There go the gnoos, tossing their manes, leaping, plunging, half in play, yet dangerous even to their fellows; see how they wheel round, advancing with eyes glaring through their shaggy forelocks. A herd of zebras are comparatively tune to these eager, restless things; but in greater contrast to the gnoos are the heavy eilands, fat and sleek, fit mark for the hunter’s poisoned arrows. There are ostriches, too, stalking about; and nearer the bushmen’s haunts, but wary of her neighbours, the pauw, or the wild turkey of South Africa, has her brood; far up in the air, between the clear sky and the fertile plain, rises the secretary-bird, with the doomed snake in his beak. The serpent writhes in its new element, swinging to and fro; up! up! above the rocks and sea, the bird swoops higher and higher to drop its prey upon a table-rock; its back is broken. Lie there, powerless, terrible, and fatal, and doomed wretch, till your tormentor returns and finishes the deed begun!
Sunset. The plain is in a glow, except where the mountains cast a shade, and this will deepen, as the shield of gold dips behind them. The little honey-bird, which has been wandering in search of travellers to coax them to the sweet nest it dare not itself invade, goes back disappointed to await the morning splendour; the sprews, on wings of green and yellow, go glancing past to their embowered rest; the homely brown-looking canaries are silent in the golden-blossomed mimosa, the English swallow trills her way back to the mission-house on the other side the mountain range; the few goats possessed by the poor bushmen return bleating to their rude fold, and ere long the wild beasts of the forest and the valley will come boldly forth; the tiger from the dense bush in which he has lain stealthily all day; then the jackal’s cry will startle the children lying on their miserable sheepskins, and the lion’s roar will answer it, rousing the echoes and terrifying the horses and cattle of those who travel in the wilderness.
Such a scene as this presented itself one glowing evening many years ago to the eye of a wayfarer, whose appearance with his pack-horse and saddle-bags, and the somewhat lame condition of the animal he led, gave proof that he had journeyed far and fast. With home almost in sight, he had outspanned his waggon in the valley, and ascending the hills had found that darkness would overshadow his path ere the object he had in view could be accomplished, if indeed it could be accomplished at all. A mist was rising in white wreaths over the plain, till the vapour became concentrated in a hazy shroud floating between the traveller and his people below; his beasts were weary, and would probably fell if he attempted the descent while yet it was light; besides, as I have said, he had an object in view; so he sat down among the shrubs and rocks, through which he had scrambled with some difficulty and much fatigue, and began to ponder on what steps he must take to insure a safe bivouac for himself and his jaded cattle during the night.
He was a good man, and would have had no personal fear even if he had not been acquainted with the nature of the locality and its inhabitants; but he had no mind to have his horses torn limb from limb by wild beasts, and pitying them as their ears moved nervously backwards and forwards, their eyeballs starting from their sockets, he regretted that he had not delayed his expedition till the following morning.
There was no help for it now; the sinking horses looked piteously at him, and he longed to take their saddles from their galled backs, but he needed to look about him ere yet there was daylight: he regretted he had not brought his waggon-driver with him, but always thinking of others, he had overlooked his own necessities. He grieved for his horses, not for himself.
James Trail was the occupant of the mission-house, whither our English swallow had trilled her contented way. He was a childless widower, and, bent on conquering his sorrow for his lost Mary by earnest attention to his duties “in that path of life in which it had pleased God to call him,” he had made way for a married friend at his former station, and with a few native herds, a faithful Hottentot servant, and a distant relative, a trader in skins, ivory, horns, etc, had established a little location in the lovely but uncivilised part of the country through which he hoped to preach glad tidings of the Gospel; but the untameable race of bushmen, whom he longed to attach to himself, looked at him from their coverts like startled apes, and yelled, and shrieked, and chattered, and once shot at him with their poisoned arrows, happily without effect.
A trifling circumstance brought these mountain sprites to better terms. One of a hunting-party was severely bitten by a puff-adder while lingering behind his comrades, and Trail had discovered him, helpless and terrified, and “like to die,” by the side of a stream, to which he had crawled with the vain wish to ford it. The good Samaritan placed his neighbour on his own beast, after applying a remedy he always carried with him to the deadly wound; he took him home, and would have kept him, but the wild creature had been a rover all his life, and longed for liberty; as soon as he recovered, he fled to the hills to join his fellows. At times he would return, accompanied by a mate of his own tribe. One day he brought his children with him; another, two or three wild hunters, clothed in fitting skins, sat down in front of the mission-house, but would not draw near. They waited for their share of beads, their meal of mutton and bread and milk, and then scurried off to their nooks to send down others. Wretched creatures! these came in the dead of night as thieves, and Trail, wearied with their depredations, and grieved at his want of success among them, made such a compact as he could, by means of signs, assisted by his knowledge of the Dutch and Kafir languages. On condition that they would permit his flocks to feed in peace, he agreed to furnish them with game, Indian corn, and beads. The bushmen, knowing that if after this compact the pastor’s sheep were lessened in number, mutilated, or poisoned, their messengers would be sent empty-handed from his door, each kept a constant watch upon his neighbour, and this sort of truce had been kept between Trail and the pigmies up to the time when the former was making arrangements for a journey on business into the colony.
For a week previously to leaving his house to the trader’s care with two herds only, all, however, well provided with arms, the missionary had seen and heard nothing of his wild neighbours, and learning from his cousin, who had occasion to follow him, that they had not come down from the mountains since his departure, our good minister resolved, when on his homeward route, on penetrating the fastnesses which he had at first visited with pious intentions, but from which he had been driven, in such a fashion as would have made most men hesitate ere they set foot on such dangerous ground again: he felt it was his duty to seek these creatures.
He would have made a fine picture, seated on a grey rock which jutted out in an angle from the great mountain, which from base to summit, was seven thousand feet above the level of the ocean. The plain lay some hundred feet below, but the haze obscured it from the view. Trail felt very solitary between the sky and this shroud-like vapour; he looked at the poor brutes still panting beside him, and deliberated, as he took a survey from the rock on which he was perched.
There was not a sound now; even that restless caller, the whip-poor-will, was quiet. On each side of the traveller was a comparatively clear space, behind was a scarp of rock overhung with trees. Securing his horses, he relieved them of their saddles and bridles, laid his