Shaka the Great (4 page)

And Dingiswayo never forgot all the things the White Man had told
him, as they sat around the fire of an evening. Coming from the Cape, the White Man could speak Xhosa, a Nguni language Dingiswayo himself understood, and though the young prince could grasp most of the concepts he raised—trade, empires, wars of conquest—it was their sheer scale that awed him.

And got him thinking.

So it was Dingiswayo, not Shaka, who first set about uniting the tribes and clans along the south-east coast of Africa, organizing something approaching a standing army and fighting wars not only to gain territory and cattle, but to secure trade routes with the Portuguese. The Zulu king merely completed what his mentor had started.

And Shaka wanted to know more, wanted to hear for himself. What else could these creatures from the sea tell him? Problem was, whatever trembling specimens his warriors found amid the seaweed could do little more than weep and grovel.

Possibly, in the end, they weren't that different from all the others. Possibly, their claimed provenance aside, they were simply wild beasts like all the rest. For that's how the Zulus saw things: they themselves were Abantu, human beings, while everyone else was izilwane, wild beasts, savages. But even as Shaka was taming the other beasts around him—those indigenous to the region—these newly found barbarians were poking at the map and wondering about the possibilities of this coast.

By the 1820s the British Admiralty was desperately seeking employment for the naval officers left idle and on half pay after the Napoleonic Wars. One of the projects embarked upon was a long delayed and much needed scientific survey of the coastline extending from the Cape of Good Hope up to Cape Guardafui north of Portuguese East Africa. Captain William Owen was the one put in charge of the expedition, which included the
Leven
and the
Barracouta.

The HMS
Barracouta
left the Cape first, around the middle of 1822. Also tasked with making contact with the tribes beyond Algoa Bay, the furthermost outpost of British civilization on that coast, the ship's officers discovered something interesting.

The natives they encountered were a pathetic lot—cunning, treacherous and prone to “drunkenness and gluttony.” However, the
Barracouta
's officers
soon learned that they were
not
the “aboriginal inhabitants” of the coastal strip, but were refugees who had fled “the merciless and destructive conquests of a tyrannical monster named Chaka.” These reports, which caused a stir back at the Cape, mark one of the first official mentions of the Zulu king whose name would one day be known around the globe.

The dispatches were later confirmed by the officers of the HMS
Leven.
While the ship was at Delagoa Bay, it was learned the Portuguese were trading with a “warlike” tribe to the south. They called this tribe “Vatwas,” but it was likely these were the “Zoolas” the British had already been hearing about.

And why would the Portuguese risk dealing with such a bloodthirsty bunch? That's what a few merchants, and at least one out-of-work Navy man, got to thinking after listening to the stories Owen's expedition brought back to Cape Town. They knew the Portuguese were doing very well out of the gold and ivory coming into Delagoa otherwise why maintain a settlement in such a hellhole? But that the traders should be willing to do business with a “tyrannical monster,” presumably as likely to slaughter them in their sleep as hand over any goods, meant there had to be more gold and more ivory than hitherto suspected.

Consequently, while Shaka was consolidating his power after defeating Zwide, and wondering what to do about the irksome Thembus hunkered down on his western border, other izilwane, the very ones he wanted to learn more about, were making plans to come and find him. And thus ensure any future arrivals and departures were more organized, and less the result of storms and shattered hulls.

July 1823

The sea is choppy, the sky glowering; the foam stings and the waves do their best to unseat the boat, as if it were a particularly detested jockey.

Impatience, teeth-grinding, deck-pacing, mouths-to-feed, investors-to-appease impatience, has seen Lieutenant Francis Farewell, founder of the Farewell Trading Company—and sole bloody leader of this bloody expedition, the whole thing having been his idea in the first place, despite what a certain party might claim at a later date—attempt a landing in such inclement conditions.

The beach they're aiming for keeps disappearing, tilting and slipping behind waves the color of stone, until the boat rises again like the remnants of breakfast in a burning throat, while the water roars in its rage and the spindrift peppers one's face like specks of gunpowder. Jakot, their interpreter, along with a matelot who's never been the same since a tumble from a yard a few years ago, has broken one of the barrels they've brought with them, and are using the shakes in a clumsy and futile endeavor to bail water. And the other men pull at the oars; for they don't need to be told that survival lies in keeping this surfboat under control.

They're just coming out of another trough, when Farewell rises to check his bearings.
How far to go? How far?
He knows they won't be able to get back off the beach so long as this weather keeps up, but getting there at all will at least mean an end to this constant battering.

He rises and, just as the oarsmen claw their way to the crest, a gust of wind knocks the boat sideways so that it almost capsizes as it drops down into the next trough. The crew fight to bring the bow around, and it's only when they hit the next crest that they realize Farewell's gone. As are Jakot and the sailor who was helping him bail.

But there's nothing to be done about that right now. The surfboat's perched above another near vertical descent, and they have their own lives to think of.

Down they go, then up again, in a haze of gray and white.

Down, then up … and the beach seems to leap at them, closer than anyone would've dared hope.

Carried into shallower water by the breakers, they now have to contend with cross-currents. During any landing, waves breaking against a broad behind can cause a boat to turn sideways to the swell, and capsize. Surfboats have pointed sterns to prevent this from happening, but these graybeards are too cantankerous. Just when it seems as if they're going to make it through the churning water, the boat broaches …

… and at the same instant the sea snatches the water away, like an optimistic conjurer tugging at a tablecloth laden with plates and cutlery …

… and the surfboat drops down and rolls forward, spewing men and their fearful cries.

