On this day we did at last reach the Diamond Fields, but our journey was anything but comfortable. It was very hot and the greater part of the road was so heavy with sand that we were forced to leave the cart and walk. The Boer at whose house we had slept, lent us a horse to help us for the first eight miles. Then we came to a little Dutch roadside public house, the owner of which provided us with two horses to help us on to Kimberley,--a distance of 27 miles,--for £2, sending with us a Kafir boy to lead our tired horses and bring back his own. Eight miles on we reached a hut in the wilderness where a Dutchman had made a dam, and he allowed us to water our cattle charging us one and sixpence. From thence on to Kimberley, through the heavy sand, there was not a drop of water. We went very slowly ourselves, trudging on foot after the cart; but the Kafir boy could not keep up with us, and he with the two poor animals remained out in the veld all night. We did reach the town about sunset, and I found myself once again restored to the delights of tubs, telegrams, and bed linen. Here we parted with our cart, horses, and harness which,--including the price of the animal purchased at Potchefstroom,--had cost us £243,--selling them by auction and realising the respectable sum of £100 by the sale. The auctioneer endeavoured to raise the speculative energy of the bidders by telling them that the horses had all been bred at “Orley Farm” for my own express use, “Orley Farm” being the name of a novel written by me many years ago;--but I do not know that this romance much affected the bidding. We had intended to have taken our equipage on to Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State, which is about 80 miles from Kimberley; but my travelling companion was summoned back to Capetown, and I would not make the journey, or undertake the nuisance of the sale alone. We were of course told that, as things were at present, horses were a mere drug at the Diamond Fields, and that a Cape cart in Kimberley was a thing of no value at all. In my ignorance I would have taken £10 for my share, and therefore when I heard what the auctioneer had done for us I almost felt that my fortune had been made for ever. I certainly think that if the purchaser had seen the team coming into Kimberley he would have hesitated before he made his last bid. I have endeavoured to give the reader the results so far of my experience of South African travel. As regards money and time no doubt both are to some extent sacrificed by the buying and selling of a private carriage or cart. We had our horses on the road a month.