CHAPTER XII.

KARROO BEASTS, BIRDS AND REPTILES.

Leopard drowned in a well--Baboons--Egyptian sacred animals on Cape farms--"Adonis"--A humiliating retreat--A baby baboon--Clever tricks performed by baboons--Adonis as a _Voorlooper_--A four-handed pointsman--Sarah--A baboon at the Diamond Fields--Adonis's shower-bath--His love of stimulants--His revengeful disposition-- Pelops the dog-headed--Horus--_Aasvogels_--Goat-sucker--The butcher-bird's larder--Nest of the golden oriole--The kapok bird-- Snakes in houses--A puff-adder under a pillow--Puff-adder most dangerous of Cape snakes--Cobras--_Schaapsticker_--Ugly house-lizards --Dassie-adder--The dassie the coney of Scripture--Stung by a scorpion--Fight between tarantula and centipede--Destructive ants --The _Aardvaark_, or ant-bear--Ignominious flight of a sentry-- Ant-lion--Walking-leaves--The Hottentot god--A mantis at a picnic.

Although the elephant and lion are now no longer found in the Karroo, there still remain a good number of leopards, or, as the colonists, in calm defiance of natural history, persist in calling them, "tigers." These animals, by the way, seem fated at both ends of the Dark Continent to be the victims of a misnomer, and in Algeria rejoice in the name of _panthère_. Though the South African leopards are now following the example of the larger and more formidable game, and gradually retreating before the advance of man, it is not many years since three or four of them might be seen drinking together at night from the dam close to the Dutch house now transformed into the homestead of Swaylands. Even now, in the hills overlooking the Karroo, there are more of them about than the farmer likes; and sheep, calves, colts and young ostriches are occasionally killed by them.

One day, riding up to a well in an out-of-the-way part of the farm, we found that a magnificent full-grown leopard had fallen in and drowned himself. There he was, floating on the surface of the water only five feet below where we stood; his large body extended across the whole diameter of the well, and on the steep but rough and unbricked sides of the latter we could see the traces of his desperate though unavailing struggles to climb out. Unfortunately, the weather being very hot, his beautiful skin was already spoilt; and we rode home regretting the lovely rug "off our own farm," which we might have displayed to admiring friends at home if we had but found him one day earlier.

A wounded leopard is a very dangerous customer. One of our neighbours, an old hunter, bears many scars in remembrance of severe injuries received long ago in following up one of these animals which he had shot. The encounter was a terrible one, nearly costing the colonist his life.

Next to the leopard in ferocity comes the baboon. He is a big, deep-voiced, sturdy fellow; his short, gruff bark is as dog-like as his head, and there is no doubt that he is identical with the dog-headed ape of ancient Egypt. Indeed, all the sacred animals and birds of Egyptian mythology, and many of the other creatures which are depicted in so life-like a manner on the walls of Nile temples and tombs, are to be found at this day in South Africa. Anubis the jackal; the grey ibis, now extinct in Egypt, but common enough in the Cape Colony, and--audacious insult to that learned god to whom he was sacred--irreverently and absurdly named by the colonials "oddida;" the hawk Horus, with just the same plump little body, round baby-face, and delicately-tinted plumage of softest French grey and white which you see again and again in those comical, toy-like little wooden images in the museum at Cairo; the wild geese, with the identical curious markings of those which, in the oldest picture in the world, may be seen in that same museum; the scarab, rolling his unwieldy ball with Atlas-like efforts;--all these are at home on the Karroo farms.

Cynocephalus, indeed, was very much more at home at Swaylands than we liked, and would often frighten the ostriches into a wild state of panic, with the usual inevitable result of broken legs. On mountain excursions you frequently hear his surly bark, and sometimes see him looking out defiantly at you from behind rock or bush, where possibly you have disturbed him in the midst of an exciting lizard-hunt, or careful investigation of loose stones in search of the centipedes, scorpions and beetles hidden beneath. These creatures, uninviting though they appear to us, are among his favourite dainties, and he catches them with wonderful dexterity. In the silence of night his voice is so distinctly audible from the homestead that you would imagine him to be close by, though in reality he is far off in one of the kloofs of the mountains. One night, as we strolled up and down near the house, enjoying the bright moonlight, a loud chorus of distant baboons to which we were listening was suddenly interrupted, evidently by the spring of a hungry leopard, the moment's silence being followed by the agonized and prolonged yells of the victim.

