Return to Corriebush

by Lynn Bedford Hall

  Sara was happy. To be continually surrounded by cousins and friends meant games and laughter and lots of fun. Each day was different, shining and new. Always exciting, sometimes frightening, like the morning of the third day, when Sara was woken by a strange noise. It sounded like a roll of thunder, except that it did not swell to a crescendo and die away, it just went on and on: a dull, hollow drumming, a pounding and a rumbling that shook the wagon in which they lay.

  ‘What is it Papa?’ Sara sat up wide-eyed, alarmed.

  Her father was outside already, staring into the distance.

  ‘Come and see,’ he answered.

  Far away there was a great mountain of red dust. And the mountain moved, and it was the mountain that made the rumbling noise, and inside the mountain, dimly, through the thick copper of mountain cloud, Sara could see shapes moving. White things that shot this way and that and up and down, now high, now low, furious, faster, stamping and thrumming.

  ‘They are springbok,’ her father said. ‘A herd of fleeing springbok, and they are very dangerous. Had we been in their path they would have trampled us and the oxen to death; cut us to pieces with their flint-like hooves. We’ve been lucky.’

  ‘But why are they running, Papa? Why are they storming so, instead of jumping one by one, here and there, like we always see at home?’

  ‘Because they are very, very thirsty, Sara, and they smell water. And nothing will stop them from getting to the water. If we travelled behind them we would find dead wildebeest, blesbok, eland, zebras, all kinds of animals lying trampled and torn. And inside that bunch they could be carrying along lions and leopards, all crushed up amongst them.’

  Now the drumming grew fainter; the red cloud shrank, bounced over the horizon, and disappeared.

  Gradually the pattern of the days established itself. Up at dawn, a skof of several miles, a rest during the midday heat, when most people retired to the wagons and slept. Everyone was tired. Because there were not many servants, the children frequently had to drive the sheep, herding them over the brittle, bumpy veld. Often long mimosa thorns would pierce their soft leather shoes, the scraggly bushes reaching out and tearing their long skirts, while their mothers sat on the chests on the fronts of the wagons with their babies on their laps and drove the oxen.

  Sometimes Barend would come riding up to their wagon, carrying a terrible yellow or black snake by the tail, its head clubbed to a pulp, its body still throwing coils in the air. Sometimes he would point out a pride of lions sleeping under a clump of thorn trees, or a herd of zebras, fat and shiny, galloping in the distance, or ostriches giant-striding over the bushes, with their bobbing necks and flapping wings. But the fearsome ones were the lynxes and hyaenas and leopards, which would slink into the sheep enclosures at night, rip open their stomachs and leave entrails and blood all over.

  Sara’s great friend was her cousin, Laetitia Steyn. During the day they were seldom apart and were usually to be found sitting at the back of one of the wagons, bare feet dangling, skirts billowing, sharing secrets, dried peaches, and vetkoek with dripping.

  ‘They say Tant Lettie Brits had her baby kneeling behind the wagon,’ Laetitia told her friend. ‘And it came out with the cord wound four times round its neck. My mother says Tant Lettie’s as strong as an ox. Two days later she was leading the span, baby in one hand, riem in the other.’

  ‘Well,’ Sara countered, ‘Antjie told me that her mother had eleven children, and that they used to just drop like plums, she said, while she was herding the sheep, and she’d pick them up and walk home at the end of the day. She’d set off in the morning with just the dog and the sheep and come back with a baby every year, eleven times.’

  Sara loved the evenings on trek. They always started with a sudden whoosh of whiplashes, and voices calling to voorlopers and beasts to halt. This meant that they had found a suitable spot for the night. Sometimes it was next to a dam. Usually there was thick green slime quilting the surface of the water, bubbling and sucking as the wind drove it from one side to another. But it was water, nevertheless, with clear pools here and there in which to wash their clothes before spreading them out on the bushes to dry. Now, too, her mother would remove her goatskin mask. How Sara hated it! ‘Have you noticed how funny she looks?’ she asked Laetitia. ‘I get so ashamed. But she says the most important thing about a woman’s face is her skin. She doesn’t want to look like a ploughed furrow when we get to our new farm.’

