Still brisk as it was the pace was only a walk. We thought we should never make the two or three hundred miles to Queenstown, at that pace, by the route we should take. We learned, however, that though slow it was sure. A team of oxen intelligently driven, and rested at proper intervals, will make thirty miles a day, week after week, over any sort of country, a rate of travelling that horses cannot exceed when the distance is long. At the end of three hours the oxen were outspanned to graze and the boys prepared our midday meal. The tablecloth was laid, and that tablecloth was the chief source of our solicitude throughout the trip. Oh the delight of that first meal! everything tasted so sweet. Were we not free, free as air, the sky and limitless veldt the ceiling, walls, and floor of our dining-room, with not a creature in sight? Our caterer had forgotten nothing that was necessary to make our meals model entertainments. After an hour and a half the oxen were slowly driven up to the wagon and each one took his own proper place, seeming to know his own yoke. We trekked on over the same level plain, but as evening drew near the sky assumed a threatening aspect, and it was thought prudent to outspan and tie up in order to prepare for the reception of the impending storm. Before the yokes were removed the rain came pouring down in torrents. The boys dug a trench around the wagon under which they got for shelter, while we, safe under our waterproof tent, peered out from time to time at the storm raging around us. Presently lightning began to flash and the thunder to roar, while the rain came down in sheets, seeming to transform the open country into a vast lake. Oh, those dreadful African thunderstorms! We thought _We_ should never see worse storms than those of our Western prairies, but they were infants in strength compared to those in Africa. The storm grew fiercer and fiercer, and the lightning seemed to come from the heavens in all directions in molten streams of fire. The road was full of ironstone, a peculiarity of the uplands of Africa; this seemed to attract the lightning, and the air appeared to be full of fire, accompanied by an ear-piercing crackling and booming that shook the earth. The atmosphere was black, and the darkness was intensified by the continual flashes, when suddenly there was a crash and a deafening roar that made us think the heavens had fallen. Stunned for a moment we each looked at the other, expecting that the wagon had been struck, and a great stir and lowing among the trembling oxen increased our fears.