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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 9 (April 1, 1931)

[section]

Pretoria is a charming city—to those New Zealand Rough Riders who thirty years ago lined up along Church Square, sitting in their saddles in the hot sun, waiting to be inspected by Lord Roberts, the charm of the place still remains. But the years between now and then have brought changes. The forts on the hills above, on which the Kruger Government spent millions—from which not a shot was fired—are now abandoned to the roving breezes and the creeping shadows. From the look-outs no horseman can be seen patrolling across the boundless veldt, and no gunfire startles the quiet of the sun-scorched spaces.

But to the range finder the puzzle of the distances is the same—everything seems near. A pillar of smoke rising up from the Premier Diamond Mine, thirty miles off, seems within reach, and the Maollisberg Ranges—fifty miles away as the vulture flies-seem just under your hat-brim. And the moon shining at the Fountains, and the Waterkloof, is still the moon of other days, and the roses in the garden at “Jerr's” cottage still blow in the breezes just as they did when the Rough Riders from Maoriland rode by, all on a summer's day.