A round pond basin was made, about fifteen feet in diameter, and admirably made too. In the centre I created an island with the nozzle of a single _jet d'eau_, carefully concealed, and by an extraordinary chance I discovered within an inch or two of the brim of the basin, the channel of an ancient scheme of drainage--it may have been a thousand years old--and this solved in a moment the problem of how to carry off the overflow. The water was easily available from the ordinary “Company's” pipe for the garden supply; so that all that remained for me to do was to tidy up the ground, which I did by getting six tons of soft reddish sandstone from a neighbouring quarry and piling it in irregular masses on two sectors of the circular space, taking care to arrange for a scheme of “pockets” for small plants at one part and for large ferns at another. The greatest elevation of this boundary was about fifteen feet, and here I put a noble cliff weighing a ton and a half, with several irregular steps at the base, the lowest being just above a series of stone rectangular basins, connected by irregular shallow channels in a descent to the big pond. Then I got a leaden pipe with an “elbow” attachment to the Company's water supply beneath, and contrived a sort of T-shaped spray which I concealed on the level of the top of my cliff, and within forty-eight hours I had a miniature cascade pouring over the cliff and splashing among the stone basins and the ir channels--“_per averpace coi seguaci sui_”--in the large pond below. [Illustration: 0197] Of course it took a summer and a winter to give this little scheme a chance of assimilating with Nature; but once it began to do so it did so thoroughly. The cliff and the rocky steps, which I had made in memory of the cascade at Platte Klip on the side of Table Mountain where I had often enjoyed a bath, became beautifully slimy, and primroses were blooming so as to hide the outlines of the rectangle, while Alpines and sedums and harts-tongue ferns found accommodation in the pockets among the stones. In the course of another year the place was covered with vegetation and the sandstones had become beautifully weathered, and sure enough, the boughs of the American oak had their Narcissus longings realised, but without the Narcissus sequel. Here, then, was a second “feature” accomplished; and we walk out of the sunshine of the House Garden, and, passing through the carved stone doorway, find ourselves in complete shade with the sound of tinkling water in the air--when the taps are turned in the right direction; but in the matter of water we are economical, and the cascade ceased to flow while the war lasted.