198 MATABELE LAND. 
prospect of success in his present enterprise now 
seemed nearing its fulfilment, yet in reality he was 
but on the eve of a fresh misfortune. "We passed 
a kraal," he writes in his Journal, " on the left side 
of the road, perhaps two miles from where we 
started, and had gone perhaps one mile more, when, 
in crossing a small ' sloot,'^ one of the wheels gave 
way and came down, broken to pieces. So much," 
he concludes, " for the new waggon, and for my hopes 
and expectations ! " 
The day after this catastrophe, which appeared 
in its results fatal to all hope of his reaching the 
Zambesi that season, late as it had now become, he 
arranged to send his driver — a Kafir named Klaas, 
whom he had engaged from a Mr. Horn upon the 
Ramaqueban — and three boys, with the broken 
wheel to Tati, and also with a note to Mr. Brown, 
asking for assistance. The annoyances he suffered, 
during their absence of about a fortnight, from the 
natives of the neighbouring kraals are described at 
length in some of his letters, largely quoted from 
below. It is therefore sufficient here to say that 
he was wilfully subjected by them to every possible 
inconvenience, was in constant peril of being robbed, 
and at one time even appeared to be in some danger 
of his life. The whole of this time he could not 
leave his waggon, lest he should return to find it 
plundered, and even his own boys were not all to 
be depended on. 
At last, on the 8th of September, the needful 
^ i.e., stream or ditch. 
