on worked out,
and we spent most of our gains in pursuing a vanished "lead." After
some hesitation MacLean agreed to accompany me.

Our united means amounted to less than five pounds sterling. This we
invested in flour, tea, strong boots, and other indispensables. We
possessed an old gun a double-barreled fowling-piece that had once been
a flint-lock. The spring driving one hammer was too weak to discharge a
percussion cap, that of the other was just strong enough to cause
detonation on an average twice out of three attempts. We could get no
bullet mould the gun being of an unusual caliber so we used to chop off
chunks of lead and roll them between flat stones until the requisite
degrees of size and rotundity had been attained. By using stones with
the surface slightly roughened we could always reduce the size of the
bullet, but the work of doing so was laborious in the extreme.

We hired two Bapedi boys to carry some of our goods. One was named
Indogozan; I forget the name of the other. They turned out to be lazy
scoundrels, and gave endless trouble by loitering. On weighing our
"swags" at Mac Mac the day we started, Maclean's and mine tipped the
scale at fifty-six pounds each. Those of the boys weighed,
respectively, about fifteen pounds less.

We descended the mountain range at Spitzkop. The trail was easily
found. After entering the Low Country we halted each night at a camping
place of the party we were pursuing, and built our fire on the cold
ashes of their one-time hearth. Occasionally we reached some obstacle
over which no wagon could possibly have been drawn, and where there
were evidences that these practical explorers had taken the vehicle to
pieces and carried it over. Game was not very plentiful; even had it
been so our gun was not of the kind to do much execution. As we
approached the Crocodile River Valley lions began to make themselves
heard at night. MacLean was nervous; I fear it was my habit to trade on
this. It was he who used to collect an immense pile of fuel every
night, and I felt I could turn in and sleep soundly fortified with the
knowledge that the watch-fire would not be left untended.

At the Crocodile River we met with a serious check. There was no drift,
and the stream was still swollen from the summer rains. Drawn up on the
opposite bank was a raft, by means of this the prospectors had crossed.
We camped and considered the situation.

We found two men with a wagon at the river. The o