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me the whole thing was a failure and played out, but he 
had evidently done no good there ; on the other hand, we 
heard at Leydenburg most flourishing accounts of the 
fields, and of the nuggets that had been found by lucky 
diggers. 
September 11th. Made three treks, and reached Leyden- . 
burg about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. I rode off to see 
our old friend the missionary and his wife, who welcomed 
me most kindly, and were much interested in hearing of 
our trip and E.'s adventures and hardships. Next day E. 
went into the solitary shop to make some small purchases, 
and we made enquiries as to the state of the grass along 
the road. We found there had been little or no rain, and 
consequently there was no fresh grass on the high veldt ; 
but as people seldom travel at this time of year, owing to 
the scarcity of grass, we could not get any very satis- 
factory information. Dubois rather inclined to wait for 
rain, declaring we should have even more trouble in 
finding grass than we experienced coming up, and that 
every blade would have been burnt off; but I determined 
to try and push on, as, of course, we were anxious to lose 
no time in getting down to the coast. I sold off all the 
surplus stock of Oaffre goods which was considerable, as 
I had not used a quarter of what we had bought up. The 
missionary and his wife came in to see us, and promised 
to come and dine after the Caffre service the next day. 
Sara had now to disappear by day as before, as we thought 
her master would probably hear of our return, and hunt 
her up again ; but luckily he never came to bother us, and 
it appeared had made no further search for her when she 
ran away the second time. 
September 14:th. Sunday. E. had made her best pre- 
parations for the missionary and his wife, who turned 
up about 2-30, and they seemed to appreciate the plum 
pudding. It is quite a pleasure to speak to some one 
