LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 983, 20 August 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

GROETHODE’S LEATHER BREECHEP, A STORY OF THE CAPE POLICE. [From All the Year Round.] ‘ Vou want a horse to go to Alexaudersf ntein to-morrow ? I don’t think we can spare one except Jumps. But, look here ! our new inspector has borrowed the green cart, to look round camp on that side, and he may as well give you a lift.’ W e were at Bulfontein-house, on the South African Diamond Fields I believe there are a score of mansions built at this time, compared with which the old Residence would seem a pretentious cow-house. But, when I knew it, we were desperately proud of our dwelling, and defied even the great New Rush, that marvellous pit of gems, to show its equal. Seldom then, and never now, 1 should suppose, did you ask for a ho se in vain. But on this occasion, as the manager explained, I must either take a “ cart in Dutoitspau Camp below, or share the inspector’s vehicle, if I would shoot plovers for breakfast on the flats of Alexin lersfontein.” Of course, I chose to go somewhat out of my way, and thus came to hear the story which I propose to tell you. At the hour conventionally known as daybreak in those early climes, we started. The faintest hue of grey overspread the sky, and a man unused to African travelling would have thought it madness to drive over Bulfontein digging in such a light; but one learns there a fatalism beyond that of Turk or Fellah and without an extra throb I lit my early pipe and took my seat behind the stalwart “ boy,” who had to pilot us amongst the ‘ 1 claims ” of Bulfontein. At the bottom of the hill we stopped to pick up the inspector. I don’t know why I should not name him, for the tale is true, every word, so far as memory s ;rves me ; but British custom is against the naming of names, and I will call the excellent fellow Mac David, so that those who know may recognise. He took his seat beside me under the tilt of the ‘cart,’ and we bowled along behind a pair of the company’s horses round the outskirts of the camp. The inspector kept his eyes about him, asking questions of this matter or that. I said after a while : ‘ They say your men dislike this police work in camp V 1 Well,’ he answered, ‘ it’s not surprising ; they didn’t enlist for any such service. The proof of it is, that we are a mounted corps, and yet I have to borrow your friend’s horse to take me round to my beat. The men don’t understand that its just a temporary service ; they call each other Bobby, and have a score of jokes, horses are eating their heads off in the big stable yonder. Isn’t that a drinking shop, under the tree ?’ I explained how the tent in question was occupied by a man to whom all this land, and many a mile around, once belonged, and how the authorities dealt with him leniently. And then I said : ‘ Surely your men find excitement enough in camp ? This place is not so peaceful as it was twelve months ago ’ ‘ Excitement ?’ repeated Mac David. * It might be exciting for London peelers, but not for the frontier police ; our fellows want it hot and strong, like ‘Gape Smoke” (Cape brandy). Half of them went through the Coranna war, and grumbled at that. Our proper business is to guard the frontier against those little imps of Bushmen, who are the natural enemies of the human race, white or black. A man who has campaigned with them is difficult to suit in a fight. ’ * But you haven’t Coranna wars every year,’ I said, ‘ nor even brushes with a Kaffir kraal. Come now Mr Mac David, the frontier police are soldiers of course, but they are policemen, too, and they catch even pickpockets sometimes upon the veldt,’ ‘ I don’t know about pickpockets. They’d certainly catch any one they looked after; but our crimes don’t run in that line. Horrors are done in this lonely veldt that beat all the fancy of civilisation.’ We had skirted round the purlieus of Bultfontein, and once more struck the road which led me to the hunting-grounds. The sun was up. Each tall ant hill beside the track threw its long blue shadow over the thin grass. No object more -striking ; neither tree nor rock, nor water, broko tile grey level. Wave beyond wave of colorless herbags the veldt stretched round, until it melted hazily beneath the flat-topped barren hills. The blue shadow of our rapid cart danced beside us. Could men, born m such a desert landscape not Bedouins, but Christian men —conceive the crimes that we in Europe know 1 I had seen something of the boers, and had marvelled at their simplicity, whilst recognising that it was not always amiable. But they have no such passion, no such desires, nor wants, as leads to crime with us. '• hey know hung ;r but as a feeling of their black servants, greed of wealth only as a passion of those strange men who dig and dig for stones with which, a while ago, they plastered their mud cottages. Of love they are capable most certainly; but in its best, its sacred form. Of course I had heard stories, 'hit MacDavid’s tone seemed to suggest a sort of crime differing from that stolid and matter-of-fact immorality which Cape Town judges are sometimes called upon to punish. ‘ You have had some rough police work,’ I said. ‘ It was I arrested Groethode,’ he replied ; adding after an instant, ‘ Perhaps you’ve not heard of the man'.' But ask Mr F up at the Residence, and he’ll tell you stories to make your hair r.se. ’ ‘ I would rather hear yorrT answered. And he told it me. Eo doubt I shall make some errors in transcribing it here, after four years have elapsed. I am not even certain that my ghastly hero’s name was Groethode. But Cape readers will excuse me when they observe that I have at least got all my important facts correcr, and of that I feel assured. ‘I had served live years in the Eastern province,’ began Mac David, 1 when 1 was transferred to the Colesberg district. They gave me a fortnight to report myself in, and 1 determined to ride the distance, mossing the Drakenburg mountains. On the fifth day out wo rather lost ourselves, the Totty groom and I. After wandering for a few hours we came to a kloof—what they should call in England a cleft. You know the gap by Belmont, through which the road passes from this to Hope town ! It was just as lonely, just as grand as that, if you could fancy the valley before it was inhabited. And at the mouth stood a boer farmhouse. 1 In the house I b und an old woman, who appeared, as'l remembered afterwards, struck all of a heap by my appearance. IJwas in

uniform. But she gave me coffee, of course, and said breakfast would be ready soon. There was a settle by the door, protected by a plank from the draught, and I sat down on it. After talking with the old woman for awhile I got drowsy, and so, I think, did she. You know how boers sleep, especially the women. It was very hot. ‘ Presently there was a clatter in the stoop, the door opened, and I jumped up. ‘ Take those crackers and wash them !’ said a gruff voice in Dutch. A big man, a giant, was standing in the middle or the room, with the leather breeches in his hand. The old woman made a movement, I suppose, for he turned suddenly, and looked me in the face. There was a stare in his eyes which your regular policeman would have recognised at once. I daresay, but it only seemed a strange look to me. I said something in Dutch, and he answered roughly ?’ going with that to the back room, where I saw a couple of Totty women cutting at a sheep. He threw the crackers into a corner, took the knife and hacked off three or four ribs tearing them from the carcass pitched them to the women, and came back, his hands all bloody.’ Was this Groethode ?’ I asked. * The very man ! A giant he was, a huge hill of flesh. His mother that I’d been talking to, was every inch of six feet high, though stooped with age. Groethode measured nearly seven feet, if not quite. You know to what a monstrous height these boers run, but when the trial came he topped witnesses and jury by half a head. We sat down ’ ‘ But what sort of face had he ?’ * Oh, fair you know, with a big rough beard all round, like the rest of them. Large blue eyes, looking wild, and a trick of moving his eyebrows up and down—what people would call a handsome man but with a queer expression. I rather liked him. He had great spirits for a boer—indeed, I thought him rather drunk—slapping his mother on th * back, and throwing the mutton bones at his Totty women as fast as he cleaned them. He made me laugh a (good deal, though he didn’t laugh himself. I had never seen a boer like that, and I thought, if the Colesberg people should bo as lively, I’d made a good exchange, (To he continued.)