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Can Themba
Published online by Cambridge University Press

Can Themba The Making and Breaking
of the Intellectual Tsotsi
A BIOGRAPHY
Siphiwo Mahala

Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg 2001
www.witspress.co.za
Copyright © Siphiwo Mahala 2022

Published edition © Wits University Press 2022
Images and figures © Copyright holders
First published 2022
http://dx.doi.org.10.18772/12022037311
978-1-77614-731-1 (Paperback)
978-1-77614-732-8 (Hardback)
978-1-77614-733-5 (Web PDF)
978-1-77614-734-2 (EPUB)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher,
except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
All images remain the property of the copyright holders. The publishers gratefully
acknowledge the publishers, institutions and individuals referenced in captions for the
use of images. Every effort has been made to locate the original copyright holders of the
images reproduced here; please contact Wits University Press in case of any omissions or
errors.
This work is based on research supported by the National Institute for the Humanities
and Social Sciences. Opinions expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily
to be attributed to the NIHSS.
Project manager: Alison Paulin

Editor: Helen Moffett
Copyeditor: Sally Hines
Proofreader: Lisa Compton
Indexer: Elaine Williams
Cover design: Hybrid Creative
Cover image: © Jürgen Schadeberg; permission to use granted by Claudia Schadeberg.
Typeset in 10.5 point Plantin

In memory of Professor Mbulelo Mzamane,
whose light still shines my path

Can Themba was what he was and not what he could
have been because his country is what it is.
Harry Mashabela — The Classic (1968), 10

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
Part I: Death and Birth of a Scribe 9
1 A Knock on the Door 11
2 The Poet Laureate of Fort Hare 20
3 The Teacher of Life and Letters 30
4 From Marabastad to Sophiatown and Beyond 42
Part II: ‘Live Fast and Die Young’ 49
5 The Drum Seduction 51
6 Occasions for Loving 56
7 Drumming up a Storm 69
8 Destruction and Demise 82
9 The Road to Swaziland: A Kind of Suicide 102
vii
Part III: The ‘Intellectual Tsotsi’ 109
10 Black Englishman or Detribalised African?

A Quest for Shared Identities 111
11 A Politico in a Poet 131
12 The People’s Intellectual 147
Part IV: Dances with Texts: Writing and Storytelling 157
13 No Ordinary Storyteller 159
14 Intertextuality and the Making of Mr Shakespeare 171
15 The Suit for All Seasons 189
Part V: A Writer’s Immortality 201
16 Re-Membering the Fragments 203
Postscript: The Three Burials of Can Themba 217
Notes 223
Bibliography 243
Index 253
viii
List of Illustrations
Figure 1 Can Themba read widely.

© Jürgen Schadeberg; permission to use granted
by Claudia Schadeberg.
Figure 2 University of Fort Hare, 1948.
Photographer unknown; permission to use granted
by Daniel Massey.
Figure 3 Can Themba receiving prize for inaugural Drum short
story competition.
Figure 4 Can Themba with his right-hand man, Casey Motsisi.
The Fifties People of South Africa: Black Life – Politics,
Jazz, Sport, edited by Jürgen Schadeberg, Bailey’s
African Photo Archives, 1987. Unable to trace original
photographer or copyright holders.
Figure 5 Can Themba as a 28-year-old teacher in his room in
Sophiatown.
Figure 6 Can Themba, the family man.
by Themba family.
Figure 7 Maizzie Maphisa.
by Linda Maphisa.
Figure 8 Juby Mayet.
Figure 9 Can Themba and Dolly Rathebe.
Drum Photographer/BAHA/Africa Media Online.
ix
Figure 10 A moment of fun in the newsroom.
Figure 11 Drum journalists Can Themba and Arthur Maimane
with beauty queens.
Figure 12 Can Themba was always smartly dressed
and wore a tie when he joined the newsroom.
Figure 13 Sol Rachilo.
Figure 14 The cohort that turned Drum magazine into
an iconic publication.
Figure 15 Can Themba was known for his penchant for debate.
Figure 16 The 1956 Treason Trial.
© Peter Magubane; permission to use granted
by BAHA/Africa Media Online.
Figure 17 Can Themba, associate editor of Drum magazine in the
1950s. Amazwi South African Museum of Literature,
Sylvester Stein Collection, Acc. 2018. 56.2.1.
© Jürgen Schadeberg.
Figure 18 Can Themba bundled out of the Seventh Day
Adventist church.
Figure 19 Can Themba and Bob Gosani.
Figure 20 Can Themba with Parks Mangena.
by Parks Mangena.
Figure 21 At times Can Themba dressed like a tsotsi and spoke
their language.
x
Figure 1. Can Themba read widely, including Drum’s competitors such as The Star.
(Photograph by Jürgen Schadeberg.)

Figure 2. In this 1948 University of Fort Hare picture, Can Themba (3rd row from
bottom, 11th from left) is seen alongside his Beda Hall housemates, including Alfred
Hutchinson (top row, 4th from right), Godfrey Pitje (3rd row, 8th from left), Ntsu
Mokhehle (2nd row, 1st on right) Lionel Ngakane (1st row, 3rd from left), and Nthato
Motlana (3rd row, 2nd to the right of Themba). (Private collection, Daniel Massey;
photographer unknown.)
Figure 3. Can Themba (left) receiving the first prize from Henry Nxumalo for the
inaugural Drum short story competition. (Photograph by Jürgen Schadeberg.)
Figure 4. Can Themba with his right-hand man, Casey Motsisi, celebrating the first
anniversary of Africa! magazine, where they served as editor and assistant editor,
respectively. (From Jürgen Schadeberg, ed., The Fifties People of South Africa; Bailey’s
African Photo Archives, 1987; photographer unknown.)

Figure 5. Can Themba as a 28-year-old teacher in his room in Sophiatown, before he
started working as a journalist. (Photograph by Jürgen Schadeberg.)
Figure 6. Can, the family man,

seen here with his wife, Anne, and
their eldest daughter, Morongwa.
(Private collection, Themba family;

Figure 7. Elizabeth Maizzie Maphisa was
a nurse with whom Can Themba had a
son. (Private collection, Linda Maphisa;
Figure 8. Juby Mayet was one of Can Themba’s protégés in the newsroom.

Figure 9. Can Themba wrote extensively about Dolly Rathebe and ‘her men’ and,
according to Drum magazine, he was one of the men in her romantic life.
(Drum Photographer/BAHA/Africa Media Online.)
Figure 10. A moment of fun in the newsroom. (Photograph by Jürgen Schadeberg.)

Figure 11. Drum journalists Can Themba and Arthur Maimane often hung out with
actresses and beauty queens like Dottie Tiyo and Selina Kolae, as seen in this picture.
(Drum Photographer/BAHA/Africa Media Online.)

Figure 12. When he joined the newsroom, Can Themba was always smartly
dressed and wore a tie – Jürgen Schadeberg said he seemed out of place. (Drum
Photographer/BAHA/Africa Media Online.)

Figure 13. Sol Rachilo remembers Can Themba as a teacher with an intuitive gift for
imparting knowledge. (Photograph by Jürgen Schadeberg.)

Figure 14. From left: Henry Nxumalo, Es’kia Mphahlele, Casey Motsisi, Can Themba,
Jerry Ntsipe, Arthur Maimane (wearing hat, with cigarette), Victor Xashimba, Dan
Chocho and Bob Gosani (standing, with camera), Kenneth Mtetwa and Benson Dyantyi
(on floor, left and right) were all part of the cohort that turned Drum magazine into an
iconic publication. (Photograph by Jürgen Schadeberg.)
Figure 15. Can Themba was known for his penchant for debate in the newsroom and
shebeens, as well as in his House of Truth. (Drum Photographer/BAHA/Africa Media Online.)

Figure 16. From left to right: Robert Resha, Patrick Molaoa and Nelson Mandela
arriving at the Drill Hall in Johannesburg for the 1956 Treason Trial. Can Themba had
conducted a mock trial in which he found Resha guilty of treason the day before Resha
was arrested for high treason. (Photograph by Peter Magubane; courtesy of BAHA/
Africa Media Online.)

Figure 17. Can Themba as the associate editor of Drum magazine in the 1950s.
(Photograph by Jürgen Schadeberg, Sylvester Stein Collection.)

