Chap, vi.] BABOONS. ♦ I23 



South Africa. Sir Joseph Hooker thinks it probable, from 

 botanical grounds, that Western Australia was connected with 

 the Cape district by land at a time when it was severed from 

 Eastern Australia. 



How is it that Marsupials are not found at the Cape, being 

 nevertheless found in the Great Oolite in England ? It would 

 seem necessary almost that they must have been present at the 

 Cape and have died out, unless it is possible that Proteacece and 

 Restiacece are very much older than Marsupials, in which case 

 they would be very old indeed. 



Table Mountain is most easily accessible from this side, and 

 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 Wynberg 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 long distances from one 

 another. 



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

 baboons, Cynocephalus 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 

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

 even up to 70, and there were 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 



