Travels in India (Tavernier) 157.2
Travels in India (Ball) 157.2
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157.2.1
When they see vessels arriving they drive cattle to the shore and bring what they have to barter for tobacco, spirits, and beads of crystal and agate, which are cheap at Surat, and for some hardware. When they are not content with what is offered them they immediately take to flight, and at the sound of a whistle from their mouths all their animals follow them, and you see no more of them. Some persons on one occasion, seeing them fly, fired musket-shots in order to slay the cattle, but since then, for some years, these Cafres have not brought their beasts, and there has been much trouble experienced in inducing them to return. It is a great convenience for the vessels which touch there to obtain supplies, and the Dutch have had good reason for building a fort there. There is now a fine village inhabited by people of all nationalities who live with the Dutch, and all kinds of grains which are brought thither, both from Europe and Asia, on being sown, grow much better than in the places from whence they have been brought. It is a very good country which is, as I have said, at the 35th degree and some minutes of latitude, and it is neither the air nor the heat which makes these Cafres so black as they are. Desiring to know the explanation of it, and wherefore they smell so strongly, I inquired from a young girl who was taken as soon as her mother had brought her forth, and was nursed and reared in the fort, being as white as one of our European women.
157.2.2
She told me that the reason that the Cafres are so black, is that they rub themselves with an ointment which they make of different simples known to them, and that if they do not rub themselves often, and as soon as they are born, they become dropsical like other blacks of Africa, and like the Abyssinians, and the inhabitants of Saba, who have one leg twice the size of the other few of these people ever living more than forty years. It is true that these Cafres, brutal as they are, have nevertheless a special knowledge of simples, and know how to apply them to the maladies for which they are specifics ; this the Dutch have very often proved. Be it that the Cafres are bitten by a venomous animal, or that an ulcer or other disease appears, by means of these simples, which they know how to select, they accomplish the healing in a short time. Of nineteen sick men who were in our vessel, fifteen were placed in the hands of the Cafres, the maladies consisted of ulcers in the legs or arose from wounds received in war, and in less than fifteen days all were perfectly cured. Each sick man had two of these Cafres to attend upon him, and as soon as they saw what the condition of the wound or ulcer was, they sought for the drugs, and crushing them between two pebbles applied them to the sore. As for the four others they were not given into their hands, being so permeated with the ailments which accompany venereal disease that they could not be cured at Batavia.
157.2.3
They all four died between the Cape and the Island of Saint Helena. In the year 1661 there returned from Batavia on a vessel named the “West Frisland,” a young Breton gentleman, who, after having squandered all his money in Holland, entered the Company’s service. Having arrived at Batavia a multitude of mosquitos bit him on one leg during the night, and an ulcer appeared on which all the surgeons of Batavia had expended their skill and remedies; and if the General had not given him permission to go home it would have been necessary to amputate his leg. When the ship arrived at the Cape, the captain having sent the Breton on shore to give him some ease, these Cafres began to examine him, and said that if they were allowed to treat him they would cure him in a short time. The captain placed him in their hands, and in less than fifteen days his leg was rendered as sound as the other which had never had anything the matter with it. As soon as a vessel has anchored at the Cape, the commander gives some of the soldiers and sailors permission to go on shore to refresh themselves. Those who during the voyage have been most indisposed go first, each in his turn, and they go to the town, where they are fed for 7 or 8 sols a-day, and enjoy good cheer.
157.2.4
It is the custom of the Dutch to send parties from time to time to explore the country, and those who go furthest are best rewarded. A number of soldiers having gone in a party with a sergeant who commanded them, and having advanced far into the country, they made a large fire at midnight, both to protect themselves from lions and for warmth, and they lay round it to rest. Having gone to sleep, a lion seized one of the soldiers by the arm, and immediately the sergeant, firing a shot from his gun, slew the animal. When it was dead its jaws had to be forced open, with great effort, in order to release the soldier’s arm, which was pierced from side to side. It is apparent from this story that it is an error to suppose that lions do not approach a fire. These Cafres healed the soldier’s arm in twelve days. You see in the fort an abundance of skins of lions and tigers. Among others there is the skin of a horse which these Cafres killed. It is white barred with black stripes pricked out like a leopard, and without a tail. At a distance of 2 or 3 leagues from the fort the Dutch found a dead lion which had four porcupine’s quills in its body, which had penetrated the flesh three-fourths of their length. It was accordingly concluded that the porcupine had killed the lion. The skin is still kept with the spines sticking in the foot.
157.2.5
At one league’s distance from the fort there is a fine village which grows from day to day. When the vessels of the Dutch Company arrive, if any soldier or sailor wishes to remain there he is welcomed. He takes as much land as he can manage, and, as I have above said, all kinds of vegetables and pulse, and even grapes grow readily, and rice also is cultivated. These people have young ostriches, beef, and sea and fresh water fish in abundance. In order to obtain the young ostriches when they wish, as soon as the birds are seven or eight days old they go to the nests, and driving a stake into the ground tie the young birds by one of their feet in the nest, so that they cannot escape, leaving them to be fed by their parents till they are of good size, afterwards they are taken to be sold or eaten. When the Dutch began to inhabit the Cape of Good Hope, they took, as I have said, the daughter of one of these Cafres as soon as she was born. She is white and beautiful, save that she has a slightly depressed nose, and she serves as interpreter to the Dutch. She had a child by a Frenchman, but the Company would not allow him to marry her. On the contrary, they confiscated 800 livres of his wages; this was somewhat severe on him.
157.2.6
There are in this country quantities of lions and tigers, and the Dutch have discovered a contrivance which answers well for killing them. They bind a gun to a stake driven into the ground, and place some meat at the end of the gun, which is bound to a cord attached to the trigger. When the animal comes to take this meat the cord draws the trigger, and the gun discharging the balls lodge in the mouth or body of the animal. The Cafres eat a root which resembles our root of chervil, which they roast, and it serves them as bread. Sometimes they make it into flour, and it tastes like chestnuts. As for flesh, they eat it raw, and fish also in the same condition; and as for the entrails of animals, as I have already said, they merely squeeze them to exclude the digested matter and then eat them. The majority of the women bind these entrails, when dried, round their legs, especially those of wild beasts which their husbands slay in the woods, and they wear them as ornaments. They also eat turtles after they have roasted them for a short time, so that the shells can be removed. They are very skilful in hurling the assegai, which is a kind of dart, and those who have not got any, use a stick an inch thick, of a very hard wood, and of the same length as the dart. They make a point on it and hurl it to a considerable distance with their hands. They take these sticks with them to the margin of the sea, and as soon as a fish comes to the surface they do not fail to transfix it.
157.2.7
As for those birds which are like our ducks, their eggs contain no yolk ; there are a great number in the country, and in a bay which is 18 miles from the Cape they are killed with blows of a stick. During the time while M. Vandime was General, the Dutch captured a young Cafre boy at the Cape and sent him to Batavia. The General took great pains to have him instructed in languages, so that in seven or eight years he learned Dutch and Portuguese in perfection. He then wished to return to his country, and the General not desiring to constrain him to remain, equipped him with linen and clothes, thinking that when he arrived at the Cape he would live like the Dutchmen, and would aid them in obtaining supplies for their vessels whenever they arrived. But he was no sooner at the Cape than he threw his garments into the sea and fled with the other blacks, eating raw flesh as before, and since then he has remained with them without having any intercourse with the Dutch. When these Cafres go to hunt in the forest they assemble in large numbers, and have certain terrific cries and shouts, so that the beasts are all frightened by them, and it is then easy to slaughter large numbers of them when thus terrified. I have even been told that these cries frighten the lion.