Near Lakeside are several old farms with lost identity. Over the hill, leaving the lovely vleis behind us, we came upon Muizenberg, from an architectural point of view the saddest sight in the world; here are two old landmarks, the one so renovated that it is almost unrecognizable, the other a ruin. The first was a low, whitewashed, thatched homestead--an old inn, or rest-house, as the Dutch called it--and it was named 'Farmer Pecks.' The oldest inhabitant cannot tell why, but I remember the original building with its celebrated signboard. The story of the signboard is as follows: 'Two middies, many, many years ago, returning to Simonstown from Cape Town, where they had been on a jaunt, arrived one dark night at Muizenberg. It was a twenty-mile walk--twenty miles along a difficult track, across a dangerous beach of quicksands (Fish Hoek), and they were travelling on foot, because very few people could afford a cart. It was too late and too dark to continue their journey, so they had to put up at Farmer Pecks'. When it came to paying for the night's board and lodging there was no money--all left in Cape Town. "We'll paint you a signboard," they said--a Utopian mode of finance to solve the difficulty and pay their debt. They must have come from Salisbury Plain, or Farmer Peck had, for the signboard portrayed a mild-looking shepherd of a Noah's Ark type, gazing over a hill at some fat wooden sheep, grazing in emerald grass, and in the background a very English-looking little farmhouse with rows of stiff Noah's Ark trees. Quite a premature attempt at modern conventional design, inspired by the ideals of "Two Years Old" playing at Creation and landscape-gardening in the nursery. Here the momentous questions are: whether Mr. and Mrs. Noah, in red and blue æsthetic garments of a wondrous purity of line, shall stand under perfectly symmetrical trees which are on dear little rounds of wood, or whether they shall be dotted over the farm together with Shem, Ham, and Japheth, in pure yellow, pink, and green, in close proximity to two pink cows, two red geese, two black pigs, and two purple horses.' [Illustration: AT LAKESIDE, LOOKING TOWARDS CONSTANTIA] [Illustration: AT LAKESIDE, LOOKING SOUTH-EAST] A domesticated sequel to the story of the Flood. Everyone has played 'Noah,' so everyone will understand the design of the poster. The following verses were painted under the board, springing from the same talented and amusing brains, a quaint mixture of English, Dutch, and Latin: 'Multum in parvo, pro bono publico, Entertainment for man and beast all of a row. Lekker kost as much as you please, Excellent beds without any fleas. 'Nos patriam fugimus now we are here, Vivamus, let us live by selling beer. On donne à boire et à manger ici, Come in and try, whosoever you be.'