SWALLOW
A TALE OF THE GREAT TREK
BY
H. RIDER HAGGARD
Ditchingham,
20th May, 1898.
My dear Clarke,
Over twenty years have passed since we found some unique
opportunities of observing Boer and Kaffir character in company;
therefore it is not perhaps out of place that I should ask you to
allow me to put your name upon a book which deals more or less
with the peculiarities of those races--a tale of the great Trek of
1836.
You, as I know, entertain both for Dutchman and Bantu that regard
tempered by a sense of respectful superiority which we are apt to
feel for those who on sundry occasions have but just failed in
bringing our earthly career to an end. The latter of these
admirations I share to the full; and in the case of the first of
them, as I hope that the dour but not unkindly character of Vrouw
Botmar will prove to you, time softens a man's judgment. Nor have
I ever questioned, as the worthy Vrouw tells us, that in the
beginning of the trouble the Boers met with much of which to
complain at the hands of English Governments. Their maltreatment
was not intentional indeed, but rather a result of systematic
neglect--to use a mild word--of colonies and their inhabitants,
which has culminated within our own experience, only, thanks to a
merciful change in public opinion, to pass away for ever. Sympathy
with the Voortrekkers of 1836 is easy; whether it remains so in
the case of their descendants, the present masters of the
Transvaal, is a matter that admits of many opinions. At the least,
allowance should always be made for the susceptibilities of a race
that finds its individuality and national life sinking slowly, but
without hope of resurrection, beneath an invading flood of Anglo-
Saxons.
But these are issues of to-day with which this story has little to
do.
Without further explanation, then, I hope that you will accept
these pages in memory of past time and friendship, and more
especially of the providential events connected with a night-long
ride which once we took on duty together among the "schanzes" and
across the moon-lit paths of Secocoeni's mountain.
Believe me, my dear Clarke,
Your sincere friend,
H. Rider Haggard.
To Lieut.-Colonel Sir Marshal Clarke, R.A., K.C.M.G.
SWALLOW
CHAPTER I
WHY VROUW BOTMAR TELLS HER TALE
It is a strange thing that I, an old Boer /vrouw/, should even think
of beginning to write a book when there are such numbers already in
the world, most of them worthless, and many of the rest a scandal and
offence in the face of the Lord. Notably is this so in the case of
those called novels, which are stiff as mealie-pap with lies that fill
the heads of silly girls with vain imaginings, causing them to neglect
their household duties and to look out of the corners of their eyes at
young men of whom their elders do not approve. In truth, my mother and
those whom I knew in my youth, fifty years ago, when women were good
and worthy and never had a thought beyond their husbands and their
children, would laugh aloud could any whisper in their dead ears that
Suzanne Naudé was about to write a book. Well might they laugh indeed,
seeing that to this hour the most that I can do with men and ink is to
sign my own name very large; in this matter alone, not being the equal
of my husband Jan, who, before he became paralysed, had so much
learning that he could read aloud from the Bible, leaving out the
names and long words.
No, no, /I/ am not going to write; it is my great-granddaughter, who
is named Suzanne after me, who writes. And who that had not seen her
at the work could even guess how she does it? I tell you that she has
brought up from Durban a machine about the size of a pumpkin which
goes tap-tap--like a woodpecker, and prints as it taps. Now, my
husband Jan was always very fond of music in his youth, and when first
the girl began to tap upon this strange instrument, he, being almost
blind and not able to see it, thought that she was playing on a spinet
such as stood in my grandfather's house away in the Old Colony. The
noise pleases him and sends him to sleep, reminding him of the days
when he courted me and I used to strum upon that spinet with one
finger. Therefore I am dictating this history that he may have plenty
of it, and that Suzanne may be kept out of mischief.
There, that is my joke. Still there is truth in it, for Jan Botmar, my
husband, he who was the strongest man among the fathers of the great
trek of 1836, when, like the Israelites of old, we escaped from the
English, our masters, into the wilderness, crouches in the corner
yonder a crippled giant with but one sense left to him, his hearing,
and a little power of wandering speech. It is strange to look at him,
his white hair hanging upon his shoulders, his eyes glazed, his chin
sunk upon his breast, his great hands knotted and helpless, and to
remember that at the battle of Vechtkop, when Moselikatse sent his
regiments to crush us, I saw those same hands of his seize the only
two Zulus who broke a way into our laager and shake and dash them
together till they were dead.
