Aletta A Tale of the Boer Invasion Author:Bertram Mitford General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1900 Original Publisher: F.V. White Subjects: History / Africa / General History / Military / General History / Africa / South / Republic of South Africa Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no ill... more »ustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III A BOER FARM RATELS Hoek, the farm owned by Stephanus De la Rey, was situated in a broad, open basin, surrounded by the craggy, cliff-crowned hills of the Wildschutsberg range. It was a prosperous-looking place. The homestead was large and roomy, and not unpicturesque, with its deep verandah shaded by growing creepers, which, however, at that time of year were destitute of leafage. A well-kept flower garden, which was a blaze of bright colour in good seasons, went round two sides of the house, and behind, abundant stabling and shearing sheds and kraals and dipping tank testified to the up-to-date ideas and enterprise of its owner. Beyond these again large patches of cultivated lands, shut in by high quince hedges, sloped down to the Sneeuw River, which took its rise in the Wildschutsberg, and which, normally dry or the merest trickle, could roar down in a terrific torrent at very short notice what time thunderstorms were heavy and frequent in the mountains beyond. Away over the veldt, which, until joining the grassy slopes of the surrounding heights, was gently undulating and fairly covered with mimosa bush, ostriches grazed, or stalked defiantly up and down the wire fencing which divided one large ' camp' from another. If Ratels Hoek was a creditable example of the better class of Dutch farm, no less was its owner an excellent specimen of the better type of Dutch farmer. Stephanus De la Rey was a ...« less