The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1900-06-14
THE DREARY VELDT.
5ICKENS HEART OF THE BRIT
ISH SOLDIER.
The Desolate Plain of South Africa,
Who're Dustatorms Swallow Up Men
and ALnImaIs and Nature Seems to
BE Dead. "

interested or thinly forested tract of
land, what cowboys would call a
grass country" The higher tracts, |
entirely destitute Of timber, are called
the high veldt; areas thinly covered
with scrub or bush are called the
bush-veldt. The great veldt of the
Transvaal is the HODGE of the Draken-
berg range, whose edge attains a
height at the summit named Mauch
of 8.725 feet.
Mafeking, where Baden-Powell is
now fighting for life and English vic
tory, is in the heart of a veldt upon
which," writes a traveller. there rests
the silence of horror; where there is
always the desolation of drought and
excessive heat" A brief season of the
year comes when this is not so; when
dry torrent beds fill and brief rains
fall. Wild flowers blossom, the grasses
turn from brown to green, the native
birds chirrup shrilly rs they f1utter
from bush to bush. Then the veldt is
a color picture, a plaque of nature,
upon which the eye settles for rest.
So brief are these periods, though, that
men forget them and remember but
the terror of the parched veldt when
the clouds come no more, and the wind
is scorching at midnight, or raw and
cold, and the mirage Of water dances
before the crazed eyes of the beasts.
There is a saying of the Arabs that
"the soil is like fire and the wind like
a fame" Thus it seems to the unwary
traveller caught upon the veldt with
out water and no hope but to fight for
life and gain the too distant ranges.
In January the average temperature at
Durham is "a; in July 81; at Pieter-
m%aritzburg the January average tenn
perature is II and IS in July; at Swell
endam the January temperature is 70
and the July SO. On the veldt the tenn
perature rises in December and Janu-
airy to 100, los and 1903; in July it falls
to IS, 80 and 95. So the English OBJ
servers have determined. The greater
the heat the less water is there to be
found. Streams that were gorging in
June and July are empty in January
and February. The soil cracks with
the baking it receives. The short
grasses lose all vitality and pass
away into powder. Windstorms sweep
over the plain and conceal the trails.
Duststorms form and swallow up men
and animals. These duststorms start
upon apparently the same scientific
basis as do the western eye ones.
They are at first but the size of the
cooked hat of a clown, turning lazily
upon the level. AS they proceed they
gain power and size. The traveller may
see n first as a thin spiral column
reaching from the earth to the sky.
1t leaps Enthusiastically from the ground
and descends again. On the fringe of
it's edge there are faint electric sparks.
When at full strength it descends upon
humans with binding force, filling the
mouth, n~ostrils and ears, choking the
throat, expressing with frightful heat.
The whirlwind is gone almost as quick
as it came. Sometimes there is death
in it's wake, sometimes only a few be-
numbed, dirty people.
The veldt is not uninhabited, for
Africa is the home of more than 1000
different kinds of insects. The ant de-
stroys everything in the shape of wood,
leather or cloth. 1t will attack dis
abled men or beasts, swarm upon them
and leave them picked to the bone. A
fly exists which fatally stings the
horses and cattle. and there are creep
ing things of hideous shape and more
hideous feeling when upon the person.
Only the Hottentot bears their attacks
with equanimity. He calls the veldt
"karroos," which means dry or arid.
He it is, too, who pushes back the
sandy soil and finds beneath the germs
of life that shall give fruit when the
rains return. This soil is ~pervaded
with the roots and fibers of various
plants, which under the influence OF
water give forth the most gorgeous
flowers, yielding the odors of Arabia.
Then come the antelope, the zebra, the
quaggas, the gnus, in countless herds,
and after them those who seek them
for prey-the lion, hyena, panther and
NOpoAu' amman IIL0 10 F1SIp1e every
where for a short period, and then the
heat returns, the death within life, the
dust and the silence. From September
to April the winds blow from the
southeast, and are cold and dry. From
May to September the northwest wind
prevails.
Rolling an Umbrella.