Well, well, who am I that I should talk? For has not the dropsy got
hold of my legs, and did not that doctor, who, though an Englishman,
is no fool, tell me but yesterday that it was creeping up towards my
heart? We are old and soon must die, for such is the will of God. Let
us then thank God that it is our lot to pass thus easily and in age,
and not to have perished in our youth, as did so many of our
companions, the Voortrekkers, they and their children together, by the
spear of the savage, or by starvation and fever and wild beasts in the
wilderness. Ah! I think of them often, and in my sleep, which has
grown light of late, I see them often, and hear those voices that none
but I would know to-day. I think of them and I see them, and since
Suzanne has the skill to set down my words, a desire comes upon me to
tell of them and their deeds before God takes me by the hand and I am
borne through the darkness by the wings of God.
Also there is another reason. The girl, Suzanne Kenzie, my great-
granddaughter, who writes this, alone is left of my blood, since her
father and grandfather, who was our adopted son, and the husband of
our only child, fell in the Zulu war fighting with the English against
Cetywayo. Now many have heard the strange story of Ralph Kenzie, the
English castaway, and of how he was found by our daughter Suzanne.
Many have heard also the still stranger story of how this child of
ours, Suzanne, in her need, was sheltered by savages, and for more
than two years lived with Sihamba, the little witch doctoress and
ruler of the Tribe of the Mountains, till Ralph, her husband, who
loved her, sought her out and rescued her, that by the mercy of the
Lord during all this time had suffered neither harm nor violence. Yes,
many have heard of these things, for in bygone years there was much
talk of them as of events out of nature and marvellous, but few have
heard them right. Therefore before I go, I, who remember and know them
all, would set them down that they may be a record for ever among my
descendants and the descendants of Ralph Kenzie, my foster-son, who,
having been brought up amongst us Boers, was the best and bravest
Englishman that ever lived in Africa.
And now I will tell of the finding of Ralph Kenzie many years ago.
To begin at the beginning, my husband, Jan Botmar, is one of the well-
known Boer family of that name, the most of whom lived in the
Graafreinet district in the Old Colony till some of them trekked into
the Transkei, when I was still a young girl, to be as far as they
could from the heart of the British power. Nor did they trek for a
little reason. Listen and judge.
One of the Bezuidenhouts, Frederick, was accused of treating some
black slave of his cruelly, and a body of the accursed /Pandours/, the
Hottentots whom the English had made into a regiment, were sent to
arrest him. He would not suffer that these black creatures should lay
hands upon a Boer, so he fled to a cave and fought there till he was
shot dead. Over his open grave his brethren and friends swore to take
vengeance for his murder, and fifty of them raised an insurrection.
They were pursued by the /Pandours/ and by burghers more law abiding
or more cautious, till Jan Bezuidenhout, the brother of Frederick, was
shot also, fighting to the last while his wife and little son loaded
the rifles. Then the rest were captured and put upon their trial, and
to the rage and horror of all their countrymen the brutal British
governor of that day, who was named Somerset, ordered five of them to
be hanged, among them my husband's father and uncle. Petitions for
mercy availed nothing, and these five were tied to a beam like Kaffir
dogs yonder at Slagter's Nek, they who had shed the blood of no man.
Yes, yes, it is true, for Jan, my man, saw it; he saw his father and
his uncle hanged like dogs. When they pushed them from the beam four
of the ropes broke--perhaps they had been tampered with, I know not--
but still the devils who murdered them would show no mercy. Jan ran to
his father and cast his arms about him, but they tore him away.
"Do not forget, my son," he gasped as he lay there on the ground with
the broken rope about his neck, nor did Jan ever forget.
It was after this that the Botmars trekked into the Transkei, and with
them some other families, amongst whom were the Naudes, my parents.
