66 .VDVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



ing day I lost another horse of the distemper : it ^yas 

 " The Immense Brute ;" and next morning the chest- 

 nut pony also died. About midnight an immense herd 

 of buffaloes came feeding slowly toward us, and, imag- 

 ining our oxen to belong to their own party, they con- 

 tinued to advance until we were actually surrounded 

 by them. I then arose in my sleep, and, having re- 

 marked in Sichuana to the natives that the buffaloes 

 were very good, I once more lay down, utterly uncon- 

 scious of what I had done or spoken. 



On the afternoon of the 29th we outspanned at Bak- 

 atla. A party of Baralongs were then on a visit to 

 Mosielely on a trading excursion for skins for the manu- 

 facture of karosses. The head-quarters of these men 

 was situated to the westward of Motito, on the borders 

 of the great Kalahari desert. Night set in with a ter- 

 rific thunder-storm, which prevailed for several hours: 

 the lightning was most painful to the eyes, and deafen- 

 ing peals of thunder continually burst above and around 

 us. From the proximity of the explosions, we enter- 

 tained considerable fears for the safety of the natives in 

 the town, for the lightning appeared repeatedly to strike 

 in that direction ; and when the storm had subsided, a 

 messenger from the king came down to the mission- 

 ary's dwelling-house to report that the kraal occupied 

 by the six strangers had been struck by the electric 

 fluid, and that one of them was killed on the spot, and 

 the other five were more or less affected by the shock. 

 Dr. Livingstone informed me that this melancholy event 

 would entail great alarm and uneasiness upon Mosiele- 

 ly, since all the tribes would blame him for the accident. 



The following day was Sunday, and in the forenoon 

 Dr. Livingstone and I visited Mosielely, and inspected 

 the kraal that had been struck by lightning. We found 



