Somerset (East) 13 12 11 10 11 911 5 7 3 4 38d

Cradock

Beaufort

Simon's Town

Wynberg

13 12 11 10 11 911 5 7 3 4 3 83d
10 9 8 7 8 6 8 5 7 910 6 9

3 4 6 8 9 10 12 11 12 13 14 13 15 14 14

235789 11 10 11 12 13 12 13 13 13 10 2

George.
-Plettenberg's Bay.
Utenhay.
Port Elizabeth.

Graham's Town.

Bathurst

Graf Reinet.

Colesberg.

Somerset.

A Cradock.

Beaufort.

Simon's Town.

12

THE amusements of the colony are numerous and varied, and although its Western extremity bears the intellectual distinction of possessing at Cape Town the most splendid public library to be found in any other settlement, British or foreign, not even excepting the Indian metropolis itself, the City of Palaces, the Eastern division competes with it in many other enjoyments, and excels it in the pleasures of the chase. Graham's Town has recently, however, established a library, which already contains 3200 volumes, and a theatre for amateur theatrical performances is about to be re-established. Public meetings for religious, philanthropic, political, and scientific objects, occasionally relieve the monotony of money-getting life; and those delightful relaxations, pic-nics, particularly adapted to the delicious climate of the colony, under the most magnificent of skies, and amidst its untamed and luxuriant scenery, are frequently enjoyed, when childhood and age, youth and maturity, congregate for the purpose of recreation, under the cool covert of some ancient fig or yellow wood tree on the banks of a sparkling rivulet, where

mirth, music, dance, and song, are prolonged through the livelong day, and continued to a late hour beneath a dome spangled with celestial brilliants and the light of a chaste, but not cold, moon, whose light rivals in brightness the brilliant god of morn. Nor are the grave substantials of such high festivals forgotten or sparingly enjoyed; viands and wines of the best and choicest description deck the cloth laid out upon the glossy lawn, and wit, sharp but not severe, jest, amusing without coarseness, pass around, and the only sufferers from indulgence on these happy occasions are occasionally some young hearts mutually stricken by the sly deity whom all worship, and none defy successfully.

Races, and all their concomitants on the turf, with race balls and race dinners, take place annually at most of the principal towns of the colony, and winter assemblies, private card-parties and other kinds of social amusements are frequent; for the colonial inhabitants, although they may lack something of the gaiety of our French neighbours of Mauritius, are still addicted to pleasure. It is in the frontier districts, however, where the chief amusements afforded by the colony, field sports, are to be enjoyed in all their zest and excitement. From the timid hare to the lordly lion, there is opportunity for the exercise of skill, and ample scope for the display of courage. Game of the feathered tribes is abundant, and of most kinds known to European sportsmen, besides several peculiar to the colony, among which is the Pauw (a bustard), weighing from 12 to 30 lbs., and the Koerhaan, both delicious birds.

The shooting season begins the 1st of December, and ends the 29th of June. Game licences are demanded by the laws of the colony, but very few are taken out.

It is, however, on the northern borders of the Eastern Province where the huntsman revels in unbounded licence. There his attention is almost distracted between the variety of animal life which everywhere presents itself. Troops of light and elegant antelopes of innumerable kinds, with their delicate fawns everywhere enliven the plains; the bounding gnû gracefully gambols in sheer scorn of its pursuers, and the elegant zebra, and the frolicsome quagga, involve the herd in a cloud of dust as they scamper away from their persecutors. There is the stately ostrich literally" on the wings of the wind," with pinions extended, every

plume of which is coveted for some ball-room beauty, whose image is enshrined in the heart of the fearless rider; but caution! there is a stealthy panther watching the quarry which the huntsman has put up :-and stop! that sound which just boomed across his ear is the growl of the lion concealed in yonder sedgy pool, under the covert of those waving reeds, disturbed by Juno, Pero, Dido, and the whole pack of dogs with their usually euphonious names, who were wishing to slake their thirst at that rare treat 66 a fountain in the desert." Such are the excitements and such the perils and the pleasures of the sportsman's life in the Eastern Province of the Cape.

