Jock of the Bushveld

by Percy Fitzpatrick

  Jim was the last to see the joke, but he exploited it well. With many a cruel and brutal aside to reassure his people, he bargained hard for a good price, cash down, which Sambo paid and he then handed over to Sambo the short-handled stabbing assegai with its sharp and gleaming blade, fifteen inches long and six inches wide, tapering to a point like a dagger.

  Half an hour later one of the chief’s indunas came striding angrily across the open and took the assegai away. But Sambo was not beaten yet. To the huge delight of the audience, already shaken with laughter at the baiting and cheating of the fools of white men, he argued with them about the unfairness of taking his money and then taking back his present. He said he had no fancy for common assegais and wouldn’t take this and that and the other if they gave them to him. He would rather have that tiger-skin, or that beautiful calabash, or that lot of bangles made of elephant hair wound in many coloured wires. Many were willing to sell, on those terms, but Sambo’s artistic taste was not easily pleased. At last he saw a heavy rhinoceros hide sjambok about four feet long with a two inch base, the heavy handle end of which was encased in a mass of copper, brass and steel wire delicately interwoven.

  After long hesitation between this and a bead-worked apron, he chose the sjambok, Dennison turning the scale and bringing down the house by saying, The General will like that – his old horse is so slow!’ Dennison got one for himself too, which Jim to the delight of the crowd pressed on him, saying in an aside that he hoped to see Dennison using it tomorrow on his own horse! After all, they were better than assegais, for the butt end of a rhino sjambok is a very useful weapon.

  At the first streak of dawn they heard the horses outside. There were two men to lead each horse and eight more with guns of various kinds, bundles of assegais and a big knobkerrie each. These natives know nothing about horses; it was a part of the country where horses could not live, and the two men who led each horse led at arm’s-length, in fear of the unfamiliar beasts and with many a stumble and many a jump out of the way; but in front of each horse strode two men armed with guns and behind them two more. The path was narrow and steep, the country too rough for more than walking pace. Jim, the most uncompromising and ferocious of executioners, led the way, voluble as ever, entertaining the others with remarks charged with double meaning, giving messages from his chief to the White Chief ‘who will be waiting for you today’.

  When they emerged from the broken country and saw the undulating ground ahead, Jim took occasion to point out the hill in front as the place where they would ‘say goodbye’; and the grunts and the gleaming smiles of the escort showed that they took the point.

  So did Sambo.

  They crossed a small stream which ran between steep high banks and began the climb of Execution Hill. When they had gone a few hundred yards, Sambo reined up his horse and asked if there was any other water on the way, as they had a long ride before them and the horses had not had a drink and would not last out; moreover they themselves had had nothing to eat and wanted to make a fire and ‘cook tea’.

  With the authority and unconcern of the white man, he ordered the escort to make a fire, handed the billy to one to fill at the stream, threw the little bag containing sugar and tea to another and told them to hurry up while he and Dennison took the horses to drink. But this was too much for them. Their orders were very clear, and the penalty for neglect as simple as it was unpleasant.

  Sambo saw that the bluff had failed and, before the refusal could come, he changed front and said, ‘You Kaffirs are too slow. You (to the man who was leading them), take the horses down to the river and let them drink. You (to the armed guard), stay here with us and get wood and water. We’ll make the fire – we are in a hurry. Quick – quick.’ But before dismounting he added, ‘You must ride the horses. You can’t lead them unless someone is on them. They would trample on you and bite you.’

  The two stalwart leaders turned a yellowish grey and backed away several feet from the savage brutes whose steel shod feet had already marked them badly in their stumbling progress.

  There were no volunteers. So one of the guards decided that they should go back to the water in the same way they had come and the procession turned back.

  All Sambo could do was to say to Dennison, As we go in, watch me!’ As they began the sharp descent to the bed of the stream, Sambo let out one yell. With right and left swipes he dropped the leaders, jammed his spurs in and charged the guards in front, tumbling them into the water. Dennison close behind him overwhelmed those between them and, as hard as they could go, they galloped up the other bank, and the belated shots from three or four old muskets failed to reach them.

