448 THE GREAT THIRST LAND. 



although I have met with great kindness wherever I 

 have travelled, I cannot recall one instance of dis- 

 interested generosity that I felt more keenly than that 

 of George Wisbeach. 



Three days took me to Leichtberg. There I took 

 the post-cart to Klerksdorp, leaving the wagon to 

 follow, for my new driver was a careful, steady man. 

 About two o'clock of a bitterly cold morning I took my 

 seat beside the driver, and as we rattled over the velt I 

 heard for the last time the mournful notes of the hyaena, 

 sounds that had for long been familiar to me as the 

 merry laugh of children within the pale of civilisation. 

 At three in the afternoon we halted at Hartebeestfon- 

 tein. Mr. Doherty, the proprietor of one of the stores, 

 insisted on my dining with him, and a grand dinner 

 he gave out of courtesy to me and all my fellow-pas- 

 sengers. At sunset I was again in the cart, and at 

 half -past nine was once more the guest of Mr. Leask. 

 Never appeared people more astonished than they 

 seemed when I walked in among them, for they, as 

 well as the people in Marico, believed that I had been 

 killed. Even in this uninhabited land, how rapidly 

 does Dame Eumour flit about ! 



Klerksdorp is situated on a river more Scottish than 

 African in appearance ; while behind the village rises a 

 rugged stretch of hills, very irregular in outline, and 

 reaching to an elevation of about 1,000 feet. After 

 traversing this ridge, the open velt lies before the 

 traveller, but a totally different velt from that which 

 he finds about Marico, for here all is grass, not a stick 

 or shrub being found on the surface of the plain in 

 fact, so destitute is it of larger vegetation, that, as in 

 the big plains between the Drackenberg and Vaal river, 



