nature. Travelling as
we did, between the mountains and the sea, we could not well lose our
way, especially as my Zulus had passed through that country; and when
their knowledge failed us, we generally managed to secure the services
of local guides. The roads, however, or rather the game tracks and
Kaffir paths which we followed, were terrible, for with the single
exception of that of Pereira for part of the distance, no wagon had ever
gone over them before. Indeed, a little later in the year they could not
have been travelled at all. Sometimes we stuck in bogs out of which we
had to dig the wheels, and sometimes in the rocky bottoms of streams,
while once we were obliged literally to cut our way through a belt of
dense bush from which it took us eight days to escape.

Our other chief trouble came from the lions, whereof there were great
numbers in this veld. The prevalence of these hungry beasts forced us to
watch our cattle very closely while they grazed, and at night, wherever
it was possible, to protect them and ourselves in "bombast," or
fences of thorns, within which we lit fires to scare away wild beasts.
Notwithstanding these precautions, we lost several of the oxen, and
ourselves had some narrow escapes.

Thus, one night, just as Marie was about to enter the wagon where the
women slept, a great lion, desperate with hunger, sprang over the fence.
She leapt away from the beast, and in so doing caught her foot and fell
down, whereon the lion came for her. In another few seconds she would
have been dead, or carried off living.

But as it chanced, Vrouw Prinsloo was close at hand. Seizing a flaming
bough from the fire, that intrepid woman ran at the lion and, as it
opened its huge mouth to roar or bite, thrust the burning end of the
bough into its throat. The lion closed its jaws upon it, then finding
the mouthful not to its taste, departed even more quickly than it had
come, uttering the most dreadful noises, and leaving Marie quite unhurt.
Needless to say, after this I really worshipped the Vrouw Prinsloo,
though she, good soul, thought nothing of the business, which in those
days was but a common incident of travel.

I think it was on the day after this lion episode that we came upon
Pereira's wagon, or rather its remains. Evidently he had tried to trek
along a steep, rocky bank which overhung a stream, with the result that
the wagon had fallen into the stream-bed, then almost dry, and been
smashed beyond rep