Dublin Penny Journal

African Sketches, by Thomas PringleSource: The Dublin Penny Journal, Vol. 3, No. 145 (Apr. 11, 1835), pp. 321-322Published by: Dublin Penny JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30003266 .

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DUBLIN PENNY JOURNAL CONDUCTED BY P. DIXON HARDY, M.R.I.A.

VYoL. III. APRIL 11, 1835. No. 145.

THE BECHUANA BOY.

AFRICAN SKETCHES, BY THOMAS PRINGLE. SECOND NOTICE.

In our notice of a poition of this interesting volume in our last, we believe we did not mention that about one- third of it consists of poetic sketches. While as

poetrgy, they could not be ranked beyond mediocrity, as descrip- tive, touching sketches, connected with Africa, they justly darnm a fair portion of the reader's attention. Of this the foi!owing will affobrd an illustration. It is, as the reader will perceive, a description of the engraving which we have given, and which stands as a ftbntispiece to the volume.

THWE BECHUANA BOY.

I sat at noontide in my tent, And looked across the desert dun,

Beneath the cloudless firmament Far gleaming in the sun,

Wh-en from the bosom of the waste A swarthy stripling canme in haste, 'Tit!l foot unshod and naked linmb; And a tame springbok followed him.

With open aspect, frank yet bland, And with a modest mien he stood,

Caressing with a gentle hand That beast of gentle brood;

SThen, meekly gazing in my face, Said in the language of his race, With smiling look yet pensive tone, " Stranger--I'm in the world alone !"#

* L' Iu ben alleenig in de uwaereld !' was the touching expres- sion of Marossi. the Bechuana orphan boy, in his broken Dutch, wher he first fell accidentally under my protection, at Milk Ri- ver in Camdeboo, in September, 1825. lie was then apparently about nine or ten years of age, and had been carried from his native country hy the Bergcnanar. Ile was sold to a Boor

, 1r. -yo, .41. & -

" Poor boy !P' I said, "1 thy native home Lies far beyond the Stormberg blue:

Why hast thou left it, boy ! to roam This desolate Karroo ?"

His face grew sadder while I spoke; The smile forsook it ; and he broke Short silence with a sob-like sigh, And told his hapless history. "I have no home !" replied the boy:

" The Bergenaars-by night they came, And raised their wolfish howl of joy,

While o'er our huts the flame

I (for an old jacket !) only a few months previously, when the kraal or hamlet of his tribe had been sacked by those banditti in the manner described in the text. The other incidents of the poem are also taken from his own simple narrative, with the exception of his flying to the desert with a tame springbok-a poetical licence suggested to me by seeing, a few days afterwards, a slave child playing with a springbok fawn at a boor's residence.

" This little African accompanied my wife and me to Eng- land; and with the gradual development of his feelings and fa- culties he became interesting to us in no ordinary degree. He was indeed a remarkable child. With a great flow of animal spirits, and natural hilarity, he was at the same time docile, ob- servant, reflective, and always unselfishly considerate of others. He was of a singularly ingenuous and affectionate disposition: and, in proportion as his reason expanded, his heart became daily more thoroughly imbued with the genuine spirit of the Gospel, insomuch that all who knew him, involuntarily and with one consent, applied to this African boy the benignant words of our Saviour-' Of such is the kingdom of heaven.' He was hap. tised in 1827, and took on himself (in conjunction with Mrs. P. and me) his baptismal vows, in the most devout and sensible manner. Shortly afterwards he died of a pulmonary complaint under which he had for maniy mont!:h suflred with exe;siplary meekness."

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822 THE DUBLIN PENNY JOURNAL, Resistless rushed; and ave thoir yell Pealed louder as our warriors fell In helpless heaps beneath their shot: -One living man they left us not!

"The slaughter o'er, they gave theb slain To feast the fouI-be~ked birds of prey;

And, with our herds, across the plaimn They hurried us awaiy-

The widowed mothers and their brood. Oft, in despair, for drink and food We vainly cried; they heeded not, But with sharp lash the captive smote.

