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Real Time Analytics Techniques to Analyze and Visualize
Streaming Data 1st Edition Byron Ellis Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): Byron Ellis
ISBN(s): 9781118837917, 1118837916
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 3.57 MB
Year: 2014
Language: english
Real-Time Analytics
Techniques to Analyze and
Visualize Streaming Data

Byron Ellis

ffirs.indd 11:51:43:AM 06/06/2014 Page i

Real-Time Analytics: Techniques to Analyze and Visualize Streaming Data

Published by
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Copyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
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ffirs.indd 11:51:43:AM 06/06/2014 Page ii

As always, for Natasha.

ffirs.indd 11:51:43:AM 06/06/2014 Page iii

 Credits

Executive Editor Marketing Manager

Robert Elliott Carrie Sherrill
Project Editor Business Manager
Kelly Talbot Amy Knies
Technical Editors Vice President and Executive
Luke Hornof Group Publisher
Ben Peirce Richard Swadley
Jose Quinteiro
Associate Publisher
Production Editors Jim Minatel
Christine Mugnolo
Project Coordinator, Cover
Daniel Scribner
Todd Klemme
Copy Editor
Proofreader
Charlotte Kugen
Nancy Carrasco
Manager of Content Development
Indexer
and Assembly
John Sleeva
Mary Beth Wakefield
Cover Designer
Director of Community Marketing
Wiley
David Mayhew

iv

ffirs.indd 11:51:43:AM 06/06/2014 Page iv

 About the Author

Byron Ellis is the CTO of Spongecell, an advertising technology firm based in

New York, with offices in San Francisco, Chicago, and London. He is responsible
for research and development as well as the maintenance of Spongecell’s com-
puting infrastructure. Prior to joining Spongecell, he was Chief Data Scientist
for Liveperson, a leading provider of online engagement technology. He also
held a variety of positions at adBrite, Inc, one of the world’s largest advertising
exchanges at the time. Additionally, he has a PhD in Statistics from Harvard
where he studied methods for learning the structure of networks from experi-
mental data obtained from high throughput biology experiments.

About the Technical Editors

With 20 years of technology experience, Jose Quinteiro has been an integral
part of the design and development of a significant number of end-user, enter-
prise, and Web software systems and applications. He has extensive experience
with the full stack of Web technologies, including both front-end and back-end
design and implementation. Jose earned a B.S. in Chemistry from The College
of William & Mary.
Luke Hornof has a Ph.D. in Computer Science and has been part of several suc-
cessful high-tech startups. His research in programming languages has resulted
in more than a dozen peer-reviewed publications. He has also developed com-
mercial software for the microprocessor, advertising, and music industries. His
current interests include using analytics to improve web and mobile applications.
Ben Peirce manages research and infrastructure at Spongecell, an advertising
technology company. Prior to joining Spongecell, he worked in a variety of
roles in healthcare technology startups, he and co-founded SET Media, an ad
tech company focusing on video. He holds a PhD from Harvard University’s
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where he studied control systems
and robotics.

ffirs.indd 11:51:43:AM 06/06/2014 Page v

 Acknowledgments

Before writing a book, whenever I would see “there are too many people to
thank” in the acknowledgements section it would seem cliché. It turns out that it
is not so much cliché as a simple statement of fact. There really are more people
to thank than could reasonably be put into print. If nothing else, including them
all would make the book really hard to hold.
However, there are a few people I would like to specifically thank for their
contributions, knowing and unknowing, to the book. The first, of course, is
Robert Elliot at Wiley who seemed to think that a presentation that he had liked
could possibly be a book of nearly 400 pages. Without him, this book simply
wouldn’t exist. I would also like to thank Justin Langseth, who was not able to
join me in writing this book but was my co-presenter at the talk that started
the ball rolling. Hopefully, we will get a chance to reprise that experience. I
would also like to thank my editors Charlotte, Rick, Jose, Luke, and Ben, led
by Kelly Talbot, who helped find and correct my many mistakes and kept the
project on the straight and narrow. Any mistakes that may be left, you can be
assured, are my fault.
For less obvious contributions, I would like to thank all of the DDG regulars.
At least half, probably more like 80%, of the software in this book is here as a
direct result of a conversation I had with someone over a beer. Not too shabby
for an informal, loose-knit gathering. Thanks to Mike for first inviting me along
and to Matt and Zack for hosting so many events over the years.
Finally, I’d like to thank my colleagues over the years. You all deserve some
sort of medal for putting up with my various harebrained schemes and tinker-
ing. An especially big shout-out goes to the adBrite crew. We built a lot of cool
stuff that I know for a fact is still cutting edge. Caroline Moon gets a big thank

vii

ffirs.indd 11:51:43:AM 06/06/2014 Page vii

viii Acknowledgments

you for not being too concerned when her analytics folks wandered off and
started playing with this newfangled “Hadoop” thing and started collecting
more servers than she knew we had. I’d also especially like to thank Daniel
Issen and Vadim Geshel. We didn’t always see eye-to-eye (and probably still
don’t), but what you see in this book is here in large part to arguments I’ve had
with those two.

ffirs.indd 11:51:43:AM 06/06/2014 Page viii

 Contents

Introduction xv
Chapter 1 Introduction to Streaming Data 1
Sources of Streaming Data 2
Operational Monitoring 3
Web Analytics 3
Online Advertising 4
Social Media 5
Mobile Data and the Internet of Things 5
Why Streaming Data Is Different 7
Always On, Always Flowing 7
Loosely Structured 8
High-Cardinality Storage 9
Infrastructures and Algorithms 10
Conclusion 10
Part I Streaming Analytics Architecture 13
Chapter 2 Designing Real-Time Streaming Architectures 15
Real-Time Architecture Components 16
Collection 16
Data Flow 17
Processing 19
Storage 20
Delivery 22
Features of a Real-Time Architecture 24
High Availability 24
Low Latency 25
Horizontal Scalability 26

ix

ftoc.indd 05:30:33:PM 06/12/2014 Page ix

x Contents

Languages for Real-Time Programming 27

Java 27
Scala and Clojure 28
JavaScript 29
The Go Language 30
A Real-Time Architecture Checklist 30
Collection 31
Data Flow 31
Processing 32
Storage 32
Delivery 33
Conclusion 34
Chapter 3 Service Configuration and Coordination 35
Motivation for Configuration and Coordination Systems 36
Maintaining Distributed State 36
Unreliable Network Connections 36
Clock Synchronization 37
Consensus in an Unreliable World 38
Apache ZooKeeper 39
The znode 39
Watches and Notifications 41
Maintaining Consistency 41
Creating a ZooKeeper Cluster 42
ZooKeeper’s Native Java Client 47
The Curator Client 56
Curator Recipes 63
Conclusion 70
Chapter 4 Data-Flow Management in Streaming Analysis 71
Distributed Data Flows 72
At Least Once Delivery 72
The “n+1” Problem 73
Apache Kafka: High-Throughput Distributed Messaging 74
Design and Implementation 74
Configuring a Kafka Environment 80
Interacting with Kafka Brokers 89
Apache Flume: Distributed Log Collection 92
The Flume Agent 92
Configuring the Agent 94
The Flume Data Model 95
Channel Selectors 95
Flume Sources 98
Flume Sinks 107
Sink Processors 110
Flume Channels 110

