FOX-HUNTING IN BECHUANALAND 115 



sky. The heavens were of that hard pale turquoise 

 blue so well known in Africa. Over on the far 

 Transvaal horizon — to the eastward — lay a few 

 symptoms of thunder-clouds, the forerunners of the 

 summer rains. Yesterday, October 16, was the 

 first day I had seen rain for six months. When 

 trekking in the South Kalahari in April we had 

 had the last of the rain-storms of the hot season, 

 and thereafter, for six long months on end, not one 

 drop of moisture had I seen fall upon the drouthy 

 veldt. Hunting in South Africa is, of course, all 

 the better during the rains, and even the one heavy 

 shower of the day before augured well for improved 

 scenting. Yet the soil was terribly athirst, and 

 crying for much more moisture. 



Our meet was in front of Mr. Newton's house, in 

 the lower part of the town. Some dozen or fifteen 

 men were collected. A few Civil servants ; Mr. 

 Newton, the acting Master, and his wife ; the Crown 

 Prosecutor, now Judge Vincent of Rhodesia; the 

 Administrator's secretary ; a Government surveyor or 

 two ; a well-known advocate, half Dutch, half Scotch- 

 man, a prominent supporter of the Afrikander Bond, 

 whose incessant voice was as irrepressible upon the 

 open veldt as in the court-house and the market- 

 place ; a storekeeper or two ; a Jew canteen-keeper, 

 who had picked up his riding, curiously enough, in 

 the United States army ; a Boer ex-freebooter, who. 



