terior of his tent, "and bringing strangers with them too!"

While Sandy Black and his friend Jerry were explaining the cause of
their absence to some of the Scotch party, the young Englishman
introduced his friend and himself as Charles Considine and Hans Marais,
to the leader, Mr Pringle, a gentleman who, besides being a good poet,
afterwards took a prominent part in the first acts of that great drama--
the colonisation of the eastern frontier of South Africa.

It is unnecessary to trouble the reader with all that was said and done.
Suffice it to say that arrangements were soon made. The acting
Governor, Sir Rufane Donkin, arrived on the 6th of June from a visit to
Albany, the district near the sea on which a large number of the
settlers were afterwards located, and from him Mr Pringle learned that
the whole of the Scotch emigrants were to be located in the mountainous
country watered by some of the eastern branches of the Great Fish River,
close to the Kafir frontier. The upper part of the Baviaans, or
Baboons, River had been fixed for the reception of his particular
section. It was also intended by Government that a piece of unoccupied
territory still farther to the eastward should be settled by a party of
five hundred Highlanders, who, it was conjectured, would prove the most
effective buffer available to meet the first shock of invasion, should
the savages ever attempt another inroad.

Mr Pringle laid this proposed arrangement before a council of the heads
of families under his charge; it was heartily agreed to, and
preparations for an early start were actively begun.

On the day of his arrival Sir Rufane Donkin laid the foundation of the
first house of the now wealthy and flourishing, though not very
imposing, town of Port Elizabeth, so named after his deceased wife, to
whose memory an obelisk was subsequently erected on the adjacent
heights.

A week later, a train of seven waggons stood with the oxen "inspanned,"
or yoked, ready to leave the camp, from which many similar trains had
previously set out. The length of such a train may be conceived when it
is told that each waggon was drawn by twelve or sixteen oxen. These
were fastened in pairs to a single trace or "trektow" of twisted thongs
of bullock or buffalo hide, strong enough for a ship's cable. Each
waggon had a canvas cover or "till" to protect its goods and occupants
from the sun and rain, and each was driven by a tall Dutchman, who
carried a