CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. 81 



with books, papers, and numberless lemon-squashes, if 

 lemons happened to be attainable ; I would carry my 

 chair outside, and, as I darned socks or repaired the 

 latest trap-doors torn in our garments by the thorns, 

 would revel in my bath of hot, dry air. 



The dust which the hot wind brings with it is, how- 

 ever, a nuisance. There is more than enough dust at 

 the best of times ; and the difficulties already consider- 

 able of keeping a Karroo house neat and clean, are not 

 lessened by the fact that, ten minutes after a careful 

 progress round the room with that most perfect of 

 dusters, a bunch of ostrich-feathers, you can distinctly 

 sign your name with your finger on the little black 

 writing-table, or make a drawing on the piano. But in 

 a good hot wind you have far more than this average, 

 everyday amount of " matter in the wrong place," and 

 you eat and breathe dust. 



Sometimes the wind carries the dust high up into the 

 air, in straight, solid-looking columns rising from the 

 ground just as a water-spout rises from the sea. An 

 artist wishing to depict the pillar of the cloud going 

 before the Israelites might well take the form of one of 

 them as a model. Occasionally you see two or three of 

 these columns wandering about the veldt in different 

 directions ; and woe betide the imperfectly-built house, 

 or tall wind-mill pump, which has the ill-luck to stand 

 in the path of one of these erratic visitants ! We, alas ! 

 can speak from experience, our own " Stover " mill 

 having been chosen as a victim and whirled aloft to its 

 destruction ! T , while at Kimberley, in the early 



