agile than the puff-adder, and is very venomous. These two species cause deaths every year among the inhabitants of this district, and are very much feared.

Some weeks later, while hunting rhe-bok on the Oaks Farm, some ten miles from the town of Caledon, I was told of a little girl who, a few days previous to my arrival, had met her death from the bite of a black cobra. She had started from the house to pick some fruit in the garden, and climbing over a low stone wall, stepped on a cobra. The reptile struck her just above the ankle. Running back to the house, she told her mother that she had been bitten, and felt as if she were on fire. The usual remedy of whiskey had no effect. In twenty minutes she began to turn black, and in three-quarters of an hour died in convulsions.

After dinner we were visited by the Dutch inhabitants of this rural district in gala attire. They had heard that a photographer had come to the coast. We gave up the afternoon to grouping them.

At this camp the ostriches were so tame that they frequently entered our tents, and with their bills upset all our belongings. My friend missed two of his silver razors, and to this day accuses an ostrich which had been seen in his tent.

Early

The weather so far had favored us; not a drop of rain had fallen. We therefore decided to drive over in the Cape cart to Bredarsdorf, the most southerly settlement in Africa, distant thirty miles in a southeasterly direction along the coast. the next morning two mules were hitched up to the cart, with a pair of horses as leaders. The country we passed through was deserted. The ground was very much in need of water, and very barren; the soil was sandy, and in some places rocky. We came in sight of Bredarsdorf rounding a small hill. The houses were one story high, and covered with the thatched roofs which have proved the best protection against the hot rays of the sun. The inhabitants are mostly of Dutch origin. The Commercial Hotel was the largest building in the town, with the exception of the church. We were given rooms on the first floor, opening on a large veranda. Here we spent the evening chatting with the proprietor, who proved very entertaining. He treated us to oysters, which were fresh from Cape Agulhas, the shells of which were very large, and the meat thin and tasteless.

On the following morning our party stopped about an hour's drive from town at the farm of a Mr. Albertaine, where the

bounte-bok, a nearly extinct species, is preserved under fence by the government. I was under the impression that it was the same species as the bless-bok, which is still found in large numbers further north. Mr. Albertaine explained the difference, and I decided to take a specimen back with me. As the Cape cart entered the pasture gates, Mr. Albertaine stood up and looked over the veldt to locate a bunch, while I sat on the tail of the cart with my rifle, my feet swinging out behind.

The

started at a brisk trot toward Ratel River camp. The sun was only two hours high, and we had thirty miles to drive. Our driver said he knew the road, so with all confidence we trusted to him. The night soon closed in on us, as there is no twilight in these parts, and after driving four hours we were convinced that we had chosen the wrong road. Still, on we travelled in darkness, trying to locate some familiar object. At last hundreds of lights came in view. The driver then confided to us

that we were on the wrong road. We were back in Elim, the mission station. Refreshed with a hot cup of coffee, we harnessed up four fresh horses, and drove rapidly to our camp, that distant

was

twelve miles. At times the wheels of the cart would drop into holes, and all hands clung

on, expecting at

manner in which these boks are hunted is peculiar. When running, they never deviate from their course; it is said that they will even run over you if you get in their way. When a bunch is sighted the horses are put on the dead run, in the endeavor to approach as near as possible to the course of their flight. When we had driven some distance in this ten-mile pasture we saw, far off to our right, a bunch numbering about fifteen. They had not been startled, and we approached them cautiously. When within four hundred yards we started the horses on a dead run. Presently the cart came to a halt, and jumping off, I aimed a little in advance of an old bok that was bringing up the rear. He quickly veered around, and ran back at full speed. I heard a voice from the Cape cart saying, "Hard hit, my boy." We found the bullet had struck him just back of the shoulder, and had severed the large artery.

After bidding Mr. Albertaine a hearty farewell, our primitive four-in-hand

any moment to land out on the

veldt. We reached camp at one in the morning, tired out after a drive of fortyfive miles over rough and hilly roads.

