of the sun; lizards creep out upon the
stones; a snake slides along obscenely foraging. Presently man and
beast and all wild things are afoot or a-wing, as though the world was
new-created; as though there had never been any mornings before, and
this was not the monotonous repetition of a million mornings, when all
things living begin the world afresh.

But nowhere seems the world so young and fresh and glad as on the
sun-warmed veld. Nowhere do the wild roses seem so pure, or are the
aloes so jaunty and so gay. The smell of the karoo bush is sweeter than
attar, and the bog-myrtle and mimosa, where they shelter a house or
fringe a river, have a look of Arcady. It is a world where any
mysterious thing may happen--a world of five thousand years ago--the
air so light, so sweetly searching and vibrating, that Ariel would seem
of the picture, and gleaming hosts of mailed men, or vast colonies of
green-clad archers moving to virgin woods might belong. Something
frightens the timid spirit of a springbok, and his flight through the
grass is like a phrase of music on a wilful adventure; a bird hears the
sighing of the breeze in the mimosa leaves or the swaying shrubs, and
in disdain of such slight performance flings out a song which makes the
air drunken with sweetness.

A world of light, of commendable trees, of grey grass flecked with
flowers, of life having the supreme sense of a freedom which has known
no check. It is a life which cities have not spoiled, and where man is
still in touch with the primeval friends of man; where the wildest
beast and the newest babe of a woman have something in common.

Drink your fill of the sweet intoxicating air with eyes shut till the
lungs are full and the heart beats with new fulness; then open them
upon the wide sunrise and scan the veld so full of gracious odour. Is
it not good and glad? And now face the hills rising nobly away there to
the left, the memorable and friendly hills. Is it not--

Upon the morning has crept suddenly a black cloud, although the sun is
shining brilliantly. A moment before the dawn all was at peace on the
veld and among the kopjes, and only the contented sighing of men and
beasts broke the silence, or so it seemed; but with the glimmer of
light along the horizon came a change so violent that all the circle of
vision was in a quiver of trouble. Affrighted birds, in fluttering
bewilderment, swept and circled aimlessly through the air with strange,
half-human