{"id":56,"date":"2021-08-22T07:07:44","date_gmt":"2021-08-22T07:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jpd.theoandkai.net\/?p=56"},"modified":"2021-08-22T07:07:44","modified_gmt":"2021-08-22T07:07:44","slug":"first-trip-to-delagoa-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jpd.theoandkai.net\/?p=56","title":{"rendered":"First trip to Delagoa Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

About the year 1888 my father decided to take us all to Delagoa Bay<\/a> to see the sea. How my father could afford the expense of a long trip with a salary of \u00a390 per year, which was the salary of a married missionary paid by the Berlin Mission Society, is hard to believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He started from our home at Sefufule fountain at the foot of Modimolle (the holy mountain) with a tent wagon and 20 oxen and two horses. The party comprised of my father, mother, my elder brother, two sisters and myself, also four native boys and two nurse girls. One of the four boys was a native called Job Pududu whom my father taught to speak and read German and preach out of the German Bible and to play Chess. The driver of the wagon was Helkia Mahloane who could speak Dutch having worked on a Boer farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was only a boy of about 5 years and I cannot remember everything about that trip and by which roads we went over the Lydenburg mountains. We arrived at Komatipoort and found the river too deep to cross. We slept there that night. The next morning my father asked two of the Natal Transport riders to help us across the river. My father, mother and younger sister were taken over the river by a small boat. When everything was ready, the 18 oxen inspanned, the two tall thin and wiry English expert driver, stripped all their clothing and they went, one on the near side and one on the off side of the span of oxen. They doubled their long whips and gave each ox a sharp whack while the wagon was still standing still, then they unfurled their 18 feet long whips and gave a shout. All the 18 oxen jumped forward into the deep river and all you could see was the heads of the oxen swimming and pulling the wagon across. We three children were sitting on a high “voorkas”, a high box in front used as seat for the driver. The whole wagon disappeared under water and we had to lift our feet to the top of the box. Had it not been for the luck of finding those expert drivers at the drift our native drivers could not have managed to drive the wagon across, the oxen would have just gone down with the current and drowned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We camped for a day or two on the other side of the Komati river drying our wet things. There were several wagons camped there and one of those parties were fixing a loose wheel tyre, a band of iron, three and a half inches wide and three quarters of an inch thick. This band is propped on 3 stones and dry chips and manure is packed round covering the band and then set alight. When the tyre is red hot, the band is lifted by green sticks and placed over the felloes and then they shouted “gooi water! gooi water!” and the iron band starts contracting and pulls the wheel tight together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We trekked till we came to a big river where a bridge was being constructed. Only some thick planks were put across the pillars. We got permission to take our wagon across at our own risk. Two hind oxen were inspanned to pull the wagon, but some loose planks moved apart and the hind wheel of our wagon dropped in the gap and it took several hours to get the wagon out. Our two horses got horse sickness and were lying down when my father brought some water in a bucket. They looked at us with pityful eyes, and died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One late afternoon we got to a homestead. I think the people were Portuguese. Their little boy shot a big Kudu and blinded it in both eyes. My father went with our boys to help kill the blinded kudu bull and we were given a lot of the meat. Next morning my father was asked to baptise their son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At long last we arrived at Delagoa Bay. In those days there were only a few houses and the streets were in deep loose sand. Walking through the streets we got very tired and our feet were burned by hot sand. My father got some drinking water from one of the houses. My father hired a boat to take us across the Bay. We found a rib bone of a Whale looking like a cross beam of a house. We were so interested that we nearly got caught in the incoming tide. We had to run and wade through water in the sand hollows. Going back by boat it became windy and the wind took off the hat of one of the Shangaan boys rowing the boat. The boys started turning round to go after the hat, but my father was so nervous and told the boys to leave the hat alone and that he will buy a new one for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father brought many pieces of Salempore<\/a> cheap, with the intention of selling the Salempore at a good profit in Sekukuniland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About the year 1888 my father decided to take us all to Delagoa Bay to see the sea. How my father could afford the expense of a long trip with a salary of \u00a390 per year, which was the salary of a married missionary paid by the Berlin Mission Society, is hard to believe. He… Continue reading First trip to Delagoa Bay<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jpd.theoandkai.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jpd.theoandkai.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jpd.theoandkai.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jpd.theoandkai.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jpd.theoandkai.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jpd.theoandkai.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57,"href":"https:\/\/jpd.theoandkai.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/57"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jpd.theoandkai.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jpd.theoandkai.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jpd.theoandkai.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}