Chapter Three

Matobo

Like so many others, I always believed that these amazing formations were the result of bubbling oozing lava that had been squeezed out of the hot bowels of the earth millions of years ago.

But that assumption is wrong. The whole of southern Africa is a single block, a single mass of granite, the stuff which formed the earth’s crust two thousand million years ago.

In many places, like the Matobo hills, other rock ended up on top of the granite mass, and this other rock was prone to weathering.

For two thousand million years nature gradually removed this rock cover, exposing the granite. But nature does not rest. There are no days off, so the granite, in turn, has also been subjected to this relentless weathering. It has been eroded, moulded, cracked, split and sanded. And the amazing shapes and feats of balance that we see today are the result of this unstoppable weathering action.

Not only do these monstrous balancing balls and blocks and stone towers conjure up visions of bubbling lava, they invoke thoughts of mighty earthquakes, ice, floods, cataclysmic volcanic upheavals – it’s difficult to accept that it’s all been created by boring old erosion. But over millions upon millions of years, this has been the cause.

You could stand at Cecil John Rhodes’s “View of the World” or on top of the amphitheatre at Njelele – where the cave of the mlimo hides inside a giant cloven wall, look out into the hills and see a hundred different rockformations. There are basically two types, or class, of hills in the Matobo range. “Whalebacks” and “castle koppies’”

I found an interesting explanation of how these koppies were formed in a book called “The Matopos” written by Sir Robert Tredgold, published in 1956. In that book, Tredgold states that different lines of weakness in the granite, called “joints” are the cause of the different types of hill formations. I quote from his book.

“The difference between them does not lie in any way in the rocks from which they are made, but in the natural weakness, called joints. Which traverse them. All rocks have these lines of weakness, and in granite they take two quite different forms. One kind of jointing consists of practically straight lines in three directions more or less at right angles, two vertical and one horizontal. A feature of the jointing of the Matopos granite is the consistent direction of the vertical sets of joints. One set runs nearly north to south, and the other east to west. This is very clearly seen on aerial photographs or from an aircraft flying over the hills, and these two sets of joints have a profound effect upon the pattern of the rivers which drain the area, on the shapes of the hills, and even on individual boulders.”

This describes the way in which “castle koppies” were formed.

Regarding the “whalebacks”, he had this to say –

The great whalebacks are also joint controlled but on a different pattern. The rectangular joint pattern is still present and fillings of quartz and other types may often be found marking the position of some of them, but their effect is overshadowed by curved joints of large radius like the skin of a gigantic onion, parallel to the surface of the dome. The origin of these curved Joints is by no means clear, but they may have been caused by relief of pressure during the removal by erosion of the overlying load of rock. However this may be, these curved shells separate slightly from the underlying surface and break along the rectangular joints. The loosened blocks slide down the inner skin of the onion and form heaps of jumbled rock round the base of the hills. At times remnants of an outer skin remain as huge rounded boulders on the summit. This is the origin of the boulders which surround Rhodes’ grave. The hill to the north of the grave shows a considerable portion of the outer shell cut up by joints, with weathered blocks beside it. On the precipitous faces below, the edges of out shells can be seen, with a mass of fallen granite blocks at the foot.”

In summing up the geology of the Matobo hills it’s hard to do a better job than Tredgold, so I will borrow one more paragraph from his book.

“No landscape is static, it only appears so by our standard of time. What we see of the Matopos of today is merely a single frame from a long film which began millions of years ago, and will continue for many more. The beginning and end of the film will show much the same scene, an almost level plain, with a few minor hills on it. The two plains will be separated by millions of years in time and several hundred feet in height, but otherwise they would look the same. The action all takes place in the middle part of the film. The rivers deepen and widen their valleys, the great whalebacks emerge. Break down to castles, and then to low mounds. The monotony of the new plain, to which the landscape is tending, appears. It remains until some new uplift rejuvenates the power of the streams, and a new cycle of landscape evolution begins. The sculpture of our Matopos hills began long before men appeared on earth, and it is our good fortune to have come in somewhere in the middle of this continuous performance.”

The People

Whether visiting the Matobo hills for the Bushman paintings, or the scenery, or just a relaxing weekend in the National Park, one inevitably wonders who lived in these secret places? Who was here first? Where did they go? Who came after them?

The Matobo hills are venerated by the African people who are tied to them by history and tradition. Custom dictates that certain hills must not be pointed at for fear of inducing cold, inclement weather or even something far more sinister.

Matobo. Where does that name come from? What does it mean? Elspeth Parry, in her book “A Guide to Rock Art of the Matopo Hills Zimbabwe says this. “Through the years some confusion has arisen over the correct name for the hills, now popularly known as ‘Matopos ‘. However, this is incorrect as the word Matopo, which is used in this book, is already in the plural. The name seems to be a corruption of Matombo the Kalanga word for hills, an alternative corruption, Matobo, is sometimes used.”

Robert Tredgold, in his book “The Matopos” offered this: “The origin of the name is not altogether clear. The early missionaries used Amatopa, and it is obvious that, in the native language, it was a plural form, even without the final ‘s’. It is a pity that we have made this duplication, but it has become too firmly enshrined in common usage to be altered now. Probably it was originally Matombo or Madombo meaning simply “the rocks”. There is a pleasant legend that the name “Matobo” was given to the hills by Umzilikazi. When he looked at the great dwalas and was told they were called “Madamba”, he said “But we will call them ‘Matobo ‘meaning ‘the bald heads’. I like to think the name originated in royal jest. “Matobo” is now the official designation of the native district.”

So whether you choose the Kalanga Matombo – meaning hills, or the Shona Madombo – meaning rocks, or the Sindebele Matobo – meaning bald heads, it seems that mystery not only surrounds the ancient “goings on” in the hills, it surrounds their very name too.

Archaeology shows us evidence of stone age man in the Matobo hills fifty thousand years ago. This later stone-age man, they say, is the direct ancestor of the Khoisan, or our Bushman.

The Bushmen descended from the cave man (stone-age man) and learned to make and use tools and weapons. These early hunters appear to have had the run of the land for thousands of years living with, or as a part of nature, unmolested by the black Bantu tribes, the white man, and civilization. These early inhabitants of the Matobo hills left paintings on the walls of certain caves that have been reliably dated to ten thousand years ago.

The black “Bantu type” people developed in the jungles and rain forest areas of central and west Africa and massive growth in populations there forced them to begin to migrate east and south out of the jungles, into the rest of the continent. They arrived in small numbers on what is now known as the Zimbabwe plateau, between 700 and 900 years after the death of Christ.

This was the arrival of the early iron age in southern Africa. Over the next few centuries these Bantu peoples gradually forced the Bushman out of the Matobo. At first the two different peoples were able to co-exist, as the Bantu tended to favour the level plateau areas where grazing was good, where gold could be found – and the routes of trade easily reached. But as their numbers grew, they spread out, moving into Bushman hunting grounds. Many Bushmen were enslaved or killed by the Blacks and finally they were forced to flee west into the sandy thirst lands which much later became known as Botswana.

The first Bantu grouping, or tribe, that lived in the Matobo region was the Kalanga, or Karanga. These Kalanga originally came from the “Great Zimbabwe” area near Masvingo.

Between 1450 and 1683 another large group of Bantu, also originating from the “Great Zimbabwe” area came west and settled in the Khami area.

These people were known as Torwa, and they then dominated the Kalanga. The Torwa dynasty in turn fractured into clan and family fighting and gradually became a disorderly mess as far as tribal unity was concerned. There was a serious need, or requirement for leadership, and this came in the form of the Rozvi “Mambo”, or king. He quickly dispatched the last Torwa ruler and provided stability and strong leadership to all the people in and around the Matobo. The Rozvi’s headquarters were situated at a place called Danangombe but their spiritual base was in the Matobo hills. Peace and stability enabled the area to prosper for many years. In the early 1800’s the Rozvi Mambo and the spiritual leaders, known as the Mwali came into conflict. Many of the Rozvi people, who lived near and were in daily contact with the Mwali, turned against Mambo’s faction. Massive changes were occurring in southern Africa at this time. From the Cape, in what was to become South Africa, all the way north, almost to the Limpopo river, a kind of upheaval, or unsettling of people turned the whole region into a fiery cauldron of war, famine, and power struggles. It was called the “mfecane” -which directly translated means the crushing or the grinding (like corn between two stones). Armies were moving, expanding, and attacking other tribes constantly.

A group known as the Ngwato attacked the Rozvi in the Matobo in 1817, and the Ngwato leader was killed and his soldiers returned back to their area in what is now Botswana. Shortly after this, more attackers arrived. These were the Swazis – warriors all the way from northern Zululand in South Africa. After these battles with the Swazis, the rapidly fragmenting Rozvi dynasty was weak, and unable to withstand the final invaders. These were the Amandebele, an Nguni people who had also come a long way from what is now Zululand in South Africa.

