With Methuens Column on an Ambulance Train | Page 6

hundreds
of acres which with a little care and outlay would grow excellent crops
are still unproductive.
Soon after leaving Worcester the line rises by steep gradients nearly
2,500 feet. Right in front the Hex River Mountains extend like a vast
barrier across the line and seem to defy the approaching train. But
engineering skill has here contrived to surmount all the obstacles set up
by Nature. The train goes waltzing round the most striking curves,
some of them almost elliptical. Tremendous gradients lead through
tunnels and over bridges, and the swerving carriages run often in
alarming proximity to the edge of precipitous ravines. What a splendid
position for defensive purposes! Had the present war been declared
three weeks earlier De Aar would have been quite unable to stand
against the Boers, and thus the enemy might with his amazing mobility
have made a swift descent along the railway and occupied the Hex
River pass. Out of this position not all the Queen's horses and all the
Queen's men would have dislodged him without enormous loss. With
the armed support of all the Dutch farmers from Worcester to the
Orange River, a Boer occupation of this strong position would have
been a terrible menace to Capetown itself. As it is, shots are
occasionally fired at trains as they run northward from Worcester, and
as a few pounds of dynamite would wreck portions of the Hex River
line for weeks the government patrols in this locality cannot be too
careful.
Our first passage through the Karroo was by night, but during the busy
days of service which followed we frequently saw this dreary expanse
of desert in daylight. Some mysterious charm, hidden from the eyes of
the unsympathetic tourist, dwells in the Karroo. The country folk who
inhabit these vast plains all agree that to live in them is to love them.
Children speak of the kopjes as if they were living playmates, and
farmers grow so deeply attached to their waggons and ox teams that Sir
Owen Lanyon's forcible seizure of one in distraint for taxes appeared a

kind of sacrilege in the eyes of the Boers.
At times nothing can be more unlovely than the stony, barren
wilderness of the Karroo. The Sudan desert with its rocky hills and the
broad Nile between the yellow banks is infinitely more picturesque
than this vast South African plain. Still, at certain periods of the day
and year the Karroo becomes less forbidding to the view. Sometimes
after heavy rain the whole country is covered with a bright green carpet,
but in summer, and, indeed, most of the year, the short scrub which
here takes the place of grass is sombre in tint. Nevertheless cattle
devour these apparently withered shrubs with avidity and thrive upon
them. Again, when the warm tints of the setting sun flood the whole
expanse of desert, there is a short-lived beauty in the rugged kopjes
with all their fantastic outlines sharply silhouetted against the glowing
sky. The farms on the Karroo, and, in fact, generally throughout the
more northern parts of the colony, are of surprising size. It is quite
common to find a Dutchman farming some 10,000 acres. Arable land
in the Karroo is of course very rare, and one would think that the
"Ooms" and the "Tantas" and their young hopefuls would have their
time fully occupied even in keeping their large herds and flocks within
bounds. 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. Here lies the body of the gallant Wauchope who
perished in the disastrous attack on the Magersfontein trenches. The
whole line north of this point was patrolled by colonial volunteers,
amongst whom I noticed especially the Duke of Edinburgh's Rifles,
with gay ribbons round their "smasher" hats. Nothing could be less
exciting or interesting than their monotonous routine of work. We
continually came across a little band of, say, twenty or thirty men and a
couple of officers stationed near some culvert or bridge. Their tents
were pitched on a bit of stony ground, with not a trace of vegetation
near it, and here they stayed for months together, half dead from the
boredom of their existence. Nevertheless such work was quite essential
to the success of the campaign, for the attitude of the Dutch colonists

up-country has been throughout the war an uncertain factor, and if
these long lines of communication had been left unprotected it is more
than likely that our "Tommies'" supplies