Precious Highveld Grasslands

This is a snippet, but I’m publishing it rough as I really wish more people valued grasslands and stopped ruining them!

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Beyond Harrismith, the travellers met with a wonderful sight. Almost as far as the eye could see was one huge, living, moving mass of game – wildebees, blesbuck, springbuck and quaggas. It was an indescribable, unforgettable sight.

ELIZABETH RUSSELL CAMERON: REMINISCENCES OF AN EIGHTY YEAR OLD by Win de Vos

In parts of the Free State where they outspanned there was no wood to be had for their camp-fires. To overcome this difficulty they would make a hole in the bottom of one of the ant-heaps, which were dotted all over the veld, and another at the top. Into the lower one they would stuff old, dry grass and bushes and set these alight, while the other acted as a chimney. Soon the ant-heap would start burning slowly, and some hours later they would have a mass of glowing coals. On these they boiled their kettles, grilled their meat and baked their as-koek.

Near Harrismith the wagon in which the girls were travelling capsized. The tent was smashed to pieces but they were not hurt at all. Two men named Marais, passing that way with cart and horses, kindly offered to drive them to the neighbouring village. The native boys, however, managed to fix up the tent roughly so the sisters decided to continue their journey by wagon.

When they reached the dorp, Elizabeth sold her wildebees skin for 4/6. What with this, the fresh meat and the biltong, she reckoned she got good value for her cup of ground coffee.

Game was exceedingly plentiful in those days roundabout Harrismith. One of the storekeepers, a Mr. Evans, told her that he had bought two hundred thousand wildebees skins that year.

LINK – https://samilitaryhistory.org/diaries/russl4.html

CHAPTER 4 – Two Journeys by Wagon.

In 1868 Mr. Russell’s lease of the mills expired and he could not get a renewal, so the family trekked to Maritzburg while he travelled about to look for a good business site. He decided to go to Bloemfontein for this purpose. Elizabeth wished to accompany him, as she did not want to let the chance of such a trip pass, so it was arranged that Annie should take her place at the school.

When the travellers reached the Tugela, the river was up and there were between three and four hundred wagons waiting to cross. These belonged to the Boers from the Free State and the Transvaal who went once or twice a year to Natal to get supplies. These wagons, with their ox-hides filled with salted butter slung hammock-wise under them, made a sight never to be forgotten. The butter thus carried was exchanged for goods to the shopkeepers who packed it in barrels and shipped it to Mauritius.

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