52 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



acquaintance with them. On subsequent occasions, 

 however, we interviewed the springboks with much 

 more satisfaction to ourselves if not to them. This 

 day we saw a good many koorhaan of the black and 

 gray varieties, but as we were anxious to get on to 

 our destination, we left them undisturbed. 



It was a glorious day, and we greatly enjoyed the 

 magnificent prospect around us. People speak of 

 the monotony of these plains, as if nothing ever 

 occurred to break the far-extending view. It is true 

 in one direction the terrain rolled without a break to 

 the horizon, but on our right flank the bold range of 

 the Camdeboo Mountains heaved from the plain in 

 magnificent grandeur. Nothing is more striking to 

 the new-comer at the Cape, than the marvellous 

 transparency of the atmosphere. Mountains that 

 appear about five miles distant, to any one freshly 

 arrived from the comparatively thick atmosphere of 

 Great Britain, are, more often than not, thirty or 

 forty miles away. For this same reason, rifle shooting 

 at long ranges is at first extremely disappointing ; 

 the buck that appear so close, are often four or five 

 hundred yards distant, and your bullets strike up 

 the dust far on the hither side of them. I think the 

 aspect of these mountains that border the Karroo 

 are even more striking and more beautiful to witness 

 than those seen in less flat regions. Their mag- 

 nificence is intensified by the sharp contrast, and 

 whether you gaze upon them under the purple blush 

 of sunrise, or at noon when upon their brown sides, 

 seared and torn by wear and weather of centuries, or 

 by volcanic action, or both, you may pick out their 

 every cleft and furrow, even though you stand twenty 

 or thirty miles away, or watch them in the far-away 



