“What do you think of affairs?” Dick asked Mr Harvey, as, on leaving the chief’s hut, they walked back to their waggons.
“For the moment I think we are perfectly safe; the chief would not venture to attack us while we are in his village. In the first place it would put a stop to all trade, and in the second, far as we are from the frontier, he would not feel safe were a massacre to take place in his village. He knows well enough that were a dozen white men to come out to avenge such a deed, with a few waggon-loads of goods to offer to his neighbours as pay for their assistance, he and his tribe would be exterminated. When we are once on our way again we must beware. The feeling among the tribe at the loss they have sustained must be very bitter, although they may repress all outward exhibition of it to us, and if they attack us just as we are on the line between their land and their neighbour’s they can deny all knowledge of it. However, they shall not catch us asleep.”
“I see the men have put the waggons in laager,” Tom said.
“Yes, I told them to do so,” Mr Harvey answered; “it is the custom always with traders travelling north of the Limpopo, and therefore will not be taken as a sign of suspicion of their good faith. A fair index to us of their disposition will be the amount of trade. If they bring their goods freely, we may assume that there is no fixed intention of attacking us; for if they are determined to seize our goods, those who have articles to trade would not care to part with them, when they would hope to obtain a share of our goods for nothing.”
The next morning Mr Harvey spread out a few of his goods, but hardly any of the natives came forward with articles for barter. In the afternoon Mr Harvey went across to the chief.
“How is it,” he asked, “that your people do not bring in their goods for sale? Among the tribes through which I have passed I have done much trade; they see that I give good bargains—your people bring nothing. If they do not wish to trade with the white men, let them say so, and I will tell my brethren that it is of no use to bring their waggons so far.”
“My people are very poor,” the chief said; “they have been at war with their neighbours, and have had no time to hunt the ostrich or to get skins.”
“They cannot have been fighting all the time,” Mr Harvey rejoined; “they must have taken furs and skins—it is clear that they do not wish to trade. Tomorrow morning I will go on my way; there are many other tribes who will be glad at the coming of the white trader.”
After Mr Harvey’s return to the waggons, it was evident that orders had been issued that some trade should be done, for several parcels of inferior kinds of ostrich feathers and skins were brought in. As it was clear, however, that no genuine trade was to be done, at daybreak the oxen were inspanned, and the caravan continued its journey.
For the next two days the track lay across an open country, and no signs of molestation were met with.
“We are now coming,” Mr Harvey said, “to the very worst part of our journey. The hills we have seen in front of us for the last two days have to be crossed. To-morrow we ascend the lower slopes, which are tolerably easy; but the next day we have to pass through a very wild gorge. The road, which is the bed of a stream, mounts rapidly; but the ravine is nearly ten miles in length. Once at its head we are near the highest point of the shoulder over which we have to cross, and the descent on the other side is comparatively easy. If I could avoid this spot, I would do so; but I know of no other road by which waggons could cross the range for a very long distance either way; this is the one always used by traders. In the wet season it is altogether impassable, for in some places the ravine narrows to fifteen yards, with perpendicular cliffs on either side, and at these points the river, when in flood, rushes down twenty or thirty feet deep. Even putting aside the danger of attack in going through it, I would gladly avoid it if I could, for the weather is breaking; we have already had some showers, and may get heavy thunderstorms and a tremendous downfall of rain any day.”
The next day the journey was an arduous one; the ground was rough and broken, and the valley up which the road lay was frequently thickly strewn with boulders, which showed the force with which the water in flood-time rushed down over what was now its empty bed.
After a long day’s work the caravan halted for the night at the spot where the valley narrowed to the ravine.
“It has been a pretty hard day’s work to-day!” Tom said.