Now and then Cynocephalus, or, as the Boers ironically call him, "Adonis," gets too troublesome, and war has to be carried into his camp. Of no avail against him are those neat little strychnine pills, enclosed in tempting pieces of fat, by means of which Anubis is so successfully sent to his account. No vegetable poison has the slightest effect on the baboon's iron constitution, and indeed, if there exists any poison at all capable of killing him, it is quite certain that with his superior intelligence he would be far too artful to take it; and when the fiat for his destruction has gone forth a well-organized attack has to be made on him with dogs and guns. He can show fight, too, and the dogs must be well trained and have the safety of numbers to enable them to face him; for in fighting he has the immense advantage of hands, with which he seizes a dog and holds him fast while he inflicts a fatal bite through the loins. Indeed, for either dog or man, coming to close quarters with Adonis is no trifling matter.

One of our friends, travelling on horseback, came upon a number of baboons sitting in solemn parliament on some rocks. He cantered towards them, anticipating the fun of seeing the ungainly beasts take to their heels in grotesque panic; but was somewhat taken aback on finding that--far from being intimidated by his approach--they refused to move, and sat waiting for him, regarding him the while with ominous calmness. The canter subsided into a trot, and the trot into a sedate walk--and still they sat there; and so defiant was the expression on each ugly face that at last the intruder thought it wisest to turn back and ride ignominiously away.

A Dutch boy--one of a family temporarily camping in their own waggon on the farm, and employed by T----, rambling one day in one of the far-off kloofs of the mountains, came near the haunt of a party of baboons. Though an occasional bark broke the stillness, only one of the animals was in sight, and that a little one, probably left alone for a while during the mother's search for food. With the baby baboon in his arms the boy was soon speeding at his best pace down the mountain; and, if fortune had but favoured his enterprise as it deserved, what a delightful "new chum" would that day have been added to our collection of animals! But too soon the whole troop of baboons, missing their youngest hope, were in full pursuit of the robber, on whom they gained so rapidly, and with gestures so unmistakeably portending mischief, that young Piet was only too glad to drop his prize and run for his life.

The baboon stands in no awe of women; he seems quite aware of their inferiority, in point of strength and courage, to the sterner sex, and despises them accordingly. At one place near Graaff-Reinet the women never dared to go and fetch water unless accompanied by men; for the baboons, which were very numerous, would always chase and threaten any daughter of Eve who ventured, without masculine escort, near their haunts.

Baboons captured in babyhood and brought up in human society are capable of becoming extremely tame. Like all other very intelligent animals, they vary much in disposition, a docile and tractable one soon learning to perform many clever tricks, and being an amusing companion, though too often a mischievous one. A gentleman at Willowmore owned two large, splendidly-trained performing baboons, which would have made the fortune of any circus-proprietor. They would together enact a series of complicated tricks, each going through his allotted part without a mistake. Both were most attentive and obedient to orders, and never by any chance would "Joe" so far forget his duty as to respond to the command given to "Jim," or vice versa.

Occasionally, too, Adonis--who cannot, even by his best friends, be called ornamental--is taught to make himself useful; he has in several instances been seen filling the post of _voorlooper_ to the waggons of travelling Boers, acquitting himself on the whole quite as creditably as his Hottentot fellow-servants. And at one railway station in the colony a baboon was for a long time employed to work the points. The man in charge of the latter--having in a railway accident lost one arm and part of the remaining hand--had taught the ape to move the levers. This he did most cleverly with three of his powerful hands, using one of the hinder ones; and the fact of the novel pointsman retaining his situation makes it evident that his duties were satisfactorily performed.

On the occasion of a raid with dogs and guns on the baboons infesting a friend's farm, one of the animals killed was the mother of a very young infant. When the captors came up to the spot they found the poor little creature crying piteously as it clasped the trunk of the tree beneath which lay its dead parent. They took it home, and our friend, a great lover of animals, was successful in rearing it. "Sarah," a gentle, amiable character, soon became a great favourite, and her comical ways were a source of constant amusement to her human friends. At the word of command she would stand erect, with her arms behind her, and her mouth wide open to catch the pieces of potato, etc., which were thrown into it; and when told to open "wider! wider!" she would distend her jaws almost to the point of breaking.

Of course she was occasionally--what member of the ape tribe is not?--the victim of practical jokes. One day her favourite dish, pumpkin, was presented to her, and, all-unconscious of the treachery which lurked within, she applied herself with gusto to her dinner, which, unlike most of her tribe, she always preferred to eat direct from the dish without the intervention of her fingers. Alas! between two of those succulent slices of pumpkin cruel hands had spread a thick layer of mustard; and poor Sarah, eating greedily, soon experienced direful results on tongue, palate, throat, and eyes. She knew at once that she had been tricked; and never were contempt and indignation better expressed than by the lordly manner in which she kicked away the dish with all its remaining contents. After which she retired, much offended, to her bed, from whence she did not emerge for a long time.

