eak, of the invading army.

[Illustration: At the Gate of Windhuk. Headquarters Staff Motors
awaiting entry]
[Illustration: At the Gate of Windhuk. General Botha discusses matters
with the Governor of Windhuk]

[Illustration: At the Gate of Windhuk. The Interpreter]
[Illustration: At the Gate of Windhuk. General Botha emphasises]

With the interests of the civilised world fixed on the vast
slaughter-grounds of Europe, I shall not spend much time describing
Windhuk. It is a pretty, picturesque little town, built amongst brown and
purple hills. In most ways it is highly finished; reflects the spirit of
German thoroughness that is an admitted attribute of the race. As usual
in South-West Africa, it has nothing of the _colonial_ town about it;
it might be another suburb of Berlin. Many of the houses are thoroughly
built into the sides of the surrounding kopjes--perched like great
red-roofed cages on the hillsides. The place doesn't seem to have a
single industry of its own; but then, as I said elsewhere, there is
hardly an established industry in the Protectorate.

There is one thing about Windhuk that grips your attention--and holds
it in no uncertain manner, too. One of the great objectives of the
South-West campaign was to secure the Windhuk wireless station. When
you see this--catch a glimpse of it suddenly where it stands on the
veld outside the town--you get a thrill of sheer astonishment. The
thing seems monstrous there. It is foreign to our ideas--a wireless
colossus in such a place. Had I seen this vast piece of work in a
humming city that stands warden to the seas it would have fitted in.
But where it is--well, it just surprised. Fancy a pretty bijou veld
town, red roofs, neat church, pepper trees, aeromotors, sleepy people
and everything--and across the veld, a mile and a half away, darkening
the sky with great vertical lines, five terrific steel lattice pillars,
nearly four hundred feet high, tied by cables with stay bolts as big as
a man; their aerials sweep from pillar to pillar, answer to the wind
the deepest note of a giant 'cello, and eavesdrop and conjure amongst
the news markets of the world. Now there is no electric light in this
village of Windhuk, or Windy Corner, yet. What was the idea with this
stupendous thing? And there are not enough Germans in the place--or in
the whole territory, if it comes to that--to populate a good-sized
town. There is also the usual telegraphic communication to the co