KLOOF AND KARROO. 



or by post cart or ox-waggon. The simple annals 

 of our trip may therefore be not uninteresting to 

 those who would care to know how progression by 

 road is yet managed in the Old Colony. I think the 

 majority of Cape travellers take little heed of the 

 innumerable attractions that lie ready to the eye 

 and hand of even the most ordinary lover of nature. 

 The endless varieties of bird and flower and animal 

 life in this country, possibly, have small charm for 

 the traveller only desirous to reach his destination 

 by the helter-skelter of the post cart, or the dull 

 routine of the railway. But they exist in plenty by 

 every roadside of the Colony for those who would 

 seek them. No hedge, or wall, or fence mars the wild 

 beauty of the landscape as you travel, save here 

 and there near a farmstead, an ostrich camp, or 

 cattle kraal. The terrain lies open around you, as 

 the sky above ; you halt when you like, proceed 

 when you like, in unrestricted freedom, and you 

 may take your meals as you do your pleasure, under 

 the broad canopy of heaven. After a prosperous 

 voyage from Dartmouth to Cape Town and thence 

 to Port Elizabeth (Algoa Bay), we stayed at " the 

 Bay," as it is colonially called, for a few days, making 

 inquiries as to the whereabouts of Naroekas Poort, 

 the farm whither we intended to journey. We had 

 expected letters which should acquaint us with the 

 means of reaching our destination, but having 

 arrived a mail before we were expected, these letters 

 had not come down country, and we experienced 

 much difficulty in finding out exactly where we had 

 to go to. We knew that Naroekas Poort was some- 

 where in the direction of Graaff Reinet, and deter- 

 mined, therefore, to make that town our first point. 