Figure 18. Can Themba was bundled out of a Seventh Day Adventist church during his
investigation of whether white churches would admit a black worshipper. (Photograph
by Jürgen Schadeberg.)

Figure 19. Can Themba and Bob Gosani were arrested in Potchefstroom for possession
of liquor while travelling in a company car. According to Can, they were arrested for
kindness as they were helping a white man rescue bottles of alcohol from a raging fire.

Figure 20. Can Themba with Parks Mangena in what they called the ‘Can Themba
corner’ at the Central Hotel in Mbabane, Swaziland. (Private collection, Parks
Mangena; photographer unknown.)

Figure 21. Although Can Themba was not a tsotsi in the criminal and conventional
sense, at times he dressed like a tsotsi and spoke tsotitaal. (Photograph by Jürgen
Schadeberg.)

Acknowledgements
This book is based on my thesis ‘Inside the House of Truth: The

Construction, Destruction and Reconstruction of Can Themba’,
which was submitted for the fulfilment of my doctoral degree at the
University of South Africa (UNISA) in 2017. I am indebted to the
Department of English Studies at UNISA for accepting my proposal
and affording me an opportunity to pursue doctoral studies on the
life of Can Themba. I am particularly grateful to Professor Michael
Kgomotso Masemola, who guided me through the process. The
book was written under the auspices of the Johannesburg Institute
for Advanced Study at the University of Johannesburg and supported
by the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
The following individuals graciously made time to talk about
Can Themba during the research stage of this project between the
years 2013 and 2020: Njabulo S. Ndebele, Keorapetse Kgositsile,
Pitika Ntuli, Nadine Gordimer, Don Mattera, Mothobi Mutloatse,
Jürgen Schadeberg, Joe Thloloe, Anne Themba, Juby Mayet, Lucas
Ledwaba, Muxe Nkondo, Mbulelo Mzamane, Peter Magubane,
Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Sol Rachilo, Ahmed Kathrada, Parks
Mangena, Simon Maziya, Malcolm Hart, Lindiwe Mabuza and
Abdul Bham. Some of the interviewees, including Mbulelo Mzamane,
Nadine Gordimer, Anne Themba, Ahmed Kathrada, Keorapetse
Kgositsile, Jürgen Schadeberg, Juby Mayet, Parks Mangena, Lindiwe
Mabuza and Malcolm Hart, have since passed on. In addition to these
formal interviews, I had casual musings with a number of people who
shared insights and perspectives on Can Themba and his generation.
Among others, I can make mention of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and the late
Lewis Nkosi, whose formidable insights were most edifying.
I thank my editor, Helen Moffett, who once again demonstrated
the utmost patience, mental dexterity and erudition as we walked
the precarious journey towards delivering our fourth baby together.
xi
CA N T H EM BA
I unreservedly acknowledge legendary writer-turned-filmmaker

Mtutuzeli Matshoba, who assisted with the recording of my
conversations with some of the people who knew Themba. Matshoba
brought on board a distinguished film crew, including Wiseman
Mabusela, Lawrence Lerato Lichaba, Mpho Ramathuthu, Michael
Moagi Matsie and Paul Zisiwe. Special thanks to my research
assistant, Uviwe Mshumpela, who has been my reliable companion
on this journey.
This book would not have been possible without the support of
Can Themba’s daughters, Morongwa and Yvonne Themba, who gra-
ciously gave me access to family documents. They also granted me
permission to peruse their father’s student records at the University
of Fort Hare. I would like to extend a special word of gratitude to the
Amazwi South African Museum of Literature for their assistance
during the research stage of this project.
I thank my family for their unyielding support and patience
while I was pursuing this project. I could not be the husband that
I wanted to be to my wife, Miliswa, nor was I able to be the father
that I ought to have been to our three daughters, Mihlali, Qhama
and Kuhle; they nevertheless remained supportive of my endeavours
throughout this period.
Lastly, I am grateful for the phenomenal life of Can Themba.
Although he died more than fifty years ago, he continues to inspire
writers and readers with the timelessness of his works. This book
will hopefully make a significant contribution to the long journey
towards rediscovering and immortalising Can Themba.
xii
Introduction
He [Can Themba] lent to his thoughts the same vivid imagery,

sharp staccato rhythm of the township language of the urban tsotsi,
because he himself was the supreme intellectual tsotsi of them all.
Lewis Nkosi — Writing Home (2016), 208
Lewis Nkosi’s words have become so familiar to readers and scholars

of Can Themba that we have forgotten how startling they are, given
that tsotsis were (and are) feared criminals, while Themba was the
quintessential black urban intellectual of his times. But they plunge
us into the heart of the myth of who Themba really was, reflecting
his status as a writer who straddled fault lines, epitomised paradoxes,
and about whom both too much and too little is known (or assumed).
One of these paradoxes is that when Themba died in 1967, at
the tender age of 43, he did not have a book to his name – and yet he
remains one of the most influential minds in the history of literature
and journalism in South Africa. More than half a century later, his
name is still part of public discourse and creative flow. This bears
testament to the resilience of his voice, which continues to rever-
berate from beyond the grave.
Themba’s short story ‘The Suit’ remains his most famous work
and arguably the most successful short story by a South African
writer. First published in the inaugural issue of Nat Nakasa’s literary
journal The Classic in 1963, it remains the pinnacle of his creative
output.1 Aggrey Klaaste rightfully describes ‘The Suit’ as a story
that has ‘all the elements of a classic’.2 Over a period of nearly six
decades, it has been translated, republished and adapted numerous
times into different genres, ranging from graphics to theatre and
1
CA N T H EM BA
film. The overwhelming success of ‘The Suit’ has unfortunately

overshadowed many of Themba’s other works, some of which have
equally great potential.
The critical work published on Themba thus far mostly covers
his journalistic and literary productions. Where his biographical
background surfaces, it is primarily with regard to the period when
he worked for Drum magazine, and very little about his life pre- and
post-Drum has been documented. David Rabkin argues that a lot
more has been written about Themba than he had himself written.3
Yet, the converse is also true: Themba wrote a great deal, but because
of the difficulties of collating his work (see Chapter 16), some of it
has received little critical attention.
This leaves a significant void in our critical evaluation and
understanding of his works, as well as what made him and what
broke him in the end.
Despite the fact that Themba features in almost every historic
study pertaining to Drum magazine and Sophiatown, and that his
peers have written extensively about him, there is no study that com-
prehensively explores his human experience. This book endeavours
to consolidate the dispersed fragments necessary in re-membering
the vital elements in reconstructing Themba’s life and literary
legacy.
Themba was as fun and exciting in person as he was as a writer.
His intellectual acumen, artistic flair, scholarly aptitude, expan-
sive sense of irony, and abundant wit and humour are some of his
characteristics most distinctly remembered by those who interacted
with him either in person or through his works. Ursula A. Barnett,
literary critic, described Themba as ‘the most interesting personality
and perhaps the most talented of the writers of the late fifties and
early sixties’.4
Nkosi was probably the most distinguished chronicler (and also
the fiercest critic) of the 1950s’ Drum generation of writers, and
also a ‘remarkable judge of character’, according to former Drum
journalist Doc Bikitsha. It was Nkosi’s belief that Themba had the
‘liveliest mind and the best command of the English language’ of
his generation. Bikitsha agreed: ‘Can’s beauty and talent lay in his
prowess of thought, writing and debate.’5
It is no wonder his writings have outlived him and many of his
contemporaries, garnering wide readership and filling theatres more
2
Introduction
than five decades after his passing. His works continue to inspire
different generations of readers and writers alike.
Themba’s intellectual disposition has been widely recognised
and celebrated by his contemporaries and successive generations in
journalistic, literary and academic spaces. But he was no ivory-tower
academic; trained as a teacher and plying his trade as a journalist, he
staged his debates and discussions in the shebeens of Johannesburg
and in his abode, the aptly named ‘House of Truth’. Mcebisi
Ndletyana’s adaption of Antonio Gramsci is useful in expanding
on what is meant by describing Themba as a public intellectual:
‘Intellectuals are individuals who, by virtue of their position in
society and intellectual training, are preoccupied with abstract ideas,
not only for self-gratification, but also to fulfil a public role.’6 As an
‘intellectual tsotsi’, Themba’s intellectual disposition defied ortho-
doxies and often allied him to those resented, rendered invisible and
excluded in society (see Chapter 12).
In juxtaposing Themba’s intellectual acumen with the cult of a
tsotsi, Nkosi alluded to his former colleague’s social and historical
location. A tsotsi can be described as a slick township thug or crim-
inal who terrorises communities through violent attacks, assault and
robbery; a robust subculture, they are often distinguishable through
their attire and patois. Father Trevor Huddleston, in his memoir of
his years in Sophiatown, Naught for Your Comfort, notes that ‘the
tsotsi is the supreme symbol of a society which does not care. His
knife and his revolver are significant not only for today but for
tomorrow.’7
Huddleston’s claim that tsotsis were part of the societies they
tormented was shared by Themba’s contemporary and fellow jour-
nalist Henry Nxumalo, who argued that tsotsis were not an exotic
tribe situated outside society, but a product of the socio-economic
conditions of black people in South African townships of the time:
Of course, tsotsis are made as well as born: they are made every day
on the Reef, it is true that when a young boy takes a wrong turning
it is partly his own fault; but the amount of crime in a city varies
with the well-being or poverty of the mass of its citizens. With the
grinding poverty and the sea of squalor that surrounds the ‘Golden
City’, it is not difficult to understand the rest. There is a struggle for
existence, and the individual intends to survive.8
3
CA N T H EM BA
While Nxumalo, Arthur Maimane, Bloke Modisane and other

