uncommonly daring old fellows had been disposed of, the rest acquired
respect for us and kept at a distance whenever they saw a man; we then
relaxed our severity, and for the time contented ourselves with keeping
them out of Eden Vale. But of course we showed no mercy to the numberless
crocodiles that infested the lake and the river. We attacked these with
bullet and spear, with hook and poison, day and night, in every conceivable
way; for we were anxious that our women and children, when they came,
should be able to bathe in the refreshing waters without endangering their
precious limbs. As the district which these animals frequented was in the
present case a very circumscribed one--fresh individuals could come neither
down from the Kenia nor over the waterfall at the end of the great
plateau--we soon succeeded in so thinning their numbers that only a few
examples were left, the destruction of which we handed over to our
Andorobbo huntsmen, whom we furnished with weapons for this Purpose, and to
whom we offered a large premium for every crocodile slain in the Eden lake
or in the Dana above the waterfall. As a fact, before the arrival of the
first caravan of immigrants, the last crocodile had disappeared from Eden
Vale and from the basin of the Dana.
Agriculture, gardening, and the chase had not absorbed all the strength at
our disposal. We were at the same time busy constructing a number of
practicable roads round the lake, along the river-bank to the east end of
the plateau, and a number of branches from this main road to different
parts of our district. It must not be imagined that these roads were works
of art--they were merely fieldways, which, however, made it possible to
carry about considerable loads without the expenditure of an enormous
amount of force. In three places the Dana was bridged over for vehicular
traffic, and in two others for foot traffic. Only in two places was much
work required--at the end of the gorge through which the Dana passed from
Eden Vale into the great plateau, and at a place where the Kenia cliffs
touched the lake. At these places several cubic yards of rock had to be
blown away, in order to make room for a road.
As in the meanwhile neither wheelwrights nor smiths had been standing
still, when the roads were ready there were also ready for use upon them a
number of stout waggons and barrows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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