ALONG THE MOLOPO RIVER

KALAHARI
Red dunes, dry rivers.
Sweaty arms, icy shivers –
Extreme desert –
Upon my soul
Make me gentle
Make me bold
Give me strength
To carry on
In icy wind
And burning sun,
In your special community
If you need a human
Make it me.

My daughter and I took the grandchildren who were very young up to the then Kalahari Gemsbok Park. It is now the Kgaligadi Transfrontier Park in the North Western corner of South Africa. I went to the reference library in Cape Town gardens and did some research on our route.

The Northern Cape was like the old Wild West of America in the early days with bandits and other desperados living on the islands of the Orange River – now called the Gariep – far away from the reaches of the authorities in the Cape.

Our route lay from Upington and across the Molopo River, always dry in this Kalahari world. The Kalahari is an enormous semi-desert that stretches even as far as Zambia, appearing here and there. We stayed on that occasion at the Molopo Lodge and it was here that I first heard the tale of Scotty Smith, one of South Africa’s best remembered notorious outlaws.

Scotty Smith claimed to be the son of a Perthshire landowner, Mr. St Leger Gordon Lennox who educated Scotty in veterinary science and land surveying which attributes were to stand him in good stead in South Africa. When he was eighteen he joined the cavalry and eventually found himself bound for India. On his return his father required him to marry the daughter of his next door neighbour but Scotty refused and his father threatened to disinherit him. Scotty took ship to Australia and it was on this voyage that he gained his nickname, already called Scotty by the passengers because of his nationality, he removed a tight shoe from a thoroughbred horse on the ship, performing the duty of a blacksmith and was from then onwards known as Scotty Smith. Scotty left Australia under a cloud to arrive in the Cape at a time of turmoil in 1877 and took part in the Galeka Gaika revolt of that year. This was a war between the local natives and the government of the time.

Legend around this colourful figure has grown to such an extent that it is hard to draw the line between fact and fiction for he’s been called the Robin Hood of the veld, Captain Starlight of the frontier and the uncrowned King of the Kalahari, which says it all. I’ll relate a couple of his escapades when he operated along the Molopo River and you can imagine this renegade of yesteryear.

Groot (Large) Adriaan de la Rey, a brother of the Boer War General (The South African War between the English and the Afrikaners) set out to catch Scotty who was at that time a notorious horse thief, with a bunch of commandos.

Scotty had his ear to the ground and together with a friend made certain that they met up with their pursuers near the village of Amalia. They accosted Groot Adriaan and asked him where he was going. “To catch Scotty Smith” was the reply. “Oh” said Scotty. “Do you mind if we accompany you?”

Together they all hunted for the elusive Scotty Smith until one night Scotty and his friend volunteered to stand watch so that the commandos could catch up with their sleep. The next day Groot Adraian woke up to find that Scotty, his friend, and all the camp horses had disappeared!

When the long arm of the law got too close for comfort Scotty made for Zeerust – the town a real den of desperados who haunted the notorious Zeerust Club which had its headquarters at the Bucket of Blood Hotel where everything to please the heart of a bandit was on offer – billiards, gambling, women and booze. It was from here that he ventured into the theatre of the Stellaland-Goshen campaigns and successfully spied for the Imperial authorities. Goshen declared itself and Stella a republic in 1882 – 1883 and the conflict was between the Boers and the British Empire that caused its demise and was a forerunner of the second Boer War.

Near Rietfontein a Mr. Bouwer, mounted on a particularly fine piece of horseflesh, met up with Scotty. Scotty was so taken with the horse that he offered Mr. Bouwer fifty pounds for it. Mr. Bouwer declined and rode off to the Police Station where he spent the night in what he supposed was security. The next morning the horse was gone and Scotty had left the money in its place.

One day a farmer’s wife came upon Scotty and that evening he turned up at her doorstep, asking for lodgings. Her husband offered him a bed and a good dinner and it was as the first rays of dawn coloured the sky that the farmer heard a tap on his window. “Goodbye Mr.Thompson, thanks for your hospitality.”

Not much later the farmer’s servants arrived to say that all the horses had been stolen. About two hours later, however, the whole herd of horses was returned with a note from Scotty explaining that they’d been taken in error. “You treated me very well and as your guest I ate your salt – I had no intentions of robbing you – it was a mistake of my men operating in the area.”

Scotty retired in the burgeoning town of Upington on the Orange River and died there – his colourful life adding zest to an already fascinating part of Southern Africa.