"Whoa, Ferus!

"This won't do, George. It's too hot to gallop like that. Let's go slower." The flaming of the midday sun on the perspiring boys was becoming intolerable.

"I wish I had a pony like Ferus, Koos. He's great!"

"Ferus is a Basuto. They are sure-footed, hardy little beasts for traveling in South Africa. They can travel from five to six miles an hour the live-long day—carrying heavy loads, too—and scarcely feel it. But the Cape ponies are the most wonderful ones for hunting and shooting. They aren't afraid of anything. They are taught to stand still, half a day, sometimes, right where you leave them, by merely turning the bridle over their heads."

"Koos, did you ever go hunting?" asked George. "Daddy says you Boer boys are trained to ride from the time you can walk, and to handle a gun as easily as an English boy does a cane. Is that so?"

"Boer boys are all good marksmen, George. Once I had an older brother David. He was but thirteen—just my age—when the war broke out, and my father, grandfather and great-grandfather all took to horse and gun in defense of their country. You and I were not born then. Young as he was, he shouldered a musket and bravely fought at my father's side until both were killed in the same terrible battle. There was a whole regiment of Boer boys fighting in the war no older than was David. Some were even less. Many were only twelve. And they fought at the side of great-grandfathers of seventy and over. As for big game hunting—I'd like to hear some of your father's exciting experiences hunting in that awful Kalahari Desert, George. Were you with him there long?"

"No, Koos—a very short time. I can't bear to talk about it. I never want to see the place again! That terrible Zulu, Dirk, was there! You ought to see all daddy's trophies—beautiful pelts, Koodoo horns, hides, and ivory from many a fine tusker! Daddy had plenty of big game shooting—lions, elephants and everything! Several times he almost lost his life. But all that was before mother died, and Aunt Edith brought me here to father. But I want to go home."

"But is the Kalahari Desert as bad as people say?"

"Worse! It's just thousands and thousands of miles of burning hot sand. Nothing grows there but a few dried-up low Karroo bushes. My clothes were always all torn up by awful prickly bushes just full of long hack-thorns like fish-hooks."

"'Wacht-een-bigte' is what we Boers call them. It is a kind of cactus, or giraffe-acacia bush. The thorns are exasperating!"

"And the only water one could get was from salty, hot, muddy pools nearly a hundred miles apart. That is why the place is called 'The Great Thirst Land.' Father says, too, that at night the hyenas came so close that once they stole his clothes as he slept."

"W-h-e-w!" exclaimed Koos.

George shuddered, as an ebony-faced black approached them.

"Now, George, don't be afraid. That's only Shobo, the Bushman. There goes your father and Uncle Abraham riding about the farm together. They have stopped away over by the willows, to watch the Kafirs branding cattle. They drive them inside that fence, fasten the gate, then quickly lasso each beast—one by one—by the hind leg, trip it over, and apply the hot iron. It doesn't really hurt them, you know."

"Petrus, what is this we are coming to? Your mealie-fields?"

"The mealie-fields, yes, but there's not a blade of corn. The locusts left all uncle's acres as bare as though burnt by a fire."

"Do tell me about it, Koos. Couldn't you stop them?"

"Nothing could be done. We found the Kafirs from the kraals out in great numbers, galloping their ponies up and down between the long rows of corn, firing their guns, beating on tin cans, yelling and making the most hideous noise and racket, their packs of barking dogs following after them, hoping to scare the locusts away. But they had settled to stay. Oh, George, you just ought to have seen all the Kafir women gathering up the crawling insects—most of them over two inches long—into great heaps, filling every kind of pan and pot, then roasting them over the flames and ravenously devouring them on the spot. The little Bush-children, too, gobbled them up greedily while they were still hot. They considered them great dainties, I'm sure. What they could not eat they carried over to the kraals, where the Kafir women ground them between stones into a sort of meal. They mixed this with grease and fat and baked it into cakes. Even the horses, dogs, cats and chickens gobbled the locusts up with a relish. Look! There goes funny little Shobo, trying to catch a pony for Aunt Johanna's cart. Yes—Shobo's catching him all right."

