Veldt

“ So then get ready; the veldt is dry, and you will probably have to travel for a few days without any water. We must make peace with Lion and his subjects, otherwise we utterly perish this year. And he must help us to trek over to the other river, especially past the Boer's farm that lies in between, and to travel unmolested by any of the animals of the veldt, so long as the trek lasts. A fish on land is sometimes a very helpless thing, as you all know." The two had it mighty hard in the burning sun, and on the dry veldt, but eventually they reached Lion and handed him the treaty. ”

“ The veldt is a void to us, all darkness, and it hides a threat which, as it may fall anywhere, must be guarded against everywhere. This, what with all our garrisons and enormous lines of communication, means that the far greater part of our army has to act on the defensive; to sit still waiting for an enemy who may be a hundred miles off or behind the next hill. As for our wandering columns, they have about as much chance of catching Boers on the veldt as a Lord Mayor's procession would have of catching a highwayman on Hounslow Heath. ”

“ The guns took up their position to the left of the column, the hundred men lying in extended order across the veldt. Before us there was the ridge of rising veldt and scrub, and so we rested, fretting with curious impatience at the signs of life which began to animate the enemy's camp. When we stood up we could see the dull white of their waggons bent in position for their laager; we could see the fires within, we could hear in the still silence of early dawn the chopping of wood as the axe fell upon the logs. ”

“ Five years had passed since that memorable day when James Laverton saved Piet Voest from drowning. Though they had made but little change in that quiet farm on the veldt, in the great world outside unmistakable signs of an approaching storm were to be observed. Mysterious strangers were continually passing to and fro among the Dutch farmers, circulating seditious literature, and reminding their hearers of the ties of blood that existed between themselves and the Transvaal, and also of the victories of '81. ”

“ Yet in the last few days, luck had turned; they had stumbled by chance upon a veldt thick with elephants; they had slain three yesterday and were now hot upon the spoor of an immense troop, which on the coming morning they hoped to attack.
At seven o’clock, having supped and smoked their pipes, they turned into their waggons and slept. Hunters, and especially Dutch hunters, rise early, and seek their kartels betimes, after a hard day in the veldt. ”

“ Not, be it observed, for his master’s stable, where excellent quarters and plenteousness of mealies and forage awaited, and which in point of distance was the nearer, they having covered more than half of the journey. Oh no; but back to the camp, back to the scene of his recent hard work, patrols, and scantiness of feed beyond that wherewith Nature had covered the veldt. An intelligent beast, in truth! Nor was he a phenomenal specimen of his kind.
Roden Musgrave, watching his steed vanishing in the distance, followed, we fear, the example of the British army in Flanders. ”

“ The scenery around was savage and desolate; long feathery grass covered the veldt for miles upon miles. The chief features in it were some blue gum trees, and on a koppie, or little eminence, the deserted ruins of a Boer farm under the shadow of a clump of eucalyptus trees; and in the foreground were some bustards and blue Kaffir cranes by the river bank.
Short service and disease had given Florian rapid promotion; for our soldiers, if brave, had no longer the power of manly endurance of their predecessors under the old system. ”

“ Here, after having passed a whole month in the wilderness of the low veldt, with its destructive climate, it was as though we began a new life, as if we had come back to civilisation. We again saw white men's dwellings, cultivated green fields, flocks of grazing sheep, and herds of sleek cows.
The inhabitants of the country were not a little surprised, not to say alarmed, to find, early one Sunday morning, a big laager occupying the plateau. A Boer laager always looks twice as large as it really is when seen from a little distance. ”

“ It is a strange wild place, the veldt, with its vast green plains and peculiar flat-topped hills, relics of some extraordinary geological episode. It is poor pasture—a sheep to two acres—so it must always be sparsely inhabited. Little white farms, each with its eucalyptus grove and its dam, were scattered over it. When we crossed the Free State border by a makeshift bridge, beside the ruins of the old one, we noticed that many of these little houses were flying the white flag. Every one seemed very good-humoured, burghers and soldiers alike, but the guerilla war afterwards altered all that. ”