I mentioned the mfecane. Part of the result of that cataclysmic chain of violent events was the emergence of a powerful, warlike people, called the Zulu under Shaka. The Zulu were situated in the region around what is known today as Durban, in South Africa. One of the clans under Shaka was the Khumalo clan and they were ruled by a chief named Mzilikazi. Mzilikazi ruled well and his people were happy and prosperous. A problem arose for Mzilikazi involving some cattle which Shaka claimed were supposed to have been paid to him by Mzilikazi. ln 1821 Shaka sent troops to attack Mzilikazi and he was defeated, but not wiped out. It was time to go. Yet another “army on the move”, another spin-off from the massive mfecane which caused armies of refugees to march into conflict for the next twenty years.

The Khumalo clan were a nation on a long march. After fleeing Shaka’s wrath, Mzilikazi first settled his people in the foothills of the Drakensburg, but it was not far enough. Further attacks by Shaka’s warriors pushed the Khumalo further north, until they settled again, this time at the western side of the Soutspansberg Mountains. It was here, in 1829, that the missionary Robert Moffat befriended Mzilikazi. Moffat, through his travels, already had knowledge of the land around the Matobo, and during his stay with Mzilikazi, he recommended that Mzilikazi take his people and set up home there. He told Mzilikazi that it was “a well watered, fertile, and relatively unoccupied land”.

Mzilikazi stayed where he was for another eight years, but after suffering another defeat in battle, he took Moffat’s advice and headed north. These Khumalo had absorbed a large number of Ndzundza people in their journey north. These Ndzundzas were also known as “Tebele”, and gradually Mzilikazi’s growing clan adopted this name – arriving in the Matobo and Bulawayo in 1838, known as the Ma-Tebele, or AmaNdebele.

The Ama-Ndebele found the area around Bulawayo under the control of some Ngoni raiders who had destroyed much of the remaining Rozvi settlements, and Mzilikazi took their leader, one Mrs. Nyamazuma, as his wife. Her soldiers were then absorbed into the AmaNdebele army. Mzilikazi, through careful politics and gifts of cattle (and of course the threat of unpleasant violent action), swallowed the resident Kalanga and remaining Rozvis who were obliged to toe the line, surrendering grain and young men to the new King to strengthen the armies.

Mzilikazi absorbed all these fragmented groups but divided “his” people into three castes. The upper caste were all the people from the original Nguni stock who came from Zululand. The second level were the people of Tswana and Sotho stock – who he had conquered or picked up in his journey over the last seventeen years. The lowest caste were any people of Shona stock. These were mostly the Kalangas who bad originally come from the Great Zimbabwe area, and the dribs and drabs of Rozvis and Torwas who still remained. Mzilikazi forbade these three castes from intermarrying, and the subjugated Kalanga and others of the Shona origin were referred to as Ama-Hole (slaves) or Izinja (dogs).

The arrival of the AmaNdebele was the last influx of black tribes into the Matobo. But another visitor had already arrived before the AmaNdebele – the white man. He had not yet arrived in numbers in Mzilikazi’s day- Lobengula, Mzilikazi’s son and the last Matabele King, was faced with that disastrous event. The arrival of the white pioneers. The arrival of the white man, in numbers.

The Mlimo

All Bantu people, whether they come from the steamy jungles of the Congo, the high windswept plateaus of the Drakensburg or from the secret shadows of Matobo, pay reverence to several spirits and a collection of Gods. These spirits include ancestral spirits as well as the spirits who influence, or control the seasons.

But there is one special God, one who is revered above all the others. He is the Mlimo.

Africans have many different cultures, different languages, ceremonies and traditions, so the Mlimo has many different names. In the jungle country in the Congo Basin he is leza, high up on the windswept plateaus of Lesotho he is modimo. To the Shona speaking tribes he is mwari. In east Africa he is ngaai. But here, in the sacred hills of the Matobo he is the Mlimo.

One of the Mlimo’s prime responsibilities is the making of rain. But his power controls many facets of life (and death), including the choosing of chiefs, disease in cattle and man, the planting of crops, and many more.

When the AmaNdebele arrived in the Matobo and Bulawayo areas in 1838, active belief in the Mlimo was already over five hundred years old. It is said that long ago, several priests from “Great Zimbabwe” migrated west into the Hills and found a spiritual home in that secret place.

The AmaNdebele, had their own Gods and spirits, but when they arrived in Matobo and subjugated the Makalanga and other tribes, they decided to pay attention to this Mlimo.

Some ancient traditions say that the Mlimo himself, followed by man and then all the animals, emerged from a hole in the ground, or cave, “far to the north”. He is regarded by many tribes as the Creator.

The fellows from Great Zimbabwe, who set up shop in a cave in the Matobo so long ago, presented themselves as the priests, the representatives of the Mlimo. The Mlimo himself of course had never been seen and could never be seen, although his voice could often be heard. Sometimes the voice was reported as coming from a bird, or the roof of a hut, and sometimes from cattle, but it usually emanated from the depths of a cave where the local con- artist could hide away, unseen, and spin his trickery without getting caught. Representatives from far and wide trekked to the Mlimo’s cave which was situated in a koppie called Njelele, at the very southern edge of the Matobo.

People came from as far as Basutoland, a foot journey of nearly a thousand miles, in order to ask for rain or other favours from the Mlimo. The Priests’ cult has continued, even to this day, the Abantwana, or – children of Mlimo – traveling far and wide weaving their magic and terrifying the locals into giving gifts to the great Mlimo.

The standard gifts taken to Njelele for the Mlimo, on behalf of wealthy folks like the Matabele King, were usually oxen and beer. It must be a foregone conclusion that Old Mlimo enjoyed these greatly, especially as this good stuff was usually delivered by nubile young girls. Average folks used to part with all manner of goods in order to receive favour from the Mlimo, and these included animal horns and ivory, tobacco, spears, axes, cloth, beads and hoes.

Not only did the Mlimo oracle provide guidance, advice and terror to the local people for hundreds of years, he also played an important part in the Matabele Uprising of 1896. The Matabele had been vanquished in 1894 when the last King, Lobengula, fled north into the Zambezi Escarpment after several battles had been fought between his Impis (regiments) and the white settlers’ “flying column”, led by Leander Starr Jameson. The white settlers took over much of the well-watered land in central Matabeleland, and they took over most of the vanquished King’s cattle too. The situation was ripe for unrest and this is where the Mlimo stepped in.

The voice of the Mlimo urged the Matabele to regroup and attack the white settlers, which in due course, they did. The rebellion lasted about six months before the Matabele finally pushed for peace. Leading up to the Uprising the mysterious voice in the hills advocated war and murder through direct, and not so direct “messages” from the Mlimo.

Some of these messages promised that one day soon all white men would die, and another stated that the white man’s bullets would turn to water.

Much controversy surrounds the killing of a black man in the Matobo on June 27th, 1896. Two scouts, named Armstrong and Burnham received information on the whereabouts of the secret cave of the Mlimo -where much of the trouble emanated regarding the Matabele Uprising. These two set out and, in circumstances still argued and debated to this day, found and killed the Mlimo, or one of his priests, anyway. It is said that the Mlimo deception died in the Matobo that day, and several books state this.

But even to this day, witchdoctors – priests, oracles, whatever you want to call them – still sneak about in the Matobo’s dark caves, clacking and jangling with the horns and bones and magic things which festoon them, and these spirit men still receive requests for, and promise rain on behalf of the great Mlimo. Ask any old Kalanga or Matabele elder, who still knows the old ways, and he will tell you that the Mlimo most certainly is still there in the Matobo; “After all” he will say “how can you kill the Creator?”

Mangwe Pass

Myths have swirled in and around these hills forever. How they formed. How they were named. Who lived in them? The Bushmen, the Mlimo, the spirits, many myths.

One of the smaller ones was that the Mangwe Pass became so well known because it was the only way that the early wagons of the settlers could get through the east-west line of the koppies on their way to the “interior”. This is not true. I personally know of many passes through these hills. In fact, a wider, easier route lies just a little way to the east of the Mangwe Pass, right around the base of the koppie on the summit of which our base camp stands.

A hunter/trader named Johannes Lee was the first white man to settle in the area, and this settlement, and Lee’s appointment by King Mzilikazi as his “agent”, attracted the trickle, then the stream, of white settlers into using this pass.

The natural route north from the heart of South Africa leads around the western end of the Soutspansberg Mountain range, across the Limpopo at Fort Tuli, across the Shashi, Tati, Ramaquabane and Umpakwe rivers, and then finally the Ingwezi. This route steers safely east of the great desert thirst lands in what is now Botswana. The trails taken by the old ox wagons had to, out of necessity, take cognizance of tsetse fly belts, best level ground, hostile natives and, of course, available water.

When King Mzilikazi saw the route that the settlers, explorers and hunters were using, he established an outpost near the lngwezi river at Makobi, about thirty miles south of where the Mangwe Pass is today. The people stationed at this outpost were instructed to make sure that no outsider entered the Matabele Kingdom unannounced.

