TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN A. WAGGON.* UNDER this quaint title, we
have a really interesting book about South Central Africa, measuring that territory from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, and "from the 15° to the 30° South latitude," over the greater part of which Mr. Anderson, a " Colonial," travelled during his pilgrimage of a quarter of a century. We can only regret that in place of the illustrations, which are of no value, the author, or the editor, did not publish "my map," to which the former refers in the text, so that we might have seen at a glance, and in detail, the whole range he traversed from Natal to Khama's country, from the western reaches of the Orange River to the Cubango, from the Kalahari wilderness to the banks of the Sabia in Sofala Bay. Within this huge area, between 1863 and 1878, he seems to have wandered ceaselessly to and fro, rarely returning to the haunts of civilised men ; and the results of his nomad life in their varied aspects, as noted by this genial geographer,
• Twenty-fine Years in a Waggon in the Gold Regions of Africa. By Andrew A. Andorran. 2 vole. London Chapman and Hall. sportsman, naturalist, and student of men and manners, are set down modestly in these two volumes. They derive, of course, an additional interest from the gold-hunting mania which has recently developed itself with such great energy ; but the charm of the book for the general reader lies in the judicious mingling of entertaining with solidly instructive pages, and the kind of collective view which these present of lands and creatures existing between thescream of the railway-whistle atlhe diamond- beds, and the whiz of the poisoned arrow upon the waters which feed the Upper Zambese ; between the savage region of sand and rock looking on the Atlantic, and the fertile uplands, with their vegetable and mineral treasures, which elope down to the low country on the stormy and treacherous Mozambique Channel. Mr. Anderson has achieved a great and useful purpose, and withal so joyously, that the reader's gratitude would be almost boundless if only the missing map had been added to these excellent volumes.
A veteran and learned French Admiral has said,—" II n'y a rien de si entreprenant at de si tAm6raire qu'un marchand." He was thinking of the mariner-merchant who, like Harpalus, committed himself to the south-west monsoon and alighted on the coast of Malabar ; or Timoathenes, who, he believes, was the first to double Guard-a-fui ; or the men, as Colonel Yule, quoting Al Biruni, points out, who, trading between Sofala and China before the eleventh century, made Somnauth a port of call,—" a remarkable incidental notice of departed trade and civilisation," as he truly terms it. Bat the Admiral knew, of course, that the land hath hardy men of this stamp, as well as the sea. Here in South Central Africa we have two species, both found in the wilds,—the missionary and the trader, the one at his station, the other at his store. The traveller furnishes a third kind, and when he becomes a nomad with a noble aim, he almost realises the picture drawn by the Laureate of the Homeric wanderer :— " Yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought."
For he contemplated his journeyings and framed his design before 1860, when he had no maps to guide him, and he resolved that, so far as he could make it so, his work, the outcome of his travels in the then unknown regions, should, among other things, be a book of reference on the geography of South Central Africa. So he drove forth into the wilds from Natal in 1863, and lived in his movable house for five-and-twenty years,—a large cantle out of the life of a man. Many daring spirits have gone over parts of the same ground since then, and have pub- lished records of their expeditions ; but none, that we are aware of, approaches in completeness, based on so much personal . observation, this broad and minute survey of what, thirty years ago, was in the main a vast unexplored field. After closing the volumes, we feel as if we also had endured the toil and priva- tion and peril, had shared in the delight of the traveller, and, aided by imagination, had, like him, acquired an abiding picture of a realm savage indeed, yet rich, beautiful, and im- pressive throughout its endless variety from ocean to ocean.
It would be impossible in any available space to give even a fair summary of the contents of a work which really consists of broad masses of details pleasantly woven together, and drawn from observation over the wide African belt. The geography which abounds, yet is ever welcome, cannot be re- presented by excerpt or abstract. The descriptions of the various tribes or races, from the diminutive Bushmen—some of the other natives call them monkeys, yet they seem human enough —to the robust, powerful, and finely formed Kaffir and Zulu, though scattered and not concentrated, yet give the idea that something could surely be made of material which remains barbaric, apparently, because it has not been brought under the continuous influence of civilisation. The girls, for example, who willingly and gladly wear European clothing where it is the fashion, put it off altogether among the savage communities, saying that they dress and undress " like the other girls." The readiness with which the promising Bechuanas take to clothes is well known; and, indeed, wherever they can get European raiment —including patent-leather boots and tall hats—it seems welcome. It is, however, only now and then that we meet such station society, because the chief part of our author's wanderings were through districts where rude Nature in all her aspects reigned supreme. And he is always at home, whether in the lower reaches of the Orange River, upon whose waters he was the first to launch a boat ; or in the untouched wilderness of the Northern Kalahari, where pythons 18 feet long disturbed his bathing ; or in the
primeval forests which enchant him, where the baobab-tree is 108 feet in girth ; or among the tribes of Matabeleland wit- nessing the war-dances and parades and sham-fights of Lo- Bengulu's magnificent warriors. The contrast between the Bushmen, without foreheads, whose sad lot raises feelings of pity and wonder, and the intelligent, good-looking Bechuanas, who, makers of musical instruments, enjoy the performance of "reed bands;" and between these fast-developing children of Nature, and the superb, undiluted savages further East, and as yet beyond European influence of a determinate character, is most striking, suggestive, and, we may add, hopeful, for evidently the finer races of the South African wilderness are not beyond the reach of discipline and refinement. Mr. Anderson adds his testimony to the cloud of witnesses who speak well of the Bechuanas. He says they are ontetepping the Boers in civilisation, "and if they had white skins, would be looked upon as a superior race." Indeed, at several points we find manifest signs of high capability. The Mashonas, for instance, show marked aptitudes in all kinds of workmanship. They are " excellent workers in metals," and they " manufacture blankets from the cotton-fibre, which no other nation in South Central Africa does." But they display no inclination for clothing ; that decisive step forward has not yet become the fashion in those remote countries.
