The travellers left Pretoria for Bamangwato on the 30th of June, and after three days’ trekking to the north-west, crossed the Crocodile River, keeping for some time afterwards at no great distance from its banks. “On leaving the waggon, to shoot,” writes Frank Oates on the 5th of July, “I rode up to the river, which is far the most beautiful thing I have yet seen in South Africa. Trees of various kinds--some resembling willows and oaks, the former in leaf, the latter bare--fringed the river’s banks, which are steep. Long grass and bush grew in the country round, and where we outspanned at breakfast there was some very fine grass, tall and drooping, with a tassel. Here too,” he concludes, “we got amongst plenty of birds, and to-day is the first that I have felt the country cease to be disappointing.” The following day the road again continued in close proximity to the river. The country was level and covered with trees like those in a fine park, none of them, however, very large. The Hex and Eland’s Rivers, tributaries to the Crocodile, were crossed near together the day after, and on the 12th a halt of twenty-four hours was made at Holfontein, a good watering-place upon the road, where many birds were met with, including parrots, doves, and hoopoes. Two days later the Crocodile, which had now for some time been lost sight of, again came in view--a grand stream--and a fine blue distant mountain range stretched to the right and right rear. A halt of two or three days was made by the river’s bank, to give the oxen time to rest. Here buffalo, blue wildebeest, springbok, and other game was found, including wild pigs and pallah; and a little further north eland was met with, and many of the lesser antelopes. About this time the dews, which had hitherto been heavy, ceased altogether; possibly, in part, owing to the change of locality. The road now for some time again continued near the left bank of the Crocodile, until the 24th, when, soon after crossing the Notuani, another of its tributaries, the course of the river was finally abandoned, and on the 27th the blue tops of the Bamangwato “kopjes” (low hills) came in sight. The place itself was reached two days later.