Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick (Chapter 24)( Page 1 ) The Last Trek

It was Pettigrew's Road that brought home to me, and to others, the wisdom of the old transport-riders' maxim: `Take no risks.'  We all knew that there were `fly' belts on the old main road but we rushed these at night, for we knew enough of the tsetse fly to avoid it; however the discovery of the new road to Barberton, a short cut with plenty of water and grass, which offered the chance of working an extra trip into the short Delagoa season, tempted me, among others, to take a risk.  We had seen no `fly' when riding through to spy out the land, and again on the trip down with empty waggons all had seemed to be well; but I had good reason afterwards to recall that hurried trip down and the night spent at Low's Creek.  It was a lovely moonlight night, cool and still, and the grass was splendid; after many weeks of poor feeding and drought the cattle revelled in the land of plenty.  We had timed our treks so as to get through the suspected parts of the road at night, believing that the fly did not trouble after dark, and thus we were that night outspanned in the worst spot of all--a tropical garden of clear streams, tree-ferns, foliage plants, mosses, maidenhair, and sweet grass!  I moved among the cattle myself, watching them feed greedily and waiting to see them satisfied before inspanning again to trek through the night to some higher and more open ground.  I noticed then that their tails were rather busy.  At first it seemed the usual accompaniment of a good feed, an expression of satisfaction; after a while, however, the swishing became too vigorous for this, and when heads began to swing round and legs also were made use of, it seemed clear that something was worrying them.  The older hands were so positive that at night cattle were safe from fly, that it did not even then occur to me to suspect anything seriously wrong.  Weeks passed by, and although the cattle became poorer, it was reasonable enough to put it down to the exceptional drought. It was late in the season when we loaded up for the last time in Delagoa and ploughed our way through the Matolla swamp and the heavy sands at Piscene; but late as it was, there was no sign of rain, and the rain that we usually wanted to avoid would have been very welcome then.  The roads were all blistering stones or powdery dust, and it was cruel work for man and beast.  The heat was intense, and there was no breeze; the dust moved along slowly apace with us in a dense cloud--men, waggons, and animals, all toned to the same hue; and the poor oxen toiling slowly along drew in the finely-powdered stuff at every breath.  At the outspan they stood about exhausted and panting, with rings and lines of brown marking where the moisture from nostrils, eyes and mouths had caught the dust and turned it into mud.  At Matolla Poort, where the Lebombo Range runs low, where the polished black rocks shone like anvils, where the stones and baked earth scorched the feet of man and beast to aching, the world was like an oven; the heat came from above, below, around--a thousand glistening surfaces flashing back with intensity the sun's fierce rays.  And there, at Matolla Poort, the big pool had given out! Our standby was gone!  There, in the deep cleft in the rocks where the feeding spring, cool and constant, had trickled down a smooth black rock beneath another overhanging slab, and where ferns and mosses had clustered in one little spot in all the miles of blistering rocks, there was nothing left but mud and slime.  The water was as green and thick as pea-soup; filth of all kinds lay in it and on it; half a dozen rotting carcases stuck in the mud round the one small wet spot where the pool had been--just where they fell and died; the coat had dropped away from some, and mats of hair, black-brown and white, helped to thicken the green water.  But we drank it.  Sinking a handkerchief where the water looked thinnest and making a little well into which the moisture slowly filtered, we drank it greedily.