GROBELAR’S TRAGIC END 
399 
do but tender best thanks for such liberality, and accept the 
kindness in the spirit it was offered? With many promises to 
come and see them again if ever our road lay in that direction, 
a promise I have subsequently kept, we started on the 9th, and 
by travelling along the ordinary route, reached Dundee without 
momentous events, on the 15th of January 1885. 
That we made this phenomenally rapid journey through the 
interior is due to the many favourable conditions under which 
we travelled, and a succession of events that kept us on the 
move almost from start to finish. 
A few parting words, relating to Grobelar’s unhappy fate, 
will be permitted by the indulgent reader. 
Two years later Grobelar came to me with the request that 
I should join him on a trip to Matabeleland. He was taking 
his wife and family with him on a visit to Lobengula, who 
had begged that he would show him this favour, that he might 
have an opportunity of paying his respects to the wife of a man 
whom he valued so highly. In the course of our arrangements, 
before I had decided to go, we visited Mr. Paul Kruger, the 
President of the Transvaal, with regard to some details of the 
trip, and I was preparing to make up my mind to accompany 
Grobelar, when the phenomenal richness of the gold finds, near 
what is now Johannesburg, diverted my attention, and I re¬ 
mained to go gold-grabbing instead, much to Grobelar’s disgust. 
He reached Matabeleland with his family, met with a 
good reception from Lobengula and his people, and returned 
well satisfied with the results of the trip, passing on his way 
back through a corner of Ivhama’s country for convenience of 
the roads. At this point, Grobelar, suspecting danger, had 
hurriedly taken the wagon, with his wife and children, ahead 
into the Transvaal, leaving behind the other wagons, for which 
he returned when once his family were safely over the border. 
Khama, trying to win Grobelar’s affections back, I honestly 
believe, sent twenty-five men to arrest him with orders to bring 
him to Shoshong. Grobelar was with the hindmost wagons 
when the Mongwatos arrived, and, when he refused their request 
