142 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



even than myself. Above the klipspringers, just over 

 the cliff-tops, and unseen to the antelopes, hovered 

 a great black eagle, a berghaan {Le caffre of Le 

 Vaillant, the dassie vanger^ — rock-rabbit eater — of 

 the Dutch), and he, no doubt, had long had his 

 piercing gaze upon their movements. Just as I was 

 about to move forward, one of the antelopes leaped 

 down to a tiny pinnacle, or peak of rock, jutting still 

 farther from the mountain-side, and at that instant 

 the black eagle swooped like lightning from above, 

 and before I could realize it, or the poor klipspringer 

 either, with talon and beak, and the rush and force 

 of its mighty wings, had swept the hapless antelope 

 from its perch headlong to the rocks beneath. Black 

 as death was the eagle, and deathlike was its swoop. 

 This was more than hunter's flesh and blood could 

 stand, and rushing forward, I was in time to drive 

 the eagle from its quarry, which lay struggling with 

 broken back and smashed head. Quickly I put the 

 poor little buck out of its misery, and hid it away 

 under thorns and stones, until I had finished my 

 day's hunt." Such incidents are not uncommon. 



A mile or so farther on the kloof broadens out, 

 the mountains slope less steeply, and the bottom of 

 the valley rises upwards somewhat. Here I must 

 " gang warily," for the "red wings" abound on the 

 more open ground. The wind is in my face, luckily. 

 I still hold up stream, and presently, just as I 

 expected, in a clump of palmiet that grows thickly 

 in the moist ground, I flush a brace of big greyish- 

 brown birds, that whirr away with even stronger 

 flight than our English partridge. At twenty-five 

 yards I stop one, but its fellow, wheeling at the report 

 sharp to the left, escapes a too hurried second barrel. 



