The Vee-Boers: A Tale of Adventure in Southern Africa
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Оглавление
Reid Mayne. The Vee-Boers: A Tale of Adventure in Southern Africa
Chapter One. On the Karoo
Chapter Two. A Weird Spectacle
Chapter Three. A Battue of Lions
Chapter Four. The Tulp
Chapter Five. Under the Mowana
Chapter Six. A Rush of Buffaloes
Chapter Seven. A Buffalo Chase
Chapter Eight. Trapped by a Tree
Chapter Nine. Belated on the Veldt
Chapter Ten. A Horse Chased by Wild Hounds
Chapter Eleven. Tracking Back to Camp
Chapter Twelve. A Formidable Obstruction
Chapter Thirteen. Attacked by “Tsetse.”
Chapter Fourteen. Crossing a “Drift.”
Chapter Fifteen. A Camp full of Carcasses
Chapter Sixteen. A Carnival of the Carnivora
Chapter Seventeen. Water-Horses
Chapter Eighteen. A River Run Out
Chapter Nineteen. A Congregation of Crocodiles
Chapter Twenty. The Karl-Kop
Chapter Twenty One. Afloat on the Limpopo
Chapter Twenty Two. Legs Easily Broken
Chapter Twenty Three. Hippopotamus Hunting
Chapter Twenty Four. To Sea and Home
Отрывок из книги
Going at a slow crawl in profound silence, the huge vehicles, with their dark bodies and white tilts, the long serried line of yoked oxen extended in advance of them, would have presented a strange mystifying spectacle to one not knowing what it was. Weird and ghostlike under the silvery light of the moon, a native of the country, where such had never been seen before, viewing it from a distance, might have imagined it some monster of a world unknown.
But before morning came, the travellers were themselves witnesses of a spectacle common enough in that same district, yet, in seeming, quite as strange and mysterious as that of the waggon-train.
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The shoeless natives – Hottentots and Caffres alike – suffered especially, notwithstanding the soles of their feet being callous, and hard as horn. Some were seen to adopt a singular plan for keeping them cool – by a plaster of mud, taken from the waterless but still moist pools, applying it poultice-fashion, and at intervals damping them with the juice of the euphorbia, and other succulent plants.
Equally odd, and more amusing, was the behaviour of the dogs. They would make a rush ahead of the waggons; dive under a bush, tussock of grass, or anything giving shade; and there lie panting till the train got past. Then, rising reluctantly, they would stand for a time contemplating the heated surface of sand, afraid to set paw upon it; whine piteously; and finally, with a plunge, start off afresh, dash past the waggons, and repeat the performance as before.
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