Swallow: A Tale of the Great Trek by H. Rider Haggard
Produced by John Bickers; Dagny
SWALLOW
A TALE OF THE GREAT TREK
BY
H. RIDER HAGGARD
Ditchingham, 20th May, 1898.
My dear Clarke,
Over twenty years have passed since we found some unique opportunitiesof observing Boer and Kaffir character in company; therefore it is notperhaps out of place that I should ask you to allow me to put your nameupon a book which deals more or less with the peculiarities of thoseraces--a tale of the great Trek of 1836.
You, as I know, entertain both for Dutchman and Bantu that regardtempered by a sense of respectful superiority which we are apt to feelfor those who on sundry occasions have but just failed in bringing ourearthly career to an end. The latter of these admirations I share to thefull; and in the case of the first of them, as I hope that the dour butnot unkindly character of Vrouw Botmar will prove to you, time softensa man's judgment. Nor have I ever questioned, as the worthy Vrouw tellsus, that in the beginning of the trouble the Boers met with muchof which to complain at the hands of English Governments. Theirmaltreatment was not intentional indeed, but rather a result ofsystematic neglect--to use a mild word--of colonies and theirinhabitants, which has culminated within our own experience, only,thanks to a merciful change in public opinion, to pass away for ever.Sympathy with the Voortrekkers of 1836 is easy; whether it remains so inthe case of their descendants, the present masters of the Transvaal, isa matter that admits of many opinions. At the least, allowance shouldalways be made for the susceptibilities of a race that finds itsindividuality and national life sinking slowly, but without hope ofresurrection, beneath an invading flood of Anglo-Saxons.
But these are issues of to-day with which this story has little to do.
Without further explanation, then, I hope that you will accept thesepages in memory of past time and friendship, and more especially of theprovidential events connected with a night-long ride which once we tookon duty together among the "schanzes" and across the moon-lit paths ofSecocoeni's mountain.
Believe me, my dear Clarke, Your sincere friend, H. Rider Haggard.
To Lieut.-Colonel Sir Marshal Clarke, R.A., K.C.M.G.
SWALLOW
CHAPTER I
WHY VROUW BOTMAR TELLS HER TALE
It is a strange thing that I, an old Boer _vrouw_, should even thinkof beginning to write a book when there are such numbers already inthe world, most of them worthless, and many of the rest a scandal andoffence in the face of the Lord. Notably is this so in the case of thosecalled novels, which are stiff as mealie-pap with lies that fill theheads of silly girls with vain imaginings, causing them to neglect theirhousehold duties and to look out of the corners of their eyes at youngmen of whom their elders do not approve. In truth, my mother and thosewhom I knew in my youth, fifty years ago, when women were good andworthy and never had a thought beyond their husbands and their children,would laugh aloud could any whisper in their dead ears that SuzanneNaude was about to write a book. Well might they laugh indeed, seeingthat to this hour the most that I can do with men and ink is to signmy own name very large; in this matter alone, not being the equal of myhusband Jan, who, before he became paralysed, had so much learningthat he could read aloud from the Bible, leaving out the names and longwords.
No, no, _I_ am not going to write; it is my great-granddaughter, who isnamed Suzanne after me, who writes. And who that had not seen her at thework could even guess how she does it? I tell you that she has broughtup from Durban a machine about the size of a pumpkin which goestap-tap--like a woodpecker, and prints as it taps. Now, my husband Janwas always very fond of music in his youth, and when first the girlbegan to tap upon this strange instrument, he, being almost blind andnot able to see it, thought that she was playing on a spinet suchas stood in my grandfather's house away in the Old Colony. The noisepleases him and sends him to sleep, reminding him of the days whenhe courted me and I used to strum upon that spinet with one finger.Therefore I am dictating this history that he may have plenty of it, andthat Suzanne may be kept out of mischief.
There, that is my joke. Still there is truth in it, for Jan Botmar, myhusband, he who was the strongest man among the fathers of the greattrek of 1836, when, like the Israelites of old, we escaped from theEnglish, our masters, into the wilderness, crouches in the corner yondera crippled giant with but one sense left to him, his hearing, and alittle power of wandering speech. It is strange to look at him, hiswhite hair hanging upon his shoulders, his eyes glazed, his chin sunkupon his breast, his great hands knotted and helpless, and to rememberthat at the battle of Vechtkop, when Moselikatse sent his regiments tocrush us, I saw those same hands of his seize the only two Zulus whobroke a way into our laager and shake and dash them together till theywere dead.
Well, well, who am I that I should talk? For has not the dropsy got holdof my legs, and did not that doctor, who, though an Englishman, is nofool, tell me but yesterday that it was creeping up towards my heart?We are old and soon must die, for such is the will of God. Let us thenthank God that it is our lot to pass thus easily and in age, and notto have perished in our youth, as did so many of our companions, theVoortrekkers, they and their children together, by the spear of thesavage, or by starvation and fever and wild beasts in the wilderness.Ah! I think of them often, and in my sleep, which has grown light oflate, I see them often, and hear those voices that none but I would knowto-day. I think of them and I see them, and since Suzanne has the skillto set down my words, a desire comes upon me to tell of them andtheir deeds before God takes me by the hand and I am borne through thedarkness by the wings of God.
Also there is another reason. The girl, Suzanne Kenzie, mygreat-granddaughter, who writes this, alone is left of my blood, sinceher father and grandfather, who was our adopted son, and the husband ofour only child, fell in the Zulu war fighting with the English againstCetywayo. Now many have heard the strange story of Ralph Kenzie, theEnglish castaway, and of how he was found by our daughter Suzanne. Manyhave heard also the still stranger story of how this child of ours,Suzanne, in her need, was sheltered by savages, and for more than twoyears lived with Sihamba, the little witch doctoress and ruler of theTribe of the Mountains, till Ralph, her husband, who loved her, soughther out and rescued her, that by the mercy of the Lord during all thistime had suffered neither harm nor violence. Yes, many have heard ofthese things, for in bygone years there was much talk of them as ofevents out of nature and marvellous, but few have heard them right.Therefore before I go, I, who remember and know them all, would set themdown that they may be a record for ever among my descendants and thedescendants of Ralph Kenzie, my foster-son, who, having been brought upamongst us Boers, was the best and bravest Englishman that ever lived inAfrica.