Tales of South Africa

Now Kaffraria lies not very far to the east of the Professor’s own collecting-ground, that sacred spot which held his great secret yet inviolate. The old gentleman’s face changed perceptibly; a stiffer line or two appeared about his mouth; he looked with some suspicion into Horace’s eyes, and said, rather shortly: “Ah, well! I am told the Orange River is an excellent and untried region. But, entomologically, South Africa upon the whole is poor. My visits there are mainly for health and change. But I must be getting on; I have much to do. Good-bye, Mr Maybold – good-bye!”

The Professor passed on down St James’s Street, and Horace sauntered along Piccadilly with a smile upon his face. The old gentleman had imparted something of his movements. Should he follow them up? Yes; he must have that Achraea Parchelli somehow. He would follow to the Eastern Province in November. It might be a trifle like poaching; but, after all, the world is not a butterfly preserve for the one or two lucky ones. It lies open to every entomologist. And the old man had been so confoundedly close and secret. It would serve him right to discover his sacred treasure and make plain his mystery.

After watching the weekly passenger list in South Africa for some time; Horace Maybold noted with interest that Professor Parchell had sailed for Cape Town by a Donald Currie steamer in the first week of October. That fact ascertained, he at once secured a berth in a deck cabin of the Norham Castle for the first week in November. The chase had begun, and already Horace felt a keen and amusing sense of adventure – adventure in little – springing within him.

After Madeira, when all had found their sea-legs, and the warm weather and smooth ocean appeared, things became very pleasant. Horace was not a man who quickly became intimate or much attached to people; but, almost insensibly, upon this voyage he found himself developing a strong friendship, almost an intimacy, with two ladies: one, Mrs Stacer, a pleasant, comely, middle-aged woman, perhaps nearer fifty than forty; the other, Miss Vanning, young, good-looking, and extremely attractive. The two ladies, who were connected, if not relations, were travelling to Port Elizabeth to stay with friends in that part of the colony – where, exactly, was never quite made clear. Horace found them refined, well-bred, charming women, having many things in common with him; and the trio in a day or two’s time got on swimmingly together.

By the time the line was reached, the vision of Rose Vanning, with her fair, wavy brown hair, good grey eyes, fresh complexion, and open, yet slightly restrained manner, was for ever before the mental ken of Horace May bold. Here, indeed, he told himself, was the typical English girl he had so often set before his mind; fresh, tallish, full of health, alert, vigorous in mind and body, yet a thorough and a perfect woman. On many a warm tropical evening, as they sat together on deck, while the big ship drove her way through the oil-like ocean, sending shoals of flying-fish scudding to right and left of her, the two chatted together, and day by day their intimacy quickened. It was clear to Horace, and it began, too, to dawn upon Mrs Stacer, that Rose Vanning found a more than ordinary pleasure in his presence. By the time they were within a day of Cape Town, Horace had more than half made up his mind. He had gently opened the trenches with Mrs Stacer, who had met him almost half-way, and had obtained permission to call upon them in London – at a house north of Hyde Park, where they were living. At present they knew so little of him and his people, that he felt it would be unfair to push matters further. But he had mentioned Mrs Stacer’s invitation to Rose Vanning.

“I hope, Miss Vanning,” he said, “you won’t quite have forgotten me when I come to see you – let me see – about next May. It’s a very long way off, isn’t it? And people and things change so quickly in these times.” He looked a little anxiously at the girl as he spoke; what he saw reassured him a good deal.

“If you haven’t forgotten us, Mr Maybold,” she said, a pretty flush rising as she spoke, “I’m quite sure we shall remember and be glad to see you. We’ve had such good times together, and I hope you’ll come and see us soon. We shall be home in April at latest, and we shall have, no doubt, heaps of adventures to compare.”

At Cape Town, Horace, after many inquiries, had half settled upon a journey along the Orange River. He had more than one reason for this. Perhaps Rose Vanning’s influence had sharpened his moral sense; who knows? At any rate, he had begun to think it was playing it rather low down upon the Professor, to follow him up and poach his preserves. He could do the Orange River this season, and wait another year for the Achraea Parchelli; by that time the old gentleman would probably have had his fill, and would not mind imparting the secret, if properly approached. And so the Orange River was decided upon, and in three or four days he was to start.

