Adams Henry Cadwallader
Hair-Breadth Escapes: The Adventures of Three Boys in South Africa

Chapter Twenty One
The Basuto Kraal – Queen Laura – The Queen’s Narrative – The Wreck of the Grosvenor – Sufferings of the Survivors – The Basuto Chief – De Walden’s Joy

Nightfall was near at hand, when the party approached the Basuto kraal; and the boys looked eagerly round them to see if they could discover any marked differences between it and the other native villages which they had visited. Ella, as she had called herself, had hardly spoken a word during the whole journey. A sudden shyness apparently having seized her, which was a curious contrast to the self-possession of her demeanour when she first encountered them. To the questions addressed to her by Frank and Nick, she made very brief and seemingly reluctant replies, and they soon discontinued their inquiries. But their curiosity was only heightened by the lady’s unwillingness to satisfy it. It appeared that De Walden had heard something of a white Basuto Queen; but whence she came, or how she had attained to her kingdom, was a sealed mystery. Perhaps she might be one of an English colony, which had established itself in these parts, and assumed a sovereignty over all the inhabitants round about But if so, it was strange that none of them should have heard from the Bechuanas, and especially from Kobo, anything about such a colony. Well, at all events, a very short stay in the village would suffice to explain the mystery; probably, indeed, the first sight of it would be sufficient.

But this did not prove to be the case. The kraal was not very unlike those of the Bechuanas, and other neighbouring tribes. The houses were constructed of wicker-work plaited with reed, and had the usual arched entrance, which served as door, window, and chimney. There were the baskets and pails, the assegais, and bows and arrows, which usually stood in front of a Kaffir hut, or were hung against the central pole. The population, too, which had assembled, one and all, to witness the entry of the strangers, did not materially differ from the other inhabitants of the district. The whole kraal, to be sure, had the appearance of having been constructed in haste, and only partially finished; but otherwise, our adventurers would hardly have known that they had entered the country of a new people. As soon as they had entered the enclosure, Ella called up one of the natives, to whom she gave some orders in a tone that was not audible, and then, turning to her companions with a graceful bend of the head, she vanished into one of the neighbouring houses. The Basuto to whom she had spoken, now stepped up to the Englishmen and invited them, by a gesture of the hand, to follow him. They obeyed, and presently found themselves in a room which showed, for the first time, a real contrast to ordinary savage life. It was a room, not the inside of a hut – a room perhaps fourteen feet square, hastily constructed of trees squared by the axe, and planks nailed horizontally to them, but a room, nevertheless, with ceiling, unglazed windows and doors, and carpeted with Kaffir matting. There were even some rude chairs and a table in the centre. Their guide pointed to these first, and then to a door opening into another apartment of about the same size, where some skins were spread on the floor. “Eat here,” he said; “sleep there.”

The first part of his speech was presently made good by the arrival of two Basutos, carrying some baskets, which contained rice, Indian corn, and several varieties of fruit. These were placed in the middle of the table, and a wooden platter was assigned to each guest, who sat down to something like a regular meal for the first day for many months past. “I don’t understand about this Queen,” said Frank, as he pushed away his wooden plate. “I remember my uncle told me that, beyond the limits of the Cape Colony, there were nothing but savages for hundreds and thousands of miles; and that it wasn’t safe for white people to venture among them. Who in the world can she be?”

“You seemed to know something about her, sir,” remarked Warley, turning to De Walden. “Perhaps you can explain the mystery.”

“I know nothing more,” said the missionary, “than that I sometimes heard, whilst living to the north of the Basuto country, that some hundreds of miles southwards, there was a tribe under the rule of a woman, whose race and colour was different from theirs, and who was generally believed to be an enchantress. That, of course, was mere barbarous superstition, but the true facts of the case I never learned. We shall doubtless, however, soon hear them, as we were to be summoned to her presence as soon as we had partaken of food. Ay, here, I suppose, comes the messenger to give us notice that she is ready to receive us.”

This conjecture proved to be correct, and in a few minutes they were ushered into the apartment, where the Queen of the Basutos sat in state to receive them. It was similar in construction to the one they had just quitted, but larger, and with more attempt at ornament. The ceiling was coloured white, relieved with green, and the walls a dark yellow; the latter exhibiting something like an attempt at panelling. At the further end was a kind of dais rising three steps, on the topmost of which stood a massive chair of ebony wood, and one smaller but of the same material by its side. The floor was spread with Kaffir mats of gay patterns, while several articles belonging only to European civilisation – books, an inkstand, a writing-desk, and the like – were arranged on a large heavy table of the same material as the chair. From the ceiling there hung a lamp, like those ordinarily used on board ships, and fed with oil, which diffused a very sufficient light throughout the apartment. Behind the royal chair, and on either side down the room, were several Basutos, wearing dresses made of the skin of the koodoo, or the leché, and carrying light assegais in their hands.

