178 SOME BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA 



ment would have persuaded him to yield up his ill- 

 gotten gains, but the natives have a wholesome horror 

 of the jail, or tronk, as they call it. 



If there are many difficulties in the way of reaching 

 Kynsna, the facilities for leaving the neighbourhood 

 are indeed few, and the visitor to these districts must 

 make up his mind beforehand to the probability of 

 delay in getting away. We had decided to go on to 

 Port Elizabeth, but as the only two boats which call 

 at that port are cargo boats carrying wood from the 

 forest, and study but little the convenience of passengers, 

 it will be seen that these latter are dependent for 

 transport on the uncertain demand of the timber trade. 

 We could of course have hired a Cape cart and driven 

 to Port Elizabeth, a distance of about two hundred 

 miles, but even this arrangement would not have 

 sufficed to convey our luggage, which was necessarily 

 of considerable bulk. We had therefore nothing to do 

 but wait until one of the boats before mentioned was 

 going eastward, which we found would be early in 

 January. 



We had heard many and varied accounts of the 

 boat that was to take us, and had seen her often as she 

 lay alongside the small jetty near the town, where, 

 as viewed over the low-lying ground and mud-banks of 

 the estuary, she looked a veritable leviathan. True, 

 she had the berth all to herself, and was not placed at 

 an undue disadvantage by comparison with other vessels 

 of perhaps five or ten times her tonnage. That she 

 was a good sea boat, however, everyone admitted. 

 We were to sail in the afternoon, and as the departure 

 of one of the boats is always an event that collects a 



