pebbles, wonderful in their colours, were magnified and 

 glorified into polished gems by the sparkling water. 



But Nature has her moods, and it was not always 

 thus at Paradise Camp. When the cold mist-rains, 

 like wet grey fogs, swept over us and for a week 

 blotted out creation, it was neither pleasant nor safe 

 to grope along the edge of the Berg, in search of strayed 

 cattle wet and cold, unable to see, and checked from 

 time to time by a keener straighter gust that leapt 

 up over the unseen precipice a few yards off. 



And there was still another mood when the summer 

 rains set in and the storms burst over us, and the 

 lightning stabbed viciously in all directions, and the 

 crackling crash of the thunder seemed as if the very 

 Berg itself must be split and shattered. Then the 

 rivers rose ; the roar of waters was all around us ; 

 and Paradise Camp was isolated from the rest by 

 floods which no man would lightly face. 



Paradise Camp stood on the edge of the kloof where 

 the nearest timber grew ; Tumbling Waters, where 

 stood the thousand grey sandstone sentinels of strange 

 fantastic shapes, was a couple of miles away facing Black 

 Bluff, the highest point of all, and The Camel, The Wolf, 

 The Sitting Hen and scores more, rough casts in rock 

 by Nature's hand, stood there. Close below us was 

 the Bathing Pool, with its twenty feet of purest water, 

 its three rock-ledge * springboards,' and its banks of 

 moss and canopies of tree ferns. Further down the 

 stream spread in a thousand pools and rapids over a mile 

 of black bedrock and then poured in one broad sheet 

 over Graskop Falls. And still further down were the 



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