178 THE GREAT THIRST LAND. 



reinforced, and under the experienced whip of the 

 present driver, we got over the road rapidly. 



Spring-huck, bless-buck, and wildebeest were abun- 

 dant, and so tame that often they stood and gazed at us 

 within one hundred and fifty yards of the wagon. As 

 I had plenty of meat Mr. Leask having at the last 

 moment kindly presented me with a fat sheep I left 

 these graceful and beautiful specimens of the wild game 

 of South Africa for the rifle of those who required their 

 flesh more than I did. 



Outspanning in the heat of the day for two hours, 

 again the cattle were put to, and so well did my team 

 now work that by six o'clock we were entering the 

 suburbs of Hartebeestfontein, by long odds the pret- 

 tiest village, or rather hamlet for it does not possess 

 over half a dozen dwellings that I had seen in South 

 Africa. 



Let me try and describe it. On one side of the track, 

 and about equally distant from it, is a row of large, 

 white, one-storeyed houses, with vegetable -gardens in 

 front. On the other side of the road is a never-failing 

 stream of water, across which are orchards covering a 

 hundred or more acres. The trees were groaning under 

 their loads of ripe fruit, oranges, apples, plums, peaches, 

 pears, and walnuts all being mixed together and attempt- 

 ing to rival each other in the quantity of their produce. 

 At the end of the village was a green, and in its 

 centre a very large pond, beautifully sheltered with 

 weeping willows, covered with ducks and geese. Every- 

 body and everything looked prosperous : fat cattle and 

 horses rested under the shadows of the trees ; pigs that 

 had never known sorrow if rotundity of figure is a 

 proof of this snorted, frisked, and grubbed about in 



