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CHAPTER VII
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THE GREAT WHITE CAMPS
OW
quickly and marvellously was the face of the little South African stock
farms transformed by this influx ! Open pasture land, where the eye saw
one day only a few scattered cattle browsing on the thin grass and
scratching their sides against a stunted camelthorn, was covered next
day by swarms of roving prospectors, with shovels and sieves, upturning
grass roots and shaking dry earth through their screens. White canvas
camps, foaming with life, rose in a
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night,
with the seeming magic of Aladdin's palace, at the foot of kopjes
where, before, a burrowing meerkat was the only tenant. Beyond the
masses of tents ranged long straggling arches of wagon tops and
tethered troops of bullocks, horses, and mules.
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190
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