The First World War is over, and parts of Natal are thrown open to white settlers for development; Donald Kirkwood acquires 1500 acres of raw veld to develop a cotton farm. While camping there with little more than a tent and a post box made from a biscuit tin, he builds a house and prepares the land. The farmers must cope with a fatal cattle disease, catastrophic floods, and locusts. The settlement is rich with eccentric characters, not least little Mrs Potgieter, who delivers eggs wrapped in scraps of the Zululand Times; Eric, an American volunteer ambulance driver on the Western Front, and his French wife Marie; and Padraig O'Grady, an Irishman who fought with the Boers, and his wife Sarie, daughter of one of them.

Anyone who loves Africa will love this book, as will anyone desiring to gain a better un-derstanding of the complicated society in post-colonial South Africa. This is the second book in the Kirkwood Trilogy, the first being The Snake in the Signal Box.