134 
whom gratitude for a fund of diversion will not suffer me to pass without special notice. The one was a taciturn butcher's 
rider, who, under the high-sounding title of slagter kneght, was performing an equestrian tour through the grazing districts, to 
make extensive purchases for the shambles. Among sundry other emblems of his bloody profession, he carried in his ample pocket 
a crooked clasp-knife, which did the duty also of both fork and spoon, and conyeyed eyery sort of aliment to its destination with 
the dexterous rapidity of the China-man’s chop-sticks. The other worthy was a diminutive itinerant pedagogue, of French extrac- 
tion, who was honoured by the domestic circle with the title of meester; and who, inheriting all the grimace and vivacity of 
his progenitors, afforded by his drollery a ridiculous contrast to the staid demeanour and phlegmatie gravity of the knight, whom 
he was pleased to consider his especial butt. Pedantic, disputatious, and garrulous to the most wearisome extent, Monsieur’s 
tongue rattled on in mixed Dutch and French, without the smallest cessation; and having only lately made his way into the 
family for the purpose of affording to some of its juvenile members the benefit of his erudition, he deemed it requisite on all 
occasions to refer to myself for confirmation of his boasted talents for the task he had undertaken, and for which, he told 
me in the strictest confidence, he was boarded and remunerated in cattle, “Ht cela monsieur, west il pas vrai?” the little 
man would exclaim in a shrill querulous voice, accompanied by a confident expansion of the paws, after every assertion that 
ahd curled the lips of his feminine auditors with a smile of incredulity— “dat is ney var mynheer.” A loud guffaw at the 
tutor’s expense invariably followed each of these appeals, the young ladies choosing to be especially sceptical on all points con- 
nected with the boasted charms of the fair Parisians, a specimen of whose accomplishments their champion volunteered at a 
dance given, during my visit, by a neighbour, in hon®ur of his third wedding, To the equal amazement and delight of all 
heholders, the little tutor, after dancing with every female in the assembly, until there was not one who could dance longer, 
volunteered a waltz with the surly slaughter knight; and being indignantly repulsed, suddenly commenced a most energetic pas 
de seul apon his own private accoumt—whirling round upon his proper centre, after the manner of a teetotum, aud flying from 
corner to corner of the room like a parched pea, until the perspiration streamed over his bald forehead. Fairly worn out at 
last with his exertions, he strove, with the aid of a chair, to climb on to the back of a tall restive mare that was to convey him 
home — but throwing up her head, she struck the book-worm so violent a thump on the nose, that a torrent of blood. forth- 
with sullied the lustre of his white waistcoat. Nor could he be satisfied of the escape from total annihilation of his promi- 
nent feature, until one of the demoiselles had obligingly enabled him to view its true condition in a cracked pocket mirror, when 
he acquired sufficient confidence to inhale a pinch of snuff, and finding the organ fit for the discharge of its most important 
“duty, took his leave amid peals of merriment. 
In ‘Attaqua’s Kloof I was greeted with scenery of a wilder and more romantic character than is usually to be met with 
in the Cape Colony, whose cold, forbidding, and almost woodless mountains present an appearance strikingly bleak, as con- 
brsiktd “athe He oaths f other quarters of the globe especially. ‘Even here a stiffness and formality pervades much of the outline 
of the landscape, owing, to the unbroken chains of nearly uniform height, that as if in ridicule of the tiny efforts of human 
industry, stretch away Tilee_an artificial wall, and form a barrier to be surmounted only with extreme labour. Conducted by a 
steep and rocky pass to the summit of a lofty knoll, riding like the “proud Queen of wilderness” above all her compeers, 
see stretelied for miles before: us a view of the tortuous path up which we haye toiled —— now hugging the base of the vast 
pile, and now climbing the pérpendicular face of some abrupt crag—next losing itself in an intervening hollow, again to wind 
upward amid ravines choked yah brushwood, or to emulate by its serpentine course the thread of that silver rivulet which 
divides the shadowy glen at our feet. At certain seasons the nakedness of the land is relieved by the gorgeous aloe, with a 
yariety of dwarf fleshy plants af singular appearance and brilliant hues, which, being scattered in the wildest luxuriance, 
impart to some of the most sterile teppes the aspect of a garden of rare exotics. Other spots again are perfectly bare of 
vegetation, huge mis-shapen blocks; cast rude and rough from nature’s foundry, composing no inappropriate representation of 
the ruins of a world hove up from the chaotic abyss. Bluff perpendicular crags overhanging the dark bosom of the shadowy 
ravines, next present a prospect of gloomy magnificence, which is at long intervals varied by some sequestered nook, clothed 
from the very summit with stupendous forests, of which the ramifications extend far into the vale below, 
"All that thou see’st is Nature's handy work: 
Those crage that upwards throw their mossy brows, 
Like castled pinnacles of elder times! 
Those venerable trees that slowly rock 
Their towering branches mm the wintry gale.” 
During the pursuit of the Zebra, which was confined to the most steep and elevated parts of this rugged range, I re- 
peatedly fell in with and killed the Klipspringer, of which singular little species the portrait is here given, Once extremely 
abundant in the Cape Colony, it is now daily becoming more rare—the venison being deservedly reputed among the first 
that the country affords, whilst the elastic hair is sought above all other materials for the stuffing of saddles, Long, padded, 
and standing out vertically from the side, it resembles moss in texture, and constitutes, as in the chamois of the Alps, a 
natural cushion to protect the animal from the contusions to which its habits must render it constantly liable. No antelope 
possesses more completely the lively gamboling manners of the young kid—none bound with greater force or precision from 
rock to rock, or clear the yawning abyss with more fearless activity. Found usually in pairs among the most precipitous rocks, 
and inaccessible summits, the Klipspringer would appear in Southern Africa to supply the place of the ibex and chamois; and 
such is the rigidity of its stiff pasterms, and the singular formation of the high cylindrical hoof, that even when at speed 
there is no track left but by the tips of the toes, whereas every other class of ruminant would leave, under similar circumstances, 