  While the women washed clothes and prepared the evening meal – often venison steak with stewed pumpkin and boiled corn, the men would construct the thorn bush enclosures for the animals, and then sit sipping their special coffee – boeretroost they called it, which the women brewed in kettles hanging from tripods over the fires.

  Then the prayers. Usually late, Sara and Laetitia would run to join the group standing round the fires, prayer book in hand. Psalms, the Lord’s prayer, a short sermon. The firelight would flicker over the upturned faces. Round them the veld would be carpeted black, the thorn trees standing still, not moving, listening. Only the owls in the branches would stir, as the moon rose over the strange assembly. Round the fires they would stand, the men holding their hats in their hands, bearded and dusty. And their women, still wearing their bonnets, their kappies, would sing with their children on their hips or asleep on their shoulders. The voices, deep bass, sweet treble, hung on the thick night air. Even the animals were still. In the end there was no sound but the voice reading from the scriptures; no movement but the flames gently dying in the spent fires; no brightness but what shone in their eyes. The trekker’s religion was the most important influence in his life.

  One evening, after the last Amen had been said, Sarel Cilliers walked to the centre of the gathering. ‘I have had word,’ he told them, ‘that Andries Hendrik Potgieter – who, as you know, has been trekking just ahead of us, has now crossed the Orange River. He has sent a messenger to tell us that it is in full flood, but that they managed by floating the wagons across on rafts.’ A ripple ran through the listeners. They knew that the river was very close now, that the problem would soon be theirs. ‘With the help of God we shall get across in the same way,’ he went on, his fair hair touched red by the light from the embers. ‘At a point beyond the river, the Blesberg, he will wait for us.’

  Now they murmured excitedly; at last there was a hint of the real freedom they sought; that distant, Promised Land was soon to become a reality. And they would feel safer, linking up with Potgieter and his bigger party. That night they went to bed with light hearts. What did it matter that a mere ribbon of water lay ahead of them? Beyond it was their destiny. Just a few more months and they would be able to settle down and start again.

  Next day the men galloped ahead to check the level of the water in the river. When they reached the bank, no-one said a word, did not shout, nor exclaim. They simply reined in their horses and gazed in shocked silence. Before them tumbled a twisting, heaving sea of dark water. A great chocolate snake it was, gliding furiously, bubbling and sucking, up and down, round and round, roaring its tumultuous way to the sea. Black with mud, heavy with logs and branches and dead cows, it was a terrifying sight.

  ‘We’ll have to wait until the river drops,’ someone eventually shouted above the roar of the water.

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense, man! It could be weeks! We’ll make a plan.’

  When the rest of the party arrived, Sara gazed at the heaving water and felt sick with fear. ‘Papa, what will we do? I’m so frightened.’

  ‘We’ll do nothing that will harm a hair on your head, my heart,’ he comforted her. ‘We’ll find a narrow place where the animals can swim across. Then we’ll turn the wagons into boats, and sail you over! Won’t that be fun?’

  All that day, and the next, they worked, chopping down willow trees that lined the banks, lashing the branches together with strong riems. Then they removed the wheels, and sat the bodies of each wagon on a raft. The first family climbed aboard and were poled across th
e river. One by one they followed, the small children crying out in terror, the men shouting instructions, the water slapping hard against the logs. The women sat with their children round their skirts and sang hymns. They sang to hide their fear, holding up their psalm books so as not to see the gushing water. They sang to avoid thinking about what would happen if the raft split and the wagon sank slowly into that cold, rushing river.

  And when they reached the other side and stepped onto the wet, safe ground, they went down on their knees and thanked God. ‘At last we are free!’ and they looked around at the flat blue koppies fading into the distance. ‘We are free.’ Some wept.

  Progress was fairly slow through the Griqua territory – a friendly, intelligent people who could ride horses and handle guns as well as any of them. They were the first of several tribes the trekkers would come across, the friendliest being the smiling Basutos, who hurried along with beans and corn and mealies in exchange for Boer cattle and sheep. Sara’s mother was overjoyed, for their supplies had run very low.

