Chapter VIII. 

 A SPORTING SAUNTER. 



M 



Y ramble to-day is a solitary one, for my 

 friends are busied in other directions 

 around our mountain farm. Shouldering 

 only a shot gun, and leaving perforce behind me 

 our two sporting dogs — a retriever and setter, which 

 are only just recovering from the dire effects of 

 eating poisoned meat intended for leopards — I 

 saunter down the boulder-strewn mountain-side, 

 and direct my footsteps by a dry stream-bed 

 through a little forest of thorny mimosa. The 

 Cape winter has passed away, and the rich and 

 diversified flower-life of this often-maligned land is 

 approaching its best and bravest. The yellow acacia 

 bloom, fragrant with sweet scent, is beautiful to look 

 upon, and contrasts strikingly with the shrivelled 

 winter appearance of these trees. Amid the 

 branches, hundreds of ring-doves — the tortel duif of 

 the Boers — coo softly and soothingly in the pleasant 

 warmth. After a walk of two miles, I approach the 

 sharp angle of a mountain spur, whence two kloofs 

 or gorges run for miles into the hills. Choosing that 

 upon the left hand, as being the wilder and more 

 solitary, I move quietly under the sheer rocks, which 

 here run upwards like a mighty wall. Just as I turn 

 the corner, where I know the great rock pigeons love 

 to rest, I look upwards, and surely enough, thirty 

 yards above, on a rocky ledge, sit a brace of these 



