A HAPPY LIFE. 
143 
able, but, notwithstanding, has good farms for horses 
and sheep. Harrysmith, just under the Table 
Mountain, never gets a glimpse of sun till about three 
hours’ high, and is a dreary, cold place in the winter. 
As the nights are very cold, with hard frost in the 
early mornings and high cutting winds; I have the 
nags blanketed up to the eyes. Game is very scarce ; 
a few quaggas and wildebeests, and some shy, wary 
ostriches, are all we have seen yet; the grass is as dry 
as a chip, and the oxen and horses must get poor, as it 
contains so little nourishment. Joubert shot a cow 
wildebeest last night, and, on my return from 
skinning her an hour after sunset, I thought mine 
the happiest life in the world: a snug wagon, a roaring 
fire of dry cow-dung, horses and oxen feeding close 
round the former, waiting for their mealies, and as 
tame as barn-door fowls; three fat ducks hissing and 
spitting away, just ready for supper; two lamps 
burning ; and all around my wagon-home one dreary 
flat waste, with no wood for days and days. It is a 
dull, uninteresting country, but the air is so bracing 
and healthy that you must be in high spirits, come 
what will. 
Poor Eagman, a faithful and plucky young dog 
of my own breeding, got a severe prod from the 
wildebeest last night behind the shoulder, and could 
scarcely limp home, but he will recover, and I hope 
the hint will make him more cautious for the future. 
June 8th. — We are now within nine hours of 
Mooi Eiver Town, nothing having happened on the 
