FIRST YEARS IN SOUTH AFRICA. 17 



A more dreary looking place than Port Elizabeth 

 could hardly be imagined. The town consisted of 

 substantial stone-built barracks for a detachment 

 of troops, the Phcenix Hotel, a general store or 

 two, a post-office, some three or four private resi- 

 dences scattered about among barren sand dunes 

 and pretty close to the furious breakers for which 

 the bay is notorious. Whether there was a church 

 and the orthodox drinking-bar I forget, as I was 

 not addicted to frequenting such places. 



This place I left as soon as possible, and went 

 on to the then pretty and primitive village of 

 Uitenhague. Here gardens, fruit, and greenery 

 prevailed ; a comfortable inn kept by a worthy 

 English couple provided for one's wants amply, 

 and I stopped for two months, enjoying, at first, 

 some excellent bush-buck and snipe shooting, then 

 afterwards got a fine lion and several buffalo, about 

 twenty miles from the village. 



Hyaenas used to come to the outskirts of the 

 village in such numbers that one moonlight night 

 I killed seven of them as they arrived in detach- 

 ments to gorge on a dead horse. 



Later I bought three good horses, and started 

 for Graaf-Reinet, which pretty village I reached 



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