Thomas Bain in Africa, c 1848. Water-colour
Thomas Baines was ‘n Engelse kunstenaar en verkenner. Hy is in 1820 in Engeland gebore en word op ‘n jong ouderdom ‘n koetsskilder se vakleerling. Toe hy 22 jaar oud is, verlaat Engeland en kom na Suid-Afrika. Hy arriveer in 1848 in Kaapstad waar hy as ‘n landskap- en portretkunstenaar werk. Later is hy ook die amptelike oorlogkunstenaar in Grahamstad tydens die Agtste Grensoorlog.
Native Congregation at Haslope Hills (1 Oct. 1849). Pencil
Thomas Baines is vandag veral bekend vir sy gedetailleerde skilderye en sketse wat ‘n unieke insig in die koloniale lewe in Suider-Afrika gee. Hy word beskou as een van Suid-Afrika se mees noemenswaardige kunstenaars. Hy het verskeie geskiedkundige gebeurtenisse vasgevang, beide met sy verfkwas en sy pen.
The Trader’s, Mr Harris’s Cabin near the White Kei. (18 April 1848). Oil
Sy dagboeke of joernale wat hier gepubliseer is, is geskryf met die hoofdoel om sy geheue te verfris om skilderye te skep van sy sketse. Hy het rofweg notas geskryf terwyl hy gereis het, wat later herskryf is vir publikasie in boekvorm.
Baines was ‘n kundige, intelligente man met ‘n goeie verbeelding. Hy was egter ongeskool. Dit is duideliker in sy skryfwerk as in sy skilderwerk. Sy spelling was swak, hy was onkundig oor sintaksis, en het selde leestekens gebruik. Dit het veroorsaak dat sy presiese betekenis baie keer verduister is.
The Tarka Post, White Kei River (28 Sept. 1849). Water-colour sketch.
Hierdie bundel dek verskeie van sy reistogte in die oostelike dele van die Kaap, eers as deel van Mr. W.F. Liddle se toergeselskap, en later op sy eie.
Baines het saam met die Liddle Ekspedisie gereis van Grahamstad na Shiloh, die Morawiese sendingstasie, en verder noord tot by Colesberg. Op sy het hy King William’s Town, Oos-Londen en Kaffrarië besoek.
UITTREKSEL UIT DIE TEKS
“…..sympathize but little with my forlorn condition, and insisted upon a detail of my somewhat eccentric peregrinations, while, parched with thirst and half choked with dust, I was hardly able to ask him for a drop of water; and how long I should have waited for the cooling draught I know not, had not a female in the wagon expostulated with him on ‘the sin of withholding water from a thirsty person.
On reaching the highlands of Grass Ridge about eleven in the forenoon, I saw a group of wagons outspanned by the roadside, and soon recognised them as those I sought. My dog, which had wisely chosen rather to stay by the flesh-pots than to accompany my wanderings, bounded forth to meet me, and Abram handed me a cake of coarse meal with which to beguile the time while he cooked the coffee kettle. He informed me that they had seen a tiger, or, rather a leopard or panther, near the wagons; and shortly after we had inspanned he pointed out a couple of ostriches swiftly skimming the horizon, and, when I awoke from a short sleep in the wagon, told me that four lions had just passed us. Thinking myself . . . . as, I believe, does every ‘fresh arrival’, in a land of savage beasts, I began to look to my fire-arms, when it was explained that the lions in question were perfectly tame and were being carried to Algoa Bay on speculation.
About six the same evening we crossed the Sundays River, and, passing the comfortable-looking inn upon its western bank, entered the Addo bush, which Abram, determined if possible to make me imagine myself in a savage land, represented as the haunt of elephants, lions, and numberless other wild animals. A few of these creatures, I believe, do still inhabit its deepest recesses but they are rarely met with, and their spoor is only occasionally seen upon the road. About nine the oxen were allowed to lie down in the yokes, and, as I did not make coffee, Abram invited me to take tea with him, remarking, as he handed me the pannikin, that the water he had used was not dirty but only a little thickened by the trampling of the oxen.
After tea a discussion arose between him and Oom – Uncle – Jonas. January respecting the treatment of children, on which they appeared to speak with much kindness and good sense; the doctrines of predestination and fatality were next argued, and, though their opinions seemed to differ, it was at length pretty generally agreed that a blind reliance upon fate ‘came rather from the Devil than the Lord’. Old Jonas, referring to my last night’s adventure in refutation of something advanced by Abram, said that while I was absent his heart was heavy for me, but that now I had returned and was safely sleeping with them it was again light. My own, I thought, must have been hard indeed had it not been touched with the kind feeling of the old man, expressed when he thought I was asleep, and in a language he did not know I partially understood.
[4 Mar.] On the morning of the next day I beheld for the first time a son of Amakosa, followed by his wife, who bore upon her head his scanty travelling equipment and what appeared to me the shafts of his assagais, the blades being probably concealed in the bundle; and could not help contrasting rather unfavourably the ragged garments of my friends with his picturesque costume and proud bearing, rather inconsistent, by the way, with the accounts I had heard of the thoroughly subdued and humbled Kafir; and regretting that so fine a subject for the pencil should ever be rendered less inviting to the artist by the march of civilisation. We crossed the Bushman’s River before sunset and about eleven halted on a hill, near a long-deserted Kafir kraal; the oxen were again made fast to the yokes, the general opinion being that wolves were too plentiful to allow of their being turned loose; and, in answer to a question respecting the time they intended to start in the morning, I was informed that they never travelled on a Sunday, but were glad to see that I had a watch with me, as they would now be enabled to know exactly when the sabbath was ended, and delay no longer than was absolutely their duty.
[5 Mar.] The night was cold and damp, and in the morning the clustering dewdrops trembling on every spray and blade of herbage glittered in the light of the rising sun, reflecting to the eye of the spectator the prismatic colours and all their brilliancy, and reminding me more forcibly of my home than anything I had yet seen in Africa. Light mists were rising from the valleys, and the course of the Bushman’s River might be traced for many miles by the vapour which filled almost to overflowing the space between the hills on either side; on the other side [of] the road was a vlei or small pool, in the clear bright surface of which the overhanging trees were mirrored; alas, that its purity should be only superficial, but it seemed to me too true a picture of life and not less perhaps of travel in South Africa. Nevertheless, the coffee tasted well, and, as mud has little or no perceptible flavour, the transparency of the fluid is perhaps after all a matter of slight importance. In the afternoon a detachment of artillery arrived from Graham’s Town and encamped around the vlei, their white tents and wagons and piled arms forming, in conjunction with the dark foliage, as pretty a bit of scenery as could well be desired.
Shortly after I had wrapped my kaross around me for the night, the Bechuana gathered round the fire and, having sung a hymn, listened to a prayer of considerable length, apparently a form with extempore additions repeated by one of them with a solemn earnestness that made me ashamed of my own cold and faint-hearted devotions and of the comparison I had drawn the day before between them and the Kafir. If they had lost the picturesque wildness of the savage state, here was at…..”
Redakteur
Geredigeer, met Inleiding, Notas en ‘n Kaart deur R. F. Kennedy