“It is nothing to to-morrow’s, as you will see,” Mr Harvey replied. “Traders consider this defile to be the very hardest passage anywhere in South Africa, and there are plenty of other bad bits too. In many cases you will see we shall have to unload the waggons, and it will be all that a double team can do to pull them up empty. Sometimes of course the defile is easier than at others; it depends much upon the action of the last floods. In some years rocks and boulders have been jammed so thickly in the narrow parts that the defile has been absolutely impassable; the following year, perhaps, the obstruction has been swept away, or to a certain extent levelled by the spaces between the rocks being filled up with small stones and sand. How it is this season, I do not know; up to the time we left I had heard of no trader having passed along this way. I have spoken of it as a day’s journey, but it is only under the most favourable circumstances that it has ever been accomplished in that time, and sometimes traders have been three or four days in getting through.”
Directly the caravan halted Blacking and Jumbo started to examine the defile; it was already growing dusk, and they were only able to get two miles up before it was so dark that they could make their way no further. They returned, saying that the first portion of the defile, which was usually one of the most difficult, was in a bad condition; that many enormous boulders were lying in the bottom; but that it appeared to be practicable, although in some places the waggons would have to be unloaded.
At daybreak the oxen were inspanned, and in a quarter of an hour the leading waggon approached the entrance of the gorge; it seemed cut through a perpendicular cliff, 200 feet high, the gorge through which the river issued appearing a mere narrow crack rent by some convulsion of nature.
“It would be a fearful place to be attacked in,” Dick said, “and a few men with rocks up above could destroy us.”
“Yes,” Mr Harvey said; “but you see up there?”
Dick looked up, and on one side of the passage saw some tiny figures.
“The three hunters and ten of our men with muskets are up there; they started three hours ago, as they would have to go, Jumbo said, five miles along the face of the cliff before they reached a point where they could make an ascent so as to gain the edge of the ravine. They will keep along parallel with us, and their fire would clear both sides; it is not usual to take any precaution of this sort, but after our attack of the other day, and the attitude of the chief and his people, we cannot be too cautious. After passing through the first three miles of the defile, the ravine widens into a valley a hundred yards wide; here they will come down and join us. There are two other ravines, similar to the first, to be passed through, but the country there is so wild and broken that it would be impossible for them to keep along on the heights, and I doubt whether even the natives could find a point from which to attack us.”
They had now fairly entered the ravine. For thirty or forty feet up the walls were smooth and polished by the action of the winter torrents; above, jagged rocks overhung the path, and at some points the cliffs nearly met overhead. Although it was now almost broad daylight, in the depths of this ravine the light was dim and obscure.
The boys at first were awestruck at the scene, but their attention was soon called to the difficulties of the pass. The bed of the stream was covered with rocks of all sizes; sometimes great boulders, as big as a good-sized cottage, almost entirely blocked the way, and would have done so altogether had not the small boulders round them formed slopes on either side. The depths of the ravine echoed and re-echoed, with a noise like thunder, the shout of the driver and the crack of the whip, as the oxen struggled on. The waggons bumped and lurched along over the stones; the natives and whites all worked their hardest, clearing away the blocks as far as possible from the track required for the waggons. Armed with long wooden levers four or six together prized away the heavy boulders, or, when these were too massive to be moved by their strength, and when no other path could be chosen, piled a number of smaller blocks, so as to make a sort of ascent up which the wheels could travel. The waggons moved but one at a time, the united efforts of the whole party being required to enable them to get along. When the leading waggon had moved forward a hundred yards, the next in succession would be brought up, and so on until the six waggons were again in line; then all hands would set to work ahead, and prepare the path for another hundred yards.
In two places, however, no efforts sufficed to clear the way; the blocks rose in such jagged masses that it was absolutely impossible for the oxen to pull across them,—indeed it was with the greatest difficulty that when unyoked they were one by one got over; then tackles were fastened from the top of the rock to the waggons below—ropes and blocks being generally carried by travellers for such emergencies,—the oxen fastened to the ends of the ropes, and with the purchase so obtained the waggons were dragged bodily one by one over the obstacles.
It was not until late in the afternoon that the party passed safely through the defile and reached the valley beyond, men and animals worn out by the exertions they had undergone.
The day had not passed without excitement, for when they were engaged at the most difficult point of the journey the crack of rifles was heard far overhead, and for half an hour a steady fire was kept up there. Those below were............