In addition to Trollip and the Bastard (Carl van Rooy by name), I had with me a young half-breed Hottentot named Gert, who had been with me in the Kalahari, and a friend from Upington named Ford-Smith, who wanted to see the Falls, try a new-fangled American repeating shot-gun, which acted like a pump and was almost as elegant, and incidentally bring back a few diamonds himself. By a variety of conveyances, horses, Cape cart, ox-cart, etc., we got to the Great Falls, which I looked at with more interest than ever since I had heard that the Union Government intended utilising their enormous power in the near future. We stayed a day near the Great Cataract, partly to further explore its terrific gorges, and partly because our horses had got away in the night and gone into the mountains to look for grass, and whilst waiting for them, Carl, the guide, gave us an exhibition of fancy shooting which I would not have missed for anything. He first of all asked me if I had Martini cartridges, which I had. He then produced from the bottom of the cart the weirdest weapon I have ever seen, which is saying a good deal; for in this wild part of South Africa it is no uncommon thing to find rifles and guns of ancient make that, having been broken and patched and cobbled with raw hide, nails, tacks, wire, and solder, in the most extraordinary manner, are yet capable of doing excellent work in the hands of their owners, who know their little peculiarities. But van Rooy’s was the limit! It had been a Martini, one of the old, long, straight-stocked ones, that kick like a mule; but one day it had fallen off a waggon and a wheel had passed over it, breaking the stock and bending the barrel almost double. Thrown away as beyond repair, it had been rescued by Carl, who had long coveted a rifle (as every man on the Border does), and who had determined to repair it. The stock he had carved from an old ox-yoke, and the barrel was fastened to it with a combination of all the home-made devices mentioned above; but the crowning feat had been the straightening of the barrel, which he had accomplished by making it red-hot and hammering it. The result was startling, for not only was it battered and dented badly by the hammer, but the foresight was a good eighth of an inch out of alignment with the back; in fact it curved to such an extent that it suggested an attempt at a weapon designed to shoot round corners. I could not conceive that anyone would have the temerity to try and shoot with it, but Carl was immediately on his dignity when I said so, and wanted to know what was the matter with his gun. He said, moreover, that the hills were full of _tijgers_, and unless he could have cartridges for that gun he wouldn’t go a step farther; moreover he wanted some practice, as he had rarely tried the gun since he “straightened” it.