They did not know, but to be able to see them at all had cost Mr Raybold a tidy sum in the way of palm-oiling. Like the Eastern prisons, as in every other department of this Republican Government, corruption ran very high, from the President to the meanest official.
On the following morning they were examined, and charged with a whole list of offences; then, after this preliminary farce was over, they were handcuffed and taken, closely guarded, to Pretoria to be tried.
Chapter Thirteen.
Tronk Life.
Although our heroes had been brought up amidst the comforts and refinements of better-class English life, they were not fastidious.
Their recent overland experience among the burgher farmers had taken a good deal of the fine edge off their susceptibilities as to eating, drinking, and lodgment. It had also opened their eyes considerably as to the inconsistency of humanity. Those bare, dirty, and barn-like homesteads which satisfied the Boers generation after generation, and compared to which many of the huts of the Kaffirs were fragrant—the cow-dung and blood-blended plaster and flooring—were, to say the least, peculiar in their aroma to the nostrils of strangers. Added to this, the strong flavour of the Boer tobacco, with which those dens reeked, rendered the atmosphere more powerful than pleasant to any except a Boer family. To them, however, it smelt home-like and grateful.
Outside, the approaches to a Boer farm were kept in a state of absolute and traditional disregard to all sanitary laws. The refuse and decay teemed with disease and abomination. No wanderer required a candle in the window to light them to these abodes of the dopper. Their olfactory organs would have been quick enough, even while suffering under the most virulent cold, for at least half a league distant. Wherever the Boer settled, that part of the veldt became a pigsty.
Our heroes had experienced all this, and become case-hardened against unholy perfumes and disgusting sights. Their digestive organs had also become used to the tough biltong, vile coffee, and unvaried nightly stews. Thus they were able to stand a good deal of dirt and discomfort without noticing details.