Mafeking to Buluwayo
Ten days and nights by coach.
24th May.—Does it bore you, a daily record of this uneventful journey? Well, if it does, you easily can skip it, which is more than we could do, alas!
All day over a sandy track, on open, white grass veldt, which generally changed into hilly country, dotted with thorn–bushes. All waterless. The mules, of which we get a change every ten or twelve miles, in very poor condition—so our pace is very slow.
Reached Ramoutsa after dark, after 65–mile drive. Tin hotel, and large native kraal town (said to have 10,000 inhabitants in its mass of beehive huts). Boyne living here; a well–known hunter on the Kalehari, and had shot with “Ginger” Gordon (15th Hussars).
A native “reed dance” was going on in the “stadt” (as they call the native town),—every man blowing a reed–whistle which gives two notes, and, played in numbers, gives a quaint, harmonious sound. The men dance in a circle, stamping the time; the women waggle round and round the circle, outside it. Altogether a very “or’nery” performance, especially as all were dressed in European store–clothes.
25th May.—Struggling on with weak mules to Gaberones (18 miles in 51/2 hours) And on again. Every mile now began to show the grisly, stinking signs of rinderpest. Dead oxen varied occasionally with dead mules—the variety did not affect the smell—that remained the same. Occasionally we passed a waggon abandoned owing to the loss of animals.
The road at times was hard, but generally soft red sand. The scenery had a sameness of level, white, grass land and thorn–bush.