Il6 SOME BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA 



then return to Knysna and dine, passing the evening 

 in suppressed conversation. Next morning they are 

 gone. 



There are other ways of getting to Knysna than by 

 the two small cargo boats before mentioned, for while 

 it is always charming to read and to write of the rough 

 sea and the rock-bound coast, the sea which washes 

 the south coast of Africa is not a sea, to my mind, to 

 be entertained with any amount of complacency save 

 from the deck of one of the larger vessels, however 

 well-disposed one may feel towards the smaller boats, 

 which, to their credit be it said, fight bravely during 

 their voyages round these rough shores. 



About once a week one of the " intermediate " boats 

 from Cape Town calls at Mossel Bay, distant some 

 ninety miles from Knysna, and from here the traveller 

 may hire a Cape cart and make a two or three days' 

 journey of it, stopping one night at George, a rather 

 important centre, and another at Woodville, a little way- 

 side inn, which with a few other buildings seems to 

 constitute the hamlet of that name. The road is good, 

 and the journey for the most part is continued along a 

 plateau situated well above the sea. In the neighbour- 

 hood of George the outskirts of the Knysna Forest are 

 reached, the road passing through some of the most 

 beautiful scenery in Cape Colony. On nearing Knysna, 

 steep hills and wooded valleys follow one another in 

 seemingly endless succession, and deep gorges that a 

 modern bridge might span, have to be laboriously 

 traversed by the winding road. The forest here has a 

 curious appearance, many of the trees having at one 

 time or another been stripped of their bark and foliage 