On another occasion poor Sarah was made the subject of a still more unkind practical joke. She dearly loved sweets, which were often given to her wrapped up in a multitude of papers, one inside the other. It was amusing to watch the patient and deliberate manner in which she would unfold each paper in turn, taking the greatest care never to tear one, and proceeding with all the caution of a good Mohammedan fearful of inadvertently injuring a portion of the Koran. This time, instead of the expected tit-bit, a dead night-adder was wrapped up and presented. When she unfolded the innermost paper, and the snake slipped out, with a horrid writhe, across her hand, Sarah quietly sank backwards and fainted away, her lips turning perfectly white. By dint of throwing water over her, chafing her hands, and bathing her lips with brandy, she was revived from her swoon, though not without some difficulty.

Sarah has now been for a long time the inmate of an English country rectory, where, let us hope, no unfeeling jokes at her expense embitter her declining years.

Of a far less docile disposition than Sarah was a large baboon kept by T---- at the Diamond Fields. The incessant damage wrought by this creature among his master's property and that of neighbours, and the frequent doctors' bills of which he was the occasion, made him rather an expensive pet. He was kept chained up, but would now and then break loose, on which occasions he never failed to make an excellent use of his opportunities and enjoy as good a "time" as possible before Nemesis overtook him in the form of recapture and well-deserved chastisement.

One day, for instance, T----, on returning to his tent, was considerably surprised to find his bed occupied by Mr. Adonis, who, after getting into the shower-bath, pulling the string, and receiving the consequent ducking, had retired in a drenched and dripping condition to the blankets, within which he had comfortably ensconced himself, and from whence he gazed impudently at his master. He no doubt thought that he had well earned the luxuries of bath and bed by his busy morning's work among the contents of T----'s canvas house; and indeed that once cosy little abode now offered to the owner's eye a very good representation of chaos on a small scale. A bottle of acid, in which were a number of diamonds, had been thrown outside and the contents scattered in the sand; T----'s watch had been pulled to pieces and flung through the window; and altogether every conceivable piece of mischief had been done. On attempting to secure and tie up the offender, T---- received a severe bite through the leg; on which, naturally irate, he seized his gun, and capital punishment would then and there have been inflicted but for the discovery that the wily Adonis had balked retributive justice by carefully pulling every cartridge to pieces.

Among the numerous vices of this baboon was an incorrigible addiction to stimulants; and after indulging in his favourite drink--gin and ginger-beer--he might very profitably have been displayed on the platform of a temperance lecturer, as the Spartans exhibited their helots, in illustration of the evils of drunkenness. The manner in which, after a drop too much, he invariably persisted in walking upright was unpleasantly suggestive of drunken humanity; so too was his urgent need of soda-water to allay the parched condition of his mouth on the following morning. He would draw the cork with his strong teeth, holding the bottle close to his lips, and taking the greatest care to lose none of the refreshing gas.

He could throw stones with the unerring aim of a schoolboy; and, being of a revengeful disposition, and possessed of a wonderful memory, he never failed to requite any insult or injury received. Once a Zulu offended him by striking him with a stick. A long time passed, and then one day the man, who had quite forgotten all about it, came within reach of the baboon's tether, and--blissfully ignorant of the vengeful feelings lurking in the breast of the quadrumane--offered him something to eat. But Adonis, who had not forgotten, and who was only too glad to pay off old scores, caught the man by the hand, and, drawing him towards him, bit and punished him severely.

Here is another tale of revenge, in which the poor ape played but a passive part in the hands of the "superior" animal. A colonist, having killed a baboon, and owing several of his neighbours a long-standing grudge, bethought him of a truly fiendish manner of revenging himself. Though it is unlikely that he had ever read of Tantalus, he proceeded somewhat after that classical example, and, cutting up the baboon, made him into a stew, in which savoury disguise he served him up as the _pièce de résistance_ at a dinner to which all the obnoxious neighbours were bidden. The dish proved a delicious one, and all the visitors ate of Pelops Cynocephalus with great relish. The tableau may be imagined when, at the end of the banquet, the host told his guests what they had eaten.

It must require considerable hardness of heart to kill a baboon; for the creature is so horribly and uncannily human-looking, and, when wounded, cries in a pathetic manner which must appeal to all but the most callous of consciences. A hunter once told T---- that he felt like a murderer after shooting one of them, and seeing how in its dying agonies it pressed one finger upon the hole made by the bullet; crying like a child as it fixed its eyes on him with piteous looks of reproach.

