390 
THE NEW AFRICA 
senses would ever have dreamed of guaranteeing that number 
of horses brought in fresh from the Transvaal against horse- 
sickness. Grobelar, however, now in his anger believed that 
Khama intended to do him harm, a not quite unreasonable 
idea; for Khama naturally wished to keep the trade from going 
to Lobengula, who, thus fortified with horses and other goods, 
might now feel himself strong enough to attack his neighbour, 
while Khama hitherto had been in a position with his cavalry, 
or rather mounted shooters, to keep any offensive conduct on 
Lobengula’s part in check. 
For such reasons Grobelar was anxious to get over the 
border into the Transvaal without delay, and I have a good 
suspicion that some other private events had transpired at the 
Matabele court, secretly made known to Khama by his spies, 
which rather accelerated Grobelar’s movements. However, this 
was all in our favour, for he could not travel too rapidly for our 
wishes or convenience. 
It is not necessary to here record all the incidents of this 
well-known route; therefore I will confine my remarks to the 
most prominent events that occurred. In a couple of days’ very 
hard trekking with the fresh oxen we reached the Crocodile 
Limpopo river, which Grobelar was anxious to cross before the 
water from several heavy thunderstorms we had noticed to the 
east should flow down to the drift he intended to use at the 
junction of the Mathlabaas river. He and I walked ahead from 
the last outspan to test the crossing of the rapidly rising stream. 
A plucky old native we picked up living near the drift volun¬ 
teered for one shilling to cross with us as guide. We hurriedly 
undressed, a manoeuvre in which the native got a long start 
of us, for he simply had to undo the belt round his waist and 
drop the rags pendent therefrom on to the ground. As we 
entered the yellow, murky-looking current I asked the boy how 
about crocodiles. He answered, ‘ We don’t speak of them in 
times like these,’ and plunged into the water breast-high: we 
followed him, and found that the crossing was practicable if 
we packed our few belongings on to the stretcher fixed across 
