Toe in the Water

Henry of the Bushveld

Henry of the Bushveld

In the late 19th Century, a man we now know as Sir Percy Fitzpatrick went out to South Africa to seek his fortune. After struggling to find his feet in a strange and hard land, he found himself driving wagon trains through the bush to take the riches of the interior to the coast. Along the way, he picked up a puppy that was to become the most famous dog in southern Africa. This was the Jock of the Bushveld that gave his name to the book Sir Percy wrote of his adventures, tales of a man and his dog in the wilds of Africa.

Jock was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, a breed that I grew up with and so it was inevitable that the story of his life would be important in my own upbringing, as well as those of countless other children in that part of the world. This was all vividly recalled to me a few days ago when I saw an advertisement on television for Henry rifles.

The Henry rifle plays a minor but significant role in Jock’s story and the name brought the book immediately to my mind. How strange, I thought, that here in America, a firearm manufacturer’s name should bring back such memories of Africa for me. It had never occurred to me that the maker of the old elephant gun of that world would still be in business after all this time.

The name Henry has become a bridge between two worlds separated by 120 years of history. It was a harder and harsher world back then but also a simpler age when there was less time to worry about matters of who can go in which bathroom and what is the correct word for this or for that. We throw away our past at the risk of the future.

So famous in southern Africa did Jock become that a statue of him was erected over his grave on a farm in the lowveld, where most of his adventures took place. That statue has now been moved to Barberton Town Hall in Mpumalanga (formerly known as the Transvaal). This gives some idea of how important he was in the history of South Africa. Not a lot of dogs get statues as memorials.


Word Count: 374