'
`Stop, father,' he replied, `you interrupted me too soon; we thought of
that possibility too, and provided against it. We stretched a long line
right across the defile and strung on it feathers and rags and all
sorts of other things, which danced and fluttered in the wind, and
looked so strange that I am perfectly certain that the herd will never
attempt to pass it; in fact, Levaillant, from whom I learnt the trick,
says in his Voyage au Cap de Bonne Esperance that the Hottentots make
use of the method for penning in the antelopes they have caught in the
chase.'
`Well done,' said I, `I am glad to see that you remember what you have
read. The antelopes are welcome to New Switzerland, but, my boy,' I
added, `I cannot say the same for the rabbits you have there; they
increase so rapidly that if you establish a colony of the little
wretches your next difficulty will be to get rid of them.'
`True,' he replied, `but my idea was to place them upon Whale Island,
where they would find abundant food, and at the same time in no way
trouble us. May I not establish a warren there? It would be so useful.
Do you know my eagle caught these pretty little fellows for me? I saw a
number of them running about and so unhooded him, and in a few minutes
he brought me three--one dead, with whose body I rewarded him, and
these two here, unhurt.
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