Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1900-09-27
FIRE ON THE VELDT.
SCENE OF TERROR ON SOUTH
AFRICAN PLAINS.
FLAMES Race Through the Tall Grass,
Destroying Homes of Whites, Natives
and Dumb Beasts-Wreck and Desc
latiOn All that Is Left Behind.

Far away on our left flank the enemy
hold the heights and watch us moving
outward, while between them and us,
stretching mile after mile in line with
our column, ripples line OF scarlet
fame, for the foe has fired the veldt
to starve the transit mules, horses and
oxen. Like a sword unsheathed in the
sunlight, the flames sparkle amid the
grass which grows knee deep right to
the kopje's very lips. Birds rise on
the wing with harsh, resonant cries,
futter a while above their ravished
home, then wheel in midair and seek
more peaceful pastures. Hares spring
up before the cracking flames quite
reach their forms and, like gray
streaks in soldiers beard, fash sud-
denly into view and as suddenly dis
appear again. Here and there grace
full springbok dashes through the
smoke, with head thrown back and
graceful limbs extended, his glossy,
mottled hide looking doubly beautiful
backed by that red streak Of fire. The
wind catches the quivering crimson
streak and for a while the flames race,
as have seen wild horses neck to neck
rush through the saltbush plains at the
sound Of the stockman's whip. Then,
as the wind drops, the flames curl care
lessly around the wealth Of growing
fodder, biting the grass low down and
wrapping it in mantle of black and
red as flame and smoke commingle.
Here and there pool of water, hid
den from view until the fire fiend strip
ped the veldt land bare, leaps to life
like a silver shield in the grim setting
Of the bare and blackened plain. Small |
mobs of cattle stand stupidity snuffing
the smoke-laden air until the breath |
of the blaze awakens them to a sense |
OF peril; then with horns lowered like |
bayonets at the charge, with tails stiff |
and straight behind them as leveled
lances, they leap onward, over or
through everything in front Of them, |
believing frantically their brute beast |
protest against the red ruin Of war. |
The flames roll on, they reach the stone |
walls of cattle pen and leap it as |
hunter takes brush fence in his stride, |
still until Kaf1r kraal is |
reached. The soft-tipped pillows kiss
the uncouth mud walls and for mo- |
ment trans1gure them with a nameless |
beauty that precedes ruin. Only mo- |
nent or two and then the resistless de |
stroyer haunts it's pennons amid the /
reed-thatched roofs, the sparks leap |
up, the black smoke curls toward the |
sky, while on the neighboring hills |
the negro women with their babes in |
bheir arms wall woefully, for those
.ude huts, with all their barbarous
meant home-aye, home and |
happiness to them. The flames roll on
ward, now in two long lines, for the
Aaftir encampment had sundered them,
md now they look, with their beau
ifully rounded curves, sweeping so
gracefully out into the unknown. All
hat they leave behind is desolation.
,nly blackened walls, simmering car
.asses, weeping women and wailing
children.
Away on our right flank we can Just
make out the skeletons Of what a few
hours before had been cluster of
smiling farm houses. They do not
mile now; they grin horribly in the
sunlight, grin as the feshless skulls Of
lead men grin on a battlefield after
hose sections of the veldt-the gray
looded, curved beaked vultures-haye
creamed their final farewell to the
Of war, noble war.
plendid war, pastime of potentates
md princes, invented in he'll and pat
nted in all the temples of sorrow
london News.