desert.

Within 200 or 300 miles from the Drakensberg slopes the country is
well-watered, and the rainfall ample and generally regular, but
westwards this abundance progressively decreases with a more tardy and
precarious rainy season, occasioning at times severe droughts
accompanied with correspondingly protracted and very hot weather.

Those high plains make up one vast green sward from the time of the
spring rains in September to April. From May the absence of rain,
together with the night frosts, shrivel up the herbage, giving the
country a pale-brown aspect. This continues until the return of spring,
varied with large expanses of black, caused by accidental or intentional
grass fires, and here and there a few green spots in specially sheltered
and moist localities.

Those burnt spaces may extend for miles, and are for the time veritable
deserts. The landscape being quite black and the atmosphere generally
very clear, it is obvious that objects of any lighter colour would be
conspicuous at very long distances: an ideal background for khaki
targets.

Most of the land is well suited for agriculture, but by far the largest
proportion is as yet used only for raising sheep, horses and cattle.
Angora goats also thrive in the hillier parts. About forty years ago the
Karoo plains, the Orange Free State, and Transvaal were, so to say,
monopolised by milliards of game. Standing upon an eminence or a swell
one could see in all directions, as far as the eye could reach,
innumerable herds of all sorts of game grazing, resting or gambolling;
the different kinds would be ranged in separate groups and could be