We travelled all day from sunrise to sundown, seldom going off a walk, at which our horses could do nearly five miles an hour: toward evening we tried to strike some station or shepherd’s hut, the whereabouts of which Jem generally knew by the mixture of experience and instinct that constitute a perfect Bushman; if we could not light upon a hut we camped down near a waterhole, lighted a fire on some hollow fallen gum-tree, hobbled out our horses on the pasture near, put the quart pots to boil, the damper (flour cake) in the ashes to bake, and smoked our pipes until all was ready; then rolling up each in his blanket, slept soundly on the bare ground. I think it was on the third day that we came upon a long stretch of open undulating country, where the grass scarcely gave back a sound to our horses’ feet. I dropped the reins on my little mare’s neck, and began to fill my pipe; but seeing Carden’s pipe still stuck in his straw hat, I knew he must be bankrupt in a Bushman’s greatest luxury, so handed him my pouch, and said, ‘Come, ride along side me, and tell me how you came here; for I cannot imagine how so honest a fellow ever got into trouble.’ ‘Master,’ he answered, ‘I’ll tell you all the truth; but give me a little time, for my heart’s full, and it will take us a good three hours to get across these plains.’ So we paced on in silence for the space of one pipe, when he spoke again, and said, ‘Master, excuse me, but I’m not much of a scholar, and if you would read me a chapter from this book, it would do me a power o’ good. I try sometimes myself to spell it out, but somehow I can’t see the letters “plain.”’ His eyes were full of tears as he timidly handed a black clasped copy of the Bible. There was something painful in the emotion and humbleness of a strong man before me a stripling alone with him in a desert. I took the book from him; on the flyleaf was written, ‘Lucy Carden on her Marriage from her friend and pastor the Rev. Charles Calton,’ and turning it over it opened at the 51st Psalm: instinctively, I began to read aloud, until I came to the 17th verse, ‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.’ At these words my companion wept aloud, and murmured, ‘Oh, my poor wife’—and I, too, I knew not why, also wept. Then we rode on in silence for some time; from a confused reverie I was awakened by my companion saying in a hoarse voice, ‘Master, I am ready—I can tell you my story now.