Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/191

 and seizing my hand, made me bend down to his own level.

“Yes, look!” he said, “look at those two birds settling there; those are the birds that made the noise. They would be great locust-birds, only they have red wings, and black heads and crowns—beautiful yellow crowns.”

This was an unusually long speech for Gert, and he had to pause and refresh himself with a quid of tobacco. He saw our surprise, and repeated the word “crowns,” adding that they were not made of feathers, but of long, stiff, yellow hair.

“In Africa,” he continued, “everybody knows them. The farmers, both in the Transvaal and the Free State, keep them tame.”

“What do you call them?” I inquired.

“Mâ-hems, bas,” he answered; but I could only conjecture that they were a long-legged species of the grey crane, until a few days afterwards, when finding three of them domesticated in one of the farms we passed, I ascertained that they were the crowned or royal crane (Balearia regulorum). When I returned to my own country I brought two of them with me, and had the honour of presenting them to His Highness the Crown Prince Rudolph, who placed them in the Imperial Zoological Gardens at Schönbrunn.

Scarcely had we been travelling two hours next morning when we came within sound of a rushing torrent, issuing from a depression that could be distinguished at a considerable distance by its belt