are poisonous, and that, as a rule, few snakes over
eight or ten feet in length have the venom fangs. The want of knowledge
neither prevented the Dutchman in Africa from disbelieving the existence
of a building like Saint Paul's, nor the Englishman in England from
casting disbelief on the mode of killing a snake in Africa.

One evening I had strolled to a kloof about three miles from my friend's
house, to make a sketch and shoot a guinea-fowl. I walked quietly up
the kloof, and sat down amongst some thick underwood, where I could just
get a peep at the mountains which I wanted to draw. I selected a good
concealed situation, as my bush habits had become so much like nature
that I should have considered it throwing away a chance of a shot at
something if I had sat out in the open. I had succeeded in putting down
the view on paper, and was finishing its details, when I heard a little
tap on a tree near me; I looked up, and on the stem, some fifteen feet
high, I saw the arrow of a Bushman, still quivering in the bark. I drew
back quietly, and cocked my gun by the "artful dodge;" not doubting that
these rascals had seen me enter the ravine, and were now trying to pink
me with their arrows. I waited anxiously for some minutes, and then saw
a Bushman come over the rise, and look about. I knew at once that he
must be unconscious of my presence or he would never have thus shown in
the open; he turned round, and seemed to be taking the line which his
arrow had travelled. As he did so, I saw a rock rabbit (the _hyrax_)
hanging behind him, and then knew that he was after these animals, and
probably in shooting at one had sent his arrow into the tree near me.

I did not move, as my shelter was so good that even a Bushman's eye
would with difficulty see me. He looked about him, and seeing his arrow
in the tree, he picked up some stones, threw two or three at it and
brought it down; he then walked quietly away over the ridge.

I slipped down the kloof and made the best of my way home, to give my
host a caution about his cattle and my horses; as these determined
robbers were most dangerous neighbours.

We were not however disturbed. At about nine o'clock in the evening we
could see a fire shining from a neighbouring mountain, and we supposed
that the Bushmen were having a feast of grilled hyrax for their supper.
It was proposed that we should go out and attack the party, but there
being no seconder to the proposition, it f