In 1853 small groups of Afrikaner elephant hunters entered Matabeleland, and the following year, one of the new arrivals was Robert Moffat – an Englishman who had established a mission at Kuruman. The famous explorer, David Livingstone, was married to one of Moffat’s daughters, May. Moffat was friendly with Mzilikazi, having already met him in 1829 when the Matabele were living near the Soutspansberg Mountains before they moved north and conquered Matabeleland.

Over the next six years the stream of white travellers grew. Moffat returned twice, and on his third visit in 1859, managed to secure permission from Mzilikazi to open a mission at Nyati, north of Bulawayo, which was manned by, among others, Moffat’s son, John.

Johannes Lee arrived at Mzilikazi’s outpost near the Ingwezi at Makobi, in 1861, and he obtained permission to settle near the confluence of the Umpakwe and Ramaquabane rivers. Lee was a hunter and a trader, and he wandered the interior collecting ivory, skins and meat.

So many colourful characters enrichened the early settling of Africa; what tough, adventurous, interesting individuals they must have been. I wish I knew more about Johannes Lee. Lee is an English name, and according to Mary Clarke in her book “The Plumtree Papers” 1983 – Lee’s name was Johannes Ludewikus Lee, and he was born in the Eastern Cape, in 1827. His father was a Captain in the Royal Navy, and with a name like Johannes Ludewikus, I can only assume that his mother must have been Dutch.

Johannes Lee was a seasoned, tough character. Before he undertook the great trek all the way north to the Mangwe, he was already the veteran of three Cape frontier wars fought in 1846, 1851 and 1858. Even though he sported the English moniker of “Lee”, Johannes spoke very little of the Queen’s language. His language was Dutch, along with Xhosa, Zulu, and finally Sindebele.

In 1863 Mzilikazi sent an impi of warriors down to the outpost at Makobi in order to issue disciplinary action to the Mangwalo people living there. A thousand people were killed and the outpost obliterated. The King ordered a new outpost established, and this one was sited near where the Mangwe Pass is today.

Lee by this time had established a congenial relationship with the Matabele, and Mzilikazi appointed him his “agent” – the person responsiblefor monitoring and controlling the growing stream of adventurers from the south.

No one was permitted to travel into Matabeleland without first obtaining the King’s permission. Since Makobi was no more, Lee set up his new headquarters on the Mangwe river, a couple of miles south of where our camp at the Pass is today.

Lee was told by Mzilikazi to ride on horseback for an hour and a quarter, towards each point of the compass, and all land within that boundary, would belong to Lee. Lee’s nephew Karel did the riding that day and he was able to ride around more than 200 square miles of ground. Interestingly, Lee’s land was confiscated by the British South Africa Company during their occupation of Matabeleland in 1893 – because Lee refused to assist the Company against his friends the Matabele!

In due course Lee’s new farm became a colourful, spread out, hodge podge gathering of people, wagons and livestock. Many of the travelers had to camp here indefinitely whilst they waited for Mzilikazi, and later Lobengula, to grant them permission to enter the country. Shops were established, followed by wheelwrights, a tannery and even a blacksmith. Camps, dwellings and settlements expanded rapidly.

I was surprised to read that the famous painter Thomas Baines lived in Lee’s settlement for a time, and he painted several pictures there, depicting the kaleidoscopic action of life in a raw new frontier.

If Johannes Ludewikus Lee had owned a visitors book it would have been a real who’s who of the famous old hunting names – Cornelius Van Rooyen, Frederick Courteney Selous, William Finaughty, Frikkie Greef and many more. Greef was prominent in this early white history of the Mangwe Pass area – he was a friend of Johannes Lee’s and once looked after Lee’s farm for about five years. Greef was born in about 1849, and spent many years hunting and trading in the Matabele interior as well as in South West Africa. Johannes Lee was certainly a controversial, colourful character. He was at various times great friend and confidante of King Mzilikazi and then his son, King Lobengula. He lived in this Mangwe area on and off for about thirty years, and went through at least four wives, becoming something of a legend in his time. After failing to regain his land from the BSA Company, sadly he ended up in Potchefstroom in South Africa where he died penniless in 1915.

Many explorers and travelers of the time wrote books and other accountsof their journeys north into the new interior and all of them speak of Lee’s “Castle”.

A small koppie, surmounted by two giant upright blocks of granite rise out of the mopane woodland close to the site of Lee’s house and these famous landmarks were named Lee’s Castle, and those ancient rocks are still known by that name today. Often we climb onto the open granite whaleback dome behind our kitchen at the Mangwe Pass camp and we sit there, awed at the sheer size and magnificence of the view to the south, and only about a mile or so away, Lee’s Castle stands straight and timeless, the only remaining feature of the once bustling Mangwe Pass settlement.

In 1893 a “fort” had been constructed at the Mangwe settlement. This construction was circular, about eighty feet in diameter, and consisted of low stone walls, and was roofed with mopane poles, grass and sandbags. The fort was built as a possible refuge if the settlers were to come under attack from the natives. Forts were common procedure of the time and hundreds of ruins of forts of all shapes and sizes today litter the bush throughout southern Africa. The fort at Mangwe was not used for defensive purposes until 1896, when the Matabele Rebellion broke out.

Throughout the six months of the Matabele uprising about one hundred and fifty people made use of the fort at one time or another but even though the uprising killed ten per cent of the white population of Rhodesia, it never came under attack. The fort and surrounding area were under the command of a Major Armstrong, but Hans Lee, son of Johannes Lee, along with the well known hunter Van Rooyen, had much to do with the management and discipline required to run the fort.

When the Matabele surrendered in September of 1896 the settlers returned to their farms, but their crops had been burned, their homes looted and cattle stolen. 1896 was a dry year and that fact, on top of the sacking of the farms, caused a serious lack of food which required huge wagon trains of maize to be pulled all the way from South Africa.

It was not long before the railroad was making rapid headway into Matabeleland from Botswana and many settler families packed up and moved north, closer to the railway line and small villages which it spawned. In 1897 the garrison of the fort was down to about six troopers. A quote from the Bulawayo Chronicle, dated May 31, 1897, reads as follows: “Arrived Mangwe. Fort deserted. Police removed thirty miles west, near railway. One telegraphist and one storekeeper here.”

But the Mangwe Pass was still there. The same brooding cliffs and boulders continued to watch, but the importance of the Pass, its “heyday”, was gone. My wife’s uncle, Ernest Rosenfels is married to Betty, the sister of my wife’s mother Lucy. Ernest and Betty live on a farm, just a few miles west of the pass. Ernest is a craftsman. He can cut perfect blocks from the raw Matobo granite and I have seen numerous houses, cattle dip tanks and other buildings built precisely and beautifully by him and his men. In 1954, one hundred years after the first wagon creaked this way, he built a monument at the Mangwe Pass. It still stands there today – commemorating this once famous “gateway to Matabeleland”. On its northern face are inscribed these words:

“One hundred years ago the first of the missionaries, hunters and traders passed slowly and resolutely along this way. Honour their memory. They revealed to those who followed, the bounties of a country they themselves might not enjoy.”

Whenever I stop and sit alone, quietly near the monument, especially when the tired sun is sliding slowly into the old hills in the late evening, and the rocks and crevasses are darkening up for the night, I imagine I hear, far away, the laughter and talking at the wagons and the popping shots of the long whip and the muted bellows of the oxen as my people slowly come north.

Written by Marina Lamprecht

Late one November evening, the sounds of a predator on the prowl were heard near the lodge – a carnivore, hunting …

At dawn the following day, clear leopard tracks were seen on the edge of our garden, as well as signs of a scuffle and traces of blood – the hunt had been a success.

A day later my son, Hanns-Louis’ German Shorthaired Pointer, Tau, proudly strutted onto the front lawn, gently cradling something in his mouth, and very carefully, with a pleading look in his eyes, placed an emaciated Duiker lamb at the feet of Max – the mother had clearly fallen prey to the Leopard.

Max, our farm manager, was a man of great empathy and compassion for all living creatures. He called us all and collectively we scrambled for advice on what to do in order to save the fragile lamb. 

After about two months, he became less dependent on being bottle-fed and started very selectively feasting in our vegetable and herb garden – the only member of our team who was not thrilled was Chef Henock, as his supply of fresh herbs and lettuce dwindled!

Bok Bok soon began to wander off into the veldt for a few hours at a time, and later for days.  He returned often to play games with our dogs, especially Tau, and would often strut through the lodge, very confidently hopping up the stairs to Hanns-Louis’ office.

Now that Bok Bok is about 18 months old, his visits have become less frequent. He is regularly spotted just beyond the driveway with another Duiker, having clearly, to our delight, made a friend. 

While his companion keeps its distance and watches him with great curiosity, Bok Bok still meanders into the veggie gardens for a snack and gets up to lots of mischief with his best friend and saviour Tau. He then returns to the veldt to live wild and free – that was always our wish for him.

