CHAPTER VII 



Beautiful Nuanetsi ! How shall I do thee justice in pages of cold print ? how- 

 convey to those who know them not the manifold charms that await all who 

 seek, thee as lovers of the wild and free ? A thousand and one little incidents 

 crowd back on the brain as one seems to pass again from these dull shores to 

 the blaze of sunlight that floods your silver streams, bringing forth at the same 

 time the welcome shadow of your trees. The chatter of the honey guide, 

 the bark of the baboons playing in the sand, and the drowsy monotone of the 

 " Brom Vogel " strike the ear once more, whilst the peerless expanse of the 

 heavens is dotted with an ever-moving series of vultures, eagles, and storks. 

 Here, too, are the crowds of cinereous vultures, like black and gaunt spectres, 

 assembling on the tops of the trees that flank the high banks of the crystal 

 stream, and the river itself creeping, creeping ever onward through its bed of 

 sand, where the footprints of the buffaloes, waterbuck, and lions that drank 

 there last night mark the path of the great game. The whirl of our busy lives 

 ceases for a moment, lost in the pleasant past, as one recalls that which was 

 yesterday a reality, to-day but a dream. Hard as we sometimes thought our 

 lot of self-imposed labour, wearisome those infernal sketches in the shade 

 of the waggon, long those futile tramps ; all alike fade into insignificance by 

 comparison with memories of glorious triumph, and the contemplation of 

 Nature's grandest handiwork. 



After the hunter has crossed the Bubye he gets to the real home of the now 

 much persecuted game, and feels that every step he takes onward is well into 

 the wilds where Nature has all her own way, unmarred by the hand of man. 

 What was written yesterday, however, will not do for to-day ; the voracious 

 hunter turns up where he is least expected, and two or three years hence there 

 may be but little game along these beautiful and now solitary streams. 



The Nuanetsi, known recently as one of the greatest game rivers of South 



2 E 



