Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1906-11-09
LOST IN AFRICAN BUSH.
Desert In Which Hunters of Big Game
Sometimes Go AatraY.

Sometimes SO AStray.
Among difficulties Of travel we
found that our boys had not the
slightest idea Of distance, either in
miles or hours. At times 1t was ex-
tremely irritating, but there was no
help for it. A native can only calcu-
late by the sun. He will point to the
sky and say: when the sun is there
we shall get to water" And If one
is travelling continuously he is gen.
orally right. But an outspan at once
upsets the calculation. How often
did we ask "Metsi kae?" (Where is
the water?) and receive the invariable
answer: Not so very far" or Very
far" the only two modes of express
ing distances known to him.
In this way we journeyed on slowly
through the sultry and dusty coun-
try, says a writer in Blackwood's s
Magazine, describing a trek in the
Kalahari, spending the mornings and
evenings shooting in 'the bush. 1t
was a land Of few attractions, and yet
In the cool light Of the morning, or
when its barren BROWNIES was hid
den by the warm glow Of the setting
sun, it was almost beautiful. Bird
life was plentiful, and we always en-
joyed the luxury of fresh pheasant or
partridge luxury Of which Johan-
nesburg. under the tyranny of cold
storage, is a stranger. Partridges,
namaquas and shrimpies "a little
partridge great delicacy), red
headed pheasants, korhaan, guinea
fowl, were to be found everywhere,
and sometimes we saw paauw.
Steinbuck and duiker (phuduhudu In
Bechuana) were plentiful too, but we
saw no larger game.
For days we travelled on through
the wach-een-beetje thorn bush. Gu
riously enough, this bush, which
spreads unbroken over so vast a por-
ton of South Africa, seems to the
traveller to be always subtly chang
ing in character. Now it is so thick
that one can see only a few yards;
now il breaks into a park like coun-
try; then again the bushes are for a
mile or two only few feet high, and
little further on the timber is of
quite a decent size. And yet to trav-
ell on through it for days is monoto-
nously dreary, and its ugliness and un-
attractiveness make it after a time
appear almost a personal enemy.
And after all this feeling is not so
far wrong, for surely this is the land
where life has death for neighbor'
"a neighbor ready TO greet any one
who may wander alone into his do
main. If man is inexperienced and
unless he possesses a singularly good
bump Of locality 1t is about ten to one
that in half an hour he is hopelessly
lost. 1t is impossible to imagine how
easy 1t Is to lose ones bearings, and
never ceased to marvel at the in
stinct which led the natives to 60
back straight to the camp. But not
every native has this instinct.
To be of any use he must have
been born and bred in the bush. The
natives of the mountains in the Zout-
pansberg district are worse than use
less in the bush of the low country
and the Basuto police sometimes lose
themselves in the Kalahiri. Not long
ago a Basuto was lost pursuing a
wounded wildebeest, and was found a
few days afterward with his head
gnawed off by the jackals.
| can imagine no more awful fate
than to be lost in the bush. In the
open country on the great plains, and
under Gods clear sky, hope and reso-
luton would be loath to desert one
But here "leaden eyed despair" would
quickly come. A man would have
to be of stubborn stuff indeed who
would not be bowed down by the aw-
full sense Of impenetrableness and
hopelessness with which this country
fills the mind.
To one born and bred in an open
| land II is the feeling of the reverend
ingness of the bush that appalls, the
feeling. too, that mans wits are here
of no avail, that water may be within
few yards-perhaps the only water
for many miles-and yet there be no
mark to guide one to it. The water
lessness the lonely silence Of the
country, the stunted. gnarled branch
es of the eternal thorn bush. always
oppressed my imagination with the
same thought-that surely this was a
land on which Gods curse had sud-
denly descended, turning 1t perhaps
from land growing and full of
promise into this hopeless and use
less waste.
IL my husband and l read to each
other every evening now; it's just
splendid" said Mrs Newlywed; why
don't you and your fiance do that
when he calls on you?" "Gracious!'