CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 143 



it was from hence that I ascended it with Dr. Mansell, F.L.S., 

 as my guide, who gave me most useful information about the 

 Botany. 



From AVynberg the rail takes one in about half an hour to 

 Cape Town, the train stopping at about half a dozen villages or 

 suburbs, where many of the business men of the city live. 

 Cape Town is not very interesting in itself. There are few fine 

 buildings. The best is that containing the library and museum. 



The officers of the ship liked Cape Town for its gaiety and 

 dancing. I enjoyed Simons Bay most thoroughly, because it 

 is a place where one can get at once amongst wild nature, and 

 over the hills and moors, amongst the rocks, or along the coast, 

 and come into immediate relation with examples of nearly all 

 the characteristic South African animals in their wild condition. 

 I constantly crossed the high ridge of the Cape promontory, just 

 above Simons Bay, and made across to the shore on the other 

 side. The whole promontory is one tract of open moorland, with 

 only a few farms and houses of boers with small holdings, 

 scattered at lonsf distances from one another. 



On one of my first expeditions I came across a troop of 

 baboons, Cynocephahts porcarius. They are as big as a New- 

 foundland dog when full grown. They live especially about 

 the sea-cliffs and steep talus slopes leading down from these 

 to the sea ; but they are to be met with also on the open moor- 

 land above. They live in droves or clans, of 30, 40, or even 

 up to 70, and there w r ere three such bodies of them in the 

 country immediately about Simons Bay, and in the tract 

 stretching down to Cape Point. 



When on the feed, two or three keep watch, and one usually 

 hears them before one sees them. The warning cry is like the 

 German " hoch " much prolonged. As soon as they see one, 

 three or four of them mount on the scattered rocks so as to have 

 a clear view over the bushes and heaths, and watch every move- 

 ment of the enemy, so that it is extremely difficult to get within 

 shot of them. If one stands still, or does not go any nearer, 

 merely passing by, they employ themselves, as they sit un- 

 concernedly, in scratching in the usual monkey fashion ; but still 

 never losing sight of their object of suspicion. 