  Great was the welcome they received in camp from the OC and from all their comrades, for all knew what had happened and what to expect; but for obvious reasons the affair was never ‘mentioned in despatches’. Sambo’s reward, which was not advertised or recorded, came a few days later when emissaries from Sekhukhune came in to say that ‘the mistake had been explained’ and that, ‘having now some knowledge of the British he would prefer to live at peace with them’.

  Within a few hours Sambo was greeted in camp by a smile that split a black face from ear to ear. ‘Baba! Bayete! Inkos! – My Father! My Chief! My King!’

  Jim had lagged behind when he knew what was coming and had let off his blunderbuss so close to the heads of the rearguard that they were too demoralised to shoot at all.

  When the force struck camp the last waggon in the transport train carried a native family – by special order!

  Jim Kukupan decided to settle in Pretoria – Native strongholds had lost their charm.

  (From the typescript deposited as part of the J Percy FitzPatrick papers by his daughter, Cecily Niven, in the National English Literary Museum, Grahamstown; not previously published.)

  Jock Routes

  The two Jock trails from the seaport at Delagoa Bay in Mozambique up to the South African Highveld run through the Lowveld area of the modern-day Mpumalanga province of South Africa. The terminus of the first one is at Mashishing, formerly Lydenburg, the Voortrekkers’ Town of Suffering, nowadays distinguished with Jock’s Country Stalls shopping centre for travellers to stock up. The trail begins with the town’s Market Place behind the police station, which is the setting of the opening chapter of Jock of the Bushveld. For general orientation visit the Mashishing Museum, in the Gustav Klingbiel Nature Reserve on the hillside out of town, which is noted for its display of the prehistoric Lydenburg clay heads and offers information on the Sekhukhune Wars and the development of mining and transport networks in the Boer Republic days of the 1880s.

  Take the R36 northwards to the public outspan place of Kruger’s Post on the Kranskloof River, near Jock’s Farm Guest House. In the garden of the general trading store is a waymark with a medallion of running Jock. This pinpoints the site of the shop of the English Field-cornet Seedling in the ‘Fighting Baboon’ chapter. The trail follows the Old Transport Route from here on, with Seedling having taken refuge along it, all the way over the border.

  Further north turn right on to the R533, which rises to an altitude of 1778 m above sea-level. At the crest of the Robber’s Pass is another Jock waymark. Many of these were placed by the Transvaal Provincial Administration in 1951 and some have become defaced or abandoned, but further similar sites in better shape were developed by the Lowveld Diggers’ and Transport-riders’ Society and unveiled in the 1990s.

  The Robber’s Pass descends into the Pilgrim’s Rest valley, scene of the initial diggers’ scramble of the 1870s and the most important sales point of the transport-riders. Nowadays a museum village, Pilgrim’s Rest offers the stroller numerous Jock-related aspects, particularly in the Museum, which is also an information centre, in the offices of the Pilgrim’s and Sabie News and in the outdoor Diggings Site Museum. The Jock waymark here is adjacent to the check-in at the picturesque caravan park on the banks of the Blyde River.

  The R534 leads out of town to Graskop, where the local to
urism officials offer a three-hour nature trail marked with Jogging Jock signs. This starts out from the God’s Window road, overlooking the escarpment at the location of the Paradise Camp of that chapter, where a placemark stands out on a single rock at the north-east corner of the Berg, and where many details of FitzPatrick’s summer sit-outs are also to be found.

  The route doubles back now on the R532 southwards towards Sabie. Shortly before the panorama of the Macmac Falls and at the 19 kilometre post, on the right hand side is the Macmac Memorial, erected in 1992 and currently somewhat overgrown. In the shape of a waggon-wheel, it includes a toposcope indicating salient points of the mountain pass of ‘The Berg’ chapter and other geographical features wider afield. The structure also includes a replica of the tombstone of Edwin ‘Teddy’ Blacklow of Ballarat (d. 1890), the younger FitzPatrick’s saviour, with a Jock sentinel placed at the entrance.

