244 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



wagon-track for several hundred yards. We continued 

 our march till after midnight, vast herds of blesbok 

 charging from us on every side. Lions were heard 

 roaring for the first time during this night. 



On the 22d of April, after some trouble, we crossed 

 the Vaal River, and on the 25th reached Mahura's. I 

 rode ahead of the wagons, and found the old ruffian 

 busily engaged with some of his nobility in reducing 

 with adzes a thorn-wood tree, which was to serve as a 

 beam in a new dwelling-house he was about to erect. 

 He was afetoiiished to see me return so soon, and ex- 

 pressed much satisfaction thereat. I asked Mahura if 

 he had still the two large-horned oxen which I had seen 

 when last here ; he replied, they were still forthcoming. 

 In half an hour the wagons arrived, and I drew them 

 up outside the town. The chief shortly afterward made 

 his appearance, and had coffee with us. 



For many days back our oxen had been looking very 

 spare, and fallen off in condition, and one or two ex- 

 hibited symptoms of the tongue sickness at the Vaal 

 River. We now had the intense mortification to dis- 

 cover that nearly the whole of them were attacked with 

 either tongue or hoof sickness. This discovery cast a 

 sad gloom over our prospects. I was unacquainted 

 with the nature of either of the maladies, and the Hot- 

 tentots declared that an ox required months to recover 

 from either of them, and that they often proved fatal. 

 In this state of things, I deemed it prudent to begin to, 

 purchase young oxen from Mahura and his tribe, and 

 gajre him to understand that I was willing to do so. 

 The chief replied that his people would be unwilling 

 to bring their oxen, because, when I had last passed 

 through his country, they had brought oxen for barter, 

 and I had purchased none of them ; he, however, prom« 



