OUR LITTLE HOME. 69 



Our furniture, most of which was of tliat best kind of 

 all for a hot climate, the Austrian bent wood, arrived 

 in very good condition ; and in spite of the rough roads 

 along which the waggon had to bring it from Klip- 

 plaat, hardly anything was damaged. 



These Cape waggons, clumsy as they look, are 

 splendidly adapted to the abrupt ups and downs of the 

 country over which they travel. They are very long ; 

 and are made in such a way that, instead of jolting and 

 jumping up and down as an English waggon, under 

 the trying circumstances of a journey in South Africa, 

 would ceftainly consider itself justified in doing, they 

 turn and bend about in quite a snake-like manner, 

 and the motion, even on the roughest road, is never 

 unpleasant. They are usually drawn by a span of 

 sixteen or eighteen oxen, sometimes by mules ; and very 

 noisily they go along ; night — their favourite travel- 

 ling-time in hot weather — being made truly hideous 

 while a caravan of some four or five of them is coming 

 slowly on, with wheels creaking and groaning in all 

 possible discordant notes, and the Hottentot drivers and 

 voorloopers — boys who run in front — cracking their 

 long hide whips, and urging on their animals with more 

 fiendish sounds than ever issued even from Neapolitan 

 throats. One has to get accustomed to the noise ; but, 

 apart from this drawback, the waggons are most com- 

 fortable for travelling. They are large and spacious, 

 and roofed in by firmly-made tents which afford com- 

 plete protection from sun and rain ; and for night 

 journeys no Pullman car ever offered more luxurious 



