South African Memories: Social, Warlike & Sporting from Diaries Written at the TimeWilson, Sarah Isabella Augusta, Lady
History
South African Memories: Social, Warlike & Sporting from Diaries Written at the Time
Wilson, Sarah Isabella Augusta, Lady
South Africa -- Description and travel; South African War, 1899-1902 -- Personal narratives
without breaking down or turning over; in fact, when travelling by road
in Africa, it facilitates matters as much as the employment of a
charwoman oils the wheels in an English household, and it is therefore
as much to be recommended.
We ride for an hour or so with coats tightly buttoned up, blue noses,
and frozen fingers--for the hoar-frost still lingers on the ground--but
the air is delightfully exhilarating, and we know that we shall not have
to complain of the cold long. By degrees the sun makes itself felt, and
we discard first one wrap and then another, till by ten o'clock even
light overcoats are not required. And now it is time to "off-saddle" and
breakfast. The carriers straggle in more or less in the order they left,
but they gladly "dump" down their loads, and before many minutes the
fire is burning and the breakfast frizzling. After breakfast comes the
midday rest of two or three hours, beguiled by some ancient newspapers
or some dust-begrimed book. It is remarkable that, when far away from
home, the date of a newspaper is of little import, while none are voted
dull, and one finds oneself reading the most obscure publications, and
vaguely wondering how or why they reached this distant land. At two
o'clock marching orders come again. This is the hot trek, but there is
generally a cool breeze to temper the fierce rays of the winter's sun;
and when that sun gets low down on to the horizon, and becomes a crimson
ball, tingeing the world with its rosy hue, we look about for our
evening resting-place. During our journey to Kalomo, as well as on our
southward route a month later, we enjoyed the light of a glorious moon,
whose assistance to the traveller cannot be exaggerated when the short
twilight is remembered. By the moon we frequently made our camp, by the
moon we dined. Those were never-to-be-forgotten evenings, spent on that
lonely veldt all bathed in silver light. We also had excitements--much
lions' spoor on the roads by day, many scares of lions round the camps
by night, when the danger is that the horses may be taken while the camp
is asleep. Every evening our animals were put into a "skerm," or high
palisade, constructed of branches by the ubiquitous carriers with
marvellous rapidity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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