“The weather is now fairly broken, and it has begun to rain again this evening, with gusts of wind, which flutter my papers from time to time. It has been dreadfully hot the last few days. After the heavy rain at the beginning of the month we have been having a spell of really warm weather, the thermometer often reaching several degrees above 100 in the shade. I have been busy having my waggon patched up and made weather-tight. It was finished to-day, and to-day the old Boer returned to his happy home and found me in possession. I said I would pack up at once, to enable him to establish himself in his house this evening, but I found I could not be ready, so he and his family are encamped outside, inhabiting their waggons. However, I held out hopes to him of vacating the place to-morrow, which seemed to satisfy him. In fact the Boers are just as much at home at their waggons as in a house. They have little primitive camp-stools, on which they sit round the fire, and the women go about their household duties, and the children play about, and they seem quite at home. Of course when it rains they sit in the waggons like rats in holes--as I have already done myself, and shall now begin to do again. You have no idea how much a home a waggon becomes. I have my books and all my _et ceteras_ within reach; and, though it is a little cramping, the pleasure of stretching the limbs when you do get out repays you to a certain extent. [Illustration: VERREAUX’S WHYDAH BIRD.--_Vidua Verreauxi._ SHAFT-TAILED WHYDAH BIRD.--_Vidua regia._]