I spent the hour before sunset lounging and smoking with the Dutch farmers.

At first they had been silent and suspicious of a newcomer, but by this time I talked their taal fluently, and we were soon on good terms.

I recall a discussion arising about a black thing in a tree about five hundred yards away.

I thought it was an aasvogel, but another thought it was a baboon.

Whereupon the oldest of the party, a farmer called Coetzee, whipped up his rifle and, apparently without sighting, fired.