In places, to be sure, a few low bushes of prickly aspect rose in tangled clumps; but for the most part the arid table-land was covered by a thick growth of short brown grass, about nine inches high, burnt up in the sun, and most wearisome to look at.

The distressing nakedness of a new country confronted me.

Here and there a bald farm or two had been literally pegged out--the pegs were almost all one saw of them as yet; the fields were in the future.

Here and there, again, a scattered range of low granite hills, known locally as kopjes--red, rocky prominences, flaunting in the sunshine--diversified the distance.

But the road itself, such as it was, lay all on the high plain, looking down now and again into gorges or kloofs, wooded on their slopes with scrubby trees, and comparatively well-watered.