The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-05-20
THE BUSH WELT.
Why Fugitive Bodies of BurGhers
Seek Asylum There.
From the London Express.

"hV uAhtNt ON buEEncrA
Seek Asylum There.
From the London Express.
The news that fugitive bodies OF Beers
are trekking toward the bush veldt has
somewhat hastily been assumed to indi-
cate that, finding themselves driven from
pillar to post, the desperate burghers are
seeking last fever-stricken asylum.
The bush veldt is a term applied loosely
to long strip of wooded country which
runs roughly east and west in line fifty
miles to the north Of Pretoria. 1t lies
somewhat lower than the surrounding
country, and for this reason maintains
throughout the year warm mean tenn
perature.
People at home have even yet failed to
grasp the immensely of the Trsnsvasl.
They seem to think that because It Is all
called by one name 1t is all of one geo.
graphical and climatic character. The
truth is that one part of the Transvaal
differs from another just about as much
as California does from the State of
New York.
There are never frosts in the bush
veldt, though on the high table lands
about Middleburg and Belfast, not thirty
miles away night frosts are both fire.
quent and bitter I'm the winter season.
Similarly, the rainfall in the bush veldt
is inches higher than on the plains.
In the depths of winter, when the grass
on the veldt is brown, parched and in
edible, it is green and fresh and succulent
in the bush country. For this reason the
willy Boer leaves his farm on the plains
when his animals can no longer ind
grazing there, and tricks laboriously tff
In search of pastures new. Generally he
takes his entire household win him.
wife. children and furniture. he family
lares and penates being heaped indis-
erlminately in enormous trek wagons.
This annual trek is a sight to be seen
and never forgotten. 1t beats Scotch
hitting or an Irish eviction into fits
The male members of the family ride
on horseback, the women and children
sit on the wagons, and all gestlculate
wildly, screaming curses at the Knifirs
and oxen at the highest pitch of their
voices. Sometimes the trek occupies a
fortnight. II there Is a long way to go;
and every night the oxen are outspanned
and a camp is formed for the night. Eight
to twelve miles day is the average rate
OF progression.
The land in the bush veldt il not taken
up in the same way as elsewhere; the
burgher simply tricks on till he finds a
place which suits him and stops there
He does not build house. but lives en-
tirely in his wagons--sometimes with a
huge sail thrown over to form tent.
Some of the richer farmers have special
wagons for this annual plcnic-enormous
numbering things they are, which thirty
oxen strain TO move.
From April TIL October life in the bush
veldt is pleasant and healthy enough. In
October 1t begins to get warm, and by
Al - -,
bearable. Then fever comes, and the
knowing burgher returns to health and
the spring grass on the plains.
In the ordinary way trekking to the
bush veldt does not commence till May,
but there Is no reason why 1t should not
begin in April AS rule there is still
sufficient grass through April TO keep
the beasts fat; and so long as he is not
compelled to move the Boer is the in
carnaton of laziness.
Therefore. 1t will be seen that. what
ever else the bodies of Beers now re-
ported to be trekking to the bush veldt
are doing, they are assuredly not run
ming their heads blindly into a death
trap. 1t has been stated repeatedly by
papers which ought to know better that
those who seek asylum in the bush
country must necessarily perish of fever.
This il nonsense The ordinary Boer Is
great deal more afraid of fever than
he is OF the Lee-Enfeld rifie-especislly
II he has a good horse under him.
The Beers are going TO the bush veldt
because they know that they may now
do so with safety. They will stay there
just so long as they can with impunity-
1. e., till October-and then they will
come back on the plains. Whether we
can dslodge them earlier remains to be
seen. The bush veldt is almost imposs-
BILE country to move large bodies of men
In. and IL is for the most part unknown.
We have had maps-pretty bad ones,
too-of the rest OF the Transvaal, but we
have none OF the bush country.