No Sooner Had We Got Under Weigh Again, Than Sabaal Pulled Up And Said, 'There ARE The Baviaans Missis Want To See!' And So They Were.

At some distance by the river was a great brute, bigger than a Newfoundland dog, stalking along with the hideous baboon walk, and tail vehemently cocked up; a troop followed at a distance, hiding and dodging among the palmiets.

They were evidently en route to rob a garden close to them, and had sent a great stout fellow ahead to reconnoitre. 'He see Missis, and feel sure she not got a gun; if man come on horseback, you see 'em run like devil.' We had not that pleasure, and left them, on felonious thoughts intent.

The road got more and more beautiful as we neared Worcester, and the mountains grew higher and craggier. Presently, a huge bird, like a stork on the wing, pounced down close by us. He was a secretary-bird, and had caught sight of a snake. We passed 'Brant Vley' (burnt or hot spring), where sulphur-water bubbles up in a basin some thirty feet across and ten or twelve deep. The water is clear as crystal, and is hot enough just NOT to boil an egg, I was told. At last, one reaches the little gap between the brown hills which one has seen for four hours, and drives through it into a wide, wide flat, with still craggier and higher mountains all round, and Worcester in front at the foot of a towering cliff. The town is not so pretty, to my taste, as the little villages. The streets are too wide, and the market-place too large, which always looks dreary, but the houses and gardens individually are charming. Our inn is a very nice handsome old Dutch house; but we have got back to 'civilization', and the horrid attempts at 'style' which belong to Capetown. The landlord and lady are too genteel to appear at all, and the Hottentots, who are disguised, according to their sexes, in pantry jacket and flounced petticoat, don't understand a word of English or of real Dutch. At Gnadenthal they understood Dutch, and spoke it tolerably; but here, as in most places, it is three-parts Hottentot; and then they affect to understand English, and bring everything wrong, and are sulky: but the rooms are very comfortable. The change of climate is complete- -the summer was over at Caledon, and here we are into it again - the most delicious air one can conceive; it must have been a perfect oven six weeks ago. The birds are singing away merrily still; the approach of autumn does not silence them here. The canaries have a very pretty song, like our linnet, only sweeter; the rest are very inferior to ours. The sugar-bird is delicious when close by, but his pipe is too soft to be heard at any distance.

To those who think voyages and travels tiresome, my delight in the new birds and beasts and people must seem very stupid.

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