ii6 Men, Mines, and Animals in South Africa. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE EXPEDITION : ITS COMrOSITION AND 

 EQUIPMENT. 



Major Giles — A fine collection of giants — Our rifles and guns 

 — Warning and advice to future travellers — Composition 

 of the Expedition — Major Giles's trek from Vryburg to 

 Tuli — The horse sickness in Africa — A camp fire concert 

 at Fort Tuli. 



At Tuli I had the pleasure of joining my waggons 

 and of seeing: ao-ain the other friends who accom- 

 panied me to Mashonaland, whom I had taken 

 leave of jst Cape Town more than six weeks 

 previously. They had been doing all the real 

 hard, rough work of the journey, and making a 

 long, tedious, and, from some points of view, an 

 anxious trek. Major Giles, an ex- Artillery officer 

 of many years' South African service and expe- 

 rience, had undertaken the superintendence and 

 general management of the Expedition : a heavy 

 and complicated business, as will be seen when the 

 composition of the Expedition is gone into in 

 detail, in which he had been most efficiently 

 assisted by Mr. Edgell, avIio had seen much wild 

 life in the Rocky Mountains and in cattle ranches, 

 and by Mr. McKay, who last year formed one of 

 the Pioneer force despatched into Mashonaland. 



