rs were glad as they
beheld it; and while the wagon was outspanning, every one gave utterance
to their delightful emotions.

The place seemed to please every one. Hans loved its quiet and sylvan
beauty. It was just such a place as he would choose to ramble in, book
in hand, and dream away many a pleasant hour. Hendrik liked it much,
because he had already observed what he termed "extensive spoor" about
the spot: in other words, he had noticed the tracks of many of Africa's
largest wild animals.

Little Truey was delighted to see so many beautiful flowers. There were
bright scarlet geraniums, and starlike sweet-scented jessamines, and the
gorgeous belladonna lily, with its large blossoms of rose-colour and
white; and there were not only plants in flower, but bushes, and even
trees, covered with gaudy and sweetly-perfumed blossoms. There was the
"sugar-bush" (_Protea mellifera_), the most beautiful of its family,
with its large cup-shaped corollas of pink, white, and green; and there,
too, was the "silver-tree" (_Leucodendron argenteum_), whose soft
silvery leaves playing in the breeze, looked like a huge mass of silken
flowers; and there were the mimosas covered with blossoms of golden
yellow that filled the air with their strong and agreeable perfume.

Rare forms of vegetation were around or near at hand: the arborescent
aloes, with their tall flower-spikes of coral red, and euphorbias of
many shapes; and _zamia_, with its palm-like fronds; and the soft-leaved
_Strelitzia reginae_. All these were observed in the neighbourhood of
this new-discovered fountain.

But what received little Truey's admiration more than any other was the
beautiful blue waterlily (_Nympha caerulea_), which is certainly one of
the loveliest of Africa's flowers. Close by the spring, but a little
farther in the direction of the plain, was a vley, or pool--in fact, it
might have been termed a small lake--and upon the quiet bosom of its
water the sky-blue corollas lay sleeping in all their gorgeous beauty.

Truey, leading her little pet in a string, had gone down on the bank to
look at them. She thought she could never cease gazing at such pretty
things.

"I hope papa will stay here a long time," she said to her companion,
little Jan.

"And I hope so too. Oh! Truey, what a fine tree yon is! Look! nuts as
big as my head, I declare. Bless me, sis! how are we to knock some, of
them down?"

And so the children conversed, both deligh