ry was flat
enough to enable one to catch a glimpse, here and there, of the Great
Fish River itself winding southward through the plain, and, in the
extreme distance, the soft blue masses of the Tandjes Berg spurs, on the
hither side of which the white houses of Somerset East, some
twenty-eight miles away, might sometimes be seen on a clear morning when
the sun shone strongly upon them.

Such, very feebly and sketchily described, was the splendid prospect
visible from the stoep of our house as I first knew it; and the passage
of the years effected little or no change save the gradual disappearance
of the nearer clumps of bush, as my father caused them to be cleared
away in order to furnish additional grazing ground for our steadily
increasing flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, and the occasional
appearance of a new house somewhere in the distance, as neighbours
gradually began to gather in our vicinity. The greatest change of all,
however, was that occasioned by the erection of our own new house; for,
as time went on, my father's health improved so greatly that he became
as strong and robust as ever, with the promise of a ripe old age before
him. Moreover, he began to make money rapidly as his flocks and herds
increased; and, as the money came in, so his views with regard to the
comforts of home life expanded. The house standing on the property when
my father purchased it consisted of a sitkammer, or general sitting-room
used for all day purposes, and three bedrooms; and this amount of
accommodation served our purpose well enough for the first five years of
our residence upon the farm. But by that time my father had made a very
considerable sum of money by his annual sales of wool and hides; and one
of his theories was that money was useful merely as a means by which
life might be made more comfortable and enjoyable. He therefore planned
a new and much more commodious house, built it of stone quarried from
the mountain side within a quarter of a mile of the chosen site, filled
it with new and handsome furniture, pictures, and a piano for my mother,
all imported from England at great expense, and laid out a beautiful
garden of about five acres in extent all round the house, converting the
place into a perfect miniature Paradise. Also, the time had arrived
when my education must be thought of; and, as at that period there were
no schools of any importance nearer than Cape Town, and my mother
objected to my being s