With Methuens Column on an Ambulance Train | Page 7

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. Nevertheless the South African dust does not appear to be so bacillus-laden as, _e.g._, that of Atbara Camp, which, amongst other evil effects, continually produced ulceration in the mouth and throat.
De Aar lies in the centre of a large