34 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



jaws our dry biscuits, picked up the game, and 

 strolled disconsolately back to the halting-place. 

 Here we discovered our friends inspanned and ready 

 to start, and — to our further vexation — we further 

 learned that they had had a capital dinner of roast 

 mutton. 



"Just our' luck ! " we muttered, as we hastily 

 swallowed some coffee, and, bidding good-bye to the 

 farmer, drove off. However, we had bagged two 

 brace of fine bustards — for the black koorhaan is an 

 extremely handsome game-like bird, and is excellent 

 eating — and we soon recovered our equanimity. 

 Indeed, upon these high table lands, especially in 

 the spring and winter, the atmosphere is so spark- 

 ling, so bright, and so exhilarating, that the most 

 miserable of mortals could not long resist the magic 

 infection that attacks his spirits. 



This afternoon we outspanned again at the farm- 

 house of an Enghshman, and went inside to partake 

 of the inevitable cup of coffee always proffered on 

 such occasions. I think I witnessed here one of the 

 most pathetic sights I ever saw in South Africa. 

 The unfortunate owner of the farm — he was only, if 

 I remember right, some forty years of age — was 

 rapidly losing his eyesight. Day by day his eyes 

 had grown dim and dimmer, until, when we passed, 

 he could with difficulty perceive the blessed light of 

 day. Here was this poor man, but a few years' 

 arrived in the Colony, his entire capital sunk in the 

 farm, and that, I fear, not a very profitable one ; a 

 wife and five or six young children — the eldest, 

 I think, not more than ten years old — dependent 

 on his exertions ; his nearest neighbours, God help 

 him! Dutchmen and unfriendly, with that most 