Upon the following evening, however, something happened to alter these plans. Half an hour before dinner, as he was sitting on the pleasant stoep (veranda) of the International Hotel, enjoying a cigarette, a man whose face he seemed to know came up to him and instantly claimed acquaintance. “You remember me, surely, Maybold?” he said. “I was at Marlborough with you – in the same form for three terms.”

Of course Horace remembered him; and they sat at dinner together and had a long yarn far into the night.

The upshot of this meeting was that nothing would satisfy John Marley – “Johnny,” he was always called – but Horace should go round by sea with him to Port Elizabeth, and stop a few weeks at his farm, some little way up-country from that place. When he was tired of that, he could go on by rail from Cradock, and complete his programme on the Orange River.

“If you want butterflies, my boy,” said Johnny in his hearty way, “you shall have lots at my place – tons of them after the rains; and we’ll have some rattling good shooting as well. You can’t be always running about after ‘bugs,’ you know.”

So, next day but one, Horace, little loth, was haled by his friend down to the docks again, and thence round to Port Elizabeth by steamer. From Port Elizabeth they proceeded, partly by rail partly by Cape cart and horses, in a north-easterly direction, until at length, after the best part of a day’s journey through some wild and most beautiful scenery, they drove up late in the evening to a long, low, comfortable farmhouse, shaded by a big verandah, where they were met and welcomed by Marley’s wife and three sturdy children. After allowing his friend a day’s rest, to unpack his kit and get out his gunnery and collecting-boxes, Johnny plunged him into a vortex of sport and hard work. A fortnight had vanished ere Horace could cry off. He had enjoyed it all immensely; but he really must get on with the butterflies, especially if he meant to go north to the Orange River.

Marley pretended to grumble a little at his friend’s desertion of buck-shooting for butterfly-collecting; but he quickly placed at his disposal a sharp Hottentot boy, Jacobus by name, who knew every nook and corner of that vast countryside, and, barring a little laziness, natural to Hottentot blood, proved a perfect treasure to the entomologist. The weather was perfection. Some fine showers had fallen, vegetation had suddenly started into life, and the flowers were everywhere ablaze. The bush was in its glory.

Amid all this regeneration of nature, butterflies and insects were extremely abundant. Horace had a great time of it, and day after day added largely to his collection. One morning, flitting about here and there, he noticed a butterfly that seemed new to him. He quickly had a specimen within his net, and, to his intense satisfaction, found it as he had suspected, a new species. It belonged to the genus Eurema, which contains but few species, and somewhat resembled Eurema schaeneia (Trimen), a handsome dark-brown and yellow butterfly, with tailed hind-wings. But Horace’s new capture was widely different, in this respect: the whole of the under surface of the wings was suffused with a strong roseate pink, which mingled here and there with the brown, sometimes darker, sometimes lighter in its hue.

Here was a thrilling discovery – a discovery which, as Horace laughingly said to himself, would make old Parchell “sit up” at their Society’s meeting next spring. Horace captured eight more specimens – the butterfly was not too plentiful – and then made for home in an ecstasy of delight.

A few days after this memorable event he set off with Jacobus for a farmhouse thirty miles away, to the owner of which – an English Afrikander – Marley had given him an introduction. As they passed near the kloof where the new butterfly had been discovered, which lay about half-way, Horace off-saddled for an hour, and picked up half a dozen more specimens of the new Eurema. These he placed with the utmost care in his collecting-box. At noon they saddled up and rode on again. Towards three o’clock they emerged from the hills upon a shallow, open, grassy valley, girt about by bush and mountain scenery. This small valley was ablaze with flowers, and butterflies were very abundant. Getting Jacobus to lead his horse quietly after him, Horace wandered hither and thither among the grass and flowers, every now and again sweeping up some butterfly that took his fancy. Suddenly, as he opened his net to secure a new capture, he uttered an exclamation of intense surprise. “By all that’s entomological!” he cried, looking up with a comical expression at the stolid and uninterested Hottentot boy, “I’ve done it, I’ve done it! I’ve hit upon the old Professor’s new butterfly!”

No man could well be more pleased with himself than Horace Maybold at that moment. In ten minutes he had within his box seven or eight more specimens, for the butterfly – the wonderful, the undiscoverable Achraea Parchelli– seemed to be fairly plentiful.

