220 THE GREAT THIRST LAND. 



and food they were anxious to join me, in return giving 

 me their services. The representatives of the former 

 tribe were fine, tall, slim, well-made men, such as would 

 make the material of a splendid light company ; while 

 the latter were thick-set, rather short, but exceedingly 

 powerful in build. 



Their experience of the Anglo-Saxon race at the 

 Diggings seemed to have impressed them favourably, for 

 the driver gratuitously informed me that they had told 

 him that they knew the difference between Boer man 

 and Englishman. It is pleasant to know that my 

 countrymen in this far-away land keep up their repu- 

 tation for manliness and honest dealing. 



I had now a dozen mouths to feed, so that I should 

 have to hunt more a circumstance that gave me no 

 little satisfaction, for it occupied my mind, and prevented 

 me from brooding ; for it is unnecessary to disguise the 

 fact that I suffered much from loneliness, and would do 

 so still more when I got beyond the limits to which I 

 was rapidly approaching of where white men lived. 

 Between myself and the Boers there was little 

 sympathy, I acknowledge; but still, there was a tie 

 which did not exist with the black population namely, 

 they were of the same colour as myself. How fragile is 

 the straw that the drowning man catches at ! Almost 

 as fragile was the bond that bound me to the Boer, still 

 it existed. 



As the reader should know all the dramatis persons 

 of my travel, I will introduce him to my new driver. 

 He is of Hottentot extraction, and from the Old 

 Colony ; about forty years of age, and stands five feet 

 six. Instead of being black, he is of a sickly yellow 

 colour, his head covered with innumerable little pimples 



