CHAPTER II 



CARRIED TO AN EAGLE'S EYRIE 



In your school books there is a tale about a woman who 

 left her baby down in the field whilst she worked. A 

 Golden Eagle swooped down and carried it off to his eyrie 

 or nest, high up on a ledge in a precipice. The heroic 

 mother climbed the cliff and rescued her child. 



Well, it's strange, but we had an experience very similar. 

 A great eagle, which is jet black, with a pure white patch 

 on its back, haunts the mountains of the Drakensberg. It 

 is known to you as Verreaux's eagle {Aquila verreauxi). 

 The Dutch people call it the Dassievanger. A pair of them 

 built a nest high up on the cliff above where we lived, on 

 a projecting ledge. They used to come every year and 

 repair their nest, which is a huge quantity of sticks. In 

 the centre of this mass two chalky white eggs are laid. 

 When the eaglets are born, the Klip-dassies, the Mountain 

 Hares, the partridges, and the smaller antelopes have a bad 

 time. There was a kind of armed neutrality between us 

 baboonfolk and those eagles. We feared them, and they 

 feared us, so we left each other alone. 



One season the truce was broken. I don't know why, 

 but perhaps the eagles were especially hungry. Anyway, 

 like a stone from the sky, one of them swooped down upon 

 one of our children and soared off with him. His mother 

 was frantic with grief. She instantly made off toward the 

 eyrie. We all knew that if she attempted to rescue her 

 child alone, she would undoubtedly be killed by those two 

 powerful birds, whose talons were sharp and long, and 



