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Updated: June 11, 2025
"Ex Africa semper aliquid novi." In the last week of the old year we started on our journey to Kimberley, then a matter of thirty-six hours. The whole of one day we dawdled over the Great Karroo in pelting rain and mist, which reminded one of Scotland.
The break of day found Charlie Considine and Hans Marais galloping lightly over the karroo towards a range of mountains which, on the previous evening, had appeared like a faint line of blue on the horizon. The sun was just rising in a blaze of splendour, giving promise of an oppressive day, when the horsemen topped a ridge beyond which lay the primitive buildings of a frontier farm.
Our travellers remained for two days in the Karroo village, during which they did not suffer much from ennui. They had sufficient employment in mending their travelling equipments; and the delay gave their cattle a chance of recruiting their strength, sadly exhausted by the long toilsome journey just made.
They are most attentive parents, and there is a fitness in this arrangement as regards colour, for the brown female squatted on the brown Karroo is almost invisible in daylight, while the black male is equally invisible during the darkness of the night. "You mustn't come with me," said Johnny, dismounting; "it would only increase the chance of my being seen by David."
Any one who is accustomed in England to the conventional "Saturday to Monday" or the "shooting week" in a country house opens his eyes with wonder when he receives a warm invitation from a colonial to spend a month with him at his house on the Karroo. And such invitations, unlike those which the Oriental traveller receives, are uttered in earnest and meant to be accepted.
Willing to gratify his guests, he further informed them that the Kaffirs had made another attempt to reach the remote kraal in which he now dwelt. They had entered the karroo with a large force well prepared for crossing it, and would probably have succeeded, had they not been led astray.
Some mining will develop on those broad, dry plains and sandy wastes; some agriculture where irrigation is possible; and great wool-growing wherever thrive the nutritious grasses on which 13,000,000 sheep, scattered over the Karroo of Cape Colony, and 4,000,000 in the little Orange Free State, were grazing before the recent war.
Lynette heard the wretched woman's piercing shriek, glimpsed the red umbrella as it reappeared over the sand-crest, comprehended the horrible consternation of mistress and maid. She must signal to them cry out.... Involuntarily she gave the call of the Kaffir herd: the shrill, prolonged ululation that carries from spitzkop to spitzkop across the miles of karroo or high-grass veld between.
They had headed south as if for the Diamond Mines, and we were trekking west...." There was a slight hesitation, and her lashes flickered, then she took up her story. "Perhaps we were a hundred and fifty miles from Gueldersdorp, perhaps more, when we came upon what we believed at first to be the dead body of a young girl, almost a child, lying among the karroo bush, face downwards, upon the sand.
"You've failed, I see," remarked my friend Jonathan Hobson in a sympathetic tone. Ah! what a blessed thing is sympathy! "Yes," said I; "my shots fell short." "Don't let that discourage you," returned Jonathan, "you're not used to the Karroo. Distance is very deceptive. Sighting one's rifle is the chief difficulty in these regions, but you'll soon come to it."
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