. 11] 
hurrying rack like a frail bark on the stormy ocean—now lifted on the crest of some curling wave—now lost in the whelming 
hollow, at intervals peeped down upon us with a pale and ghastly light, but was a moment afterwards utterly blotted out. 
Most anxiously indeed did we bend our eyes to that point in the heavens where the first glimmering of dawn was to appear, and 
slowly enough it came, but to exhibit the whole face of nature smothered like a great wash-house under the reeking vapour. 
A heayy grey canopy sailing aboye the ground, and fed by cloud driying along after cloud, still for some time rendered it 
impossible to see a yard before one’s nose; and only now and then did it favour us with even a glimpse of the wet soil on 
which we sat. At last, however, a broad white light expanding in the heavens, discovered the path of the glorious sun as 
he waded upwards, struggling with his lazy foe— when, impatient of further detention, we mounted our dripping steeds, and 
cantered over the summit of the nearest swell towards the centre of the flats. 
In every direction was this singular prospect bounded by undulating downs and hillocks, upon whose verdant slopes, 
as Sol assumed greater sway, and flowrets and diamond dew-drops glistened beneath the dispersing vapour, like a constel- 
lation of gems. 
"The velvet grass seemed carpet meet, 
Por the light fairies’ lively feet. 
Yon tufted knoll with daisies styown, 
Might make proud Oberon a throne.” 
Nevertheless, of living objects such as we sought, few indeed were to be seen, The wind unfortunately setting stoutly from 
the eastward, the great body of game had deserted onr neighbourhood to travel towards the Wind wogel berg, a square moun- 
tain which reared its blue crest under the expanding luminary; and a large party of Dutchmen, whose random firing had been 
audible since objects became less dim and dubious, having scoured the flats for several preceding days, we returned empty 
handed and with jaded sea: to our gipsy camp, after many an hour of fruitless toil. Here was a contingency that had 
never once entered into the philosophy of our programma; and, provided as we were with rations for no more than a single 
day, certain unpleasant apprehensions of famine began to present themselyes, in addition to the coming discomforts of another 
foggy night. Nor were these fears a little augmented the following morning, whilst the sun beams were chasing away the 
misty wreaths, by the far from opportune arrival of an hungry party of insolent Amakosa.* Riding familiarly up to our station, 
grasping in one hand a light sheaf of assagais, and in the other a rude sheep-skin bridle, eleven elastic savages fling them- 
selves carelessly upon the ground; and having cast off their ample toga) and hobbled their bare backed garrons, proceeded 
straightway to make themselves at home, assisting uninvited in the discussion of the scanty residue of our edibles, and nngrate- 
fully expressing no very qualified discontent at our improvident commissariat. Leaying with our Hottentot attendants a sufficient 
supply of the munitions of war, to deter these free and easy visitors from any attempt upon the baggage, we again took the 
field, and being most fortunately rewarded with a brace of bouncing blesboks, were conveying their comely carcases to the 
spit, when we had the Stapificakion of perceiving the group of equestrian blackguards in the act of prosecuting their marauding 
journey over the flats, little less empty bellied than they came. 
The third night proved far more element than its predecessors, but the reduced stock of fuel not affording the luxury of a 
fire, our dreams were repeatedly disturbed by the prowling visits of a “laughing hyena,” one of the showman’s “real indomitable 
fellows, whose keen olfactory organs had naturally enough heen tickled by the sayour of our venison. A prolonged whoop. 
which sounded close to my ear, causing me for the fourth time to start from my slumbers, and the miscreant’s apparation 
being presented in strong nocturnal relief upon the brow of the nearest rise, I took advantage of the moon's light, to indulge 
myself with a quiet pot shot from under the blanket. A dismal howl replied to the report of my rifle, and the limping gait 
of the obtruder, as he fled wailing over the hilltop, with the whole Hottentot hue-and-cry at his heels, afforded the most 
gvatifying evidence that my spherical messenger had so cleverly performed its errand, that we need entertain little apprehension 
of any further disturbance from that quarter, ‘The next day was to be our last upon the flats, and the wind having by 
sreat good fortune shifted during the night, every height in succession was at peep of day crowned with g1008 and blesboks. 
Numbers of the latter were now slaughtered, and as one troop after the other was set in motion by our equestrian pursuit, 
each individual arrayed in his coat of many colours—the scene, although falling very short indeed of what I had previously 
witnessed in Tegions more remote,” might uot inaptly be compared to the rout of a goodly army —its retreating masses, lost 
at one moment in the hollow, at the next re-appearing on the opposite brow, again to sink from the sight —whilst at certain 
intervals the tips only of the bayonets were perceptible, as scores upon scores scoured in extended file along the opposite side 
af some intervening ridge. - 
“Now low they vanish from the aching eye, 
. 
Now mount in air and seem to touch the sky; 
- No pause, no rest, where’er they sweep the ground — 
Dust in thick whirkwinds darkens all around.” 
My first introduction to this splendid Antelope tock place on the great plains of the Vaal river, where the pursuit of 
thronging legions led to a solitary pilgrimage, which was conjectured both by my comrade and by our followers, to haye 
terminated in my arrival at “that bourne whence no traveller returns.” Christmas-eve, and the greater portion of the day that 
preceded it, had been passed in a vain search for water, during which we had chanced upon the first faint traces of a 
waggon road that had been seen for many months. Having resolyed to follow this guide, as leading, in all probability to the 
element of which we were in quest, we arrived as the next morning dawned, upon the summit of a gentle acclivity that had 
for some miles disturbed the monotony of the previously level landscape. Boundless was the prospect that then presented 
* A tribe of pilfering Kafirs, at perpetual enmity with the Colonists. 
