halted and began a retreat. The hunters however were not the
men to spare their foe, but followed on their traces, shooting down
their enemy with a fatal accuracy, until they reached the denser part of
the forest, where the hunters dared not enter on foot against at least
ten times their number, and where they could not enter on horseback. A
short council of war decided them to leave half their number to watch
the Matabili, whilst the remainder rode with all speed to the waggons,
to stop them in their advance, and to make preparations for their
defence in case an attack should be made upon them; for to defend
waggons was very much more difficult than to carry on the light cavalry
manoeuvres which had been so successful in the late attack of the black
warriors.

There are few incidents of greater interest in connexion with our
colonies than the desertion from our eastern frontier of the Cape of
Good Hope of a body of about 5000 souls, who, dissatisfied with the
Government to which they were compelled to own allegiance, departed with
wives, children, goods, cattle, and horses into the wilderness, there to
find a new home, far away from English dominion. It was in 1836 that
this singular emigration took place, and it was just previous to that
date that our tale commences.

Ruling over a large portion of country in about the twenty-sixth
parallel of latitude, there was a chief named Moselekatse, whose tribe
was termed Matabili. He was a renegade from the Zulu nation, and had by
his talents formed a nation of soldiers. Between the warriors of
Moselekatse and some Griquas, near the Orange River, several encounters
had taken place, the latter being usually the assailants, their object
being the capture of cattle, the Matabili being rich in herds. The
Griquas are a tribe of bastard Hottentots, many of them being nearly
white; and thus, in a Matabili's opinion, nearly every white man was an
enemy.

Believing that the ground on which they were hunting was too far from
the dominions of the Matabili chieftain to make the position a dangerous
one, Hans and his party had neither sent ambassadors to announce their
purpose of hunting, nor had they expected to meet any bipeds in the
district in which they had decided to hunt elephants. They probably
would not even have been heard of by the soldiers of Moselekatse, and
therefore not molested, had not a large party of the Matabili been
ordered to make a reconnaissance in the nei