“ In an incredibly short space of time all is ready, and the veldt is alive with horsemen, hastening to make their way to the scene of operations. Opposite—across the ravine—the Dutch troop, about three hundred men, is hurrying forward; while beyond them some eight hundred Fingoes, marching in four columns, advance no less rapidly, chanting their war-song in a deep bass, and the sun gleams upon the gun-barrels and assegai blades ”

“ The worst of hunting with these married Dutchmen is that, after about six months in the veldt, away from their wives and ‘kinder,’ they are always fidgetting to be off home again. There never were such uxorious chaps in this world, I do believe. Get a Britisher, married though he be, once away in the veldt, and the passion for travel and adventure fairly lays hold of him—it’s in the blood—and he’ll stay out with you, knocking about, for a couple of years if you like. ”

“ Jack shook his head; and the Boer officer went on—
"Have you been serving against us in the field?"
"I am not a soldier," answered Jack. "I am a settler's son. All that we desire is peace; we want nothing more."
The veldt-cornet laughed as he said, "There will soon be peace, boy, when all the rooineks have been kicked into the sea. You are wounded, I see. Where did you receive your wound? In a fight?" ”

“ Silent as they are, every faculty is awake, ears open for the smallest sound, eyes strained through the far gloom where lies the British camp.
Hour upon hour has gone by like this, but most of these are men who live the life of the veldt, whose trained eyesight is well-nigh cat-like on such a night as this. They have measured the ground, too, and so disposed matters that they know within a yard and to a minute exactly where and when to open fire upon the advancing British whom their trustworthy emissaries shall guide into sure and wholesale destruction. ”

“ We delivered our dispatches, and were getting ready for a gallop over the quarter mile of veldt, when, pom, pom, pom, pom, came a dozen one-pounders a few yards away right across our track. It made our hearts sit very close to our ribs, but there was nothing for it but to take our horses by the head, drive the spurs home, and ride as if we were rounding up wild cattle. I want it to stand on record that I was not the last man across that strip of veldt. There was not much incident in the day's fighting; there seldom is in an artillery duel, carried on by men who know the game, in hilly country. ”

“ He promises me the half of all ivory shot, and will find spoorers and show me his best veldt and give me every help. Twice before has Ndala sent to me thus, and once to my father in years gone by. I believe it is a splendid hunting veldt. Elephants as thick as pallah in river bush, thousands of buffalo, plenty of rhenoster and lots of other game. We ought, with luck, to pick up four hundred pounds worth of ivory. And so, wife, we’ll pack the waggon, get more powder and cartridges at the Lake and trek up to Ndala’s. ”

“ It was in praise of De Wet, who in spite of his blue spectacles, seemed by far the most clear-sighted of all the Boer generals, and who, notwithstanding his illiteracy, was beyond all others well versed in the bewildering ways of the veldt. He apparently had no skill for the conducting of set battles, but for ambushing convoys, for capturing isolated detachments, for wrecking trains, and for himself eluding capture when fairly ringed round with keen pursuers beyond all counting, few could rival him. ”

“ The African sun, particularly upon the veldt, is not to be trifled with, and those who walk bareheaded in its rays must be prepared to pay the penalty of their folly. Seated on their horses, looking down at him, were a girl and boy of about his own age—that is to say, between thirteen and fifteen. ”

“ The naval gun remained on the ridge all night, and defined the extreme left of the next day's battle-ground. This ground extended from the railway where the gun stood, across the veldt to the river and along its northern bank for two miles, or about four miles from the railway to near the Kimberley road. It was covered—ridges and level veldt alike—with bushes, or shapely little trees from four to seven feet high, of round, full form, and pretty dense foliage. In such a veldt as this the Boers had two miles of trenches in front of their strongly fortified heights, well packed with riflemen. ”

