Cricket 1895

4 4 4 CR ICKET - A W E E K L Y RECORD OF THE GAME. O c t . 3 1 , 189 5 . The girls came and laid down the food before the vanquished villagers, who, after thanking their hosts, fell to with great appetites. Meanwhile, the second act of this drama was in preparation. We had en­ joyed the heroics, now were to come the comic portions of the entertainment. A finely made veteran, blind of an eye, with his hair whitened with coral chalk, took his seat on an inverted barrel in front of the victorious camp, and perhaps twenty- five yards from the vanquished, and directly facing them. He waited until they had finished their meal, and then, silence having been made, he commanded that the vanquished should begin by dancing for his party. This man, we heard, was a noted wit, and, to complete the Homeric parable, might have repre­ sented Thersites, except that he was not deformed or ugly, but some of his jokes were quite as pungent as those of bis great prototype. From this point cere­ mony was laid, aside, and the vanquished became the temporary but compliant slaves of the victors. The three dancers stood up and went through a most curious pantomimic performance, leaping into the air, imitating boxing and other figures, which’ I have not space to des­ cribe. When this was over the eagle single eye of our Thersites saw some bats which had not been ceded with the others when the match was over. These he claimed, and after a slight show of resis­ tance they were brought over, three in number, two native and one English made, which was handed round and duly admired. The next command of the “ autocrat of the beef barrel ” was that the three last dancers should come and kiss his hand. This they were reluctant to do, but came at last, and pulling his arm so that he nearly fell off his tub, two of them kissed his hand, but the third, after having done so, was rash enough to spit on it. He was peremptorily ordered to take off a scarf which he wore about his neck and tie it about the insulted arm of the jester, which he did. The next command was rather startling. “ This is good so far as it goes, but now we have seen these men dance, let your chiefs come forward and do the same.” Much hesitation followed this demand. T H E A D V A N T A G E O F B E IN G A M IS S IO N A R Y . At last one chief rose up, and said, I am a missionary, and my profession would be over if I did as you desire.” “ Very good,” said Thersites, “ but there must be some of you that are not mission­ aries ; besides, for my part, I do not care if you are hot in the future if you only amuse my people now.” Still there was a manifest hesitation, till at last an old man with an umbrella emerged from a hut, and his religious scruples (for he, too, was a missionary) being momentarily vanquished by his Nestorian powers of reminiscence, he said: “ I will not dance, but I could, and far better than any man here ; in my youth I was the finest dancer in the world, and could beat all the island ; but now I am old, and I too am a missionary.” This seemed final, and further demands were made, which would after this declaimer have offended these most courteous people. In the next scene we were rather glad to see that the laugh turned against our jester. We had among our party a gentleman who had been industriously taking photographs with a small camera. This must have suggested their revenge to the defeated villagers, for no sooner had the laughter and applause which followed the last speaker’s remarks subsided than there appeared a curious figure clothed in a travesty of the white man’s costume, and armed with an improvised camera con­ sisting of a tripod formed of three bamboo sticks fastened together at the top, and surmounted by a cocoa-nut shell cut in half, with a hole punched in the end. Taking his stand opposite the wit of the barrel, he carefully shaded his eyes with his hands, looked appealingly at the sun, as if entreating him not to spoil sport, and then, with the most preternatural gravity, went through the process of focussing his lenses and arranging the position of his sitter, who, for all his smartness, had not yet quite realized that he was being made fun of. No sooner had this notion penetrated his mind than he ordered two of his satellites to remove the camera, which was forfeited, and the amateur photographer fled into the in­ terior of a hut. But we had not yet seen the last of him, for he shortly emerged, saying that although his machine had been taken from him he had fortunately had time to obtain the required results. Another man followed bearing an old biscuit tin, on the smoke-blackened side of which there appeared a rude picture of our friend as a one-eyed donkey. “ There,” said the proud artist, “ I have taken a pie'ure as truly as any white man could do.” There arose laughter un­ quenchable, innumerable, and again Homeric phrases would keep occurring to one’s mind. However, we were now arrived at the piece de