Wolwefontein

British settlers mistook brown hyenas for wolves at a Karoo spring, giving Wolwefontein its name. But the town earned a second moniker, Revolverfontein, after poker nights at the 1920 hotel turned rowdy. Travelling salesmen, known as smouse, timed their routes around menu items at various hotels. They’d arrive for Thursday poker, do business Friday morning, then stay the weekend. The combination of cards, liquor, lonely farmers’ daughters, and local families often sparked fireworks. One farmer chased a salesman down the corridor, firing shots into the air. The bullet holes remained visible for years.

The hotel is one of only four surviving railway hotels left in South Africa, a category that used to define small-town Karoo life and now mostly defines what’s disappeared from it. It still sits beside the station it was built to serve, wooden floors intact, a fireplace still lit in winter for whoever passes through on the long haul between Steytlerville and Uitenhage. The smouse are long gone, replaced by the odd tourist or researcher headed for Baviaanskloof. The poker games, presumably, have calmed down.