Tramp Royale (29 page)

She told us quite simply that they wanted to make a lot of money. I'm sure they will.

Inside of ten minutes after leaving Nelspruit we were glad that the train had gone off without us. It was a glorious day and glorious countryside. The Transvaal is some of the lushest rolling farm land on this globe and I can understand how the Voortrekkers felt that they had reached the promised land when they reached it after crossing the grand but pitiless Karoo. All they asked of life was fertile land, cattle, and plenty of slaves to do the work-the simple things in life.

Nelspruit is not much above sea level. We climbed through the low veld, the middle veld, and the high veld in the course of the day, gaining more than a mile in altitude but so gradually as to be not noticeable. It was rolling, open prairie, lightly sprinkled with trees, like the best of our middle west farm country. The wide, almost flat-topped flamboyant tree, a trademark of South Africa, was usually in sight somewhere, reminding us that this was not the middle west, but a page out of the
National Geographic.

There was also a little bird which did not look like home. It was known locally as the widow-of-paradise bird and looked much like a redwinged blackbird save that it had two long, black, floppy tail feathers, perhaps three times the length of its little body. These gave it quite unfavorable aerodynamic characteristics and it proceeded in series of frantic attempts to gain altitude to overcome the drag, then pulled down again, so that it traced a sine curve through the air. Nevertheless it seemed quite happy and no doubt thought that was the only way there was to fly.

In late afternoon we drove through Pretoria without stopping and turned south toward Johannesburg. Pretoria is a clean and beautiful small city of gardens and fine public buildings and is one of the three capitals of the Union, the seat of government-the supreme court is in Bloemfontein and the legislature is in Cape Town. In the outskirts to the south is the Voortrekker Monument and for this we did stop, it being a world-famous Afrikander shrine.

The monument is a large, square, ugly building of great dignity. It sits on a hilltop surrounded by a sculptured circle of covered wagons. The interior is empty save for an altar on a lower level which is struck by sunlight through a hole in the roof only at noon on December 16th, their national holiday. There are bas reliefs running around the inside which portray the struggles of crossing the desert, fighting natives, coping with broken wagons, etc. Ticky and I were struck by the strong resemblance in equipment and costume between these pictured pioneers and those of our own old west. Only in that the "hostiles" were shown as flat-nosed rather than hook-nosed could a difference readily be seen. The men wore spade beards, the women wore Mother Hubbards, the prairie schooners looked like ours. It made us think of the pictures and statuary of the Mormon Trek as seen in Salt Lake City-not really surprising since the Mormons trekked in 1847 and the Cape Dutch in 1838 and following. I could not forget, however, that the two sets of pioneers trekked for very different reasons: the Mormons were attempting to escape religious persecution whereas the Voortrekkers moved on (in part at least) because the British had freed their slaves.

Of course it does not look that way to the Afrikanders and no doubt this book will be added to the long list of books banned by law in South Africa. Mrs. Morgan evidenced the first emotion I had seen her show; she looked around at scenes of Boers fighting Bantus and said very solemnly and softly, "They did it for us."

The Voortrekkers seem to have won. The edict from London emancipating the slaves is still law but Dr. Malan's government has succeeded in substituting a serfdom for the entire black race which leaves the black man no more free than he was more than a century ago without putting the Voortrekkers' descendants to the inconvenience and expense of being personally responsible for the welfare of chattel slaves. (And on the other side of the world we are still persecuting the polygamous dissident Mormons of the Arizona Strip.)

There was a sign outside giving visiting hours and limiting "non-Europeans" to one afternoon a week. I wonder if any of them visit it.

Before I am accused of a double standard let me say that I am aware that our own treatment of the American Indians was in many instances a scandal and a crime, but we have made many amends. There is now no legal distinction between the red man and the white, save that the Indian may, if he wishes, avail himself of certain legal privileges denied to the whites. But he is not required to.

American Indian blood is a matter of pride with us today, e.g., Will Rogers. And we have had an Indian Vice President. I will concede that the Afrikanders treat the Bantus "no worse" than we have treated the American aborigines the day Dr. Malan has a black deputy prime minister. Oh, that will be a day!

