A STRANGE PEOPLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9775, 23 March 1895, Page 2 (Supplement)

A STRANGE PEOPLE.

In the district) of Ruitemburg, Transvaal (says a writer in the Argosy), there is a wide plain, dreary and forlorn, overgrown with tall grass and seemingly uninhabited. Ib is an unpleasant tract of country; the climate malarial, the air oppressive. The whole thing looks sickly and sad. About halfpast four one bright afternoon we, a party of six young men, were slowly travelling across this plain on our way north. The waggon was making slow work of it, for the i peat clogged the wheels. I had fallen behind the others with a friend, engaged iu deep conversation; we had not observed that we were being left far in the rear. My companion was a Transvaller of the district, an experienced hunter, very intelligent and observant. It was a pleasure and privilege to be in his company, especially as the country Was strange to me, and I had always been attracted by nature. As we were going quietly forward, I suddenly saw my companion start, holding up a warning finger, and listen attentively. Then, stepping aside, he made me squat down beside him in the grass. A few moments later he pointed forward; six lions, two full-grown, four half-grown, stalked majestically in front of us. They proceeded some fifty yards and then disappeared behind a ridge of hills to the right. We walked forward more quickly, all my faculties on the alert. Looking past some reeds in front of us, he showed mo two quaggas grazing nearly two hundred yards off He motioned to me to cover the front one whilst he took the hindmost. We fired and each brought down his quarry. I felt sorry that we had slaughtered those animals —needlessly, as I thought—and said so to my companion. " I uever kill anything unnecessarily," ha replied. "Just walk on; you'll see presently." We went on for about eighty yards. " Now turn round and look," he said. I did so. The sky was literally moving; it was a great swarm of vultures on the wing, circling downwards towards their prey. He answered my unspoken question: "These birds seem to be up there always on the look-out, and appear within ten seconds of my shooting any game." " But surely you have nob made us shoot the quaffgfts to feod these creatures." "No," returned he. "I have not. Let us go on." Wo had proceeded some fifty yards, when my friend observed : " Now we will torn over here to the left; there is something I wish to show you." I obeyed, and we proceeded up a small ascent. Just as we came to the top I started back, for right ab my feet I saw & remarkable sight. It was a large basin ot some twenty yards in diameter, bubbling over with cle«u: water, which was discharged through a small outlet at the further side. This stream ran on for a short distance and then disappeared into the earth at mysteri- i ously as it rose. Below us was a footpath I leading down to the brink, and all about ■ the water's edge aud in the path we saw ! footprint* of birds, wolves, quaggas, deer, buffaloes—and of hnman beings. These last were very small, flat, and unshapely—a miserable specimen of the human foot. Before I could speak my companion said, " Look back at the gam»." I complied, and to my amazement saw that round the carcases wore collected, nob as I expected a mass of hyenas or vultures, but a crowd of people, men and women, busy cutting it up. Everything was going on in perfecb order and silence. There was no unseemly scramble; each seemed to know his work and bo do ib. One man, evidently the chief, stood on one side to superintend. He gave his commands, and they wore implicitly obeyed. It seemed as though it were a sort of "cutting-up" parade. Every now and then they all stopped for a few moments, and then fell-to with renewed vigour. In stature they wore very small, barely clad, armed with tiny bows and arrows. The women were a little better clad—in skins mostly. I could distinguish them receiving and cleaning the meat. At first I was dumbfounded, then i charmed, then saddened. I could have wept —the scene was so unique, so weird, so depressing. There was something so uncanny about it all. The sky overhead was swarming with vulture?. On the brow of a small rise the six lions had reappeared and stood looking sleepily on. In the midst worked this group of strange beings of ths earth. The sky was dull and grey ; a low breeze moaned over the tops of tho reeds, and we could distinctly hear the sound of the cutting borne to us 011 the wind. The chief standing on the edge of the group was evidently fearing the parties on all sides. We could see him gaze now up at the vultures, then at the lions, then at us, and bo kept bis arrow fitted to his bow ready for use. The lions were squatting down on the hill waiting for them to finish. Sorely not much of a supper would vultures, hyenas, and these brutes have for themselves !

"It is for them we shot the quaggas," broke in my comrade. " Poor things; it is a hard time, this, for them. The game is gradually being shot or otherwise driven away." " But who are they 1" "I do not know. The whole plain is full of them. There is not a single spot where you do not meet with them. I have shot scores of quaggna and other game, and always seen this result." Whab I had seen was like a dream, yet ib all occurred exactly m I have described it. Never can I forgot this curious adventure and tho strange people on the Rastemburg plain. ______________