Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers
Fenn George Manville
English
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Below is a summary of Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers
Off to the Wilds, Being the Adventures of Two Brothers, by George
Manville Fenn.
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The setting is the northern part of what is now South Africa, in the
middle of the nineteenth century. Mr Rogers is a British settler in
South Africa, a "cottage farmer". The earlier Dutch farmers and
settlers are called Boers. The two teenage sons, Jack and Dick, have
often asked if they could all go out on a trek to visit the northern
parts of the country, for a natural history collecting expedition. They
had come out to South Africa for the health of Mrs Rogers, but she had
died, and of the two boys, Dick was not very strong, while Jack was very
robust.
Off they go, together with two Zulu boys who live on their land, the
Zulu boys' father, who is a Chieftain whom they nickname "The General",
and an Irish cook, who is always getting into trouble in every
situation, in a most infuriating manner. There is also Peter the
driver, and Dirk who is a foreloper, the man who walks ahead of the oxen
to guide them into the best way.
They expect to pay for the trip with ivory from elephants, feathers from
ostriches, animal skins, etc.
The various adventures include encounters with snakes, rhino, hippo,
giraffes, elephants, crocodiles, cataracts, tsetse fly, marauding native
tribes, a bush fire, hundreds of miles of dreary grinding effort taking
many months just to cover the ground, scorching heat, and sometimes
cold. And more besides.
As usual with this author there is sustained tension throughout the
book. An interesting and instructive book.
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OFF TO THE WILDS, BEING THE ADVENTURES OF TWO BROTHERS, BY GEORGE
MANVILLE FENN.
CHAPTER ONE.
COFFEE AND CHICORY, BUT NOT FOR BREAKFAST.
"Just look at him, Dick. Be quiet; don't speak."
"Oh, the dirty sunburnt little varmint! I'd like the job o' washing
him."
"If you say another word, Dinny, I'll give you a crack with your own
stick."
"An' is it meself would belave you'd hurt your own man Dinny wid a
shtick, Masther Jack? Why ye wouldn't knock a fly off me."
"Then be quiet. I want to see what he's going to do."
"Shure an' it's one of the masther's owld boots I threw away wid me own
hands this morning, because it hadn't a bit more wear in it. An' look
at the dirty unclane monkey now."
"He'll hear you directly, Dinny, and I want to see what he's going to
do. Hold your tongue."
"Shure an' ye ask me so politely, Masther Jack, that it's obliged to be
silent I am."
"Pa was quite right when he said you had got too long a tongue."
"Who said so, Masther Jack?"
"Pa--papa!"
"Shure the masther said--and it's meself heard him--that you was to lave
your papa at home in owld England, and that when ye came into these
savage parts of the wide world, it was to be father."
"Well, father, then. Now hold your tongue. Just look at him, Dick."
"It's meself won't spake again for an hour, and not then if they don't
ax me to," said Dennis Riley, generally known as "Dinny," and nothing
more. And he, too, joined in watching the "unclane little savage," as
he called him, to wit, a handsome, well-grown Zulu lad, whose skin was
of a rich brown, and who, like his companion, seemed to be a model of
savage health and grace.
For there were two of these lads, exceedingly lightly clad, in a
necklace, and a strip of skin round the loins, one of whom was lying on
his chest with his chin resting upon his hands, kicking up his feet, and
clapping them together as he watched the other, who was evidently in a
high state of delight over an old boot.
This boot he had found thrown out in the fenced-in yard at the back of
the cottage, and he was now seated upon a bank trying it on.
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