The Queen herself was a woman apparently between forty and fifty; bearing a strong resemblance to her daughter, but of a fairer complexion, her hair and eyes being also of a lighter brown. She was picturesquely, even richly, dressed, in a kind of long tunic of scarlet cloth trimmed with swan’s-down, over which she wore a robe of leopard skin; slippers and buskins of the same material as her gown, but thickly set with coloured beads and spangles. A tiara, similarly ornamented and surmounted by ostrich feathers, completed her attire.

She greeted her visitors as they moved up to her chair with graceful courtesy.

“You are English, I am told?” she said, interrogatively; “if so, my countrymen, and the first I have beheld for six and twenty years. But I have not forgotten the dear old language, in which, indeed, I and my daughter always converse, and it will delight us both to hear it from other lips beside our own.”

“Yes, madam,” answered De Walden, “we are English – my three younger companions entirely so; while I am of English descent and English parentage on the father’s side. We thank you for your kind reception of us, which, it is needless to say, is most welcome after the toils and dangers we have undergone.”

“Your appearance is that of a missionary,” rejoined the Queen. “May I ask if that is the case, and if so, what is your name, and where have you of late been residing?”

“I am a preacher of the Gospel,” said De Walden, “and my name is Theodore De Walden. I have been for many years in different parts of South Africa, both to the north and west of this land.”

“I have heard of you,” said the Queen, “and have long been desirous of meeting with you, or some other of your calling. I myself am by birth a member of the English Church, and still account myself one, though so long cut off from its ministrations.”

“The English Church – indeed!” exclaimed Warley. “May we presume to ask how – how – ”

“How it comes that an English Churchwoman should be living in this wild country, so far from her native land, and the ruler of a barbarian tribe – that is what you would ask,” said the Queen, smiling. “Well, of course I knew you would wish to learn the particulars of my strange history, and it is perhaps as agreeable to me to relate, as it is to you to hear it. Seat yourselves” – she beckoned to the attendants to bring forward chairs, as she spoke – “and I will tell you the whole tale.”

“I was born in one of the midland counties of England, and am the daughter of a man of good family, though at the time of my birth reduced in means. He was a surgeon in a small country town, skilful and unwearied in his profession, but unable to realise any considerable income. My mother died when I was about twelve years old, and as my father could not afford to keep any assistant, he was obliged to rely a good deal on my help, as I grew up, in making up his medicines, and occasionally attending cases of slight illness under his directions. When I was about seventeen, my father unexpectedly obtained a valuable appointment in India, in the Company’s service, and thither we accordingly proceeded in the spring of the year 1778.

“But the climate never agreed with him; and after persisting for two or three years in the vain hope of becoming habituated to it, his health altogether broke down, and he died, leaving me with a very slender provision. I resolved at once to return to England, and solicit the help of my relatives there. Some of them may still be living, and doubtless believe that I have long been dead. It would only distress them if they were to learn the real facts, and I therefore shall not disclose my true name, or those indeed of any of the party.

“I took my passage homeward by the Grosvenor, a fine vessel belonging to the East India Company’s service. It carried a great many passengers, mostly officers returning home, and a few civilians. There were also several ladies, though none about my own age. I remember, particularly, Colonel Harrison – so I will name him – an old friend of my father’s, Major Piers, Captains Gilby and Andrewes, Mr Hickson, Mr Morgan, and Mr Gregg, as well as his sister, Mrs Gilby, Mrs Wilkinson, and Miss Hordern. It is strange how well I can recall all their faces and persons at this interval of time.

“The voyage was unusually quick and agreeable until we arrived off the coast of South Africa. But there we encountered a gale so violent, that the ship soon became wholly unmanageable. Everybody concurred in saying, that it was through no fault either of the captain or of the crew that the vessel was lost. The wind drove her directly ashore, the anchors that were thrown out parted during the height of the storm, and there are no harbours anywhere along that coast for which vessels can run. The end was that she was thrown upon a reef at no great distance from shore, and entirely broken up.

“By the good management of the officers in command, the whole of the passengers, and nearly all the crew, were got into the boats and safely landed on the shore. We were at first very thankful for our escape; but if we had known the fate that awaited nearly all of us, I think we should have preferred being swallowed up by the raging sea to undergoing it. The sea-coast at that point consists of long stretches of sandy beach, overgrown at a short distance from the sea by thick scrub and underwood, while further inland are dense and almost impassable forests. Our first step was to provide ourselves with some shelter against the wind and rain which continued unabated for several days. By the help of the carpenter’s chest, and the various articles which were thrown ashore from the wreck, we soon established ourselves comfortably enough. Huts were run up in which the whole of the party were lodged, hunting parties organised, and then a general meeting was summoned to determine what steps were to be taken to deliver ourselves from the embarrassing position in which we were placed.

