45 
few days' rest at last, and thankful to be free from the 
endless packing up for a time. We had been five weeks 
and two days on the road from Pieter-Maritzburg, and, as 
near as we could guess, had travelled about four hundred 
miles ; not so bad after all, considering our delays, through 
various causes on the road. 
June IQfth, At Leydenburg; what we should call a 
small village, composed of a few mud houses and a lager, 
or fort, but soon to become an important place if the gold 
fields prove a success ; they are about thirty miles off, and 
are all the rage for the time being. We found that 
Mr. McLachlan, to whom we had letters of introduction, 
and from whom we expected assistance in many little ways, 
was away at the fields, and that our letters were also there,' 
which was tiresome. E.'s cart just managed to hang 
together up to this point, so I put it into the hands of the 
blacksmith to be tackled up before starting with it in the 
^^fly" country, which I had still hopes of doing. Out of 
forty-three oxen I have only twenty- seven left, and many of 
these are unfit to work, but we hope they will pick up 
during their two or three months' rest. Next day Dubois 
went off to the fields to find McLachlan and get our 
letters. Woodroffe also went, and I should much like to 
have gone with them, but we could not have taken our 
wagons, and there was no other way for E. to go, as 
even if she had ridden, there would not have been any 
decent place for her to sleep, and we couldn't take a tent 
as no sort of conveyance could be got. In the evening a 
black girl, Sara by name, came to our camp, and made us 
understand, by means of one of our drivers, who could 
talk Dutch and a little English, that she wanted to be 
taken into our service. She was Hottentot, or Bush, or, 
perhaps, a little of both — very short and ugly ; but 
thinking it would be the very thing for E., we agreed to 
let her remain, as she was willing to go with us on the 