ftoc.indd 05:30:33:PM 06/12/2014 Page x

 Contents xi

Flume Interceptors 112

Integrating Custom Flume Components 114
Running Flume Agents 114
Conclusion 115
Chapter 5 Processing Streaming Data 117
Distributed Streaming Data Processing 118
Coordination 118
Partitions and Merges 119
Transactions 119
Processing Data with Storm 119
Components of a Storm Cluster 120
Configuring a Storm Cluster 122
Distributed Clusters 123
Local Clusters 126
Storm Topologies 127
Implementing Bolts 130
Implementing and Using Spouts 136
Distributed Remote Procedure Calls 142
Trident: The Storm DSL 144
Processing Data with Samza 151
Apache YARN 151
Getting Started with YARN and Samza 153
Integrating Samza into the Data Flow 157
Samza Jobs 157
Conclusion 166
Chapter 6 Storing Streaming Data 167
Consistent Hashing 168
“NoSQL” Storage Systems 169
Redis 170
MongoDB 180
Cassandra 203
Other Storage Technologies 215
Relational Databases 215
Distributed In-Memory Data Grids 215
Choosing a Technology 215
Key-Value Stores 216
Document Stores 216
Distributed Hash Table Stores 216
In-Memory Grids 217
Relational Databases 217
Warehousing 217
Hadoop as ETL and Warehouse 218
Lambda Architectures 223
Conclusion 224

ftoc.indd 05:30:33:PM 06/12/2014 Page xi

xii Contents

Part II Analysis and Visualization 225

Chapter 7 Delivering Streaming Metrics 227
Streaming Web Applications 228
Working with Node 229
Managing a Node Project with NPM 231
Developing Node Web Applications 235
A Basic Streaming Dashboard 238
Adding Streaming to Web Applications 242
Visualizing Data 254
HTML5 Canvas and Inline SVG 254
Data-Driven Documents: D3.js 262
High-Level Tools 272
Mobile Streaming Applications 277
Conclusion 279
Chapter 8 Exact Aggregation and Delivery 281
Timed Counting and Summation 285
Counting in Bolts 286
Counting with Trident 288
Counting in Samza 289
Multi-Resolution Time-Series Aggregation 290
Quantization Framework 290
Stochastic Optimization 296
Delivering Time-Series Data 297
Strip Charts with D3.js 298
High-Speed Canvas Charts 299
Horizon Charts 301
Conclusion 303
Chapter 9 Statistical Approximation of Streaming Data 305
Numerical Libraries 306
Probabilities and Distributions 307
Expectation and Variance 309
Statistical Distributions 310
Discrete Distributions 310
Continuous Distributions 312
Joint Distributions 315
Working with Distributions 316
Inferring Parameters 316
The Delta Method 317
Distribution Inequalities 319
Random Number Generation 319
Generating Specific Distributions 321

ftoc.indd 05:30:33:PM 06/12/2014 Page xii

 Contents xiii

Sampling Procedures 324

Sampling from a Fixed Population 325
Sampling from a Streaming Population 326
Biased Streaming Sampling 327
Conclusion 329
Chapter 10 Approximating Streaming Data with Sketching 331
Registers and Hash Functions 332
Registers 332
Hash Functions 332
Working with Sets 336
The Bloom Filter 338
The Algorithm 338
Choosing a Filter Size 340
Unions and Intersections 341
Cardinality Estimation 342
Interesting Variations 344
Distinct Value Sketches 347
The Min-Count Algorithm 348
The HyperLogLog Algorithm 351
The Count-Min Sketch 356
Point Queries 356
Count-Min Sketch Implementation 357
Top-K and “Heavy Hitters” 358
Range and Quantile Queries 360
Other Applications 364
Conclusion 364
Chapter 11 Beyond Aggregation 367
Models for Real-Time Data 368
Simple Time-Series Models 369
Linear Models 373
Logistic Regression 378
Neural Network Models 380
Forecasting with Models 389
Exponential Smoothing Methods 390
Regression Methods 393
Neural Network Methods 394
Monitoring 396
Outlier Detection 397
Change Detection 399
Real-Time Optimization 400
Conclusion 402