“How far are we off Mr Gunton’s place now, Jacobus?” asked Horace.

“Nie, vär, nie, Baas,” (Not so far, master), replied the boy in his Dutch patois. “’Bout one mile, I tink. See, dar kom another Baas!”

Horace shaded his eyes and looked. About one hundred and fifty yards off there appeared above the tall grass a curious figure, remarkable for a huge white helmet, loose light coat, and pink face and blue spectacles. A green butterfly net was borne upon the figure’s shoulder. Horace knew in a moment whose was that quaint figure. He gave a soft whistle to himself. It was the Professor.

The old gentleman came straight on, and, presently, seeing, within fifty yards, strange people before him, walked up. He stood face to face with Horace Maybold, amazed, aghast, and finally very angry.

“Good-morning, Professor,” said that young man. “I’m afraid I’ve stumbled by a sheer accident on your hunting-ground. I am staying with an old schoolfellow thirty miles away, and rode in this direction. I had no idea you were here.”

The Professor was a sight to behold. Red as an enraged turkey-cock, streaming with perspiration – for it was a hot afternoon – almost speechless with indignation, he at last blurted into tongue: “So, sir, this is what you have been doing – stealing a march upon me; following me up secretly; defrauding me of the prizes of my own labour and research. I could not have believed it of any member of the Society. The thing is more than unhandsome. It is monstrous! an utterly monstrous proceeding!”

Horace attempted to explain matters again. It was useless; he might as well have argued with a buffalo bull at that moment.

“Mr Maybold,” retorted the Professor, “the coincidence of your staying in the very locality in which my discovery was made, coupled with the fact that you endeavoured, at the last meeting of the Entomological Society, to extract from me the habitat of this new species, is quite too impossible. I have nothing more to say, for the present.” And the irate old gentleman passed on.

Horace felt excessively vexed. Yet he had done no wrong. Perhaps when the old gentleman had come to his senses he would listen to reason.

Jacobus now led the way to the farmhouse. It lay only a mile away, and they presently rode up towards the stoep. Two ladies were sitting under the shade of the ample thatched veranda – one was painting, the other reading. Horace could scarcely believe his eyes as he approached. These were his two fellow-passengers of the Norham Castle, Mrs Stacer and Rose Vanning, the latter looking, if possible, more charming than ever. The ladies recognised him in their turn, and rose with a little flutter. Horace jumped from his horse and shook hands with some warmth.

“Who on earth,” he said, “could have expected to meet you in these wilds? I am astonished – and delighted,” he added, with a glance at Rose.

Explanations ensued. It seemed that the ladies were the sister and step-daughter of the Professor, who was a widower. They had been engaged by him in a mild conspiracy not to reveal his whereabouts, so fearful was he of his precious butterfly’s habitat being made known to the world; and so, all through the voyage, no mention had been made even of his name. It was his particular whim and request, and here was the mystery at an end. The Professor had moved from the farmhouse in which he had lodged the year before, and had secured quarters in Mr Gunton’s roomy, comfortable ranch, where the ladies had joined him.

Horace, who had inwardly chafed at this unexpected turn, had now to explain his awkward rencontre with the Professor. To his great relief, Mrs Stacer and Rose took it much more philosophically than he could have hoped; indeed, they seemed rather amused than otherwise.

“But,” said Horace with a rueful face, “the Professor’s in a frantic rage with me. You don’t quite realise that he absolutely discredits my story, and believes I have been playing the spy all along. And upon the top of all this I have a letter to Mr Gunton, and must sleep here somehow for the night. There’s no other accommodation within twenty miles. Why, when the Professor comes back and finds me here, he’ll go out of his mind!”

Here Mrs Stacer, good woman that she was, volunteered to put matters straight, for the night at all events. She at once saw Mr Gunton, and explained the impasse to him; and Horace was comfortably installed, away from the Professor’s room, in the farmer’s own quarters.

“Leave my brother to me,” said Mrs Stacer, as she left Horace. “I daresay matters will come right.”

