XIX REACH SHOSHONG 325 



bye to Tinkarn and my Mangwato friends, and 

 rode off on my lonely journey. All our shooting 

 horses had been well looked after during the past 

 season, and well fed daily on half-boiled maize, and 

 *' Big Bles" was not only a very powerful animal, 

 but accustomed to hard work, and in splendid 

 hard condition. Keeping up an average pace of 

 about seven miles an hour — a very good one in 

 heavy, sandy ground — and only off-saddling twice 

 during the whole journey, I reached Shoshong 

 about an hour before daylight on the morning of 

 December 27. I rode straight to the store of 

 a trader named Jim Truscott, and roused him, as 

 well as another old friend named Fred Drake. 

 My story was soon told. No food had passed 

 my lips since the evening of December 24 

 — some sixty hours — and with the exception of 

 the sleep I had had at the Luali river during the 

 26th, I had had no rest either during all that time. 

 I was thin and hard naturally from the life I had 

 been leading, but I suppose I looked unusually 

 worn and haggard, as Truscott insisted on my 

 lying down on his bed at once, whilst he had 

 some food prepared for me, and Fred Drake under- 

 took to get the oxen together that I required, and 

 kindly offered to go back with me to where I had 

 left the waggons beyond Klabala. 



At the time of which I am writing. South Africa 

 was a very different country to the South Africa of 

 to-day. Gold had not then been discovered on 

 the Witwaters Rand, and there were therefore 

 comparatively but few Englishmen living even 

 in the Transvaal ; whilst north of the Limpopo 

 there were no European settlements whatever, 

 and the few white traders and hunters who earned 

 a precarious livelihood amongst the native tribes 

 might have been counted on the fingers of one's 

 two hands. Amongst these few scattered whites 



