A STREAM IN CAPE COLONY 97 



now sprinkled with the flocks of the sheep, and goat, 

 and ostrich farmers, the fecund springbok still roves 

 in some plenty. The lion has long since gone, but the 

 leopard is much harder to dislodge, and yet haunts 

 almost every mountain chain. Game birds, wildfowl, 

 birds of plumage, legions of raptorial birds, all these 

 throng the earth and water, and the great void of sky. 

 In the south and south-east an amazing wealth of 

 flowers is to be found. Yet the land lies to this 

 day almost unknown to the outer world. For a 

 hundred men that cross the Orange River and 

 hurry breathlessly to the gold-fields, the diamond- 

 fields, or the far-off hunting veldt, not one turns 

 aside and wanders quietly through the much more 

 picturesque, and at least as interesting, country of 

 Cape Colony. Even the globe-trotter and the average 

 pleasure-seeker looks askance at the poor old colony, 

 and tears by train and post-cart over the hackneyed 

 route that he has set himself to accomplish. Most 

 of these people form their impressions of the old 

 Colony from the parched and wearisome Karroo 

 plains over which the railway carries them. They 

 have no knowledge of the glorious mountains, kloofs, 

 and bush-veldt which they have left behind. For 

 the man of peace and the true lover of nature 

 perhaps all this is just as well. It is pleasant to 

 find in unexpected corners little backwaters which 

 the roaring tide of extermination has left in peace, 