It's July 1823—the time of Uncwaba, the New Grass Moon, for the Zulus—and Lieutenant Francis Farewell has come seeking to establish a trading station on the south-east coast.

Having listened to the reports brought back by Captain William Owen and his officers, he has come to the conclusion that Shaka isn't as bad as the Portuguese have claimed. Yes, there are the other negative accounts gleaned from the refugees encountered by the
Barracouta
, but there you were dealing with the animosity of a defeated foe—a different situation entirely. It's in Portuguese interests to exaggerate the atrocities of the Zoola chief, lest someone else get precisely the same idea as Farewell. Which is to avoid Delagoa altogether, and set about doing business with the Zulu monarch directly.

After persuading various merchants at Cape Town to finance the venture, Farewell chartered the
Salisbury
, skippered by James King. On June 27, 1823, they reached Algoa Bay, recently renamed Port
Elizabeth. That same day, the HMS
Leven
dropped anchor alongside the
Salisbury
.

Captain Owen was making his second pass along the coast, and Farewell eagerly turned to him for advice.

Two things in particular bothered him, and Owen was happy to help. The first was finding a suitable place to make land before reaching Delagoa, and Owen suggested the estuary named Santa Lucia by Manoel de Mesquita Perestrello back in the 1550s.

Farewell's second cause for concern was the matter of interpreters. They'd been able to hire some in Cape Town, but he wasn't sure they'd be up to the task and he cited the example of his beloved Horatio. While serving in the West Indies, Admiral Nelson had found it frustrating having to rely on indifferent interpreters when questioning the crew of French prizes he'd taken. Consequently, after the Peace of 1793, which he realized wouldn't last, he had spent several months in France in order to brush up on his French, so as to be able to monitor what was actually said to an interpreter and assess how well it was being translated for him. Farewell believed their own predicament would be even more fraught. Far from Redcoats and grapeshot, they'd be at Shaka's mercy, and needed someone who would not only translate his employers' questions and requests faithfully, but who could be relied upon to pick up nuances, signs of uncertainty and prevarication that pointed to a possible betrayal.

Owen said he understood, and offered Farewell one of his own interpreters. The fellow had accompanied the captain on his previous voyage and shown himself well able to communicate with the natives they met along the way.

“He's one of these Causahs and reckons the languages aren't all that different,” explained Owen. “The pick of the litter,” he added. “In fact, some of the men say he's royalty. I don't know about that, but he handles well, by and large. Won't need much cobbing!”

That the captain might have been laying it on a bit thick only occurred to Farewell a few days after they left Port Elizabeth. For one thing, Owen might have revealed to him that he'd hired Jakot out of the prison on Robben Island but, instead, Farewell had to
hear this little piece of intelligence from King, who had in fact once transported Jakot from Algoa to Cape Town, from whence he had been returned to the island.

That was another thing: until employed by the Admiralty as an interpreter, Jakot had been very much a repeat offender, his crimes ranging from murder to stock theft, and to inciting rebellion against British rule. This information came from the three other interpreters, hired at Cape Town, who were angry because Jakot had been lording it over them from the day he first set foot on board.

When Farewell asked him why he was bullying the others, and generally acting as if he was their chief, Jakot said the accusation was preposterous. He'd intimated nothing of the sort, and wouldn't dream of doing so, for they were half-castes, while he was pure Xhosa. Come to think of it,
he
was the one who should feel insulted, for even a dog would think long and hard if it was forced to choose between becoming their chief and, say, contracting rabies.

The upshot of this was that, after the other interpreters were pulled off Jakot,
they
were the ones who found themselves crammed into the cubbyhole that served as the brig, leaving the Xhosa with a little more space in what had till then been their communal sleeping area. Not that the others were under arrest: it was merely considered it would be better for everyone's health if they were locked up at night, when there were fewer people around to keep an eye on them and prevent them from getting themselves into serious trouble.

This was far from being the end of Jakot's trials, though. The half-castes—and the expedition's Hottentot servants—were mere irritations, and easily intimidated. Being treated as chattel, handed from one owner to another, was what stuck in his craw.

That he was being paid for his services was of little consequence. And largely hypothetical, anyway, since he hadn't yet seen a penny in these many months of rolling from port to starboard and back again.

It was also true that, however impressed by the bona fides
provided by Owen, Farewell was only willing to take on Jakot if Jakot agreed to accompany the party. But in reality Jakot didn't have a choice, and could only say yes.

He was no longer Owen's favorite, for the captain had become enamored of a new court jester he'd picked up at Cape Town: a man called English Bill. And Jakot suspected that Owen was planning to leave him at Port Elizabeth, which he didn't want to happen, as there were frontiersmen there who still had some scores to settle with him, notwithstanding the pardon he had received on joining the Royal Navy's expedition.

This aside, the prospect of returning to Delagoa was about as appealing as leprosy to the Xhosa, who counted himself lucky to have survived one voyage there already, traveling with these imbeciles who seemed to actively seek out the most disease-ridden inlets in their never-ending quest for ivory and gold. That he'd been reassured Delagoa was most certainly not the true destination of the Farewell Trading Company mattered not a jot. Despite their fancy brass instruments, these hirsute creatures remained trapped in the palm of the weather, and therefore, as far as Jakot could see, they seemed to spend a lot of time being blown off course. So who knew where they might eventually end up?