Explore "Cry, The Beloved Country" by Alan Paton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The engine steams and whistles over the veld of the Transvaal. The white flat hills of the mines drop behind, and the country rolls away as far as the eye can see. They sit all together, Kumalo, and the little boy on his knees, and the girl with her worldly possessions in one of those paper carriers that you find in the shops. The little boy has asked for his mother, but Kumalo tells him she has gone away, and he does not ask any more.
At Volksrust the steam engine leaves them, and they change it for one that has the cage, taking power from the metal ropes stretched overhead. Then they wind down the escarpment, into the hills of Natal, and Kumalo tells the girl this is Natal. And she is eager and excited, never having seen it before.