THE last day of 



veld was always a day of trial and hard 

 work for man and beast. The Berg 

 stood up before us like an impassable 

 barrier. Looked at from below the 

 prospect was despairing from above, appalling 

 There was no road that the eye could follow. 

 Here and there a broad furrowed streak of red 

 soil straight down some steep grass-covered spur 

 was visible : it looked like a mountain timber- 

 slide or the scour of some tropical storm ; and 

 that was all one could see of it from below. For 

 perhaps a week the towering bulwarks of the High- 

 veld were visible as we toiled along at first only in 

 occasional hazy glimpses, then daily clearer higher 

 and grander, as the great barrier it was. 



After many hard treks through the broken foot- 

 hills, with their rocky sideling slopes and boulder- 

 strewn torrent beds, at last the Berg itself was reached. 

 There, on a flat-topped terrace-like spur where the last 

 outspan was, we took breath, halved our loads, double- 

 spanned, and pulled ourselves together for the last 

 big climb. 

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