overed this horde in searching for some of his horses that were
missing. Suspecting, from the traces, that they had been carried off by
Bushmen, he went out with an armed troop in pursuit, and came upon a
party of these wild marauders in one of the most savage recesses of the
neighbouring mountains. They were at breakfast, on a grey horse which
they had slaughtered, and had steaks roasting on the fire cut out of the
flank, with the hide still upon them. Pettingal, enraged by the
supposed loss of his best blood-horse, poured in a volley upon them;
but, apparently, without effect, for they all scrambled off with
inconceivable agility among the rocks and bushes. He recovered,
however, some of his own horses, and eight belonging to our neighbour
which were tied up under an overhanging cliff near the top of a
mountain."

There were no Bushmen running wild among the beautiful hills and valleys
of Glen Lynden when Hobson and I entered it, but the region was not
free, as I have related, from naked Kafirs, and it is still noted for
its population of hairy baboons.

LETTER EIGHT.

RAIN! RAIN! RAIN!--BABOONS RIVER--SEAHORSE KLOOF--WE HUNT THE HILLS ON
HORSEBACK IN SPITE OF RAIN--FLOODS AND ACCIDENTS--PART FROM HOBSON--
MAIL-CARTS AND DIAMOND-DIGGERS.

Rain is a blessed refreshment to the thirsty land; it is a life-giving
cordial to the thirsty soul; but when rain descends in torrents and
without cessation during the greater part of one's brief holiday, or at
any other very unseasonable period, and when one is _not_ thirsty, it
becomes depressing, to say the least.

Thus was I treated by rain during my week in Baviaans River. Hobson and
I had at last pushed up into the very heart of that wild mountain
region,--the allotted home of the Scottish settlers of 1820, the scene
of many Kafir raids and battles.

For months before we had lived in perpetual sunshine. Hobson had sighed
for a drop of rain. Sometimes South Africans have to sigh for a
twelve-month before relief is sent. Even while I write, the colony is
suffering excessively from drought, and many farmers have been ruined.
On the Karroo I had almost come to forget the sensation of being rained
upon, and an umbrella there would have appeared as great an impropriety
as a muslin overcoat in Nova Zembla. Nevertheless, no sooner did we
arrive at Seahorse Kloof than the windows of heaven were opened, and the
rain came down steadily night and day, while the sky pr