To those mighty Nimrods who live on horseback and seem to exist only for the chase, the vast limits of the colony are too circumscribed to restrain their affection for the feræ naturæ. These enthusiasts, malgré "all cape punishment bills," (in spite of all parliamentary committees on aborigines, and reckless of the rights of the ancient and undoubted denizens of the soil, the game, who, by-the-bye, were the occupants before any of the human species,) pass ever the colonial boundary and wage deadly and unremitting warfare against the innocent inhabitants of the interior plains and forests, where nobler as well as more extensive sport awaits their rifle-the sagacious elephant, the horny rhinoceros, the lovely giraffe, the unwieldy hippopotamus, the scaly boa, and the insidious alligator, alike bow beneath their all-conquering guns, and they return overwhelmed with glory, bringing, like Captain Harris*, a waggon load of trophies. The solitary and contemplative angler too is not without his share of pleasure. There are many streams in which the finny tribe may be flattered into compliance with his insinuating invitation to feed, and the penner of these lines has himself hooked fine fish, both with live and dead bait, in the waters of Albany, weighing from three to eight pounds. Fly-fishing, there is every reason to believe, would be successful, but as yet little attention to this or any other kind of angling has been attempted.

* An Indian visitor to the colony in 1836, who has published two very interesting works. 1. Narrative of an expedition into South Africa. 2. Portraits of Game and Wild Animals in Southern Africa. Seductive books, which have already brought a number of his fellow Indians to follow the great sport in this field of nature's grandest productions." He hath made many sportsmen."

THE LION HUNT.

MOUNT, mount for the hunting, with musket and spear!
Call our friends to the field, for the lion is near!
Call Arend, and Ekhard, and Groepe to the spoor;
Call Muller and Coetzer, and Lucas Van Vuur.
Ride up Eildons' Cleugh, and blow loudly the bugle;
Call Slinger and Allie, and Dikkop and Dugal;
And George with the elephant-gun on his shoulder,
In a perilous pinch none is better or bolder.

In the gorge of the glen lie the bones of my steed,
And the hoofs of a heifer of fatherland's breed ;
But mount, my brave boys! if our rifles prove true,
We'll soon make the spoiler his ravages rue.

Ho! the Hottentot lads have discovered the track-
To his den in the desert we'll follow him back;
But tighten your girths, and look well to your flints,
For heavy and fresh are the villain's foot-prints.
Through the rough rocky kloof into grey Huntly-glen,
Past the wild-olive clump where the wolf has his den,
By the black eagle's rock at the foot of the fell,
We have tracked him at length to the buffalo's well.

Now, mark yonder break where the blood-hounds are howling,
And hark that hoarse sound, like the deep thunder growling;
'Tis his lair, 'tis his voice! from your saddles alight;
He's at bay in the brushwood preparing for fight.
Leave the horses behind, and be still every man,
Let the Mullers and Rennies advance in the van,
Keep fast in your ranks; by the yell of yon hound,
The savage, I guess, will be out with a bound.
He comes the tall jungle before him loud crashing,
His mane bristled fiercely, his fiery eyes flashing;
With a roar of disdain, he leaps forth in his wrath,
To challenge the foe that dare leaguer his path.
He couches! ay, now we'll see mischief, I dread!
Quick-level your rifles-and aim at his head!
Thrust forward the spears, and unsheathe every knife-
St. George! he's upon us! now, fire, lads, for life!
He's wounded! but yet he'll draw blood here he falls.
Ah! under his paw see Bezuidenhout sprawls!
Now, Diederik! Christian! right in the brain
Plant each man his bullet-hurrah! he is slain !

Bezuidenhout, up man! 'tis only a scratch!

You were always a scamp and have met with your match.
What a glorious lion! what sinews!-what claws!-

And seven feet ten from the rump to the jaws.

His hide, with the paws, and the bones of his skull,
With the spoils of the leopard and buffalo bull,
We'll send to Sir Walter. Now, boys, let us dine,
And talk of our deeds o'er a flask of old wine.

T. PRINGLE.