114 EXPEDITION INTO [Chap. XIV. 



passage in various places, we found that we had 

 ridden completely round the enclosure, to the point 

 at which we had first entered. 



In the course of two hours the waggons had 

 reached the termination of the plain, and were be- 

 ginning to ascend the ridge which bounds the valley 

 of Mosega. We shortly afterwards entered a pasSj 

 or gap, which conducted us between two ranges of 

 the Kurricane hills ; the slopes on either side were 

 covered with stately trees, from which depended 

 clusters of moss and festoons of various parasitic 

 plants. The ground was broken and stony, and in 

 parts . abounded with deep holes. In the act of 

 killing a sassayby, my horse put his feet into one 

 of these, and came down with frightful violence, 

 cutting my knees and elbows to the bone, breaking 

 liis own nose, and, what was a far greater misfortune, 

 and one that I had long anticipated, fracturing the 

 stock of my only and especially favourite rifle. I 

 could have wept, if the doing so would have availed 

 any thing. A strip of the sassayby's hide rectified 

 the damage, for the present at least; and having 

 packed the flesh in the waggon, we continued 

 winding among the hills, constantly assured by 

 the guides that the kraal at which they had re- 

 solved we should pass the night, was close at hand, 

 but still not reaching it until we had travelled full 

 thirty miles from Mosega, by which time it was 

 fairly dark. At last we perceived fires in the 

 valley beneath us, and soon drew up under the fence 

 of a little village, constructed as usual on a slope. 



