Chapter Twenty One.
What the Knuckle-Bone of a Sheep Did.
“The senses no less than the soul have their spiritual mysteries to
reveal.”
We were sitting under a mimosa tree outside the drawing-room hut, elbows on the tea-table, enjoying the sunset lights and the extraordinary content that nothing so well bestows as a day’s work well done.
It was almost the end of a February day, and everywhere around us bloomed and flaunted the radiant tints of summer at the full. In a tree close by a little green-breasted bird was singing a passionate song. The sea of zinias still swayed its multi-coloured waves below us, but boundaries had been set, and full-tide now only reached to the foot of the kopje. Above high-water mark Mgatweli Police Camp and the home of its commanding officer, picturesque still, but no longer disreputable, rose like a Phoenix from its ashes.
Stubbly bush had been uprooted from charming slopes to make place for luxuriant beds of tomatoes and Cape gooseberries; and terraces of flowers already gave evidence of beauty and fragrance to come. Gnarled growths had disappeared, and big trees had a clear space to branch abroad in freedom and grace. A fine tennis-court, the delight of every player in the town, stretched its gleaming level space near a newly begun small banana grove.
Each of our huts except the kitchen had now a picturesque rustic porch added to it, round which were set plants of young grenadilla—the best shady creeper in Africa, and one that bears a lovely purple passion flower, and most delicious fruit.
The men’s camp was also enormously improved. A little agitation in the right quarter had resulted in a grant of Government boys to build and thatch a big mess and club-house. The parade ground had been enlarged, and the beginning of an out-door gym was visible. The men had something better to do now than loafing to town in off hours, or getting drunk in their huts out of sheer boredom with life. There were shooting-butts up, and regular hours for practice in view of putting forward a Bisley team. There was also a Sports programme in active rehearsal for a projected gymkhana meeting in the near future. Under a smart officer full of initiative and invention the best bred wasters in the world are bound to “buck up and look slippy” and that is what the Mgatweli troopers were very busily occupied in doing.