The covenant - James A. Michener [235]
When they entered the low hills that separated the mission station from the farm, a wholly new vista opened, the vision of a land immense in its dimensions, softly varied in the rise and fall of its low ridges, but ominously grand in the substantial mountains that rose to the north. They seemed to warn Saltwood: This is a greater land than you have envisaged. The challenges are vaster than Simon Keer defined.
At the crest of the last rise Lodevicus reined in his horse and pointed down to a small valley hemmed on all sides by hills of varying height. It was as tight a little world as Saltwood had ever seen, a secure haven cut by a river which brought fruitfulness to the rolling fields. The river entered the area at an opening to the southwest, ran diagonally across the meadows and exited at a pass in the northeast. If ever a frontier settler had a farm that was secure, this was it.
'De Kraal,' Van Doorn said gruffly but with evident pride. 'Safe place for keeping cattle.'
'Have you cattle?'
'The Hottentots have taken our herds north to graze. But this kraal is for human beings. A nest within the hills.'
Hilary turned in his saddle to inspect the land, and from his experience with meadows on the Salisbury Plain estimated that De Kraal ran five miles west to east and something less than three north to south. Making such calculations as he could, he said in astonishment, 'You have nine thousand acres down there.'
'Yes,' said Lodevicus. 'This is the land of the Van Doorns.' And he rode down into his little empire as if he were Abraham riding a camel to Canaan.
The three days Hilary spent at De Kraal were a revelation, for he was in an enclave removed from any outside influence and ruled by one man. It was into this fortress that English justice presumed to force its way. Lodevicus had a wife, of course, and Hilary was surprised when he met her, for she seemed not at all awed by her austere husband, even though he was at least thirty years older. Wilhelmina van Doorn was a big, amiable woman who obviously set the laws to be observed in her house. She had one son, Tjaart, a square-bodied young farmer with a lad of his own.
De Kraal had nine Madagascan and Angolan slaves, few by comparison with the intensively farmed vineyards near Cape Town, but it also had thirty-two Hottentot and Coloured workers and their families, some whose ancestors had become affiliated with the Van Doorn family generations ago. By law they were contract laborers duly registered at Graaff-Reinet; whether they were de facto slaves was moot. No outside observer like Saltwood would be allowed to ascertain the facts.
Thirty-two Hottentots?' Saltwood asked. 'Isn't that a lot?'
'They have to herd our cattle sixty miles north of here.'
'Sixty miles! Doesn't that put them on other people's land?'
'There are no other people.'
Lodevicus invited Saltwood to inspect every aspect of De Kraal, where the slaves and Hottentots ate and where they slept and worked. Since Hilary now understood much of the Dutch-Portuguese-Malayan-Madagascan dialect spoken between master and servant, he was able to conduct his investigations without the interference of Van Doorn. He was especially eager to interrogate the Hottentots, for Golan's people had said that the Boers were constantly abusing them, but when the herders were brought in he found them a jovial lot who loved their horses and the open range.
'How much do you get paid?' he asked the lead man.
'Paid? What is paid?'
'Wages. Money.'
'We got no money.'
'Not now, but how much does Mr. Van Doorn pay you?'
'He not pay nothing.'
Saltwood started again: 'You work? Seven days a week? How much do you get paid?'
'Baas, I no understand.'
So with great patience the missionary explained that everywhere in the