116 Recollections of Adventures 



Sand River; and to see how the livestock were 

 getting on, and we and the children enjoyed the 

 camping out in a quiet way. My brother Ted and 

 his wife were on another of my bush farms, Klipgat, 

 close to us, camped under an immense wild olive 

 tree ; near a spring. One winter the Schoemans, 

 who have their grazing farm adjoining mine on the 

 Sand River; had lung-sickness among their cattle 

 and allowed them, (the sick ones) to run all through 

 my farm, where I had a large herd of splendid half 

 bred Devon cattle. I went to them and complained of 

 this, and they said that they had no Kaffirs to herd 

 them. Seeing that I could not rely on them keeping 

 their sick animals out of my veld, I undertook to 

 pay the two native herds if they would promise to 

 " kraal " their stock at night. This they promised 

 to do, but they used the two herds to skin dead 

 cattle, to work about their camp ; and allowed their 

 cattle to roam at will as before. One morning 

 several of their sick oxen were standing at the gate 

 of my "kraal "and evidently had been during the 

 night, in contact with my cattle. I at once gave 

 notice to the Field Cornet, that I held them liable 

 for any loss I might suffer. The Field Cornet, a 

 Boer friend of theirs, took no notice of my complaint, 

 and the Schoeman's knew that nothing could be 

 done to them. Nine days after this, three of my 

 cattle developed Pleura-Pneumonia (Lung -sickness) 

 and I lost three hundred and seventeen large oxen 

 and cows and seventy calves, and got not a penny of 

 compensation. It was almost impossible to farm stock 

 next to Transvaal Boers, they intentionally allowed 

 their animals to graze their neighbours* veld to spare 

 their own ; and persistently refused to pay half-costs 

 of erecting fences to keep their stock out. There 

 was a fair amount of game on my block of bush- 

 veld farms, Koodoo, Pallah, Haartebeest, Blue Wilde- 



