th Thunder and Juno, the two big hounds that always
accompanied me everywhere, trailing at their heels and whining with
impatience to be off. Arrived there, another commission or two were
remembered and had to be jotted down, upon which my father laughingly
exclaimed, as I finally closed my notebook and slipped it into my
pocket:

"There, that will do, Ned; now you had better mount and ride, or you
will not get away at all to-day. Goodbye, boy; remember me very kindly
to Mr Henderson and such other friends as you may see at the Bay, and--
don't forget the new rifle!"

This last sally produced quite an explosion of laughter at my expense,
for I had announced my determination to treat myself to the best weapon
I could find, and the enthusiasm with which I had dwelt upon the
achievements that would be in my power when it came into my possession
rendered it the most unlikely thing in the world that I should forget to
purchase it. Joining in the laugh, I shook hands with Mr Lestrange,
Nesbitt, and my father, kissed Nell and my mother, and ran
light-heartedly down the steps, swung myself into the saddle, and, with
a final farewell wave of the hand, cantered off down the broad path
leading to the gate, with the dogs bounding along ahead and Piet,
mounted upon a sturdy grey gelding, bringing up the rear.

It was a glorious morning, such as I think one never finds anywhere but
in South Africa; the sky overhead a deep, rich, cloudless blue, shading
away on all sides to a soft, warm, delicate, almost colourless grey at
the horizon, the air, already warming beneath the ardent rays of the
sun, clear and pellucid as crystal and as invigorating as champagne with
the fresh, clean smell of the dew-saturated vegetation. Around on every
hand stretched a brilliant, sun-kissed picture of rugged mountain
slopes, scored deeply by the storms of ages; deep kloofs, precipitous of
side, shaggy with their vesture of dense bush, and mysterious with their
broad masses of dark shadow; rolling uplands, dotted here and there with
clumps of timber and bush or with our grazing flocks of sheep and herds
of cattle and horses, sweeping gently down toward the wide-stretching,
bush-clad plains, through which wound tiny spruits, like threads of
silver, hurrying to lose themselves in the broader waters of the Great
Fish River.

Riding at an easy canter, the track across the veld being a very gentle
downward slope all the way, I overtook the wagon at a d