Previous - Next

make five miles a day better going, being quicker and not so liable to
become footsore. What is more, this lot were thoroughly "salted," that
is, they had worked all over South Africa, and so had become proof,
comparatively speaking, against red water, which so frequently
destroys whole teams of oxen when they get on to strange "veldt" or
grass country. As for "lung sick," which is a dreadful form of
pneumonia, very prevalent in this country, they had all been
inoculated against it. This is done by cutting a slit in the tail of
an ox, and binding in a piece of the diseased lung of an animal which
has died of the sickness. The result is that the ox sickens, takes the
disease in a mild form, which causes its tail to drop off, as a rule
about a foot from the root, and becomes proof against future attacks.
It seems cruel to rob the animal of his tail, especially in a country
where there are so many flies, but it is better to sacrifice the tail
and keep the ox than to lose both tail and ox, for a tail without an
ox is not much good, except to dust with. Still it does look odd to
trek along behind twenty stumps, where there ought to be tails. It
seems as though Nature made a trifling mistake, and stuck the stern
ornaments of a lot of prize bull-dogs on to the rumps of the oxen.

Next came the question of provisioning and medicines, one which
required the most careful consideration, for what we had to do was to
avoid lumbering the wagon, and yet to take everything absolutely
necessary. Fortunately, it turned out that Good is a bit of a doctor,
having at some point in his previous career managed to pass through a
course of medical and surgical instruction, which he has more or less
kept up. He is not, of course, qualified, but he knows more about it
than many a man who can write M.D. after his name, as we found out
afterwards, and he had a splendid travelling medicine chest and a set
of instruments. Whilst we were at Durban he cut off a Kafir's big toe
in a way which it was a pleasure to see. But he was quite nonplussed
when the Kafir, who had sat stolidly watching the operation, asked him
to put on another, saying that a "white one" would do at a pinch.

There remained, when these questions were satisfactorily settled, two
further important points for consideration, namely, that of arms and
that of servants. As to the arms I cannot do better than put down a
list of those which we finally decided on from among the ample store
that Sir Henry had brought with him from England, and those which I
owned. I copy it from my pocket-book, where I made the entry at the
time.

"Three heavy breech-loading double-eight elephant guns, weighing about
fifteen pounds each, to carry a charge of eleven drachms of black
powder." Two of these were by a well-known London firm, most excellent
makers, but I do not know by whom mine, which is not so highly
finished, was made. I have used it on several trips, and shot a good

Previous - Next