KARROO BEASTS, BIRDS AND REPTILES. 239 



Egypt. Indeed, all the sacred animals and birds of 

 Egyptian mythology, and many of the other creatures 

 which are depicted in so life-like a manner on the walls 

 of Nile temples and tombs, are to be found at this day 

 in South Africa. Anubis the jackal; the grey ibis, 

 now extinct in Egypt, but common enough in the Cape 

 Colony, and — audacious insult to that learned god to 

 whom he was sacred — irreverently and absurdly named 

 by the colonials " oddida ; '' the hawk Horus, with just 

 the same plump little body, round baby-face, and deli- 

 cately-tinted plumage of softest French grey and white 

 which you see again and again in those comical, toy- 

 like little wooden images in the museum at Cairo ; 

 the wild geese, with the identical curious markings of 

 those which, in the oldest picture in the world, may be 

 seen in that same museum ; the scarab, rolling his un- 

 wieldy ball with Atlas-like efforts ; — all these are at 

 home on the Karroo farms. 



Cynocephalus, indeed, was very much more at home 

 at Swaylands than we liked, and would often frighten 

 the ostriches into a wild state of panic, with the usual 

 inevitable result of broken legs. On mountain excur- 

 sions you frequently hear his surly bark, and some- 

 times see him looking out defiantly at you from behind 

 rock or bush, where possibly you have disturbed him 

 in the midst of an exciting lizard-hunt, or careful 

 investigation of loose stones in search of the centi- 

 pedes, scorpions and beetles hidden beneath. These 

 creatures, uninviting though they appear to us, are 

 among his favourite dainties, and he catches them with 



