A MIXED BAG IN THE ORANGE RIVER COLONY 



HE sun has risen, 

 baas," cried my Zulu 

 servant, Mamba, as he 

 passed a steaming cup 

 of coffee through the 

 fly of my tent, which 

 was pitched in a 

 picturesque spot at the 

 foot of a rugged 

 boulder - strewn kopje, 

 a long day's trek south- 

 east of Bloemfontein. 

 " All right, Mamba, go and awaken Baas de V , 



and prepare breakfast as quickly as possible," was my 

 reply to the native, who, by-the-by, was an excellent 

 camp cook, and when away from civiHsation and do'p 

 (Cape brandy) a good all-round servant enough. 



In spite of a decided twinge of frost in the air, the 

 morning was glorious, and as I left my canvas shelter to 

 take a dip in the neighbouring spruit, the first bright 

 spears of the sun were beginning to appear above the 

 summits of a distant chain of chocolate-brown hills. 

 To the eyes of one fresh from the rural beauties of the 

 old country the scene which lay before me on that bright 

 African morning would doubtless have appeared dreary 

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