i8o KLOOF AND KARROO. 



previously cut for such an emergency, while out- 

 spanned at the Orange River, served to prop up 

 our lumbering vehicle from the lower side. Slowly 

 and wearily, and yet, withal, with a sort of dogged 

 stubbornness, the poor oxen toiled on, half-hour after 

 half-hour, urged by our shouts, by the cruel waggon- 

 whip, mercilessly plied, and the terrible after-ox 

 sjambok.* Many times it seemed, as our cumbrous 

 desert ship crashed across a boulder, or down a 

 stair-like terrace of rock, that it must inevitably 

 topple over, and roll crashing to the bottom ; but 

 our guy-ropes, and the supporting poles, saved us 

 again and again. 



" I had fastened one of the ropes with a stout 

 band of leather round the chest of my hunting horse, 

 the other two ropes were held by the strongest of 

 my servants and myself, while two other men held 

 the poles against the lower side of the waggon as 

 they stood down hill below it. My old horse, 

 guided by a Bechuana boy, as usual, proved himself 

 as sensible as any Christian, knew exactly what he 

 had to do ; and when we came to crucial points, and 

 the waggon shivered as it were upon empty space, he 

 and my Kaffir and I tugged away, while the fellows 

 below shoved with might and main. And so time 

 after time we averted a catastrophe, so dire that I 

 shuddered to think of it ; for in some places, if the 

 waggon had gone, the wreck must have been 

 irreparable, and the yoked oxen hurled with it in 

 a broken and mangled heap to the bottom far 

 below us. Well, occasionally halting for a blow, 

 long hours of the most distressing labour I ever 



• Sjambok, a. straight, tapering, cutting whip, of rhinoceros or hippo- 

 potamus hide — terribly punishing. 



