the iodine into the raw wound. Far from flinching, as François had expected, a great look of happiness came into the Bushman’s face as he felt the iodine stinging like needle thrusts into his leg, the pain obviously convincing him that François’s magic must be very good magic indeed.
François then bound the leg with proper field dressings and clean, sterilized bandages, made the Bushman swallow three tablets of M and B 693, and told him to take three more when the sun went down. He gave him three more pain-killing tablets and three more sleeping draughts to take at sunset. He placed the remainder of the sandwiches and the field flask of water on the ground beside him. Finally, he made the Bushman promise that he would not move until François came to him again the next day, which he assured him he would, although at an hour which he could not now determine. He was then ready to leave, and was about to turn and make for the entrance of the cave where the daylight shone like water on the surface of a deep well when, to his amazement the Bushman, hurt as he was, stood up and raised his hand half above his shoulder rather like a rough Roman salute and thanking him profusely, ended with the words: ‘Until today Xhabbo was one; now he is two.’
François’s embarrassment at so full an expression of thanks from the Bushman, because he had only done what appeared to him perfectly natural and obvious, was so acute that he doubted whether he could respond adequately. His knowledge of the uninhibited people among whom he had grown up told him he had to do so, unless he were to appear boorish, as Africans think all ‘red strangers’ are only too apt to be. But how?
He could only take refuge in the kind of expression Koba had taught him a well brought-up Bushman might have used on such an occasion and answered shyly: ‘And now that you have come, I live again.’
Something else occurred to him that made him ask, ‘I did hear right? Your name is indeed Xhabbo?’
‘Because my father felt utterly that my coming was Xhabbo to him,’ the little Bushman answered in the round-about manner of a language, which may lack logic and reason but more than compensates for them in feeling: ‘I have come to feel myself also utterly to be Xhabbo and to feel not a little that there could be no other name for me.’
Xhabbo , as François knew only too well from Koba, meant Dream, and Dream, she had taught him, was a favourite name for all the first-born sons in eminent Bushman clans.
All this time Hintza, who had had his first experience of rock climbing on such a scale that he must have qualified as the first ridge-back Alpinist in southern Africa, had been lying with his head in his paws. After all, he had just about had the most exhausting and eventful day of his eighteen-month-old life, what with waking François before dawn, facing leopards, chasing away vultures and all the other tiresome chores a hunting dog has imposed upon him when accompanying human beings who are so deficient in the essentials of bush education such as having a proper sense of smell and hearing. His long pink tongue was fluttering like a canna petal in the breeze while he panted like a blacksmith’s bellows.
François now called to him, ‘Here, Hin!’
Hintza immediately controlled his breath, rose with all the slow dignity of sheer fatigue and went to François.
Pointing to Xhabbo, François said politely: ‘Hin, shake. This is Xhabbo and Xhabbo, this is Hin, who will be yours as he is mine.’
Hintza, an expert in the art of shaking paws, gracefully held his out immediately, indeed so quickly that François had to explain, and beg Xhabbo to take it. Shaking hands, let alone paws, is not a Bushman custom, and any breach of etiquette could now offend Hintza’s sensitive concept of what was fitting and set him against Xhabbo. Luckily, Xhabbo was as intelligent and quick on the uptake as he was brave and good-looking and to François’s great joy the
François then bound the leg with proper field dressings and clean, sterilized bandages, made the Bushman swallow three tablets of M and B 693, and told him to take three more when the sun went down. He gave him three more pain-killing tablets and three more sleeping draughts to take at sunset. He placed the remainder of the sandwiches and the field flask of water on the ground beside him. Finally, he made the Bushman promise that he would not move until François came to him again the next day, which he assured him he would, although at an hour which he could not now determine. He was then ready to leave, and was about to turn and make for the entrance of the cave where the daylight shone like water on the surface of a deep well when, to his amazement the Bushman, hurt as he was, stood up and raised his hand half above his shoulder rather like a rough Roman salute and thanking him profusely, ended with the words: ‘Until today Xhabbo was one; now he is two.’
François’s embarrassment at so full an expression of thanks from the Bushman, because he had only done what appeared to him perfectly natural and obvious, was so acute that he doubted whether he could respond adequately. His knowledge of the uninhibited people among whom he had grown up told him he had to do so, unless he were to appear boorish, as Africans think all ‘red strangers’ are only too apt to be. But how?
He could only take refuge in the kind of expression Koba had taught him a well brought-up Bushman might have used on such an occasion and answered shyly: ‘And now that you have come, I live again.’
Something else occurred to him that made him ask, ‘I did hear right? Your name is indeed Xhabbo?’
‘Because my father felt utterly that my coming was Xhabbo to him,’ the little Bushman answered in the round-about manner of a language, which may lack logic and reason but more than compensates for them in feeling: ‘I have come to feel myself also utterly to be Xhabbo and to feel not a little that there could be no other name for me.’
Xhabbo , as François knew only too well from Koba, meant Dream, and Dream, she had taught him, was a favourite name for all the first-born sons in eminent Bushman clans.
All this time Hintza, who had had his first experience of rock climbing on such a scale that he must have qualified as the first ridge-back Alpinist in southern Africa, had been lying with his head in his paws. After all, he had just about had the most exhausting and eventful day of his eighteen-month-old life, what with waking François before dawn, facing leopards, chasing away vultures and all the other tiresome chores a hunting dog has imposed upon him when accompanying human beings who are so deficient in the essentials of bush education such as having a proper sense of smell and hearing. His long pink tongue was fluttering like a canna petal in the breeze while he panted like a blacksmith’s bellows.
François now called to him, ‘Here, Hin!’
Hintza immediately controlled his breath, rose with all the slow dignity of sheer fatigue and went to François.
Pointing to Xhabbo, François said politely: ‘Hin, shake. This is Xhabbo and Xhabbo, this is Hin, who will be yours as he is mine.’
Hintza, an expert in the art of shaking paws, gracefully held his out immediately, indeed so quickly that François had to explain, and beg Xhabbo to take it. Shaking hands, let alone paws, is not a Bushman custom, and any breach of etiquette could now offend Hintza’s sensitive concept of what was fitting and set him against Xhabbo. Luckily, Xhabbo was as intelligent and quick on the uptake as he was brave and good-looking and to François’s great joy the
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