Three d rs 'we tracked that dreary Rdil1,

er-e tfirst and angnifh prcssed

us sore; And nmany a mothei an'd her chid S

Lay down to rise. no more. Behind us, on the desert brown, We saw the vultures swo)oping down : And heard, as the grim night wa- !l"ling, The wolf to his gorged comrade

caiiinr . "At length was heard a river soundi'g

'.Midst that drY al disdmal dan, And, like a troop of wild deer

boundiu', We hurried to its strand-- Among the maddened cattle rushmin ; The crowd behind still forward pimsinl, Till in the flood our limbs were drenchfed, And the fierce rage of thirst was qtuenched. " ~irse-rParing, dark, the hboad Garerp

ia iuhd tX`re~~mis was sweeping

at, s

En~ e seacows in its eddies deep Loud snorting as we passed;

*'ut that relentless robber clan eight through those waters wild and wan Drove on Iike sheep our wearied band:

6 MY a never reached the farther strIad.,

: All shivering from the foa-ming flood, We stood upon the stranger'snground,

When, with proud looks and gestures rude, The white Men gathered round :

And there, like cattle fiomo the ffold, By Christians we vwere boutght and so!d, 'Mnidst laughter loud and looks of sCorn- And roughly from each other torn. " My mother's scream, so long and shrill,

Mly little sister's wailing cry, (In dreams I often hear them still I)

Rose wildly to the skyq. A tiger's heart came to me then, And fiercely on those rithless ienc I sprang.-Alas! dashed ot the sand, Bleeding, they bound me foot and hand. '"Away--away on prancing steeds

:. The stout mi.an-stealers blithel ygo, T hroigh lontglow vahlesss'ftinged with reeds, O'er mountainscapped Axith s:no.w, Each with his captive, far and fast; Until yan rock-bound ritdg e we assed, And distant stripes of cultured soil Bespoke the iand pf

tears and tail, " And tears and toil have been m

.Y lot

Since I the white man's thrall became, And sorer griei I wish forgot- .

Harsh blows, and sarn, and shname : Oh, Englislman! thou ne'er ecanst

howy The injmurecd bdman's bitter woe~ When round his breast, like: sEcorpins, ctinr Black thoughts, tLat madden whs.l they stng! p'Yet this hard ifate I nitit hlave bIorane,

Miad taught in time my soul to bend,.. 3l$d my sad yearning h:art fIbrlorn

But found a sinle firiend: 1Myrace extinct or thr removed, The boor's rough brood I could have loved;

,t e' to whom my" bosom turned. Even like a hound the black bay spurned,

"While, friendless thus, my master's flocks I t'ended on the upland waste,

It chanced this faiwn leapt from the rocks, By wolfish wild-dogs chased :

I rescued it, though wounded sore And dabbIled in its mother's gore; And nursed it in a cavern wild, Until it loved me like a child.

,C Gently I nursed it; for I thought (Its 1hapless fate so like to mine)

By good U'nixo* it was brought To bid me not repine-

Since in this d orld of wron0 and ili One creature lived that loved me still, Although itsdarlk andti dlzzling eye Beamed not with human sympathy. r Thus lived I, a lone orphan lad,

My task the proud Boor's flocks to tend; And this poor lawn was all I had,

To love, or call myi friend; W'hten suddenly, with haughity look And :taunti,

words, that tyrant took

dMy playmater fir his panipered boy, W0ho envied me my only joy. "High swelled mily heart !i--But when the stir

Of midnight gleamed, I softly led My bounding fvourite forth, and far

Into the desert fled. And here, fromn human kind exiledk Three moons on roots and berries wild I've fared ; and braved the beasts of prey, To 'scape from spoilers worse than they. " But yester morn a Bushman brought

The tidings that thy tents.were near

And now with hasty foot I've sought

.Thy presence, void of fear;

Because they say, O English chief, Thout scornest not the captive's gerief: Then let me serve thee as thine own-- For I am in the world alone !" Such was Marossi's touching tale.

One' breasts they were not made of stone; His words, his winning looks prevail-

We took him for "our own." And one, with woman's gentle art, Unlocked the fountains of his heart; And love gushed forth-till he became Her child, in every thing but name.

In our last we observed, that although i Mr. Pringle in his outlines of natural history did notat all at0ct the man of science, frol: his brief sketches of the various animals which came under his.observation, more information might be obtained relative to their manners and habits, than may be f'eqmtentlygaineda from works professing to treat scientifically of such subjets..

THE EfaLfAix.

Of the peculiar habits and instincts of the elephant much has been written. The following, evidently sketched from nature, we venttIre to affirm will affbrd a juster idea of the character of this lord of the forest, as seen in his own domain, than could be gathered from any work on zoology yet publshed. o

We slept bone niglt at the mouth of a subsidiary dell, which I named Elephant's Glen, from the circumstance of its wooded recesses being tlen inhabited by a. troop of those gigantic animals, whose strange wild

,cry was heard

by us the whol

t ight long, as we bivouacked:by t he ver, sounding like a trumpet am ong the moo night mountains

" Utdka, a term now in geneal e ng many of the South Afnican tribes for the Suyrem l be ing, lerived from the ot-

t word Tiko,' is aii i y to sigify 'The Beautiful$' .It has been adopted$* Y miissnies to denote thi true God,"

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