Before them, as they rode on, stretched miles of Uncle Abraham's richest pasture-lands. Grazing about, in the afternoon sun, were great herds of his uncle's fine horses, sturdy little ponies, mules, sleek herds of fat oxen, and great flocks of sheep and goats.

The contented lowing of the fat cattle, the soft bleating of the sheep and goats, was music in Koos' ears.

"Listen, George, don't you like to hear it?" asked the Boer boy. Like his uncle, Petrus delighted in the beauty and superiority of the farm-beasts, many of which he knew by name. They would come at his call. Petrus loved the vast farm. Even the name—"Weltefreden"—was dear to him.

George gazed about the scene of happy pastoral life before him. His father had often told him of the pleasure the Boers took in the joys of their farm-life. He had heard him say that the Boers' love for their pastoral life makes them believe that the Old Testament is all about themselves. No wonder the daily reading of the Sacred Book meant so much to them! George was beginning to understand what his father meant. Truly, the Boer farmers seemed to be trying to re-live in the Transvaal the ideal life shown them in the pages of Holy Writ. "All those sheep, calves and goats across there are a part of Magdalena's dowry. Magdalena is engaged to be married to the son of the Predikant[11] of our little Dutch Reformed Church—Hercules van der Groot. He asked her for an 'upsit'[12] at once. She will have a fine dowry, for uncle has been giving her part of all the new-born lambs, kids and fowls ever since she was little like Franzina and Yettie. He is doing the same for each of them too."

"And I suppose your uncle will give you a great farm with cattle and beasts of all kinds for your own, some day, and then you will become a rich farmer like he is, and just settle right down here in the Transvaal forever," suggested the English boy.

"'Boer' means 'farmer,' George. That's what we all are—farmers. And do you know what 'Transvaal' means? It means 'across the Vaal River.' And there's no finer land or climate in all South Africa than ours. Many Boer sons do settle down on their fathers' farms forever. Many are born, live and die right here in the Transvaal. Neither my grandfather nor great-grandfather were ever outside of South Africa. They were too busy fighting the natives. Uncle, of course, lost everything in the war. Since then he's had no time for travel. But it's different with me, George. I mean to see something of the world. I'm saving all the money uncle gives me for travel. It's a six thousand mile trip from Cape Town to Cairo. But when the great 'Cape to Cairo' railroad is finished three years from now, George, I'm sure I shall want to go. Maybe I can save money enough. Then I've heard so much about England. I want to visit London, and Westminster Abbey, and see everything."

"Oh, Koos, if ever you do come to London, you must look us up sure. We will be glad to see you."

"Thank you, George. I would not miss seeing you there. There goes 'old Piete'—our Hottentot wagon-driver—with a mule-team load of firewood. And here comes Mutla from the sheep-shearing. I hope the Kafirs are not all through.

"Mutla, what about the sheep-shearing? Is it all over?"

"Yes, my master," answered the Kafir.

"Well, George, I'm sorry we have missed it. Sheep-shearing days are always great days on the farm, when half a hundred Kafirs from the kraals are all working at once. They have been at it all this week. To-morrow the wool-washing and drying begins. Then follows the packing for market. At the last count, uncle's great flock of Merinos numbered six thousand; at least that is the nearest we could come to it, for there are so many that we never can be sure exactly how many the jackals have taken over night. It's fun, though, every morning to try to count them, as they follow each other just as fast as possible, leaping over the gate from the inclosure into the pasture. You ought to see clever little Shobo. Every time he spies a jackal he chases it into a porcupine's hole, only to see it speedily driven out. Suppose we go over towards the Kafir kraals, George? Shall we?"

"Oh, yes, Petrus, let's do!" exclaimed George in delight. They were riding along through the willow, wattle and wild-tobacco trees bordering the pretty little spruit of clear water, where the wool-washing would take place to-morrow.

It was George's first trip to South Africa. He had never seen a Kafir kraal. He had heard that South Africa was a "land of diamonds"; that in "every stone the gold glittered"; that vermillion flamingoes stand on the river-banks gazing down at the little fishes; that gorgeous feathered beauties flit through the African forests, glancing from branch to branch in the bright sunlight but that they had no song; that the Bushman's dogs had no bark; that the flowers were without fragrance; the skies without clouds, and the rivers often without water.

