![]() Image: Courtesy of the Van Dyk ABO Trust Collection Concerts in the Officers’ Mess Sometimes it can get confusing.īut Yeomen sets out the context both here and in the United Kingdom and then, without meandering, takes the reader into the well-curated and told minutiae of the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital at Deelfontein.Ī posed photograph of an operation in progress at a hospital theatre in Deelfontein. The various stages of this war embrace a lot of encounters and a very big piece of geography. This battle, that skirmish, this victory, that defeat, this treaty, that betrayal and suddenly we’re up in the endless mopane forests of the Far North with Breaker Morant shouting at his execution squad: I normally get very confused with books on the Anglo-Boer War, often referred to these days as the South African War. I am sitting on a rock in the veld in the winter sun with an excellent book on Deelfontein called Yeomen of the Karoo, authored by Rose Willis, Arnold van Dyk and JC “Kay” de Villiers. I know all this not because I’m some kind of history buff. They even race meerkats for money in the officers’ mess! A great book There is monogrammed Imperial Yeomanry crockery, there are gardens, a playhouse where The Prude’s Progress is one of the productions, a horse racing track, a cricket field, and tennis courts. If you gave money to the Deelfontein cause, you would know exactly where it was being spent. ![]() The entrance to each ward is named after a particular donor individual, as is each one of the available beds. Eventually, there are 15 ward buildings, each named after one of the donor organisations. There are operating theatres, recuperation wards, an X-ray hut, a dental unit, an ophthalmology section, a dispensary, a fire station, stables, street lights, waste disposal units, filtered drinking water, an ice-making machine, and a therapeutic “Russian bath”. It’s the kind of medical centre we in the present-day Karoo can only dream of having in our dorpies. Within the first few months of 1900, Deelfontein has been transformed.Ī massive tent town has sprung up. The site of the new hospital is a spot in the Karoo veld next to a railway siding called Deelfontein, not far from De Aar and near enough to the theatre of war to be accessible by train. There will now be a hospital for wounded and sick Yeomanry soldiers in South Africa, staffed by a handpicked selection of top doctors and medical personnel. That’s big money for its time – enough to set up four hospitals with building materials, equipment and all personnel needed. Although some are ill-trained and turn out to be “incompetent, cowardly and drunk”, in the main they are young, fit, sharp-eyed horsemen.Ī small group of British high society led by Ladies Chesham and Curzon make an impassioned appeal via the newspapers to the British public and raise nearly 175,000 pounds. During the course of this bitter colonial war, more than 35,000 men join the 177 Imperial Yeomanry companies. The call goes out for “eight thousand men who can ride well and shoot straight” in order to overcome the veld skills of the South African farmers.Ī new cavalry force, the Imperial Yeomanry, comes into existence. It’s time to recruit a better class of British soldiers. They are currently no match for the Boers. The thinly stretched colonial forces of the British Army have just lost nearly 3,000 men in the defeats of Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso. Suddenly I’m back in 1899, during the Black Week of December 10-17. Besides the scratch of my wife’s pen on her notebook and the plaintive, rising whistle of a clapper lark, it’s as peaceful as can be. I leave my camera for now and take a seat on a rock at the foot of the hill. Image: Chris Marais If you know nothing of the backstory of a place, you might as well be half-blind. You can make and sell over 20.One of the skeletal trees that stand guard over the Deelfontein gravesite. Poison - make poison with 1 bitter herbs (8 gold for basket or 25 gold ), 2 poisonous mushrooms, 5 gold and sell for 50 gold. Meat (only costs 1 more gold to buy back)īread - buy grain (30 gold), make flour (5 gold), make bread (5 bread), sell bread (40 gold) for 1 gold per bread profitĬharcoal - buy wood (17 gold after upgrade 20 gold before), make charcoal (10 gold), sell charcoal (32 gold) for 5 gold profit after woodcutter upgrade and 2 gold profit before upgrade West Forest 1 bitter herbs, 2 poison mushrooms ![]() West Forest (2 wood after upgrade 1 wood)Ĭastaway Beach 1 healing berries, 1 honey flower
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