A Rip Van Winkle of the Kalahari | Page 6

monotone.
One day, when the Bushmen had again trooped off on their fruitless
search, I called Inyati; and told him to make certain preparations, as,
should they again bring in nothing, I would strike camp and return to
Walfisch Bay. And then I asked him, out of curiosity, why he had not
tried to earn the gun.
"Master," said he, scraping away at the hollow shin-bone of a buck that
served him as a pipe, as a broad hint that his tobacco was finished; "I

know not the land of these dogs of Bushmen. If it were in my own land
now! But that is far away!"
I laughed, for by his manner of saying it, he conveyed the impression
that there he could pick up diamonds under every bush.
"Dogs they may be, Inyati," I answered him, "but they are dogs with
keen eyes; and yet they cannot find the stones I seek, and that I know,
too, are not far away!" He stood, nodding gravely at my words, and still
fidgeting with his bone pipe; a splendid figure of a man, nude except
for his leopard-skin loin-cloth, his skin clear and glossy, of a
golden-brown for he was no darker than, but entirely different from, the
yellow Hottentots.
"Master," said he; "what magic will my master make with the little
bright stones, should he find them?"
"No magic, Inyati," said I, "but in my country, across the great water,
these things are worth many muskets, cattle aye, and even wives!"
"That may be, my master," he replied, "but magic they are; and hide
themselves when dogs such as these Bushmen search for them. Still,
master, we will wait and see what they bring to-night; though well I
know that they will come back with empty hands as empty as is this my
pipe!"
I could not help laughing at the way in which he had brought the
subject of his finished tobacco to my notice, and in a fit of unwonted
generosity I not only gave him a span of tobacco, but also a cheap pipe
from my "trade" goods.
Poor chap, it was the first he had ever had, for his shin-bone had served
him hitherto, and his delight was unmistakable. An hour later I saw him
still at his everlasting polishing, and with the new pipe in full blast; and
now he was crooning not only its praises, but my own. Half his
improvised song was unintelligible to me, but I understood enough to
learn that when the "dogs of Bushmen" had failed, he, Inyati "The
Snake" would lead me to a land where there were magic stones in

abundance, and by means of which, I gathered, we should both obtain
wives galore!
I laughed at the poor chap's foolish bombast, as I thought it; but I have
often wondered since whether the gift of that cheap pipe did not, after
all, alter the whole of my life.
For that evening, sure enough, the Bushmen again returned
empty-handed, and acting on my former resolve, I called my own
followers together, and told them to make ready to return to Walfisch
Bay. Later, as I sat in my tent writing up my diary by the light of a
feeble candle, and with the gloomiest of thoughts for company, I heard
Inyati's voice outside. "Master," he said, in a low tone but little above a
whisper, "the dogs are full of meat, and sleeping; and there is that
which I would show thee."
Without feeling much interest in what he might have got I bade him
enter, and he stood before me in the dim light of my tallow candle.
Fumbling in his leopard skin, he drew forth a little tortoiseshell, such as
the Hottentot women use for holding the hare's foot, ochre, buchu
leaves, and other mysteries of their toilet. I had often seen him with it,
and had chaffed him about carrying it before, and he evidently
anticipated something of the kind again.
"Nay, master," he said, before I could speak, "true, as thou sayest, it is a
woman's box, and a woman gave it me. But the box is naught; this is
what I would show my master."
He shook something from the little box into the palm of his hand,
clenched it, and with a dramatic gesture thrust it close to the dim light,
and threw his fingers wide.
There, glittering in the yellow palm, flashing and scintillating with
every movement, and looking as though the light it gathered and
reflected really burnt in its liquid depths, lay the most marvelous
diamond I had ever beheld!

The size of a small walnut, flawless, blue-tinted, and of wondrous
luster and beauty, its many facets were as brilliantly polished as though
fresh from the hands of the cutter, though