Lindley is one of those peculiar, bare, little Dutch towns, the presence
of which on the lonely hillside always seems so inexplicable. It is
even more than usually hideous. There is the inevitable big church, the
only large building in the place, occupying a central position, and
looking very frigid and uninviting, like the doctrine it inculcates; a
few large general stores, where you can buy anything from a plough to a
pennyworth of sweets, and some single-storey, tin-roofed houses or
cottages flung down in a loose group. But around it there are none of
the usual signs of a town neighbourhood. No visible roads lead to it; no
fertile and cultivated land surrounds it; no trees or parks or pleasure
grounds are near it. The houses might have been pitched down yesterday
for all the notice the veldt takes of them. Spread out over the hills
and valleys for some hundreds of miles each side this barren treeless
veldt, which, after all, is the main fact of South African life, seems
to carry these little unexpected towns on its breast with the same ease
and unconsciousness that the sea carries its fleets of ships;
surrounding and lapping at their very hulls; not changed itself nor
influenced by their presence.
During our stay of a day or two at Lindley it became increasingly
evident that the people of that neighbourhood resented our presence
there.
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