Some time after they were gone I started from the encampment on foot, with the intention of choosing a track for our route next day, as well as of endeavouring to fall in with my former track in this direction; for by so doing I should be enabled to get the party on the good land without further impediment, and at the same time to complete my map of this part of the country. GATHERING OF NATIVES ABOUT THE CAMP. I was accompanied by Corporal Coles and a fine-looking young man about twenty years of age, from the Cape of Good Hope, leaving three men at the camp. Soon after my departure these men heard the voices of natives in the woods, and presently they appeared themselves in numbers which rapidly increased until there were collected together about two hundred men, women, and children. The party at the tents instantly got under arms, and posted themselves on the brow of the hill on which our tents stood; whilst at some distance from its base, and on the opposite side of the stream, the natives were assembled. The advance of a large armed body from the woods seemed now to indicate that a hostile movement was about to be made; one of my party therefore shouted out to them in a threatening tone, motioning to them at the same time to go away. The natives immediately answered the shout, then halted, and, after apparently consulting together for some time, retired a little. The party at the tents simultaneously took counsel together and, agreeing that it would be imprudent in their small number to hold intercourse, under the existing circumstances, with so large a body of natives, it was resolved not to allow them to approach beyond a certain point, and, in the event of any armed portion passing the stream towards the tents in disregard of their signals, then to fire on them one by one. PROCEEDINGS AT THE CAMP. In the meantime the women and little children moved round the hill, examining everything with the most intense delight: a pony which was in front of the camp more particularly excited their attention; the little children laughed loudly at it, and appeared also to laugh at the party themselves, regarding them much the same way that little boys do a stranger in foreign costume when he appears in the streets of a country village in England. The native men regarded the pony more seriously; they walked round and round, examining it carefully, and when the little stallion, becoming playful from these marks of attention, neighed, put down his head, and prepared to fight and kick vigorously, they all beat a precipitate retreat.