2i6 MATABELE LAND. 
my driver appeared, bringing a waggon borrowed for 
me by Brown, and an extra wheel for my own 
waggon. Brown sent me a note informing me that 
he had letters for me from home, and sending me an 
instalment of four papers, two others remaining for 
me in his hands with the letters. I divided my 
load between the two waggons, and breathed again 
freely when I was fairly past the Makalaka kraals on 
my way back. I felt like a prisoner who had regained 
his freedom. Before reaching Tati, however, I had 
another little adventure, which I must yet add to this 
already overgrown letter. 
" I had one day left the waggon on horseback 
with a number of my Kafirs to shoot, as we were 
rather hard up for food, and had been galloping after 
some eland. It was late in the afternoon, and when 
I pulled up I saw nothing of my boys, and turned 
the horse's head in the direction I had come from, 
expecting to meet them. However, they had lagged, 
and I began to think I might not be going quite in 
the right direction. The mare strengthened this 
fancy, and kept working round, and wanted, I thought, 
to take a short cut to the waggon. I trusted im- 
plicitly to her, and let her have her head, thinking I 
would leave the Kafirs to go back by themselves. 
She, however, went in the same direction I had been 
galloping in just before, which puzzled me. Still she 
kept on in a straight, undeviating course, as I could 
see by the sun, and I thought if it were wrong I could 
easily return as I had come, when I had let her go 
on her own way long enough. So I gave her a fair 
