CHAP. XXIII. 
THE ELEPHANT-HUNT. 
223 
fresh horses, which are led out and 6 put-to ’ when the 
post-cart arrives at the relay stations the approach 
being made known by blowing the post-horn. This 
post-horn also serves to clear the road, as all wagons 
and other obstructions are bound to get out of the 
road and make way for H.M. Eoyal Mail, or 4 Post,’ as 
it is there called. To perform the first part of this 
journey there is from Graham’s Town to Port Elizabeth, 
the first 90 miles, a passenger-cart; and in order to 
gain a little time in advance of the 4 Post,’ Currie and 
I started in it; from Port Elizabeth we hired relay 
carts on to the Gfamtoos River, where we arrived two 
hours ahead of the mail. Going down the Van 
Stardens River cutting, however, we had a narrow 
escape of our lives. We had changed our horses on 
the top of the hill, and had four wild, half-broken 
beasts in front of us. The road down this hill is in a 
cutting several miles long, on the face of almost per¬ 
pendicular cliffs. A party of convicts were at this 
time repairing the road, and as we dashed down at the 
rate of about twelve miles an hour our leaders, on 
suddenly turning a corner, came upon this working 
party, with wheelbarrows and other lumber, in the 
road, when they suddenly swerved to the right. As a 
parapet .ran along the side of the road and there was 
no room to pass back between it and the cart, they went 
clean over it, and became suspended by the harness 