Although the miniature Zoo at Swaylands never boasted of a tame cynocephalus, we numbered among our feathered friends one of the gods of ancient Egypt in the shape of as tiny and chubby a little Horus as ever sat for his portrait to the sculptors of Philæ or Thebes. He was but a wee thing, about the size of a wild dove, but possessed an amount of intelligence which made him one of the most interesting even among Cape pets. Sad to say, the poor little fellow was minus one wing. T----, noticing him one day flying near the house, and not knowing what bird he was, brought him down with a small rifle bullet. The shot passed through the wing, so completely smashing it that the only thing we could do was to take it off close to the body. We tied it up at once and stopped the bleeding, the plucky little patient never uttering a sound, though his jewel-like eyes seemed really to blaze with anger. They were the most wonderful eyes imaginable, almost owl-like in size and roundness, and of a lovely red with an orange tinge. A ruby with a candle behind it is what I imagine would come nearest to them in colour. The plumage of Horus, instead of being speckled and barred with different shades of brown like that of the falcons one is accustomed to see, was of the loveliest silver-grey, darkest on the back and wing, and shading off gradually into very pale grey on the head, and into purest white on the breast and beneath the body; the breast feathers being soft and fluffy, like eider-down. The legs and feet were bright yellow, the bill dark grey, edged with yellow, and a circle of dark feathers round the eyes, drawn off into a long line at each side, gave a sphinx-like appearance to the wise-looking little head. Altogether, Horus was one of the most beautiful little birds we have seen. We took it for granted that he was the sacred falcon; and it will be a disappointment to us if, one day, some learned ornithologist tells us we were quite wrong.

The little fellow recovered rapidly; and, although on the first day after the amputation we had to put food down his throat, getting viciously punished by his needle-pointed bill and claws, on the second he took meat from our hands, eating voraciously as much as we would give him, and even coming after us for more; though, not having yet learned to steer himself under his altered circumstances, he hobbled in a very clumsy and crab-like fashion, now and then making futile efforts to fly, and tumbling down on his side. Soon, however, he learned to walk straight, and would follow us about like a little dog, with the quaintest short steps. He was soon tame and friendly with all but the meerkat, for which he showed great animosity, and on which he would jump spitefully--or perhaps hungrily?--whenever it came near him. Possibly, in a wild state, small animals of this kind were his natural prey. He did not object to Toto, who indeed--with the sole exception of his rival and arch-enemy Bobby--has never failed to get on well with all his heterogeneous companions.

Horus, debarred by his infirmity from active exercise, and condemned to a somewhat humdrum life, sought consolation in the pleasures of the table, and developed an enormous appetite. He shared the spoils of the mousetraps with Bobby, and would take raw and cooked meat from our hands with equal relish. Indeed I am afraid we overfed him, and induced apoplexy. At any rate, one evening as we sat reading after dinner, he dropped quietly from his perch, and died without a flutter.

The aasvogel, a repulsively ugly, bald-headed, bare-necked bird of the most pronounced vulture type, is very common in South Africa, especially in the regions where game is most plentiful. These denizens of the air seem to be perpetually hovering, on the watch for prey, at such immense heights as to be quite out of range of human vision; though their own keen sight enables them instantly to detect the prospect of a feed, and if an animal is killed, or even only wounded, they are at once aware of the fact, and, swooping down from their airy height, sail straight to the spot.

Perhaps you are a "new chum" out hunting, and you bring down an antelope. Although, at the moment of firing your shot, you would have been ready to take your affidavit that--

"No birds were flying overhead, There were no birds to fly,"--

your game has hardly fallen before, far up in the grey-blue, a tiny speck appears, at first only just visible, but rapidly increasing in size; then another, and yet another floats into sight, "and still they come," till at last the heavens seem all alive with birds approaching from every direction, outlined against the cloudless sky in different degrees of size and clearness, according to perspective, but all making the straightest of bee-lines towards the wounded animal. In the Free State, where these birds are very numerous, T----, hunting on horseback, has sometimes found that before he could reach the spot where his antelope had fallen the aasvogels were already on it, and had commenced operations by plucking out the eyes, their special tit-bits.

These nastiest of birds think nothing of overeating themselves till their condition resembles that of Mark Twain's jumping frog after the famous dose of shot, and, when gorged after a good "square" meal, they are so heavy that they have to run a long way before they can rise into the air. On these occasions, if you are active and have a good long whip, you can catch them by switching the lash round their ugly, bare necks. But a little experience teaches you that this sport has its drawbacks, as the aasvogel invariably swarms with animal life of the most objectionable kind.

