166 Eecollections of Adventures 



taken from my farms, and for which I was never 

 paid. I found "The Willows" for all practical 

 purposes wrecked, not a moving thing left, all my 

 papers destroyed, livestock, implements, machinery, 

 produce, all taken. We felt so bitter that Mary 

 decided to return to Natal. After arranging what 

 matters I could, I bought a wagon and team of oxen 

 from Rider Haggard, and sent the family off with 

 two old " Willows " natives. I had to remain behind 

 in Pretoria to settle some matters and followed in 

 my horse cart. I slept at Heidelberg. The hotel 

 was very full, so they made me up a bed on the floor 

 in the drawing-room. Later, as I was falling asleep, 

 the proprieter came to ask me if I would mind his 

 putting up Mr. Aylward in the same room. I said 

 no, that I was fully armed and I could shoot him if 

 necessary. They made his bed fairly close to mine 

 but when Mr. Aylward came in and found out who I 

 was, he would not sleep there, and they removed his 

 bed elsewhere. The scoundrel had been implicated 

 in some Fenian atrocities in Ireland, and headed a 

 seditious insurrection on the diamond fields. He 

 had come to work up sedition in the Transvaal 

 against the British Government. I was told after- 

 wards that he was an arrant coward, and could not 

 sleep at night unless someone he knew was in the 

 same room, and kept a light burning. I paid my 

 score and got the key of the stable from the landlord 

 intending to start at daylight, but in the night I got 

 restless, as there had been heavy rain and only 

 Kaffirs were with Mary and the children, so at mid- 

 night I started to follow the wagon. It was 

 fortunately light when I came to where the two 

 roads parted, and I saw that the boys had taken the 

 wrong one. I drove on as fast as I could, found the 

 wagon stuck in the middle of Vaal River, the span 

 of oxen all twisted up in a heap, the Kaffirs shiver- 



