three-ton loads, will stick for a whole day where the 

 pull is steepest, the road too narrow to swing the 

 spans, and the curves too sharp to let the fifteen 

 couples of bewildered and despairing oxen get a 

 straight pull ; whilst others will pass along slowly 

 but steadily and without check, knowing what each 

 beast will do and stand, when to urge and when to 

 ease it, when and where to stop them for a blow, 

 and how to get them all leaning to the yoke, ready 

 and willing for the ' heave together ' that is essential 

 for restarting a heavy load against such a hill. 

 Patience, understanding, judgment, and decision : 

 those are the qualities it calls for, and here again the 

 white man justifies his claim to lead and rule ; for, 

 although they are as ten or twenty to one, there is 

 not a native driver who can compare with the best 

 of the white men. 



It was on the Berg that I first saw what a really 

 first-class man can do. There were many waggons 

 facing the pass that day ; portions of loads, dumped 

 off to ease the pull, dotted the roadside ; tangles of 

 disordered maddened spans blocked the way ; and 

 fragments of yokes, skeys, strops, and reims, and 

 broken disselbooms, told the tale of trouble. 



Old Charlie Roberts came along with his two 

 waggons. He was ' old ' with us being nearly fifty ; 

 he was also stout and in poor health. We buried 

 him at Pilgrim's Rest a week later : the cold, clear 

 air on top of the Berg that night, when he brought 

 the last load up, brought out the fever. It was his 

 last trek. 

 225 p 



