Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1882-08-05
Price Four Cents.

time to time until the sun, who has been
styled 'the best road maker in Africa, +" rem
ders the soil hard and friable once more. 1t
is true that considerable sums of money are
spent upon the main thoroughfares or post
roads in repairing and improving The more
difficult passes and drifts, but the effects of
this road mending are seldom apparent, and
1t is only when great river is found to be
handsomely bridged that the traveller realizes
the efforts made by the Colonial government
to assist locomotion. Between the principal
centers of population post carts run at in
tervals in the interior not more frequently
than once week, and afford by far the most
rapid If not the safest and most agreeable,
mode of travelling. They are usually two
wheeled carts, drawn by four or six horses,
and containing four or. six persons, besides
mail bags, and a minimum allowance of lug
gage The driver is always a man of skill
and courage, who allows nothing to stop him,
except, perhaps, torrent in full flood,
where he will wait few hours, datna detI,tat
dnanis. The ordinary obstacles of the route
do not check his gallop, and if specially
large boulder, or deep water course, is seen
ahead, he merely turns his head, with a
warning shout to the passengers behind,
"Hold on" The warning will not be neg
lectrd, for experience has probably taught all
who hear him that it will be followed imme-
diately by a shock, which seems for the mo-
ment to have dislocated the spine in several
places, besides infiicting more than one ex-
ternal bruiSe Drowsine5s on post cart is
positively dangerous, and must be stoutly
resisted, but resistance becomes painful if
the journey is continued for many hours, and
impossible if it extends over several days.
To abandon the cart altogether would mean
the detention of week in little township
of the most limited resources as regards Ell
Their instruction or amusement, with the II:
certainty of obtaining a seat in the following
mail cart. Thus the traveller, having under
taken an inland journey in the post cart, is
bound to complete it, and only those in very
vigorous health should attempt anything SO
laborious. In marked contrast to the impa-
tient little post cart, with its galloping horses
and jaded passengers is the great numbering
OK wagon, by means of which locomotion in
South Africa is usually conducted. Drawn,
| each of them. by eight or nine pair of splen-
did oxen, these ships of the desert convey
whole families, with all their furniture and
| their live stock, and are the moving homes
| of these families for weeks and months, as
| they proceed by easy stages, hating where
| water and pasture can be found for their
| oxen Slo WY and steadily they plod along,
carrying with them everything necessary to
their own subsistence, either seeking new
| home in the far interior or perhaps making
| for the nearest township, which Boer fami-
| lies usually visit once a year from mingled
motives of business, pleasure and religion.
| Similar wagons take down wool to the coast
! and carry up into the interior the vast
amount of foreign produce which is there
| consumed. especially at the diamond fields,
| The number of heavily laden wagons always
proceeding up country is quite astonishing.
| They are met in long strings following one
close behind another; they are seen out
| spanned by the roadside in dozens, while
| their draught oxen cover the surrounding
| field; and when the moon shines the entire
night is made hideous by the yeils of Kair
| wagon drivers urging on their teams