With Methuens Column on an Ambulance Train | Page 6

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 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