Long Odds (PDF, MOBI, EPUB, FB2, TEXT)
very hot--hot
as a stew-pan--and when I was there that March, which, of course, is
autumn in this part of Africa, the whole place reeked of fever. Every
morning, as I trekked along down by the Oliphant River, I used to
creep from the waggon at dawn and look out. But there was no river to
be seen--only a long line of billows of what looked like the finest
cotton wool tossed up lightly with a pitchfork. It was the fever mist.
Out from among the scrub, too, came little spirals of vapour, as
though there were hundreds of tiny fires alight in it--reek rising
from thousands of tons of rotting vegetation. It was a beautiful
place, but the beauty was the beauty of death; and all those lines and
blots of vapour wrote one great word across the surface of the
country, and that word was 'fever.'
"It was a dreadful year of illness that. I came, I remember, to one
little kraal of Knobnoses, and went up to it to see if I could get
some /maas/, or curdled butter-milk, and a few mealies. As I drew near
I was struck with t