CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. 93 



were washed last night. Truly an Augean stable is this 

 first room ; and the sight of its horrors by daylio^ht 

 makes me wonder how by any possibility it can ever 

 again be fit for human habitation. The water with 

 which the bed has been deluged was no clear crystal 

 stream — far from it — and pillows, sheets, and counter- 

 pane are of a rich brown hue ; so are the toilet table 

 and the once pretty window-curtains of blue-and-white 

 Madras muslin, which now look melancholy indeed as 

 they hang down, straight and limp, from their cornice. 

 In fact, hardly anything in the room can boast of 

 having remained perfectly dry and clean ; and the 

 floor is a pool of dirty water several inches deep. It 

 all looks hopeless ; but we refuse to be daunted, and set 

 to work with a will ; things dry quickly in such a sun 

 as is now shining brightly outside ; the mud is " clean " 

 mud, too, and does not stain or spoil so irretrievably as 

 that of most other places. A Falstaffian bundle is made 

 up for the wash, which will keep a Kaffir hard at work 

 for two good days turning the washing-machine ; a 

 viororous scrubbincv and " swabbino^ of decks " oroes on 

 indoors ; and by the time the gentlemen return to lunch, 

 in the best of spirits, and reporting the dam safe and 

 splendidly full, things have already assumed a brighter 



aspect. T spends the afternoon in repairing the 



roof, and I walk about the house with a long broom, 

 poking and tapping the ceilings to indicate to him the 

 defective spots ; he does the work far better than it 

 was originally done by the builder of the house, and 

 never afterwards do we have so bad a deluofe. 