Index 403

ftoc.indd 05:30:33:PM 06/12/2014 Page xiii

Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
are going to carry “the flag that makes us free” through all sorts of
places, especially from “Atlanta to the sea,” and I am quite sure that
Sherman’s own “dashing Yankee boys” could not possibly have made
more noise themselves. This is followed by the softest and sweetest
of sentimental songs, given in a beautiful falsetto which would be a
treasure to a chorister; but it is really too cold for sentiment, so we
have one more song, and then the band sings “Auld Lang Syne” with
great spirit, and as the wind is now rising to a hurricane, the musical
performances are wound up somewhat hurriedly by “God Save the
Queen!” For this the whole camp turns out of their own accord. The
cooks leave their fires, the fatigue-party their scrubbing and the lazy
ones their pipes. Under the clear starlight, with the Southern Cross
sloping up from the edge of yonder dusky hill, with the keen wind
sweeping round the camp of this little handful of Englishmen in a
strange and distant country, the words of the most beautiful tune in
the world come ringing as though straight from each man’s heart. Of
course we all come out of our tent to stand bareheaded too, and I
assure you it is a very impressive and beautiful moment. One feels
as one stands here amid the flower of the young colonists, each man
holding his cap aloft in his strong right hand, each man putting all
the fervor and passion of his loyal love and reverence for his queen
into every tone of his voice, that it is well worth coming down for
this one moment alone. It is very delightful to see the English
people, whether in units or tens of thousands, greet their sovereign
face to face, but there is something even more heart-stirring, more
inexpressibly pathetic, in such outbursts as this, evoked by none of
the glamour and glitter of a royal pageant, but called into being
merely by a name, a tune, a sentiment. I often think if I were a
queen I should be more really gratified and touched by the ardent
and loyal love of such handfuls of my subjects in out-of-the-way
corners of my empire, where the sentiment has nothing from outside
to fan it, than with the acclamations of a shouting multitude as my
splendor is passing them by. At all events, I have never seen soldiers
or sailors, regulars or volunteers, more enthusiastic over our own
anthem. It is followed by cheer upon cheer, blessing upon blessing
on the beloved and royal name, until everybody is perfectly hoarse
from shouting in such a high wind, and we all retreat into the tiny
tents for a cup of coffee and—what do you think? Stories. I am
worse than any child in my love of stories, and we have one or two
really good raconteurs in the little knot of hosts.
Of course one of the first inquiries I make is whether any snakes
have been found in the tents, and I hear, much to my
disappointment—because the bare fact will not at all lend itself to a
story for G—— when I get home—that only one little one had crept
beneath a folded great-coat (which is the camp pillow, it seems),
and been found in the morning curled up, torpidly dozing in the
woolen warmth. No, it is not a story G—— will ever care about, for
the poor little snake had not even been killed: it was too small and
too insignificant, they say, and it merely got kicked out of its
comfortable bed. To console me for this bald and incomplete
adventure, I am told some more snake-stories, which, at all events,
ought to have been true, so good are they. Here are two for you,
one of which especially delights me.
Hard by this very camp a keen sportsman was lately pursuing a
buck. He had no dogs except a pet Skye terrier to help him in the
chase—nothing but his rifle and a trusty Kafir. Yet the hard-pressed
buck had to dash into a small, solitary patch of thorny scrub for
shelter and a moment’s rest. In an instant the hunter was off his
pony, and had sent the Kafir into the bush to drive out the buck, that
he might have a shot at it the moment it emerged from the cover.
Instead of the expected buck, however—I must tell you the story
never states what became of him—came loud cries in Kafir from the
scrub of, “Oh, my mother! oh, my friends and relations! I die! I die!”
The master, much astonished, peeped as well as he could into the
little patch of tangled briers and bushes, and there he saw his
crouching Kafir stooping, motionless, beneath a low branch round
which was coiled a large and venomous snake. The creature had
struck at the man’s head as he crept beneath, and its forked tongue
had got firmly imbedded in the Kafir’s woolly pate. The wretched
beater dared not stir an inch: he dared not even put up his hands to
free himself; but there he remained motionless and despairing,
uttering these loud shrieks. His master bade him stay perfectly still,
and taking close aim at the snake’s body, fired and blew it in two. He
then with a dexterous jerk disentangled the barbed tongue, and
flung the quivering head and neck outside the bushes. Here comes
the only marvelous part of the story. “How did he know it was a
poisonous snake?” I ask. “Oh, well: the little dog ran up to play with
the head, and the snake—or rather the half snake—struck out at it
and bit it in the paw, and it died in ten minutes.”
But the following is my favorite Munchausen: There was once a
certain valiant man of many adventures whose Kafir title was “the
prince of—fibs,” and he used to relate the following experience: One
day—so long ago that breech-loading guns were unknown, and the
process of reloading was a five-minute affair—he came upon a large
and deadly snake making as fast as it could for its hole hard by. Of
course, such a thing as escape could not be permitted, and as there
was no other weapon at hand, the huntsman determined to shoot
the huge reptile. But first the gun must be loaded, and whilst this
was being done, lo! the snake’s head had already disappeared in the
hole: in another instant the whole body would have followed. A
sudden grasp at the tail, a rapid, bold jerk, flung the creature a yard
or two off. Did it attempt to show fight? Oh no: it glided swiftly as
ever toward the same shelter from which it had been so rudely
plucked. The ramrod was rapidly plied, the charge driven home, but
there was yet the percussion-cap to be adjusted. Once more the tail
was grasped, the snake pulled out and flung still farther away. Again
did the wily creature approach the hole. In another instant the cap
would be on and the gun cocked, but everything depended on that
instant. The sportsman kept his eye fixed on his artful foe even
whilst his fingers deftly found and fixed the percussion-cap. What,
then, was his horror and dismay to find that he had, for once, met
his match, and that the snake, recognizing the desperate nature of
the position, and keeping a wary eye on the hunter’s movements,
instead of going into his hole for the third time in the usual method,
had turned round and was backing in tail first! Is it not delightful?
As soon as we had finished laughing at this and similar stories it was
high time to break up the little party, although it was only about the
hour at which one sits down to dinner in London. Still, there were
early parades and drills and goodness knows what, and I was very
tired and sleepy with my jolting journey and afternoon on
horseback. So we all went the “grand rounds,” lantern in hand, and
with a deep feeling of admiration and pity for the poor sentries
pacing up and down on the bleak hillside, walked down to the little
inn, where a tiny room, exactly like a wooden box, had been secured
for me, the rest of the party climbing heroically up the hill again to
sleep on the ground with their saddles for a pillow. This was playing
at soldiers with a vengeance, was it not? However, they all looked as
smart and well as possible next morning, when they came to fetch
me up to breakfast in the camp. Then more drill—very pretty this
time—a sham attack and defence, and then another delightful long
ride over a different range of hills. It was a perfect morning for
exploring, gray and cool and cloudy—so different from the hot wind
and scorching sun of yesterday. We could not go fast, not only from
the steep up-and-down hill, but from the way the ground was turned
up by the ant-bears. Every few yards was a deep burrow, often only
a few hours’ old; and unless you had seen it with your own eyes I
can never make you believe or understand the extraordinarily vivid
color of this newly-turned earth. During yesterday’s journey I had
noticed that the only wild-flower yet out was a curious lily growing
on a fat bulb more than half out of the ground, and sometimes of a
deep-orange or of a brilliant-scarlet color. With the recollection of
these blossoms fresh in my mind, I noticed a patch of bright scarlet
on the face of an opposite down, and thought it must, of course, be
made by lilies. As I was very anxious to get some bulbs for my
garden, I proposed that we should ride across the ravine and dig
some up. “We can come if you like,” said the kindest and pleasantest
of guides, “but I assure you it is only a freshly-dug ant-bear’s hole.”
Never did I find belief so difficult, and, like all incredulous people, I
was on the point of backing up my hasty opinion by half a dozen
pairs of gloves when the same friendly guide laughingly pointed to a
hole close by, bidding me look well at it before risking my gloves.
There was nothing more to be said. The freshly scratched-out earth
was exactly like vermilion, moist and brilliant in color—“a ferruginous
soil,” some learned person said; but, however that may be, I had
never before seen earth of such a bright color, for it was quite
different from the red-clay soil one has seen here and in other
places.
The line of country we followed that morning was extraordinarily
pretty and characteristic. The distant purple hills rolled down to the
gently-undulating ground over which we rode. Here and there—
would that it had been oftener!—a pretty homestead with its
sheltering trees and surrounding patches of pale-green forage clung
to the steep hillside before us. Then, as we rode on, one of the
ravines fell away at our feet to a deep gully, through which ran a
streamlet among clustering scrub and bushes. In one spot the naked
rock stood out straight and bare and bold for fifty yards or so, as
though it were the walls of a citadel, with a wealth of creeping
greenery at its foot, and over its face a tiny waterfall, racing from
the hill behind, leapt down to join the brook in the gully. We saw
plenty of game, too—partridges, buck, two varieties of the bald-
headed ibis, secretary-birds, and, most esteemed of all, a couple of
paauw (I wonder how it is spelt?), a fine kind of bustard, which is
quite as good eating as a turkey, but daily becoming more and more
scarce. There were lots of plover, too, busy among the feathery
ashes on the newly-burned ground, and smaller birds chirruped
sweetly every now and then. It was all exceedingly delightful, and I
enjoyed it all the more for the absence of the blazing sunshine,
which, however it may light up and glorify the landscape, beats too
fiercely on one’s head to be pleasant. If only we women could bring
ourselves to wear pith helmets, it would not be so bad; but with the
present fashion of hats, which are neither shade nor shelter, a ride in
the sun is pretty nearly certain to end in a bad headache. At all
events, this ride had no worse consequence than making us very
hungry for our last camp-meal, a solid luncheon, and then there was
just time to rush down the hill and clamber into the post-cart for
four hours of galloping and jolting through the cold spring evening
air. My last look was at the white tents of the pretty camp, the
smoke of its fires and the smart lines of carbineers and mounted
rifles assembling to the bugle-call for another long afternoon of
steady drill down in the valley, or “flat,” as it is called—a picturesque
and pretty glimpse, recalling the memory of some very pleasant
hours, the prettiest imaginable welcome, and a great deal of hearty
and genuine hospitality.
 PART XII.

Maritzburg, September 1, 1876.

