As the night was so brilliant, I determined to push on and try to find my friend's location, for I was unpleasantly moist, and everything was so wet that fighting a fire would have been no easy matter. In Africa we travel by "direction:" "Go out in that direction for two days, and you will come to my house," is about the amount of information you frequently get. I knew which way to steer, so pushed straight on in the hope of seeing some sign of a house. After riding about an hour, I saw two horsemen going up a hill opposite to me, about half a mile distant; they were going on slowly, but I could not make them out well, as they were over the ridge so soon. I galloped on after them, thinking that they must be some one from my friends, sent out in search of me, but upon getting on the hill, the horsemen had passed over. I saw them a few hundred yards in advance, they were looking away from me, and one was pointing out something to the other. Before I could see well who they were, my Kaffir came to my side, and exclaimed, _Ma me, ma me!-- bululu bulala!--chingana Bushman_. ("Ma me," is a term of surprise, "shoot, shoot, rascally Bushman!"). To explain this apparently cruel proposition, I must state that the Bushmen about here were looked upon with the most deadly hatred, "every man's hand was against them, and theirs against every man." They were the farmer's greatest enemies-- wandering from place to place; they had strongholds in the most inaccessible mountains--active as baboons they retreated to these when no other place was secure. For days and nights they would watch from some secret lookout, the cattle or horses of a Boer or Kaffir. Then having made themselves acquainted with the customs and precautions of their purposed victims, they at length crept down to the kraal containing the cattle or horses, took them quietly out early in the night, and made a rapid retreat before the morning light would enable the robbed to discover their loss; the Bushmen then being some thirty miles distant. Pursuit is often impossible, because every horse is generally taken. Should they be pursued, and see no chance of keeping the cattle, they will then either hamstring them or stick a poisoned arrow into them, and thus prevent the farmer from taking advantage of his speedy pursuit. The Bushman himself being very light, and always having a good horse, easily gets away. If by chance his horse is shot, and he reduced to his own legs, he scrambles like a baboon up the rocks if any are near; if not, he seeks cover behind an ant-hill, or in a wolf-hole, and prepares his poisoned arrows for defence. Armed with a quiver full, with five on each side of his head for immediate use, he cannot be approached with impunity, for at eighty yards the Bushman can strike a buck while running. Should a man be wounded, then--