scribes from the 1950s’ generation wrote about the tsotsi phenom-
enon, according to Muxe Nkondo in an exclusive interview in 2015,
Themba stands out for ‘humanising’, perhaps even romanticising,
the tsotsi in his writings.9 Many of his stories, both fiction and
non-fiction, feature the tsotsi character, whether referred to as a
thug, an urchin or a gangster. As a writer who chronicled and
interrogated the stories of the black urban world, Themba was
able to locate the tsotsi and the intellectual in the same social and
cultural space.
Themba might not have been a knife-wielding or gun-toting
criminal, but he immersed himself in the lives of tsotsis: he spoke
their language, dressed like a tsotsi and drank with them in shebeens.
They have an almost permanent presence in his writing, and the
relationship flowed both ways: poetry became one of their meeting
points, as the Sophiatown tsotsis had a penchant for Shakespeare’s
sonnets (which they would force the local intellectuals to recite).
Themba, in particular, used to write poetry for some of the gangsters,
which they intended to use to impress girls. In the film Come Back,
Africa, in which he had no script to follow but had to improvise a
debate with friends, Themba appears sympathetic to Marumu, the
tsotsi character, and explains how the trauma of losing his father at
an early age, and the poverty that led him to desiring small things
like sweets, might be the cause of his aggression: ‘He wanted bigger
things, he wanted to grab things that were bigger and the only way
you could get those things was through force, and so he thought in
terms of force …’10
Themba and his peers often suffered the same fate as the tsotsis –
arrest and imprisonment, even if for different reasons. It was because
of their proximity to the tsotsi, their intertwined lives, that Themba
claimed that the tsotsis ‘saw us as cousins’.11 It was because of this
connection that Nkosi saw Themba as the embodiment of the ‘intel-
lectual’ and ‘tsotsi’ paradox.
Paul Gready expands on the ways that Themba embraced the
tsotsis to the extent of romanticising their ways, even seeing his
own condition mirrored in theirs: ‘Themba tried to ally himself
with a private conception of the tsotsi, and thereby to the people.
He was the supreme “intellectual tsotsi”, who eventually romantic-
ally compared the violence of the gangs to that of the possessed,
4
Introduction
self-destructive artist, that is, himself. Onto the romantic myth of

the gangster Themba super-imposed his own myth of the artist.’12
Gready’s words remind us that Themba was in many ways a
troubled genius. In addition to the challenges of being a black profes-
sional operating within the confines of the apartheid state, Themba
was frustrated by the system that did not recognise his hard-
earned qualifications, had no appreciation for his experience, and
certainly paid no regard to his intellectual contribution, talent and
accomplishments. His reliance on alcohol to cope with his personal
troubles is well documented.
In the end, he was overwhelmed by a combination of forces
that left him in despair. Driven out of his home country, he lived a
destructive life in exile, leading to his untimely demise in 1967, thus
depriving the literary world of the opportunity to benefit further
from his potential. Themba’s protégé and veteran journalist Harry
Mashabela put it succinctly in his tribute to the fallen scribe when
he said: ‘Can Themba was what he was and not what he could have
been because his country is what it is.’13 Hence Nkosi’s lament in his
tribute to Themba: ‘We mourn what might have been.’14
At the time of his passing, Themba’s works were banned in
South Africa under the Suppression of Communism Amendment
Act of 1965. In yet another paradox, his passing sparked interest
and breathed new life into his oeuvre, thus entrenching his name
in the annals of journalism and the literary landscape in South
Africa. While his works are widely celebrated today, reference to his
biographical background is scant. Where reference is made to bio-
graphical details, there are barely any substantive facts that give an
epistemological account.
Another trend that has perhaps skewed our ability to gauge
Themba’s life and works clearly is the established pattern in schol-
arship of discussing Themba as part of a discursive analysis of a
generation. Perhaps the most intensive of the texts in grappling with
Themba as a person is Nkosi’s tribute, in which he pays homage to
two of his contemporaries – Can Themba and Nat Nakasa.15 Many
scholars, however, focus on Themba’s works without making any
direct links to his life experiences, and reference to his personal traits
are made only glibly.
This is true not only of scholarly discussion of Themba, in par-
ticular, but of the entire generation of ‘Drum Boys’, who are often
5
CA N T H EM BA
treated as a homogeneous group. This is reflected in Lucky Mathebe’s

claim that ‘during most of the time when the history of the Drum
school is written and discussed, the writers are singularly treated as
an inferior type of elite’.16 In many ways, Themba has become the pri-
mary victim of the wholesale packaging of this generation of writers.
He is projected as a representative of a generation: the reflection of
the much-romanticised African urban world, the epitome of black
writing in the 1950s and 1960s in all its glory and defects.
Themba joined Drum magazine at the point of its transform-
ation in 1953, and became a formidable force in its renewal at a time
when it was reinventing itself as a publication for urban Africans – a
far cry from the initial African Drum, which presented a ‘return to
the tribe’ mantra. There is no doubt that Drum magazine played
a pivotal role in chronicling the emergent black urban world of
the 1950s and providing a publishing platform for authentic black
voices, thus speaking directly to black audiences about their own
life experiences and perspectives. However, the treatment of these
writers as a collective comes at the expense of their individual qual-
ities, and carries the risk of distorting their distinct characters, cap-
abilities and experiences.
This is an important point of departure for this book: I try to go
beyond the usual focus on the pinnacle of Themba’s journalistic and
writing careers and pay particular attention to his educational and
intellectual journey prior to joining Drum magazine, as well as the
post-Drum years of deterioration and eventual demise.
In its most prosaic sense, then, this book endeavours to answer
the basic question, ‘Who was Can Themba?’ Answering this cen-
tral question means investigating Themba’s biodata and linking
this both to what he wrote, and what has been written about him
and his work. In grappling with this question, particular attention
has to be paid to the making and the breaking of Themba; how he
immortalised himself in his writing, while at the same time needing
to be recreated through various projects of recovering his work over
the years. This approach compels us to go beyond the stereotype of
the venerated writer and journalist, to try to trace how he became
the iconoclastic figure that we know today, and the factors that
contributed to this.
The decision to select Can Themba as the subject of this bio-
graphical text is obviously premised on recognition and appreciation
6
Introduction
of his work, and is therefore subjective. I have had to consciously

suppress the temptation to write a hagiography instead of objec
tively engaging with biographical elements. My juxtaposition of
the construction and destruction of Themba acknowledges that an
honest account of his life history entails both positive and negative
elements. Yet, I have tried to both explore and evade the binaries
of the apparent contradictions and paradoxes of his life. In writing
this biographical text, I have tried to cast the net wide to include
aspects that either have not received adequate attention or have been
overlooked in the past.
In any attempt to trace Themba’s literary and journalistic trail,
it soon becomes evident that his trajectory is complex and multifa-
ceted, branching through the history of his education, romantic and
domestic life, politics and professional experiences.
A biography is often understood as a text that mirrors the life
and times of specific individuals and their societies. Yet, a mirror is a
passive object that only reflects what is put in front of it. My interest
goes beyond documenting or mirroring a series of dates and facts.
My intention is to wrestle with the experiences and the emotions
behind the facts, to come as close as possible to representing Themba
in human form, while at the same time juxtaposing his life with his
works. This compels us to trace the contours of Themba’s trail,
taking stock of each and every mound and mountain on which he
left his footprint. This book, therefore, goes beyond the biograph-
ical. It is an attempt to present an integrated construct that draws
parallels between the life and times of Themba and his entire body
of work.
One constant challenge in writing the life history of someone
long after their death is that there are often hidden stories, contra-
dictory facts, subjective memories and contending narratives
about such individuals. In addition to this, there are the dangers
of anachronism, in which the biographer situates the story in a dis-
cordant historical context. To avoid this in researching the life of
this enigmatic personality, I had to ‘generate’ primary material as
well as consult texts, scholarly resources, archival material and oral
narratives. A substantial amount of the information included in this
book comes from more than twenty exclusive interviews I conducted
with people who knew and interacted with Themba personally, or
were touched by his work. These oral sources have provided elements
7
CA N T H EM BA
and information not previously featured in any other research on