“I remember there was great difference of opinion. Some proposed to build a barque out of the remains of the Grosvenor, sufficiently large to convey the whole party round to Table Bay. The distance, it was reckoned, was six or seven hundred miles. We might easily row or sail on an average forty or fifty miles a day. And even if Cape Town should be too far to be so reached, we should be safe to come to some of the villages scattered here and there along the coast, which kept up some kind of communication with the interior. Others urged our continuing in our present quarters until we succeeded in attracting the attention of some passing vessel. Others, again, proposed a plan compounded of these. One of the small boats was to be repaired sufficiently to allow two or three of the most experienced sailors to go in search of help for the whole party.

“On the whole, I believe the last-named suggestion would have had the best chance of success. Any one of the three would certainly have been preferable to the one adopted, and which had in the first instance been proposed by the Captain himself, viz., that the whole of the party should make their way overland to the nearest inhabited district. This was strongly opposed by Colonel Harrison and old Mr Hickson; the former of whom warned us, that the attempt would probably result in the destruction of all. But there were among the passengers, as well as among the junior officers of the ship, a number of hot-headed adventurous spirits, to whom such a journey, as that designed, had an irresistible charm. We all set out; but after a few days of suffering, all the women and most of the men returned to the coast, while the others went on.

“I have been told that some at least of this party succeeded after a long and hazardous journey in reaching the Dutch settlements at Cape Town. I suppose that must be so, because I learned, some years afterwards, that all the particulars of the loss of the Grosvenor were known to the Dutch authorities, and I do not know how they could have learned anything on the subject except from my fellow-passengers. I have also been told that a party was sent out to search for any survivors of the ill-fated ship. If that was so, they never came near the spot where I was living.

“We saw our companions depart with very mingled feelings. The confidence of their leaders had inspired some of us with hope, while others were very despondent. This despondency was increased when, a few days after their departure, Captain Gilby and Mr Gregg, returning from a shooting expedition, reported that they had seen armed savages in the neighbourhood of the huts, prowling about, evidently with no friendly intentions towards us. It was immediately resolved to protect the building with a palisade; beyond which the ladies were never to venture without an armed escort, and to keep two of the men always on guard inside the stockade with loaded muskets. But these precautions were of little avail. Several of our small party were, from time to time, captured or wounded by the natives; and all who were thus injured expired soon afterwards in great agonies from the poison, in which the weapons of the savages had been steeped. Two or three of the women also died, partly of insufficient food, and partly of anxiety and alarm. At last the whole party was reduced to four men and five women; and we then held a consultation to decide what was to be done.

“It was impossible to defend the stockade, with our reduced numbers. It was idle to hope for rescue. It would be still more useless to surrender to the savages, who would observe no terms, even should they be induced to agree to any. The only possible hope lay in flight. If we stole out of the palisades by night, and took ourselves off in different directions through the depths of the forest, it was just possible that some of us might escape the notice of our enemies. We divided into three parties, Captain Gilby, his wife, and Mrs Wilkinson chose the path by the seashore; Captain Piers, Mr and Miss Gregg, endeavoured to follow the route taken by the party several weeks before; while Colonel Harrison took Miss Hordern and myself under his charge. The Colonel had some knowledge of the colony, and knew that the best hope of escape lay towards the north, where there were but few tribes located, and an almost endless screen of forest.

“We took leave of one another only an hour after we had come to this resolution, as the danger was growing every moment more imminent. I never heard with any certainty what became of the rest of the party; but a report once reached me that Miss Gregg (so I call her, though, as I have said before, I give none of the real names), after the murder of her brother and Captain Piers, had to submit to something of the same fate as myself. But this was only a rumour. Of the fate of Captain Gilby and his wife, I never heard anything.

“As regards ourselves, we were fortunate enough entirely to escape pursuit, and after three days of intense anxiety and fatigue, had reached a part of the forest which lay beyond the haunts of the tribes, by which we had been attacked. We were now compelled to rest awhile, and recover our strength. But though Miss Hordern and myself, who were both of us of a hardy constitution, soon rallied from the fatigues we had undergone, the old Colonel could not. He grew daily weaker in spite of all our care of him, and at last died, to our inexpressible grief. We laid his remains in an empty pit which we had found, and filled it in as well as we could, with clods and stones. We then set off – two poor desolate women – to find our way as well as we could to some place of shelter.