In the morning I saw an ostrich half a mile away, walking towards me. It was an ugly male bird which the foreman had turned into a large enclosure, where he was preserving some red-winged partridges, in order to prevent any one from entering. We had fortunately been cautioned to keep clear of this bird, and waited on the outside of the fence. It trotted towards us, and nearing the wire, lowered its head flat on its back, and stood within a few feet of us, with outstretched wings.

The next morning, when my friend yelled out for us to get up, our men were carrying boxes and bags, and in half an hour tents were being pulled up, and tentpins gathered and strung on the wagon rack. After a good cup of tea and biscuits we were off again, trekking for Franz Kraal, a beautiful farm located fifteen miles from here, and opposite Danger Point Light-house.

Birds were very plentiful along the road; my friends had good sport. The wagon always halted when a covey was seen, and the dogs were working much better than at the beginning of the trip.

At some of the houses we passed women were rolling tobacco leaves into round rolls, such as the Dutch smoke in clay pipes. The road was very sandy, necessitating frequent stoppages to rest the mules. We outspanned for dinner at Mr. Vanderbile's farm. The buildings were comfortable and well kept; large trees shaded the veranda of his house.

That afternoon coveys of pheasants ran into the bushes to hide from us; but as we had not permission to shoot on Mr. Vanderbile's lands we could only look at them with longing eyes. As the mules were becoming very tired and needed continual urging. I ran along the spans and slapped an old mule with the palm of my hand. Instead of jumping into her collar, she let both heels fly right in the air, barely missing me. This cooled my ardor, and they received their urging thereafter with a long whip and at a safe distance. We finally ascended the last hill, and found ourselves in full view of Franz Kraal, and overlooking the coast

for many miles. Here we camped, at an altitude of four hundred feet above the sea. The range of mountains near which Franz Kraal is located extends almost into the sea. From the top of this range one may obtain the best view of the southern coast. Looking towards the east, on a very clear day, one sees Cape Agulhas, and westerly the Cape of Good Hope.

The Cape Colony government had given us permission to visit Dyer's Island, a small rocky island just visible seven miles at sea. Early one morning the keeper appeared with six followers and rowed us out. We found the rocks covered with penguins. Their movements were very awkward as they waddled about to make room for us to pass, but they were so tame that they would allow the keeper to handle them. Some were sitting on their nests, others sunning themselves, while others swam out into the water. These birds make their home on the island, and swim daily for their food--mainly fish; they are credited with covering many miles when they are procuring food for their young.

The keeper next rowed us to a still smaller island, where hundreds of seals

were sunning themselves on the rocks. Before approaching too near them I took my position in the bow, in an attempt to photograph them as they dived from the rocks. Our boat was soon surrounded with them, as they rose out of the water and looked at us with their large eyes, as if to say, What business have you here?"

I asked the keeper to let me shoot one as a specimen, but he refused, and said his orders from the government were very strict, the season had closed, and he was to report any one found shooting them. It is rather significant to note how carefully the English colonies are preserving their seals, and how their brethren in Canada are endeavoring to exterminate ours.

We returned to our camp with the help of a southwest wind. It overlooked the ocean, and commanded a beautiful view.

The mountains back of the house were the home of large troops of baboons. Some of them are four feet high, with long arms, and climb to the very highest peaks. Every troop has sentinels perched on rocks to warn them of approaching danger. I found it very difficult to get near them. They feed on roots and insects, and I frequently saw large bunches of grass torn up by the roots, and

bowlders weighing a hundred pounds which they had rolled over in their attempts to find food. The shooting on this range was ideal; birds were very plentiful-the coveys were large; the boks, including vlok-, gras-, duyker-, and rheboks, were numerous. The first three varieties made their home on the downs, while the last kept entirely to the hills, thus affording us a variety of hunting that we found at no other place. The weather could not have been finer. With the exception of one or two slight showers, that never lasted long enough to interfere with our pleasures, no rain had fallen.

