236 LODGES IN THE WILDERNESS 



material thickness, yet infinity lay in its depths. 

 I sought for a gazania of another species and 

 found its petals eyed like the peacock's tail. 

 Yet another, — it shewed the rose-ardours of 

 dawn contending with the purple of a sea on 

 whose surface night still brooded. Every 

 species had its own colour-scheme — its maze 

 of*splendour more intricate than the labyrinth 

 of King Minos. 



Old Mr. Von Schlicht of Klipfontein — who 

 had spent most of his life in Namaqualand, 

 had recently been endeavouring to recall for 

 me details of the desert journeys of Ecklon 

 and Drege, who did so much for South African 

 botanv. I ascertained that Ecklon visited 

 Kamiebies. How his heart must have leaped 

 when his eyes first gathered in the winter glory 

 of those mountains. .When he afterwards 

 stood, begging his bread at the corner of the 

 Heerengracht, Cape Town, — did he ever re- 

 call that scene? Strange world of men that 

 so often lets its noblest, after lives of heroic 

 toil for the highest and most unselfish ends, 

 die in the gutter — if it does not more mercifully 

 slay them — and pays tribute of corn, wine and 

 oil, of jewels and fine raiment, to the company- 

 monger or other chartered robber adroit enough 

 to squeeze through the meshes of the law. 



