ACROSS CAMDEBOO TO NAROEKAS POORT. 57 



the kraals or enclosures for the night. After a 

 cheery evening with our guide and hospitable enter- 

 tainers, we betook ourselves to rest, and, as bed 

 accommodation was scanty, I slept with Bob on 

 some empty sacks upon the floor, having, as usual, 

 lost the toss for beds. As is often the case in spring 

 upon these elevated plains, there was a severe 

 frost, and the cold was intense', although we were 

 enveloped in our thick bush rugs ; we were, there- 

 fore, not sorry when morning and the welcome 

 sunshine again appeared. 



The bright morning star, familiar to every 

 South African hunter and traveller, had not long 

 shot swiftly above the horizon, before we awoke 

 cold and hungry, but refreshed withal from our 

 slumbers. It may surprise many in this country to 

 know that nights are so cold and even exceedingly 

 frosty in the spring and winter of the Cape. Such 

 is, however, the case ; and upon the huge plateau of 

 the Great Karroo (3,000 feet and more above sea- 

 level), the second of the series of terraces which rise 

 in increasing altitudes from the Indian and Atlantic 

 Oceans to the Orange River and beyond, very severe 

 frosts are experienced, and even the springbok and 

 other game rise stiff with cold at these seasons. 

 We had a long day's trek before us, and having 

 partaken of coffee we inspanned our two good horses, 

 and were ready to start. 



Meanwhile, one of our hosts was superintending 

 the unkraaling and counting out of the seemingly 

 countless flocks of sheep, which defiled in charge of 

 Kaffir herds, drinking as they went at the dam hard 

 by, for their day's pasture far out on the open and 

 apparently illimitable plains. These plains are 



