A Winter Tour in South Africa | Page 8

and sometimes at the farmhouses on our way, we frequently "camped out" on the open veldt, and, after finishing our evening meal of the rough-and-ready provisions we carried with us, supplemented by the game we shot, we wrapped ourselves in our karosses, and slept for the night under the canopy of the starlit sky. I occupied the wagon, my more juvenile companions lying on the ground beneath it.
This was my first experience of sleeping in the open air in a wagon, and this, too, in the depth of a South African winter.
The town of Warrenton is situated on the banks of the Vaal River, and is forty-three miles north of Kimberley. It is at present an unimportant town, but diamond diggings have been recently opened, and it is a good cattle district. It took its name from Sir Charles Warren. Soon after leaving Warrenton we crossed the Vaal River on a pontoon. Here a trooper of the Mounted Police joined us, who was said to be a very crack shot. He rode a charming and well-bred grey horse, and had two admirably trained pointers with him. He offered me his horse to ride, he taking my place in the wagon. I had a most enjoyable morning's ride on one of the best little hacks I ever mounted, cantering over the veldt in the track of the wagon for about eight or ten miles--through a charming country with a superb view towards Bechuanaland, the veldt being more wooded and picturesque, than I had hitherto seen.
We slept that night at Drake's Farm. Before starting the next morning, I had a long conversation with Mr. Drake. He was born and brought up in London, and was in business with the firm of Moses & Son, of Cheapside, as a traveller. He came out here nine years ago with ��10 in his pocket, and travelled up from Port Elizabeth. Mr. Drake is evidently a man of great energy, and perseverance. He has a high opinion of the country, and a great idea of its future. His farm and store are situated on the borders of Bechuanaland; but he now wishes he had settled there, even in preference to where he is. He laughs at the idea of there being no water. He says there is plenty to be found at from seventeen to twenty-five feet below the surface. But he says it must be dug for. If properly irrigated, it is his opinion that thousands and thousands of tons of mealies might be grown. He is enthusiastic about the beauty of Bechuanaland, and spoke of having seen parts of it in which the charms of English scenery are to be found, and even greater attractions than in many gentlemen's parks in the Old Country. His opinion of the climate is very high. He told me he would on no account exchange his present location, with its dry, pure, and bracing air, so healthful, invigorating, and free, for the chill, and damps, and fogs of England. Mr. Drake was in England during the year 1887 (the Jubilee year), but he was glad to get back again to his home on the border of Bechuanaland--a very comfortable one, as I can testify from my own personal experience.
[Illustration: Decorative]

[Illustration: Decorative]
BECHUANALAND.
I was very much struck with the appearance of the country on first entering Bechuanaland. The vast plain, over which I was then riding on horseback, was bounded by low, sloping hills, covered with brushwood and trees. It suggested to me forcibly the idea of a "land of promise," wanting only an intelligent and energetic people to secure its proper and successful development.
In fact, as a field for settlement, I entirely concur with the remarks of Mr. John Mackenzie, who has worked for so many years in Bechuanaland, and who states in his recent work, entitled, "Austral Africa"--
"I come now to give my own thoughts as to the capabilities of Bechuanaland as a field for colonisation. My mind reverts at once to thrifty, and laborious people who are battling for dear-life on some small holding in England or Scotland, and who can barely make ends meet. I do not think that any class of men, or men of any colour, endure such hardships in South Africa. There are portions of Bechuanaland where, in my opinion, a body of some hundreds of agricultural emigrants would, like the Scottish settlers in Baviaan's river, some sixty years ago, take root from the first, and make for themselves homes. If they came in considerable numbers, and accompanied by a minister of religion, and possibly a schoolmaster, the children would not be losers by the change, while the church and school-house would form that centre in South Africa, with which all are familiar in Scotland, and give the people from the first a