CHAPTER VI. 

 DIFFICULTIES OF THE ROAD. 



RIVERS AND THUNDERSTORMS. 



In the late autumn it was bitterly cold crossing 

 the Berg and high veld, I think much colder than 

 it is of late years, and the poor Kaffirs and oxen 

 suffered badly in the hoar frost, with the morasses 

 and spruits frozen over. On some trips I had to sleep 

 in the open myself, and felt chilled to the marrow. 

 I soon gave up travelling in the high veld in 

 winter. One trip in the summer I came up with 

 Okker Oosthuizen on the hill north of Bushman's 

 River, now Estcourt. The lightning had just killed 

 his whole span of fine red oxen (14), they were lying 

 in the road in a row. Another time four oxen 

 belonging to my travelling companion were struck, 

 while grazing close to the wagons. 



In those days there were no bridges, and the 

 rushing swollen rivers would detain wagons for days, 

 often the loads had to be raised and half taken over 

 at a time, the oxen almost swimming. I have been 

 sometimes for hours in the water getting the wagons 

 over ; it was terrible work for us all, but it had to be 

 done. Now "Johnny Newcomes" growl in comfort- 

 able railway carriages. People coming to South 

 Africa now, with bridges over the rivers, railways to 

 all important centres, roads made, and hotels at 

 intervals, cannot realize what the risks and hard- 

 ships of the early days of colonization were. 



