untry at the
back of Delagoa Bay."

"Agreed," he said; after which we discussed terms, he paying me
my salary in advance.

On further consideration we determined, as two were quite
unnecessary for a trip of the sort, to leave one of my wagons and
half the cattle in charge of a very respectable man, a farmer who
lived about five miles from Pretoria just over the pass near to
the famous Wonder-boom tree which is one of the sights of the
place. Should we need this wagon it could always be sent for;
or, if we found the Lydenburg hunting-ground, which he was so set
upon visiting, unproductive or impossible, we could return to
Pretoria over the high-veld and pick it up before proceeding
elsewhere.

These arrangements took us a couple of days or so. On the third
we started, without seeing you, my friend, or any one else that I
knew, since just at that time every one seemed to be away from
Pretoria. You, I remember, had by now become the Master of the
High Court and were, they informed me at your office, absent on
circuit.

The morning of our departure was particularly lovely and we
trekked away in the best of spirits, as so often happens to
people who are marching into trouble. Of our journey there is
little to say as everything went smoothly, so that we arrived at
the edge of the high-veld feeling as happy as the country which
has no history is reported to do. Our road led us past the
little mining settlement of Pilgrim's Rest where a number of
adventurous spirits, most of them English, were engaged in
washing for gold, a job at which I once took a turn near this
very place without any startling success. Of the locality I need
only say that the mountainous scenery is among the most
beautiful, the hills are the steepest and the roads are, or were,
the worst that I have ever travelled over in a wagon.

However, "going softly" as the natives say, we negotiated them
without accident and, leaving Pilgrim's Rest behind us, began to
descend towards the low-veld where I was informed a herd of
buffalo could still be found, since, owing to the war with
Sekukuni, no one had shot at them of late. This war had been
suspended for a while, and the Land-drost at Pilgrim's Rest told
me he thought it would be safe to hunt on the borders of that
Chief's country, though he should not care to do so himself.

Game of the smaller sort began to be plentiful about here, so not
more than a dozen miles from Pilgrim's Rest we outspanne