Into The Thorns

Chapter Two

Smell of The Hills

I was seven years and five months old when I was deposited on the hostel steps at Rhodes Estate Preparatory School. REPS (as it was called) is a boys boarding school and, in 1968, in true colonial tradition, was for whites only. The school is situated at the edge of the Matobo Hills, about twenty miles south of Bulawayo, and it was my home for the next five years. Like the twenty or so other kids who started school at REPS that year, I was awed at the immensity of the prospect facing me, and I was rendered weak with anxiety and homesickness. I look at seven-year-old children today and I cannot imagine sending them away to school for three months at a time. They seem like babies. But in rural Rhodesia in 1968 there were no choices, your mother packed your black metal trunk and away you went off to boarding school.

Cecil John Rhodes, the swashbuckling Englishman who made a fortune in the South African diamond mines and goldfields between 1870 and 1890, was instrumental in conquering and colonising the land between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers once known as Munhumutapha. With little evidence of modesty he named this beautiful new land Rhodesia, and it was swept into the basket, along with numerous other acquisitions also labelled “British Empire”. This was in 1893. In 1965 however, the colonials decided that they wanted to rule themselves, and they declared independence from Britain, who wanted to hand their Rhodesian conquest back to the black Africans from whom they had taken it. A bitter war followed, between the black Africans on one hand, who were trained and backed by the communist Chinese and Russians, and the white colonialists on the other. White Rhodesia was placed under sanctions by the world powers, and trade, arms and fuel embargos made war a difficult thing for the Rhodesians to maintain. So, in 1980, after approximately forty thousand deaths, the county was handed back to the blacks, and Zimbabwe was born.

During his years of travel in Rhodesia, his new country, Rhodes fell in love with two places in particular, and he had dwellings erected at both of them. One was Inyanga, a verdant misty spot nestled amongst towering mountains and forests on Rhodesia’s eastern border with Mozambique. The other was the Matobo hills. Rhodes found a place in the hills which commanded breathtaking views over the broken granite koppies, and he named this spot World’s View. He was buried there in 1902 according to instructions in his will, and it was no easy task bringing his body all the way from Cape Town, so that his remains could lie in the place he had loved so well.

Also in Rhodes’s will were instructions to build a boys school on a piece of land near his summerhouse. World’s View is situated about six miles south of the school. Rhodes’s summerhouse, and the school, stand at the foot of a long low grassy ridge that runs in an east-west line about half a mile north of the beginning of the granite koppies. I found it curious that someone who loved the Matobo hills so much would choose to build a summerhouse, and designate land for a school, on ground which was near to but not actually within the hills themselves. Reps consisted of the boarding hostel which had five dormitories, a chapel, a classroom block with five classrooms, a dining·hall, kitchen, a hospital, and the main hall. Scattered about were also various small maintenance buildings like the groundsman’s office and there were also four sports fields, a swimming pool and tennis courts. 1 did not think so then, but it is a beautiful, well planned and well laid out school. Very English. Compared to some of the “town” schools in Bulawayo. it was a small school with only about one hundred and twenty pupils. The school’s rugby first fifteen was drawn from a total of 28 standard five boys. It was surprising, with so few pupils, that Reps always did so well at sport. I suppose it had something to do with the fact that everybody, no matter how fat, thin, short or weak, had to play sport. This was not the case with the town schools. Once the initial shock of boarding school had dulled a little, we ‘new boys’ as we were referred to, began to assess the situation we found ourselves in. Some kids were able to make friends easily, while the less gregarious ones chose to pull into themselves and go it alone, wracked with homesickness. A few kids, like myself, discovered that this place was rich adventure indeed. I too was horribly homesick, but really only at night or when we had nothing to do. Thankfully, at boarding school there are very few times when there is nothing to do.

like a blanket. No matter how hard I resolved, in bed at night, that I would make it through the next day without getting into trouble, trouble would find me like a twin. I cannot explain it, really. I’m positive that I never ever sat there and said to myself, “Right, lets see what kind of stupid risky thing I can go and do now so I can get thrashed”. It just seemed that it swooped down on me like an owl on a mouse. Of course the things that appealed to me, like shooting birds with a catapult – Reps was a National Parks area – sneaking into locked storerooms, stealing fruit off of mulberry trees in “out of bounds” areas, were “boys things”, and if I were faced with that time all over again I would do them. But it’s the other things. Breaking windows with pebbles shot from catapults, chopping the heads off red-hot-poker flowers in the school gardens, these things I cannot explain.

I’m pretty certain I was sent to Reps in particular, because it was a “strict discipline” school, and I was a problem child. The seniority system in both Reps, and later at Plumtree High School, was, I think, the strength of the discipline system. You could not, and would not, even speak to a pupil in a form above yourself without inviting abuse, both verbal and physical. You only spoke to these ‘seniors’ when spoken to. Of course the teachers and matrons were in charge, but much of the discipline and punishment was handed out by the pupils. Bullying was as common as our oatmeal porridge in the mornings. I cannot say if this boarding school seniority is a good thing or a bad thing. Children either could not take it, and left the school, or they did take it and they finished. Looking back now, obviously it’s not a good thing for the weak or somehow disadvantaged children, because children can be merciless to one another, and if you could not stand up for yourself you were doomed. I was insubordinate and rebellious to seniors trying to discipline me or give me a hard time, and in my five years at Reps they failed to get me straightened out. It was only at Plumtree (a sort of unofficially accepted high school for Reps pupils) that finally, in my second year there, I was made to realise that fighting the system was over. So ultimately, I would have to say that the English-type, boys-only boarding school system was a good thing for me personally, and stood me in excellent stead for endeavours later in life. It built things like self-reliance, discipline, strength, both physical and mental, and it taught one how to find the avenues of least resistance and how to avoid pitfalls.

Most Plumtree boys who went into the Rhodesian army had no problem coping with recruits’ courses or basic training courses, and many of them climbed the officer ranks efficiently and quickly. The army commander, General Peter Walls, was an ex-Plumtree schoolboy, and it is quite astounding to see how many of the army hierarchy, and commanders of the regular army units were ex-Plumtree boys, especially when one considers how small the school was (plus or minus 400 pupils). So even though the constant threat of seniority and beatings with ‘the cane’ (a piece of bamboo about six feet long) clouded my horizon, Reps school, situated at the edge of the wild Matobo hills, was my first glimpse of adventure.

I quickly became friends with a boy in that new class named Graham Robertson. Graham came from a ranch south of Marula, about 50 miles west of Reps. We both loved the outdoors and both of us were children born for trouble. Fate, or destiny, or pure coincidence, whatever you want to call it, plaited a rope that mixed our two lives together in a part of the world where political turmoil, guerrilla war and other violent circumstances, shredded families and friendships every day. Yet here we are, 38 years later, still close friends and still enjoying adventures in the same Matobo hills. When we left high school and went in to the army, Graham opted for an airborne infantry unit, and I went on an officer’s course. Seven months later, we found ourselves not only in the same airborne unit, but in the same commando! (Airborne equivalent of a company). One year later I met a cousin of Graham’s who lived in Salisbury – this was Margie, the woman who a few years later I was to marry.

Reps permitted the children to go out of the school grounds on Sundays on what were called “exeats”. There had to be a minimum of four in your group, and you had to “sign out” in a register with the duty teacher when you left the school grounds. In this register went the names of everyone in your group, and the name of the place you were going to. Most of the destinations were in, or right on the edge of the Matobo Hills. The kitchen supplied us with picnic lunches, which to a child at boarding school, was a treat and adventure all by itself! Those day-exeats back in the late sixties seemed such a big deal, the distances walked, the adventure, seemed so great. It’s hard to believe when I returned to the school more than twenty years later, how small the school and grounds actually were, and how close our exeat destinations were to the school. I would have sworn that these places were a good four or five miles away, but in reality the furthest was no more than two miles. But I suppose two miles, to a nine year old, with no teacher or adult present, is as good as ten miles to us today! After all these years, I still remember those exeat destination names – they gave the same thrill to us then, as Zanzibar, Timbuktu or Panama may give to adventure-dreaming adults today! There was Tabaccies, First Bru, Second Bru, Arboretum, Second sister, Tonking Rock, Chennels’ Dam, Sandy Spruit and Devil’s Arsehole. Young local African boys used to make small, carved baboons which they cleverly covered with dassie skin. Lucky-bean seeds (red with a black dot) were used for the eyes, and we admired these things greatly. We had no money, so entering into a trade was difficult. We finally solved the impasse by trading away our underpants and handkerchiefs, in our opinion the least important of our belongings. My wife found it strange when she first found out that I owned no underwear, but I think she found the explanation even stranger.

