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Before us, across the river, there rose from the water's edge first a yellow strip of sandy foreshore, then steep, scrub-covered banks, and then smooth, brown slopes, terminating in the three hills which were to be successively assaulted, and which were surmounted by the dark lines of the Boer forts and trenches. It was like a stage scene viewed from the dress circle.
The marauders had taken all the water-canteens except one which had evidently escaped their notice by being near Mick's head. It contained a little over three gallons! Eighty miles from water, in the heart of the sandy scrub-covered desert in blazing summer weather, with only a canteen half-full of water to serve four men! It is under such circumstances as these that manhood is put to the test.
Ant-like, they passed in continual streams from barges to stacks of boxes, whose size rapidly increased. At length the brigade filed off along the stony beach to the left, halted frequently, while stray bullets passed with a low whirr overhead and out to sea; and turned finally up a deep ravine to the right. On the steep, scrub-covered sides they were ordered to bivouac for the night.
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.
Somewhere in the distance a dog barked; and on the gentle breeze came the song of a hermit thrush, with an undertone of cooing pigeons. The acrid smell of burning leaves was in the air. The river valley ran into the sunset with its bold scrub-covered banks, on the high shoulder of which the railway cut made a deep welt, purple now with evening.
These ranges, such as they are, occur at intervals of a few miles up to thirty or more, and between them scrub-covered plains, sand-plains, or flat stretches of open forest are found. In the deeper undulations, long chains of dry salt-lakes and samphire-flats are met with, occupying a narrow belt, perhaps one hundred miles in length.
The road lay over low scrub-covered sand hills. It was a fair one, with the exception of bad bits, at intervals. The first day's march was a short one, as much time had been lost in getting the carriers together, and loading them up. They halted that evening at Akroful. The place afforded but little accommodation. Five white officers slept together in one small room.
From my place I could see the gully floor, which was the dry bed of a water-course, winding away between high walls of perpendicular cliffs or steep, scrub-covered slopes, as it pursued its journey, like some colossal trench, towards the firing line. Down the great cleft, while I looked, a horseman came riding rapidly.
The chikor is extremely like the ordinary European redleg or Barbary partridge, not only in colouring, but in habit, loving the same dry, scrub-covered country, and preferring, like him, to run rather than fly when pursued. The chikor, however, is certainly far superior in the capacity of what fowl fanciers call "a table bird," being, in fact, truly excellent eating.
The old horse carefully followed a rough bridle track, which ran up the gully now on one side of the watercourse and now on the other; the gully grew deeper and darker, and its sullen, scrub-covered sides rose more steeply as he progressed. The girl glanced round frequently, as though afraid of someone following her. Once she drew rein, and listened to some bush sound.
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