Trekking slowly, we crossed the Bushman River, the natives, seeing our wagons from a distance, bringing chickens, marrows, pumpkins, and milk for sale, until we came to the village of Estcourt, prettily situated on its banks, where I enjoyed a nice plunge in the river, which here purls over a pebbly bottom in a clear and crystal stream. Curiously enough, the Mooi River, a few miles nearer the Drakensberg, is shunned by any species of fish for miles, while in this river they abound. Here we were awakened one night, having outspanned late, by the noise as of dogs licking out the pots under our wagon, but as we had no dogs with us, we could not make it out, until our natives next morning, from foot-prints they saw, told us that hyenas had been prowling all round us, which was in this part of Natal a matter of unusual occurrence. Pushing on, our next stage was Colenso, where the Tugela, beginning to assume grand proportions, courses swiftly to the sea; here, leaving the main road, we turned to the left, and trekking thirty miles further along a by-road but little used, came at last to the picturesque cottage where Captain Allison was living, seven miles from the spot where the Tugela falls over the perpendicular face of the berg. After cordial greetings we rested for the night, being most kindly entertained by Mrs. Allison and her daughters. The place seemed an “oasis in the desert,” for here, far away from the civilized world, we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a circle as highly cultured as they were truly hospitable. While fully acquainted, out of the world as their residence might seem, with the latest sensations in literature, and doings of the fashionable world in European capitals, our delightful host and hostess had not neglected the study of the zoology of the colony, as their small but carefully selected menagerie of cranes, mahens, quaggas, baboons, etc., was sufficient to prove. Next day, with native police and horses which our host had kindly provided, off we started before the sun was hot to visit the Cannibal caves of Usidinane. I recollect, even now, what a merry party we were that morning, and how we made the mountains ring with our joyous shouts and mirth. Our guides, infected with our exuberant spirits, chanted a war-song as they marched jauntily along in single file leading the way, while we, riding behind, followed them by a Kafir path which led over broken ridges up the steep, water-worn side of a rugged mountain. After climbing some frightful ledges on its face, we suddenly found ourselves in front of the entrance to the Cannibal caves of the once so-much-talked-of Usidinane. This man, now a petty chief, though formerly not possessing any tribal rights, used some sixty years ago to live in these caves with his father and other natives, who, as well as himself, were driven by starvation to become cannibals when the country was overrun by the _impis_ and invading legions of the Zulu