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THE CAMPS ON THE VAAL 155
Camping
on the banks of the Vaal was rarely unpleasant to any one accustomed to
a life in the open country, and even the townsmen found little to
grumble about. As soon as they reached the Diamond Fields, the
prospectors looked about for good spots on which to lodge their wagons
and pitch their tents. Some took to the fields small circular or " bell
" tents, but the greater part preferred a square or oblong "wall" tent,
commonly ten feet long and eight wide. From a central ridgepole,
propped at each end, the canvas roof was stretched to side posts four
feet high, from which flaps hung to the ground. This shelter served as
a home for two or three men, and a storehouse for their stinted
outfit. It was not spacious, but even a little tent was a welcome
change from the cramped bunking in mass under a wagon cover, and the
airy, clean, canvas chamber was
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much
pleasanter than the ordinary farmer's sleeping room, as many of the
prospectors remarked from experience. Even when the campers were
obliged, for lack of tents, to sleep in their wagons, the big arched
wagon did not suffer by comparison with any Boer's hut on the veld. The
tents were pitched, sometimes under the cover of the larger trees
lining the river bank, and sometimes on sheltered slopes, but the mass
at Klip-drift were bare to the sun, and exposed to the blast of every
storm that tore through the valley.
Often these storms were terrific, opening with the rising of a
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