The Conquest of the Desert 



some shady corner, and called for an iced drink, 

 at the self-same hour that poor Blank, delirious 

 for want of a drop of water, was staggering to 

 his death on the summit of a blazing sand-dune. 

 Is the same tragedy to be repeated next 

 summer ? Down the ages comes the excuse of 

 Cain, " Am I my brother's keeper ? " only to 

 be blotted out by the glowing words of the 

 Apostle to the Romans, " For none of us liveth 

 to himself, and no man dieth to himself." The 

 remedy is as simple as it is urgent. Let us 

 spend at once a few thousand pounds in linking 

 up the water-holes, stores, and police stations 

 along the pathways of Gordonia by means of 

 field telephones. If this has been done over all 

 the comparatively poor Province of German 

 South- West Africa, it can surely be done also 

 in the far richer country of British South Africa. 

 For the telephone will lift the sombre shadow 

 from the Great Thirst Land, and in the sunshine 

 of a new era the first message to be transmitted 

 from the twin capitals * to the lonely settlers 

 along the Kuruman, the Molopo, and the Nosop 

 must be taken from the Book of the Prophet of 

 the Wilderness and the solitary place, " And 

 the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the 



rose." 



1 Cape Town and Pretoria. 

 56 



