With Methuens Column on an Ambulance Train | Page 7

would not have arrived at the
front with unfailing regularity. As it was, shots were occasionally fired
at the trains, and at one spot we passed a curious incident occurred in
this connection. A patrol suddenly came across a colonist who had
climbed up a telegraph post and was busily engaged in cutting the wires.
"Crack" went a Lee-Metford and the rebel, shot like a sitting bird,
dropped from his perch to the ground. On another occasion we heard a
dull explosion not unlike the boom of a heavy gun, and found a little
later that a culvert had been blown up a few miles ahead of us not far
from Graspan. In short, I do not think that the British public fully
realised the danger threatened by any serious and extensive revolt of
the Dutch colonists. Had the farmers in that vast triangle bounded by
the railway, the coast and the Orange River thrown off their allegiance,
it would have taken many more than 15,000 colonial volunteers to
prevent their mobile commandos from swooping down here and there
along this long line of railway, and utterly destroying our western line
of communication as well as menacing Lord Methuen's forces in the
rear. Whatever may be said or thought of some of Mr. Schreiner's
actions, it is held, and justly held, by level-headed people of both
parties at the Cape, that the continuance in office of the Dutch ministry
has contributed more than anything else to preserve the colony from the
peril of an internal rebellion. For this we cannot be too thankful!
Signs of animal life in the Karroo are few and far between. There are
scarcely any flowers to attract butterflies, and I never saw more than
four or five species of birds. There was one handsome bird, however, as
big as a crow, with black and white plumage--probably the small
bustard (_Eupodotis afroides_)--which occasionally rose from among
the scrub and after a brief flight sank vertically to the ground in a
curious fashion. Sometimes too, at nightfall, a large bird would fly with
a strong harsh note across the stony veldt to the kopjes in the distance.
Of the larger fauna I saw only the springbok. 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.
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. But after all what a place to
die in! Rather a shorter and sweeter life in dear England than a cycle of
Beaufort West!
As we steamed into De Aar the sun had set, and all the ways were
darkened, so, after a vain attempt to take a walk about the camp after
the regulation hour, 9 P.M.--an effort which was checked by the
praiseworthy zeal of the Australian military police--we returned to the
train. Here I was greeted to my amazement by the notes of an anthem,
"I will lay me down in peace," sung very well by our Welsh
ex-choir-boy and two other members of the corps, who nevertheless did
not lay them down in peace or otherwise till the small hours of the
morning.
Next day we rose early, but found that we should have to spend five or
six days at De Aar. This news was not at all pleasant. I have been in
many dreary and uninteresting spots in the world, _e.g._, Aden or
Atbara Camp, but I have never disliked a place as much as I did De Aar.
The whole plain has been cut up by the incessant movement of guns,
transport waggons and troops, and the result is that one is nearly
choked and blinded by the dense clouds of dust. Huge spiral columns
of sand tear across the plain over the tops of the kopjes, carrying with
them scraps of paper and rubbish of all sorts. The irritation produced by
the absorption of this permeating dust into the system militates to some
extent against the rapid recovery of men who suffer from diseases like
dysentery or enteric fever. It travels under doors and through window
sashes, and a patient is obliged, whether he will or no, to swallow a
certain amount of it daily.