The
drive itself was utterly uneventful. We passed several Dutch farmhouses,
many of them untenanted, owing to the so-called loyal colonial owners
having flocked to the Transvaal flag at Vryburg. All these houses,
distinguished by their slovenly and miserable appearance, were built of
rough brick or mud, with tiny windows apparently added as an
afterthought, in any position, regardless of symmetry. Towards sundown
we arrived at a roadside store, where we were kindly entertained for the
night by the proprietors, a respectable Jewish couple.
About five miles from Vryburg a party of thirty horsemen appeared on the
brow of the hill; these were the first Boers I had seen mounted, in
fighting array, and I made sure they would ride up and ask our business;
but apparently we were not interesting enough in appearance, for they
circled away in another direction. The road now descended into a sort of
basin or hollow, wherein lay the snug little town of Vryburg, with its
neat houses and waving trees, and beyond it we could see the white tents
of the Boer laager. A young Dutchman had recently described Vryburg to
me as a town which looked as if it had gone for a walk and got lost, and
as we drove up to it I remembered his words, and saw that his simile was
rather an apt one. There seemed no reason, beyond its site in a
sheltered basin, why Vryburg should have been chosen for the capital of
British Bechuanaland.
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