The Settler and the Savage | Page 8

a coarse cloth jacket, leathern
trousers or "crackers," and a broad-brimmed home-made hat, issued
from the chief dwelling-house as the horsemen galloped up and drew
rein. The sons of the family and a number of barking dogs also greeted
them. Hans and Considine sprang to the ground, while two or three of
the eleven brothers, of various ages--also in leathern crackers, but
without coats or hats--came forward, kicked the dogs, and led the
horses away.
"Let me introduce a stranger, father, whom I have found--lost in the
karroo," said Hans.
"Welcome to Eden! Come in, come in," said Mynheer Conrad Marais
heartily, as he shook his visitor by the hand.
Considine suitably acknowledged the hospitable greeting and followed
his host into the principal room of his residence.
There was no hall or passage to the house. The visitor walked straight
off the veldt, or plain, into the drawing-room--if we may so style it. The
house door was also the drawing-room door, and it was divided
transversely into two halves, whereby an open window could at any
moment be formed by shutting the lower half of the door. There was no
ceiling to the room. You could see the ridge-pole and rafters by looking
up between the beams, on one of which latter a swallow--taking
advantage of the ever open door and the general hospitality of the
family--had built its nest. The six-foot sons almost touched the said
nest with their heads; as to the smaller youths it was beyond the reach

of most of them, but had it been otherwise no one would have disturbed
the lively little intruder.
The floor of the apartment was made of hard earth, without carpet. The
whitewashed walls were graced with various garments, as well as
implements and trophies of the chase.
From the beams hung joints of meat, masses of dried flesh, and various
kinds of game, large whips--termed sjamboks (pronounced shamboks)--
made of rhinoceros or hippopotamus hide, leopard and lion skins,
ostrich eggs and feathers, dried fruit, strings of onions, and other
miscellaneous objects; on the floor stood a large deal table, and chairs
of the same description--all home-made,--two waggon chests, a giant
churn, a large iron pot, several wooden pitchers hooped with brass, and
a side-table on which were a large brass-clasped Dutch Bible, a set of
Dutch tea-cups, an urn, and a brass tea-kettle heated like a chafing-dish.
On the walls and in corners were several flint-lock guns, and one or
two of the short light javelins used by the Kafirs for throwing in battle,
named assagais.
Three small doors led into three inner rooms, in which the entire family
slept. There were no other apartments, the kitchen being an outhouse.
On the centre table was spread a substantial breakfast, from which the
various members of the family had risen on the arrival of the horsemen.
Considine was introduced to Mynheer Marais' vrouw, a good-looking,
fat, and motherly woman verging on forty,--and his daughter Bertha, a
pretty little girl of eight or nine.
"What is Mynheer's name?" was the matron's first question.
Mynheer replied that it was Charles Considine.
"Was Mynheer English?"
"Yes," Mynheer was proud to acknowledge the fact.
Mrs Marais followed up these questions with a host of others--such as,

the age and profession of Mynheer, the number of his relatives, and the
object of his visit to South Africa. Mynheer Marais himself, after
getting a brief outline of his son's meeting with the Englishman, backed
the attack of his pleasant-faced vrouw by putting a number of questions
as to the political state of Europe then existing, and the chances of the
British Government seriously taking into consideration the
unsatisfactory condition of the Cape frontier and its relations with the
Kafirs.
To all of these and a multitude of other questions Charlie Considine
replied with great readiness and good-humour, as far as his knowledge
enabled him, for he began quickly to appreciate the fact that these
isolated farmers, who almost never saw a newspaper were thirsting for
information as to the world in general as well as with regard to himself
in particular.
During this bombardment of queries the host and hostess were not
forgetful to supply their young guest with the viands under which the
substantial table groaned, while several of the younger members of the
family, including the pretty Bertha, stood behind the rest and waited on
them. With the exception of the host and hostess, none of the household
spoke during the meal, all being fully occupied in listening eagerly and
eating heartily.
When the Dutch fire began to slacken for want of ammunition,
Considine retaliated by opening a British battery, and soon learned that
Marais and his wife both claimed, and were not a little proud of, a few
drops of French blood. Their progenitors on