At ten o’clock Mrs Stacer came to the door. Mr Gunton rose and went out as she entered. “H’sh!” she said with mock-mystery as she addressed Horace. “I think,” she went on, with a comical little smile, “the Professor begins to think he has done you an injustice. He is amazed at our knowing you, and we have attacked him all the evening, and he is visibly relenting.”

“Mrs Stacer,” said Horace warmly, “I can’t thank you sufficiently. I’ve had an inspiration since I saw you. I, too, have discovered, not far from here, a rather good new butterfly – a species hitherto unknown. Can’t I make amends, by sharing my discovery with the Professor? I’ve got specimens here in my box, and there are plenty in a kloof fifteen miles away.”

“Why, of course,” answered Mrs Stacer. “It’s the very thing. Your new butterfly will turn the scale I’ll go and tell my brother you have a matter of importance to communicate, and wish to make further explanations. Wait a moment.”

In three minutes she returned. “I think it will be all right,” she whispered. “Go and see him. Straight through the passage you will find a door open, on the right. I’ll wait here.”

Horace went forward and came to the half-open door. The Professor, who had changed his loose, yellow, alpaca coat for a black one of the same material, sat by a reading-lamp. He wore now his gold-rimmed spectacles, in lieu of the blue “goggles.” He looked clean, and pink, and comfortable, though a trifle severe – the passion of the afternoon had vanished from his face. Horace spoke the first word. “I have again to reiterate Professor, how vexed I am to have disturbed your collecting-ground. I had not the smallest intention of doing it. Indeed, my plans lay farther north. It was the pure accident of meeting my old school-friend, Marley, that led me here. In order to convince you of my sincere regret, I have here a new butterfly – evidently a scarce and unknown Eurema– which I discovered a few days since, near here. My discovery is at your service. Here is the butterfly. I trust you will consider it some slight set-off for the vexation I have unwittingly given you.”

At sight of the butterfly, which Horace took from his box, the Professor’s eyes gleamed with interest. He took the insect, looked at it very carefully, then returned it.

“Mr Maybold,” he said, rising and holding out his hand, “I believe I did you an injustice this afternoon. I lost my temper, and I regret it. I understand from my sister and daughter that they are acquainted with you, and that they were fully aware of your original intention to travel to the Orange River. Your offer of the new butterfly, which is, as you observe, a new and rare species, is very handsome, and I cry quits. I trust I may have the pleasure of seeing you to-morrow at breakfast, and accompanying you to the habitat of your very interesting and remarkable discovery.”

Before breakfast next morning there was a very pleasant and even tender meeting between Horace Maybold and Rose Vanning; and, when Mrs Stacer joined them, there was a merry laugh over the adventures of yesterday.

After breakfast – they all sat down together, the Professor in his most genial mood – Horace and the old gentleman at once set off for the kloof where the new Eurema was discovered. They returned late in the evening; the Professor had captured a number of specimens, and although fatigued, was triumphantly happy. Horace stayed a week with them after this, with the natural result that at the end of that time he and Rose Vanning were engaged, with the Professor’s entire consent. The new butterfly – which, partly out of compliment to Rose, partly from its own peculiar colouring, was unanimously christened Eurema Rosa– was exhibited by Horace and the Professor jointly and with great éclat at an early meeting of the Entomological Society.

Horace and Rose’s marriage is a very happy one. And, as they both laughingly agree – for the old gentleman often reminds them of the fact – they may thank the Professor’s butterfly (the famous Achraea Parchelli) for the lucky chance that first threw them together.

Chapter Five.

A Boer Pastoral

It is dim early morning, and upon the vast plains of Great Bushmanland, in the far north-west of Cape Colony, the air blows fresh and chill, though the land is Africa, and the time summer. At 4:15 precisely the bright morning star shoots above the horizon, and rises steadily upward in a straight, rocket-like ascent.

Now a ruddy colouring tinges the pale grey of the eastern sky, to be followed by broad rays in delicate blues and greens that strike boldly for the zenith. The changes of dawn in Africa are swift and very subtle. Presently these colours fade, and a pale, subdued light rests upon the earth; the air is full of a clear but cold brightness. Soon follows the full red-orange, that so gorgeously paints the eastern horizon, and closely foreruns the sun; and then suddenly the huge burning disc itself is thrust upon the sky-line, and it is, in South African parlance, “sun up.”

