CHAPTER XII. 



EN ROUTE FOR THE TRANSVAAL. 



Rest after the Passage "We twa hae paidTt in the Bum" Independent of 

 the Boers, if need be Red- water No Cure How the Mystery might be 

 solved An Extraordinary Finch What a Tail! An Expensive Toll 

 Bob and the Pig Harrismith The Barrack-masters of Old The " Roughs" 

 of South Africa A Law-abiding Population Are the Boers Temperate ? 

 A Dutch Beauty Baboons on Our Way The Sentinel Mount Memories 

 of the Past Three Splendid Mountains Capped by Castle, Crown, and Mitre 

 Our Cook His one Great Failing Advice to Bachelors How to enjoy 

 a Meal on the Sly The Kaffir Crane Fevers Our Driver's Task The 

 Boer's Love of Wife and Children Habits of the Boer. 



IT was quite four o'clock the next day before all our 

 drivers' wagons were up ; and, poor fellows ! they looked 

 weary, and were so, and well they might be ; for they 

 had had twenty -two hours of incessant toil ; and as the 

 cattle as well as themselves must rest and eat, our de- 

 parture was delayed till the next day. 



Hereabouts there are plenty of bush-buck, and rock- 

 antelope an abundance of them, an old wagoner said 

 but none of us felt disposed to clamber the neighbouring 

 cliffs, or search through the adjoining ravines, for game. 

 Without dissent it was cordially voted a day of rest, 

 and so we held it. 



One thing, however, my companion and self did 

 we stole away from the others to a pure pellucid moun- 

 tain brook hard by, and, like a pair of schoolboys by Carfc 

 (a river in Scotland) side, paddled in its crystal stream 

 till all the stains of our late labours were washed away. 



