In the opening chapter of Jules Verne's novel, Measuring a Meridean: The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa, first published in 1874, a spectacular landscape on the banks of the Orange River is unveiled. Amidst insurmountable rocks, imposing masses of stones, deep caverns, impenetrable forests not yet disturbed by the settler's axe, two men gaze down into a gulf from which arises a deafening roar, increased and varied by the echoes of the valley. Drawn into this part of South Africa by the chances of an exploration, the men are waiting for the arrival of a steamboat containing the rest of their party. Verne's narrator reports that only one adventurer lends a vague attention to the beauties of nature that were opened to his view. This indifferent traveler is “a hunting bushman,” “a fine type of that brave, bright eyed, rapidly-gesticulating race of men, who lead a wandering life in the woods.”

After relaying the origin of the name “Bushman” (“a word derived from the Dutch ‘Bochjesman’”), noting the “cleanness, ease and freedom of his movement,” and the war with “overbearing colonists,” we are told that he is “a man cast in the same mould as the celebrated ‘Leather-stocking.’”