Gratefully availing himself of this generous offer, William Oates sailed for England on April 22d, having first seen Mr. Gilchrist leave Pietermaritzburg with two waggons, on his way up country; a sort of departure very different from that which either of them had anticipated. The journey undertaken by Mr. Gilchrist--under any circumstances a laborious and trying one enough--was rendered doubly so by the sad object with which he started; nor did he return till every purpose of the journey had been fulfilled. For not only did he bring safely to the coast--and subsequently to England--the large collections of natural history specimens and curiosities, and the notes and journals of his travels which Frank Oates had made, as well as his two pointers, “Rail” and “Rock,” but, in spite of the obstacles opposed to his progress at the Tati, he even proceeded to the spot where the traveller’s remains had been laid, and on his way back succeeded in obtaining an interview on the Ramaqueban River with Dr. Bradshaw, from whom he learnt the few additional particulars of his death which could be supplied, and which have been embodied in the preceding narrative.[65] For this twofold purpose--of reaching the grave and seeing Dr. Bradshaw--Mr. Gilchrist, on reaching Bamangwato, had gone on thence with both his waggons as far as the Tati settlement, where he arrived on the 18th of July. There he found the same difficulty of proceeding further which Frank Oates himself had often previously encountered, a great fear still prevailing amongst the natives of “red water”--the Natal cattle disease--being brought into their country, and Lobengula having recently sent strict orders to the kraals on the outskirts of his territory to keep all waggons from Natal from attempting to cross their boundaries. Fortunately, however, it happened that the Dutchman, Piet Jacobs, was now at Tati, who had not only selected the spot for the late traveller’s grave, but was also intimately acquainted with the whole of the surrounding district, and who had, besides, a general permission from the king to enter his country when, and as often as, he pleased; for keeping, as he did, his oxen standing at Tati, when he was not out with them in the veldt himself, there was little fear of his introducing the dreaded disease into the country. With him therefore, as guide, Mr. Gilchrist was speedily enabled to make a start northwards; and, on the afternoon of the fifth day from the date of their leaving Tati, came to the point in the waggon-road where they had to leave it, in order to go down to the river’s side to reach the grave. Mr. Gilchrist found it placed about six hundred yards to the left of the road, in a situation of much natural beauty, surrounded by low picturesque hills, and with trees of varied growth and foliage scattered at intervals over the grassy sward. The grave itself, over which a number of large stones had been placed when it was first made,