"The Bushman was by the waggon-side in an instant, and went to his place at the oxen's head as coolly and unconcernedly as if he had just performed part of his ordinary duties. The Hottentot driver, on the contrary, came panting up, aghast with horror. I jumped out of the waggon, seized my young savage by the collar of his jacket, and, with a heavy sea-cow-hide whip, I belaboured him with all my strength, wherein, I trust the reader will think me justified, as the little wretch had made the most barefaced attempt on my life. I almost thought my strength would be exhausted before I could get a sign from the young gentleman that he felt my blows; but at length he uttered a yell of pain, and I knew he had had enough. Next day I dropped him at a village, and declined his farther services." Waggon-travelling in the Cape Colony is a slow, but not a disagreeable, manner of locomotion. The same team of oxen takes you through, however great the distance; and as grass and water are all they get--and sometimes a scanty ration of these--the pace is necessarily very moderate, twenty miles a-day being considered good going. Of course you have abundant stores in your waggon; for inns are scarce, and it is not usual to quarter yourself on the farmers, as you do when travelling on horseback. A stretcher, with a mattress on it, is slung in the waggon, to lounge on by day and sleep on by night; or if the party be numerous, a tent is pitched at evening. The Hottentots sleep under the waggon or round the fire. The start is at six in the morning. At ten a two hours' halt is made, to eat and smoke, to sketch or shoot. At noon, the cattle, which have been turned out to graze, are "in-spanned," and the march continues till three or four o'clock. Then another halt and another meal; a pipe, a shot at an ostrich or bushbuck; and then once more on the road for two hours, before "out-spanning" for the night. The bivouac is delightful; the sky of a deep dark blue, the moon radiant, the magnificent Southern Cross glittering in the heavens, underfoot a carpet of scented and variegated blossoms, stillness over all, and in the dark shadow of the bush a bright fire, with the wayfarers stretched lazily around it. The whole thing is a pleasant sort of picnic party, and it is easy to believe Mr Cole when he declares that he never enjoyed a European trip so much as waggon-travelling in South Africa. Of course this is the sunny side of the picture. Disagreeable occurrences are by no means unfrequent. A bridgeless rivulet, swollen to a torrent by recent rains, detains you for a week upon its banks, on half rations or less. Your Hottentots discover a hedge tavern, and whilst you take a stroll with your gun during the "out-span," they get helplessly drunk, and you must halt for the day. You thrash them and stop their tobacco; they revenge themselves by accidentally upsetting you in the next river