mornings, he and I, with sometimes other members of
the family entered into strong temptation among the magnificent fruit.
We used to overcome the temptation by giving way to it! There were
plums, peaches, figs, apples, apricots, grapes, nectarines, and other
fruits, with which the trees were so laden that some of the branches had
given way and their luscious loads were lying on the ground. Cartloads
of these were given away to friends, and to any one, as there was no
market for their disposal.

Many splendid gardens like this exist on what is sometimes styled the
barren Karroo; but the land is anything but barren. All it requires is
a copious supply of water, and wherever farmers have taken the trouble
to form dams and store the heavy though infrequent rains, gardens of the
most prolific kind have been the result. The Karroo-bush itself, which
gives name to these plains, is a succulent plant, which thrives in the
almost waterless soil, and forms a rich pasturage for sheep and cattle.
Hobson's garden--copiously watered by streams led out from his large
dams--was a beautiful shady oasis of green and gold, in the midst of
what, to some eyes, might have appeared a desert, but which, if
irrigated properly, would become a perfect paradise of fertility.

We cantered on over the plain, till the garden and the farm looked in
the distance like ships at sea, and rode among the bushes that crowned a
rising ground. We set up some guinea-fowl and other birds, and startled
a hare, but let them go, as our aim was steenboks. The little boks,
however, were not on the knoll that day, so away we went again at a
gallop until the garden and the farm went down on the horizon.

Sometimes we kept together and chatted, at other times we diverged and
skirted small clumps of underwood on opposite sides. At one time, while
separated from Bonny, I saw a large stone lying on the ground. As I
looked, the stone began to crawl! It was a tortoise, fully as large as
a soup-tureen. The sight of an animal in its "native wilds," which you
have all your life been accustomed to see in zoological gardens, has
something peculiar, almost absurd, in it. As it is with animals, so it
is with other objects. I remember being impressed with this idea, for
the first time, in the south of France, when I beheld a tree covered
with lemons--a fruit which, up to that period, had been connected in my
mind with grocers' windows and brown sugar!

I turned aside