  ‘Bean soup and mealie porridge tonight! Ag what a feast!’

  Hendrik Potgieter and his trek were waiting for them at the Blesberg, near the kraal of Moroka, chief of the Barolongs at Thaba Nchu on the Basuto border. With both parties having managed to cross the river, the meeting was a particularly joyous one. Potgieter was an impressive man, very tall, obstinate, fiercely independent and a natural leader.

  ‘The old blue one,’ the children called him, for he had piercing blue eyes and wore a blue moleskin Dopper jacket. He was immediately elected commandant and Trek ruler.

  For a week they rested where they were. The women needed to mend clothes, make butter from sheep tail fat, and replenish their supplies of soap and candles, while the men had to attend to the wagons, repair broken disselbooms and damaged axles, yoke straps and drag ropes. Sick animals needed attention, and riems had to be greased. On the eighth day they started off once more, keeping to the east, trundling confidently through the lush green lowveld grass.

  Before long, however, Potgieter announced that they had completed the first stage of their journey.

  ‘Here you must stay,’ he told them. ‘Camp out, make a home, while I go north to the Vaal River and beyond, to look for other treks and to see the country. I beg you, command you to remain here, for we know nothing of what lies beyond and it will be safer if you all stay together.’

  And for some months they did. The stock grew fat, the banks of the river ran with game, the children were happy, strong and healthy. But, unfortunately, it was not in the nature of the Trekboer to outspan for too long. Having come so far, the sudden restriction of staying in one place while waiting for permission to move on, became unacceptable. The spirit of adventure simmered steadily and they simply had to go forward, had to keep moving. One by one, they wandered off to the north.

  It was then that Barend Liebenberg made the most devastating decision of his life. ‘Let us also move forward slowly,’ he told his family one morning. ‘It is too difficult to sit still here, waiting, waiting; we won’t go too far.’ When they reached the Vaal River they forded it where it ran low, and then they stopped. ‘Far enough,’ Barend said.

  So they camped out. It was early spring, the sun was warmer, the grass, the trees, were mint-green new. The river filled and swelled, fed by the springs in the mountains. Flowers bloomed between the bushes; birds nested in the trees along the banks; the whole world was thawing and bursting into life. There was no hint of the horror that was about to swamp them.

  The date was August 24th, l836.

  Mzilikazi sat outside the royal lodge at eGabeni.

  It was early in the day, and a pale spring sun shone through the wild olive branches. In the fields the cows were being milked, lowing gently as the young herdboys tugged at their udders. From the royal harem came the soft sound of voices humming; the shuffling of bare feet on baked earth.

  A young girl emerged and came slowly towards him, her oiled skin shining like that of a sleek wet seal. A short ox-hide skirt covered her loins, and round her neck and her waist hung necklaces of shining beads. Like his other wives, she kept her head shaved except for a small tuft on the top, and this, too, was threaded with a network of bright beads. As she neared the king, she sank to her knees and crept forward slowly, balancing an earthenware pot of beer on her head. Sour beer, made from millet, it was the red-brown colour of a mountain stream after rain. Lifting the pot carefully, she placed it before her handsome master, and then shuffled backwards, never turning her back on him, hardly daring to look.

  Mzilikazi grunted. He was in no mood for women this morning. Recent reports from his indunas had disturbed him and he had lain awake all night, trying to decide on a course of action. Finally he decided to send for his councillors and military commanders, Mkalipi and Marapu, Kampa and Sibekhu, to discuss the matter.

  Mzilikazi sat and waited. The sun was climbing high; his fat-smeared limbs shone red-black and glistening. He was of stocky but muscular build, only slightly rotund, and very powerful. On his head he wore an otter skin stuffed and rolled into a tight circle, and stuck with bunches of blue jay feathers. In the centre front waved a white ostrich feather, the insignia of royalty. Round his neck were hung strings of coloured beads and his loins were covered with clusters of monkey tails.

  At last his men arrived and, led by Mkalipi, advanced on their knees. ‘Bayete!’ they shouted. ‘Bayete! King of Kings! Great Bull Elephant!’ Motioning them to sit down, their king covered his steaming shoulders with his favourite giraffe skin, took a long draught of beer, and spoke. His voice was soft, high-pitched and melodious.

