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Updated: May 11, 2025
To start for the hunting-field at seven in the morning in a carriage and six, smacks of royalty and sounds luxurious, but in South Africa there are drawbacks connected therewith. Hobson's farm is, as I have said, on the Karroo those vast plains which at some seasons resemble a sandy desert, and at others are covered with rich verdure and gorgeous flowers.
The features of the landscape changed continually from dark jungle to rich park-like scenery, embellished with graceful clumps of evergreens, and from that again to the sterility of savage mountains or parched and desert plains. Sometimes they plodded wearily over the karroo for twenty miles or more at a stretch without seeing a drop of water.
Had their object been to stalk any other species of animal, they would have advanced upon it from the leeward. Before they had gone a great way over the karroo, five huge bipeds were seen about a mile away. They were ostriches. They were apparently coming towards them with great speed, and the four hunters extended their line to cut off an advance which the stupid bird mistakes for a retreat.
The Karroo is not an animal. It is a spot at present a lovely spot. I am surrounded by by nature and all her southern abundance. Mimosa trees, prickly pears, and aloes remind me that I am not in England. Ostriches, stalking on the plains, tell that I am in Africa. I must not forestall. Let me begin at the beginning.
They lost some of their fire, however, as he gazed round on the hot plain which undulated like the great ocean to the horizon, where a line of blue indicated mountains. The truth is that Charlie Considine was lost utterly lost on the karroo! That his horse was in the same lost condition became apparent from its stopping without orders and looking round languidly with a sigh.
I mention this, not because it is an interesting incident, but because it is a feature of South African travel. Wherever you go on the Karroo, there you will find the rotting remains of poor creatures, which, having "died in harness," are cast loose for the benefit of the vultures. These ill-looking and disgusting birds are most useful scavengers.
His cravat, of a lively green, patterned with yellow rockets, warred with his tallowy complexion; his drab-coloured hair hung in clumps; he was growing a beard that sprouted in reddish tufts from the tough hide of his jaws, leaving bare patches between, like the karroo.
"So you like the study of French?" said Charlie Considine, as he sat one morning beside Bertha Marais in the porch of her father's dwelling. "Yes, very much," answered the girl. She said no more, but she thought, "Especially when I am taught it by such a kind, painstaking teacher as you." "And you like to live in the wild karroo?" asked the youth.
They had discovered the art of living in peace and happiness, and were making the most of the discovery. From what they were told by the villagers, our travellers could not expect to get out of the karroo in less than two days, and no water could be obtained along the route.
For the train was speeding when not slowing through the identical desert of which Pringle sang; that heart-breaking, dead-level, waterless, treeless belt known as the Karroo.
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