24 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



200 yards. I am not sorry to record that the bullets 

 missed their marks, but the amusing part of the 

 performance was the way those monkeys streaked 

 down the trees and vanished ^' tenues in auras.'' It 

 was astounding ; lightning, " plain or greased," was 

 as nothing to the marvellous rapidity of their 

 descent. We were now well into the Zwart Ruggens 

 (literally black ridges) district — so called from the 

 dark, rough ridgy mountains that prevail here and 

 there. Presently we crossed the river at Staples 

 Drift — where lies a farmhouse — and soon after this 

 point we first found ourselves upon the verge of the 

 open Karroo Plains. 



Ever since boyhood Ihad been acquainted, from 

 the perusal of old books of travel, with the name of 

 the Great Karroo, and as I now looked from a rocky 

 eminence upon its eastern edge I could well imagine 

 with what feelings the early Dutch pioneers, after 

 toiling with heavy laden waggons and wearied oxen 

 for many and many a long day's trek through the 

 mountains, had at length, on emerging from some 

 poort '■' upon its western boundary, set eyes upon 

 the far rolling bosom of this mighty plain. Pro- 

 bably some old-world " Voer trekker " first entered 

 upon this great desert — desert of mankind though 

 not of game — between the years 1670 and 1700. 

 What a prospect must then have been his ! This 

 huge tableland, standing 4,000 feet above sea-level, 

 was then, and for much more than a century after, 

 crowded with the most magnificent of fauna. The 

 eland, the gemsbok, the hartebeest, the bontebok, 

 wildebeest (gnu), quagga, blesbok, ostrich, and many 



* Probably Karroo Poort was one of the first discovered passes from the 

 westward to the Great Karroo. 