Themba. The fact that so many of those who kindly shared their
memories and reflections with me have passed away since I began
the interviews in 2013 is an indication of how fragile our past is, and
how important it is to uncover its truths before they are lost to us.
The telling of the truth in all its glory and defects was central
to Themba’s being. As a teacher, journalist, short story writer and
philosopher, he was a man in search of truth. Naming his modest
dwelling the House of Truth was a declaration of the ideals he
cherished. The House of Truth may once have been a physical place
(long since crushed by apartheid bulldozers), but it lives on today
as a metaphor for Themba’s dynamic but incomplete life project.
It represents the vibrancy of the debate and intellectual engage-
ment in which he so fervently believed. It represents the reading and
writing culture that was his forte. It also symbolises the dreams he
cherished and pursued, but could never realise in his lifetime. Most
importantly, it represents who Themba was and what he stood for.
The re-emergence of the House of Truth in various forms, including
in the shape of a play, is a clear demonstration of the resilience of
his intellectual legacy. To understand Can Themba, to understand
the forces that made him and broke him, we need to get inside the
House of Truth where his life unfolded. Let us open the door and
step right in.
8
PART I
Death and Birth of a Scribe

1
A Knock on the Door
We were those sensitive might-have-beens who had knocked on

the door of white civilisation (at the highest levels that South
Africa could offer) and had heard a gruff ‘No’ or a ‘Yes’ so
shaky and insincere that we withdrew our snail horns at once.
Can Themba — Requiem for Sophiatown (2006), 57
He knocked on the door. There was no response. He knocked again,

