[33] Maize.
[34] British cavalry at this period of the campaign were armed with rifle and bayonet.
X.[ToC]
JOG-TROT.
True to that instinct which finds the Boer the most insanitary race laying claim to a civilisation of any standard, the squatters who settled upon Hopetown as a site suitable for a village chose a situation as insalubrious as any to be found on the fringe of the Karoo. In a cup-valley of mean dimensions, the little collection of shanties which group round the church and town-hall lay tucked away in the folds of the bare dusty hills, so that if tracks did not converge upon the village with consistent regularity there would be no evidence outside a narrow radius of its existence. It was not until the advance-guard covering the New Cavalry Brigade topped the actual bluff above the hamlet that the temporary importance of Hopetown was realised. The dip in which the village lay was black with the transport of many columns, and the dust and smoke raised by the thousands of animals and hundreds of cooking fires formed a heavy haze which, covering the township as with a pall, hung half-way between the level of the valley and the overhanging brae where the advance-guard stood halted. It was not an inviting picture. The dust and vapour seemed unable to face the perpendicular violence of the midday sun; the only perceptible movement in the middle distance was the shimmer of the atmosphere, squirming as it were under the relentless heat; while the great pall of dust and smoke, as if ashamed to raise its head, mushroomed out against the hillsides with undecided edging.
As we stood gasping for some breath of air to relieve the burden of oppressive heat, it seemed that the valley was some great stew-pot of the inferno, and that Hopetown was simmering at its bottom.
The brigadier cantered up to the advance-guard, and throwing his reins to his orderly, made a brief survey of the topographical approaches to Hopetown.