“THESE I HAVE LOVED:
RAINDROPS COUCHING IN COOL FLOWERS,
AND FLOWERS THEMSELVES, THAT SWAY THROUGH SUNNY HOURS,
DREAMING OF MOTHS THAT DRINK THEM UNDER THE MOON.”
UNKNOWN
Drakensberg
Finding a new home…
When life was still wild, free and uncomplicated in the Drakensberg Wilderness, hundreds of years ago. A story of then…………..
The three bushman went up swiftly to the cliff, bow hand ready, and keen eyes alert. A troop of baboons hunting for insects went hand over hand up the rocks. They stopped at intervals with their heads carried high to look down on the newcomers. Then they moved off, with tails crooked and shoulders high. “Boggom,” yelled the young males, sitting on their heels, while the old men of the troop followed.
“I do not like these people who sit on their heels,” said Snolla. “They steal children who are searching for herbs.”
“Au,” scoffed Dakwyn.
They were now near the foot of the cliff. Their eyes were fixed on one large cave about twenty feet from the bottom, reached by a growth of roots clinging close to the rock, and worn smooth by the passing of feet.
“Stand here, Dakwyn, with your bow ready, for I go up.” Karu went up the ladder of roots, but stopped at the top till his eyes just looked over the edge. He sank his head the fraction of an inch, but he did not cry out. Yet his eyes had dwelt on an object that might well have shaken his nerves – the eyes of a leopard lying full stretched, with head lifted, green eyes well opened, fixed on him. The lips snarled, lifting the whiskers, the eyes narrowed, while the small ears flattened against the round skull. The thing hissed like a furious snake.
Both Snolla and Dakwyn, noting Karu’s fixed eyes, were aware of danger. Snolla poised her spear. Dakwyn took two spare arrows in his mouth and laid a third on the bowstring. Come what might, they were ready to face it.
Karu’s glance never wavered as he debated in his mind what to do. At last he determined that he would have this cave and that the leopard must go. Grasping a root firmly with the left hand, he raised his feet till his body was bent. Then suddenly he straightened up, poised a spear till the shaft quivered, and hurled it. At the same time, he dropped his feet to a lower hold and flattened his body against the rock. In the right hand he held a reserve spear, the blade pointing up. This movement was instantaneous, but on top of it, with a roar, came the leopard’s spring. As its head showed over the edge, the spear darted up to the white throat, and the leopard, half stumbling, sprang to the ground twenty feet below, where the two young Bushmen stood looking up.
An arrow hummed at the body in mid-air. A second took the leopard in the throat as it reached the ground. At the same time Snolla’s spear was driven in. One blow the leopard made that hurled Dakwyn aside and it followed screaming upon the boy. Karu dropped to the ground and ran in with his spear. Snolla picked up Dakwyn’s fallen spear and leapt in too without a moment’s thought.
The leopard opened its mouth till the fangs showed to the gums, stood up, boxed the air with lightning strokes, roared, and fell dead.
Dakwyn staggered to his feet, swayed a bit, and then laughed. Karu looked at the boy searchingly. “Lie down,” he said, and when Dakwyn rested he felt his bones.
“Au,” he said, “the blow did not fall on the bone, else you had a broken bone. A little rest and rubbing and you are all right.”
“Woo,” said Dakwyn, as though one would say “Poof” and went up the ladder of roots and into the cave.
Snolla laughed and scrambled up after, but Karu sat down to take the spotted hide from the leopard, and the boy and the girl slid down again to help him. The claws were cut off to use as necklaces, the fangs broken out for the same purpose, and all the sinews and tendons drawn and saved. The body was cut into portions, to be eaten, and Karu presented the hide to his daughter.
“Snolla, you have a chief’s spear, which you used well. Here is a chief’s robe after you have prepared the skin. Now we go to our new house to cook and eat.”
They took possession of the cave and found it, as they thought, an old home of the Bushmen. There were paintings on the walls, and the sign of fire, and also a clay pot that the girl seized with joy.
From the cave they looked down upon the wild valley, thick with game grazing undisturbed, yet some knowledge of the Bushmen and of the leopard fight, however, was clear from the fact that scores of heads were turned in their direction.
“They do not yet get our smell, they have not seen or heard us, but they heard the leopard cry his death song, and they knew man has come.”
From far below there came, thin but still clear, the neigh of a quagga, and they saw that more heads were looking up.
Snolla’s smouldering stick of hardwood which she had brought with her was used for making a fire in the cave, and while Karu took the pot to find the waterhole that should be near, Dakwyn gathered bundles of branches for their beds.
Presently they were gnawing at roast ribs of leopard, and rubbing fat into their feet and bodies while Karu told stories of the Mantis as they sat at the mouth of the “house”, looking at the glories of the setting sun as he painted the sky with his brad feathers.
“And tell me, my father, of the girl who swept the coals into the sky where they shine as stars, and who laid the path of the white ashes (Milky Way) to bring back the sun.”
And Karu told the story till the colours paled and the hush of the night prepared for the arrogant greeting of the lions. Then at the grim music they nestled into their beds and slept, with the red eyes of the hardwood keeping watch out of the heap of ashes at their feet.
And so life changed………………
We as hikers, explorers, and
adventurers have the absolute duty to respect and protect our Wildernesses.
Nobody else will do it for us. Take ownership!
The End.
Safe Hiking.
References and Acknowledgements
From the book: The Hunter – Ernest Glansville
Photos: ©Willem Pelser
Compiled by: Willem Pelser
