A TOUCHING INCIDENT. 265 
One incident of Dr. Bradshaw's journey should 
not be here omitted. It appears that many miles 
after they had left the grave, one of Frank Oates's 
pointers — his favourite "Rail" — was found to be 
missing, and boys were sent back in search of him. 
These men sought long and wandered far in vain, 
till at length in their pursuit they got back even to 
the grave, and there, patiently watching, they found 
the devoted creature laid. A little longer, and he 
must inevitably have fallen a prey to lions or other 
wild beasts, but now he was taken down with his 
companion to Bamangwato, whence they were sub- 
sequently conveyed to England. And thus it hap- 
pened that, whilst Frank Oates's friends at home 
were rejoicing at the speedy prospect of his return, 
and wholly unsuspicious of the truth, this faithful dog 
was watching, the sole mourner, by his grave. ^ 
The very day of Frank Oates's death his brother 
William — returned from his yachting trip to Spitz- 
bergen — sailed from England for South Africa, to 
join him, accompanied by Mr. Gilchrist, the gentle- 
man already mentioned in these pages, whom the 
brothers had met when they first reached Durban 
two years previously, and had afterwards travelled 
with in the interior, William Oates having returned 
with him to England. The day these two sailed 
from England — about an hour before the vessel left 
■" Mr. Gilchrist, whose subsequent journey into the interior is 
related below, and who brought the particulars of this and other inci- 
dents connected with the narrative to England, understood the dog to 
have gone back to his master's grave the whole way from the Tati 
settlement — a distance of nearly eighty miles. 