I have had many pleasant cups of tea in my life, indoors and out of
doors, but never a pleasanter cup than the one I had the other day
in a wagon, or, to speak more exactly, by the side of a wagon—a
wagon, too, upon which one looked with the deepest respect, for it
had just come down from a long journey up the country, where it
had been trekking these four months past—trekking night and day
right up to the territory of the Ama-Swazies, through the Thorn
country, over hundreds of miles of these endless billowy hills, rolling
in wearying monotony day after day; but—and this “but” made up
for every other shortcoming—amid hunting-grounds happier than
often fall to the lot of even the South African explorer. And there
were the spoils of the little campaign spread out before us. The first
result, however, which struck me was the splendid health of the
travelers. Sunburned indeed they were, especially the fair young
English girl-face which had smiled good-bye to me from the depths
of a sun-bonnet last April. But who would not risk a few shades of
tan to have gone through such a novel and delightful journey? I
never saw two people look so well in all my life as this adventurous
couple, and it was with one voice they declared they had enjoyed
every moment of the time. And what a pleasant time it must have
been, rewarded as they were—and deserved to be—by splendid
sport! On the fore part of the wagon lay a goodly pile of skins and
quantities of magnificent horns, from the ponderous pair on the
shaggy buffalo-skulls down to taper points which might have
belonged to a fairy buck, so slender, so polished, so inexpressibly
graceful, were they. But the trophy of trophies was the skin of a lion,
which had been shot in the earliest morning light some twenty yards
from the hunter’s tent. It was a splendid skin, and the curved claws
are to be made into a necklace and earrings for the sportsman’s
wife, who indeed deserves them for bearing her share of the
dangers and discomforts of the expedition so cheerfully and bravely.
It was very difficult to elicit the least hint of what the discomforts
were, or might have been, until at last my eager questions raked out
an admission that a week of wet weather (the only one, by the way,
in all the four months) was tedious when cooped up under the tilt of
the wagon, or that some of the places up and down which the
lumbering, unwieldy conveyance had crept were fearful to look at
and dangerous to travel, necessitating a lashing together of the
wheels by iron chains, as well as the use of the ordinary heavy
brake. Yet there had been no upset, no casualty, no serious trouble
of any sort; and I think what these English travelers were more
impressed with than anything else was the honesty of the Kafirs.
The wagon with its stores of food and wine, of comforts and
conveniences of all sorts, had been left absolutely alone by the side
of a track crossed and recrossed every hour by Kafirs, and twenty
miles short of the place whither the tent had been carried for greater
facilities of getting at the big game. The oxen were twenty miles off
in another direction, under no one’s care in particular; the wagon
stood absolutely alone; and yet when the moment of reassembling
came every bullock was forthcoming, and nothing whatever of any
description was missing from the unguarded wagon. The great
attraction to the Kafirs along the line of travel had been the empty
tins of preserved milk or jam: with tops and bottoms knocked out
they made the most resplendent bangles, and became a violent
fashion up among the Thorns.
Nor was that grand lion’s skin the only one. There were quagga
skins, wolf skins, buck skins of half a dozen different species, eland
skins, buffalo skins, lynx and wild-cat skins enough to start a furrier’s
shop, and all in excellent preservation, having been tightly pegged
out and thoroughly dried. The horns—or rather the skulls—were still
a little high, and needed to be heaped well to leeward before we
settled down to tea, camping on kegs and boxes and whatever we
could find. I was made proud and happy by being accommodated
with a seat on the lion skin; and exactly opposite to me, tranquilly
grazing on the young grass, was the identical donkey which had
attracted the king of animals to the spot where his fate awaited him.
Although camped in the very heart of the lion country, the hunter
had neither seen nor heard anything of his big game until this
donkey chanced to be added to the stud, and then the lions came
roaring round, half a dozen at a time. A huge fire had to be kept up
night and day, and close to this the unhappy ass was tethered, for
his life would not have been worth much otherwise; and he seems
to have been thoroughly alive to the perils of his situation. Lions can
resist anything except ass-flesh, it appears; but it is so entirely their
favorite delicacy that they forget their cunning, and become
absolutely reckless in pursuit of it. When at the last extremity of
terror, the poor donkey used to lift up his discordant voice, and so
keep the prowling foe at bay for a while, though it invariably had the
double effect of attracting all the lions within earshot. And so it was
that in the early dawn the hunter, hearing the lion’s growls coming
nearer and nearer, and the poor donkey’s brays more and more
frequent, stole out, rifle in hand, just in time to get a steady shot at
the splendid brute only fifteen yards away, who was hungrily eyeing
the miserable ass on the other side of the blazing fire. In spite of all
legends to the contrary, a lion never attacks a man first, and this lion
turned and moved away directly he saw the sportsman’s leveled
rifle. Only one shot was fired, for the dull thud of the bullet told that
it had struck the lion, and nothing upon earth is so dangerous as a
wounded lion. The huge beast walked slowly away, and when the
full daylight had come the sportsman and a few Kafirs followed up
the blood-flecked trail for a quarter of a mile, or less, to find the lion
lying down as if asleep, with his head resting on his folded fore paw,
quite dead. I don’t think I ever understood the weight of a lion until
I was told that it took two strong Kafirs to lift one of its ponderous
fore feet a few inches even from the ground, and it was almost more
than ten men could manage to drag it along the ground by ropes
back to the tent. Twenty men could scarcely have carried it, the size
and weight of the muscle are so enormous. The Kafirs prize the fat
of the lion very highly, and the headman of the expedition had
claimed this as his perquisite, melting it down into gourds and selling
it in infinitesimal portions as an unguent. I don’t know what the
market-price up country was, but whilst we were laughing and
chatting over our tea I saw the crafty Kafir scooping out the tiniest
bits of lion’s fat in return for a shilling. One of my Kafirs asked leave
to go down and buy some. “What for, Jack?” I asked. “Not for me,
ma’—for my brudder: make him brave, ma’—able for plenty fight,
ma’.” I am certain, however, that this was a ruse, and that Jack felt
his own need of the courage-giving ointment.
Talking of Jack, reminds me of a visit I had the other day from a
detachment of his friends and relatives. They did not come to see
Jack: they came to see me, and very amusing visitors they were.
First of all, there was a bride, who brought me a young hen as a
present. She was attended by two or three scraggy girls of about
fifteen, draped only in short mantles of coarse cloth. The bride
herself was exceedingly smart, and had one of the prettiest faces
imaginable. Her regular features, oval outline, dazzling teeth and
charming expression were not a bit disfigured by her jet-black skin.
Her hair was drawn straight up from her head like a tiara, stained
red and ornamented with a profusion of bones and skewers,
feathers, etc., stuck coquettishly over one ear, and a band of bead
embroidery, studded with brass-headed nails, being worn like a fillet
where the hair grew low on the forehead. She had a kilt—or series
of aprons, rather—of lynx skins, a sort of bodice of calf skin, and
over her shoulders, arranged with ineffable grace, a gay table-cover.
Then there were strings of beads on her pretty, shapely throat and
arms, and a bright scarlet ribbon tied tight round each ankle. All the
rest of the party seemed immensely proud of this young person, and
were very anxious to put her forward in every way. Indeed, all the
others, mostly hard-working, hard-featured matrons, prematurely
aged, took no more active part than the chorus of a Greek play,
always excepting the old induna or headman of the village, who
came as escort and in charge of the whole party. He was a most
garrulous and amusing individual, full of reminiscences and
anecdotes of his fighting days. He was rather more frank than most
warriors who
Shoulder their crutch and show how fields are won,
for the usual end of his battle-stories was the naïve confession, “And
then I thought I should be killed, and so I ran away.” He and I used
up a great many interpreters in the course of the visit, for he
wearied every one out, and nothing made him so angry as any
attempt to condense his conversation in translating it to me. But he
was great fun—polite, as became an old soldier, full of compliments
and assurances that “now, the happiest day of his life having come,
he desired to live no longer, but was ready for death.” The visit took
place on the shady side of the verandah, and thither I brought my
large musical-box and set it down on the ground to play. Never was
there such a success. In a moment they were all down on their
knees before it, listening with rapt delight, the old man telling them
the music was caused by very little people inside the box, who were
obliged to do exactly as I bade them. They were all in a perfect
ecstasy of delight for ever so long, retreating rapidly, however, to a
distance whenever I wound it up. The old induna took snuff
copiously all the time, and made me affectionate speeches, which
resulted in the gift of an old great-coat, which he assured me he
never should live to wear out, because he was quite in a hurry to die
and go to the white man’s land, now that he had seen me. We
hunted up all manner of queer odds and ends for presents, and
made everybody happy in turn. As a final ceremony, I took them
through the house: tiny as it is, it filled them with amazement and
delight. My long looking-glass was at once a terror and a pleasure to
them, for they rather feared bewitchment; but I held up the baby to
see himself in it, and then they were pacified, saying, “The
chieftainess never would go and bewitch that nice little chieftain.” As
usual, the pictures were what they most thoroughly enjoyed.
Landseer’s prints of wild cattle elicited low cries of recognition and
surprise: “Zipi in korno!” (“Behold the cows!”) My own favorite print
of the three little foxes was much admired, but pronounced to be “lill
catties.” The bride was anxious to know why I kept the beds of the
establishment on the floor and allowed people to walk over them.
She did not consider that a good arrangement evidently; nor could
she understand how matting could be of any use except to sleep on.
At last it became time for “scoff,” and they all retired to partake of
that dainty, the old induna having begged leave to kiss my hands,
which he did very gallantly, assuring me he had never been so
happy before in all his life, and that he could quite believe now what
I had told him about the great white queen over the sea being just
as careful for and fond of her black children as of her white ones. I
made a great point of this in my conversations with him, and
showed them all Her Majesty’s picture, to which they cried
“Moochlie!” (“Nice!”), and gave the royal salute. I must say I delight
in these little glimpses of Kafir character; I find in those whom I
come across, like my visitors of last week, so much simple dignity
with shrewd common sense. Their minds, too, seem peculiarly
adapted to receive and profit by anything like culture and civilization,
and there certainly is a better foundation on which to build up both
these things than in any other black race with which I am
acquainted.