and listened. All was quiet. He tried to turn the doorknob and push
the door open. It was locked from the inside. He knocked once more,
harder this time. Nothing. He pressed his ear against the wooden
door. Silence.
With one eye closed, he peeped through the keyhole. He could
make out a lanky man lying in bed with his feet pointing heaven-
wards. It was definitely the man he was looking for. Why on earth
was he not opening? He banged on the door with his fist, shouting
his name: ‘Bra Can! Bra Can Themba!’ No response. He hammered
on the door. Silence.
It was Friday, 8 September 1967. The 25-year-old Pitika
Ntuli had travelled all the way from Lubombo, a journey of about
25 kilometres, to Manzini in Swaziland (now the Kingdom of
eSwatini), where his mentor rented a flat. At the time Can Themba –
full name Daniel Canodoce Themba, also known as Dorsay – was
a teacher at St Joseph’s Catholic Mission School in Umzimpofu,
about five kilometres outside Manzini. He often hosted young men
in search of knowledge and intellectual stimulation.
Now Ntuli’s friend, Bicca Maseko, suggested that they go watch
a film at the bioskop (cinema) and come back later. It was a Friday
afternoon, and the schools had closed for the September holidays.
Teacher Can Themba had probably drunk a little too much, a little
11
CA N T H EM BA
too early, and had passed out, Maseko reasoned. With little choice,
Ntuli concurred, and left reluctantly. He kept looking over his
shoulder as they walked away, hoping that the door would fly open.
Ntuli, a young South African student exiled in Swaziland, was
intending to visit the man who had been his role model and mentor
since higher primary school days. Growing up in Witbank (now
eMalahleni) in the former Eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga
Province), Ntuli often visited Sophiatown, a culturally and polit-
ically vibrant township in Johannesburg, during holidays and over
some weekends. Here he came to know of one Can Themba, a
former teacher who had become famous as a journalist plying his
trade with Drum magazine. Despite his fame, Themba remained
humble and opened his door to everyone. He had turned his abode
in Sophiatown, which he named the House of Truth, into a place for
candid debate and intellectual engagement.
Themba was regarded by many as a ‘people’s person’, and by
opening his house to the community of Sophiatown, he demonstrated
his lifelong commitment to teaching and mentoring. The House of
Truth was one of the vehicles he employed to execute his mission
of intellectual engagement and education. His teaching was never
confined within the walls of the classroom.
Ntuli was at first simply a curious boy who had stumbled into
a hub of intellectual debate at Themba’s House of Truth, and was
fascinated by how well black men like Bloke Modisane, Nat Nakasa
and Themba spoke English. This exposure would prove to be a life-
changing experience for him, and would play an important role in
the development of his consciousness.
According to Ntuli, who had imbibed wisdom directly from
the source at the House of Truth, Themba would take a noncha-
lantly uttered word and decipher profound meanings from it: ‘Can
Themba was absolutely one of a kind, the warmness of his spirit,
the sharpness, the witticism. You’d utter a statement and immedi-
ately you’ve uttered a statement, he’s going to pick one word out
of that statement and turn it actually upside-down and make you
realise what you’ve actually said, how profound the statement you’ve
made is.’1
A culture of debate and intellectual engagement had been
part of Themba’s social milieu since his days as a student at the
University of Fort Hare, where he engaged in discussions with fellow
12
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streets and lanes and piazzas obstructed with broken furniture of every sort;
vilely smelling currents of black filth, and pools and lakelets of the same;
and—mercy on us!—corpses everywhere in the quieter squares—corpses of
wretches who had crawled there to die; corpses reeking in the sunlight;
corpses that even the clouds of horrid vultures refused to put a talon in.
“Such was Santiago. I had come for copy, and I soon had enough of it.
“ ‘Let’s get out of this, bo’s’n. Can’t we spend the night up yonder
among the hills and palm trees?’
“ ‘Yes,’ the good fellow answered, cheerily. ‘And luckily the wind’s
about a N.N.E.’
“We didn’t leave the city empty-handed, though. One hotel was doing a
roaring trade, and when we found ourselves, an hour before sunset, high up
among the woods, we had enough of the good things of this life to have
stood a five days’ siege.
“Perhaps we didn’t make a hearty supper! Oh no, sailor-men never eat
and drink!
“We had some wine anyhow, for our stomachs’ sake, let me say, and to
eliminate the perfume of sweet Santiago, which seemed still to hang around
us.
“The sunset was ineffably beautiful, the clouds and the bay were
streaked with the colours of tropical birds; of those very birds that sang
their evening songs above us, while the breeze sighed through the foliage.
“Twilight does not last long here, however, but a big round moon rose
slowly over the hills, and there would be neither darkness nor danger to-
night.
“ ‘I say, bo’s’n,’ I cried, ‘you were in the Merrimac with gallant Hobson.
Tell us your version. Have another cigar, and another glass of wine. Keeps
away infection, you know.’
“The bo’s’n needed no second bidding. He had a bo’s’n’s nip—four
fingers high—and the wine was brandy too.
“ ‘Ahem! Yes, I was in the Merrimac, and so was Jack Hardy, here.’
“ ‘Well,’ I cried, ‘I am in luck. Wait, bo’s’n, till I light up. Now, then,
heave round, my friend. Sure you’re not thirsty?’
“ ‘No, sirree. I feel that last little tot in my eye like. Ever seen Hobson?
Well, you’ll like ’im when you does. You’ve seen a yacht, spick and span,
new, that can rip through a stormy sea, hang or move like a Mother Carey’s
chicken, and do ’most anything. That’s him. That’s Hobson. Bless you, sir,
the old men didn’t like the youngster’s brave proposal at first. They pooh-
poohed it, as ye might say. Even Schley himself laughed a little, as, in his
fatherly way, he put a hand on young Hobson’s shoulder. I was as close to
’em, sir, as I am to Jack here. “Admiral Cervera,” he says, “is in yonder
right enough. Only wish the beggar would come out. He’s bottled.”
“ ‘“Ay, admiral,” says Hobbie, as we calls him for fond like, “and I want
to cork the bottle. Give me that old collier the Merrimac, and, with a few
volunteers, I’ll take her in and sink her right across the narrow neck, ’twixt
Canores and Estrella Points, and——”
“ ‘“And where will you and your men be then?” says Schley.
“ ‘“I’ll give you my word of honour, sir, I’ll go to heaven, almost
cheerfully, as soon’s we bottle up the dirty Don! Besides, sir,” he says,
“why smash that fine fleet up, when it would make so grand an addition to
the American Navy?”
“ ‘Yes; and it were that very argerment, I guess, that carried the pint, wi’
the captains in council assembled. Volunteers! Ay, in course; half the navy
would have volunteered to steam to certain death with young Hobson. It
was the forlornest o’ hopes ever led.
“ ‘Look you, see, sir.’ The bo’s’n paused a minute to draw with his knife
a rough sketch of Santiago bay and city on the ground.
“ ‘That’s my map, like, o’ the place lying down yonder beneath us in the
moonlight. Them things there at sea is the fleet—our fleet. You’ll have to
take Cervera’s for granted, but one of his ships lay here, you see, to guard
the entrance. The crosses is the batteries, and they did blaze and batter us
that awful night!’
“The bo’s’n paused a moment, and laid his hand affectionately on Jack
Hardy’s shoulder.
“ ‘Me and my young pal here,’ he continued, ‘had known one another
for months afore then. There was something about the lad that made me like
him. See’d him throw his extra garments one day and go like thunder for
big Nat Dowlais, ’cause he’d kicked the ship’s cat. Ay, and welted him well,
too. I took to talkin’ more to Jack after that. But I couldn’t get down deep
enough to the boy’s heart. There was something under the surface; I could
tell that. Jack was no ordinary bit o’ ship’s junk. Bless you, sir, there’s
hundreds o’ gentlemen’s sons before the mast—but they’re not all like Jack
Hardy. Jack was more like a stage sailor than anything else. Everything he
put on was so darned natty—his hands so white and soft, though his face
and neck was brown. Then he talked American like a book. Played the
piano, too, like a freak, and was often in the ward-room in consequence.
And blowed if I didn’t hear the master-at-arms—bloomin’ old brass-bound
Jimmy Legs—more’n once call him “sir.”
“ ‘Well, the Merrimac was ’long-side and ready. Incloodin’ Lieutenant
Hobson himself, eight of us were chosen for this deed o’ danger. Torpedoes
were arranged in the hold. Hobson would stand by the helmsman, Hobson
would touch the button and sink her, and, at a word, we should leap into the
sea and swim for the dinghy towin’ astern, for this was our only hope o’
salvation.
“ ‘Jack, here, had stood by my side among the volunteers, but the poor
lad was passed over. Don’t nudge me, Jackie lad; I’m goin’ to tell the truth,
the whole bloomin’ truth, and nothin’ but—so there! I’ll never forget, sir,
the look o’ disappointment on the lad’s face just then. Some time after, I
found him for’ard with his back to the ship and his face to the sea. He
looked smartly up, but I could see by the starlight there were tears on his
face.
“ ‘He said nothing, but walked away impatient like, and I saw him no
more for a time.’
“The bo’s’n leaned towards me now, and his eyes sparkled in the
moonlight. He touched my knee with his horny palm.
“ ‘We steamed away,’ he said, in a hoarse half-whisper—steamed into
the darkness and away from the flag-ship. Not a sound for a time save the
hollow dump o’ the screw and the swirl o’ the seethin’ seas!
“ ‘In silence we steamed—it might have been for half an hour, but it
seemed like an age—an age of blackness and terror. Nothing was nateral
like. The ship was a death-ship, the figures agin the bulwarks yonder were
spectres. I would have given worlds to have heard but a word, a laugh, a
cough even!
“ ‘I said there were eight of us! By the sky above us yonder, sir, there
were nine!
“ ‘I guessed at once who the ninth was, and I shuddered a bit when I
thought of brave, foolish Hardy here. For never a stroke could he swim, and
his coming with us to-night was sheer madness—nay, more, it looked like
suicide.
“ ‘Soon after Jack slid slowly up towards me, and his left arm clutched
my right as I clutch yours now. Every one of us, sir, was stripped to the
waist. Every one wore a lifebelt save Jack Hardy. He was a stowaway, and
not in it.
“ ‘“Oh, boy,” I said, speaking in a whisper, “why have you done this?”
“ ‘“Hush!” he answered. “My time is mebbe short, mate, and you’ve
always been my friend. So listen. Something tells me you’ll be saved, but I
am here to die. I want you to bear a message to my parents—to my mother
especially. Her address you’ll find in my ditty-box. But go to see her, Sam,
when the war is over. Far away west my people live in opulence, and I’m an
only son. Father taunted me with cowardice, and I ran away and came to
sea. Tell father I forgave him. Tell mother——” Ah, sir, just here the lad
broke down. He’s only a boy. “Tell mother,” he sobbed, “how her Jack died
for his country. Tell her I felt she’d forgiven me—that will please her—that
my every dream was of home and her, that——”
“ ‘“A boat on the weather-bow,” cried a man to Hobson. “Shall we fire?”
“ ‘“No,” cried Hobson; “never a shot.”
“ ‘It had been a picket. We heard her officer shout in Spanish to give
way with a will, and she disappeared up into the darkness of the channel we
were now entering.
“ ‘The end was coming; the end was very near, and we all knew it.’
* * * * *
“While the bo’s’n had been telling his story, young Hardy sat silent, but
he spoke now almost for the first time.
“ ‘A moment, sir. The bo’s’n won’t tell you, but I must. He tore off his
lifebelt, and fastened it around me. He swore I must wear it or he would
fling it into the sea. That’s all!’
“ ‘Well, sir,’ continued the bo’s’n, ‘the awful silence was speedily
broken. They had seen us only as a dark mass, black as the rocks that
towered above us. Then their fire opened. We’ll never be under such a fire
again as that, sir, and live. Shells burst above us, around us, shells riddled
our hull, and raked our spar-deck, and crushed into our deck-house.
Fragments and splinters flew about in all directions. I think most of us were
flat on our faces just then, and I lay beside Jackie here holding his hand. No
tremor there, though! No signs of fear! And the fire poured into us from
three sides, sir, from the batteries of Socappa on the left, from Morro on the
right, and from a warship ahead.
“ ‘Speak of thunder. Pah! thunder isn’t in it with such a devil’s din as
this, and lightning ’gainst those gun-gleams would have been like the glint
of a farthing candle!
“ ‘Then we saw brave Hobson’s figure—unearthly tall it looked. No
voice could be heard, only his arms waved us to the bulwarks.
“ ‘Next second it seemed we were all in the water, as a roar louder than
the artillery shook the sky, shook the hills, and silenced even the batteries.
“ ‘The ship was sinking beside us! We were all but drawn into the
whirlpool, but I held Jack’s hand and toughly towed him off.
“ ‘But the dinghy was gone, and the rudder too, and the Merrimac sank,
not across, but along the channel. So our forlorn hope had been led in vain.
The Spanish fleet was bottled still, but not corked, sir.’
“He paused for a moment.
“ ‘Ah, sir, no one there would ever forget that night, nor the hours we
passed under a tilted grating that God in His mercy had put it into some
one’s head to attach by a rope to the ship. We could just get under this
catamaran and hold on to the spars above.
“ ‘Hour after hour of darkness went by. Boats passed and repassed, and
we could hear the men talking. Had they known there were nine heads
under that grating, short would have been our shrift, sir.
“ ‘And all these hours we hardly spoke. We almost feared to breathe
aloud.
“ ‘More than once I thought that Jackie here was dead or dying, but I
whispered cheering words to him. More than once I trembled as my feet
were touched by slimy sharks. How they did not tear me down I cannot tell
you. Seems to me, sir, ’twere a ’tarposition o’ Providence like.
“ ‘But daylight came at last, and Cervera’s own boat and Cervera
himself.
“ ‘Hobson’s voice was feeble enough now, but he managed to hail her.
“ ‘“Por Dios!” we heard the white-haired admiral cry. “Do the dead talk
to us?”
“ ‘But we were saved, and taken to the Spanish ship. Yes, sir, treated
with every kindness, made prisoners, but released at long, long last, even
before sweet Santeehager fell.
“ ‘Well, that’s my yarn, sir, and it’s all as true as the stars above us.’
“ ‘And Jack Hardy here,’ I ventured to ask, ‘was he reprimanded?’
“ ‘Tried by drum-head he was, sir. Condemned to death for desertion,
and pardoned all in one sentence.’ ”
“ ‘Ah, sir,’ the brave bo’s’n added, ‘I’ll bet my boots that Jack Hardy is a
midshipman before this cruel war is over. Thank ye, sir, I don’t mind if I do;
and I’ll give ye a toast, too—
“ ‘“May the Stars and Stripes we love so well,