Before somebody points out that the barefoot Bantu savage is not capable of full modern citizenship
as he is
let me concede the point-and let me add that he never will raise himself up to the status of Dr. Ralph Bunche or of Dr. George Washington Carver as things are now; the Nationalist Party is firmly determined not to let him.

And in answer to that raucous voice in the back-the man with the sheet over his arm-let me say that my sister is already married. Anyway, it's her business, not mine. The meeting is adjourned.

South Africa has wonderful roads even if the railroads are a practical joke. We were in Johannesburg well before dark. It is a modern city even to its traffic jams, which would do credit to New York; it was well past dark before we reached our hotel. We took a quick tub and grabbed another taxi to a lovely home in the suburbs, owned by people we had met in the
Ruys.
We had cocktails by a swimming pool in a beautiful walled garden, dinner by candle light which was served by white-gloved black servants. I noticed that our hostess called her butler "Sixpence" and asked her what his real name was?

"Why, 'Sixpence,' " she told me.

"I mean his Bantu name."

She shrugged. "So far as I know, that is the only name he has." Then she changed the subject.

I learned later that "Sixpence" is the usual nickname of any Bantu male house servant. I had again shown a gauche ignorance of local custom. But in the United States even the goldfish have names.

In that household wardrobes and cupboards are kept locked, inner doors as well as outer are locked at night, the grounds are surrounded by a high wall and can be floodlighted. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, about a South African lady in Durban who was disturbed at the rumors of an impending native uprising. She called in her houseboy and said, "Sixpence, you wouldn't cut my throat-would you?"

He opened his eyes wide in horror. "Oh, no, Missy! I cut throat of lady missy next door-
her
boy cut your throat."

You hear this story in South Africa but the laugh is a little forced.

The next day we flew to Durban to join the
Ruys.
The ship was a DC-6B, a plane which appears to be the work horse of the world at present, just as its smaller and older sister, the DC-3, was for so long-not but what there are plenty of DC-3s still flying all over the world. Like the Model-T Ford, it is necessary to bury a DC-3 at a crossroads with a holly stake through its heart to make it quit flying.

As we took off from Johannesburg we saw that it was surrounded by manmade mountains of sulphur-colored mine tailings. That was the last of the scenery, as we saw nothing but the top sides of clouds from there to the coast. As a means of sightseeing airplanes are better than subways, but not much. So I looked at the hostess instead. As always, she was well worth looking at. I like to look at pretty girls and Ticky indulges me in this hobby, one which is, after all, inexpensive, harmless, and does not damage the goods. I hope to live to be a nasty old man, with that as my last pleasure in life.

The most nearly perfectly beautiful airline hostess we saw on this trip was a Polynesian girl, but this Springbok hostess was well up in the money. Presently she came over and talked with us. We learned that she was engaged to a doctor who had just left for postgraduate work in San Francisco. She had been unable to go with him because the terms of his fellowship required him not to marry for two years, and now she was worrying that he might forget her for some American girl. We assured her solemnly that if he did, he had rocks in his head-an obvious truth. But it did not console her. She told us that she would have been happy to go with him without being married, but she had not been able to arrange a visa that would let her work.

Sometimes I think the rules are rigged to require at least one fly in every bowl of soup. This planet is not too well run.

After the balmy veld and cool Johannesburg, landing in Durban was like being plunged in a steam bath. By the time we had landed and taken a long, hot, sticky ride to the docks we were tired and irritable. We then had to go through outgoing customs, a practice infuriating through its sheer uselessness, but one which I learned to take with a fixed smile and mendacious good nature.

