Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick ( Chapter 18 )( Page 3 )Snowball and Tsetse

To the credit of Snowball stand certain things, however, and it is but justice to say that, when once in the ranks, he played his part well; and it is due to him to say that during one hard season a camp of waggons with their complement of men had to be kept in meat, and it was Snowball who carried--for short and long distances, through dry rough country, at all times of day and night, hot, thirsty and tired, and without a breakdown or a day's sickness--a bag that totalled many thousands of pounds in weight, and the man who made the bag.
"That wall-eyed brute of yours" was launched at me in bitterness of spirit on many occasions when Snowball led the normally well-behaved ones astray; and it is curious to note how strength of character or clear purpose will establish leadership among animals, as among men. Rooiland the restless, when dissatisfied with the grass or in want of
water, would cast about up wind for a few minutes and then with his hot eyeballs staring and nostrils well distended choose his line, going resolutely along and only pausing from time to time to give a low moan for signal and allow the straggling string of unquestioning followers to catch up.  When Rooiland had `trek fever' there was no rest for herd boys.  So too with old Snowball: he led the well-behaved astray and they followed him blindly.  Had Snowball been a schoolboy, a wise headmaster would have expelled him--for the general good and discipline of the school. On one long horseback journey through Swaziland to the coast, where few white men and no horses had yet been seen, we learned to know Snowball
and Tsetse well, and found out what a horse can do when put to it.  It was a curious experience on that trip to see whole villages flee in terror at the first sight of the new strange animals--one brown and one white: in some places not even the grown men would approach, but too proud to show fear, they stood their ground, their bronze faces blanching visibly and setting hard as we rode up; the women fled with half-stifled cries of alarm; and once, when we came unexpectedly upon a party of naked urchins playing on the banks of a stream, the whole pack set off full cry for the water and, jumping in like a school of alarmed frogs, disappeared.  Infinitely amused by the stampede we rode up to see what had become of them, but the silence was absolute, and for a while they seemed to have vanished altogether; then a tell-tale ripple gave the clue, and under the banks among the ferns and exposed roots we picked out little black faces half submerged and pairs of frightened eyes staring at us from all sides.  They were not to be reassured, either: the only effect produced by our laughing comments and friendly overtures being that the head which deemed itself pointedly addressed would disappear completely and remain so long out of sight as to make us feel quite smothery and criminally responsible. It is in the rivers that a man feels the importance of a good horse with a stout heart, and his dependence on it.  There were no roads, and not even known tracks, there; and when we reached the Black Umbelusi we
picked a place where there was little current and apparently an easy way out on the opposite side.  It was much deeper than it looked; however, we were prepared, and thirty yards of swimming did not trouble us; yet it certainly was a surprise to us when the horses swam right up to the other bank without finding bottom and, turning aside, began to swim up stream.  Looking down into the clear depths we saw that there was a sheer wall of rock to within a few inches of the surface.  Now, a horse with a man on his back swims low--only the head and half the neck showing above water--and by what instinct or means the horses realised the position I do not know, but, with little hesitation and apparently of one accord, they got back a yard or two from the ledge and, raising first one fore foot and then the other, literally climbed out--exactly as a man or a dog does out of a swimming bath--hoisting their riders out with them without apparent difficulty.  That was something which we had
not thought possible, and to satisfy ourselves we dismounted and tried the depth; but the ten foot reeds failed to reach bottom. When it came to crossing the Crocodile River we chose the widest spot in the hope that it would be shallow and free of rocks.  We fired some
shots into the river to scare the crocodiles, and started to cross; but to our surprise Tsetse, the strong-nerved and reliable, who always had the post of honour in front, absolutely refused to enter. The water of the Crocodile is at its best of amber clearness and we
could not see bottom, but the sloping grassy bank promised well enough and no hint reached us of what the horses knew quite well.  All we had was on our horses--food, blankets, billy, rifles and ammunition.  We were off on a long trip and, to vary or supplement the game diet,
carried a small packet of tea, a little sugar, flour, and salt, and some beads with which to trade for native fowls and thick milk; the guns had to do the rest.  Thus there were certain things we could not afford to wet, and these we used to wrap up in a mackintosh and carry high when it came to swimming, but this crossing looked so easy that it seemed sufficient to raise the packs instead of carrying part of them.