September 15.
Such an expedition as we have just made! It reminded me exactly of
the dear old New Zealand days, only that I should have been sure to
have had a better horse to ride in New Zealand than here. I have a
very poor opinion of most of the animals here: anything like a
tolerable horse is rare and expensive, and the ordinary run of steeds
is ugly to look at, ill-groomed and ill-favored, besides not being up to
much work. Upon this occasion I was mounted on a coarsely-put-
together chestnut, who was broken in to carry a lady a few evenings
ago whilst I was getting ready for my ride. However, beyond being a
little fidgety and difficult to mount, owing to lurking distrust of my
habit, he has no objection to carry me. But he is as rough as a cart-
horse in his paces, and the way he stops short in his canter or trot,
flinging all his legs about anywhere, is enough to jolt one’s spine out
of the crown of one’s head. As for his mouth, it might as well be a
stone wall, and he requires to be ridden tightly on the curb to keep
him from tripping. When you add to these peculiarities a tendency to
shy at every tuft of grass, and a habit of hanging the entire weight
of his head on your bridle-hand as soon as he gets the least bit
jaded, it must be admitted that it would be easy to find a pleasanter
horse for a long, hurried journey. Still, on the principle of all’s well
that ends well, I ought not to be so severe on my steed, for the
expedition ended well, and was really rather a severe tax on man
and beast. This is the way we came to take it:
Ever since I arrived, now nearly a year ago, I have been hearing of a
certain “bush” or forest some forty-five or fifty miles away, which is
always named when I break into lamentations over the utter
treelessness of Natal. Latterly, I have had even a stronger craving
than usual to see something more than a small plantation of blue
gums, infantine oaks and baby firs, making a dot here and there
amid the eternal undulation of the low hills around. “Seven-Mile
Bush” has daily grown more attractive to my thoughts, and at last
we accepted one of many kind and hospitable invitations thither, and
I induced F—— to promise that he would forego the dear delight of
riding down to his barn-like office for a couple of days, and come
with Mr. C—— and me to the “bush.” This was a great concession on
his part; and I may state here that he never ceased pining for his
papers and his arm-chair from the moment we started until we came
back.
It was necessary to make a very early start indeed, and the stars
were still shining when we set off, though the first sunbeams were
creeping brightly and swiftly over the high eastern hills. It was a
fresh morning, in spite of the occasional puff of dust-laden air, which
seemed to warn us every now and then that there was such a thing
as a hot wind to be considered, and also that there had not been a
drop of rain for these last five months. The whole country seems
ground to powder, and the almost daily hot winds keep this powder
incessantly moving about; so it is not exactly pleasant for traveling.
We picked up our Kafir guide as we rode through the town, and
made the best of our way at once across the flats between this and
Edendale, which we left on our right, climbing slowly and tediously
up a high hill above it; then down again and up again, constantly
crossing clear, cold, bright rivulets—a welcome moment to horse and
rider, for already our lips are feeling swollen and baked; across stony
reefs and ridges cropping out from bare hillsides; past many a snug
Kafir kraal clinging like the beehives of a giant to the side of a steep
pitch, with the long red wagon-track stretching out as though for
ever and ever before us. The sun is hot, very hot, but we have left it
behind us in the valleys below, and we sweep along wherever there
is a foothold for the horses, with a light and pleasant air blowing in
our faces. Still, it is with feelings of profound content that at the end
of a twenty-mile stage we see “Taylor’s,” a roadside shanty, looking
like a child’s toy set down on the vast flat around, but uncommonly
comfortable and snug inside, with mealie-gardens and forage-
patches around, and more accommodation than one would have
believed possible beneath its low, thatched eaves from the first
bird’s-eye glance. The horses are made luxuriously comfortable
directly in a roomy, cool shed, and we sit down to an impromptu
breakfast in the cleanest of all inn-parlors. I have no doubt it would
have been a very comprehensive and well-arranged meal, but the
worst of it was it never had a chance of being taken as a whole.
Whatever edible the nice, tidy landlady put down on her snowy cloth
vanished like a conjuring trick before she had time to bring the
proper thing to go with it. We ate our breakfast backward and
forward, and all sorts of ways, beginning with jam, sardines, and
mustard, varied by eggs, and ending with rashers of bacon. As for
the tea, we had drunk up all the milk and eaten the sugar by the
time the pot arrived. The only thing which at all daunted us was
some freshly-made boers’ bread, of the color of a sponge, the
consistency of clay and the weight of pig iron. We were quite
respectful to that bread, and only ventured to break off little crusts
here and there and eat it guardedly, for it was a fearful condiment.
Still, we managed to eat an enormous breakfast in spite of it, and so
did the horses; and we all started in highest condition and spirits a
little before two o’clock, having had more than a couple of hours’
rest. After riding hard for some time, galloping over every yard of
anything approaching to broken ground, we ventured to begin to
question our guide—who kept up with us in an amazing manner,
considering the prominence of his little rough pony’s ribs—as to the
remaining distance between us and “Seven-Mile Bush.” Imagine our
horror when he crooked his hand at right angles to his wrist, and
made slowly and distinctly five separate dips with it, pointing to the
horizon as he did so! Now, the alarming part was, that there were
five distinct and ever-rising ranges of hills before us, the range which
made a hard ridge against the dazzling sky being of a deep and
misty purple, so distant was it. We had been assured at Taylor’s that
only twenty-five miles more lay between us and the “bush,” and
those mountains must be now at least thirty miles off. But the guide
only grins and nods his head, and kicks with his bare heels against
his pony’s pronounced ribs, and we hasten on once more. On our
right hand, but some distance off, rises the dark crest of the
Swartzkopf Mountain, and beneath its shadow, extending over many
thousand acres of splendid pasture-ground, is what is known as the
Swartzkopf Location, a vast tract of country reserved—or rather
appropriated—to the use of a large tribe of Kafirs. They dwell here in
peace and plenty, and, until the other day, in prosperity too. But a
couple of years ago lung-sickness broke out and decimated their
herds, reducing the tribe to the very verge of starvation and misery.
However, they battled manfully with the scourge, but it gave them a
distrust of cattle, and they took every opportunity of exchanging
oxen for horses, of which they now own a great number. What we
should have called in New Zealand “mobs” of them were to be seen
peacefully pasturing themselves on the slopes around us, and in
almost every nook and hollow nestled a Kafir kraal. Here and there
were large irregular patches of brown on the fast greening hillsides,
and these straggling patches, rarely if ever fenced, were the mealie-
gardens belonging to the kraals.
By four of the clock we have made such good way that we can
afford immediately after crossing Eland’s River, a beautiful stream, to
“off saddle” and sit down and rest by its cool banks for a quarter of
an hour. Then, tightening up our girths, we push off once more. It
has been up hill the whole way, just excepting the sudden sharp
descent into a deep valley on the farther side of each range; but the
increasing freshness—nay, sharpness—of the air proved to us how
steadily we had been climbing up to a high level ever since we had
passed through Edendale. From this point of the journey the whole
scenic character of the country became widely different from
anything I have hitherto seen in Natal. For the first time I began to
understand what a wealth of beauty lies hidden away among her
hills and valleys, and that the whole country is not made up of
undulating downs, fertile flats and distant purple hills. At the top of
the very first ridge up which we climbed after crossing Eland’s River
