no LODGES IN THE WILDERNESS 



which in those old days was covered with ver- 

 dure, — arises like a rampart from the northern 

 limit of the plains. I have watched him 

 crouching behind a rock with a sling in his 

 hairy hand and a stone axe slung to his girdle 

 of twisted thongs, — his fierce eyes bent on a 

 herd of Aurochs (or whatever the local con- 

 temporary equivalent of those beasts may have 

 been) straying down to the entrance of a cer- 

 tain valley. There he had constructed, and 

 skilfully concealed, a staked pit. The moun- 

 tains at Agenhuis and the high kopjes at 

 Gaams and N amies were then islands, and he 

 used to paddle from one to the other in a canoe 

 made of Aurochs' hide stretched over boughs. 

 In the gorge that splits Agenhuis Mountain he 

 waged mighty and victorious war with such 

 dragons of the prime as attempted to lair 

 therein, — for Agenhuis was one of his fav- 

 ourite sojourning places, and in the days when 

 he flourished, dragons had not yet disappeared 

 from earth. 



In view of the undoubted scientific founda- 

 tion upon which the germ-plasm theory rests, 

 there is no limit to be set to atavistic memory. 

 I am quite persuaded that this ancestor of 

 mine actually existed; as a matter of fact I 

 have over and over again seen him on the hunt- 



