On the farm, day after day, month after month, the
water in the dams fell lower and lower; the sheep died in the fields; the
cattle, scarcely able to crawl, tottered as they moved from spot to spot in
search of food. Week after week, month after month, the sun looked down
from the cloudless sky, till the karoo-bushes were leafless sticks, broken
into the earth, and the earth itself was naked and bare; and only the milk-
bushes, like old hags, pointed their shrivelled fingers heavenward, praying
for the rain that never came.
...
It was on an afternoon of a long day in that thirsty summer, that on the
side of the kopje furthest from the homestead the two girls sat. They were
somewhat grown since the days when they played hide-and-seek there, but
they were mere children still.
Their dress was of dark, coarse stuff; their common blue pinafores reached
to their ankles, and on their feet they wore home-made velschoen.
They sat under a shelving rock, on the surface of which were still visible
some old Bushman paintings, their red and black pigments having been
preserved through long years from wind and rain by the overhanging ledge;
grotesque oxen, elephants, rhinoceroses, and a one-horned beast, such as no
man ever has seen or ever shall.
The girls sat with their backs to the paintings. In their laps were a few
fern and ice-plant leaves, which by dint of much searching they had
gathered under the rocks.
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