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It is a wild country, scrub-covered, antelope-haunted plains rising into desolate hills, but there are many kloofs and valleys with rich water meadows and lush grazings, which formed natural granaries and depots for the enemy. Here the Boer government continued to exist, and here, screened by their mountains, they were able to organise the continuation of the struggle.
The harried Boers moved a hundred miles north to Rustenburg, followed by Methuen, Fetherstonhaugh, Hamilton, Kekewich, and Allenby, who found the commandos of De la Rey and Kemp to be scattering in front of them and hiding in the kloofs and dongas, whence in the early days of September no less than two hundred were extracted.
Miss Blake was very fond of flowers, and on the hills around the mission, watsonias, purple orchids, and other flowers grew; whilst on the edges of the kloofs, sweet-scented clematis trailed. Samuel got into the habit of gathering flowers generally on Saturday afternoons, when he was free from duty. After one of his rambles, a bouquet would generally be sent to each of the teachers and to Mrs.
I used to know the spot well; it is where one of the numerous wooden kloofs that scar the mountain slopes ends on a grassy plain of turf, short but very sweet. This plain is not much more than five hundred paces wide, for it is bordered by the cliff, that just here is not very high, against which the sea beats at full tide.
The Volunteers do their work neatly, coolly, quickly, to the chagrin of Boers who wait in kloofs beyond Klip River for a chance of carrying off some valuable horses. In their disappointment the Bulwaan battery tries to get some consolation by shelling the camp of the Carbineers.
The country became wilder, the signs of life miserably sparse; about every twenty miles the farmhouse or hut of a degenerate Boer, whose children and slaves pigged together, and all ran jostling, and the mistress screamed in her shrill Dutch, and the Hottentots all chirped together, and confusion reigned for want of method: often they went miles, and saw nothing but a hut or two, with a nude Hottentot eating flesh, burnt a little, but not cooked, at the door; and the kloofs became deeper and more turbid, and Phoebe was in an agony about her salt, and Christopher advised her to break it in big lumps, and hang it all about the wagon in sacks; and she did, and Ucatella said profoundly, "My child is wise;" and they began to draw near home, and Phoebe to fidget; and she said to Christopher, "Oh, dear!
In spite of the tremendous fire, some of the soldiers tried to make their way along it, but were recalled; for they were deprived of the support of the artillery that should have covered their passage, had no hope of Hart bringing his brigade round to clear the enemy out from the kloofs on the opposite side, and but little of aid from Lyttleton, who had been obliged to move farther to the left to lend assistance to Hart.
Moreover, here again we had no evidence against the man except that of a simple black fellow, who would never have been believed, for, in fact, no attack was made upon us, while that upon Sihamba might very well have been the work of some of the low Kaffirs that haunt the kloofs, runaway slaves, and other rascals who desired to steal the fine horse upon which she rode.
Other parties were sent out to cut wood and reeds, which they had to carry into camp, sometimes two or three miles, on their shoulders, while some were despatched into the kloofs to hunt, provisions having by that time grown scarce.
The Kloofs or ravines are the most remarkable features of this country: in some places the sides rise perpendicularly, like gigantic walls, the breadth varying from one hundred yards to half a mile; in others cliffs and scaurs, sapped at their foundations, encumber the bed, and not unfrequently a broad band of white sand stretches between two fringes of emerald green, delightful to look upon after the bare and ghastly basalt of Southern Arabia.
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