The plains here stretch in illimitable expanse to the horizon. Far to the west is a range of mountain, forty good miles away, which, in the clear morning air, stands out as sharply as if but a dozen miles distant. You may see the dark lines and patches of the time-worn seams and krantzes that scar its sides. This translucency of atmosphere is very common in Southern Africa.

The rains have lately fallen, and everywhere around the dry plains have started at the breath of moisture into a splendid, if short-lived, beauty. Miles upon miles of flats, all glowing and ablaze with purple and a rich, flame-like red, are spread around. The wonderful Composites are in flower, and the barren, desert-like flats are for a few brief weeks transformed into a carpet of the noblest colouring and pattern. Look closely, and you may see the bleached and blackened limbs of former growths of low shrub, which stand amid the gallant blaze – gaunt reminders of the transitory existence of African flower life.

Near at hand lies a vlei, a shallow temporary lake recruited by the recent rains. At the end of this vlei, farthest removed from the group of wagons outspanned there, is gathered at this early hour a notable display of bird life. Duck, geese, widgeon, and teal are there, cackling and crying in a joyous plenty. Stints and sandpipers whirl hither and thither, and graceful black-and-white avocets, with their singular, upturned, slender bills, and long, red-legged stilt-plovers, haunt the shallows. Upon the plain some small birds have been afoot some time. You may see and hear the lively, inquisitive Jan Fredric thrush, with his pleasing song, and his curious note – “Jan-fredric-dric-dric-fredric.” He is racing swiftly hither and thither through the shrub and flowers, bustling for his food supply. There, too, are the thick-billed lark, the Sabota lark, with its clear, ringing call, and a few other – but not many – small birds. Aloft an eagle is already on the move, and a hawk or two, no doubt meditating descent upon some of the wildfowl on the vlei. Out upon the plains, half a mile distant from the wagons, are to be seen a knot or two of graceful springbok busily feeding in the choice herbage. But now there is a stir at the wagons yonder. For half an hour past “Ruyter,” a little wizened Hottentot, has been busy blowing up the embers of the half-dead fire, and making coffee for the baas and meisje.

From the biggest of the wagons descends a vast, uncouth figure – that of Klaas Stuurmann, the Trek-Boer. Almost at the same moment the achter-klap (flap) at the hinder part of the wagon is thrown back, and the figure of a young woman, rather dishevelled – for, like her father, she has been manifestly sleeping in her day-clothes (night-clothes they have none) – descends. The two approach the fire, greet one another in stolid, almost mute fashion – the father kissing impassively the girl’s proffered cheek – and then, standing, they drink the coffee handed to them by the little Hottentot man, and eat a few mouthfuls of bread. Watch them well, these two figures; they are the representatives of a type slowly disappearing from the Cape Colony – the race of Trek-Boers, nomads, who for generations have had no home but their wagons, and who live (more often than not from absolute choice) the free vagrant life of the veldt, with their flocks and herds around them.

The man, Klaas Stuurmann, is a Boer of loose, ungainly frame. He stands six feet one; is about fifty-two years of age; has a broad, deeply tanned face, in which are planted two watery-blue eyes; a shock of hay-coloured hair; and a long beard of the same uninteresting hue. He wears veldt-broeks (field-trousers) of soft home-tanned skin. He is about the last Dutchman in Cape Colony to use these old-world garments; but his father and grandfather wore such clothes, and they are good enough for him. He has no socks or stockings, and a pair of rude, home-made, hide velschoens cover his feet. He has a flannel shirt to his back, and over that a short jacket of much-worn corduroy. Upon his head is the usual tall-crowned, broad-brimmed, felt hat, which carries a hideous band of broad, rusty crape in memory of his deceased wife. The man’s face is dirty, to be sure; but, besides the dirt, there is a dull, vacant, unthinking look, rather painful to see. It is the look of one bred through dull, listless generations of men, self-banished from their own kind, whose only interests have been in sheep and goats and trek oxen, their only excitement an occasional hunt, or a scrimmage with Bushmen in time gone by. Such a listless and vacant look you may see even now in some of the more remote dals of Norway, among the poorer of the peasant-farmer folk. It is the look of men who gaze always without a spark of interest upon the silent face of nature around them, and who for generations have seldom exchanged an idea with their fellows.