a perfectly new and enchanting landscape opened out before us,
and it gained in majesty and beauty with every succeeding mile of
our journey. Ah! how can I make you see it in all its grandeur of
form and glory of color? The ground is broken up abruptly into
magnificent masses—cliffs, terraces and rocky crags. The hills
expand into abrupt mountain-ranges, serrated in bold relief against
the loveliest sky blazing with coming sunset splendors. Every cleft—
or kloof, as it is called here—is filled with fragments of the giant
forest which until quite lately must have clothed these rugged
mountain-sides. Distant hill-slopes, still bare with wintry leanness,
catch some slanting sun-rays on their scanty covering of queer,
reddish grass, and straightway glow like sheets of amethyst and
topaz, and behind them lie transparent deep-blue shadows of which
no pigment ever spread on mortal palette could give the exquisite
delicacy and depth. Under our horses’ feet the turf might be off the
Sussex downs, so close and firm and delicious is it—the very thing
for sheep, of which we only see a score here and there. “Why are
there not more sheep?” I ask indignantly, with my old squatter
instincts coming back in full force upon me. Mr. C—— translates my
question to the Kafir guide, who grins and kicks his pony’s ribs and
says, “No can keep ship here. Plenty Kafir dog: eat up all ships two,
tree day.” “Yes, that is exactly the reason,” Mr. C—— says, “but I
wanted you to hear it from himself.” And ever after this, I,
remembering the dearness and scarcity of mutton in Maritzburg, and
seeing all this splendid feed growing for nothing, look with an eye of
extreme disfavor and animosity on all the gaunt, lean curs I see
prowling about the kraals. Almost every Kafir we meet has half a
dozen of these poaching-looking brutes at his heels, and it
exasperates me to hear that there is a dog law or ordinance, or
something of that sort, “only it has not come into operation yet.” I
wish it would come into operation to-morrow, and so does every
farmer in the country, I should think. Yes, in spite of this fairest of
fair scenes—and in all my gypsy life I have never seen anything
much more beautiful—I feel quite cross and put out to think of
imaginary fat sheep being harried by these useless, hideous dogs.
But the horses are beginning to go a little wearily, and gladly pause
to wet their muzzles and cool their hoofs in every brook we cross. I
am free to confess that I am getting very tired, for nothing is so
wearying as a sudden, hurried journey like this, and I am also
excessively hungry and thirsty. The sun dips down quite suddenly
behind a splendid confusion of clouds and mountain-tops, lights up
the whole sky for a short while with translucent masses of crimson
and amber, which fade swiftly away into strangest, tenderest tints of
primrose and pale green, and then a flood of clear cold moonlight
breaks over all and bathes everything in a differing but equally
beautiful radiance. Three ridges have now been climbed, and the
pertinacious guide only dips his hand twice more in answer to my
peevish questions about the distance. Nay, he promises in wonderful
Dutch and Kafir phraseology to show me the “baas’s” house (whither
we are bound) from the very next ridge. But what a climb it is! and
what a panorama do we look down upon from the topmost crag
before commencing the steep descent, this time through a bit of
dense forest! It is all as distinct as day, and yet there is that soft,
ineffable veil of mystery and silence which moonlight wraps up
everything in. We look over immense tree-tops, over plains which
seem endless beneath the film of evening mist creeping over them,
to where the broad Umkomanzi rushes and roars amid great
boulders and rocks, leaping every here and there over a crag down
to a lower level of its wide and rocky bed. In places the fine river
widens out into a mere, and then it sleeps tranquilly enough in the
moonlight, making great patches of shimmering silver amid the
profound shadows cast by hill and forest. Beyond, again, are
mountains, always mountains, and one more day’s journey like this
would take us into Adam Kop’s Land. As we look at it all now, it does
indeed seem “a sleepy world of dreams;” but in another moment the
panorama is shut out, for we are amid the intense darkness of the
forest-path, stepping carefully down what resembles a stone ladder
placed at an angle of 45°. Of course I am frightened, and of course
my fright shows itself in crossness and in incoherent reproaches. I
feel as if I were slipping down on my horse’s neck; and so I am, I
believe. But nobody will “take me off,” which is what I earnestly
entreat. Both my gentlemen retain unruffled good-humor, and adjure
me “not to think about it,” coupled with assurances of perfect safety.
I hear, however, a great deal of slipping and sliding and rolling of
displaced rocks even after these consoling announcements of safety,
and orders are given to each weary steed to “hold up;” which orders
are not at all reassuring. Somebody told me somewhere—it seems
months ago, but it must have been early in the afternoon—that this
particular and dreadful hill was only three-quarters of a mile from
the “baas’s;” so you may imagine my mingled rage and
disappointment at hearing that it was still rather more than three
miles off. And three miles at this stage of the journey is equal to
thirteen at an earlier date. It is wonderful how well the horses hold
out. This last bit of the road is almost flat, winding round the
gentlest undulation possible, and it is as much as I can do to hold
the chestnut, who has caught sight evidently of twinkling lights there
under the lee of that great wooded cliff. No sound can ever be so
delightful to a wearied and belated traveler as the bark of half a
dozen dogs, and no greeting more grateful than their rough
caresses, half menace and half play. But there is a much warmer and
more cordial welcome waiting for us behind the sako bono of the
dogs, and I find myself staggering about as if the water I have been
drinking so freely all day had been something much stronger. On my
feet at last in such a pretty sitting-room! Pictures, books, papers, all
sorts of comforts and conveniences, and, sight of joy! a tea-table all
ready, even to the tea-pot, which had been brought in when the
dogs announced us. If I had even sixpence for every cup of tea I
drank that evening, I should be a rich woman to the end of my days.
As for the milk, deliciously fresh from the cow, it was only to be
equaled by the cream; and you must have lived all these months in
Natal before you can appreciate as we did the butter, which looked
and tasted like butter, instead of the pale, salt, vapid compound, as
much lard as anything else, for which we pay three shillings and
sixpence a pound in Maritzburg, and which has been costing six
shillings in Port Elizabeth all this winter.
It is always a marvel to me, arriving at night at these out-of-the-way
places, which seem the very Ultima Thule of the habitable globe,
how the furniture, the glass and china, the pictures and ornaments
and books, get there. How has anybody energy to think of
transporting all these perishable articles over that road? Think of
their jolting in a bullock-wagon down that hill! One fancies if one
lived here it must needs be a Robinson-Crusoe existence; instead of
which it is as comfortable as possible; and if one did not remember
the distance and the road and the country, one might be in England,
except for the Kafir boys, barefooted and white-garmented,
something like choristers, who are gliding about with incessant
relays of food for us famished ones. The sweet little golden-haired
children, rosy and fresh as the bough of apple-blossoms they are
playing with, the pretty châtelaine in her fresh toilette,—all might
have been taken up in a beneficent fairy’s thumb and transported, a
moment ago, from the heart of civilization to this its farthest
extremity. As for sleep, you must slumber in just such a bed if you
want to know what a good night’s rest is, and then wake up as we
did, with all memories of the long, wearying day’s journey clean
blotted out of one’s mind, and nothing in it but eagerness not to lose
a moment of the lovely fresh and cool day before us. Even the
sailing clouds are beautiful, and the shadows they cast over the
steep mountains, the broad rivers and the long dark belt of forest
are more beautiful still. Of course, the “bush” is the great novelty to
us who have not seen a tree larger than a dozen years’ growth could
make it since we landed; and it is especially beautiful just now, for
although, like all native forests, it is almost entirely evergreen (there
