358 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



day of African summer a chill strikes upon the 

 spectator passing through. 



It is not difficult to understand, from a Boer 

 point of view, that this stern valley was a well- 

 chosen spot in which to build a farmhouse. The 

 distance from a roadway is, in Boer eyes, of no 

 great account, and, as a rule, the farther from 

 human habitation the Dutch farmer can get the 

 better he is pleased. As for the forbidding aspect 

 of the kloof, the stolid, unimaginative Boer would 

 be little troubled on that score ; for he has no eye 

 whatever for picturesque or scenic effect, and will 

 plant himself as readily upon the treeless wastes 

 of the Orange Free State, or the most stony, 

 barren mountain-side of the Old Colony, as in the 

 most beautifully wooded country that South Africa 

 can give him. 



When Jan Prinsloo trekked into the kloof 

 towards the end of the last century, the place 

 must have been a very paradise and nursery of 

 game. In the river the hippopotamus played, 

 elephants roamed through the valleys and poorts 

 everywhere around, the zebras ran in large troops 

 upon the mountain tops, and many of the larger 

 game, such as the koodoo, the buffalo, and the 

 hartebeest, wandered fearlessly and free ; while of 

 the smaller game, such as rhebok, duyker-bok, 

 and klipspringer, judging from the abundance of 

 the present day, there must have been literally 

 multitudes. To Jan Prinsloo, then, wild and' 

 sombre as the place was, it must have appeared, 

 as he trekked down the pass, a veritable Boer 

 elysium. But Jan, having played his part in the 

 world — a part more fierce and turbulent even than 



