Owing to the scarcity of wood on the high veldt, kraal fuel used formerly to be the staple substitute. This would be obtained by penning up sheep over-night. The deposits were after a month or two dug out in thick flags, which, after being stacked and dried over the kraal wall, would burn nearly as well and as brightly as wood. The discovery of coal beds in so many accessible places in the Cape Colony, Natal, and in the two Republics has since superseded that sort of fuel to a great extent.
The small divergence between summer and winter temperature upon the high table lands will be seen from the following table taken from observations at 5,500 to 6,000 feet altitude in the Transvaal:—
Fahr. Fahr.
In winter—28° to 40° at night; 35° to 70° by day in the shade.
In summer—40° to 60° at night; 50° to 90° by day in the shade.
It is not often that 85° is reached, and rarely above. This applies equally to the more southern and thus colder latitudes of Queenstown, at 3,000 feet elevation, and to the eastern half of the Orange Free State, at 4,000 to 5,000 feet, the warmth increasing, as said before, proportionately with the descent in altitude, and on occasions of tardy summer rains.
The winter is the most enjoyable of the seasons, being an almost uninterrupted continuation of fine sunny weather. On occasions there would be spells of boisterous weather with a rather sudden and inclement decrease of temperature, brought on by cold south-east winds; if these are accompanied with rain in winter, which, however, rarely happens, it would sometimes turn to sleet or even snow, or else to hard freezing at night. The snow would, however, thaw with the warmth of the sun, and so restore the temperature as before. The bracing quality of the climate mostly consists just in those variations of cool nights and warm days, and the occasional days of comparatively cold, boisterous weather. The latter must indeed be provided against, for even in December—that is to say, in the middle of summer—it would be imprudent to travel without great-coats as well as waterproofs, so as to be protected against unexpected changes, from say, 100° in the sun, almost suddenly to 40° with a driving wind, accompanied perhaps with rain. Such transitions are trying in the open, even if one is well clad, and the blustering weather is sometimes so severe, if it happens in winter or early spring, as to approach the character of a blizzard. One such lasted about thirty hours in the early spring of 1881. It swept over the entire South African plateaux and destroyed great numbers of sheep and cattle. These fell exhausted in their flight before they could reach some sheltering hills or ravines. In situations where such protections from the cold south-east wind were far apart the veldt was on the following day found strewn with their carcases, and upon the still more extensive and unbroken plains antelopes even perished in enormous numbers simply from exhaustion in trying to escape and find shelter from the cold wind.
I will just describe one of those occurrences, the severest in my experience and well remembered by the Free State and the Transvaal Boers—it was, I think, in 1881. One sunny day, early in August (spring time), at a place about twenty miles east of Reddersburg, in the Orange Free State, the wind veered to the south-east, and by afternoon had begun to blow fairly hard and cold, about 35° Fahrenheit—that is to say, about 35° below the temperature of a few hours previously. I had managed to get some milch cows driven near to the kraal, where there would have been very fair shelter for them, but luckily, as the sequel proved, they refused to enter, and rushed past in a scared way, just snatching up one mouthful of forage which had been thrown down to entice them to stay, and making off as hard as they could. The wind did not abate till the day after, when tales kept pouring in of terrible losses of sheep and cattle killed by the cold wind; sheep in open plains had suffered most, and cattle which had been kraaled were nearly all dead, whilst the herds of cattle and horses which had been left grazing out had been driven away and were also believed to have died. At the farm of a certain Andries Bester, near by, some seventy head of cattle in very good condition were found dead, piled up to the level of one of the kraal walls, showing the struggle which some thirty others had in escaping over the mound of dead cattle to the outside of the kraal.
The next day all those thirty head were found grazing some fifteen miles westwards under the lee of hills near Reddersburg, where they had found safe shelter. Everybody's cattle were recovered which had not been kraaled, including mine. This was the case as well with cattle which had been tethered to their transport wagons and which succeeded in breaking loose, whilst the rest were found dead where they had been tied.
There was no possibility of restraining cattle or horses from stampeding—they did it from the instinct of self-preservation, for, whilst running with the wind, its force of driving cold was proportionately lessened, and some loss of heat was made good by the exertion of running, which they had to keep up till in safe shelter of hills or ravines.
Had such a cold storm overtaken an army or patrol, the situation would have been exactly similar, and would have been an ordeal even to experienced Boers or Colonial farmers, and if an enemy had been located near Reddersburg, all the cattle and horses would simply have fallen into his lap.
The obvious safeguard would be a rug for each horse and mule, and for oxen the erection of a shelter against the wind, consisting of all available wagons and stores, or else, if practicable, to move at once to a sheltered locality and always provide a good reserve supply of forage or other provender. That sort of boisterous, cold weather continues sometimes, with more or less severity, two or three days. The want of food and inclemency besides would result in killing the weak cattle and weaken the rest so as to be incapable of work for some days after. The difficulty consists in that such inclement changes occur so suddenly, and that their severity and duration cannot be forecasted.