Cashiered, and Other War Tales

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE AASVOGELS THE MAN According to Koos Karoni himself he was in one sense a white man, the lawful product of a union between Karoni, the pure-blooded Portuguese trader, and Sanni Koelemann, the daughter of a Dutch farmer at Pilgrim's Rest. According to the least charitable, he was the son of a Red Kaffir...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE AASVOGELS THE MAN According to Koos Karoni himself he was in one sense a white man, the lawful product of a union between Karoni, the pure-blooded Portuguese trader, and Sanni Koelemann, the daughter of a Dutch farmer at Pilgrim's Rest. According to the least charitable, he was the son of a Red Kaffir and a Hottentot woman, while even those who took the most lenient view of his case regarded him as the offspring of a marriage between a half- caste Jew from Komati and one of the black Gipsy Boers from the Zoutpansberg. Whatever Karoni was as regards the blood in his veins, his skin was certainly far from being of a white colour. Indeed there was very little white about him unless it were the old cotton jacket he wore when employed on the railway at Kaapmuiden Junction, where the passenger for Barberton quits the line to Delagoa Bay. His cut/is was yellow; what should have been the white of his eyes was yellow, and the few teeth he did possess were black. No doubt his bones were of the usual hue pertaining to the human skeleton, but at the time we first deal with him Karoni's bones were comfortably covered, for the man was fat. It came as a great surprise to Karoni's friends when he announced his intention of taking an active share in the war which the Transvaal had proclaimed against her Britannic Majesty's Government. Not that he had many friends to astonish, while even those who did exist could easily count their intimacy with fat Koos by weeks. A prolonged acquaintance with the gentleman invariably abruptly severed the bonds of friendship, for Koos Karoni was ever jealous of a greater rascal than himself, while lesser rascals formed his natural prey. Consequently as Koos had never met any one of precisely similar morals to his own, his acquaintances were of...