The Conquest of the Desert 



a doctor's skill. Isolation — Desolation. No 

 roads, no railways, no telephones, no telegraphs. 

 And these people are our fellow-citizens, and 

 they fall within the Union of South Africa. 

 • .»...« 



I shall now write of a recent tragedy in this 

 Great Lone Land. No words of mine shall 

 embellish this simple, moving story. A young 

 Irish private in the Cape Mounted Police 

 started out from Zwart Modder to his camp at 

 Nakob. He lost his water-bottle — that is all. 

 In the Kalahari, after this, there is nothing 

 more to be said — just leaden silence. True, no 

 man saw him die. But that makes no difference : 

 for his reeling steps, etched on the burning 

 sands, have been all recorded by the faithful 

 desert trackers who followed hard on his spoor, 

 dug his grave at midnight on the dunes, and 

 fired the last salute. It is their wonderful 

 record that we shall read. They did their duty, 

 quickly, travelling day and night. Have we 

 done ours ? 



The history of this tragedy is told by Sub- 

 Inspector Geary, of the Cape Mounted Police, 

 from his own observations, and from the 

 testimony of the native trackers who were sent 

 out to find the spoor. It is dated Zwart 



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