The People Are Burning The Veld All About, And The Lurid Smoke By
Day And Flaming Hill-Sides By Night Are Very Striking.
The ashes
of the Bosh serve as manure for the young grass, which will sprout
in the autumn rains.
Such nights! Such a moon! I walk out after
dark when it is mild and clear, and can read any print by the
moonlight, and see the distant landscape as well as by day.
Old Klein has just sent me a haunch of bok, and the skin and hoofs,
which are pretty.
LETTER VIII
Caledon, Sunday.
You must have fallen into second childhood to think of PRINTING
such rambling hasty scrawls as I write. I never could write a good
letter; and unless I gallop as hard as I can, and don't stop to
think, I can say nothing; so all is confused and unconnected: only
I fancy YOU will be amused by some of my 'impressions'. I have
written to my mother an accurate account of my health. I am
dressed and out of doors never later than six, now the weather
makes it possible. It is surprising how little sleep one wants. I
go to bed at ten and often am up at four.
I made friends here the other day with a lively dried-up little old
Irishman, who came out at seven years old a pauper-boy. He has
made a fortune by 'going on Togt' (German, Tausch), as thus; he
charters two waggons, twelve oxen each, and two Hottentots to each
waggon, leader and driver. The waggons he fills with cotton,
hardware, &c., &c. - an ambulatory village 'shop', - and goes about
fifteen miles a day, on and on, into the far interior, swapping
baftas (calico), punjums (loose trowsers), and voerschitz (cotton
gownpieces), pronounced 'foossy', against oxen and sheep. When all
is gone he swaps his waggons against more oxen and a horse, and he
and his four 'totties' drive home the spoil; and he has doubled or
trebled his venture. En route home, each day they kill a sheep,
and eat it ALL. 'What!' says I; 'the whole?' 'Every bit. I
always take one leg and the liver for myself, and the totties roast
the rest, and melt all the fat and entrails down in an iron pot and
eat it with a wooden spoon.' Je n'en revenais pas. 'What! the
whole leg and liver at one meal?' 'Every bit; ay, and you'd do the
same, ma'am, if you were there.' No bread, no salt, no nothing -
mutton and water. The old fellow was quite poetic and heroic in
describing the joys and perils of Togt. I said I should like to go
too; and he bewailed having settled a year ago in a store at
Swellendam, 'else he'd ha' fitted up a waggon all nice and snug for
me, and shown me what going on togt was like. Nothing like it for
the health, ma'am; and beautiful shooting.' My friend had 700l. in
gold in a carpet bag, without a lock, lying about on the stoep.
'All right; nobody steals money or such like here.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 47 of 73
Words from 23991 to 24519
of 37925
