Six Months at the Cape, R. M. Ballantyne [some good books to read txt] 📗

method of rousing himself, or of relieving his feelings. It looked more like making a fool of himself. A handful of mealies seemed to irritate him at first, but by degrees the temptation became too strong. He commenced to pick a few seeds—ready, however, on the smallest provocation, to forsake them, charge up to the hedge, and hiss at us.

“Now, Johnny, I’ll keep him in play,” said Hobson senior. “You go round to the nest. Keep well down in the hollows, else he’ll be sure to see you.”

Johnny at once rode off. The suspicious David looked after him and showed a tendency to retire in the direction of his nest, but Hobson raised his forked stick over the hedge and made a demonstration therewith. This was more than enough.

Inflated with rage David at once accepted the challenge, and rushed back to the hedge, over which another handful of mealies were thrown at him, but mealies had lost much of their power by that time. Thus, with alternate taunt and temptation was the false attack maintained by the father, while the real attack was made by the son, at the other extremity of the fortress.

I followed the real attack. We did not go direct. The bird would at once have made for its nest had we done so. We rode off in the direction in which we had come until out of sight, and then, making a long circuit at full gallop, came round to the other end of the enclosure, from which point the enemy could not be seen.

There was a wall to cross, then a deep hollow through which the little stream ran, then a belt of pretty thick bushes, beyond which, on the open plain, the nest was known to lie—if I may call that a nest which is a mere hollow in the sand, in which the eggs are laid. Here the female sits all day while the male marches about on guard. At night the male sits while the female goes about and feeds. They are most attentive parents, and there is a fitness in this arrangement as regards colour, for the brown female squatted on the brown Karroo is almost invisible in daylight, while the black male is equally invisible during the darkness of the night.

“You mustn’t come with me,” said Johnny, dismounting; “it would only increase the chance of my being seen by David.”

I was detailed, therefore, to the inglorious duty of holding the horses, while my young friend made the assault alone.

He leaped the wall, descended into the bed of the stream, scrambled up the opposite bank, crossed the clump of small wood, and came out into the open. Now a short piece of this open—fifty yards or so, perhaps—was visible from the lower end of the field, where Hobson and David were still coquetting with each other. Johnny tried to skulk over this open ground. He might as well have sought to evade the eyes of Argus. The long-sighted bird caught the very first glint of his cap. Insult and mealies were alike unavailing now. He forsook the sire and made at the son with his great compass-like legs, covering the ground in tremendous as well as rapid strides. No race-horse ever cleared the ground like David Marais! Johnny saw that the “game was up.” Applying his own long legs to the ground with a will, he rushed at the nest. The female bounced up, ran a few yards, and squatted in helpless stupidity. Johnny counted the eggs, turned, and fled. Not a moment too soon! Indeed he was too late, for the ostrich was already close up, and Johnny’s retreat by the way he had come was cut off; but he turned at a sharp angle, and made for another clump of bushes, through which he plunged with a wild hilarious laugh, into the safe retreat of the river-bed. David Marais could not follow there, but he doubtless consoled himself with the reflection that he had gallantly defended his wife and little ones, and had beaten the enemy from the field!

Nothing of all this had I seen, for the belt of bushes hid the actors from view, but I heard the ringing laugh with rather anxious surprise, and saw Johnny emerge immediately after from the banks of the stream, flushed and panting from his adventure.

That I do not exaggerate the power and ferocity of these birds, may be gathered from an incident which occurred to Hobson himself, and which he related on our way home.

One morning he rode to the enclosure of the bird named Master, and entered, intending to feed him and his wife with mealies. Master must have risen off his wrong side that morning, for, instead of amiably accepting his breakfast, he made a sudden and furious rush at his benefactor. Hobson’s horse wheeled round and bolted,—no wonder, with the claw of an ostrich acting as a spur on his flank! The horse was so frightened that he fairly ran away. Master ran after him, and, being much fleeter, kept on kicking his legs and flanks, so that they were soon covered with blood, and once he kicked so high as to cut the crupper. The horse became almost mad with terror, and quite ungovernable. It was chased round and round the place, the walls being too high to leap, and the gate having been closed. At last the horse dashed madly into a mimosa bush, and stuck fast. The impetuous Master followed, but, before he could back out, Hobson caught him by the throat in his powerful grasp. He held on until Master choked. Not wishing to kill the bird, he then let go, and Master dropped like a stone. Hobson then galloped to the river, but Master, who recovered immediately, came rushing on to renew the attack. Hobson, however, had found shelter and safety behind some bushes in the bed of the stream.

Not long after our visit to David Marais, I went with Six-foot Johnny to the territory which belonged to Blind-boy. That sagacious bird was not so blind but that, with his one eye, he observed us coming, and met us more than half-way. Knowing him to be, comparatively, a peaceable bird, and being mounted, we entered the enclosure and rode towards him. From certain symptoms and rufflings of the feathers and cockings of the tail, however, my companion knew that Blind-boy was not as amiable as might have been wished.

“Take care,” said Johnny.

“Why?” said I.

“Because he’s angry.”

The signs of wrath did not appear to me very obvious, but I afterwards came to understand that, in an ostrich, a small amount of demonstration means an extreme depth of anger.

We rode slowly forward. Blind-boy advanced as slowly, with a dangerous motion of the wings.

“Keep on this side of the ditch,” said Johnny. “Now, then, we’d better be off.”

Before I well understood that it was advisable to get out of the bird’s way, my companion had put spurs to his horse, and was off like an arrow. Or ever I was aware what my horse meant to do, I was almost thrown to the ground. He whirled on his hind-legs—without orders,—and went off like the wind. Nothing but a natural tendency to hold tight with my knees prevented me from being left beside Blind-boy. We went at racing-speed to the gate, and then found, on looking back, that we might have spared ourselves the rush, for Blind-boy was standing as we left him! The ditch had proved an impassable barrier, and he was gazing after us in apparent wonder at our haste. My own wonder at the smart behaviour of my horse was removed when Johnny told me that it was the identical steed his father had ridden when attacked, as I have described, by Master.

Johnny himself was once assaulted, trampled on, and severely cut about the head, by one of these same ostriches, and might have been killed if his father had not chanced to be at hand. Johnny was younger at the time, and, in the foolish ardour of youth, attempted to rise when knocked down. This gave the ostrich the opportunity of once and again repeating his blows. If the lad had lain still he would have suffered less. I might draw a beautiful moral on submission and humility out of this, but won’t.

Strange to say, the male ostrich loses nearly all his courage when out of his own proper paddock or domain. This was illustrated to me one morning in the case of Gouws. We were walking by the side of his enclosure, and he was advancing to meet us in his own warlike style, when we observed that the gate was open. Before we could get near to close it Gouws marched through. If we had entered his grounds an attack would have been highly probable, but no sooner did he find himself outside the accustomed wall than the spirit in him changed. He looked confusedly round at the unfamiliar objects, then dropped his defiant tail, and fled.

It cost us the better part of a forenoon, with temperature at 105 degrees in the shade, before we succeeded in driving that bird back into his own paddock, and all that time he was running away from us, overwhelmed, apparently, with fear!