In
addition to ourselves, there were nine Kafirs, making a party of a dozen
altogether. It was an intensely interesting and remarkable scene to me,
to find myself surrounded by these wild fellows in perfectly friendly
fashion, in the midst of the vast veldt, the silence and stillness only
broken every now and then by the cry of the jackals howling in the
distance. On leaving here we travelled north towards Grouthoek, which
is situated in the midst of the Rhynoster range of mountains, being
drawn by oxen, our horses following us, in order to give them rest, and
so keep them fresher.
I was disappointed at the small quantity of game we found on our
journey. We occasionally shot a springbok, and I thus had an opportunity
of making myself acquainted with the delicious flavour of the South
African venison. But the days of the enormous herds which once abounded
in these regions are gone. They have been either exterminated by the
Boers, or been driven far northward, into the interior of Africa,
together with the lions and elephants, over whose former habitation I
was travelling. There are still a good many koodoos, and hartebeestes in
this neighbourhood, but I was not fortunate enough to come across them.
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