All these recollections, even today, bring back fond memories of what were indeed exciting times. These exeats were not without danger. Children can find mishap in an empty room, let alone in granite koppies, rusty fences, dip tanks and dilapidated buildings. One kid in our class fell down a steep rocky slope and smashed most of his teeth out in the process. Although they were highly illegal, Graham and I had several catapults with which we were deadly. When school term commenced, at least one of us would have smuggled some good rubber back in our school trunks, and we hoarded this rubber carefully. In order to make powerful catapults one needed either unperished red car-tube (the black one was less powerful) or what we called “mining rubber”. This was a highly elastic, powerful, square shaped (in section) rubber which we prized above all other kinds. We were experts at making catapults and we were experts in firing them too. If we were unable to find any suitable leather, we used to cut the tongues out of our shoes in order to make the “velletjie” – the small leather patch attached to the ends of the rubber which held your missile. (Usually a small stone.) We hid these catapults in secret hiding places in a stone wall behind the chapel, and we used them whenever we were able to sneak away from school duties. Whilst other kids were playing on jungle gyms or with marbles, Graham and I were shooting out light bulbs, windows, signs and sometimes other children. More often though we were doing our damndest to kill any kind of bird we could. We must have caused the Reps groundsman untold misery. If we weren’t shooting holes through his office windows, we were stealing rubber from the hosepipes. Thin rubber strips are used in Africa to repair cracks and holes in hosepipes. The headmaster of our school had the same surname as l did but to my knowledge was not a relative (probably much to his relief). His name was Ray Grant and he was, certainly to us in those days, a big beefy fellow. l think, looking back, that when he realised, after our seventh or eighth beating, that Graham and l were going to be regulars in the punishment line, he actually developed a fondness for the two of us. Ray Grant, like ourselves, loved the outdoors. He loved guns and he loved hunting and he loved shooting. He ran a shooting club for the standard five students (12 year olds) using .22 rifles, and the school had a nicely laid out shooting range. I remember Graham winning the Reps shooting trophy in 1972.

At Reps, if you were caught in some activity during the week that necessitated a thrashing with the cane, you were not beaten there and then. You had to wait until Sunday, after church and inspection, and then line up outside the headmaster’s office. The waiting, in my experienced opinion, was far worse than the thrashing itself. I would feel nauseous for days knowing what was coming on Sunday. The headmaster’s office was at the end of a long open veranda which ran outside the standard one dormitory. The kids destined for a beating had to line up on this veranda at the doorway to the office. Some kids used to snivel their way to the back of the line, but to Graham and I this made no sense; you were just prolonging the agony even further. Unless there were boys more senior to the two of us in the line, we would go first and second. It was a sickening feeling listening to the whip – clap, whip-clap of someone taking a caning only a couple of yards away behind the closed door. Sometimes you’d even hear the pleading whine of some snivelling wretch trying to evade the cane. It was funny recounting it afterwards, but it wasn’t funny when you were next. The drill was to take your punishment like a man, walk sedately out of the office (remember, a whole dormitory of standard ones was looking out the windows) until you reached the central passage which ran through the building, past the baths and out to the back toilets. Once you reached this passage no one could see you, and you could run like hell, rubbing your backside feverishly, all the way to the toilets where you would strip down and try your hardest to crane your neck around enough to see the rapidly swelling welts and, sometimes, cuts on your aching pink flesh. Once Graham and I were in standard four (eleven years old) and were regulars for Sunday canings, a complication arose. As I have said, Ray Grant had taken a liking to us, and one day he told us to remain behind, on the veranda, after our thrashing. We looked at one another, startled. Jesus. What now? After the beating, my backside on fire, I stood forlornly outside the office trying my hardest not to touch that stinging flesh in front of the other kids. Everybody in line was thrashed and sent away except the two of us. We heard clanking, the unmistakable sound of the safe being opened. Ray Grant came out with a couple of shotguns, a rifle, oil, cleaning rags and a push rod. We then passed an anxious, but pleasant half hour helping the headmaster clean his guns! All the while we were treated to his latest hunting stories! If it weren’t for the circumstances which found us there and our aching backsides, it would have been a pleasant enough chore for a Sunday morning. This guncleaning duty became a fairly regular diversion from normal school routine, and we would have looked forward to it were it not for that unpleasant thing which always preceded it.

Sunday, beatings aside, was our day! When the wake-up bell rang, we made our beds carefully, as this was inspection day. We had to dress in our “number ones” – grey flannel shorts, belt, long socks, black shoes, white shirt, tie and blazer. After breakfast we would stand next to the open wooden locker at the foot of our bed and wait for the headmaster. When he arrived, accompanied by our dormitory matron, he would stroll along stopping at each pupil. We would hold our hands up; palms upward, then turn them over, and then put them back by our sides. He would then look at our bed, inside our (recently tidied) locker and then at our shoes. If you had prepared properly, he would walk on. We had a few scruffy kids in our dormitory, however, that never ever made it through an inspection unscathed. After inspection we all marched down to the school chapel where we sang and sniggered stupidly for about an hour. After chapel we would run like mad things back to the dormitories and change into our khakis and “velskoene” (desert shoes), which was standard Reps attire. We were ready!

We could now collect our lunch boxes and sign out for “exeats”. How I loved that feeling of leaving the school grounds with my catapult tucked into my pants, my sheath knife on my belt, headed for a whole day of adventure into the Matobo hills. Many people look askance at us when we mention our knives at junior school. Any pupil, no matter what his age, was allowed a knife at this school. They were prized possessions and lay importantly in your locker on display. I never ever heard of a Reps boy being stabbed, or hurt, or threatened, by another pupil with a knife. On some exeats we tried fishing, but most of our trips were taken up with climbing and exploring the hills, shooting at lizards, birds and other groups of kids with our catapults. The groups of “townie” kids took a lot of flak from us with our “cattys” as we called them, and fights were common. We killed birds quite frequently and these were turned into “biltong”. We used to pluck the bird, no matter whether it was a dove or a honey sucker, cut the guts out, then spear the small carcass on a thorn, well hidden from view. With salt stolen from the dining room at meal times, we would carefully treat the meat. Two days later, voila! Biltong!

At about nine years of age Graham and I began to trap rats. We had no conventional pressed-tin spring traps, but we had several homemade traps that were surprisingly efficient. The trap we used most was a tricky affair created with a brick, or even a flat rock, a piece of string and a mealie pip. We caught many rats this way. Some of the bigger rats would still be alive, and part way out from under the brick when we arrived to check the traps in the morning. These we dispatched with our sheath knives. I still recall clearly, today, the feeling of excitement and anticipation when approaching those simple traps. I still feel the same excitement when checking leopard baits today! People often ask, “What in the hell did you want to catch rats for? What did you do with them?” I can only answer that it was our form of hunting. We loved it. This pursuit took us into the bush, or certainly, if not in the bush, out of the school buildings and into an environment where we could test our skills, our wits, against animals. It was exciting, and doubly so if we were trapping in an area which was “out of bounds”, -areas where schoolboys were not allowed. As to what we did with them. Our sheath knives were too large and blunt and cumbersome to skin rats, so we liberated a few pencil sharpener blades from sharpeners in the classroom. With these we were able to skin our trophies. We then salted them with table salt pocketed in the dining room, and we forced one of the junior boys in the class beneath us to store the stinking things underneath clothing in his footlocker. We had no plans for the skins past that point.

Another successful method, one which could deliver live rats, concerned the use of a jam tin. The kitchen used to receive government-issued food, and the jam (jelly to Americans) used to come in sealed silver tins about a foot high and about eight inches in diameter. Graham and I used to cadge these tins when they were empty, from the African kitchen staff. The tins were buried, the lip level with the ground in some secret carefully selected spot. We then had an option. The simplest method was stretching a piece of thin wire or string, over the top of the buried tin, with a mealie pip tied in the middle. Our prey would try like hell to get to the mealie pip and when they tried the tightrope walk, they ended up in the bottom of the tin. You could collect several rats or mice in one night this way, and if you wanted to find them dead you would leave about four inches of water in the tin. But the far more complicated, and therefore favoured method, was to erect a small seesaw at the side of the can. A flat thin piece of wood (stolen rulers broken to about eight inches long, were good) was wired just passed its middle point, onto a fulcrum. Picture a capital H. The ruler was wired to the crossbar of the H, the slightly longer, or heavier part, being on the ground. The shorter, lighter part, stuck up in the air at about a twenty-degree angle. The mealie pip was glued, or tied to the top of this short end. This pip would be out over the sunken tin. When the hungry rat walked the plank, he was tilted into the tin. We spent hours perfecting these things and derived much satisfaction from them. Relatives were allowed to take children out of the school grounds on Sundays, and usually these day trips were spent in the Matopos National Park, or at one of the many beautiful picnic sites in the hills. I had an aunt who lived in Bulawayo and occasionally she used to take myself and a friend or two out for the day. These were real “bonus” exeats as we got to eat stuff like sweets and cokes which we hardly ever saw at school, and we were able to spend hours climbing and exploring the giant koppies near World’s View where Rhodes was buried. This area is rich in Bushman paintings and we loved to pore over the fascinating scenes of ancient hunts and sift through the pieces of broken pottery on the floors of the caves. During the three-month school term there was a “half term” holiday which was usually about four days long. Those of us who lived a long way from Reps (I lived at Victoria Falls – about 300 miles away) were not able to go home, as most of the short holiday would have been spent travelling, so on these mid-term holidays, if I was not instructed to go to my aunt in Bulawayo, I would go home with Graham to his family ranch at Marula. If we got into “lots” of trouble at school, I do not know how to describe the amount of nonsense we got up to on those four-day long holidays at Marula. We were now armed with pellet guns and rifles and there were no seniors present. Those were excellent days, and the mystery, and secret places of the Matobo hills by now had me enthralled. The caves, the Bushman paintings, the ancient Kalanga grain bins hidden in the bushchoked crevasses, all these thrilled the ‘explorer’ in me. On Graham’s farm we had free reign to enjoy the koppies as much as we wanted. We were merciless in our decimation of the rock hyrax, and even though he denies it, I am sure that our excesses in these hills as schoolboys is what prompted Graham to ban the shooting of these interesting creatures on his ranch once be took over ownership of it. Today they are numerous, and I’m certain that they provide the bulk of the leopards’ food in these areas. By the end of our fifth year at Reps we had explored just about every forbidden area surrounding the school, we had mounted numerous exciting, nerve-wracking forays into the Agricultural Research Station grounds as well as into the Matobo hills past First Bru and Tabaccies.

