^JV UNLUCKY DAY. 159 



mountain top that overlooked Waai Kraal (Windy 

 Kraal), the store I have mentioned. 



It was a fine prospect. On our right the Gamtoos 

 (hereabouts more usually called the Groote) River, 

 or the remains of it — for drought prevailed — 

 meandered peacefully beneath, its shallow course 

 occasionally broken into a chain of deep pools. 

 Just on its thither bank nestled three or four small 

 Boer homesteads, around which, upon some rich 

 alluvial soil, grew pleasant fruit trees — oranges, 

 peaches, grapes, and quinces — although at present 

 not in the full bearing — save the oranges — of their 

 summer fruit. Further to the left the white walls of 

 the store shone, gleaming beneath the hot sunlight, 

 and in a camp near the house we could just discern 

 a few ostriches pacing solemnly hither and thither. 

 Away in the distance, far as the eye could reach, 

 the open Karroo plains stretched to the foot of 

 some distant range that lay purple upon the horizon. 

 As we rested here, the only bit of sport, which fell 

 to us this day, happened. Jackson rose, and went 

 poking about in some long grass with his gun ; 

 a solitary bird got up from under his feet, and 

 letting drive with all the bottled-up eagerness of 

 desperation, he knocked it over with his shot- 

 barrel at fifteen paces. The victim proved to be 

 one of the plover kind {Charadrius coronatus), and 

 is known all over the Colony as the kiewit — a name 

 evidently given to it, as in the case of our own 

 peewit, from its piping call. Purplish drab as to 

 its upper parts, its breast is of a darker shade of 

 brown ; the stomach is snow-white, and the tail 

 feathers are also white, marked towards the 

 extremities with black cross-bars, and tipped with 