  ‘I am told that strangers have entered our territory from the south, without permission.’ An angry murmur broke out among the councillors. ‘Not Griquas this time, with their yellow faces; nor Korannas on their fast brown cows without horns; not missionaries like my friend Moffat, nor hunters like the man Bain. But people in moving houses they call wagons, with their cattle and sheep and guns.’

  Anxiously they glanced at each other. Like their king, they were suspicious of strangers. If they came in peaceful, small groups and asked his permission, he seldom refused and allowed them to hunt game. But they knew that the only way he could remain sovereign over all his territory was to be ready to kill anyone who entered it without his consent. For this reason, Mkalipi’s duty was to patrol the southern boundary of the Matabele kingdom, the area along the Vaal River, to watch for any trespassers coming up from the south. And now this had happened! People had crossed the river. And the Matabele were afraid.

  With a sudden sweep of his arm, the king knocked over the pot of beer. It spread in a stain over the dusty soil; made rivulets in the sand and oozed under his feet. ‘Will we, the Matabele, allow strangers to come into our midst like snakes in the night?’ he shouted. ‘Have they my permission? What are they seeking?’

  He was trembling now, with anger and fear, and his councillors, sensing his mood, leapt to their feet. One by one they walked back and forth, shouting their opinions, striking the ground with their sticks, becoming angrier and angrier, stamping their feet on the ground and leaping into the air in a frenzied dance of fury.

  For a while the king watched, sipping his beer, now and then dipping into a large basket of fresh, fatty meat. Then he called for silence and, taking his cloak, laid it on the ground. ‘That cloak,’ he said, pointing, ‘belongs to Mzilikazi, king of the country from the Lebombo Mountains to the Drakensberg! I am Mzilikazi, the Great Bull Elephant! No-one will touch me!’

  ‘Bayete! Bayete!’ the councillors shouted in chorus, bowing their heads in worship.

  And as they sat there in the hot noonday sun in the enormous royal kraal at eGabeni, within the circles of perfect, beehive-shaped huts inside the thick thorn-tree hedge, their king told them, once again, his story.

  In Zululand, between the Sikwebezi and Mkuze rivers, lived the Khumalo clan. There were three chiefs altogether; Mashobane was chief of the north. He
chose his wife, Nompethu, from the Ndwandwe tribe and when she bore him a son, they named him Mzilikazi, which means The Great Road. Being the heir to the throne, this was an important child, and so he was sent to be educated at the royal kraal of his grandfather, Zwide.

  It was in this verdant country that Mzilikazi grew to manhood. Cared for by both his mother and the gentle young girls in the royal kraal, his childhood was sheltered and happy. When he was just five years old, he was put in charge of a small group of calves, and then, at the age of twelve, he joined the older boys who looked after the royal cattle. It was from these boys that the future king learnt almost everything that a young Zulu needed to know. He learnt that cattle were the most important possessions in a ruler’s life because the power of a chief, and the wealth of his people, depended solely on the number of livestock he owned. He learned that they were killed for sacrificial rites, rarely for eating; that they provided the tribe with sour milk; and that their dung was good for plastering floors and grain pits. And the young Mzilikazi developed a passion for acquiring cattle that was to last him all his life.

  During those long days in the open veld he learnt the rudiments of self-protection. Soon he knew which plants and berries were safe to eat, and which would kill both cattle and man. He learnt which animals and spiders to fear, and which were harmless; how to kill a small buck with a swiftly aimed stone; to trap guinea fowl and wring their necks; to pulp the head of a deadly snake in an instant. Armed with nothing but a shield and a spear, he had to prove himself a match for wild dogs and leopards. From the older boys he learnt about women and their delights, but also that they would be forbidden fruit for years to come. First, on reaching manhood, he had to undergo the strict military training to which all youths were subjected. Strong armies were essential at this time, for Zululand was beginning to swell and heave with political unrest like a troubled sea, and all tribes and clans were uneasy and preparing for strife.