A Breath from the Veldt 



141 



As the grass by the river was bad, we intended to make another trek as 

 soon as we got across, so we did not waste much time at the Police Camp, 

 where, after discussing the prospects of game, we got our licences from 

 Sergeant Chawner, a most kind and civil man, who rendered me every assist- 

 ance in his power. Whatever the newspapers may say about the fine climate 

 of Mashonaland, the police at these drifts have a hard time of it in the spring. 

 All of them had been down with fever more or less this year, and Chawner 

 himself was very weak and looking dreadfully ill, poor fellow. All the men 

 who have had much experience in this country tell the same tale — that the 



WAGGONS CROSSING A RIVER 



high plateaux like Buluwayo, Salisbury, and Umtale are healthy at all seasons, 

 provided ordinary care be taken, but that nine-tenths of the rest of the country 

 is quite useless to the white man save for prospecting on the chance of finding 

 another Johannesburg. As we pulled away from the drift a poor fellow was 

 lying under a bush evidently in a dying condition ; he had got fever up in 

 Victoria, and three of his boys had died since starting, owing to their trying 

 to move about too soon after the rains. He pays the price that many a poor 

 fellow has done before in South Africa, throwing away his life for the sake 

 of making an extra trip with a few sovereigns at the end of it. 



Oom's two sons evidently considered that I had done something extra- 

 ordinary in getting them past the river without their detention in prison, or 