Owls are plentiful enough in the Karroo; so too are those other nocturnal birds, the goat-suckers, which at sundown begin to fly about, uttering their weird, plaintive cry. They are queer-looking birds, and seem all out of proportion, with a broad, short head and immensely wide bill, surrounded by stiff bristles like a cat's whiskers. On examining a specimen shot near our house, we were amused to find that, by looking into this preposterous bill, we could distinctly see the creature's eyes through the semi-transparent roof of the mouth.

Another of our feathered eccentricities, the butcher-bird, called by the colonists Jack Hanger, likes to eat his game high; and you often come across mimosa-bushes which, stuck all over with small birds, beetles, locusts, etc., impaled on the long, stiff thorns, form his well-stocked larder.

In such a land of snakes as South Africa it is necessary for the birds to resort to many clever and thoughtful devices for the protection of eggs and young; and some of the "homes without hands" are most ingeniously planned and exquisitely constructed.

The golden oriole hangs her graceful nest on the very furthest end of a long bough--over water, if possible, for extra safety,--and always gives the preference to the drooping branches of the willow. The nest is shaped just like a Florence flask with the end curved over; and it is next to impossible for a snake to penetrate into its interior.

Even prettier and more wonderfully made is the nest of the kapok bird, a little creature resembling a tom-tit. The material used in the construction of this small domicile is a kind of wild cotton, well named by the Boers _kapok_ (snow). The nest, which is very compact, and looks as if it were made of soft, white felt, is of much the same shape as the oriole's brown flask; but near the outlet it is dented in, forming a kind of second or exterior nest, in which the little paterfamilias mounts guard over his household gods, effectually closing the aperture by the pressure of his back against the curving end of the tube above him. The white felt is very thick and firm throughout the globular part of the flask, but gradually diminishes in density along the neck, till at the orifice it is so thin and loosely woven that the soft edges, pressed together by the bird, remain interlaced even after he has flown from his sentry-box. No apparent aperture is left; and the little stronghold is quite impregnable, and ready to baffle the wiliest of ophidian marauders, until Mrs. Kapok, by flying out, re-opens the tunnel.

Snakes are indeed one of the greatest drawbacks to South African life. There are so many of them, they are of such deadly sorts, and the obtrusive familiarity and utter absence of ceremony with which they come into the houses render the nerves of newly-arrived inmates liable at any moment to receive a severe shock. After a time, of course, finding that every one you meet has some startling experiences to relate, of the discovery of intrusive snakes in all sorts of places where they were most unlooked-for and least desirable, you become somewhat inured to this unpleasant feature of colonial existence, and move about your house with the caution of one who would not be surprised to find a snake anywhere.

T----, dressing one morning during the early days of his Cape life, had just inserted his foot at one end of his trousers, when a night-adder--a most deadly little snake, with an evil habit of going about at hours when all respectable reptiles are in bed--dropped out at the other. One of our neighbours considerably damaged his drawing-room by firing several shots at a large cobra, which had startled his wife by paying an unwelcome call. Another friend, exploring the depths of her rather dark china-closet, put her hand on a snake, comfortably coiled up beside the teacups. And a ghastly tale we heard, of some one in bed, putting his hand under the pillow at night for his pocket-handkerchief, and pulling out a puff-adder, makes one feel that--for those at least who live at the Cape--there is more of common sense than of irony in Mark Twain's assertion that it is safest not to go to bed.

We were more fortunate than our neighbours, and never during our four years' residence did I find in any of our rooms that snake for which--as the old lady for the burglar--I was continually looking. Perhaps we owed our immunity to the narrow strips of horse-hair material, with the rough edge pointing upwards, which T----, having read somewhere that no snake will cross this prickly barrier, had nailed along the threshold of each outer door. In the store, which did not communicate with the house, and the door of which was fortified by no friendly spikes, we did occasionally kill a snake--attracted, no doubt, by the legions of fat mice which ran riot among the sacks. The fowl-house, too, would often be thrown into a state of wild excitement and frenzied cackling by the visits of these dreaded reptiles--most inveterate of egg-stealers.

