A KARROO FARM. 241 



pool where the water escapes from underground from 

 the dykes higher up. These pools are often brackish, 

 and become undrinkable as drought increases. The 

 river-bed is handsomely margined with a fringe 

 of mimosa trees {Acacia horrida), which mark out 

 plainly for miles along the flat expanse its devious 

 and meandering course. The old Boer house has 

 been enlarged and added to, until there is now an 

 irregular pile of buildings of red Kaffir bricks, 

 concreted with lime and sand — rough casting, as it 

 is called — covering a considerable space of ground. 

 Here dwell our host and hostess and their olive 

 branches, and their tutelary deities. The nearest 

 good school is, perhaps, 150 miles away; and 

 instruction, thorough and systematic, is carried on 

 upon the premises under a careful and accomplished 

 tutor. 



At the front of the dwelling house runs the 

 invariable Cape stoep or raised verandah, which 

 offers a cool and refreshing shade to weary souls. 

 This stoep is partially covered with a handsome 

 vine. Fifty yards in front of the homestead lies a 

 good-sized dam, and in the rear a much larger one, 

 constructed at great cost and with infinite pains. In 

 addition to this main dam, there are, as I have said, 

 others at something like half the out-stations. But 

 besides dam-making on a very large scale, our host, 

 after experiencing disastrous droughts, when even 

 the dams became exhausted by evaporation and by 

 ever-thirsty flocks, turned his ideas to other methods 

 of procuring water. He was the first farmer, I 

 believe, to bore for water beneath the karroo, and 

 now, at a depth of 212 feet, he procures through a 

 two-inch pipe a sufficient supply of the precious 



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