With Britain’s flag entwine,
And we’re goin’ to give the world—fits,
When the two brave fleets combine.“ ‘“
* * * * *
The Walrus sailed on and on around the great Antarctic continent, but
never saw her consort till once more the two ships met safe and sound at
Kerguelen Isle.
END OF BOOK II
BOOK III
ON THE GREAT ANTARCTIC

CONTINENT
CHAPTER I
A STRANGE DISCOVERY—SHEELAH AND TAFFY
“She is bound to be,” said Captain Mayne Brace, a day or two before the
good ship Walrus reached Kerguelen. “Bound to be, Mr. Armstrong. She is
the better craft of the two, you know.”
He was talking to Ingomar and Walter, one evening in October, while
they all sat together in the cosy saloon, not a mile away from the stove.
Ingomar and Brace were smoking the pipe of peace, and sipping their
coffee (which they placed, to keep warm, on top of the stove), between each
longdrawn sip. Walter was reading one of Scott’s novels, or trying to, for he
was listening to the conversation all the same. Charlie was missing to-night.
I rather think he would have been found, if any one had cared to look for
him, forward in the galley, listening to the men’s yarns, or playing a
hornpipe to please them.
“Well, yes, she is bound to be, in the natural course of events, because,
as you say, she has faster sailing qualities, and all that; but——”
“Ah!” interrupted Mayne Brace, with a smile, and another hearty pull at
his coffee; “we must not think of the ‘might be,’ or the ‘may be.’ Else we’d
go on thinking and get nervous, and end in believing, that because we did
not meet the Sea Elephant somewhere to the east of Dougherty Islands, she
has been taken aback in a squall, and gone down stern foremost, with all
hands. Or that she had, at the very least, broken her screw.”
“Steward!”
“Ay, ay, sir!”
“Put more coals on the fire.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And just replenish our cups of coffee. Fresh ground, isn’t it?”
“That it be, sir.
“Dumpty always roasts it himself, and I grinds it. A main good hand
Dumpty is, sir, at roasting coffee. A little morsel of lard in the bottom of the
pan to keep the beans from burning, a good clear fire, and keep them
moving and moving; and there you be, sir.”
“Steward!”
“Sir to you again, sir.”
“Ever anybody ask you for a recipe for roasting coffee?”
“Milk and sugar, sir?”
The milk was another invention of the steward. It was a fresh gull’s egg,
beaten and mixed with hot water, and sweetened with pure preserved milk.
On the whole, everybody did his best on board the old Walrus.
The men forward to-night were very jolly, for, being so near to the end
of their exceedingly long voyage, the captain had spliced the main brace,
that is, he had added one modest glass of rum to their nightly allowance. I
don’t believe in rum myself, but when one is writing a sea story, one must
adhere to the truth. The man who does not face realities and the naked truth,
is like the fabled ostrich that hid its head in the sand when danger
approached.
The men drank “sweethearts and wives,” or “wives and sweethearts,” in
the real good old British fashion. The married men, you know, drank “wives
and sweethearts.” The bachelors, and they were nearly all of that
persuasion, put the “sweethearts” to the front.
They had mixed the grog with a good deal of hot water and sugar to
make it last. But they toasted each other also; and it was, “Here’s to you,
Jack;” or, “Here’s to you, Bill,” or Tom or Joe, as the case might be. And
“We’ve been shipmates now more’n a year, and never a word atween us,
bar a sea-boot now and then.”
And they toasted “The Captain.” “And he is a good fellow,” was the
remark of one sailor, “though a stickler for duty.”
“Ah! Well, Sconce, dooty is dooty all the world. Stick by that, and we’ll
all do well.”
“Dooty,” said another, “is the needle wot points to the Pole, and the Pole
is Heaven itself.”
“Very good sentiment for you, Jack. Here’s to dooty!”
“Now, sir”—this to Charlie—“touch her up, sir. Give us ‘Homeward
Bound,’ and we’ll all chime in, from Dumpty downwards, to the nipper wot
tends the dogs.”
“Homeward Bound” was given with glee; but, of course, it was only a
make-believe, because there wasn’t much home life about Kerguelen.
They sighted the island after passing McDonald and Heard Isles.
Charlie again. He had been determined to be first to see land.
Before the entrance to the creek or natural harbour, where the men and
animals were, is a spit of rocky land, a rugged kind of breakwater, and had
the Sea Elephant been the first inside, her top-masts would have shown
over this.
But here was never a ship’s mast to be seen.
On the shore, high up on a braeside, was an outlook, and the Walrus’s
people saw both American and British ensigns dipped to welcome the
Walrus.
The Walrus returned the salute.
Then flags of all kinds were set in motion, and the signalmen on board
and on shore were very busy indeed, for a time.
“Yes, all was well, now,” said the signalman on shore, “but two dogs
dead, and one Innuit. Sea Elephant had never been seen.”
The anchor was hardly let go when the officer’s boat was alongside, and
he was heartily welcomed down below to exchange experiences.
He and his men had been very busy all the time, and they were ably
assisted and supported by the kindly Yak-Yaks. He spoke in the very
highest terms of Slap-dash, the chief. In the dreary days of winter, when the
island was deep in snow, snow-shoe expeditions were got up; but sleighing,
especially with the bears, who were better suited to the rough work, was
preferred. The Yak-Yak died of inflammation. One dog fell over a cliff and
was killed at once. The other was found dead. Both were buried side by
side, and cairns mark their resting-place. “There is a cairn also,” said Slator,
“on the poor Yak-Yak. I think we nearly all dropped some tears at his
grave.”
I suppose they did, reader, for in the loneliness of such a place as this the
heart is sometimes very near the throat. Sunshine brings mirth and
happiness, gloom depresses, and there is always a certain amount of sadness
in even the songs of northern nations, such as Iceland, Scotland, and
Norway.
Both Charlie and Walt had some doubt as to how the Yak-Yak dogs
would receive them again. But, accompanied by Ingomar, they boldly
marched some distance into the interior, to the kennels. It was the afternoon
of what had been a glorious day, and they had doffed their fur caps and
coats.
The bears were not at home just then. Both bears and dogs, indeed, had
gone away to roam the wilds nearly every day, but the Bruins, with the
dogs, always came shambling or trotting back at eventide, to sleep and to
eat.
They were away then at this moment, and Slap-dash proposed that, with
the Newfoundlands and pet collie, they should all march forth to meet them.
Strangely enough, they had a rendezvous on a hill-top, where most of
them met every night, and from this a beaten track to the camp.
To-day several of the dogs were already at the place of meeting, several
were straggling up from seawards, and in front (for no dog was permitted to
walk behind him) was Gruff, with his well-beloved wife Growley.
When within about seventy yards of the place, where Ingomar and the
boys were standing, both stopped short and sniffed the air. Then Growley
gave vent to a half-choked roar of rage, that shook the hills—well, if it
didn’t shake the hills, it shook the hearts of Charlie and Walt.
“Strangers!” Growley seemed to shout. “I’ll tear ’em limb from limb!”
Gruff rounded on her at once, and promptly knocked her down.
Then Gruff came trotting on, and Nora and Nick and the collie ran off to
meet them, our heroes following.
That was a pas de joie, a joy-dance, if ever there was a joy-dance in this
world; and those sceptical creatures, who would class dogs and our other
dumb friends as mere automata, would have been converted on the spot to
the dear old doctrine, that animals have souls, had they but seen that dance.
It was too absurdly intrinsically droll for description. The other two
bears, Grumpey and Meg, came up and joined, and presently all the rest of
the bonnie dogs.
They went round and round our heroes in a hairy hurricane; they
pretended to worry each other, they barked and roared, and grumbled and
growled, till the boys’ sides were sore with laughing.
Surely such a scene of merriment was never before witnessed, and when
all had quietened down somewhat, they went amicably back to the kennels.
This is not one of Grimms’ fairy tales, mind, rather is it a fairy tale of
science and natural history, and these, readers mine, are all true.
* * * * *
A whole week passed away, but still no Sea Elephant.
Captain Mayne Brace had taken in more coals, and his arrangements
were all complete, so he was becoming impatient; but at long last the ship
hove in sight over the horizon, and the union was complete.
On comparing logs, it was found that they must have passed each other
at night, and had been probably within ten nautical miles of each other.
The bigger ship had taken many observations, and done a much quicker
