JANUARY 77 



they are in a position to make anyone else labour for them. Our 

 work consisted principally in building sod walls, making bricks, 

 .id cutting hay with a machine. 



The bricks were heavy enough, but it was the wall-building 

 that exhausted me, as those awful sods never seemed to weigh less 

 than half a hundredweight and there was an infinite supply of 

 them. In fact, sod-walling knocked me up, and this I attribute 

 to the fact that I worked too hard through want of training to the 

 game. An ordinary labourer no stronger than I was would have 

 placed sods all day without feeling more than comfortably tired at 

 the end of it, but he would have placed them more slowly. Mine 

 was the old mistake of trop de zele. 



Grass-cutting was the lightest work of these various pastoral 

 occupations, although in Africa even grass-cutting has its risks. 

 Our custom was to yoke four oxen on to the machine. This team 

 was led by my partner, while I sat on the seat and managed the 

 lever that lifts the knives an anxious task, for the flat top of the 

 mountain where we cut the hay was peppered over with large stones 

 which, if struck full by the knife-sheaths, might have smashed 

 the machine a valuable thing in those days all to fragments. 

 The stones, however, were not so bad as the ant-bear holes, which 

 in some cases it was impossible to see, although very often they 

 were several feet in diameter. Into these from time to time one 

 of the iron wheels would fall with a bump, and then the problem 

 was for the operator to prevent himself from being thrown off the 

 seat on to the knives and hacked to pieces by them. 



Once cut, the process of haymaking was simple. We never 

 attempted to turn the grass, but left it to dry for a day in the hot 

 sun. Then, as we lacked carts, by the help of a horse-rake of our 

 own manufacture we dragged the stuff into large cocks about the 

 size of a Kaffir hut, and covered it with old waggon-cloths. In this 

 way, as the grass was plentiful and we worked hard, on one occa- 

 sion we made in about three weeks a bulk of hay which we sold to 

 the Commissariat for over 2oo/. ; for, as a war was in progress at 

 the time, fodder was in considerable demand. This proved the 