is a more scientific word than that, isn’t there?), still, there are
patches and tufts of fresh green coming out in delicate spring tints,
which show vividly against the sombre mass of foliage. But oh, I
wish they had not such names! Handed down to us from our Dutch
predecessors, they must surely have got changed in some
incomprehensible fashion, for what rhyme or reason, what sense or
satire, is there in such a name as “cannibal stink-wood”?—applied,
too, to a graceful, handsome tree, whose bark gives out an aromatic
though pungent perfume. Is it not a libel? For a tree with a
particularly beautifully-veined wood, of a deep amber color, they
could think of no more poetical or suggestive name than simply
“yellow-wood:” a tree whose wood is of a rich veined brown, which
goes, too, beautifully with the yellow-wood in furniture, is merely
called “iron-wood,” because it chances to be hard; and so forth.
Before going to the “bush,” however, we consider ourselves bound to
go and look at the great saw-mill down by the Umkomanzi, where all
these trees are divided and subdivided, cut into lengths of twenty
feet, sawn into planks, half a dozen at a time, and otherwise
changed from forest kings to plain, humdrum piles and slabs and
posts for bridges, rooftrees, walls, and what not. There is the
machinery at work, with just one ripple, as it were, of the rushing
river turned aside by a little sluice, to drive the great wheel round
and set all the mysterious pistons and levers moving up and down in
their calm, monotonous strength, doing all sorts of miraculous things
in the most methodical, commonplace manner. I was much struck by
the physiognomy of the only two white men employed about this
mill. There were some assistant Kafirs of course, but these two in
their widely-different ways were at once repellent and interesting.
One of them was, I think, the biggest man I ever saw. To say that
he looked like a tall tree himself among his fellows is to give you,
after all, the best idea of his enormous height and powerful build. He
moved huge logs about with scarcely an effort, and it was entirely
for his enormous physical strength that our host kept him in his
place. I did not need to be told he was one of the most persistent
and consistent bad characters imaginable, for a single glance at his
evil countenance was enough to suggest that he could hardly be a
very satisfactory member of society. He had only one eye, and about
as hang-dog, sullen, lowering a countenance as one would see out
of the hulks. His “mate” was a civil, tidy, wizen-looking, elderly man,
who might have appeared almost respectable by the side of the
bigger villain if his shaking hand and bleared, restless eyes had not
told his story plainly enough. Still, if he could only be kept out of
temptation the old man might be trusted; but our host confessed
that he did not half like retaining the services of the other, and yet
did not know where to find any one who would or could do his work
so easily and admirably. It is almost impossible to get any men to
come and live up here, so far away from their fellow-creatures and
from everything except their work; so one has to put up with a
thousand drawbacks in the service one is able to procure. I was glad
when we turned our backs upon that villainous-looking giant and
strolled beneath a perfect sun and sky and balmy air toward the
lowest kloof or cleft where the great “bush” ran down between two
steep spurs. The grass of the downs over which we walked had all
the elasticity of tread of turf to our feet, but they ended abruptly in a
sort of terrace, under which ran a noisy, chattering brooklet in a vast
hurry to reach the Umkomanzi over yonder. It is easy to scramble
down among the tangle of ferns and reeds and across the boulders
which this long dry winter has left bare, and so strike one of the
Bushmen’s paths without difficulty, and get into the heart of the
forest before we allow ourselves to sit down and look around us.
How wonderfully poetical and beautiful it all is!—the tall, stately
trees around us, with their smooth magnificent boles shooting up
straight as a willow wand for sixty feet and more before putting forth
their crown of lofty branches, the more diminutive undergrowth of
gracefulest shrubs and plumy tufts of fern and lovely wild flowers—
violets, clematis, wood-anemones and hepaticas—showing here and
there a modest gleam of color. But indeed the very mosses and
lichens at our feet are a week’s study, and so are the details of the
delicate green tracery creeping close to the ground. The trees, the
actual great forest trees, are our delight, however, and we never
weary of calling to each other to “come and look at this one,”
extemporizing measuring-lines from the endless green withies which
hang in loops and festoons from the higher branches. Thirty feet
round five feet from the ground is not an uncommon measurement,
and it is half sad, half amusing to see how in an hour or so we too
begin to look upon everything as timber, to call the most splendid
trees “blocks” (the woodman’s word), and to speculate and give
opinions as to the best way of “falling” the beautiful stems. Up
above our heads the foliage seems all interlaced and woven together
by a perfect network of these monkey ropes—a stout and sturdy
species of liane, really—such as I have seen swinging from West
India forest trees. Here they are actually used as a sort of trapeze by
the troops of baboons which live in these great woods, coming down
in small armies when the mealies are ripe, and carrying off literally
armsful of cobs. The Kafirs dread the baboons more than anything
else, and there is a regular organized system of warfare between
them, in which the baboons by no means get the worst. I heard a
sickening story of how only last season the Kafirs of a kraal close by,
infuriated by their losses, managed to catch an old baboon, leader of
his troop, and skinned him and let him go again into the woods. It is
too horrible to think of such cruelty, and it seemed a blot upon the
lovely idyllic scene around us. All the wild animals with which the
bush was teeming until a very few years ago are gradually being
driven farther and farther back into the highest part, which has not
yet been touched by axe or hatchet. There are still many kinds of
buck, however—we saw three splendid specimens grazing just
outside—besides other game. It must—not so long ago, either—have
been the quiet forest home of many a wild creature, for there are
pits now to be seen, one of which we came across with sharp stakes
at the bottom, dug to trap elephants, whose bones lie there to this
day. Tigers also have been seen, and panthers and leopards, but
they grow scarcer every year. The aboriginal inhabitants of the
border country beyond, the little Bushmen—the lowest type of
human creatures—used to come down and hunt in great numbers
here in this very spot where we are sitting, and traces of their
ingenious methods of snaring their prey are to be seen in many
places.
As I sat there, with the tinkle of the water in my ears, sole break in
the “charmèd silence” around, I could not make up my mind which
was the most enchanting, to look up or down—up to where the
tenderest tint of cobalt blue showed through the flicker of green
leaves nearly a hundred feet above us, and where a sudden terror
among the birds drove them in bright-plumaged flight from bough to
bough; or down on the ground among the delicious brown leaves
and wonderful minutiæ of diminutive tendril and flower. Here and
there were fallen crimson and yellow leaves, riveting the eye for a
moment by their vivid glow, or the young fronds of a rare fern over
yonder are pushing up their curled horns of pale green. A month
hence it will be all carpeted with wild flowers, and the heaths will be
spires of tiny bells. There is also a coarse but sweet grass, growing
luxuriantly, on which the cattle love to feed when all the herbage
outside is parched and burned to the very root.
As I read over what I have written, I am filled with a deep disgust to
perceive how impossible it has been for me to catch even the
faintest reflection of the charm of that forest-glade—how its subtle
beauty is not, by any poor words of mine, to be transferred to paper
—how its stillness and its life, its grandeur and its delicate
prettinesses, the aroma of the freshly-cut logs, the chirrup of the
cicalas, the twitter of the birds, all, all escape me. Yet I shall have
failed indeed if I have not been able to convey to you that it was a
delicious hour, and that I enjoyed every moment of it. I am only a
woman, so I was content to sit there plaiting a crown of ferns, and
