eyes.

But Vrouw Van Vuuren looked meanwhile straight in front of her, with a
rather grim look upon her strong old face.

"Cornelis Van Vuuren," she said, after a little pause, looking now very
hard at her husband, "that is an old and a foolish story that has been
told far too many times already. I will not have it told in my house.
If you wish to repeat tales that are better dead and buried, you must go
outside."

Cornelis looked at his wife. One glance, and a long experience--nearly
fifty years of married life--told him plainly enough that the vrouw was
in earnest.

"That is all right, Anna, my dear," he said simply. "I won't tease you
with an old joke. Come, my friend [to me], we will smoke our pipes
outside."

We sat ourselves down upon the broad _stoep_ (veranda) which ran round
the house, and smoked our pipes. Franz had gone to the sheep-kraals to
see that all was well for the night. The sun had just set, and the
western heavens and horizon were still aflame with colour. A strange,
mellow, refracted light filled the upper air, and threw the flat grass
plains, stretching everywhere around, into strong relief. Far out upon
these grassy flats, some half a mile away, grazed a troop of springbok,
their shining white and cinnamon coats flecking the plain brilliantly.
The mingled bleat of sheep and goats and the low of neat cattle came not
unpleasantly from the kraals behind the dwelling. I saw that the old
man's eye was resting upon the springboks, now grazing so peacefully
upon the plain. Presently he took his pipe from his mouth, shook his
head regretfully, and said, "'Tis a pity the _wilde_ (game) are going so
fast. I never could have believed it. When I first trekked through
this country, in 1837, the land was darkened with wild animals.
Almighty! they ran in millions. Quagga, Bonte quagga, black wildebeest,
elands, hartebeest, ostrich, springboks, blesboks. Ach! _Kerel_! (my
boy) I tell you I have passed across these plains through a herd of
_trek-bokken_ (migrating springboks) three or four miles broad, and
extending as far as a man's eye could reach. All day we passed through
that _trek-bokken_. I shall never forget it, never. We shot scores of
buck, till we were tired; but we were chiefly anxious to get past the
springboks, which had eaten off every blade of grass for miles upon
miles, so that our oxen and horses looked like being starved. And now,
almost all gone, all gone!"

"But,"