esented a
universal grey that would have done credit to the Scottish Highlands.
It was too bad!

My main object in penetrating to these rugged wilds was to visit one of
the Pringles, a relative of personal friends on the borders of my own
land. Finding that Mr Pringle was absent from home, we turned aside to
visit a cousin of Hobson's, a Mr John Edwards, who dwelt in what
appeared to me the fag-end of the world,--a lonely farmhouse, at the
head of the mountain gorge named Seahorse Kloof.

"It's a splendid country," said Hobson, "with lots of game, and Edwards
is a noted hunter, besides being a capital fellow."

What more could man desire? We arrived full of hope and spirits,
received a hearty welcome, and awoke next day to find the sky grey, as I
have said, and the rain descending steadily.

Of course we hoped against hope, but as day after day came and went, our
hopes and spirits sank. Then there came a reaction that is not uncommon
in the circumstances,--we grew desperate, and began to enjoy our misery.
We got out our rifles, took up a sheltered position in the shed of an
outhouse, and blazed away from dripping morn to pouring eve at empty
bottles, amongst which we did tremendous execution.

Of course, also, we relieved the tedium of enforced indoor life by song
and talk, but these resources could not make up for lost time, and the
depth to which I had been sunk was revealed to me by the sudden rebound
of joy when, after a week of heavy wet, there was a break in the
universal grey and the sun came feebly out. Blessed sun, if thou wert
to roast me alive, methinks I would love thee still!

Before this happened, however, we had a few brief intervals of modified
dripping. During one of these, in which the rain all but ceased for a
forenoon, I resolved to go out into one of the mountain gorges for a
ramble alone. My host lent me his double barrel--one barrel being for
shot, the other rifled.

"It is loaded," said he, "the right with shot, the left with ball."

"Very good," said I; "expect a tiger when I return."

My host smiled. Leopards were there, truly, but as he knew, and as I
have elsewhere mentioned, they never show themselves except when driven
out of their retreats by dogs. To say truth, I only wanted a walk,
expected to kill a rabbit or a crow, and hoped faintly for a buck. None
of these things did I see, but I found a small coney, at which I fired
the shot barrel. To my surprise there came no