fr:Aventures de trois Russes et de trois Anglais - Chapitre 6
CHAPTER VI.BETTER ACQUAINTANCE.
The escort under the bushman's command was composed
of 100 men, all Bochjesmen—an industrious, good-tempered
people, capable of enduring great physical fatigue. In
former times, before the arrival of the missionaries, these
Bochjesmen were a lying, inhospitable race, thinking of
nothing but murder and pillage, and ever taking advantage
of an enemy's sleep to massacre him. To a great
extent the missionaries have modified these barbarous
habits, but the natives are still more or less farm-pillagers
and cattle-lifters.
Ten waggons, like the vehicle which Mokoum had taken
to the Morgheda Falls, formed the bulk of the expedition. Two of these were like moving houses, fitted up as they were with a certain amount of comfort, and served as an encampment for the Europeans; so that Colonel Everest and his companions were followed about by a wooden habitation with dry flooring, and well tilted with waterproof cloth, and furnished with beds and toilet furniture Thus, on arriving at each place of encampment, the tent was always ready pitched.
Of these waggons, one was
appropriated to Colonel Everest and his countrymen, Sir
John Murray and William Emery: the other was used by
the Russians, Matthew Strux, Nicholas Palander, and
Michael Zorn. Two more, arranged in the same way, belonged, one to the five Englishmen and the other to the five Russians who composed the crew of the “Queen and Czar.”
The hull and machinery of the steamboat, taken to
pieces and laid on one of the waggons, followed the travellers, in case the Commission might come across some of the numerous lakes which are found in the interior of the continent.
The remaining waggons carried the tools, provisions, baggage, arms, and ammunition, as well as the instruments required for the proposed triangular survey. The provisions of the Bochjesmen consisted principally of antelope, buffalo, or elephant meat, preserved in long strips, being dried in the sun or by a slow fire: thus economizing the use of salt, here very scarce. In the place of bread, the Bochjesmen depended on the earth-nuts of the arachis, the bulbs of various species of mesembryanthemums, and other native productions. Animal food would be provided by the hunters of the party, who, adroitly employing their bows and lances, would scour the plains and revictual the caravan.
Six native oxen, long-legged, high-shouldered, and with
great horns, were attached to each waggon with harness
of buffalo hide. Thus the primitive vehicles moved slowly
though surely on their massive wheels, ready alike for
heights or valleys.
For the travellers to ride there were
provided small black or grey Spanish horses, good-tempered, brave animals, imported from South America, and much esteemed at the Cape. Among the troops of quadrupeds were also half-a-dozen tame quaggas, a kind of ass with plump bodies and slender legs, who make a noise like the barking of a dog. They were to be used in the smaller expeditions necessary to the geodetic operations, and were adapted to carry the instruments where the waggons could not venture.
The only exception to the
others was the bushman, who rode a splendid zebra with
remarkable grace and dexterity. This animal (the beauty
of whose coat with its brown stripes especially excited the
admiration of the connoisseur Sir John Murray) was
naturally defiant and suspicious, and would not have borne
any other rider than Mokoum, who had broken it in for his
own use.
Some dogs of a half-savage breed, sometimes
wrongly called “hyena-hunters,” ran by the side of the
waggons, their shape and long ears reminding one of the
European brach-hound.
Such was the caravan which was about to bury itself in
the deserts. The oxen advanced calmly under the guidance
of their drivers, ever and again pricking them in the flank
with their “jambox;” and it was strange to see the troop
winding along the hills in marching order.
After leaving
Lattakoo, whither was the expedition going?