Sporting Scenes amongst the Kaffirs of South Africa   By: A. W. (Alfred Wilks) Drayson (1827-1901)

SPORTING SCENES AMONGST THE KAFFIRS OF SOUTH AFRICA, BY CAPTAIN ALFRED W. DRAYSON.

PREFACE.

Nearly every person with whom I have conversed since my return from South Africa, has appeared to take great interest in the Kaffirs, the wild animals, and other inhabitants of that country.

I am not vain enough to suppose that my friends have merely pretended this interest for the sole object of allowing me an opportunity of talking, and have thereby deluded me into a belief of affording amusement. But I really think that the opinions which they have expressed are genuine, and that perhaps the same wish for information on the subject of the Kaffirs, or the wild beasts of the Cape, may be more widely extended than I have been able personally to prove.

Most men who have written on South Africa, have been either sporting giants, scientific men, or travellers who have gone over ground never before trodden by the white man. I am neither of these.

The first I am not, for the blood spilled by me was but a drop compared to the ocean that many have caused to flow in this land.

Unfortunately I am not scientific; but, perhaps, from this very defect, I may become the more intelligible to the general reader of the following pages, who may comprehend my simple names for simple things, rather than those of a polysyllabic character.

I know that I have sunk miserably in the opinion of savants , in consequence of my inability to tell whether or not the Terstraemiaceae grew luxuriantly in Africa. I only knew that the plains bore beautiful flowers, and I learnt their Kaffir names; that the bush had fine trees, some with, sweet scented blossoms, others with fruit, and I knew which fruit was good to eat.

By travellers, I may be considered presumptuous in attempting to write on South Africa, when I never crossed the Vaal river or penetrated far into the interior; but I must trust that they will pardon my temerity. I was obliged, from circumstances, to pursue the game nearer my home, which required "more patient search and vigil long," for the creatures had become more wild or savage than those animals in the interior that were seldom disturbed.

From sketches and a rough journal compiled on the spot, I have formed this book.

CHAPTER ONE.

VOYAGE TO THE CAPE DISCOMFORTS OF A LONG VOYAGE THE WOLF TURNED LAMB PORPOISES AND PORTUGUESE MEN OF WAR THE MATE'S STORY CATCHING A SHARK AN ALBATROSS HOOKED CAPE TOWN ALGOA BAY OX WAGGON SOUTH AFRICAN TRAVELLING OBSTINACY CONQUERED EXPEDITIOUS JOURNEYING FRONTIER OF THE COLONY.

To an indifferent sailor, a long voyage is not by any means a pleasant thing; and I quite agree with the sage who said that a man on board a ship was a prisoner, with the additional risk of being drowned. One feels a continual yearning for the green fields, fresh butter and milk; and the continual noise, confusion, and other disagreeables, are more trying to temper and patience than can be imagined by a quiet stay at home gentleman.

We left England in the coldest weather that had been remembered for years. A month's daily skating on the Serpentine was a bad preparation for a week's calm, under a burning sun, within a degree of the line, twenty seven days afterwards. The frames of Englishmen, however, appear to be better adapted for the changes of climate than are those of the inhabitants of any other country.