554 horse buying and breeding in south Africa. 
tuating and before the great outbreak of rinderpest in 1896 ( which 
decimated the oxen) it was much lower. 
The South African mule is “ tamer ” than his cousin from South 
America, but even he requires handling with a certain amount of 
caution, and is, as a rule, much more amiable with a black “ boy ” that 
with a white man. 
These little beasts are not so easily affected by the tsetse fly or 
horse-sickness, as horses are; they are hardier, live longer, will eat 
almost anything, and will go further without water; qualities which 
make them invaluable transport animals. 
A good trek ox in time of peace costs about £8, and a donkey about 
half that sum. The moke is not subject to horse sickness. 
We started away at dawn the next day, three boys driving our 70 
purchases loose over the veldt. They take a bit of whipping in at 
times, when they meet parties of friends and relations out grazing, but 
we got them all safely over the bridge by nightfall. 
The Monday following I had to go again to Rouxville where several 
farmers had promised to bring Maynier horses for me to see. 
My Zastron fame had gone abroad for every farmer within distance 
of Rouxville who 1 had an ancient maimed, sick, or ill shapen horse 
brought him to the market place for me to buy, and were grievously 
hurt, some of them, that I could not do business. 
I should like to say a word or two here, concerning the Boer, as I 
found him at a time when relations were, to put it mildly, strained. 
Individually they are good fellows enough, and have any number of 
qualities we as English and sportsmen can admire; they are very 
hospitable and I, a stranger and possible enemy, was given the best 
their farm afforded—shooting, horses to ride, and the best of their 
food and drink, whch last consists of nothing more exhilarating than 
coffee. Their chief defect is an unconquerable “ slemness ” which I 
can only describe as Scotch “ canniness ” only more so. In many 
other ways such as religion and habits of life, they strongly resemble 
the lowland Scotch, yet the most rabid Anti-Boers whom I met be¬ 
longed to this description of Anglo-Saxon. 
We travelled when away from the railways in a spider drawn 
by 6 mules or ponies driven by a diminutive Hottentot boy, a really 
wonderful whip. I should have liked to have seen Morley Knight 
or Curly Birch on the seat beside him. Even these artists would 
have learnt something, at least as regards driving mules. He 
had a separate swear word for each mule, and got the right 
amount of work out of each member of his rather scratch team. 
He had two* whips, one a short “sjambok” for the wheelers, the 
other a tremendous long bamboo cane with an ox hide thong 
tied on to it. This can only be used properly by holding it with both 
hands. At other times it hung out at right angles from the driver’s 
seat. It is true that periodically the end of the thong would catch 
round a rock, or even get twined round the nave of a wheel, when 
‘ Suppe ’ would pull up his team, search for the broken point, splice it 
on again, and start afresh. These little stoppages did not hurt. 
They breathed the mules. 
