262 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



I have heard that this characteristic is to be traced 

 to their Barb or Persian ancestry. 



The Cape horse owes its origin, some two 

 hundred years back, to a Persian strain, and to 

 ancestors imported from the Dutch settlement at 

 Java ; later on, to a touch of the Barb and a fair 

 share of English blood, and the result, as I have 

 pointed out, is an. animal not by any means showy, 

 but possessed of eminently useful qualities. 



A pull at our cold tea bottles and a biscuit or two 

 breaks our fast while we are shepherding the cattle. 

 The slopes of these mountains are, in parts, very 

 densely clothed with bush, the fleshy and succulent 

 spekboom, and the strong wiry wilde pruimen, 

 affording thick cover for game. Hither wander 

 occasionally the magnificent koodoo {Strepsiceros 

 kudu), most regal of South African antelopes, 

 happily still to be found within Cape Colony, and, 

 it is pleasant to say, even on the increase in some 

 localities. Here is to be found, lurking in the 

 darkest of the jungle, the bosch vark (bush hog), 

 one of the two varieties of South African wild boar. 

 Here the lovely steinbok, the fleet rheboks — red 

 and grey — the crouching duyker, and the rock- 

 loving klipspringers abound. But to-day we are 

 not come prepared for shooting, although, as a 

 matter of habit, guns are carried by two of our 

 number; and as the sun now dismounts from his 

 zenith, and the shadows lengthen, we turn our 

 horses heads for Riet Fontein. A pleasant ride 

 home, delayed a little by a fruitless attempt to 

 stalk a steinbok, which is espied in a thinly-bushed 

 kopje, brings us, towards the close of the afternoon, 

 to the homestead, whose dam we can see shimmering 