Graham and I had painstakingly laid plans for an assault on my home stomping-grounds up at Victoria Falls for the school holidays. We had talked and talked of the exciting things we were going to do, and we were eagerly looking forward to the end of the school term, when a devastating blow fell. Ray Grant, he of the whistling cane and numerous hunting stories, realised that no good could come of the two of us loose together in the school holidays. He took it upon himself to ‘phone Graham’s parents and he warned them strongly about the trouble we were likely to cause, and Graham was barred from that trip. Probably a good thing too, looking back.

Victoria Falls was a small village back in 1968 and I don’t think that there could have been more than a hundred or so white families living there. For someone as hell-bent as I was for getting into mischief and disappearing into the outdoors, Victoria Falls was perfect. The whole of the Victoria Falls area lies inside a National Park and big game roamed constantly through the town. Elephant and buffalo came into contact almost daily with residents and the few tourists brave enough or stupid enough to be visiting the Falls during those years (Rhodesia being at war), and injuries were common. I spent much of my school holidays roaming the outskirts of the town, and when I was about fourteen or so, a friend and I started exploring the Zambezi river just above the Falls. This part of the river is clogged with jungled islands, and all of these were populated by elephant, bushbuck, bushpig, hippo and crocodiles. I became a skilled poacher and looking back now, I shake my head in dismay. My parents, in fact no one at all, had any control over us back then and the stuff we got up to makes me wonder how I am still alive today.

I remember one particularly unpleasant incident when I was about sixteen years old. My friend and I had been fishing and poaching on a large island just below what is known as Hippo Pools, about a mile above the lip of Devil’s Cataract which forms the western-most cataract of the Falls. We had a small ten foot boat powered by a twenty horsepower Evinrude motor which had cut out. My friend was standing on a rock, holding the boat while I tried to repair the engine. We could hear very little over the thunderous roar of the Falls, and when I looked up I saw that a Zambian police boat was making its way toward us. There were three people on board, and two of them were holding machine guns. One fellow was gesturing for us to come towards him. We were on the Zambian side of the river and it was obvious that they wanted to arrest us. The international boundary between Zambia and Rhodesia lay down the centre of the main channel, and anyone boating down to the islands at the lip of the Falls had to slide over onto the Zambian side occasionally. This was not good. Not only would we be dragged across to Zambia and cause an international incident, but we had a bushbuck and some large bream in the boat, which we had shot with a .22 rifle that morning. My friend Gary grabbed the rope tied to the front of the boat and we leaped into the fast running water, keeping the boat between ourselves and the Zambian police. We floated quickly downstream back to the islands where the Zambians could not follow because of the shallow rapids. How one of us was not taken by one of the numerous aggressive crocodiles there, I do not know.

In January of 1973 I entered Plumtree High School and was directed to Grey House, which was to be my boarding “house” – or hostel, for the next six years. Erroneously, I had assumed that Plumtree, as regards bullying and seniority, was going to be along the same lines as that which we bad experienced at Reps. I don’t think I have ever been so wrong about anything in my life. I was not caned by the teachers nearly so much as I was at junior school, but the sheer brutality of the seniority and bullying system shocked me. We were hung in sleeping bags out of the windows of moving trains, we were electrocuted, and we were thrashed, kicked, beaten and mentally abused. It was a torrid time for someone like myself who was unable to stay out of trouble and naturally rebellious. The seniors hated me and by God I hated them back. But it was not only the seniors. Children, as mentioned before, are horrible things to one another and the weak were unable to survive under these conditions. In my form alone, out of the twenty or so that entered Grey House as new boys in 1973, I think at least six got their parents to take them to another school after being teased and victimised mercilessly by the other children in the same dormitory. Us, in other words.

Graham had entered Milner, a different hostel to the one I was in, and that was probably a good thing. The last thing we needed, while trying to cope with all the dangers and pitfalls of a new school, was the stupid egging-on into naughtiness, that the two of us were famous for.

Plumtree is situated right on the country’s western border with Botswana, parallel to, and sixty miles west of Bulawayo. It is a dry dusty thorn veld area extremely unattractive in appearance and it falls into “semi desert” region which gradually merges into desert proper in Botswana. It sits right at the north western-most tip of the Matobo hill range, where the hills peter out into the sand and thorn scrub. If you climb the school chapel belfry and look south, you can see the purple koppies of the western Matobo about three miles away.

Surviving six years of Plumtree could be a book all by itself, so I will have to ignore the details of what was a very formative part of my life, and mention only those interludes pertinent to this book. Once again, interest and activities in the outdoors was encouraged, and like Reps, day-exeats on Sundays were eagerly looked forward to. A big problem for me, regarding Sunday exeats was the system of punishments or “impots” (imposition), as they were known. House prefects could hand out impots to students in their hostel. One impot meant you had to work for one-hour physical labour on Sunday, normally doing something in the hostel grounds like weeding or digging in the garden. Whilst carrying out your impot you were supervised by a duty prefect. It was not possible for me to make it through the week without impots. The more serious crimes, like “bunking out” (leaving the hostel at night, when you’re supposed to be in bed for example) attracted a beating with the cane, and unlike Reps, these beatings were issued on the spot or first thing the next morning, so at least you didn’t have to wait until Sunday. But the less serious offences, like having dirty shoes, or an untidy bed, or talking after the lights were turned out, all attracted impots. Some kids, like myself, were happier to be thrashed as and when we transgressed, rather than receive impots on Sundays. Canings, to me, by this time, were not such a big deal as they had been once upon a time. I had received many, and I was now a seasoned recipient. If a student received three impots, he was beaten two strokes, and still had to labour for one hour; if he received four impots, he was beaten four strokes, and still had to work in the garden for one hour. Five or more impots attracted the maximum – six lashes with the cane.

So this “impot labour” on Sundays seriously curtailed my opportunities for exeats in the first two years at Plumtree. Once pupils reach form three (fifteen years old) they have generally matured somewhat and don’t receive as many impots as they did in forms one and two. We were allowed to keep bicycles at school and this added a whole new dimension to Sunday exeats. We were now able to travel good distances from the school and my favourite destinations were Umhlanga (reed) and Tunduluka (wild plum) dams. Umhlanga dam nestles in amongst granite koppies about seven miles south-south-east of the school, and myself and three friends used to ride there on a rough dirt road as soon as we were done with chapel and inspection on Sundays. If someone had told me that thirty years later I would be making a living in this exact stretch of hills, I would have considered them unstable. At that stage in my life I definitely had no plans to return to anywhere near this place. Umhlanga dam, now sits right inside our hunting area and Graham’s record leopard was taken not more than six miles to the east of it.

Apart from Sunday exeats, I used to sneak off illegally on my own whenever the opportunity arose. I had several catapults hidden in the bush around the edges of the school grounds, and I would collect one of these, hide it in my shirt, and explore the countryside surrounding the school and Plumtree village. I could not fight the drug which was the thrill of seeing new “undiscovered” ground. I walked miles on my own through that unattractive bush around Plumtree, looking for birds nests, eagles nests, dry watercourses, fig trees and koppies. Large leafy fig trees stood prominently out of the thorn scrub, and these were fruit-eating bird magnets, as well as serving as a “find” – another secret place that I imagined was known only to me. Several miles west of Plumtree village was a corridor of land that ran along the border with Botswana. This was known as “no-mans-land” and served as a buffer zone between the two countries to help control illegal border crossings. It should be remembered that Rhodesia was fighting a guerrilla war at this time, and Botswana assisted the enemy by harbouring base camps where the guerrillas could prepare before infiltrating into Rhodesia. So it was probably not a clever thing I was doing, wandering around the bush on my own, way out of school bounds with nobody having any idea where I might be. In my last two years of school at Plumtree, I acquired first an air rifle, and then a .22 rifle which I hid inside the wall of my study, and I used these to hunt rabbits, duiker, doves and francolin. I was never caught with either of these weapons, which was quite surprising; as I had a good distance to go through the school grounds, until I was into the bush. Usually I transported my gun in a cricket bag – folks must have thought that I was serious about my cricket practice! Several years after I had left school I returned to attend the school’s event of the year, the annual sports day. Over a beer one evening I was chatting to Hannes Van der Westhuizen, who had been my favourite teacher and rugby mentor while I was still at the school. “You were a tricky bugger,” he said to me, “several of the teachers tried their damndest to catch you smoking, but never did!” “What made any of you think I was smoking?”

