scherms

South Africa, where there is only a lot of small thorn bush and long grass, you can make "scherms," or loose thorn bushes piled in a heap and made into a small horse-shoe, arched over, back to wind, and covered or roughly thatched with grass.

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At last, nearly at the other end of the vlei, having passed five sets of scherms, we came upon what seemed to be the

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Of course there was a great stir along the lines of the native scherms, for they did not know what to make of it.

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Coming out of the bush on the near edge of the vlei, before going down into it, I saw fires lit, and scherms and figures showing dark against the fires right along the opposite edge of the vlei.

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It was quite light now and they saw us from the scherms all the way, but they just looked at us and we at them, and so we went along.

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[Illustration: 'JUST AS HIS ARM WAS POISED I FIRED'] 'I went, and for a long, long time I heard only the dropping of the rain from the leaves and now and then a dog barking in the scherms, but at last, just as it got grey in the east, I heard a noise, and placing my ear close to the ground, made it out to be the tramp of horses.

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We retreated in close order into the bush on the opposite side of the vlei -- the other side from the scherms.

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We splashed through, and the first thing we scouts knew on the other side was that we were riding into the middle of a lot of Matabele among some scherms, or temporary shelters.

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We skirted the vlei to our left, got round the end of it, and at once rode through a lot of scherms containing hundreds of people.

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