[Andrew Frisardi]

Coming back to this, since your post set me to reading more in Adamastor. There’s another reference to Smuts in that book, and to Bull Hoek and Bondlesaart, in a poem called “A Veld Eclogue” (a longish poem). It’s a political satire in the form of an eclogue. At the end of the poem, when one of the “shepherds” has finished speaking, the narrator comments:

So Johnny sang. His song was brief and true—
Had Creswell, Smuts or Hertzog half his nous,
There would be far more goats on the Karroo
And far less in the Senate and the House.

The historical and political allusions go right over my head, but a note in the back of the book, by Campbell, says that Bull Hoek in the poem refers to a shooting raid there on an unarmed religious sect, and that Bondleswaart was the sit of a bombing raid on a village that had complained of a dog-tax.

Campbell was always polemical. And a superb writer.

I’m curious: why is your friend looking for the poem?