resistance of the programme. “ Let your dancing boys now dance their ‘ Siva ’ for us,” said our jester, and at once the preparations com­ menced. First nine splendid-looking boys came forward, and sat down in a line almost touching each other in front of their fellow-villagers, who disposed themselves behind them in rows as be­ came the orchestra of the dance. Palm oil was provided in a large can, with which all the dancers plentifully anointed themselves; then each took a pair of short sticks like laths, about the length of a dinner knife, which served the double purpose of a strigil and a baton to keep time to the singing and clapping of hands which formed the orchestra. The voices rose in a kind of monotonous recitative for about two bars, like the intoning of the versicles in the Catholic liturgy, and then the chorus joined in in unison. The dark gleaming figures of the dancers swayed to and fro in time to the music, and soon they began a curious lateral motion of the bodies, for all the figures of the dance were performed sitting on the ground, and consist simply of various motions of the body, hands, and heads. They perform these motions in marvellous time, and their swing would have de­ lighted the heart of a University coach on the Granta or Isis. Between the figures they wiped off the sweat and cocoanut oil with their strigil, while their partisans chanted the opening bars of the next figure. These were about seven or eight in number, and the tempi varied from andante or even largo to pretiBsimo. The dance was a most curious and in­ teresting spectacle, splendidly barbaric and glowing with local colour. This performance satisfied even the exigeant jester, who signified his pleasure that the ceremonies were now “ uma,” and the party began to break up. While the dance had been in progress the “ tampoi ” of the village—the daughter of the head chief— had been engaged upon the preparation of a bowl of kave with which to regale ourselves, and after all was over we had each to consume a cocoanut-shell full of this curious but not unpalatable drink. After having given her such little presents as we had with us—my gift in particular pleasing her very much: a pink Leander Club tie, which suited her brown skin perfectly—we said “ Faafetai telelava,” or “ thank you very much,” and, laden with native kilts and wreaths, and “ tofe soi fuas ” (“ farewell, may you live long ”) we reluctantly departed. C R I C K E T I N S O U T H A F R I C A . D U R B A N C O U N T Y v . M A R I T Z B U R G C O U N T Y . G r e a t in t e r e s t w a s a t t a c h e d t o t h is a n n u a l I n t e r - C o u n t y m a t c h , p l a y e d a t P i e t e r m a r i t z b u r g o n M ic h a e l m a s D a y . T h e g a m e , a s w i l l b e s e e n , p r o d u c e d a n e x c i t i n g f in i s h o n t h e fir s t i n n i n g s . N i n e o f t h e t w e n t y - t w o p l a y e r s , i t is w o r t h y o f r e m a r k , r e p r e s e n t e d N a t a l i n t h e la s t C u r r ie C u p T o u r n a m e n t . L l e w e l l y n t o o k e i g h t D u r b a n w i c k e t s f o r 91 r u n s . R o b i n ­ s o n ’ s f o u r w i c k e t s f o r D u r b a n c o s t 39 r u n s . S c o r e :— D urban C o u n ty . F irst In n in gs. S econ d Inn ings. D . C. D avey , b G od ley ... 29 lb w , b B osom - w orth .............49 G . H , W h y te, b G od ley ... 0 a b s e n t......................... 0 H . T aylor,b L lew ellyn ... 0 n o to u t .............. 1 J . H . P iton , b L lew ellyn ... 18 e T au n ton , b L lew ellyn ... 27 B . C. C ooley, lb w , b L lew el­ ly n ..................................................42 c F indlay, b B osom w orth ... 17 L . G . R obin son , c G odley, b L lew ellyn ......................26 s tN o tt.b B osom - w orth ............. 2 G . L . D a ltou , c an d b L lew ellyn ................................27 c B ell-S m yth , b B osom w orth ... 5 C. H en w ood , n o t o u t .............13 b B osom w orth ... 1 E . G . L am p ort, b L lew ellyn 0 c B osom w orth , b G od ley ............. 1 J . T . F orrester, b B osom - w orth .........................................27 b L lew ellyn ... 0 A . P u gh , b B osom w orth ... 0 c B ell-S m yth , b G odley ............. 7 B 3, lb 3, w 1 ...................... 7 B 2, w 1...3 T ota l ........... 189 T ota l ...113 M auitzburg C o u n ty . W . H . N ott, b R ob in - ™ T son ...............................11 C. H im e, c P u gh , b R o b in s o n ......................33 J. A . B ell-S m yth, b F orre ster... ..... .. 4 F . F indlay, c D ayey, b R obin son ............. 6 G . A . G odley, s t H en - w ood , b L a m p ort ... 8 F. T auuton, b R ob in ­ son ............. ............. 1 1). i i- ouubu, o vywxcj , b L a m p ort ............. 1 C. L lew ellyn , c P u gh , b D a lton ... .............10 A . B osom w orth , b D a lton ......................21 J . C. B u rton , n ot o u t 36 C. M . Paterson, c P iton , b T aylor ... 28 B 12, lb 1, w 4, nb 1 18