TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST 149 



Africa in 1820, as part of the most important English emi- 

 gration that ever went thither. His father and sisters had 

 lunched with us at the missionaries' the day before; his 

 wife's baby was too young for her to come. It was the best 

 kind of pioneer family; all the members, with some of their 

 fellow colonials, had spent much of the preceding three 

 years in adventurous exploration of the country in their ox 

 wagons, the wives and daughters as valiant as the men; 

 one of the two daughters I met had driven one of the ox 

 wagons on the hardest and most dangerous trip they made, 

 while her younger sister led the oxen. It was on this trip 

 that they had pioneered the way across the waterless route 

 I was to take. For those who, like ourselves, followed the 

 path they had thus blazed, there was no danger to the 

 men, and merely discomfort to the oxen; but the first trip 

 was a real feat, for no one could tell what lay ahead, or 

 what exact route would be practicable. The family had 

 now settled on a big farm, but also carried on the business 

 of "transport riding," as freighting with wagons is called 

 in Africa; and they did it admirably. 



With Ulyate were three other white wagon-drivers, all 

 colonials; two of them English, the third Dutch, or Boer. 

 There was also a Cape boy, a Kaffir wagon-driver; utterly 

 different from any of the East African natives, and dressed 

 in ordinary clothes. In addition there were various na- 

 tives primitive savages in dress and habit, but coming 

 from the cattle-owning tribes. Each ox-team was guided 

 by one of these savages, who led the first yoke by a leath- 

 ern thong, while the wagon-driver, with his long whip, 

 stalked to and fro beside the line of oxen, or rode in the 

 wagon. The huge wagons, with their white tops or "sails," 



