“The country is much prettier now than it was when we went up. The grass has sprung up and is quite green, and all the trees are in leaf. The Transvaal, from the Crocodile River here, is beautiful. All along the banks of the river are farms, belonging to the Dutch Boers, surrounded with orange and peach trees. At most of these you can now get milk, butter, and eggs. We have had heavy thunderstorms, which, seen at night, are most gorgeous; lightning all round, all colours, and darting in all directions at the same moment. It is just like a display of fireworks. It is much cooler now than we have lately had it, the thermometer seldom being above 90° in the shade, and the last few days there has been a nice breeze. “My Kafir driver, who came up with me from Maritzburg, ran away when we were staying at the Meriko, and Bell and I had to drive the waggon down here. Fortunately they are very good oxen, so there has been no difficulty, and I have managed to get another driver here. Bullock-driving is quite a business in itself, and a very difficult thing in the bush with refractory beasts. This fellow, Solomon, stole a horse which we had found straying. It belonged to the old chief at Mungwato, and when I was going to hand the horse over to a Dutchman, whom Sekomi had authorised to take charge of the horse if he found him, Solomon went to the waggon where he was tied up, jumped on him, and galloped away. He will probably be caught, as the horse is well known. “A ‘salted,’ or seasoned, horse is worth a great deal, as there is a sickness in the bush which is generally fatal to horses which are not ‘salted.’ It commences when the rains begin to fall. I much regretted losing my little horse. I was told, when I got him, he was salted, but he died after a few hours’ illness. There is no cure known for it. He was looking beautiful; his coat shone like satin, and he was getting quite fat with the young grass and some corn which I got for him at Mungwato. The oxen are thriving tremendously, and, since the grass has grown, from wretched skeletons they have become regular Tichbornes. “I shall write to you again from Maritzburg, if there is a ship sailing before I go, for I expect I shall have to stay a fortnight or three weeks there, to sell the waggon, oxen, etc.... I mean to trek to-night when the moon gets up. We get into the high veldt now, where there is no bush. My waggon looks very seedy, the cover torn in many places by mimosa bushes, and the paint worn off. It is infested with beetles, and occasionally a lizard or scorpion is detected. Ants, too, occasionally pay me visits, to which I greatly object, as they bite uncommonly hard in this country. At night, if you are outspanned near water and have a lanthorn in the waggon, the candle is put out by numberless little beetles which creep in; and the frogs literally yell all night long. It is very pretty to see the fire-flies.”