Among the many illustrative and interesting facts respecting the lower animals strewed over these pages, we must make room for three curiosities. The common black crow, with white about the neck, can be taught to speak, and become the friend of man :—
" I tamed a young one. He would not sleep in the waggon, but early in the morning he would settle on the fore-part, where he could raise the foresail and look in. On seeing me in bed, he would come in, hop up to my face, take hold of my nose, or have a peck at my beard, look round to examine the things hanging on the sides, and then bop out. On my getting up and leaving the waggon, he would be seen dying from some tree, and come and settle on my hat or shoulder ; if the latter, he would pat his head round and rub his beak against my face."
Mr. Anderson insists that it is reason, and not instinct, which governs the actions of animals, and he tells an anecdote of an incident which occurred on the Tonga :—
" A little below my waggon a native boy caught a young crocodile about a foot in length, took it up to the huts, and pat it into an old basket. About two hours afterwards my driver called out that there was a large crocodile crawling up the bank, and making for the but where the young one was in the basket, [while] the natives were running away. On looking out of my waggon, sure enough, a large one, about eleven feet in length, was up to the basket, when my %afire ran up with rifles and shot it."
He says that he had heard many similar stories, bat "put little faith in them until I absolutely saw for myself the truth of these statements." Was it smell, observation, instinct, or reason, which led the mother to her scaly baby P The other extract, told by the editor, is somewhat ghastly. It is to illustrate the powers of the mocking-bird :—
" A Kafir disappeared, and the next night groans were heard near the Kraal. Search was made in vain to find him; and when the next night also groans were heard, it was evident that they proceeded from his ghost. So a more diligent search was made, when the body was found buried, and the murderer was hanged. Still the groans con- tinued, and at last they were found to proceed from a mockingbird, sole witness of the murder."
We might easily multiply good things culled from these volumes, but must pause. The public will like to know what testimony Mr. Anderson has to offer about gold-mines. We may say that, although he does not, and in the nature of things could not, from his migratory habits, offer indisputable proof that gold is plentiful, he does affirm that it is to be found over nearly the entire belt, as well as in the Transvaal field. "The Mashona country in the North," he writes, "is but little known, from the difficulty thrown in the way of exploring it, particularly along the south side of the Zambese ; gold in large quantities is known to be there, as also other minerals." Again, an old hunter showed him some gold got from reef and river, and he adds :—" The whole of the region down to the Zambese [that is, north from the Matoppo Hills] is a gold.bearing country." After describing the Matabele and Maehona country, he comes to the sweeping conclusion that "it will surpass all others in South Africa as a gold-producing district" and as a splendid cotton-field, the finest in the world. He seems also to include the large tracts to the East reaching down to Sofala, all which are outside the Transvaal. He found, and has sketched, ancient forts in some of which were furnaces for working metals, and he inclines to the opinion that some white race, in centuries bygone, sought and found gold in this country, but never
employed scientific or exhaustive methods. He is much exercised in his mind respecting the " Emperor of Monomatapa," and the legend of the Queen of Sheba, whose realm, the Arabs say, was between the Birne and the Sabia. It is not at all improbable that either Arabs or Portuguese, at some time not so very remote, did push inland and search for gold. The forts, though apparently not very old, and the circular stone kraals, suggest a " white race " traces of whom our traveller heard of no far north as the extreme edge of the far-stretching Kalahari, which is by no means a desert, but in great part a land of woods and pools, rain-fed, and abounding in game. But we must abruptly part from a book which, besides being delightful in itself, more than most suggests wide prospects of new fields accessible to European enterprise, if not all of them suitable for healthy European life.
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