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Beyond Matjesfontein every bridge, and even every culvert, is watched by a Kaffir with a flag, so that the train runs no risk of coming on unexpected demolitions.
Years afterwards I heard she had married and gone to America; it may or may not be so but the rose the rose is in the box still! When my faith in woman grows dim, and it seems that for want of love and magnanimity she can play no part in any future heaven; then the scent of that small withered thing comes back: spring cannot fail us. Matjesfontein, South Africa. Was it Right? Was it Wrong?
You have a single mount and ride about as ground-scout, advance-guard, rear-guard, etc. We had a route-march over the pass through the mountains, a lovely ride, reminding me of the Dordogne. We came out into a beautiful valley the other side, with a camp of some Highlanders: here we fed and watered ourselves and horses and then marched home. My kit turned up from Matjesfontein.
One continually sees half a dozen ostriches stalking solemnly about a huge piece of the veldt, with no farm-house anywhere in sight, and it is difficult to understand how these people contrive to catch their animals. At the lower extremity of the vast Nieuweveld range which shuts in the Karroo on the west lies the little township of Matjesfontein, a veritable oasis in the desert.
The right section to go to Matjesfontein, and the left section, which was mine, to Piquetberg Road. Nobody knew where these places were, but we vaguely gathered that they were somewhere on the line of communications, which, rightly or wrongly, we thought very disappointing.
To his right were three other small British columns under Bethune, Thorneycroft, and Henniker, the latter resting upon the railway at Matjesfontein, and the whole line extending over 120 miles barring the southern path to the invaders.
Between Matjesfontein and the great camp of De Aar there is little to interest or amuse the traveller. The only town which is at all worthy of the name is Beaufort West, nestling amid its trees, a bright patch of colour amid the neutral tints of the hills and surrounding country. Here reside many patients suffering from phthisis, for the air is dry and warm and the rainfall phenomenally small.
A small herd of these graceful little creatures were one evening running about the veldt within 500 yards of the train. On another occasion too, very early in the morning, one of our two Red Cross nurses was startled by the sudden appearance of a large baboon which crept down a gully near Matjesfontein the only one we ever saw.
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