A WILY OLD FOX. 
221 
7 th .—Tired as a dog of doing nothing; no word 
of the Kaffirs yet. I expect the heavy rains have 
swollen the river, and they are not able to cross. Were 
it not for a small volume of Byron’s poems, which I 
now know most of by heart, I could not kill the time. 
8th .—Played quoits with the washers of the wheels, 
and got through the time with the putting-stone, &c. 
The messengers and ivory for the wagon returned 
this afternoon, and, after no end of bargaining, the 
sale was concluded for twenty bull teeth, and seven 
more for seven oxen, about 1,300 lbs. altogether— 
a good sale. We must send another report to 
Mosilikatse, and then he will say positively if he 
will give us leave to hunt or not. I suppose he 
thinks we are all Jobs ; after detaining us two 
months he has completely humbugged us, and got all 
he wanted from us, as now the season is too late, the 
weather too hot, and the bush by far too thick to do 
any good. The wily old fox completely got the best 
of us ; his next message, if we had waited, would 
most probably have been that, now the corn was sown, 
no rain would fall as long as elephant-hunters were 
in his country—consequently, no harvest—and we 
must therefore go home; and possibly inviting us to 
come again the following year (only about three 
months’ journey), to receive the same treatment. 
9th .—Inspanned and left, to my great joy, having 
six Kaffirs in attendance to see us clear out of 
Mosilikatse’s country. Swartz killed a snake in 
the wagon over nine feet long — a mamba, the most 
