79 
head ornament is greatly esteemed by the savages, tapers gradually to a point, and instead of being adorned with a terminal 
tuft, is decorated with a broad tree down its centre, corresponding with a parallel brown stripe on either buttock; whilst 
the abrupt gradation of colour on the body, descending from rusty red to the purest white, never failed to remind me of the 
tinted examples given in books which profess to illustrate the art of drawing im water colours. 
The smaller Antelope delineated in the annexed plate, is a denizen of the same Jocale as the Pallah; and although 
claiming from its diminutive stature an extremely limited portion of attention, was yet neyer neglected when accident, placed 
it in our way. The pair which furnished the originals of this portrait, were on my own shoulders borne three miles to the 
_waggons from one of the central steppes of the Cashan mountains, whither, having gone out alone, I killed the buck as he sat 
ol. & projecting ledge — knocking over his disconsolate relict with the second barrel as she stood gazing in mute amazement at 
her mate's death-strnggles. The pasterns of this robust and sturdy little animal, which are singularly rigid, have the appear- 
ance of being encased in Blncher’s, or ancle boots ‘i two other of its most remarkable features being the long suborbital slit 
that traverses the whole length of its Roman features, and the pencilled ¢oupet of bright fulvous hair arising from the forehead, 
neither of which occur in any other of the Antelopes. Writers have noticed three distinct species of the Duiker, but the peculiarities 
iu the horns that have led to this division are so trivial, that I should rather feel disposed to place them to the score of age, 
disease, or accident, few specimens being exactly alike. The animal is extremely common in many parts of the Cape Colony, 
and on the outskirts of the deep forests which border the sea-coast especially —wherein on my retarn from the interior I killed 
several —it is even more abundant than beyond the boundary. Occurring either singly or in pairs, the little dwarf is usually 
found crouching amid the shelter of bushy localities, and the dexterity with which it seeks to foil its pursuers among the intri- 
cacies of these, has gained for it the Dutch soubriquet in which it rejoices. Aroused from its snug form, the “Artful Dodger’ 
clears with one vigorous and elastic bound the nearest bush, and diying low on the other side among the heather and brush- 
wood, continues alternately leaping and plunging whilst it flies straight as a dart to the nearest thicket — before seeking an asy- 
lum in which, and not unfrequently also during its retreat, it rises like the hare upon its hinder legs, and having thus recon- 
noitred the foe above the intervening vegetation, wheels with an impatient sneeze to the right about, and proceeds ducking and 
bounding as before. 
The approved Colonial mode of hunting the Duiker-bok is with dogs—and whilst thus topping the covert, or darting 
from one copse to another, the little wretch, despite of all its dodging and artifice, is easily slain with a hat full of buck shot 
discharged from a. piece of ordnance of such calibre, that four fingers might be introduced without mach squeezing! Like the 
rest of the Cape venison, the flesh is utterly destitute of fat, a deficiency which the thrifty Dutch housewife seeks to remedy 
with her usual skill by calling in the aid of a sheep's tail, The animal is often to be seen running tame about the farm 
houses, but it never ceases, even in a domestic state, to take the note of alarm from the least sound to which it has been 
unaccustomed —thunder invariably causing it to fly to the nearest shelter in order to hide itself away. 
Broadly characteristic is the singular scenery here portrayed of all those African rivers along whose wooded banks the 
Pallah most delights to roam—and of the Mariqua in particular, where the first herd was observed by onr party. It was 
early in the afternoon when we reached the banks of this long sighed for stream, some thirty miles below the pomt where it 
issues from the mountains of Kurrichane. Emerging unexpectedly from an extensive wood of venerable thorn trees we descended 
by a winding path to a lawn spread with a thick and verdant carpet of the greenest turf. This was succeeded by a belt of 
drifted sand-hillocks, bordered, in their turn, by a grove of the many-stemmed acacia, which on either hand margined the river 
far as the eye could reach. Robed in a rich scarf of yellow blossoms, they diffused around the most grateful of odours: and the 
whole effect was heightened by detached clumps of slender mimosas, hung with fragrant festoons of flowering creepers, under 
the screen of which, troops of clamorous pintados, and bands of graceful Pallahs were hurrying from our approach. Whilst 
threading these mazes, a peep of the river itself was suddenly" obtained. A deep and shady channel, about twenty yards im 
width, and flanked with reeds, was lined next the water with an unbroken tier of weeping willows. Leaning ‘in pensive 
guise’ over the little stream, their drooping branches would positively have embraced but for the force of the crystal current 
which, as it foamed and bubbled over the pebbly bottom, swayed them with it. Swarms of new and interesting forms here 
hold their accustomed retreat; and the grass in the neighbouthood having that very morning been set on fire, the conflagration 
had caused every straggler in the vicinity to flock to this sanctuary, on the borders of which we accordingly ‘set up our staff.’ 
Silvery and bright peeps Aurora over the scathed and blackened mountain top, moving -with her refreshing breath the 
light leaves of the scented acacias, whose graceful forms, scattered in careless confusion by the hand of nature, are still glis- 
tening with the falling dew-drops. The long lines of mimosas resound with the incessant oe ceuk of the restless pintado, 
accompanied by the chirrupping of a host of smaller birds which are hopping among the fairy foliage, as its tiny leaves quiver 
to the zephyrs, 
Wide waving groves a chequered scene display 
And part admit, and part exclude the day; 
Fit dwelling for the feathered throng, 
Who pay their quit-rent with a song. 
Softness and beauty characterize the whole landscape. Each tree admitting through its foliage as much of sun as it casts sha- 
dow, there is even in the depth of the grove an airiness of colouring not less graceful than remarkable. Throughout the endless vista 
of stems scarcely one solitary trunk is to be seen. From every hillock of sand arise a dozen or more slender stems, 
a 
supporting a canopy of minute leaves, interspersed with golden blossoms—some of the lower branches already in the ‘sear 
