BEAUTY OF THE VEGETATION.

47

Each ride that I took brought more beauties before me; the sterile appearance of the frontier was here exchanged for the most luxuriant and fragrant vegetation. Forests appeared, hung with creepers and scented blossoms; undulating grassy slopes, with detached and park-like clumps of trees. Here and there the calm silvery water of the bay was seen in the distance through openings in the forest, or under the flat horizontal foliage of the umbrellaacacia, whose graceful shape, combined with the palm, the gigantic euphorbias, and the brilliant Kaffir-boom, formed the characteristics of this bush. Let the admirers of architectural art talk of their edifices and public buildings, they are not equal to a single tree. Bricks and mortar, stones, plaster, chimneys, &c., are heaps of rubbish when compared to a natural forest, every leaf and flower of which is a witness and an evidence of that mighty Power who creates with as much ease the endless. worlds about us as the minutest details of vegetable and animal life, the perfect working and machinery of which are more than wonderful.

The annoyance to which an individual must submit during a voyage over nine thousand miles of ocean is well repaid by a scene of this kind, that scarcely needs its accompaniments of many animated specimens of nature, in the shape of birds, bucks, and monkeys, to enliven it. Still, however, there are some human natures so dead to the purely beautiful, and so entirely fettered to the things less pure, that all the beauty I have so feebly described is passed over unadmired and almost unnoticed; and the same round and routine is carried on in the leisure

48

DOLCE FAR NIENTE.

hours of such men as though they were in Portsmouth, Plymouth, or some other well-peopled town.

"How do you pass your time?" I asked of an intellectual looking gentleman with whom I dined soon after landing.

"Oh, I backy a good deal, and bathe sometimes, but it is too hot to do much," was his answer.

66 Do you sketch ?"

"Well, I'm no hand at that."

"Is there no game about? I have heard that bucks were numerous and elephants very near.”

"Well, if you bother about them, I dare say you may see lots; but it's too much trouble for me, and I am no shot."

Poor miserable man! he took no interest in anything; he had no pleasure in viewing the most wonderful and beautiful works of nature, and had no gratification in placing on paper even a poor representation of the scenes before his eyes, for the future amusement of friends less favoured by locality. No! there was trouble or bother in it; there was neither, he thought, in smoking tobacco, and drinking brandy-and-water: the first habit, however, has ruined his health, the latter his prospects and character.

I know many men who through their devotion to fieldsports have avoided many of those evils which others, through nothing but a life of idleness, have incurred.

I was soon fortunate enough to purchase a very useful second pony, which was an accomplished animal in every way he would stop immediately when I dropped the

THE KAFFIR LANGUAGE.

49

reins, or crossed the gun over the saddle, or rested my hand on his neck, or even if a buck sprung up in front of him. He would stand fire like a rock, and would not shake his head or start on any account, nor did he care for elephants or anything else. He was a most useful auxiliary, and from his back I shot elands, hartebeest, reitbok, ourebis, steinbok, duikers, &c. He would allow small bucks to be put up behind the saddle, and would carry them quietly.

I passed a month in making myself acquainted with the country around D'Urban, its rivers, paths, and kloofs, and also in studying the Zulu language, which I found to differ slightly from the frontier Kaffir. I always carried a dictionary with me, and, upon meeting any natives, sat down, and, pulling out my book, asked word for word what I wanted. I rarely failed in making myself understood, and then the Kaffir would repeat my words, giving the correct pronunciation and grammar. If, for instance, I was thirsty and wanted some milk, I would look in my dictionary for "I want." Funa, I would find, expressed to want; amasi or ubisi, milk (the first being sour milk, a very refreshing drink, and the latter sweet milk); uku posa, to drink. “Funa ubisi uku posa," I would say. The Kaffir would give a kind of intelligent grunt, such as er-er, and say, "Wena funa posa ubisi." I then repeated the sentence after him, putting di, I, for wena, you, and bore in mind that "Di funa posa amasi (or ubisi)," was I want to drink some sour (or sweet) milk. By this means I was soon able to ask for everything I wanted, and in six months could talk the language with tolerable freedom.

E

I found it of inconceivable use in my solitary trips, as I was then independent of Dutch farmers, English squatters, &c.; a Kaffir kraal always supplying the few things I wanted; and I was by its aid enabled to see and hear more than by any other means.

I recommend every person who may be in a strange country at once to set to work and acquire its language; it turns out generally a most useful amusement.

By these Kaffirs I was taught the art of spooring; my lessons were learned over the print of some buck's foot on the bent-down blade of a bit of grass. Spooring requires as much study and practice as any other science, and a professor is often required to decide some knotty point, such as the number of days since a buffalo passed, or at what hour certain elephants rolled in the mud. It first appeared to me very much a matter of guess, but I afterwards saw the reasons throughout for the Kaffirs' conclusions.

A few rough outlines, showing the spoors of some of the different South-African animals may be useful to an inexperienced hunter.

A is the footprint of a Bull Elephant (circular).

E

F

Cow Elephant (elliptical).

Rhinoceros.

Hippopotamus.

Buffalo. The animal can also be known by its dung being different from that of the antelope. Eland.

G the footprint of antelopes of different species, such as the Hartebeest, Reitbok, Duiker, and Bush-buck; practice will alone enable the sportsman to distinguish between each.

H is the footprint of a Wild Pig or Vleck Vark.