The covenant - James A. Michener [71]
Actually, among the Hottentots with whom the Dutch did business during their year as castaways, there were three who had sailed in English ships: Jack, who had been to Java; a man named Herry, who had sailed to the Spice Islands; and Coree, who had actually lived in London for a while. But it was with Jack that these Dutchmen conducted their trade.
This meant that Willem was often with the Hottentots when there was bartering, and as before, he and Jack made a striking pair: Jack seemed even smaller when standing among big Dutchmen, and Willem, now full-grown at twenty-two, towered over his little friend, but they moved everywhere along the bay, hunting and fishing together. Toward mid-July, Jack proposed that Van Doorn accompany him to the village where the sheep-raising Hottentots lived. The fortress commander suspected a trick, but Willem, remembering the responsible manner in which the little fellow had conducted himself at Java, begged for permission. 'You could be killed,' the commander warned.
'I think not,' and with that simple affirmation, young Van Doorn became the first Dutchman to venture eastward toward those beckoning mountains.
It was a journey of about thirty miles through land that gave signs of promising fertility. He passed areas where villages had once stood and learned from Jack that here the land had been grazed flat by cattle. 'You have cattle?' the Dutchman asked, indicating with his hands that he meant something bigger than sheep.
'Yes.' Jack laughed, using his forefingers to form horns at his temples, then bellowing like a bull.
'You must bring them to the fort!' Willem cried in excitement.
'No, no!' Jack said firmly. 'We don't trade . . .' He explained that this was winter, when the cows were carrying their young, and that it was forbidden to trade or eat cattle before summer. But when they reached his village, and Willem saw the sleek animals, his mouth watered; he intended reporting this miracle to the fort as soon as he returned.
His stay at the village was a revelation. The Hottentots were infinitely lower in the scale of civilization than the Javanese, or the wealthy merchants of the Spice Islands, and to compare them with the organized Chinese was ridiculous. But they were equally far removed from the primitive Strandloopers who foraged at the beach, for they had orderly systems for raising sheep and cows and they lived in substantial kraals. True, they were mostly naked, but their food was of high quality.
Living among the little people for five days encouraged Willem to think that perhaps a permanent settlement might be practical, with Dutch farmers growing the vegetables required by the passing fleets of the Compagnie and subsisting on the sheep and cattle raised by the Hottentots; this possibility he discussed with Jack.
'You grow more cattle, maybe?'
'No. We have plenty.'
'But if we wanted to trade? You give us many cattle?'
'No. We have just enough.'
'But if we needed them? You saw the English ship. Poor food. No meat.'
'Then English grow sheep. English grow cattle.'
He got nowhere with the Hottentots, but when he returned to the fort and told the officers of the wealth lying inland, they grew hungry for beef and organized an expedition to capture some of the cattle. Van Doorn argued that to do this might embitter relations with the brown people, but the other sailors agreed with the officers: if cattle existed out there toward the hills, they should be eaten.
The argument was resolved in early August when Jack led some fifty Hottentots to the fort, bringing not only sheep but also three fine bullocks which they found they could spare. 'See,' Van Doorn said when the deal was completed, 'we've won our point without warfare,' but when the officers commanded Jack to deliver cattle on a regular basis, he demurred.
'Not enough.'
The officers thought he meant that the goods they had offered were not enough and tried to explain that with the wreck of the Haerlem they had lost their normal trade goods and