i8 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



more, and crops, too, that grow twice and even thrice 

 in the year from one sowing. Irrigation at the Cape 

 has a great future before it, and is now rapidly- 

 coming to the front. Hitherto, to their disgrace be 

 it said, the colonists have been in the habit of 

 importing from ;^3oo,ooo to ;/^5oo,ooo worth of 

 corn each year^ — corn which their own country could 

 and should have readily produced. 



Beyond a ramble or two for a short time at 

 outspans, during which we saw no quarry worth 

 mentioning, save a fine kingfisher, the Ceryle 

 maxima of Pallas, otherwise the Alcedo afra of Shaw, 

 which we secured by a small periodical stream wherein 

 a little water still lay. The largest, but not the most 

 beautiful, of the South African Alcedinidce, this bird 

 has a crested head, plumage of a blue-gray dotted 

 with white, stomach of a reddish colour, a white 

 chin, and black legs and bill. Its greatest length 

 is about eighteen inches, and its cry is loud and 

 somewhat strident. 



At nightfall we reached an accommodation-house, 

 where we halted, having compassed forty miles of 

 rough and mountainous travel. Away again early 

 next morning — the third day of our trip — and on to 

 Jansenville, a village which we reached about noon. 

 Jansenville is a sleepy little place of about 400 

 inhabitants, named after an old time Dutch governor. 

 Most of the houses belong to Dutch farmers of the 

 Zwart Ruggens district, who only make use of them 

 when they trek in to Nachtmaal (Sacrament) with 

 their wives and families three or four times a year ; 

 for the remainder of the year the houses are shut up. 

 At the inn where we outspanned we saw for the 

 first time a Bushman, or rather woman — a diminutive 



