intrusion at any rate—and he lifts up his voice: “Baugch-m! Baugch-m?” The sun blazes in a blue, cloudless sky, darting down his beams with a fierceness and vigour somewhat premature this lovely afternoon of an early South African spring day, and all nature is at rest in the drowsy stillness now broken by that loud, harsh cry. A cliff rears its perpendicular face from amid the bush-covered slopes, which, meeting at its base, form a triangular hollow. From the brow of the cliff rises a rugged steep, thickly grown with dark prickly aloes, whose bristling shapes, surmounted by bunches of red blossom, sprout upwards from the dry, stony soil. The tiniest thread of a streamlet trickles down the face of the rock, losing itself in a pool beneath, which reflects, as in a mirror, cliff, and overhanging bushes, and blue sky. A faint cattle track leading down to the water betokens that in a land of droughts and burning skies even this reservoir, remote and insignificant, is of account at times; but to-day here are no cattle. The long-drawn piping whistle of a spreuw (of the starling species) echoes now and again from the cool recesses of the rock; the hum of bees among the blossoming spekboem and mimosa; the twittering of the finks, whose pear-shaped pendulous nests sway to and fro over the water as the light-hearted birds fly in and out—all tell of solitude and of the peace of the wilderness. Here a big butterfly flits lightly on spotted wings above the flowering bushes; there, stalking solemnly among the stones, an armour-plated tortoise seems to be in rivalry with a horny and long-legged beetle as to which of them shall be the first to reach the other side of the small open space.

“Baugch-m! Baugch-m!”

Two round black specks high up there on the stony hillside. The resounding call is answered, and the two guardians of the troop sit there, a couple of hundred yards apart, looking down into the sequestered nook below.

The sleeper moves, then rolls over on his back and draws his broad-brimmed hat right over his face.

Clearly he does not intend rousing himself just yet. The sun’s beams strike full upon him, but he feels them not; evidently he is indisposed to let even the monarch of light interfere with his siesta. A few minutes more, and, with a start, he raises himself on his elbow and looks around.

“By Jove, how hot it is! I must have been doing the sluggard trick to some purpose, for the cliff was full in the sun when first I pricked for the softest plank here, and now it’s throwing out a shadow as long as an 

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