10 
THE NEW AFRICA 
white trader, Mr. T-, who had passed us with two wagons 
on his way down the previous evening, and who annexed 
the lot, and drove them off amongst his herds in the bushes. 
Late in the afternoon I overtook his wagon, having followed 
the spoor to close within a mile of his camp, and asked him 
if he knew anything about the oxen. He of course denied 
all knowledge of anything of the sort; but he seemed to be 
ill at ease at my inquiries and behaviour, for I insisted that 
he must know of their whereabouts, as they had been so 
close to his camp, and that I should follow him till I got 
them. His boys, whom I asked, also denied having seen the 
cattle, and I was at a bit of a loss what to do, when 1 
espied one of his boy-herds coming from the bushes. I 
went over to him, and he confessed at the point of my gun 
that his ‘ boss ’ had driven the cattle off' the road along 
which they were straying into his herd. Not in the best of 
humours, I again interviewed Mr. T-, who, now thoroughly 
frightened, promised me the cattle if I would go half a mile on 
the back track and there await them, and not come after him 
if he trekked on. These terms agreed upon, I off-saddled the 
horse that had been carrying me all day at the indicated spot, 
and soon had the intense satisfaction of seeing the cattle emerge 
from the bushes, driven by a herd, who, as soon as he saw me, 
made off as hard as he could into the bushes, afraid of the 
consequences of his master’s thieving act. 
All the country from Pretoria to Mongwato was more or less 
wooded—sparsely in some places, it is true, but increasing to 
actual forest along the Limpopo banks; a country formerly 
inhabited by large quantities of game : but now along the route 
anything like large game has been shot out or driven away 
by the traders, whose wagons constantly traffic backwards and 
forwards along this road, bringing out, in return for goods, troops 
of native cattle to be forwarded to the Kimberley market. A 
Mr. Musson, whom we met, had regular stopping-places along 
the road, where his cattle recruited from stage to stage on the 
journey, so that they might arrive in the market lit for slaughter. 
