rns
till the tears ran down his face, at length I started, and travelled
slowly northwards. For the first three weeks nothing very particular
befell me. Such Kaffirs as we came in contact with were friendly, and
game literally swarmed. Nobody living in those parts of South Africa
nowadays can have the remotest idea of what the veldt was like even
thirty years ago.

Often and often I have crept shivering on to my waggon-box just as the
sun rose and looked out. At first one would see nothing but a vast field
of white mist suffused towards the east by a tremulous golden glow,
through which the tops of stony koppies stood up like gigantic beacons.
From the dense mist would come strange sounds--snorts, gruntings,
bellows, and the thunder of countless hoofs. Presently this great
curtain would grow thinner, then it would melt, as the smoke from a
pipe melts into the air, and for miles on miles the wide rolling country
interspersed with bush opened to the view. But it was not tenantless as
it is now, for as far as the eye could reach it would be literally black
with game. Here to the right might be a herd of vilderbeeste that could
not number less than two thousand. Some were grazing, some gambolled,
whisking their white tails into the air, while all round the old bulls
stood upon hillocks sniffing suspiciously at the breeze. There, in
front, a hundred yards away, though to the unpractised eye they looked
much closer, because of the dazzling clearness of the atmosphere, was
a great herd of springbok trekking along in single file. Ah, they have
come to the waggon-track and do not like the look of it. What will they
do?--go back? Not a bit of it. It is nearly thirty feet wide, but that
is nothing to a springbok. See, the first of them bounds into the air
like a ball. How beautifully the sunshine gleams upon his golden
hide! He has cleared it, and the others come after him in numberless
succession, all except the fawns, who cannot jump so far, and have to
scamper over the doubtful path with a terrified _bah_. What is that
yonder, moving above the tops of the mimosa, in the little dell at the
foot of the koppie? Giraffes, by George! three of them; there will be
marrow-bones for supper to-night. Hark! the ground shakes behind us, and
over the brow of the rise rush a vast herd of blesbock. On they come at
full gallop, their long heads held low, they look like so many bearded
goats. I thought so--behind them is a pack of wild dogs, th