  In the timber-town of Sabie, at the Market Place opposite the Africana bookshop, is another Jock waymark at knee-level among the informal traders and close to the information centre. Sabie has a set of bungalows named after Jock for hire, as well as a Jock-Sabie Lodge. Here the descent into the Lowveld proper begins, with another Jock waymark at Spitzkop, near the sawmill on the R537 trending to the south-east. Most travellers by car, however, will not now follow the swales of the old route from here, through all the way to Legogote, previously Bill Sanderson’s Place, for one of the next cairns, but will short cut rather on the R536 through to Hazyview.

  The trail resumes on the R569 to traverse the south-western bulge of the Kruger National Park, cutting across it in a south-easterly direction. At the Numbi Gate entrance there is an impressive Jock cairn with plaque, just outside the reception area. From here the route is well flagged after Pretoriuskop Rest Camp, from which the feature of Ship Mountain is clearly visible. From the camp along the H2-2 road there are at least three well-indicated Jock sites. The first is up a dirt side track to the left and along the east bank of Samarhole Spruit, which is the locale of the young German Soltke’s stony grave and hence Jock’s birthplace.

  The second is beyond Hart’s Drift at the outspan just south of the contemporary Afsaal junction and picnic spot (where Jock souvenirs are on sale). To the north from there on the H3 one may digress to the Makhutlwanini Hills, where the ‘Cigarette Koppie’ incident took place. Beyond them is the private Jock Safari Lodge, overlooking Mbyamiti River.

  The third waymark is at the junction with the S114, which runs south to Malelane; this serves to denote the direction of the rest of this leg of the trail – towards the old Nellmapius Drift on the Crocodile River, on to Komatipoort and across the Mozambique border and over the Lebombos to Tom Barnett’s store at Passene and down the Matolo Marshes to the Loureno Marques of yore. This section is no longer exactly to be followed in a modern vehicle.

  The second Jock trail is not nearly as well signalled. From the coastal entrepot it culminates in Barberton, the town to which gold rush activity had shifted towards the period of the last chapters of Jock of the Bushveld. From the Komati River on the N4, travel westward, taking the R38 turn-off towards south-west at Kaapmuiden. From there the road follows approximately the old waggon-trail described by FitzPatrick in the ‘Last Trek’ chapter, with many place names used to this day. The route passes along Pettigrew’s Road, through the worst of the old tsetse-fly belt at Low’s Creek (more correctly Lowe’s Creek), to the ghost towns of Eureka and Sheba, on to Joe’s Luck and the Kaap. The drift with the Fig Tree just short of the town is a traffic lay-by which used to be indicated by a spectacular giant camelthorn enclosed in a wire fence (‘Jock’s Tree’). Unfortunately this collapsed in 2004.

  Nevertheless the town of Barberton itself has several historical attractions connected to FitzPatrick, including the facade of the Transvaal Republic’s first stock exchange and several house museums on their heritage walk. In the FitzPatrick Park, named after our author, a statue of Jock was unveiled in 1957 by his only surviving offspring, Mrs Niven. This event celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the first publication of Jock of the Bushveld. The sculptor was Ivan Mitford-Barberton, a descendant of the founders of the town.

  With Barberton’s centenary in 1984 the statue was relocated to a pedestal in front of the Town Hall, where it remains prominently displayed, surrounded by beds of Gerbera jamesonii, better known to the world as the Barberton daisy. Annual events include a Jock Marathon and a Staffie Rally, while a cluster of huts out of town, available to campers, is also named after Jock. The fine Local History Museum on Pilgrim Street features an exhibit of memorabilia of FitzPatrick, both as a pioneer of the Lowveld, before the coming of the railway in the 1890s (‘a coffin beneath each sleeper’) which rendered the long-haul transport-riders obsolete, and of his later career in business and in politics.