HOW WE FARED. 205 



you do not get so tired of perpetual mutton as might 

 be expected, and it does not pall on the taste as beef or 

 fowl would do under the same circumstances. As we 

 had only a few sheep, but possessed a flock of several 

 hundred Angoras, our standing dish was, of course, 

 goat. Let not the traveller pity us who on his journey- 

 ings in Southern Europe for instance has had the 

 misfortune to partake of the tough, stringy, and 

 strongly-flavoured goat's flesh too often iniquitously 

 substituted for mutton by unprincipled hotel-keepers. 

 As different as black from white is that unholy viand 

 from our delicious Angora meat ; equal, if not superior, 

 to the best mutton. 



The goats are beautiful creatures, with a profusion 

 of long, wavy hair, which is as soft and glossy as the 

 finest silk, and which, in the thoroughbred animals, is 

 of the purest white, and nearly touches the ground. 

 In the evening it is a pretty sight to watch the goats 

 coming down from the mountains, on whose steep and 

 rocky sides they have browsed all day ; and where, as 

 they descend, they form a long line of snowy white 

 against the red and green background of the aloes and 

 spekboom. It is pleasant, too, to go out to the kraals 

 when the little kids, which all arrive at about the same 

 time, are only a few days old. These goats are prolific 

 creatures, many of them having two, or even three 

 young ones at once. The crowded enclosure is all alive 

 with the merry, noisy little fellows, jumping and scam- 

 pering about in all directions ; and within a few days 

 the number of the flock seems to have almost doubled. 



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