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.