260 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



the colley that accompanies us is heard in front. 

 Then across a piece of open ground darts a reddish 

 yellow form, followed by the dog. " Rooi cat ! by 

 jove!" exclaims our host; "shoot, or give me the 

 gun, quick." But, alas ! 'tis too late, the rooi cat has 

 got to shelter, too dense to follow him into, and the 

 colley is not equal, single-handed, to an encounter 

 with an African lynx, and, indeed, is clearly not 

 inclined for it either ; so after hunting and spooring 

 about a little, we give it up. " We must have that 

 fellow in the next few days," says our host ; "we'll 

 bring the dogs and a Kaffir to-morrow, and hunt 

 him up ; and if we can't get him that way, we must 

 poison him somehow." The rooi kat (red cat) of 

 the Boers, more commonly known to naturalists as 

 the caracal or African lynx, is plentifully distributed 

 over the Cape Colony, and as it is a sworn foe to 

 the farmers' flocks is killed off as relentlessly as 

 occasion admits. 



A short way farther and the mountain is reached. 

 We ride quietly about here and there, looking up 

 and inspecting the horses and oxen or most of 

 them which here run free and unconfined. When 

 Mr. Evans, in 1860, bought Riet Fontein from 

 Hendrik Stols, the old Boer had fifty mares, most 

 of them with foals, which he grazed principally in 

 the direction of these mountains. But so infested 

 was the place with leopards at that time, that every 

 one of these animals was knee-haltered, and they 

 were all jealously tended throughout the day by 

 sharp-eyed Bushmen or Hottentots. Every night 

 they were driven into kraal, and every morning sent 

 forth into the veldt again. But even with these 

 precautions, the leopards secured many of the foals. 



