A GOAT STORY FROM SOUTH AFRICA
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The amusing article by H. M. has moved me to recount an experience of my own with goats. Some years ago I was living in the Western Transvaal, where droughts are long and frequent.
In the summer I used to bathe daily in the Vaal River, and was often able to rescue a goat or two from the " pot " clay on the banks, into which the poor creatures had sunk while trying to reach the willow branches—the only greenstuff in sight.
As the drought grew worse I made a point of feeding the goats daily with willow branches, with the result that the herd grew steadily larger and larger, till there must have been at least a hundred goats. I now began to enlist the sympathy and aid of a few kindred spirits. As we approached the river hank, the whole herd streamed out across the veld to meet us, butting one another for a point of vantage near their saviours. The willows, fortunately, lasted until the rains came, when the herd gradually dwindled down to the original dozen or so which I rescued from the mud.
May I say that the articles of Mr. Massingham and Sir W. Beach Thomas give me great pleasure? Would that South Africa had more nature lovers and fewer hunters of wild
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