“ I daresay you have often read that the veldt is burnt by the Boers, to make our khaki visible on the black ground. More often than not a veldt fire is caused by accident, not design, a carelessly-dropped match doing the trick. As regards showing up our khaki, it is bad for dismounted fellows, but for the mounted men preferable to the sun-dried grass, for as nearly all our horses are bays, roans, chestnuts or blacks, they show up terribly on unburnt stuff and are almost invisible on the burnt. ”

“ My pony would come to a sudden stop on the rim of a great precipice and thousands of feet below I would see the Valley of Reeds with the settlement that meant home. The high veldt breaks off abruptly, as though cut with a giant knife, exactly like parts of the Grand Cañon of the Colorado in America. Since the beginning of time the little rivers of Rietvlei have worn down the veldt until they have hollowed out thousands and thousands of acres. From the cool high veldt to the fertile green Valley of Reeds is a wonderful change, and it takes a full hour to climb down the winding trail. ”

“ The lonely sentinel on the wide veldt experiences many a nerve-shaking terror in the still night hours, knowing as he does that he is surrounded by subtle foes, accustomed to find sufficient shelter in any scrap of scrub or stone. ”

“ The section of Christian Uys's commando, now split into several parts, which had unceremoniously thrust itself upon the master of the Kopje Farm, was under the command of a veldt-farmer named Maestral, whose hatred against the British was of a very pronounced type. ”

“ I cannot say,” returned the Boer. “I thought it was a lion. It is no lion, surely; it may be a baboon.”
They sat waiting, listening intently, for another ten minutes. Then Hermannus sprang to his feet. “Whatever it was,” he exclaimed, “the thing is dead. I shall see what it is.”
He plucked a big brand from the fire, and, grasping his rifle, stepped forward. His father followed his example, and with great caution they moved out beyond the flickering circle of the firelight. Thirty paces away their torches showed them something. It rested on the veldt there, silent, completely motionless. ”

“ Scarcely have we gone 100 metres with them before we are stopped by a battery, which opens fire upon us. The English form a semicircle round us. The situation is serious. We make off across the Veldt, towards the east, till far on in the night. We sleep on the ground, keeping a sharp look-out. ”

“ Far away on our left flank the enemy hold the heights, and watch us moving outward, whilst between them and us, stretching mile after mile in a line with our column, ripples a line of scarlet flame, for the foe has fired the veldt to starve the transit mules, horses, and oxen. Like a sword unsheathed in the sunlight, the flames sparkle amidst the grass, which grows knee-deep right to the kopje's very lips. Birds rise on the wing with harsh, resonant cries, flutter awhile above their ravished homes, then wheel in mid-air and seek more peaceful pastures. ”

“ A shimmer of heat lay upon the wide valley, and all the life of the veldt was astir—bird voices calling far and near, the melodious hoot of the hoepoe from the distance, the quaint, half-whistling, half-rasping dialogue of a pair of yellow thrushes hard by, or the bold cheery pipe of sheeny-winged spreuws flashing among the bush sprays. Insect sounds, too; the bass boom of some big beetle rising above the murmuring hum of bees, and the screech of innumerable crickets. ”

“ I therefore wrote to one of the meat contractors, whom I personally knew as a man of specially good repute, and in reply was informed that (p. 255) for seven months he had regularly supplied the refugee camp in his neighbourhood with fresh beef as well as mutton, neither being always prime, he said, but the best that in war time the veldt could be made to yield! Those who hunt for grievances at a time like this can always find them, though when weighed in the balances they may perchance prove even lighter than Transvaal sheep. ”

“ While we were having dinner the patrol returned from Taungs, having cut the wire north and south and destroyed the instrument. They found the village empty except for women.
Encounters with insurgents are often amusing, although amongst them they have so far afforded natives of all our three kingdoms reason for shame. Here is something quite typical. [Pg 223]
Scene: The veldt road. Enter very slowly from the north, an ox-waggon. Enter from the south, a cloud of dust, out of which emerges the Mounted Advance Guard of the column. They meet, and halt. ”