Here in the Transkei the widow Botmar and my father were near
neighbours, their steads being at a distance from each other of about
three hours upon horseback, or something over twenty miles. In those
days, I may say it without shame now, I was the prettiest girl in the
Transkei, a great deal prettier than my granddaughter Suzanne there,
although some think well of her looks, but not so well as she thinks
of them herself, for that would be impossible. I have been told that I
have noble French blood in my veins, though I care little for this,
being quite content to be one of the Boers, who are all of noble
blood. At least I believe that my great-grandfather was a French
Huguenot Count who fled from his country to escape massacre because of
his religion. From him and his wife Suzanne, so it is said, we women
of the Naudes get our beauty, for we have always been beautiful; but
the loveliest of the race by far was my daughter Suzanne who married
the Englishman, Ralph Kenzie, from which time our good looks have
begun to fall off, though it is true that he was no ill-favoured man.
Whatever the cause, in my youth, I was not like the other Boer girls,
who for the most part are stout, heavy, and slow of speech, even
before they are married, nor did I need to wear a /kapje/ to keep a
pink and white face from burning in the sun. I was not tall, but my
figure was rounded and my movements were as quick as my tongue. Also I
had brown hair that curled and brown eyes beneath it, and full red
lips, which all the young men of that district--and there were six of
them who can be counted--would have given their best horse to kiss,
with the saddle and bridle thrown in. But remember this, Suzanne, I
never suffered them to do so, for in my time girls knew better what
was right.
Well, among all these suitors I favoured Jan Botmar, the old cripple
who sits yonder, though in those days he was no cripple but the
properest man a girl could wish to see. My father was against such a
match, for he had the old French pride of race in him, and thought
little of the Botmar family, as though we were not all the children of
one God--except the black Kaffirs, who are the children of the devil.
But in the end he gave way, for Jan was well-to-do; so after we had
"opsitted" together several times according to our customs, and burnt
many very long candles,[*] we were married and went to live on a farm
of our own at a distance. For my part I have never regretted it,
although doubtless I might have done much better for myself; and if
Jan did, he has been wise enough not to say so to me. In this country
most of us women must choose a man to look after--it is a burden that
Heaven lays upon us--so one may as well choose him one fancies, and
Jan was my fancy, though why he should have been I am sure I do not
know. Well, if he had any wits left he would speak up and tell what a
blessing I have been to him, and how often my good sense has supplied
the lack of his, and how I forgave him, yes, and helped him out of the
scrape when he made a fool of himself with--but I will not write of
that, for it makes me angry, and as likely as not I should throw
something at him before I had finished, which he would not understand.
[*] It is customary among the Boers for the suitor to sit up alone at
night with the object of his choice. Should the lady favour him,
she lights long candles, but if he does not please her she
produces "ends," signifying thereby that she prefers his room to
his company.--Author.
No, no; I do not regret it, and, what is more, when my man dies I
shall not be long behind him. Ah! they may talk, all these wise young
people; but, after all, what is there better for a woman than to love
some man, the good and the bad of him together, to bear his children
and to share his sorrows, and to try to make him a little better and a
little less selfish and unfortunate than he would have been alone?
Poor men! Without us women their lot would be hard indeed, and how
they will get on in heaven, where they are not allowed to marry, is
more than I can guess.
So we married, and within a year our daughter was born and christened
by the family name of Suzanne after me, though almost from her cradle
the Kaffirs called her "Swallow," I am not sure why. She was a very
beautiful child from the first, and she was the only one, for I was
ill at her birth and never had any more children. The other women with
their coveys of eight and ten and twelve used to condole with me about
this, and get a sharp answer for their pains. I had one which always
shut their mouths, but I won't ask the girl here to set it down. An
only daughter was enough for me, I said, and if it wasn't I shouldn't
have told them so, for the truth is that it is best to take these
things as we find them, and whether it be one or ten, to declare that
that is just as we would wish it. I know that when we were on the
great trek and I saw the /kinderchies/ of others dying of starvation,
or massacred in dozens by the Kaffir devils, ah! then I was glad that
we had no more children. Heartaches enough my ewe lamb Suzanne gave me
during those bitter years when she was lost. And when she died, having
lived out her life just before her husband, Ralph Kenzie, went on
commando with his son to the Zulu war, whither her death drove him,
ah! then it ached for the last time. When next my heart aches it shall
be with joy to find them both in Heaven.
