38 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



clattered down the hill, through the boulder-strewn 

 river, and half-way up the other bank in a rather 

 alarming manner, so much so that we were both 

 surprised at having been able to keep our seats in 

 the process. On these occasions the traveller's 

 feelings are very much those of a shuttlecock if 

 shuttlecocks could feel for they are almost ab- 

 solutely helpless. 



Just at this hill a heavy transport waggon, with a 

 span of fourteen fine oxen, took the drift from the 

 Graaff Reinet side. We had often met and admired 

 on our journeyings the old Cape waggons, with their 

 long teams of oxen, more even, perhaps, than the 

 teams (almost equally useful in their way) of mules 

 and donkeys that ply with lighter waggons upon 

 the colonial roads. But this particular waggon was 

 so well equipped, and the oxen were so comely and 

 in such good fettle as to arrest our attention. J 

 suppose there was a load of 7,ooolbs. weight at the 

 very least upon the waggon, but the great oxen were 

 so stout, and faced the long, steep hill so gallantly, 

 amid loud cracks of whip and lusty cries of the little 

 Hottentot that drove them, that we paused to watch 

 the stirring spectacle. It was a fine thing, albeit, 

 in South Africa, a sufficiently common-place matter. 

 The Cape oxen are in truth very different beasts 

 to those we are accustomed to see in England 

 especially the high-shouldered Fatherlanders. Tall, 

 gaunt, and bony, they attain a mature age, and are 

 not slaughtered, as in this country, before they are 

 full-grown. Their strength is immense, and when 

 they like, and are in a mind to bend to the yokes 

 together, they can pull indeed. In the history of 

 South Africa the Cape oxen have played an all- 



