With a crack of his long whip like a pistol shot, each driver set his team in motion, and we started on our long trek up-country. The natives are very expert with these whips, being able, from their place at the front of the wagon, to single out any one of the ten or twelve mules which form the team before them. My efforts as a rider were the subject of much sarcastic and good-humoured comment from my companions, but before the end of our journey I was as good a rider as any in the outfit. The country through which we passed was for the most part open veldt, dotted with thorn-bushes, and the climate being dry and hot, the scarcity of water is a continual source of anxiety to the traveller in this part. Our animals suffered most severely, as there was no grass to be found, and after crossing the Limpopo they began to fall sick, and our progress became slower and slower with each day’s march. When we arrived at a place called Maklutsi the mules were all so utterly done up that they could go no farther, so the horses and some of the wagons went on to Salisbury, and the natives returned. I had the choice of going back with the natives or continuing my journey on foot, and, choosing the latter course, I was provided with a small quantity of flour and some bully beef, and saying goodbye to my companions, I started out on my solitary trek. Food at Maklutsi was very dear in consequence of the transport having been entirely disorganised by a serious outbreak of rinderpest. The price of an ordinary tin of corned beef (bully beef) had risen to 5s., and bread cost 1s. a loaf. There was no work to be got here, so I left the settlement at once and started on my 150 miles’ tramp to Bulawayo. Having no means of carrying my food comfortably, I tied up the legs of a spare pair of trousers, and putting the flour in one leg and the beef in the other, I slung these improvised provision-bags over my shoulder, along with my cooking-pots, and started off. When I had been two days on the road I was lucky enough to fall in with a travelling companion, in the person of an old soldier named Grant, who was also making his way to Bulawayo. We agreed to travel on together, and Grant, who saw everything in a humorous light, enlivened the journey with his cheery conversation and good-natured chaff. He had run out of food and would have been in a tight fix if I had not come up with him; but he took everything very philosophically, and I imagine that his lively spirits would have kept him going to the last gasp. We shared the provisions as long as they lasted, but as I had only provided for myself, the supply gradually diminished until, stopping one day for a rest near a water-hole we had found in the bush, we found that we had not a scrap of food left.