with a good company of followers; impossible for a single weak invalid like Granville, attended only by one poor, ill-armed Namaqua. So the savage seemed to say in his ingenious pantomime. If they went on, they'd be killed and eaten up resistlessly. If they stopped they might pull through.
Once when I was traveling in Namaqua-land, I observed a spot which was imprinted with at least twenty spoors or marks of a lion's paw; and as I pointed them out a Namaqua chief told me that a lion had been practicing his leap.
It is inhabited by about 80,000 natives, of various Bechuana, Namaqua, and half-caste tribes, and by some 15,000 or 20,000 colonists of European origin. Over all these inhabitants, colonists and natives, the British sovereignty has been proclaimed. Subject to this supremacy, the native chiefs and tribes are still left to manage their own affairs, according to their original laws and customs.
We purposed remaining there till we could send a messenger towards the Cape Colony, hoping that he might fall in with either traders or explorers or missionaries, several of whom were settled in Damara or Namaqua land. The further we travelled south, the cooler and more healthy we should find the climate. We had no wish, either, to remain longer than necessary in the gorilla region.
Granville had aimed so purposely, to maim and terrify them. The natives faltered and fell back. As they did so, Granville emerged from the shelter of the acacia bush, and fired a second shot from another point at them. At the same instant the Namaqua raised a loud native battle-cry, and brandished his assegai. The effect was electrical. The hostile tribe broke up in wild panic at once.
"Not generally; but the Namaqua people told me that, if a lion once takes a fancy to men's flesh and they do, after they have in their hunger devoured one or two they become doubly dangerous, as they will leave all other game and hunt man only; but this I can not vouch for being the truth, although it is very probable." "If we judge from analogy, it is," replied the Major.
The hospitable Namaqua, whose wives had nursed him well through that almost hopeless illness, did his best to persuade the rash Englishman from so mad a course, by gestures and entreaties, in his own mute language. But Granville was obstinate. He would NOT sit down quietly and be robbed like this of the fruit of his labours. He would not be despoiled. He would not be trampled upon.
Surely so lovely a landscape could not exist without that most essential element! So thought the field-cornet; and at the turning of every new grove his eyes wandered over the ground in search of it. "Ho!" he joyfully exclaimed as a covey of large Namaqua partridges whirred up from his path. "A good sign that: they are seldom far from water."
"Before I do so, I will mention what was told me by a Namaqua chief about a lion; I am reminded of it by the Major's observations as to the means animals have of communicating with each other.
It was in the depths of Namaqua land, among the stony Karoo; and the fugitives were straggling, helplessly and hopelessly, seaward, thirsty and weary, through a half-hostile country, making their marches as best they could at dead of night and resting by day where the natives would permit them. Their commissariat had indeed been a lean and hungry one.
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