George wondered if he would ever see any of those strange wild animals with unspellable and unpronounceable names about which he had read so much in his African hunting and travel books—Koodoos, gemsbuck, wildebeestes, bushbuck, waterbuck, troops of gnus, with tails like horses, and spiral horns glittering in the sunlight, spotted hyenas, droves of blessbok, tsessebe, and a very strange animal called blaauwbok—whatever that could be.

"Petrus, I wish I could hide in the top of a very high tree and get a good look at a real Tsavo 'man-eater,' and perhaps, just as he was about to spring, a little Bushman, with nothing but his poisoned arrows, would come out and kill him."

"I can't promise you'll see any terrible 'man-eaters,' George, but you'll soon see a Bushman or two, perhaps half a hundred black Kafirs, and maybe a—"

"Zulu?" broke in George. "Petrus, I'm going home. See those black clouds coming? It will rain soon."

"Not a single Zulu! I'll promise you that, George. Uncle has not one on the place. Mutla has strict orders to keep them away. The Kafirs are perfectly harmless. They're a good-natured crowd of fellows. You will like them. They are not real savages, George. Many of them are intelligent and anxious for education. Some of the best study in the negro schools of the United States. But most of them still live with their dogs, chickens, goats and other animals all mixed up together in their kraals. The 'Red Kafirs,' off in Bondoland, and the Transkei, on the coast, still mix red clay into their hair and cover their bodies with it."

"I'd rather face all the Kafirs in Kaffraria than one Zulu, Petrus!" protested George. "I'm never afraid of Mutla."

"Wait until you see some of the happy-faced, laughing Zulus of Natal—the Durban 'ginrickshaw' Zulu boys for instance. You will never be afraid of them. Zulus are not all dangerous—like Dirk. Many of them make good, honest house-servants, and are to be trusted. Kafirs work better in the fields. Fine specimens as many of them are, yet the best of them are not the equals of the magnificent big Zulus of Natal and Zululand—splendidly built, coal-black giants like Dirk."

"Petrus, here come two Kafirs now!" whispered George.

"Those are Hottentots, George," laughed Petrus. "Don't you see their tufty hair—all little wiry balls with open spaces between, just like the Bushman's. Both are little yellow-brown, flat-faced people who click, click, when they try to talk. The word 'Hottentot' means a 'Stammerer' or 'Jabberer.' We cannot understand their jargon, and Uncle Abraham and I have to talk to them by signs. The Kafirs scorn the Hottentots, and the Hottentots hate the pigmy Bushmen. They won't work together. There goes a little Bushman, now. They have no lobes to their ears. Many of them sleep out in the open—winter and summer. On cold nights they sometimes lie so close to the fire that they blister their bodies until the skin peels off. But they are great little hunters. They always know where to find water. They will watch the flight of the birds, or spoor some animal to his drinking-place, and when on the hunt they'll eat the flesh of anything, from an elephant to a mouse."

"Ugh! Snakes, too, Koos?"

"Yes. Snakes, lizards, tortoises, grubs, frogs, locusts, flying ants, ostrich eggs, wild honey, young bees, nestling birds of all kinds, and all sorts of bulbs and roots they dig up with pointed sticks. And you know how their arrowheads are always smeared with poison."

"Ugh! Bushmen must be disgusting! No wonder the Kafirs hate them. I should, too!" protested George. "Look! Petrus, we've reached the Kafir kraals!"

Spread out before them, just beyond a few tall trees, were twenty or more odd-looking huts, arranged in a semicircle. They could see the naked little black children playing about and hear their chatter. Beautiful herds of fat cattle, guarded by huge, dark-hued Kafirs, came slowly winding along the road past them, on their way to the cattle-kraals for their evening milking. It was almost sunset.

"Petrus, see those black clouds! It's going to rain!"

There came a loud clap of thunder. Mutla galloped quickly across to Petrus. Springing lightly to the ground, he exclaimed:

"Oh, my master, come quick to kraals! Rain, bad rain!"

"You are right, Mutla. George, come quick! We must hurry home! We are in for a drenching!"

They put their ponies to the gallop and scampered over the soaking ground as another crash of thunder brought the water down in sheets.

It was one of those frequent, heavy, sub-tropical downpours which come and go so quickly in the southern hemisphere.