| Show Land of f Long Distances Vastness V of South Africa Appalls Appals the Inexperienced Traveler Trav ler Pall Mall lall Gazette It Is fashionable to allude to a rail Aay n ay Journey jO In South Africa in tones of thinly veiled scorn and contempt to condemn it as tiresome complain of it itRa as Ra uninteresting There Is space al almost most undreamed of space And that is all Through the east the traveler lives In the past He feels if he has any imagination at all that for the moment he has become part of an ancient civilization which still survives the train and the telegraph he moves through Cities with a story In every ever stone each mile mUe brings s new pictures of the might arid and wealth which fill the most enchant In pages in the book of history In America you cross a land oC the future The cities are marvels of Qt In inventive genius even away in the coun cour courtry country country try there Is an echo of the hum of rest Ic Ies s enterprise the murmur of a peo pV confident they are hurrying on to tou I u a it great df dr ly I of But across the great plateau South Africa you seem to live always In the present It becomes become a a dominating dominatIng ing idea You cannot picture a past save like the present or Imagine a fu future future future ture differing from today The veldt is and it looks as if it will always be as asit asIt asit it is The slender thread of steel which roses grosses Its le spacer the little towns set down at such greet great gt distances from one another play no part In the scene They are there it Is true but they took look fortuitous out of place Trains clang across the and pant up the hillsides from Natal but the veldt Ignores them it does not adapt Itself to them The ox ex t x wagon alone fits in the picture the mall mail train tr ln with Its searchlight piercing the tha darkness and peace of the night Is and always will be a thing apart It always seems to me that there is something curious almost uncanny about the great spaces of southern Af Africa rica something you do not find In oth er great lands ands The haste 01 modern j I life clashes with the spirit of ot the veldt There is a silent protest against the In Intruder intruder intruder The country calls disease and drought to its aid to prevent Its Us free freedom fr freedom c dom dam being shackled hackled by the bonds of civilization cl and the handcuffs of progress progress progress ress Space and Speed The space destroys speed As you hurry northward or eastward from Ix Lon London London h don in a mile a minute express the villages fly past increasing the impression of haste ht te but let the same engine pull the th train northward from the Cape into the heart of Africa and its speed will seem seem to slacken Steam cannot eat at up the distance of such a contine continent it and there are arc too no con contrasts contrasts no near landmarks by which to measure the onward ot rush Yet such a journey monotonous as It ItIs itIs Is ls brings scenes which give it a fas tas fascination fascination lon all aU its own No one can paint in words or on canvas the beauty of a South African morning just after aft r sun sunrise sunrise sunrise rise Your carriage stands still at somo some wayside station with its solitary one story house and inevitable dwarfed tree Away as far as the eye can enn see stretches the thin grassland The land landscape landscape holds nothing to attract save Its space but the sunshine is something England never knows the air is like hike a draught of champagne the marvelous clearness and freshness which no aUrer oth aUr other other er land can equal give new life lUe No breeze yet swirls the dust across the thi th plain All AIl the world is still as though lost in silent worship of the loveliness of pf the moment A Afew few sleepy wrapped d close in blankets which display a rainbow of color gaze gazo languid eyes at the panting monster The white man and anil his ways are familiar today In the heat heart of bf the e Dark D rk Continent C Yet there are men living who remember the time when the coast tribes believed bell ved that white hi e men plEn were a production I of the sea sen which they traversed in largo large shells their food being the tusks of ele elephants elephants elephants which they would take from the beach it if laid there for them placing placing placing ing beads in their stead ste d which they ob obtained obtained obtained from the bottom of the sea His Hil History History tory has been made quickly in South Africa A shrill whistle and on again Into space All Say jay you clatter forward a I little tittle at times There are mysterious wayside halts in the wilder wilderness wilderness wilderness ness when you seem to have run out of or the world and been sidetracked far farr from the haunts of men there are watt walt ings at tiny sidings from which not a habitation is visible and where the only possible traffic appears appear to be a u wild buck or an occasional stray bul bullock bullock lock The land is empty The swarms swarm of natives you expected to see are ab absent absent absent sent the country looks deserted Space only space Now and then there glides into the picture a town with a name known to history the site of ot a siege the field of a battle The Impression it leaves Is simply one of Insignificance No ordinary town could look Imposing upon such a a plain All day the train toils tolls onward grow growing groWIng ing lug weary at times as though disheartened disheartened ened at the miles which still stretch ahead A few herds of goats or cattle a shy figure in the distance which makes you think of the th harried Bush Bushmen Bushmen Bushmen men or the wild Vaal pens now and then a kraal away under the shade of some trees But no incident no break never was there such monotony monotony ony 00 Yet you cannot conjure up a dif different different different ferent picture Even in Imagination you cannot transform the veldt It was thus when the first white men pushed forward from the shelter of the coast settlements Into the unknown It is thus today tOja It will be thus in a decade perhaps in a century Sunset Sunset Is as wonderful as the dawn The still sUll cloudless sky darkens rapidly as the sun sinks below the rim of the plain A solitary becomes purple then black a fitting haunt for some robber chief dier the tho terror error of whose name has desolated desolate the countryside The last glorious glow which no painter could reproduce dies away and a chill breeze sighs through the dry grass The Tho train puffs wearily on In the blackness of the night ever forward with the search searchlight searchlight searchlight light before the funnel like Ike a huge eye ee sweeping the land to find and a human be being beIng ing lug lugIn IngIn In the he middle of or the night there hap happens ha happens J pens a curious thing The Tho country be becomes becomes becomes comes comes peopled There Th re Is a grinding stop A Afew few lights flicker voices s shout unintelligible orders there t ere arises a banging and a clattering sufficient to wake the Seven Sleepers rs What hap happens happens happens pens now how It happens why it hap happens ha pens no man knows It is an eccentricity eccentricity eccentricity of 01 a South S uth African railway The Th livelong day slips by with a silence which almost forces one to shout to break the stillness but at night these mysterious noises arise Men emerge from nowhere and talk loudly of noth nothing nothIng nothing ing beside the waiting train figures with hammers beat upon the wheels or hold consultations in stentorian tones over grease boxes a popular song Is roared under the windows of sleepers even a whole troop train of terribly wideawake soldiers has been met on a particularly dark night But these things never happen in daytime There are people in this wide land after all allbut allbut allbut but they only spring up at night |
