.^HEEBOK SOUTH AFRICAN FLORA. 31 



bok, or red rheebuck ; and the vaal-rheebok, or gray 

 rheebuck. The range of the vaal-rheebok, to the north- 

 ward, ceases in the latitude of the Long Mountains ly- 

 ing to tlie south of Kuruman ; the other variety is met 

 with as far north as the mountains in the territory of 

 Sichely, chief of the Baquaines, about fifty miles to the 

 north of the Kurrichane range. Both of these ante- 

 lopes frequent high and rocky mountains. The man- 

 ner of hunting them is alike ; and, when properly pur- 

 sued, I think more nearly resembles Scotch Highland 

 deer-stalking than the pursuit of any other antelope.* 



* Throughout the orassy mouiitahis which the hunter must traverse 

 in following this antelope, his eye is often gladdened by romantic dells 

 and sparkling rivulets, whose exhilarating freshness strongly and pleas- 

 ingly contrasts with the barren, rocky mountain heights and shoulders 

 immediately contiguous. The green banks and little hollows along the 

 margins of these streamlets are adorned with innumerable species of 

 brilliant jilants and flowering shrubs in wild profusion. Among these, 

 to my eye, the most dazzling in their beauty were perhaps those love- 

 ly heaths for which the Cape is so justly renowned. These exquisite 

 'plants, singly or in groups, here adorn the wilderness, with a freedom 

 and luxm-iance which, could the English gardener or amateur florist 

 behold, he might well feel disheartened, so infinitely does Nature in 

 this favored clime surpass in wild exuberance the nurslings of his arti- 

 ficial care. I remember being particularly struck with two pre-emi- 

 nently brilliant varieties, the one bearing a rose-colored, the other a 

 blood-red bell; and though I regret to say that I am but a poor bota- 

 nist, even in the heat of the chace I paused, spell-bound, to contem- 

 plate with admiration their fascinating beauty. Others with their 

 downy stems and waxen flowers of eveiy gaudy hue, green, lilac, and 

 various shades of pink, red, and crimson ; some of them with brown 

 lips to the bell, flourished in the richer hollows of their native glen, or 

 bloomed wth equal loveliness along the arid cliSs and fissures of the 

 overhanging rocks. Almost equaling the heaths in beauty, and sur- 

 passing them in the additional attraction of their scented leaves, a whole 

 liost of geraniums fill the balwy breeze with their delicious perfume. 

 These are too well known to admit of any novelty in description ; but 

 I may mention, en. passant, that they attain a far larger growth in their 

 native soil than I have been in the habit of seeing in our green-housee. 

 Small groups of the lofty, fair, conscious-looking iris rear their graceful 

 heads along the edges of the streams. Their fairy, forms reflected in 



