The Fiercest Heart, by Stuart Cloete

The Fiercest Heart, by Stuart Cloete. Fontana Books

The Fiercest Heart, by Stuart Cloete. Fontana Books

In his South Africa novel, The Fiercest Heart, Stuart Cloete tells the story of a trekking Boer familiy during the early 19th century.

Stuart Cloete  

It was dusk. The pale lilac dusk of the African evening. In the distance low red clouds of dust moved towards the kraals and stables. The animals, driven by their herders, were coming in. Horses, cattle, sheep and goats, each according to their kind. But they were still far away and the little world of the farm was wrapped in a blanket of silence, pierced only by the song of a Kaffir maid going to fetch water and, from farther away among the small hills, came the cry of a hunting jackal that was answered by its mate. On the stoep, immovable as a rock among her pot plants, a big woman sat staring at the lilac sky and the moving clouds of dust. They were a mile or more away but she saw into them. Into their very hearts, for she had certain gifts and could see into the hearts of both men and beasts. Into the future too at times, so that it became as real as to-day. She knew which horse would be leading the troop and that the newly foaled brown mare with her blackish colt would be bringing up the rear. She saw into the future too, seeing the colt turn into a dapple grey and then become white like a man with age. His sire was Bloubooi, Francina's pet. She knew the big spotted kapater, the castrated goat standing as high as a small donkey, who led the stupid bastard Kaffir sheep. The sheep, their blotched coats a mixture of hair and wool, their tails fat with the accumulation of nourishment of summer, were her delight, for fat was a luxury. There was little fat to be found on game except about the kidneys and most of the game that had fat, giraffe, zebra and eland, had been killed off in these parts. Of course there were her pigs. She loved her pigs and got much fat from them. Fat for spreading on bread when there was no butter, for making soap and candles, for greasing the axles of the wagons and the barrels of the guns; for cooking, as a base for many of the unguents of her bossiemiddels, medicines made from the wild fruits, leaves and roots she collected in the veld. Some sheep had such large fat tails that they had planks with wheels like little carts fastened to them to keep them off the ground. [...]

This is an excerpt from the book: The Fiercest Heart, by Stuart Cloete.

Title: The Fiercest Heart
Author: Stuart Cloete
Publisher: Fontana Books
3rd impression. London and Glasgow, 1973
Original softcover, 11x18 cm, 317 pages

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