The French Blue by Richard W. Wise

Author:Richard W. Wise [Wise, Richard W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Richard W. Wise

Figure 13: The Khoi involved in various activities. Table Mountain and Table Bay are in the background. From a late 17th Century engraving.

We remained at the cape for twenty days. I made several excursions into the countryside, often with a young Dutch soldier named Van Scoy, a boyish, fair-haired young fellow who was stationed at the fort and was familiar with the country.

One day we came upon a group of Kaffir men lounging around a small fire, smoking and passing around pipes while their cattle grazed. Men and women always carried a tobacco pouch filled with a smoke weed they call dagga. Van Scoy saluted them. He spoke a bit of their unusual language. They make clicking noises with their tongues, which serve them as words.

The Khoi motioned to us to sit and join them. My young Dutch friend was apparently well known to these people, and unlike most Dutch, he was an affable, curious young man. The Khoi seemed at ease with him. We sat down with them on a grassy slope next to a stream. A pipe was passed. The odor was familiar: they were smoking the leaves of the hemp plant that the Indian's call bhang. In India, I smoked this herb several times and found it a pleasant diversion.

One old man gestured in my direction and said something to Van Scoy. The old man's skin was shiny with grease which gave off an odor of rotting flesh. He wore a lion skin kaross.

"Forgive me, Herr Tavernier, this old man asks why you have come to this country."

I leaned back, exhaled the smoke, and gazed up at the sky. The sky was bigger here and vivid blue. Thick white clouds rolled across the broad plain from the south and a gentle wind rippled the grass.

"Tell him that I am a merchant and the ship is taking me home to my country."

"I am sorry; I do not know how to say that, there is no word in their language for merchant. He asks if you are rich, how many wives do you have, and how many cattle?"

"I have no wife and no cattle."

The old fellow looked at me sternly; his face was wrinkled like a dried coconut.

"The old man says he is sorry for you."

"Sorry for me, why? I have better things to do than pick the cow shit from between my toes, and no woman tells me what to do."

Van Scoy translated. The old man laughed and shook his finger at me.

"He says he has never heard of such a thing. He asks how you build your houses if you have no dung and if you have no wife to do the work."

The old Kaffir wore a peaked leather cap like a jester, his gap-toothed smile struck me funny, and his laugh was infectious. A thick bank of clouds crested the mountain.

"Tell him that I too am a herder. I herd diamonds, rubies and pearls."

"He does not know what these are. He asks can you show him."

Why not, I thought.

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