Hannes answered “Well, we saw you, all the time, sneaking off, out of the school grounds by yourself, we knew you were smoking!” How I laughed. I don’t know if Hannes believed me or not when I informed him that I had never ever been a smoker. I was everything else – poacher, bunking out of school grounds, drinking, the list is endless, – but they had been searching my study for cigarettes which weren’t there! I thought this was hilarious. Thank God they never found my guns.

The Rhodesian war escalated, and in my last year at Plumtree we were not allowed to go on exeats to many of the old haunts which had given me so much pleasure in the hills. Some of the students were issued with .303 Parker Hale rifles, in case the school was attacked by guerrillas. Straight away I realised that this meant I could range further afield and try for some kudu cows which I knew frequented a range of hills south of Plumtree town’s sewage dams. Ammunition was a problem, as we had to account for every round that we were issued. As it turned out I never did get an opportunity to poach anything with the school’s rifle, and disappointment at this failure festered in me. One morning, at about 11 o’clock while I was bunking class and sleeping on my bed on the form six balcony, the school was attacked by guerrillas. Or, more accurately some guerrillas fired a couple of dozen rounds into the hostel next to mine, and no one was injured. Apparently the school classrooms turned into a broken beehive with teachers and pupils hiding underneath desks and shouting orders all over the place. I raced downstairs to the housemaster’s office and collected my .303, and then returned to my bed which was a good vantage point, looking from the upstairs balcony over the Grey House gardens. I was more worried about being caught bunking class than being shot, but as it turned out, nobody was any the wiser. Although I did well at that school, both in sports and academically, I feel that it was relieved to see the back of me, and I left at the end of 1978 and joined the army in January 1979.

Graham had his share of misadventure during his years at Plumtree, and once he began smoking it was only a matter of time till he renewed acquaintances with our old friend the cane. He too achieved the academic qualifications he desired, but his school career ended under a bit of a cloud. There was some unpleasantness and misunderstanding involving drink, and Graham and three of his friends were unfortunately brought before the school authorities: I should mention that one of these fellows, on whom this ill luck had fallen, was none other than Trev Landrey, he of Denda Safaris at Matetsi where I spent so much time in the school holidays.

Nowadays, often when I’m driving through the towering granite koppies, or sometimes when I just sit and stare into the wonderful rock formations while I’m waiting for a majestic kudu to show himself, I think back over the years, and remember my early days at Reps and I can still feel the crackling winter mornings when icicles hung from the garden taps, and the hose pipes were frozen solid, white frost covering the front lawns and us small kids rubbing our freezing legs through thin corduroy pants, and dabbing at our pink, running noses. I remember of course the punishments, I remember the homesickness, I remember the big occasions of the swimming gala, the school play, the sports days. I remember being awarded school colours for sports, but the thing I remember most, the thing that is most easy to conjure up in my mind, and recall clearly, is the purple, balancing boulders, and the damp, lichen-smell, of the Matobo hills.

By Reid Scott

Long range shooting and African hunting. Like whiskey and tonic, surely those two things do not mix. They might both have their merits, but how can one channel their inner Hemmingway while carrying a synthetic rifle topped by an optic that looks like it was designed for stargazing? And yet, perhaps these two worlds are not so far apart.

In recent years, the shooting world has been consumed by long-range fervor. Everywhere you turn, sub-MOA guarantees and bigger optics vie for your attention. Since laser rangefinders have eliminated the black art of calculating distance, long range shooting has become obtainable to the common man without taking out a loan to cover the equipment and the schooling.

I’ll confess, the long range bug bit me too. More and more, I wanted to test my own limits and see how far away I could make a tiny bullet land just where I intended. Eventually, I found that with the correct equipment and quality instruction, I could confidently guarantee shots that I would have labelled unconditionally irresponsible before. As any good friend does, I convinced my buddies to sample some of the addiction. Soon enough my good friend Matt and I were spending an obscene amount of time training and shooting, and were quickly becoming the, “Shooter ready, spotter up,” duo.

Now enter African hunting. Surely a place for a good walnut stock and big calibers, if there ever was one. In fact, we were assured of several things: First, our carbon fiber tripods would be useless in the bushveld. Second, shots would be fast and close, with no time for dialing long range optics. Third, our little 6.5mm bullets would only maim the durable African game, and even if they did take down some animals, it just wouldn’t be in line with tradition. After all, Mr. Ruark had a few words to say about bringing enough gun to Africa.

Fortunately our hosts, the Knott family at Greater Kuduland Safaris, were willing to suffer us with an open mind. We arrived and requested to zero and true our rifles, both to confirm that the abusive airlines had not damaged them, and to prove to our hosts that we were not completely full of bull. We utilized their lovely runway as an improvised long range, and set up an impala-vitals-sized-rock against a berm at 600 yards. 

Gavin Knott spots for the author.

We each landed fist-sized groups on the stone, but the real proof was yet to come. I’m nothing special; if I can do it, you can do it. To demonstrate, we convinced both the seasoned legend, Howard Knott, and his immensely capable son Gavin to take a turn behind the rifle. Within moments, they were both making consistent hits at a range they would have previously considered unthinkable.

Howard Knott making hits at 600 yards using the author’s rifle.

These ridges provided beautiful shot opportunities. 

All the training in the world does not, however, alleviate that churning feeling in your gut while you wait to determine the validity of your shot. It made for a long walk, climbing down the ridge and closing those 465 yards to the point of impact. While I felt great about the shot, it’s easy to start doubting yourself as the minutes go by.

Fortunately, all my concern was for nothing. There was the kudu, with a perfect little hole through the shoulder just steps from where we last saw it. My trepidation turned to relief, and I was grinning like an idiot. It is worth noting that the miniscule 6.5mm bullet, a Hornady ELD-X, performed impeccably at this range. It mushroomed and exited, and resulted in a perfect outcome.

Naturally, Matt felt the necessity to prove his shooting skills superior to mine, and in the failing light one of the final days of our safari, Gavin pointed out a very nice old impala ram. It was feeding our direction, over 600 yards away. Our rocky perch was too tight to shoot from prone, but our adjustable tripods saved the day here.

Admittedly these lock-in tripods are an unusual piece of gear for this type of hunting, but we found them to be worth their weight in gold. Multiple times we set up over tall grass or on broken terrain, adjusting a bit here, a bit there, for precisely the right hold. While they certainly do not have the rustic panache of wood and leather shooting sticks, form follows function, and we were certainly happy to have that function here.

As the ram came slowly closer, Matt set up his tripod on the rocky outcropping for a seated shot. He maneuvered so that he could sit back against the boulders and steady himself, wedging his daypack under his shooting arm for added support. At 505 yards, the impala reversed course and began moving away. With the daylight rapidly escaping, this was the last possible moment for success. The shot broke crisply on Matt’s fancy Gunwerks rifle, and the ram never took another step. I had to endure the flight home hearing all about how any rookie could take a 465 yard shot, but it takes a real marksman to shoot beyond 500!

Adjustable lock-in tripods allowed for irregular shots that would have been impossible otherwise.

The author with a decidedly un-African rifle. He got the hat correct, at least.

Perhaps that is exactly what makes hunting in Africa so unique and addicting; it is simultaneously new and old, modern and traditional.

If you have not already begun your long range journey, I strongly encourage you to start! You will undoubtedly find it rewarding, and it pairs remarkably well with the pursuit of African animals. As for me, I am happy to mix the two. My whiskey and tonic, on the other hand, will remain nicely apart.

Robert harvested many excellent animals. Here he is with a very impressive Black Wildebeest. A beautiful animal indeed.

Hunt Details

Date of the hunt: May 12 – 20,  2024

Country: South Africa

Hunting area: Northern Limpopo

Outfitter satisfaction rating Excellent

PH & satisfaction rating: Undisclosed; Excellent

Rifle & cartridge details & satisfaction rating: Dart Rifle; Excellent

Ammunition & bullet details & satisfaction rating: 22 cal ignition of dart; Excellent

Riflescope details & satisfaction rating: N/A

Taxidermist & satisfaction rating: Jim Rice, Cutting Edge Taxidermy – Excellent (past experience from multiple safaris)

In 2014, Jim Rice of Cutting Edge Taxidermy introduced me to Africa and changed the trajectory of my life.  As a result, early in my journeys to the Dark Continent I vowed to only return if I too could introduce one or more “first time visitors/hunters” to the amazing experience that is Africa.  Be it a photo safari, a hunting trip for plains game, or the challenge of pursuing dangerous game, there is none as special as one’s first safari to Africa.  For this safari, I was joined by friends Jayke and Krystal Throgmartin.  This wonderful husband/wife team had dreamed of visiting Africa for over a decade and their time had finally come to make the journey.  We only get one “first safari” and I so wanted this to be a special experience for them.  In the end, mission accomplished!

