Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick (Chapter 20)( Page 2 ) Jantje

That was Mungo Park--the long, strong, low-built, half-bred Basuto pony--well-trained and without guile. I left Snowball with his previous owner, to use as required, and never called back for him; and if this should meet the eye of Joey the Smith he will know that I no longer hope his future life will be spent in stalking a wart-eyed white horse in a phantom Bushveld.  Mungo made amends. There was a spot between the Komati and Crocodile rivers on the north side of the road where the white man seldom passed and nature was undisturbed; few knew of water there; it was too well concealed between deep banks and the dense growth of thorns and large trees. The spot always had great attractions for me apart from the big game to be found there.  I used to steal along the banks of this lone water and watch the smaller life of the bush.  It was a delightful field for naturalist and artist, but unfortunately we thought little of such things, and knew even less; and now nothing is left from all the glorious opportunities but the memory of an endless fascination and a few facts that touch the human chord and will not submit to be forgotten. There were plenty of birds--guinea fowl, pheasant, partridge, knoorhaan and bush pauw.  Jock accompanied me of course when I took the fowling-piece, but merely for companionship; for there was no need for him on these occasions.  I shot birds to get a change of food and trusted to walking them up along the river banks and near drinking pools; but one evening Jock came forward of his own accord to help me--a sort of amused volunteer; and after that I always used him. He had been at my heels, apparently taking little interest in the proceedings from the moment the first bird fell and he saw what the game was; probably he was intelligently interested all the time but considered it nothing to get excited about.  After a time I saw him turn aside from the line we had been taking and stroll off at a walking pace, sniffing softly the while.  When he had gone a dozen yards he stopped and looked back at me; then he looked in front again with his head slightly on one side, much as he would have done examining a beetle rolling his ball. There were no signs of anything, yet the grass was short for those parts, scarce a foot high, and close, soft and curly.  A brace of partridges rose a few feet from Jock, and he stood at ease calmly watching them, without a sign or move to indicate more than amused interest.  The birds were absurdly tame and sailed so quietly along that I hesitated at first to shoot; then the noise of the two shots put up the largest number of partridges I have ever seen in one lot, and a line of birds rose for perhaps sixty yards across our front.  There was no wild whirr and confusion: they rose in leisurely fashion as if told to move on, sailing  nfinitely slowly down the slope to the thorns near the donga.  Running my eye along the line I counted them in twos up to between thirty and forty; and that I could not have been more than half. How many coveys had packed there, and for what purpose, and whether they came every evening, were questions which one would like answered now; but they were not of sufficient interest then to encourage a second visit another evening.  The birds sailed quietly into the little wood, and many of them alighted on branches of the larger trees.  It is the only time I have seen a partridge in a tree; but when one comes to think it out, it seems commonsense that, in a country teeming with vermin and night-prowlers, all birds should sleep off the ground.  Perhaps they do!