lank rushes in perpetual motion, and make the valleys resound with their twittering notes. As representatives of the reptile world, gigantic lizards are to be found near every running water; tortoises of many kinds abound on land, one sort being also met with both in streams and in stagnant pools; there are a good many poisonous snakes, such as buff-adders, cobras, horned vipers, besides coral snakes; likewise a species of green water-snake, which, however, is harmless. Venomous marine serpents also find their way up the rivers from the sea.
We reached Grahamstown late at night on the same day that we left Port Elizabeth, and started off again early the following morning. During the next two days we had some pleasant travelling in a comfortable American calèche, and arrived at Cradock, a distance of 125 miles. At first the country was full of woods and defiles similar to those we had passed after leaving Port Elizabeth, but afterwards it changed to a high table-land marked by numerous detached hills, some flat and some pointed, and bounded on the extreme north-east and north-west by mountain chains and ridges. The isolated hills rise from 200 to 500 feet above the surrounding plain, and are mostly covered with low bushes, consisting chiefly of the soil-exhausting lard-tree. The valleys display a great profusion of acacias, hedgethorns and other kinds of mimosa, but the general type of vegetation which is conspicuous hereabouts disappears beyond Cradock, and is not seen again in
