CHAPTER VIII 



A STREAM IN CAPE COLONY 



Floods and drouglits — Sea-cow holes — Doves and Pigeons — 

 The Cuckoos — Honey-guides and Honey — Canaries and 

 Kingfishers — Weaver-birds — The Bush Lory — Its renewal 

 of colouring — Wading birds— Hill shooting — The neglected 

 Cape — Vast tracts unknown — Mountain interiors — Great 

 game — Pleasant backwaters — Flower life — A playgronnd 

 for future generations. 



A LITTLE river, which rises in the south-east angle of 

 the Great Karroo, ran through the mountains past 

 the stony slope on which our rude flat-topped dwell- 

 ing was pitched. When the thunder-rains fell and 

 the Karroo was drenched, this river raved in a great 

 body of turbid, reddish-yellow water, through the 

 poort or pass that fronted us, and thence, issuing 

 from the hills by another poort miles beyond, it 

 hastened to join the Groote or Gamtoos river. 



From that junction the combined torrents poured 

 down the lower slopes of the colonial coast region 

 and wasted themselves with fruitless fury in the 

 Indian Ocean. These ebullitions are, however, of 



scant occurrence, and are quickly over. An annual 



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