Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick (Chapter 24)( Page 8 ) The Last Trek

The sun was out again, and in the straight reach above the bend there was every chance to watch the flood from the bank where I stood.  It seemed strangely long in coming, but come it did at last, in waves like the half-spent breakers on a sandy beach--a slope of foam and broken waters in the van, an ugly wall with spray-tipped feathered crest behind, and tier on tier to follow.  Heavens, what a scene!  The force of waters, and the utter hopeless puniness of man!  The racing waves, each dashing for the foremost place, only to force the further on; the tall reeds caught waist high and then laid low, their silvery tops dipped, hidden, and drowned in the flood; the trees yielding, and the branches snapping like matches and twirling like feathers down the stream; the rumbling thunder of big boulders loosed and tumbled, rolled like marbles on the rocks below; whole trees brought down, and turning helplessly in the flood--drowned giants with their branches swinging slowly over like nerveless arms.  It was tremendous; and one had to stay and watch. Then the waves ceased; and behind the opposite bank another stream began to make its way, winding like a huge snake, spreading wider as it went across the flats beyond, until the two rejoined and the river became one again.  The roar of waters gradually lessened; the two cataracts beside me were silent; and looking down I saw that the fall was gone and that water ran to water--swift as ever, but voiceless now--and was lost in the river itself.  Inch by inch the water rose towards my feet; tufts of grass trembled, wavered, and went down; little wavelets flipped and licked like tongues against the remaining bank of soft earth below me; piece after piece of it leant gently forward, and toppled headlong in the eager creeping tide; deltas of yellow scum flecked water worked silently up the dongas, reaching out with stealthy feelers to enclose the place where I was standing; and then it was time to go! The cattle had turned their tails to the storm, and stood it out.  They too were washed clean and looked fresher and brighter; but there was nothing in that!  Two of them had been seen by the boys moving slowly, foot by foot, before the driving rain down the slope from the outspan, stung by the heavy drops and yielding in their weakness to the easy gradient.  Only fifty yards away they should have  topped in the hollow--the shallow dry donga of the morning; but they were gone! Unwilling to turn back and face the rain, they had no doubt been caught in the rush of storm-water and swirled away, and their bodies were bobbing in the Crocodile many miles below by the time we missed them. In a couple of hours the water had run off; the flooded dongas were almost dry again; and we moved on. It was then that the real `rot' set in.  Next morning there were half a dozen oxen unable to stand up; and so again the following day.  It was no longer possible to take the four waggons; all the spare cattle had been used up and it was better to face the worst at once; so I distributed the best of the load on the other three waggons and abandoned the rest of it with the fourth waggon in the bush.  But day by day the oxen dropped out, and when we reached the Junction and branched up the Kaap, there were not enough left for three waggons. This time it meant abandoning both waggon and load; and I gave the cattle a day's rest then, hoping that they would pick up strength on good grass to face the eight drifts that lay between us and Barberton.