216 MATABELE LAND. 



enough my driver appeared, bringing a waggon 

 borrowed for me by Brown, and an extra wheel for 

 my own waggon. Brown sent me a note informing 

 me that he had letters for me from home, and send- 

 ing me an instalment of four papers, two others 

 remaining for me in his hands with the letters. I 

 divided my load between the two waggons, and 

 breathed again freely when I was fairly past the 

 Makalaka kraals on my way back. I felt like a 

 prisoner who had regained his freedom. Before 

 reaching Tati, however, I had another little adventure, 

 which I must yet add to this already overgrown letter. 

 " I had one day left the waggon on horseback 

 with a number of my Kaffirs to shoot, as we were 

 rather hard up for food, and had been galloping after 

 some eland. It was late in the afternoon, and when 

 I pulled up I saw nothing of my boys, and turned 

 the horse's head in the direction I had come from, 

 expecting to meet them. However, they had lagged, 

 and I began to think I might not be going quite in 

 the right direction. The mare strengthened this 

 fancy, and kept working round, and wanted, I thought, 

 to take a short cut to the waggon. I trusted im- 

 plicitly to her and let her have her head, thinking I 

 would leave the Kaffirs to go back by themselves. 

 She, however, went in the same direction I had been 

 galloping in just before, which puzzled me. Still she 

 kept on in a straight, undeviating course, as I could 

 see by the sun, and I thought if it were wrong I could 

 easily return as I had come, when I had let her go 

 on her own way long enough. So I gave her a fair 



