and black wattle, and to the left was a broad stretch of cultivated
lands, lying so that they could be irrigated for winter crops by means
of water led from the great spring that gushed out of the mountain-side
high above the house, and gave its name of Mooifontein to the place.

All these and many more things John Niel saw as he looked out from the
verandah at Mooifontein, but for the moment at any rate they were lost
in the wild and wonderful beauty of the panorama that rolled away for
miles and miles at his feet, till it was bounded by the mighty range of
the Drakensberg to the left, tipped here and there with snow, and by the
dim and vast horizon of the swelling Transvaal plains to the right and
far in front of him. It was a beautiful sight, and one to make the blood
run in a man's veins, and his heart beat happily because he was alive
to see it. Mile upon mile of grass-clothed veldt beneath, bending and
rippling like a corn-field in the quick breath of the morning, space
upon space of deep-blue sky overhead with ne'er a cloud to dim it, and
the swift rush of the wind between. Then to the left there, impressive
to look on and conducive to solemn thoughts, the mountains rear their
crests against the sky, and, crowned with the gathered snows of the
centuries whose monuments they are, from aeon to aeon gaze majestically
out over the wide plains and the ephemeral ant-like races who tread
them, and while they endure think themselves the masters of their little
world. And over all--mountain, plain, and flashing stream--the glorious
light of the African sun and the Spirit of Life moving now as it once
moved upon the darkling waters.

John stood and gazed at the untamed beauty of the scene, in his mind
comparing it to many cultivated prospects which he had known, and coming
to the conclusion that, however desirable the presence of civilised man
might be in the world, it could not be said that his operations really