there they stayed and built themselves houses and
kraals, and set about gathering the hay and catching
cattle. But everything fell out so easily and all they
needed came so plentifully that there grew over them a sort
of sloth, and they slept without shame in the hours of
work, and gave no attention to the future.

"Then by degrees it began to be noticed that they were
growing fat. Soon they had bellies like sows, and their
necks and their limbs became so great that they were
obliged to go about without clothes, like the wild Kafirs
and the brutes that perish. And when one of them would lie
down, his fatness so burdened him that without help he
could scarcely rise to his feet. None were spared: even the
godly Piet Naude was as great as an ox; but the difference
was, he felt shame for it all, whereas the others felt
none.

"Many a time he implored them to inspan and leave the
place; but each time they cried him down. And when he said
he would go himself, they reminded him that it was he who
had urged them to trek, and asked him if he would now
desert them. So for a while he stayed.

"But at length he resolved he would no longer be bound, and
he called to know who would go with him. But as he spoke a
storm came up, and the wind screamed and the rain threshed,
and the poor fat creatures waddled off to their houses, and
of all that people only one stayed to go with Piet Naude.
It was a young Burgher whose name was Hendrik Van der
Merwe, a decent lad; and the two set off together.

"But when they came to the beautiful kloof they were amazed
at the work of the storm. The wind had torn great boulders
from the hills and rolled them down; and the rain had
churned the earth into mud, and washed the roots of the
trees loose; so that where everything had once been so fair
and orderly there was now a crazy wilderness of rocks and
thorns and mud.

"But they breasted the obstacles gallantly, those two
alone; and at hazard of their lives they climbed over and
under great rocking crags, cutting their hands and tearing
their feet with the sharp stones and the thorns of the
mimosas. But as they went they saw with delight that their
fatness dwindled from them, and their limbs fell back to
their old shapeliness, while the blubber on their cheeks
retreated from their eyes and left them free as before.

"So after three days of climbing and slipping and
scrambling, the rain and the wind ceased, and they came
forth into the countr