One day, soon after we came up-country, Nancy suddenly burst in upon us, her red turban all awry, and her speech so incoherent with agitation that the only intelligible words were "Missis! _Turkey!!_ Missis! _Snake!!!_" On running out, we found the whole poultry-yard in commotion, and the hens clamouring as if each had laid at least a dozen eggs; while our nine turkeys stood drawn up in a row, pictures of imbecile consternation, chattering feebly as they, one and all, made a dead point at a little empty packing-case, protruding from behind which we could just see the ugly, broad head of a young puff-adder. The enemy was soon despatched; and while the turkeys recovered their equanimity--which process took a long time--I indulged in the pleasure so dear to any one with a taste for natural history, and took a thorough survey of this, the first good-sized puff-adder I had seen. And what a repulsive creature it was, with its short, thick, swollen-looking body, toad-like head, and utterly evil countenance! Only the hideous cerastes, with little demon-like horns--so common in North Africa--comes anywhere near a puff-adder in thorough-paced villainy of expression.

Of all the Cape snakes the puff-adder is not only the deadliest, but by far the most to be feared. For, being of the same colour as the ground, it is extremely difficult to see: it is lazy, too, and will not take the trouble to get out of your way as every other snake does; yet, when roused, it is very active, and comes at you backwards, springing a long distance with accurate aim. If you are in front of it you are safe, as it cannot strike forward. One morning, T----, lifting up the rug in which he had been sleeping out on the veldt, found the flattened body of a puff-adder, which had evidently crept between the folds for warmth, and which he had unconsciously crushed to death.

Cobras, some of which are quite six feet in length, are very numerous in the Karroo. At certain seasons this snake is very aggressive, and will come at you boldly if you happen to be between it and its nest. T----, when out shooting one day with a pointer, suddenly saw a cobra lift itself up and strike the dog. The venom was so swift in its operation that the poor animal only turned round once, and died almost immediately.

The _schaapsticker_, which always reminded me of the beautiful but deadly coral-snakes of South America, has a wonderfully-marked skin, the pretty pattern and bright tints of which might well be utilized by some artistic designer of floor-cloths. A delicate, coral-like red predominates among the colours; and altogether the creature is so small and pretty that it is difficult to believe it is one of the most venomous of snakes. It is particularly destructive to cattle and sheep, hence its name, the literal translation of which is "sheep-stinger."

Some of the tree-snakes, too, are very beautiful; and, many of them being of the same bright green as the foliage, a close look is required to distinguish them as they lurk beneath it on the watch for birds, or for little mice which sometimes climb up into bushes, or into the lower branches of trees.

Lizards are very plentiful throughout the Karroo; and, as you walk through the veldt, hundreds of them, startled by your footsteps, dart away in all directions from one isolated tuft of bush to another, as if running for their little lives. In strong contrast to these bright, active creatures of the sunshine are the slow-moving, pallid-complexioned house-lizards which are so unpleasantly common. There are few things uglier than one of these _hikés_. With his flat, round toes, serving the purpose of suckers whereby he is enabled to retain his foothold as he perches, fly-like, on the ceilings, his low, criminal type of face, brightened by none of the quaint, antediluvian air of wisdom which redeems the chameleon's honest ugliness, and with his general unhealthy and uncanny appearance, it is no wonder that among the ignorant natives he has the reputation of being as venomous as he looks, and that from one end of the country to the other he is more dreaded than any snake. Yet it is somewhat puzzling to think how he can inflict a poisonous bite, when, on looking into his mouth, you perceive that he has no teeth.

An object of even more superstitious dread is that mysterious and deadly creature--half-quadruped, half-reptile, and certainly altogether fabulous--the so-called dassie-adder. Throughout the whole country you hear accounts of this strange animal from Boers, Kaffirs, and Hottentots; many of the coloured race declare that they have seen it, and, though some laugh at the tale, the belief in it is evidently very general. The anterior portion of the mythical creature's body is supposed to be that of a dassie, or rock-rabbit (the coney of Scripture), to which are joined, in somewhat mermaid-like fashion, the thick body and blunt tail of a snake resembling a puff-adder. According to all accounts the dassie-adder, whose bite is instantly fatal, is most vindictive, and, running with all the swiftness of a dassie, will chase any one who comes near it. Some say, too, that it goes about at night.

The dassies, so terrible in their fictitious semi-reptile state, are in real life very harmless, timid little animals. They are gregarious, and live among the rocks in such inaccessible places that it is most difficult to capture one of them; and a tame dassie is among the rarest of Karroo pets, so securely do these "feeble folk" make "their houses in the rocks." In appearance the dassie is very like a little brown guinea-pig; as regards intelligence, too, he is just about the equal of his rather uninteresting piebald cousins, and, although he is as pretty, soft-coated and gentle as you could wish, and in his mild, placid way gets very tame, he is nowhere in comparison with that prince of pets, a meerkat.

