Account of the Fish River Bush, South Africa. 79 



prints in the mud on the banks of the Fish River, when he 

 repaired to the stagnant water of the stream for his drink 

 or his bath. He can shew you where the ostriches used in 

 former years to pick the grass in the open glades on that 

 flat spot of ground below. He can shew you the hill ranges 

 in the distance, where the koodoo came out to graze in the 

 morning, and can take you on his track through the kloof 

 and the bush to the bank of the river, where he had drunk 

 in the evening. He can tell you of the krantze to which he 

 followed the leopard by his spoor from his sheep-kraal, 

 whither the brute had carried a ewe ; and recount to you the 

 desperate struggle that resulted between his dogs and the 

 despoiler, ere he fell to the stroke of the knife or the bullet 

 of his roer. He can tell you of the hand-to-hand conflict 

 that took place in yonder dark kloof between his comrade 

 and a bush tiger, in which his friend was saved by timely as- 

 sistance, but to die in a week after of his lacerating wounds. 

 The bush covering to this part of the country does not add 

 variety of scenery to the confused assemblage of hills, val- 

 leys, flats, and krantzes, as it covers over all inequalities of 

 ground with a sameness of appearance, and makes almost 

 every kloof and koppie exactly resemble each other except in 

 size. Its impenetrability is so great that no person is able 

 to make any way through it, except through passages made 

 formerly by the gigantic elephant, which are well adapted for 

 bridle-paths, and were the only roads existing in an early 

 state of the colony. Smaller footpaths, made by the present 

 denizens of its cover, as the larger bucks, &c., are also avail- 

 able means of access to the interior of its recesses. The 

 knowledge of these various elephant-paths forms the resource 

 of the marauding CafFre, by which he can effect a secure es- 

 cape from the pursuit of those unacquainted with the locality 

 into the far depths of the jungle, and by which he can readily 

 drive the plundered colonial cattle, through an apparently 

 impenetrable country, into places of concealment in the stu- 

 pendous kloofs that intersect the hilly regions of the bush 

 belt. Even should the pursuer be close on the heels of his 

 enemy, and the guidance of the spoor should fail in such a 

 dry country, no means could enable him to detect cattle con- 



