i82 Men, Mines, and Animals in South Africa. 



been without provisions or proper food, and getting 

 low in bodily and mental health, had in many 

 cases succumbed to the malarial fever, for the 

 treatment of which there was neither medical 

 attendance nor medicines. On the morning of my 

 arrival one of our horses, a grey gelding, an 

 excellent animal, well trained to shooting, was 

 taken ill. (Quinine, gin, mustard poultices were 

 promptly administered, but the horse died at sun- 

 set. Here also one of our oxen strayed and was 

 never recovered. We struck our camp at 4.30 in 

 the afternoon, and trekked eight miles. The 

 evening was saddened by the death of Fly, the 

 p-rev o-eldino- the first out of a lot of thirteen 

 horses which had come all the way from Kimberley. 

 Another of the mules in the " spider " team also 

 dying, on the following morning I had to inspan 

 two of the horses. Myberg and Lee took the 

 j^laces of the t"\vo njcn who had dri\'en the 

 " spider " hitherto, and I hoped to proceed with 

 less misfortune. On Sunday, the 2nd August, we 

 traversed for fourteen miles a magnificent comitry, 

 liilly, well- watered, the bush veldt being more 

 open and park-like than before, dotted with manv 

 and various fine trees, covered thickly with sweet 

 grass, good for oxen, with a soil capalile of growing 

 every species of agricultural j)roduce. This good 

 country extends from the Lundi to within a feM' 

 miles of Fort Victoria, a distance of about sixtv 

 miles, and seemed incomparably the best part of 

 Mashonaland which I had seen. Xo finer tract of 

 land for farms could be found in Africa were it 



