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CHAPTER II

THE VELDT

in the Friend at Bloemfontein, during the short but brilliant existence of that journal as a 'commandeered' newspaper, under the editorial direction of several of the war correspondents, a contributor described the veldt as 'inexpressible'. And, if you come to think of it, that is just about what it is.

Lonely, mournful, wild, mysterious all the adjectives you may care to lavish upon it, and something besides that you are not able to say. There is some key-note to it all which is hard to find something subtle, vague, half-hidden. Lonely it is; terribly lonely in its great distances, its broad stretches of level plain, or rolling downs, without habitation. Mysterious, in its mile upon mile of changeless characteristic, its very duplication of itself. Mournful, in its apparent emptiness of most that makes a country prosperous. Wild, in its half-savage black population, and its almost as half-savage white one. It is beautiful or hideous, sad or bright in the sunshine, as the mood takes you, but always, even unto the worst of its re-