1852-53.] FROM THE CAPE TO LINYANTI. 137 



December 1852, in company with George Fleming, Mr. 

 Rutherfoord's trader, he set out in a new direction, to the 

 west of the old, in order to give a wide berth to the 

 Boers. Travelling rapidly he passed through Sebituane's 

 country, and in June 1853 arrived at Linyanti, the 

 capital of the Makololo. He wrote to his wife that he 

 had been very anxious to go to Kolobeng and see with 

 his own eyes the destruction wrought by the savages. 

 He had a great longing, too, to visit once more the grave 

 of Elizabeth, their infant daughter, but he heard that the 

 Boers were in the neighbourhood, and were anxious to 

 catch him, and he thought it best not to go. Two years 

 before, he had been at Linyanti with Mr. Oswell. Many 

 details of the new journey are given in the Missionary 

 Travels, which it is unnecessary to repeat. It may be 

 enough to state that he found the country flooded, and 

 that on the way it was no unusual thing for him to be 

 wet all day, and to walk through swamps, and water 

 three or four feet deep. Trees, thorns and reeds offered 

 tremendous resistance, and he and his people must have 

 presented a pitiable sight when forcing their way through 

 reeds with cutting edges. " With our own hands all 

 raw and bloody, and knees through our trousers, we at 

 length emerged/' It was a happy thought to tear his 

 pocket-handkerchief into two parts and tie them over 

 his knees. " I remember," he says in his Journal, re- 

 ferring to last year's journey, " the toil which our 

 friend Oswell endured on our account. He never spared 

 himself." It is not to be supposed that his guides were 

 happy in such a march ; it required his tact stretched 

 to its very utmost to prevent them from turning 

 back. "At the Malopo," he writes to his wife, "there 

 were other dangers besides. When walking before the 

 wagon in the morning twilight, I observed a lioness 

 about fifty yards from me, in the squatting way they 

 walk when going to spring. She was followed by a very 



