A KARROO FARM. 237 



highest point of Witteberg nearest Riet Fontein, is at 

 De Beer Vlei, where an altitude of 6,000 feet above 

 sea level is reached. Thus, at Riet Fontein, the 

 dull monotony of plain is relieved by the noble 

 mountains rising here and there around. 



I believe most people, who have not been there, 

 picture to themselves South Africa as a series of flat 

 and sandy plains. Nothing can be more erroneous. 

 The surface of the whole country is, on the contrary, 

 ribbed and broken with mountains, between which 

 here and there lie plains, sometimes, it is true, of vast 

 extent, as in the case of the Great Karroo. The 

 karroo is, in fact, the largest of the South African 

 plateaux, having a length from east to west of 350 

 miles, with a breadth of from seventy to eighty miles. 

 Nothing can be more magnificent, nothing more 

 inspiring, than a journey through these mountain 

 interiors, especially when the traveller emerges 

 suddenly through some frowning poort upon the 

 broad and limitless expanse of the Great Karroo. 



In the year i860, our host, Mr. J. B. Evans, first 

 came here, and purchased the farm of Riet Fontein 

 from an old-fashioned Boer, one Gert Hendrik 

 Stols. At that time the place was little better than 

 open desert. There was a house, certainly, the 

 nucleus of the present extensive buildings ; there 

 was one very small dam, and there were a few 

 insignificant fountains rising in the neighbouring 

 heights of Witteberg and Schoorstenberg, which 

 sufficed for the watering of Stols's flocks — that is, 

 if the seasons were not too dry, or the drought too 

 prolonged. But what changes have taken place 

 since i860 under the management of an energetic 

 Welshman. In place of the ramshackle homestead 



