These long-spined acacias and hard-wooded trees alone
possessed an adequate resistance to such attacks, and
their survival proclaims that they were the fittest in the
long struggle for existence which in that phase has now
passed away. To-day their danger is from the grass-fires
of the Boer or in their capacity for supplying fuel. '
We meet the river—which in its serpentine course has
twice to be crossed—the first time at the base of a
quartzite cliff which affords a dwelling-place for a small
colony of baboons *, one of which, that has been late in
returning from his nightly excursions, I have sometimes
surprised early in the day. It was at this spot also
where one could meet and secure a specimen of the
migrant “ European Bee-eater ” (.Merops apiaster), a
bird of the gayest plumage to be found in the neighbourhood
; whilst it was. here and beyond my reach that
I have watched the wild and majestic flight of a
Charaxes butterfly, a species I was never able to secure.
This river, so clear and shallow during the dry season,
was sometimes found impassable during the rains. Our
way becomes more tortuous as we ascend and descend
the ridges of the higher ground till we reach about
the roughest piece of road that man ever drove over,
or that can be surpassed in South-African driving. A
hill with a surface of broken rock and bearing a few
trees has to be crossed; the road, if it can be called
one, rises steeply up one side, crosses the crest, and
abruptly descends the other extremity. The whole way is
one mass of broken quartzite jumbled together in titanic
undulation, and one hardly knew at which to be most
thankful—for having driven up one. side, or safely
travelled down the other. A narrow road ensues, with
trees overhead, a river beneath on one side, and the
quartzite hills rising high and rough-hewn around us.
Great blocks of rock strewn here and there, now peacefully
surrounded by herbage, tell the story of the wild
crash in which at some bygone time, they have broken
away from the parent block above and plunged head-
* These kill the young sheep, and are therefore assiduously shot by the
farmers.
long. It was on these rocky cliffs that I made my first
acquaintance with the Euphorlioe and Aloes, so typical
of the South-African flora.
The farm is soon reached in all its simplicity. Twenty
thousand acres, including hills, is not a bad stretch of
country for one man to own ; and when it is considered
that nearly the whole of this tract is in the same condition
as it was when first allotted at the time of the
early Boer settlement, with the exception that all the
large game, including lions and leopards, are now
slaughtered or driven back, a peculiar feature of the
Transvaal problem is apparent. Sitting on one of the
hills which surround this homestead, and looking at the
lonely grandeur of the scene, one wonders why these
Boers, under the laws of the average of genius, have
not produced a Robert Burns or the founder of some
new religion. It was on these hills that our Kafirs
felled the trees and stripped the bark, and looked
forward to my weekly visit with their wages, as “ one
day further on ” their return to their kraal with the cash
sufficient to negotiate the arrangement for another
wife.
Towards the end of August the nights became
decidedly warmer, though no rain fell. Dragonflies
somewhat suddenly appeared hovering over small ponds,
of which Crocothemis erytliræa and the giant Anax
mauricianus were the most common, two oak trees
growing near the Church Square were approaching fair
leaf, and the universal peach-bloom gave a warm colour
to the whole scene. Small patches of Sedum, sp.l, were
blooming on the adamantine veld, and the representatives
of butterfly life were increased by the appearance of
some species of Acroea and of Papilio demole as. A few
bugs ( Lygæidæ) could now be obtained by sweeping ; but
the rains were still absent, and the full spring was not yet,
though small water-beetles (Aalonogyrvs abdominalis) in
the noonday sun skimmed the surface of the clear brooks,
on the shady banks of which quantities of the Maidenhair
Fern (Adiantum, sp.)were now growing luxuriantly.
During this dry cool season of the year many strange