14 EXPEDITION INTO [Chap. III. 



was, that he found the missing document in his 

 waistcoat pocket. The leader of our team having 

 stolen a horse during our sojourn at Graham's 

 Town, had been incarcerated, and our difficulties 

 had not been a little multiplied by tlie impossibility 

 of finding a substitute. Fortunately, however, in 

 the course of the second day's journey, a Hottentot, 

 whom we found sunning himself by the way-side, 

 consented to enter our service in the vacant situation. 

 The coimtry was still of the same barren, unin- 

 teresting character as that already described, but 

 generally more level, less abundantly watered, and 

 more thickly covered with brushwood and succulent 

 dwarf trees, called by the colonists speck -boom. 

 We travelled at the rate of thirty miles a day, twice 

 passing the night without water for the oxen — saw 

 several small herds of spring-bucks, of which beau- 

 tiful little antelope 1 killed three — and arrived late 

 on the evening of the 29th at the home-sick Strydoms 

 cottage, on Mynheer de Klerck's farm, where his 

 doating young vrouw received him with overflowing 

 eyes and open arms. On the journey we had 

 picked up a disconsolate wheelwright, whom we 

 overtook plodding his weary way along the road, 

 with a green veil over his face, and a saddle, bridle, 

 and bundle, on his head; his horse having most 

 unceremoniously abandoned him under cover of the 

 night, an event by no means uncommon in the 

 annals of South African travelling, and one to 

 which our dismounted equestrian was so well ac- 

 customed, that he had lost no time in precarious 



