ere able to follow day after
day, while the grass was plentiful and of very good quality. Moreover,
there was not much bush, which would have been to some extent a
disadvantage but for the fact that, as we advanced, the game became so
tame that we had very little difficulty in stalking it through the long
grass. During this particular period of our journey we encountered very
few elephants or big game of any kind, but antelope of various
descriptions were abundant, so that we always had plenty of buck meat in
the larder. Then, one day, scouting far ahead of the wagon, accompanied
by Piet, 'Mfuni, and the dogs, I discovered that we were approaching a
vast open plain, where the grass was not nearly so good. I therefore
rode back a few miles, and, upon meeting the wagon, gave orders for a
prolonged outspan at a suitable spot, so that the oxen, which were
becoming thin from constant work, might have a few days' rest, and
recover flesh in preparation for the journey across the plain.

We remained at that outspan five days, and when we resumed our journey I
had every reason to regard the time as well spent; for as we pushed
forward across the open plain the grass became so poor that, but for the
period of rest and recuperation which I had allowed them, I am convinced
that the oxen would never have accomplished the journey at all. Luckily
for us, when we had lost three oxen, and the remainder had become little
better than walking skeletons, we reached the other side of the plain,
and once more came to good grass and water; and here we rested again for
a week.

On the second day after the resumption of our trek, two mountains of
almost perfect pyramidal form were sighted right ahead and apparently
about fifty miles apart; and on the following day the flat, open plain
gave place to undulating country, which gradually grew more rugged and
park-like as we advanced, with good grass, small, detached patches of
bush, and a few trees, singly or in clumps, scattered thinly here and
there. But we soon noticed that, apart from the grass, the vegetation
generally was new and strange, of a kind that none of us had ever before
seen; the trees in particular being very curious and grotesque in shape,
both as to their trunks and branches, and their foliage being of almost
any other colour than green. In some cases the trees, notwithstanding
their strange and abnormal configuration, were very beautiful, the
large, heart-shaped leaves be