Explore "Landtakers: The Story of an Epoch" by Brian Penton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
One day towards the end of 1860 Cabell rode over to the Darvall's to complain, as usual, that the Ningpo scrubs were taking his cattle into the bush which the Colonel refused obstinately to clear. In virgin luxuriance it encompassed the strange house, already trailing vines and creepers across the gables, as if to help in hiding the Colonel from the curious world.
A dozen blacks were lounging in the yard watching a sheep roast, skin and all, over a smoky fire, and heaps of bones and sheep's heads around which clouds of flies buzzed showed that this feast was a regular thing. There was no sign of any white man about the place, for the Colonel thought that all white men had designs on his daughters and had chased them away.