66 Recollections of Adventures 



Rhenosterpoort, and we stayed a couple of days at 

 Bronkhorst's (who was his brother-in-law). I took 

 a couple of spans of fresh oxen, leaving my tired 

 oxen, and he asked me to lend him a span for a 

 couple of treks to rest his. I lent him a fat red span 

 I bought from Jacobus Rademeyer and these had 

 been in the lion kraal. We had not gone more than 

 two miles, when some guinea fowl startled them; 

 they stampeded with the wagon and frightened poor 

 Mrs. Minnaar dreadfully. The brutes rushed the 

 wagon against stumps of trees until both hind 

 wheels were shaken to pieces and the tent broken. 

 When we got them they were entangled in trees, so 

 we had " to outspan," send the oxen back, get tools 

 and assistance to mend the wagon ; poor Philip 

 regretted not having stuck to his tired oxen. 

 Tinkering up his wagon, and with the help of the 

 inevitable raw hide reims, we reached Pretoria 

 safely with our loads of ivory. There was never 

 any monotony on these winter trips through the 

 veld ; something was always happening ; it was 

 charming, notwithstanding some hardships now and 

 then. I never stayed longer in Pretoria than just to 

 arrange business matters, and prepare again to go 

 either to Natal or Zoutpansberg ; the village life 

 soon tired me. 



Where the road leaves Elands River to go 

 over the bush ridges to the Olifant, on the top of 

 " Israel's Nek " is a huge mound of small stones 

 which the Kaffirs say has taken ages to build ; each 

 traveller as he passes adds one stone to make his 

 journey safe and prosperous. You see these mounds 

 on many hill passes all over the country. When I 

 first knew this part there were troops of Koodoo, 

 Giraffe, Eland, Rhinoceros, Brindled Gnu, Quagga, 

 Hartebeest, Waterbuck, Rietbuck and vast herds of 



