A Breath from the Veldt loi 



native woman goes away swearing at you and your injustice, you may be sure 

 you have made a fair and honest deal with her, but if she leaves quickly 

 without resorting to strong language, you may be equally sure that she has 

 done you. 



There are many white-necked crows here. During the day they come in 

 parties and search the great plain of the bush veldt, trekking back in the 

 evening, in a string, to the Zoutpansberg Mountains, where they roost at night. 

 " Tante " (Oom Roelef 's wife) makes wonderful ovens by digging holes in the 

 river bank wherein to bake her bread. She is a good old soul, and sends over 

 to my waggon a contribution of all that she makes. Dutch cookery, however, 

 to say the best of it, hardly agrees with English stomachs, and however 

 hungry I may be, I find it impossible to enjoy her compositions. The fat and 

 grease with which they are freely interlarded are particularly objectionable in 

 a hot climate, and the dishes she sends over are none the more appetising from 

 being chilled in transit from their waggons to my own. Still it would be 

 fatal to my friendship with Oom and his wife if I refused their proffered gifts ; 

 so I receive them, as I am expected to do, with every manifestation of delight, 

 feeling all the time what a miserable humbug I am, and how shocked the 

 old lady would be if she knew what became of her presents ! My Dutch 

 companions, in return, hate the grilled partridges and khoorhans which I cook 

 myself, designating them " raw flesh." According to Teenie, mealie meal has 

 a marvellous fattening eifect on dogs, as illustrated in the obese condition of 

 my two pointers, though in regular work ; but I rather think the rotundity of 

 my dogs is due to some other food that, out of consideration for himself and 

 his friends, I refrain from mentioning. 



i^th May. — We have now passed Pietersberg, the last town in the 

 Transvaal, and are on the high veldt again, where the nights are bitterly cold. 

 The country is more or less bare of bush, and the ant-heaps gradually become 

 larger as we advance northward. Two days ago we caught up the De 

 Mervelles, the Basadanotes, and Daniel Erasmus, who are amongst the few 

 Dutch hunters who now trek every year from the Transvaal into the northern 

 hunting-grounds ; for now that the elephants are nearly gone, hunting afix)rds 

 but a poor and precarious mode of existence, and all these poor fellows are, like 

 Van Staden, on the verge of beggary. They have lung-sickness amongst their 

 oxen, so we do not camp near them, though they are travelling with us as far 

 as the Limpopo. This morning Hert (Oom's second step-son) rode over to 

 say good-bye to his best girl, the daughter of a hunter, and now on the eve of 



