48 



A Breath from the Veldt 



the hideous costume of the " Hallelujah Lass " could hide. I saw her there, 

 selling the War Cry, and am bound to say a more lovely face and figure 

 have seldom crossed my path. A right modest girl too, to all appearance, 

 with a sweet supplicating manner that melted the hearts of the sternest men 

 among them. It was amusing to watch her as she walked along the stoep 

 of my hotel, and took one man after another captive by the charm of her 

 looks and manner. Nobody wanted her wares, or cared twopence about the 

 " Army," but nobody, not even the hardest city man, could refrain from 

 shelling out the " tickie " (3d. bit) when once her eyes met his. Nor did any 

 one dream of offering her an insult. Rather, perhaps, she brought to many in 

 the throng a glad reminder of some one at home, that for a moment woke into 

 tenderness hearts long hardened by the baneful influences of the place ; for 

 here disappointed hopes and crushed ambitions are plainly written on the faces 

 of half the men one meets. It is pitiable to see them, many of them clever 

 fellows and gentlemen in every sense of the word, yet here they are without a 

 sou in their pockets or the possibility of a dinner, unless lucky enough to earn 

 the money by some menial work that they would be ashamed to undertake at 

 home. Specious advertisements and newspaper puffs have much to answer for 

 in this way. The sound of the " Golden City " may also have its attractions 

 in some ears ; but in sober truth it is " golden " only to the lucky ones of the 

 earth whom fortune favours here as elsewhere. For the rest it is in most 

 cases a Slough of Despond. 



And now, back to our waggon and the happier life that lies before us. 

 Trekking over the high veldt is neither interesting nor amusing. Nothing but 

 great waving plains and undulating uplands meet the eye. Birds are few, other 

 animals nowhere ; and though now and then the harsh note of the khoorhans 

 or South African bustards may be heard afar off, they are here far too shy and 

 retiring in their habits to offer a shot, except when taken unawares. For a 

 whole week we journey steadily on, doing fifteen miles at a stretch in the early 

 morning, and sometimes fifteen more in the evening, the tedium of the march 

 relieved only by our passage through the Blessbok Lacter, a mud-swamp about 

 sixty miles east of Johannesburg. Here we must inevitably have stuck fast but 

 for the combined exertions of Jap and Landsberg (or " Teenie," as I now called 

 him), who for about an hour applied their whips to the oxen with a vigour 

 and persistence hardly excelled by the mosquitoes who invaded our tent later 

 on and did their best to keep us awake all night. 



But here I must break off again, to give some account of the birds we are 