“The toil we underwent, and the perils, which by a miracle we contrived to avoid, would fill a volume, if I were to relate them. But it will be enough to say that, after endless wanderings, we found ourselves at last somewhere about fifty or sixty miles from the banks of the Gariep – at no very great distance, in fact, from this present spot. We had subsisted chiefly on the fruits that grow in abundance throughout the whole of the country, and were beginning to hope that, after all, we might reach the outlying Dutch farms of which Colonel Harrison had spoken, when another calamity befell us. Miss Hordern and myself were one day suddenly surprised by a party of Basutos, who had gone out on a shooting expedition to the valley of the Vaal. We instantly took to flight, but before we had gone fifty yards, Miss Hordern was struck by an arrow, and the wound proved almost instantly fatal. I stopped as soon as I saw her fall, and took her in my arms, too much distressed by this last misfortune to heed my own danger.

“What the pursuers would have done to me, I do not know. But when I recovered from the swoon of grief into which I had fallen over the body of my dead friend, I saw a tall and noble-looking warrior bending over me, his fine eyes and manly features expressing a sympathy for my affliction, which I should have supposed a savage to be incapable of feeling. He gave some orders to his men, in a language which I did not comprehend, and I was immediately carried into a hut, and carefully waited on by several women. I was ill a long time, but every day my warrior came to visit me, and gradually I picked up enough of the Basuto language to exchange a few sentences with him. I soon perceived the light in which he viewed me, and it was not unwelcome – strange as such an idea would have appeared to me a few weeks before. But I was worn out by harsh usage, he alone having shown me kindness; and my utter helplessness made me inclined to lean on any friendly arm. He was, too, one of the noblest and most generous characters I have ever met with, and his instinctive delicacy of feeling rendered him all the more attractive in my eyes. I consented to be his wife, conditionally on his taking no others, and to this he readily agreed, for, I believe, no woman but myself ever had any charm for him.

“We were married according to the Basuto forms; but at my desire we also recited the vow of husband and wife, according to the marriage service of the English Church, and for ten years lived happily together. I should mention that I found the medical knowledge I had acquired in my girlhood of the greatest benefit to my newly adopted countrymen. Several times, when epidemic fevers, common to this country, broke out, I was successful in treating them, and my husband’s authority enabled me to enforce regulations, which otherwise I could not have induced the people to observe. When my husband was killed, some fifteen years ago, by the sudden fall of a tree, the tribe insisted on making me their Queen; and nothing has ever seriously disturbed the prosperity of my reign. Ella, who was born a few years after our marriage, is our only surviving child.

“Such is my history – a strange one, no doubt. Probably most persons would regard me as an object of pity, to say the least. But I do not share the opinion. I have had, in my way, much happiness; and, if I have been deprived of privileges and blessings, which fall ordinarily to the lot of Englishwomen, have also escaped many sorrows and trials, to which in my own country I should have been exposed.

“But there are two points on which I should like to say something before I conclude. I dare say you have thought it strange that I did not communicate with my countrymen at Cape Town, when the colony fell into their hands. But news travels so slowly in these wild and distant regions, that I did not know with any certainty what had taken place till long after the occurrence. Then, my husband’s death for the time drove all other thoughts from my mind; and when I had regained my composure enough to attend once more to the affairs of my kingdom, and I sent an embassy to the English Governor, I found that the colony had been given back to the Dutch.

“The other matter is a more important one. I should be sorry for you, Mr De Walden, to think that I made no effort to induce my husband to adopt Christianity as his creed. It was a subject on which we often talked, and though he was slow to accept ideas so wholly new, yet they gradually grew upon him, and before his death he was a convert to Christ.

“No Christian minister ever came into our neighbourhood during the whole of our married life, or he would doubtless have gladly welcomed him, and received baptism at his hands. As it was, I myself administered the rite to him, when I saw that he was dying.

“I have done my best to bring up Ella in our faith, and to teach what I could to others round me; but I hail your coming – the first preacher of the Gospel I have encountered in this land – with the utmost thankfulness, and trust you will remain among us as our teacher and guide, assured that all the help and countenance that I can give shall be most willingly and gladly bestowed.”

She ceased, and De Walden, who had listened to her story with profound interest, hastened to make answer.

“Be assured, gracious lady, that I will most cheerfully obey your wishes. The hand of God is too plainly seen in what has occurred for me to venture to refuse, even were I so inclined; but earnestly as I have, for years past, been seeking for an opening like this, and always hitherto having failed to obtain it, I cannot be thankful enough to the merciful Providence, which has at last been pleased to hearken to my prayers.”