Not so Ticky! We had to fill out long forms to get ourselves, our camera, and our binoculars aboard ship, which made the third time that we had gone through the rigamarole for South Africa alone. South Africa specializes in empty rituals to slow down the traveler, most of them having the flavor of children's games-"Penalty Square: Go Back Four Spaces"-that sort of thing. For example, Mr. Tupper, our jovial companion of the
Gulf Shipper,
got caught by their requirement of a cash deposit to insure that he would leave the country (we were excused because we had a ticket to Singapore). He put up the deposit in dollars, attempted to collect it when he left and was told that it was returnable only in South African pounds. He pointed out that he had deposited dollars but it did him no good to argue; they had planned it that way.

While I was filling out forms and trying to convince the customs officer that I could not show him the serial number of my camera because it was on the inside where it could not be seen without ruining a partly-exposed roll of film, Ticky was standing behind me making ominous teakettle sounds. As they began to boil over into recognizable epithets I finished hurriedly, paid some minor clearance fee, and rushed her out of there. As soon as I got her back aboard the
Ruys
and inside our stateroom with the door closed I started giving her what-for, explaining in short, bitter words that we were strangers in a strange land and that we had to conform to the local rules whether we liked them or not. Then I attempted to exact from her a firm promise never again, under any circumstances, to be anything other than cheerful and co-operative when going through customs, no matter how much it hurt.

Ticky stuck out her lower lip and looked determined and I found out why the word "obey" had become obsolete in the marriage service-I didn't make a dent. (I must read Robert Louis Stevenson's
Travels with a Donkey
someday. Is it possible that he was describing his honeymoon?)

Reconsidering it coldly and much later I am not sure that I was right and she was wrong. Men are much too law-abiding and will put up with nonsense that women know instinctively is wrong. Males receive a sterner discipline in childhood, then when they reach the age when they might break free of it they are usually subjected to a term of military service which leaves them forever after pliable in the face of queues, red tape, nonsense forms, and protocol for the sake of protocol-they disapprove but they conform.

Not so the female race! They evade or ignore rules and regulations wherever possible without the slightest feeling of guilt, and their husbands are often involuntary and unhappy accessories before and after the fact. Possibly this is a good thing, albeit uncomfortable for the male. Somebody has to strike a blow for freedom before we drown in a sea of red tape.

Speaking of donkeys, we almost bought one. The usual equivalent of a farm truck for a Bantu farmer is a long, narrow flatbed wagon drawn by four or six donkeys. Sam had told Ticky that these cunning little beasts cost only two-and-six, or thirty-five cents U.S., which seemed incredible. I asked Mrs. Morgan about this and found that Sam was almost correct, as she had just recently bought two donkeys for ten shillings for her farm foreman, the price per head thus coming to seventy cents or the price of a pound of butter in Colorado Springs.

Ticky immediately decided to take one back to the States as a pet.

I tried to argue her out of it, though I should have known better. Mere words have never affected the diamond-like quality of her will.

At last I dug into my pocket and handed her two half-crowns. "Here, buy yourself a donkey. You arrange deck passage for it, you get it through quarantine at Singapore-six months. Get it through again at Sydney and Auckland-another six months each, I believe. Same for San Francisco. Write me a letter occasionally and tell me how you are making out."

She took the money and I heard no more about it. But much later aboard ship, when I needed change for something, she told me firmly not to touch the two coins on her dressing table because they were the money for the donkey. I concede the logic of it.

The ship stayed over an extra day in Durban which gave us time to go into Zululand. I wanted to go a bit farther into the game preserve at Hluhluwe (pronounced "shloo-shloo" as if you were rinsing your teeth) in order to see white rhinoceri, but it was just a few miles too far away; one flat tire and we might miss the ship. So we settled for Zulus and the shade of Umpslopagaas.

Mr. Brown, guide for Thomas Cook, Ltd., drove us north to Eshowe, capital of Zululand. I do not know what I expected to find; Zulu history was no part of my formal education and my impressions of the Zulu Empire had been derived largely from Sir Rider Haggard's wonderful but fanciful romances. However, Sir Rider was no mere spinner of fairy tales; his descriptions of the valiant Zulu impis, or regiments, of their military system and tactics, of their stern character, must be taken as factual; he had seen them at the height of their power just before their defeat by the British in the Zulu War in 1879.