t it.

The country we were traversing beneath the mountains was full of beauty,
so graceful were the slopes and rolls of the hills, so bright the green
of the pastures; while the sky, this being the rainy season, had a soft
tone like that of England, and was flecked with white clouds sailing
across the blue. It was also a prosperous-looking country, for the rich
soil supported many villages, and many natives, men as well as women,
were to be seen at work in the fields as we rode by. Except where
streams have cut deeply into the soft earth, one gets about easily on
horseback, for there are no woods save a little scrub clinging to the
sides of the steeper glens. We were told that the goats eat off the
young trees, and that the natives have used the older ones for fuel. In
the afternoon we passed St. Michael's, the seat of a flourishing Roman
Catholic mission, and took our way up the steep and stony track of a
kloof (ravine) which led to a plateau some 6000 feet or more above
sea-level. The soil of this plateau is a deep red loam, formed by the
decomposition of the trap rock, and is of exceptional fertility, like
the decomposed traps of Oregon and the Deccan. Here we pitched our tent,
and found our liberal supply of blankets none too liberal, for the air
was keen, and the difference between day and night temperature is great
in these latitudes. Next morning, starting soon after dawn, we rode
across the deep-cut beds of streams and over breezy pastures for some
six or seven miles, to the base of the main Maluti range, and after a
second breakfast prepared for the ascent of the great summit, which we
had been admiring for two days as it towered over the long line of peaks
or peered alone from the mists which often enveloped the rest of the
range. It is called Machacha, and is a conspicuous object from Ladybrand
and the Free State uplands nearly as far as Thaba 'Ntshu. Our route lay
up a grassy hollow so steep that we had thought our friend, the
Commissioner, must be jesting when he pointed up it and told us that was
the way we had to ride. For a pedestrian it was a piece of hand and foot
climbing, and seemed quite impracticable for horses. But up the horses
went. They are a wonderful breed, these little Basuto nags. This region
is the part of South Africa where the horse seems most thoroughly at
home and happy, and is almost the only part where the natives breed and
ride him. Sixty years ago there was not a horse in the count