94 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
insensible in the Amatonga kraals, across the Pongola, 
when those days slipped by. Bought sixty-seven 
head of cattle and six sheep, thirteen shillings a 
head all round, after several days’ bargaining; and 
had a day’s work, sorting, choosing, and branding, 
out of some four hundred Steele had traded. 
26th. — No signs of the pony at the appointed 
place of meeting, so I again started for Durban. 
29 th to 31st. — Spent three miserable soaking- 
wet days, with the choice of being almost suffo¬ 
cated with the smoke of damp wood, or being 
drenched to the skin. My food all the time con¬ 
sisted of bread and milk, sometimes boiled for a 
change; which would have been all very well, but 
I was obliged to put myself on short commons, 
as my meal was only 21bs. weight to begin upon, 
and I made it hold out the three days. 
September ls£. — Found my messengers, but no 
horse. They had never crossed the Tugela : the 
indoda fell into bad hands, got well thrashed, and 
everything he had taken from him. He tried to 
give me a long account of his grievances, but I did 
not understand one word. 
9 th. — Made Durban at last, having got the loan, 
at the Umslali, forty miles off, of a fearfully fat 
pack-ox (Monkey), and got a burster off him in 
jumping a sluit; my rheim broke from his nose, and 
away he went home again. 
