96 A NATURALIST IN THE TRANSVAAL. 



slowly ; there is nothing to be seen or done in Pieters- 

 burg but business, and at the time of my visit very little 

 of that was acknowledged. The scenery around is bare 

 plain and mountain, and health may here be restored at 

 the cost of much ennui. It was difficult to realize that 

 this was once a great game country, and living Boers 

 can still remember the time when not only bucks and 

 antelopes abounded on the now silent and lifeless veld, 

 but even giraifes, lions, and elephants were to be found. 

 Animal life was now almost alone represented by large 

 numbers of the White-bellied Crow (Corvus scapttlatus), 

 which were more numerous here than in any other part 

 of the Transvaal I visited, and the scanty flora was 

 made memorable by a cultivated Convolvulus with 

 blooms twice the size of the ordinary Convolvulus major, 

 which was also most abundant in gardens. I saw this 

 fine flower again in the Spelonken, and obtained seed 

 from it, but I have as yet been unable to effect its 

 germination in England. 



After a day passed in Pietersburg, we started in a 

 small wagon drawn by eight oxen for the Spelonken 

 area of the Zoutpansberg district. The first day's trek 

 was over bare veld, and towards evening we passed one 

 of the most incongruous sights I saw in South Africa. 

 Here in the desert plain suddenly appeared an effigy of 

 an old feudal castle, reminding one more of a stage 

 effect than of an antiquated building. This extra- 

 ordinary structure has been built by a retired native 

 commissioner, Capt. Dahl, and here he proposes to 

 dwell and, I believe, end his days. I never fully realized 

 before the true horrors of false taste; here where a 

 bungalow with flowered trellis and garden rich in native 

 flora would have harmonized with the natural features 

 of the scene, we found a second-rate representation of 

 what was most Jiateful in architecture and inconsistent 

 with its surroundings. We rested at sunset near the 

 base of a range of hills and then trekked on till about 

 11 P.M., when we again outspanned the oxen and passed 

 the night on the outskirts of a field of Kafir maize. 

 The first night passed in a wagon has all the charm of 



