liable to take it. A salted horse may be known by the
peculiar looseness and roughness of his skin, and also by a
certain unmistakable air of depression, as though he felt that the
responsibilities of life pressed very heavily upon him. He is like a man
who has dearly bought his experience; he can never forget the terrible
lesson taught in the buying.

On the fourth day from our start we left Middelburg, and, taking a
north-east course from this outpost of civilisation, overtook the
waggon, and camped, after a twenty miles' trek, just on the edge of the
bush-veldt. We had two young Boers to drive our waggons--terrible louts.
However, they understood how to drive a waggon, and whilst one of them
drove, the other would sit for hours, with a vacant stare on his face,
thinking. It is a solemn fact that, from the time we left Middelburg
till the time we returned, neither of those fellows touched water, that
is, to wash themselves. The only luxury in the shape of comforts of the
toilette which they allowed themselves was a comb with a brass back,
carefully tied to the roof of the waggon with two strips of ox-hide
thick enough to have held a hundredweight of lead. I don't think they
ever used it--it was too great a luxury for general use--but they would
occasionally untie it and look at it. Our own outfit in the waggon was
necessarily scanty, consisting of a few iron pots and plates, a kettle,
some green blankets, a lantern, and an old anti-friction grease-can used
for water, which gave it a fine flavour of waggon-wheels. We also had
a "cartle," or wooden frame, across which were stretched strips of hide
fitted into the waggon about two feet above the floor, and intended to
sleep on; but the less said about that the better.

After we left the great high-veldt plains, over which the fresh breeze
was sweeping, we dropped down into a beautiful bush-clad valley with
mountains on either side. It was like making a sudden descent into the
tropics. Not a breath of wind stirred the trees, and the sun shone with
a steady burning heat. Scarcely a sound broke the silence, save the
murmur of the river we crossed and recrossed, the occasional pipe of a
bird, and the melancholy cry, half sigh, half bark, of an old baboon,
who was swinging himself along, indignant at our presence.

If the sights and sounds were beautiful, the sun was hot, and the road
fearful, and we were indeed glad when we reached "Whitehead's Cobalt
Mine," and were most