, a park-like slope of grassy
veldt. And ever, when we looked behind us, the vast undulating plain
over which we had come stretched away in its mysterious silence, till it
blended at length with the soft blue horizon.

At last, after much hard and steady climbing, we reached the top and
stood upon a perfectly level space ten or twelve acres in extent,
exactly in the centre of which was placed the chief's kraal. Before we
dismounted we rode to the extreme western edge of the plateau, to look
at one of the most perfectly lovely views it is possible to imagine. It
was like coming face to face with great primeval Nature, not Nature
as we civilised people know her, smiling in corn-fields, waving in
well-ordered woods, but Nature as she was on the morrow of the Creation.
There, to our left, cold and grey and grand, rose the great peak,
flinging its dark shadow far beyond its base. Two thousand feet and more
beneath us lay the valley of the Mooi river, with the broad tranquil
stream flashing silver through its midst. Over against us rose another
range of towering hills, with sudden openings in their blue depths
through which could be seen the splendid distances of a champaign
country. Immediately at our feet, and seeming to girdle the great gaunt
peak, lay a deep valley, through which the Little Bushman's River forced
its shining way. All around rose the great bush-clad hills, so green, so
bright in the glorious streaming sunlight, and yet so awfully devoid of
life, so solemnly silent. It was indeed a sight never to be forgotten,
this wide panoramic out-look, with its towering hills, its smiling
valleys, its flashing streams, its all-pervading sunlight, and its deep
sad silence. But it was not always so lifeless and so still. Some few
years ago those hills, those plains, those rivers were teeming each with
their various creatures. But a short time since, and standing here
at eventide, the traveller could have seen herds of elephants cooling
themselves yonder after their day's travel, whilst the black-headed
white-tusked sea-cow rose and plunged in the pool below. That bush-clad
hill was the favourite haunt of droves of buffaloes and elands, and on
that plain swarmed thousands upon thousands of springbok and of quagga,
of hartebeest and of oribi. All alien life must cease before the white
man, and so these wild denizens of forest, stream, and plain have passed
away never to return.

Turning at length from the contemplation of