SEVERE TRECKING. 285 



by my unfortunate rival, and we adjourned to have 

 a drink and settle amicably. 



People were not particular in paying debts or 

 collecting them in that locality, so after all the fuss 

 I only found myself richer by three hundred pounds, 

 which was represented by ivory, blood-feathers, and 

 two horses. Both these nags were good-looking, 

 serviceable beasts ; in fact, one appeared as if he 

 could gallop, but I neither got nor asked for a 

 warranty with them. No, Bamanwato was a happy- 

 go-lucky place, and there people do not condescend 

 to be " dirty particular." 



Where the habits of the white population were 

 so primitive and arcadian, my natural modesty pre- 

 vented my inquiring the character of my new horses. 

 Moreover, I did not think that their past records 

 mattered much, for I was egotistical enough to be- 

 lieve that I could ride anything, from a grasshopper 

 to a mud-turtle. So when I trecked out of Shos- 

 hong, the capital of Bamanwato, I scarcely knew 

 more about my lately-acquired nags than that one 

 was a strawberry roan, and the other a black chest- 

 nut. " Jordan is a hard road to travel." The author 

 who wrote this piece of information obviously never 

 trecked round the southern and eastern side of the 

 Bamanwato Hills, or he would have quoted that 

 locality instead of Palestine's river. For the next 

 three days there was no improvement in the travel- 

 ling, for when out of sand veldt in we dashed into 



