8o KLOOF AND KARROO. 



to us, the varied splendour of our mountain scenery 

 rich in glorious flowers and a perfect climate, 

 are indeed our chief pleasures ; though, sad to say, 

 they hardly compensate to us (I speak from the 

 farmer's point of view) the lack of more sordid pelf. 



" Our rocks are rough ; but smiling there 

 Th' acacia waves her yellow hair ; 

 Lonely and sweet, nor loved the less 

 For flowering in the wilderness. 

 Our sands are bare ; but down their slope 

 The silvery-footed antelope 

 As gracefully and gaily springs 

 As in the marble courts of kings." 



Our home in Naroekas Poort is, as I have 

 before mentioned, a single-storied messuage, built of 

 Kaffir-made bricks, flat-roofed (as are most colonial 

 farmhouses), and whitewashed, and perched high 

 on the mountain-side, near a perennial fountain that 

 issues from the rocks above. The fountain in 

 South African farming is the mainspring by which 

 everything is set in motion, for without a permanent 

 water supply all else the best veldt, the finest 

 pasturage is of no avail. Usually, having had early 

 morning coffee, we stroll down to the angle of the 

 river, just where it bends suddenly and runs through 

 the poort. Here there is a deep pool, where, even 

 now in time of drought, we can always count on 

 getting a good plunge and a short swim. Just now, 

 the river being low, the water is brackish ; when 

 the rains fall and the floods descend, it will become 

 fresh enough for a time, only, as it falls again, to 

 resume its salt savour. Sometimes, when the 

 drought on the karroo is very severe, the waters of 

 this river become so salt that the very fish perish, 

 and are found floating dead in large numbers. These 



