Part 51 (2/2)

At the close of the War of Independence, Don Pablo was a general of division, while Leon had reached the grade of a colonel But as soon as the fighting was over, both resigned their military rank, as they wereas a _ profession in tiree with theanised an expedition of _cascarilleros_, and returned to the Montana, where for h this he became one of the richest of Peruvian ”ricos”

Guapo, who at this time did not look a year older than when first introduced, was as tough and sinewy as ever, and was at the head of the cascarilleros; and many a _coceada_ did Guapo afterwards enjoy with hisbackward and forward between Cuzco and the Montana

Dona Isidora lived for a long period an ornament to her sex, and the little Leona had _her_ day as the ”belle of Cuzco”

But Leon and Leona both got th; and were you to visit Cuzco at the present tiht see several little Leons and Leonas, with round black eyes, and dark waving hair--all of them descendants from our family of--

”FOREST EXILES”

THE BUSH-BOYS,

OR

ADVENTURES IN THE WILDS OF SOUTHERN AFRICA

CHAPTER I

THE BOERS

Hendrik Von Bloom was a _boer_

When I called Hendrik Von Bloom a boer, I did not mean him any disrespect Quite the contrary

All the same it may be well to explain that Mynheer Hendrik had not always been a boer He could boast of a soher condition--that is, he could boast of a better education than the mere Cape far the sword He was not a native of the colony, but of Holland; and he had found his way to the Cape, not as a poor adventurer seeking his fortune, but as an officer in a Dutch regiment then stationed there

His soldier-service in the colony was not of long duration A certain cherry-cheeked, flaxen-haired Gertrude--the daughter of a rich boer--had taken a liking to the young lieutenant; and he in his turn becaot e farm, with its full stock of horses, and Hottentots, broad-tailed sheep, and long-horned oxen, became hers This was an inducement for her soldier-husband to lay down the sword and turn ”vee-boer,” or stock farmer, which he consequently did

These incidents occurredmasters of the Cape colony When that event came to pass, Hendrik Von Bloom was already a man of influence in the colony and ”field-cornet” of his district, which lay in the beautiful county of Graaf Reinet He was then a er, the father of a small family The hom he had fondly loved,--the cherry-cheeked, flaxen-haired Gertrude--no longer lived

History will tell you how the Dutch colonists, discontented with English rule, rebelled against it The ex-lieutenant and field-cornet was one of thethese rebels History will also tell you how the rebellion was put down; and how several of those coht; but his fine property in the Graaf Reinet was confiscated and given to another

Many years after we find hie River, leading the life of a ”trek-boer,”--that is, a nomade farmer, who has no fixed or permanent abode, but ood pastures and water e of the field-cornet and his family Of his history previous to this I have stated all I know, but for a period of many years after I am more minutely acquainted with it

Most of its details I received froreatly interested, and indeed instructed, by they

Believing, boy reader, that they ht also instruct and interest you, I here lay theard them as merely fanciful

The descriptions of the wild creatures that play their parts in this little history, as well as the acts, habits, and instincts assigned to the Von Bloom was a student of Nature, and you usted with politics, the field-cornet noelt on the remote frontier--in fact, beyond the frontier, for the nearest settlement was an hundred reat Kalihari desert--the Saara of Southern Africa The region around, for hundreds of miles, was uninhabited, for the thinly-scattered, half-human Bushmen ithin its limits, hardly deserved the name of inhabitants any more than the wild beasts that howled around them