four
wheels, fourteen feet long and four wide, formed of well-seasoned stink
wood, the joints and bolts working all ways, so that, as occasionally
happened, as it slowly rumbled and bumped onward, when the front wheel
sank into a deep hole, the others remained perfectly upright. It was
tilted over with thick canvas impervious to rain, the goods or
passengers inside being thus well sheltered from the hardest showers,
and even from the hot rays of the sun.

The oxen pulled steadily together, as became animals long accustomed to
work in company. On a board in front stood a Hottentot driver, his
black visage surmounted by a broad-brimmed straw hat ornamented by a few
ostrich feathers twined round the crown, while his hand held a whip of
Brobdignagian proportions, the stock being fully fourteen feet, and the
lash upwards of twenty-four feet in length, with which he occasionally
urged on the leaders, or drew blood from the animals beneath his feet,
as well as from those intermediate in the span, whenever a rise in the
ground or its unusual roughness required an additional exertion of their
strength.

Several black men, of tall sinewy forms and Kaffir features, each
carrying a gun at his back, and a long pole in his hand, accompanied the
waggon on foot. At some little distance ahead rode a florid,
good-looking man, above the middle height, and of strongly built figure,
dressed in a grey suit, with a broad-brimmed hat on his head. He also
carried a gun at his back and a brace of pistols in a broad belt which
he wore round his waist. Though his hair and beard were slightly
grizzled, yet, by the expression of his countenance and his easy
movements, he appeared to have lost none of the activity of youth, while
his firm-set mouth and bright blue eyes betokened courage and energy.
Some horses followed the waggon, secured by thongs of a length
sufficient to enable them to pick their way. A glance into the interior
of the waggon would have shown that it was fully loaded, the chief
contents being the skins of wild animals, the huge tusks of elephants,
and other spoils of the chase, with which the proprietor was returning
after a hunt of many months' duration, to dispose of them at Maritzburg
or D'Urban.

The horseman was apparently one of those enterprising traders and
hunters who roam over the southern parts of the dark continent to barter
European goods for cattle, skins, ivory, and other produce of the
country. As he was