After leaving the river, the way at first led over what for horses alone, without wheels, was fair trekking ground. They then descended for about five miles, coming gradually down the slopes to a sort of rough trampled pathway, evidently made by a herd of driven cattle. Here could be distinctly traced the spoor, and here the king's cattle had evidently been driven. Now dipping into a deep hollow, where the grass grew in rank luxuriance, now topping a gentle rise and stopping to listen if they could hear the distant horns of the Zulu sounded when they announce the proximity of an enemy,--the horsemen neared the forest-land at the foot of the steep mountain range. Troops of eland crossed their path now and then, and occasionally a herd of koodoo. They now came to the end of the plain, and had to pass over a much more difficult country, where they could scarcely manage to get along two abreast, and sometimes in Indian file. The onward path at one portion of the kloof seemed completely barred by a closely set forest of underwood bush of dwarf acacia and creepers of the most tangled nature. Indeed it seemed at one time impossible to pass, but Lord Gifford, after a search of some moments, found the dry bed of a stream, up which, he said, they might have a chance of progressing. They had now to dismount and lead their horses, and slowly and with the greatest difficulty made their way on, sometimes crawling on hands and knees, and having to drag their rifles after them, winning way patiently, yard by yard, and almost inch by inch. Sometimes they were fairly stopped by huge masses of rock, and even compelled to cut a road through the spiky branches of the mimosa, which were bound up tightly together with the wild vines and creeping cane-like plants. For more than a mile did the column toil on through this ravine, their clothes torn, and face and hands bleeding from the thorns.