thinking how I should tell you all about it some day, perhaps. My
companions conversed together, and their talk was entirely about
killing something—“sport” they called it—how best they could get a
shot at those graceful bucks over yonder; what a pity the close
season had begun; what partridges there were; when the wild-ducks
would come down to that large mere shining in the distance;
whether there were any wild-pigeons; how far into the unexplored
bush one must penetrate to get a shot at a panther; and so forth. It
seemed a desecration to talk of taking life on such a heavenly
morning, and I was glad when it all ended in a project of a fishing-
excursion after a late luncheon.
As we found we should be obliged to start early to-morrow morning,
I decided to stay at home and rest this afternoon; and I did not
regret my resolution, for it was very pleasant by the fire, and our
beautiful morning turned into a raw, cold drizzle. But, as the people
about here say, it has really forgotten how to rain, and it is more like
a Scotch mist than anything else. Whatever it may be called, it blots
out mountain and forest and river, and causes the fishing-excursion
to turn into the dismalest failure. Next morning, too, when we start
after breakfast, we are all glad of our waterproofs (what should I do
without my ulster?), and the ground is as slippery as though it had
been soaped. Our farewells are made, and we declare that we have
no need of our Kafir guide again, though I confess to misgivings as
to how we are to find our road through so thick a mist. It has also
been decided, for the sake of the horses, to take them only as far as
Taylor’s to-night, and so break the journey. But the question is, Shall
we ever find Taylor’s? for it is a little off the track, and we cannot
see five yards to our right hand or our left. We are obliged to go
very slowly, and there are places, steep up and down hill, where in
spite of precaution and picking out grass or stones to go over, our
horses’ feet fly from under them, and we each in our turn come
down on the damp red clay in an awkward sprawl. However, we do
not disgrace ourselves by tumbling off, and my poor habit fares the
worst, for the chestnut always seems to pick himself up, in some
odd way, by its help; and the process is not beneficial to it. Eland’s
River is crossed early in the afternoon, and then, slippery or not, we
are forced to push on, for it seems as though it intended to be
pitchy dark by four o’clock, and the mist turns into a thick, fine rain.
At last, about half-past four, we hear on our left the joyful sound of
barking dogs and crowing cocks, and the horses of their own accord
show a simultaneous desire to turn off the track, to which, with its
guiding wagon-wheels, we have so persistently clung. If it be not
Taylor’s—if it turns out that these sounds come only from a Kafir
kraal—then indeed I don’t know what we shall do, for we can never
find the track again. It is an anxious moment, and Taylor’s is so
small and so low that we are as likely as not to ride right over it; but
no, there is a wagon, and behind the wagon, and not much higher, is
a thatched roof, and under that thatched roof are warmth and food
and shelter and a warm, cordial welcome; all of which good things
we are enjoying in five minutes’ time. As for the horses, they are
rubbed down and put to stand in a warm shed, with bedding up to
their knees and a perfect orgie of mealies and green forage before
them in boxes. Let us hope they enjoyed the contrast between
indoors and out of doors as much as we did. At all events, they were
freshness itself next morning, when we made another start—not
quite so early, for only the lesser half of our long journey lay before
us, and the flood of sunshine made it worth while to wait a little and
let the soapy clay tracks have a chance to get dry.
It was exquisitely fresh and balmy about nine o’clock, when, after a
capital breakfast, we did start at last, and the well-washed hills had
actually put on quite a spring-green tint since we passed them a
couple of days ago from yesterday’s long looked-for, much-wanted
rain. I went through many anxieties, however, on that return
journey, because my two companions, who were in the most tearing,
school-boy spirits, insisted on leaving the road with its guiding marks
of wagon-wheels, as well as every landmark to which I fondly clung,
and taking me across country, over hill and dale, through swampy
hollows and over rocky goat-paths, until I was quite bewildered and
thoroughly incredulous as to where we should emerge. It is true that
the dark crest of Swartzkopf lay steadily to our left, just where it
should be, but I invariably protested we were all wrong when I had
any leisure or breath to do anything but “hold on with my eyelids”
up and down hill. At last we climbed up our last hill-face, and there,
below us, literally smiling in the sunshine, lay the pretty little mission
settlement of Edendale. We were exactly where we wanted,
topographically speaking, to be, but between us and Edendale the
mountain dropped sheer down, as it seemed to me, and naught but
a goat-path was there. “Of course we are going to get off and lead
our horses down,” I fondly hope. No such thing! I can’t very well get
off by myself, for the precipice is so sheer that I should certainly
drop down a hundred feet or so. F—— steadily declines to “take me
off,” and begins to slip and slither down the track on horseback. I
feel my saddle getting into all sorts of odd positions, and I believe I
am seated on my horse’s ears, although I lean back until I can
nearly touch his tail. It is really horrible. I get more and more cross
every moment, and scold F—— and reproach Mr. C—— furiously all
the way down, without eliciting the smallest sign of remorse from
either. But it is very difficult to remain cross when once we have
reached the foot of that cruel descent, for it is all inexpressibly lovely
and calm and prosperous that beautiful spring morning. Everybody
seems busy, and yet good-humored. The little black children grinned
and saluted on their way to school; the elders cried “Sako bono,
inkosa!” as they looked up from their basket-plaiting or their wagon-
making; the mill-wheel turned merrily with a busy clatter
inexpressibly cool and charming; the numerous fowls and ducks
cackled and quacked as they scuttled from under our horses’ feet.
We rode down the main street, with its neat row of unburnt brick
houses on either hand, across a little river, and so, under avenues of
syringas whose heavy perfume filled the delicious air, out into the
open country once more. It is nearly a dead level between this and
Maritzburg, and the road is in good order after the long winter
drought; so we make the best of our way, and hardly draw rein until
we are under the lee of the hill on which Fort Napier stands. Here is
a villainous bit of road, a perfect study of ingenuity as to cross-
drains, holes and pitfalls generally; so the horses take breath once
more for an easy canter down the quiet straight streets of the sleepy
little Dutch town. Our cottage lies beyond it and across the river, but
it is still early, hardly noon in fact, when we pull up at our own
stable-door, and the horses seem every whit as fresh and in as good
condition as when we started, yet they have gone close upon one
hundred miles from first to last,
Over hill, over dale,
Through brush, through brier.

September 25.
I declare I have not said anything about the weather for a long time.
I cannot finish more appropriately than by one of my little
meteorological reports. The skies are trying to remember how to
rain; we have every now and then a cold, gray day—a day which is
my particular delight, it is so like an English one; then rain more or
less heavy, and an attempt at a thunderstorm. The intervening days
are brightly glaring and exceedingly hot. Everything is bursting
hurriedly and luxuriantly into bloom; my scraggy rose-bushes are
thickly covered with buds, which blow into splendid roses after every
shower; the young oaks are a mass of tender, luxuriant green, and
even the unpoetical blue gums try hard to assume a fresh spring
tint; the fruit trees look like large bouquets of pink blossom, and the
laquot trees afford good sport for G—— in climbing and stone-
throwing. On the veldt the lilies are pushing up their green sheaths
and brilliant cups through the still hard ground, the black hill-slopes
are turning a vivid green, and the weeds are springing up in millions
all over my field-like flower-beds. Spring is always lovely
everywhere, but nowhere lovelier than in “fair Natal.”
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