On the 10th of April we trekked back to Caledon, stopping on the way when the mules needed rest. The second day of our trip came to an end, and we were all once more at the Alexandra Hotel.

While in Caledon I frequently took the baths, which are very beneficial to rheumatic or gouty people. The springs are on the mountain-side, and the water bubbles up out of the black ground at a temperature of 100°. It contains iron and other ingredients, and is conducted in iron pipes to the bath house. Invalids come here in considerable numbers from all parts of Africa to find a new lease of life.

THE

HE sensitiveness of the average American is commented upon in England as his most extraordinary and most regrettable trait. Our enemies commonly employ the word "bluster," or "blustering," as the truest qualifying adjective before the noun American; but our friends, who may never criticise us in any other way, dilate upon that sensitiveness which will not allow us to brook any latitude in the way of caricature or levity in written comment upon our nationality. I suppose it was my own sensitiveness which caused me to prepare to shame a hissing, groaning mob at a theatre in London last May. The place was a music-hall, where one of the exhibitions was of what is called "the American Biograph❞—an improved form of the kinematograph. Over its pictures, I had heard, the Americaphiles and Americaphobes waged a nightly war of applause and hisses. The Span ish pictures which were shown there proved to be photographs of a war-ship, of General Blanco, and of certain Spanish troops. These were received with plentiful applause and very little hostility. Then there were shown moving photographs of American troops, and of our modest and dignified President walking across his garden lawn with a visitor. Over these a fierce battle raged between the personified geese who hissed and the men who resented the offence. As the storm increased, I noticed that those nearest to me who were hissing were unmistakable Englishmen. My blood boiled, and to a degree that I have not experienced in many years. I felt my self-control giving way. Hastily I framed in advance the words I would hurl at these antagonists of my country.

For shame!" I would shout. "Do you know what you are hissing? It is your own blood that you belittle. It is America, the creation of your own fathers that you are scorning. When you hiss at us, you asperse those whose traditions, triumphs, principles, and aspirations are precisely your own. You are like cuckoos who defile your own nest. When you hiss at Mr. McKinley's picture you hiss a symbol of the leadership of the Anglo-Saxon race." What did I really say when, tired and

VOL. XCVIII.-No. 585.-50

perspiring, I finished framing this speech? Nothing at all. My oratorical flight proved a sentimental journey, without beginning or end. Some one whispered that the offenders were mainly Jews and Germans, French and Spaniards, and that they flocked to that theatre every night to hear their own familiar farmyard demonstrations. At the Shaftesbury Theatre, at the same time, in a play called The Belle of New York, the American manager caused the flags of the two countries to be projected into the spectacle, apropos of nothing in the piece, while a man sang a song, the chorus of which runs thus:

"With our flags unfurled
Against all the world

We'll stand and die together."

On the first night that this bit of clumsy claptrap was tried upon the public it was hailed with a din of applause, which seemed as forced and disingenuous as the stage performance. Thereupon the bulk of the audience hissed what they supposed to be the absurd ardor of a claque, and the incident was described at length in Madrid, by telegraph, as a proof that the English people and their government were not of one mind concerning AngloAmerican friendship. I went to that play afterward to judge of the situation for myself, and heard no hissing, but rather more applause than I thought so transparent a trick should elicit.

These public tests of the temper of the English toward our country began, I am told, some years ago, when perhaps the most notable of them was a novel, whose prophetic plot described a warlike alliance between the English and Americans in, if I mistake not, this very year. It appeared in a new popular magazine, and advanced its circulation very considerably. To-day no subject is more the vogue and no literature is more abundant, but the author of such a story at that time would have appeared to us across the At lantic to be a remarkable prophet. This was not so. He was simply a correct analyst of the sentiments of his countrymen towards the Americans, as I am going to show. But he was remarkable, perhaps, because after two years of resi