A not unlikely solution of the dassie-adder mystery seems to be that in all probability the puff-adders prey upon the little denizens of the rocks; and a large snake may occasionally have been seen with a half-swallowed dassie in his mouth, just as a common snake sometimes displays, protruding from his jaws, the head and forelegs of the inconveniently fat frog which he is unable to gulp down in a hurry. The negro mind is quite capable of evolving a fabulous animal out of even such slight grounds as this.

Of "creepy-crawlies" of all kinds the Karroo possesses more than enough, and--like the snakes--they invade the house, and make themselves at home in a manner which is free and easy rather than pleasant. Legions of venomous centipedes, scorpions, and big, bristly-legged spiders of the tarantula tribe lurk in the old reed ceilings; from whence they drop playfully down now and then, to the consternation of the unwary inmate sitting beneath, on whose head or book they chance to land. Or, if they do not drop down on you, they lie in wait about the room in well-chosen points of vantage, where their sudden discovery is sure to give you a horrid jump, even if you are lucky enough to get off without a venomous bite or sting.

One evening, as I was getting ready for bed--oblivious for once of cautious habits acquired, years before, in that land of "jiggers," the West Indies, where you never venture to walk slipperless, even across your bedroom--my bare foot suddenly encountered what seemed like the point of a red-hot needle sticking straight up out of the floor; and, looking down, I found that I had trodden on a scorpion. Fortunately, it was not one of the large black ones, which are the most venomous, but only a light-coloured specimen, about two inches and a half in length. It was, however, quite bad enough; and although T---- recklessly poured away over the foot our whole photographic supply of ammonia, and made me drink the greater part of a bottle of strong Cape wine in the hope of neutralizing the poison--though, alas! only producing other and sad results--it was many hours before that red-hot needle showed any signs of cooling down. And then an exaggerated form of "pins and needles" set in, followed by what resembled a succession of powerful electric shocks running up the leg at intervals of two or three minutes. Altogether, the victim of a scorpion's sting can well realize the feelings of gouty patients, who dread to see even their best friends coming within five or six yards of them. It was two days before I could put my foot to the ground; and then, for several more, I could only hobble painfully with the aid of a stick.

Colonial boys are fond of setting scorpions to fight with tarantulas. The great spiders are most pugnacious, and seem only too glad of an opportunity to fight with anything. T---- once watched one of them in desperate battle with a centipede. The vicious spider, whose body was as large as that of a mouse, seized his antagonist and shook him savagely, just as a terrier shakes a rat; then, letting him go for a time, he would spring upon him, pick him up, and worry him again, apparently with fiendish pleasure. He continued this mode of warfare until the final collapse of the poor centipede, whose pluck in facing such an adversary at all deserves to be commended.

Prominent among insect nuisances are ants of many different sorts and sizes, the worst of all being the mischievous rice ants. Many a carpet or curtain is utterly ruined by these creatures, which have a trick of coming up unexpectedly through the floor in large numbers, generally during the night, when they can carry on their destructive work without interruption. They work with a zeal worthy of a better cause, and the amount of damage their powerful jaws can do in one night is almost incredible.

Very pretty necklaces are made of the threaded eggs of one kind of ant. They are rough and irregular in shape, and possess such a soft lustre, that--but for their deep golden colour--they might almost be taken for inferior pearls.

It is some satisfaction to know that the ranks of Cape ants are considerably thinned by several inveterate enemies. One of these is that strange burrowing animal the ant-bear, called by the Dutch _aardvaark_ (earth-pig).[7] There is one in the Zoo; and it is about as uncanny and nightmare-like a beast as could be imagined or dreamed of--a sort of crazy combination of calf and pig, reminding one of the Mock Turtle in "Alice's Adventures." Like that tearful animal, it possesses a head and body which do not in the smallest degree appear to belong to each other. The longest, narrowest and boniest of calves' heads, so pallid and sickly in complexion, and so entirely hairless, as to appear not only dead, but neatly scraped and cleaned all ready for cooking, is joined--without the intervention of any neck to speak of--to a fat, pig-like body, very scantily clothed with short, bristly hairs. The eyes are large and dark, the bare, pink ears are of rabbit-like proportions, and the calf's head terminates in a pig's snout, thickly lined with hair. This latter is the only hirsute adornment possessed by the goblin-like countenance, to which a very cynical expression is given by the animal's ugly trick of wrinkling up its enormously long snout. The thick legs, and the feet, armed with large claws, are immensely strong; so, too, is the broad, flat, almost hairless tail, about the shape of which there is something unpleasantly suggestive of a puff-adder. The specimen in the Zoo has a damaged tail, the result of the force the captors found it necessary to use in dragging it from its hole. A riem was once tied to the tail of an ant-bear, and a span of oxen fastened on to draw it out of the ground. But, after much ineffectual tugging, the experiment ended in the breaking of the riem--or of the tail--our informant had forgotten which; at any rate the animal remained in its hole.

