TREKKING THROUGH THE THIRST 149 
Africa in 1820 , as part of the most important English emi¬ 
gration that ever went thither. His father and sisters had 
lunched with us at the missionaries' the day before; his 
wife’s baby was too young for her to come. It was the best 
kind of pioneer family; all the members, with some of their 
fellow colonials, had spent much of the preceding three 
years in adventurous exploration of the country in their ox 
wagons, the wives and daughters as valiant as the men; 
one of the two daughters I met had driven one of the ox 
wagons on the hardest and most dangerous trip they made, 
while her younger sister led the oxen. It was on this trip 
that they had pioneered the way across the waterless route 
I was to take. For those who, like ourselves, followed the 
path they had thus blazed, there was no danger to the 
men, and merely discomfort to the oxen; but the first trip 
was a real feat, for no one could tell what lay ahead, or 
what exact route would be practicable. The family had 
now settled on a big farm, but also carried on the business 
of ‘Transport riding,” as freighting with wagons is called 
in Africa; and they did it admirably. 
With Ulyate were three other white wagon-drivers, all 
colonials; two of them English, the third Dutch, or Boer. 
There was also a Cape boy, a Kaffir wagon-driver; utterly 
different from any of the East African natives, and dressed 
in ordinary clothes. In addition there were various na¬ 
tives—primitive savages in dress and habit, but coming 
from the cattle-owning tribes. Each ox-team was guided 
by one of these savages, who led the first yoke by a leath¬ 
ern thong, while the wagon-driver, with his long whip, 
stalked to and fro beside the line of oxen, or rode in the 
wagon. The huge wagons, with their white tops or “sails,” 