As planned, our plane landed in Johannesburg, South Africa and what was born was truly an experience of a lifetime for the Throgmartin’s as well as for others in our hunting group.  Also sharing this safari experience were Robert Williams and Gary Acord.  Jayke, Robert, and Gary (along with several others) serve with me on the board of the Arkansas Chapter of Safari Club International (SCI). 

In preparing Jayke and Krystal for this safari, I made sure my coaching included the following, “You have to be flexible.  It’s called ‘hunting’ for a reason.  Sometimes things go well and other times, well, they don’t go as planned.  If I have learned anything over my 55 years of hunting, this I know.  Take each moment in stride, know there are ups and downs, and never lose sight of who we are as hunters and why we do what we do.”  

Our commitment to conservation clearly set the stage for this safari.  However, as hunters, our compassion and caring for the animals many times defines the safari experience and reminds us of what is truly important.

Upon landing in Johannesburg, we stayed overnight at the Afton Safari Lodge which is less than ten minutes from the airport.  As always, the team at Afton welcomed us with open arms and helped us quickly settle in so we could relax and unwind after a sixteen-hour flight.  The next morning, we were picked up by our outfitter and within a few hours were settled into our rooms at the concession.  Normally I acknowledge the outfitter by name and sing their praises for making our stay and hunt a wonderful experience.  While this was certainly the case for this safari, because of the nature of this hunt and for the protection of the wildlife, the outfitter will remain nameless, and our location not disclosed.  Here is why.

In Part 1 of this article, Hunters – We Are Conservation, I emphasized the role of hunters as conservationists.  Certainly, this safari had a conservation component as one of the highlights was darting, microchipping, taking vitals, and GPS tracking specific members of a small herd of White Rhino in South Africa.  As I noted, it was an honor to participate as part of the recovery team and interact with this beautiful and unique species. 

As this was Jayke and Krystal’s first visit to Africa, it was important they experienced Africa to its fullest (as much as possible in eight days on three or four concessions).  In preparing Jayke for his first safari, I encouraged him to be willing to “take what Africa offers” rather than be tightly fixed to a list of hopeful animals.  After all, we were hunting in multiple conditions, and some included very dense bush where sight distances are short and visibility notability limited.  As for Gary and Robert, they had previously hunted in Africa so by working with their Professional Hunters they were off and running on their own and they did very well.

Following along on Jayke and Krystal’s first Africa journey is one of the greatest joys I receive as a hunter.  As with most every safari hunter, Jayke started with his list of hopefuls followed by another list of opportunistic animals that would be considered.  Jayke even prioritized each list as to what he was hoping for first, second, third, etc.  Just as “Man plans and God laughs,” I believe “Africa chuckles as well.”  While we may be primarily hunting one species, we never know what will be around the next corner or behind the next bush.  One of the many things I love about hunting Africa is with a multitude of species to pursue, you just never know when you will encounter the next surprise.  Where else in the world can you be tracking a Kudu, catch movement out of the corner of your eye and turn to see three giraffe walking by?  That is Africa!  It didn’t take long for Jayke and Krystal to experience this magic.

Jayke smiles big with a very special zebra taken over a waterhole late in the safari.

For Jayke, God laughed, and Africa chuckled early on.  His first animal taken was a very nice blesbok.   Why did Africa chuckle?  The blesbok was last on his carefully crafted list!  The good news is Jayke embraced the idea of remaining flexible and as a result was blessed with nine wonderful animals taken in eight days.  Soon and they will all adorn his home, bring a multitude of memories, and be the subject of many stories.  So, you may be asking, “Where does compassion and caring fit into this story?”  Well, there were a few very special moments in this safari that I believe reveal the real heart of the majority of hunters.

First, early in the safari Jayke wounded an early morning gemsbok.  For those that have hunted this species, it is no surprise that they are very tough animals to take down.  In addition, because of their somewhat unusual body configuration it is very easy (in the midst of a quick shooting situation) to aim a little high on the front shoulder and miss the vital cavity.  When this happens, these animals can run for a very long distance and in some cases are not recovered.  I know firsthand from first safari.  We believe this is what happened with Jayke and his gemsbok. 

In this situation, it is very common and the right ethical choice to “make our best efforts to recover the wounded animal.”  If you have hunted very much this situation will eventually occur.  What is important in Jayke’s case is how the outfitter’s recovery team shifted into high gear, assisted by the neighbor’s recovery team, three PH’s, and for a portion of the day, Gary and me.  It was refreshing to watch a group of professionals that were relentless in, finding this animal, ending it’s suffering, and assuring it did not end up as food for the jackals and hyena.  It would have been so easy for the outfitter to end the search after a couple of hours, remind Jayke he is responsible for the trophy fee, and continue to hunt.  Instead, the search continued for well over nine hours and resulted in finding the animal, harvesting it with a final shot and assuring it did not go to waste.  Jayke was beyond thrilled and very impressed with the commitment of the outfitter and his team.

 The second example is similar to Jayke’s.  Early one day Gary made what looked like a very good shot on a nice steenbuck.  It went right down, and all looked good.  To our surprise, however, it jumped up and took off running.  I thought, “Now we have a very small antelope on the loose in hundreds of acres of tall, thick grass.  How in the world will we ever recover this animal?”  Again, a team of six trackers, two PH’s and three hunters (Robert, Gary and me), looked for hours to find this tiny animal in the tall dense grass.  We were truly searching for a needle in a very big haystack.  After several hours, the outfitter voiced an idea.  “Let’s come back at night with a spotlight and try to find the wounded animal and see if we can harvest it then.”  The theory was it was shot close to the spine and after the initial shock, it took off running.  That evening, two hours after sunset, we ventured out with spotlight looking for our little four-legged needle.   After two hours of searching, we saw a steenbok in the tall grass and it appeared to be the same one.  Robert was in the best position to take the shot and was successful. As we exited the bakkie we exchanged high-fives as it was definitely the one Gary wounded that morning.  Arriving back at the lodge, Gary was thrilled (and a little surprised) as he had been hunting in a neighboring concession, and we were just trying to help him recover his animal. 

Gary Acord with his fine Steenbok that was seemingly lost in the thick bush.  Patience, perseverance, a very wise outfitter, and a carefully placed shot by Robert Williams brought this little antelope into the salt at the end of another long day.

 After a little quiet consideration, I agreed to add that particular cape buffalo to my list even though it was the farthest thing from my mind when the safari started.   Although it took four days of hunting to finally spot the buffalo, we made a good stalk, and at 50 yards off of the sticks I made a perfect shot with a 450/400 3” double rifle with open sights which brought the animal’s suffering to a close.  With one shot, the buffalo ran no more than 30 yards and quickly expired.

I am very thankful for the opportunity to have had this safari experience.  I am also thankful for outfitters and professional hunters that are committed to conservation and to assuring the future of hunting.  I believe that we must all take responsibility for the conservation of habitat and wildlife.  I also believe as outfitters and hunters we must have compassion for the animals we hunt and practice good stewardship of that which has been entrusted to us.

This safari was so much more than just taking a bag of animals and getting the right picture or securing the best place in the record book.   Sure, we had plenty of mountain top experiences be it taking an amazing animal or helping with rhino conservation.   Still, we also took those opportunities to do the right thing in being compassionate, caring, and respectful about the animals we hunted.

History has proven, as hunters, we are in the best position to conserve the natural resources which have been entrusted to us and to show appreciation and respect for the animals we pursue.  We are not only hunters.  We are caring as well.

By Andrea Bogard

In August 2019, as a very new hunter, I had an opportunity to journey to Africa. Seeking both plains game and adventure, I touched down in Namibia with no idea what to expect from the next three weeks. The experience was both illuminating and life-changing. Come with me as I take you down two paths. First, that life-transforming excursion and second, the road that is taking me back.

Andrea in Africa

My hunting journey began somewhat abruptly in fall 2017. Born of a desire to have a hobby outside of being wife/mom/business owner, I decided going on a pheasant hunt in South Dakota seemed like a good option. As a life-long shotgunner and clays instructor, pheasants seemed like a functional target.

Fast forward to summer 2019. I had an opportunity to go to Africa with a client to photograph his safari. He was planning to take an elephant in addition to a well-rounded selection of plains game. I was looking to harvest a few animals of my own, but was equally (if not more) excited about seeing Africa through my camera lens.

 The Road Back

Upon returning home in 2019, I had dreams and a tentative plan of going back. As is frequently the case, life had other plans. Since then: COVID happened and my businesses took a huge (but temporary) hit from the fall-out. I started writing about guns, ballistics, shooting, reloading, conservation and worldwide hunting. I got divorced and started a new life at 39. I started homeschooling my sons.

The road back, while winding, has been a great journey!