[7] _Orycteropus capensis._

Many a time does the unwary rider, cantering across the veldt, come to sudden grief in one of the deep, trap-like holes made by the ant-bear, which seems by no means an uncommon animal. But it is quite possible to live many years in South Africa, and, however often you may tumble into its holes, never once see the creature itself. For, being of nocturnal habits, it is active only at night, when it tunnels its way underground like a mole, occasionally coming to the surface, and now and then emerging in very unexpected places.

Some members of a hunting-party, camping out for the night, were much surprised to see the ground heave up suddenly in the centre of their tent, the passing of an ant-bear a little below the surface being the cause of the miniature earthquake. And during the war in Zululand an Irish sentry was on guard at midnight, when suddenly, close to him, the ground opened, and out of it rose a ghastly living Jack-in-the-box. The moonbeams shone full on the horrid form, long head, and deadly-pale, calf-like face; and the man--small blame to him--dropped his gun, deserted his post, and fled in horror, shouting to his astonished comrades the awful news that he had seen Old Nick himself! And indeed, if, on one of our moonlight strolls about the farm, an ant-bear had suddenly risen in our path, I am quite sure that we should have taken to our heels with equal alacrity.

The cage of the Cape ant-bear at the Zoo being next to that of the American ant-eater, a good opportunity is afforded for observing the marked dissimilarity of the two animals, which indeed could hardly be more unlike each other. One of the numerous points in which they differ is that the American ant-eater is toothless, while the _aardvaark_ possesses teeth.

The ant-lion, so often pictured in books of natural history, is common in the Karroo; and it was a great pleasure for us when, for the first time, we saw him in real life, and examined his cleverly-constructed, funnel-shaped trap, hollowed out in the soft, sliding sand,--down which his victims tumble, to find him waiting open-mouthed at the bottom.

Talking of the ant-lion reminds one of another excavator, still more familiar to Cape colonists, the trap-door spider. His "diggings" are in the form of a perpendicular, cylinder-shaped box, the lid of which, level with the surface of the ground, is so neatly made that it is quite impossible to detect it when closed.

The walking-leaf tribe is very largely represented in South Africa; and besides simulating leaves of many different kinds, the creatures assume numerous other forms, some looking just like pieces of dried stick, others like bits of straw, blades of grass, etc. The plant, or portion of a plant, which they personate so admirably, is always the chosen resting-place on which they sit, motionless and meditative, often defying detection. The praying mantis is worshipped by the Hottentots, who perhaps, like the ancient Greeks and Romans, look on him as a kind of soothsayer or fortune-teller ([Greek: mantis]). But in spite of being the Hottentot god, and of possessing such a pious-sounding scientific name as _Mantis religiosa_, he is a most pugnacious little beast; and if he has a difficulty to settle with one of his brethren, the pair will fight it out like the Kilkenny cats.

Not long ago, at a North African picnic, one of these same little creatures caused much amusement by the tact which he displayed in doing just the right thing at the right time, and in the prettiest manner. It was a very hot day, so close and oppressive that we all felt rather languid; and conversation flagged as we sat at luncheon round the table-cloth spread on the ground in the interior of a large tent. Suddenly, during a long pause, a little mantis appeared on the scene. With a jaunty air, and with all the cool self-possession of a popular performer advancing, confident of success, towards the footlights, he stepped on to the tablecloth, and, crossing it in a bee-line, drew up before Her Britannic Majesty's Consul, to whom, with many jerky inclinations of his gaunt, bright-green body, he made what appeared to be a series of most obsequious bows. Then, having obeyed the first requirements of etiquette, he passed slowly along the line of guests, halting occasionally and paying his respects to one or the other. He seemed quite unabashed by all the notice and applause which he received; and as the plate in which he finally deposited himself was handed round among the guests, he calmly surveyed each one in turn, while continuing, very literally, to "bow and scrape." If he had been a paid performer, engaged beforehand, he could not have played his little part better; and all agreed in giving him a vote of thanks for his timely appearance, which just gave us the mental pick-me-up which, on that enervating day, we all needed. I believe some one carried him home at last in a paper cage; though whether he fulfilled the brilliant promise of his first introduction to human society, and became an intelligent pet, we never heard.