ty travellers in unknown regions should have so
often pushed forward in eager pursuit of this beautiful phantom.

"Things are not what they seem," truly! This applies to many
terrestrial things, but to none of them more thoroughly than to the
_mirage_.

While I was looking at it, the form of the lake altered sufficiently to
have dispelled the illusion, if I had been labouring under it. In a few
minutes it passed away altogether, but only to reappear elsewhere.

Another curious effect, and rather absurd mistake, resulted from the
different densities in the super-heated atmosphere which caused this
_mirage_. Fancying that I saw two springboks on the horizon I pointed
them out to my boy.

"Ja!" said Mike, nodding his head and riding towards them at a smart
canter. As we advanced I observed that the boks began to grow rather
larger than life, and that Mike slackened his pace and began to grin.
It turned out that the objects were two carts with white canvas hoods,
and when we came up to them we found they belonged to a party who had
come out to join us, but who, up to that hour, had been unable to
discover us in the vast hunting-field!

After directing them to our camp we proceeded on our way. That is to
say Mike did. For myself, I was completely lost, and if left to myself
should have been quite unable to return to camp.

While galloping along, revelling in the sunshine--in the love of which I
will not yield to cats--we came suddenly on the largest snake I had yet
seen. It was, I believe, a cobra, must have been fully six feet long,
if not more, and was gliding with an easy sinuous motion over the plain
as fast apparently, as a man's ordinary running-pace. I observed that
it did not get out of the way of small bushes, but went straight through
them without the smallest check to its speed. It suddenly dived into a
hole and disappeared. It is said that when snakes take to a hole to
escape pursuit, some of them have a habit of causing their heads to stop
abruptly at the entrance, and allowing their bodies and tails to flip
past like the lash of a whip, so that if the pursuer were to thrust in
his hand to grasp the tail he would be met by the fangs! As the bite of
most South African snakes means death, if the part be not cut out, or
otherwise effectually treated, handling them is carefully avoided.
Nevertheless my friend Jonathan--when a younger man, let us hope!--was
in the habit of occasionally catching deadl