From this time on the weather was delightful; with the exception of one thunderstorm it continued so during the six weeks we remained in the wagon. We soon forgot the unpleasant experiences of the first few days. In forty-eight hours the sun had dried the road, so that travelling was comparatively easy, and we passed over the level plain, arriving in Smithfield on the fifth morning after leaving Bloemfontein, where we outspanned on a plateau adjoining the village. We here met with a lady friend from the diamond fields, who invited us to visit her for a few days; but we had now become attached to our gypsy life, and preferred our own fireside. Smithfield is a fair-sized village of the usual Free State kind, possessing a few fine churches, a few streets of one-storey roomy houses, and several stores. When our tented home began to move along the road away from the village we trudged alongside of it as happy and healthy as school-girls, and feeling as free from restraint as the birds. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. Three miles from Smithfield we came to the banks of the Caledon River, which we found greatly swollen by the rains, and did not consider prudent to cross until two of the boys had waded through. The water came up above their waists, and we climbed into our places, and descended the steep bank leading to the drift (or ford). It requires management and considerable shouting and activity on the part of the wagon drivers to cross a river. The bank is always precipitous, and the break has to be screwed up hard to make the descent, and released immediately the water is reached. At times the oxen stick in the middle of the drift, which is often rocky and full of great boulders, and it is difficult to get them on. When we reached the bottom of the slope, the leading oxen were already in the middle of the stream, with the water nearly over their backs. With a plunge the wagon took the water, and we were glad to find that the drift had a tolerably firm, sandy foundation, so that we were not tumbled about much. The leaders were now half-way up the opposite bank, and the driver, mounting the footboard in front of the wagon, gave one of his banshee howls and a simultaneous crack of his whip over the heads of the team. This started them into a trot, and the impetus was not lost until we were all high and dry on the farther bank. The water had come up to the floor of the wagon, but for only a moment, so that nothing was injured. The only casualty sustained was the loss of a bright tin pail which had been floated off its hook, and went sailing down with a jaunty air to the tune, "Won't have to work any more."