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 much distressed and really ill; the very horses snorted and sneezed, and showed that the condition of things was no less painful to them than to their masters.

Both at Bultfontein and Dutoitspan these accumulations of the commingled ferruginous and calciferous sand fill the atmosphere to a height of a hundred feet, and involve everything in dim obscurity. Here and there, on both sides, right and left, wherever the gloom would permit me to see, I noticed round and oblong tents, and huts intended for shops, but now closed, built of corrugated iron. Under the fury of the wind, the tent-poles bent, and the ropes were subject to so great a strain that the erections threatened every moment to collapse. Many and many a sheet of the galvanized iron got loose from the roofs or sides of the huts, and creaking in melancholy discord, contributed, as it were, to the gloominess of the surroundings. In many places, too, the pegs that had fastened the tents to the ground had yielded to the pressure, and sheets of canvas were flapping in the air like flags of distress; whilst the only indication of human life was a few dim figures in the background, which on closer inspection proved to be some natives, resting their half-naked bodies after their toil in the diggings.

Truly it was a dreary scene—and I sighed at my dreary prospect.