voyage. But, knowing that he could be at Kerguelen much sooner than the
Walrus, a happy thought had occurred to Captain Bell. He would run up to
the Cape of Good Hope and endeavour to get a cargo of coals.
Although the war was raging, he succeeded, and now these were landed
in case of emergency, each ship just taking enough for the grand new cruise.
I need hardly say that the meeting between Curtis and Ingomar was most
cordial.
A grand ball was given on shore on the night of re-union.
Sailors are not sailors unless they can have a bit of fun.
It was a ball of a somewhat heterogeneous description, for men waltzed
with men, though Slap-dash did some really graceful movements with Gruff
and the other bears as partners. There were no ladies, you see, but all the
more freedom and merriment.
Yet, stay; I must qualify this statement. The Eskimos, Yaks, Innuits,
Teelies, or any other name you choose to give them, are droll creatures.
They all dress alike in skins, and their faces are all about the same shape.
Now the very day before the Walrus and Sea Elephant sailed, all being
then on board, except a change of men who were to remain at Kerguelen for
observation duty, Slap-dash came up and saluted Captain Bell.
“Four of my rascals,” he said, “want to speak to you directly.”
Then the four “rascals” were led up and threw themselves on their faces
before Captain Bell as if they had been worshipping the sun.
“Get up, get up,” said Bell, “and speak like men.”
They arose at once and stood before him, and two took a step in advance
of the other two.
“We not all men-people, sir,” said one.
“We not all men-people,” said the other.
Captain Bell began to frown.
“Dis ees my ole woman-people,” said the first speaker.
“Dis ees my ole mudder-people,” said the other.
“Slap-dash,” cried Bell, “did you know this?”
“Not befo’ dis morning, sah; no, no.”
Captain Bell was puzzled and silent. He addressed Ross, the officer who
had been left in charge at Kerguelen.
“No, sir,” said this gentleman; “I don’t see how we can send them on
shore. We can’t want the whole four. They will pine and die if separated.
That would be a dead certainty.”
“Very dead,” said Bell, smiling.
“Besides, though no one suspected their sex, that one called Sheelah is
an excellent cook, and both are capital nurses. We were sick sometimes. We
had green fever in winter, and certain I am that they nursed us back to life.”
The carpenter was next called for.
“Carpenter,” said Bell, “a small screen berth will be wanted below in
some corner, a kind of l-l-ladies’ cabin. Do ye hear?”
“Well, sir, I do hear, because I’m not deaf; but I don’t understand.”
“Then just do as you are told, Mr. Inglis.”
“Certainly, sir, certainly.”
So a little privacy was obtained for Sheelah and Taffy, and, as it turned
out afterwards, no one was the loser for the “women-people” being on
board.
Do coming events throw their shadows before?
Perhaps they do. Anyhow, when the two ships looked their last on
Kerguelen—the last for a long time, at all events—there was more silence
on board than is usual with sailors going off to sea.
They knew the dangers they were going to encounter, but they were all
quite acclimatized to the rigorous Antarctic climate by this time, and there
was not a man on board, British or American, who was not prepared to do
his best. Which of us can do more?
CHAPTER II
A FIGHT BETWEEN MEN AND ICE
The Sea Elephant’s cruise around the great Antarctic continent, and all her
captain and bold men did, and said and saw, would make a book in itself.
That may one day see the light, as well as the adventures of the men left
behind at Kerguelen.
We must now follow our heroes into a country as widely different in
every way as Scotland or England is from the moon.
Now, having been a boy myself, not so very long ago—apparently—and
being still a boy at heart, I know that boys do not as a rule care for
geography. That is because it is taught in a stupidly, awkward way at
schools, a method being adopted which is devoid of all interest. But never
mind, I do wish you for once in a way to take a look at the map here
presented to you. The ships were off south and east from Kerguelen Isle,
and the first port to be struck was Termination Land. It was not to be the
termination of their cruise, however, by a very long way.
Would you be surprised to learn that there are two poles in the south, and
two in the north, the magnetic and real poles.
The real axis, the hub of our “terral” wheel, is the one we have to deal
with.
Here all meridians may be supposed to meet at a point.
There would in reality be no more south for a man standing at this pole.
Let him look in which ever way he liked, to Africa, to South America, or
New Zealand; it would all be north, north, north. No east, no west, just
north.
The Sea Elephant and her sister, the Walrus, were not to be run into any
danger along the coast of Wilkes’ Land, which marvellous line of shore
may be said to stretch from Termination Land and Island, right away to
Ringgold’s Knoll, far, far east. It is, or is supposed to be, the longest stretch
of coast land in, or any way around, the Antarctic. There is no mistake
about this being land, nor that it is indented with bays and gulphs, just as
the west coast of Scotland or Norway is; and these indentations may really
divide the continent in places.
I only want to give you some rough idea of this land coast. Had you then
been able to sail along it many thousands of years ago—and you would
have had to be up very early indeed to do so—before there was any ice here
at all, when the shores were green and forest-clad, the sight you would have
witnessed would have been a very beautiful one indeed! Hills and vales and
mountain land, and probably in the farther interior, vast sierras, the woods
teeming with strange animals; and strange birds would have been there, too,
sailing over the forests, or floating on blue seas, alive with myriads of fish
of various species, many now lost and gone, others still extant because they
have migrated.
But now, though the same formation of surface and contour of hills may
remain, they are all, all snow-clad, and protected seawards by a barrier, or
barriers of ice, of every description, which few mariners would care to
negotiate.
* * * * *
The weather continued favourable, but there were many days of darkness
and gloom; and after Termination Land had been reached, it was not
considered advisable—strong and well fortified though the ships were—to
be among the ice when the shadows of great clouds enveloped the land, or
when storms were threatened. But when the sun shone, and the ice was
open, then they boldly ventured to push their way through, either under
steam, or under sail.
Ice like this closes very suddenly, and if the captain of an exploring ship
is not very clever, he may get caught, and a week’s imprisonment counts
against a ship when making a voyage.
Sailing in a pack like this, a vessel to a landsman would seem to be in a
very dangerous position.
She may be, though no one on board appears to think so. The ice is here,
the ice is there, the ice is all around; flat bergs, like what you meet in the
north; pancake ice, lakes of slush, and those terrible masses, or square
mountains of land-ice—a characteristic feature of this country—with caved
perpendicular sides, striated on the horizontal, or, if they have been melted
by the sun at one side, oblique, and glittering gorgeously blue, green, or
paley white, in the sun’s rays.
But all, big or small, covered with snow, so that their very whiteness
dazzles the eyes. But at this season there were birds everywhere, and seals
of many species. The penguins, I need hardly add, were a very curious
sight, as they stood or staggered about on the low flat bergs. Our heroes saw
some sea-elephants, though I believe these, as a rule, are far more common
to the south of Tierra Del Fuego.
One day, when the ships were pretty close together, and well in through
the ice, the sky cleared far too quickly to please Captain Mayne Brace. He
knew at once that John Frost would have them in his clutches, if they did
not soon beat a retreat.
So he signalled to his consort, and both vessels quickly had their heads
turned to the north.
They might have found themselves clear in a few hours had it not
suddenly come on to blow from the cold and icy south.
The ice began to pack.
Steam was got up with the greatest despatch, and nearly all sail taken in.
Luckily there was no swell, else there would have been pressure enough to
have thrown both vessels on their beam-ends on a floe.
The Sea Elephant was leading, and by-and-by the Walrus managed to
creep right into her wake. This was an advantage for a time. A south wind,
even with a clear sky, would naturally open the ice, but there was some
demon current working underneath that they could not account for; and
while they were still two miles from clear and open water, they found
themselves rapidly becoming part and parcel of the pack.
Break the ice, did you say? I should smile. You may get steam
machinery to smash bay-ice, or splinter pancake, but not your solid, heavy
