A week spent in the grand gorges and on the precipitous peaks of the little-known Tatas Berg found us an abundance of copper indications, but never a buck, and we started our return journey to Zendling’s Drift, by this time almost rationless, our coffee and sugar gone, our tobacco likewise, and a few handfuls of meal and a little tea our only standby. And still the game fought shy of us. There were numerous small birds in every tree, brilliant of plumage and of infinite variety, but absolutely nothing to warrant a charge of “No. 6.” Occasionally a majestic fish-eagle would sail away from the top of a dead tree to a similar perch across the river, and dozens of grey monkeys chattered at us from the topmost branches of _cameel-doorn_ and willow; here and there a huge leguaan (that monster of lizards, 6 or 7 feet in length), belonging to the monitor species, would plunge from the bank into the water, and baboons hooted at us the live-long day from the rocks above; but none of these appealed to us--as food. One incandescent day, when we had bathed and were lolling for a midday spell on a patch of emerald sward near!!Ariep!!, we were lucky enough to witness a scene I am never likely to forget, and would not have missed for anything. Here the river is particularly beautiful; there are numerous small islands, covered with dense thickets of reeds, that are a favourite feeding-place for the few hippo still left in the Orange. Some of them are well wooded with high willows of a particularly vivid green, and on the overhanging branch of one of these I saw a baboon appear, clamber out to the extremity, stand up at full height, and dive into the deep pool beneath just as a man would do. He was followed by another and another, until there were at least a score of them climbing, diving, swimming to the bank, and up the tree again, in an endless chain, splashing each other, and enjoying themselves exactly like a crowd of schoolboys. On the third day the sky became overcast, but we had been so long without seeing rain that we disregarded the signs of its coming. Late that evening we arrived at our old camp beneath the willows, opposite the “Ki-man” rock, the long stretch of still water a pool of liquid fire from the reflection of a most lurid and threatening sunset.