pieces. Oh no! So men who have inventions of this sort should sell them to
farmers at home to break up their mill dams in winter.
Then came a battle ’twixt men and ice. Men with their cunning, ice with
its force of movement, slow but sure.
Both ships got closer together, the Sea Elephant leading, all hands that
could be spared from both ships, over the side in front of the foremost.
Armed with great poles, they moved the bergs on every side.
It was bitterly cold work, and the pieces moved but slowly.
Under all the pressure of steam she could produce without risk, aided by
the men over the side, the Sea Elephant forged her way slowly, fathom by
fathom, indeed, but after a time that to our heroes seemed interminable, her
jib-boom hung over the black water.[D]
Then came the scramble to get inboard, and though their fingers were
about as hard as boards, and some had frozen faces, in less than ten minutes
all hands were once more on their respective decks.
Sail was once more set, fires were banked—save the coals they must—
and away they went, right merrily, to the east again, the wind well on the
starboard beam.
Although the men had raised a cheer when the ships were quite out of
that ugly pack, there was no fear in any breast.
“Would there have been much danger if we had been beset in there,
uncle?” Charlie ventured to ask the captain, at supper.
“A fig for the danger, boy. We’ll never be out of that, but we came to
find the South Pole, or get somewhere near it.”
Ingomar smiled.
“Well, then, Hans, we have come to make a big record.”
“That will beat all creation, captain.”
“Yes, beat all creation, and it would have been misfortune, to say the
least of it, to have got beset. That’s all. Yes, thanks, steward, I’ll have
another slice.”
* * * * *
The two ships stood steadily onwards now, day after day, sailing
whenever they could, steaming only when obliged to, for the economy of
coal had to be studied, and that, too, most carefully.
Captain Bell, of the Sea Elephant, came now to be recognized as head of
the expedition, though on every occasion that was deemed important a
council was called and the opinions of all officers taken.
He was now always called The Admiral, but not to his face. He was
none too fond of fine titles.
And the Sea Elephant was called the Flag Ship, for short.
One day, when in the neighbourhood of the Knoll, the Admiral signalled
to the Walrus, that as they would soon round Wilkes’ Land and stand down
south, it would be best for all hands to bend their cold-weather gear.
In shore English that would signify, give out the supplies of winter
clothing.
As it turned out, this was very excellent advice indeed.
The Eskimos had their supply first and foremost, and this they had made
themselves, under the supervision of Slap-dash, and from seal-skins with
the hair on.
Slap-dash assured Captain Bell that there was nothing so good for
keeping out the cold, and his words turned out to be true. Most, however, of
the sailors and their officers still stuck to flannel and fur.
Both Charlie and Walter had a very great desire to see the inside of a real
ice-cave. These caves look like archways, or the openings into tunnels, and
are formed by the dash of the waves on huge bergs of land-ice, or even in
the sides of the ice-barrier itself.
They had their desire fulfilled one day, while the ships lay almost
motionless on the dark water.
There wasn’t a breath of wind, nor was there any fog. And the surveyors
were engaged very busily indeed, in taking soundings, and bringing up
specimens of the mud or clay at the bottom for examination.
Fires were banked, but the ships were at no great distance from a lofty
ice-wall, at the foot of which were several caves.
They rowed on shore at sunset.
And the appearance of that sunset was in itself a sight to behold!
The sun was sinking slowly down to the north of west, and in a cloudless
sky. It seemed a larger sun than our young heroes had ever yet beheld, and
cast its reflection on the heaving waves ’twixt boat and horizon, in a very
remarkable way; for although the sheen was bright, it was not dazzling. Nor
was the sun itself. But nearer to the spot where our heroes stood, on the
field of level ice betwixt them and the ice-caves, were many shades of opal
and pearl.
“We must be moving,” said Ingomar, “at last, boys, or we will not get
home to-night.”
“Oh!” cried Walter, “I wouldn’t mind staying here all night to look at the
sky.”
“Nor I,” said Charlie. “I’d like to sleep in the snow. Nothing could harm
us except the frost, and we should be in our sleeping-bags, so that couldn’t
hurt much.”
“There are no snakes here, anyhow.” This from “wise Walter,” as Charlie
sometimes called him chaffingly.
“No, Walt; and no burglars, either.”
There was one thing to be said for the dogs, Nick and Nora and Wallace.
They had long ago fully made up their minds to enjoy themselves to the
fullest extent, whenever they had the chance.
They were tearing round and round on the ice-floe at this moment,
wriggling and jumping and playing at leap-frog, while Nick would pause
every moment to fill his mouth with snow and fling it over his neighbour’s
shoulders.
The boys must have just one more look at that sky before they entered
the ice-cave.
Lo! what a change. The sun was all but down, and sea and sky had
changed to orange, deep and charming. The very snow was orange.
But judge of their disappointment when they entered the first cave and
found that all was pitch dark.
CHAPTER III
THE BEAUTY AND MARVELS OF AN ICE-CAVE
“Oh, what a shame!” cried Walt, impatiently. “We did expect to see
something real splendid.”
Ingomar laughed.
“You are snow-blind, boys, just for the moment. If you’d come when I
told you, when the sun was still above the horizon, you would have had a
daylight view.
“The sun can’t be expected to stay for you. He has to rise and shine on
other seas, if not on other lands.”
But when their eyes became more accustomed to the twilight, they could
see that they were in a vast vaulted cave, solid ice and snow beneath them,
and strange uncanny shapes sparkling in the semi-darkness beyond.
Three men had accompanied Ingomar and the boys, and one was
carrying a bag.
“Be cautious how you move, lads, else one of you may go through into
the sea, and never be seen again.”
“But the ice feels very strong.”
“Yes; it is perhaps a foot thick, and that is strong enough for anything.
But there are ‘pussy-holes’ here and there, up through which seals crawl to
sleep, and on these the ice is very thin.”
Just as he spoke, there was a sudden and angry roar heard ahead of them,
where something black and big reared itself, and two fierce eyes glared at
the intruders.
The boys clutched each other in superstitious fear, and stepped quickly
back.
It was only a large seal, however, but so quickly did it retreat that
Ingomar had not the slightest idea what species it was.
I may say for the seals here in the Antarctic, which number four or five
species, that though in the breeding season they have certain habitats, after
that happy time is over they are free to wander where they please, and often
turn up in strange places. It is the same with Arctic seals.
An eared seal, whose fur has been much sought after, is now, I think,
almost extinct, owing to the murderous greed of the sealer. I think it would
be well if there were a close season for all species. But this is a digression.
Let us return to the cave.
The somewhat mysterious bag carried into the cave was now opened,
and Ingomar, bending down, extracted some of what he termed theatrical
properties therefrom.
Next moment, on the touch of a button, the whole of this cave was filled
with dazzling light.
What a sight!
“Oh—h—h!”
That was all our boys could say for a moment or two.
No stalactite cave probably ever rivalled the beauty of this.
And here were stalactites, too, in the form of depending icicles, dozens,
scores, hundreds of them, and, seen by the electric light, they emitted all the
colours of the rainbow.
They walked cautiously on and on a long way into the bowels of this
mighty cavern, watching the floor for pussy-holes.
No one could even guess where the seal had gone.
“Well,” said Charlie, as they came at last to the end of the ocean-
hollowed cave, “I should really have expected to find mermaids here.”
“Now,” said Ingomar, “one more transformation scene, or perhaps two,
and then the pantomime is over.”
As he spoke he touched a spring, and, wonderful to say, the cave was
illuminated with brightest crimson, then with orange and red again. So on to
the pure white light, and in this they found their way to the mouth of the
cave, and made their exit and presently their way to the boats.
“We’ve seen a sight,” said Ingomar, “that is surely worth coming to the
Antarctic to look upon.”
“Yes,” said Charlie, thoughtfully.
“Oh,” cried Walt, “will you do it again some time?”
Ingomar laughed.
“It all depends,” he said.

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12 The People’s Intellectual 147

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