rgers, or "Porocororo," as the Basutus call him, at
Steelport.

We returned to Middelburg by an entirely different route from that
by which we came. Leaving the valley of the Olifants to our right, we
trekked along the high-veldt, and thus avoided all the fever country.
Roughly speaking, we had about 120 miles of country to get over to reach
Middelburg, and we determined to do this in three days and two nights,
so as to get in on the Saturday night, as we were much pressed for time.
Now, according to English ideas, it is no great thing to travel 120
miles in three days; but it is six days' journey in an ox-waggon over
bad country, and we were going to do it in half that time by doubling
the speed.

Of course, to do this we had to trek night and day. For instance, on the
first day we inspanned at 10.30 A.M. and trekked till within an hour
of sundown; at sundown we inspanned, and with one outspan trekked till
sunrise; outspanned for two hours, and on again, being seventeen and
a half hours under the yoke out of the twenty-four, and covering
fifty-five miles. Of course, one cannot do this sort of travelling for
more than two or three days without killing the oxen; as it was, towards
the end, as soon as the yokes were lifted off, the poor beasts dropped
down as though they were shot, and most of them went lame. Another
great disadvantage is that one suffers very much from want of sleep. The
jolting of the springless machine, as it lumbered over rocks a foot high
and through deep spruits or streams, brought our heads down with such a
fearful jar on the saddle-bags that we used for pillows, that all sleep
was soon knocked out of them; or, even if we were lucky enough to be
crossing a stretch of tolerably smooth ground, there was a swaying
motion that rubbed one's face up and down till the skin was nearly
worn through, polishing the saddle-bags to such an extent that we might
almost have used them for looking-glasses as well as pillows.

At Secocoeni's kraal we had engaged two boys to carry our packs as far
as the fort, who, on their arrival, were so well satisfied with the way
in which we treated them that they requested to be allowed to proceed
with us. These young barbarians, who went respectively by the names of
"Nojoke" and "Scowl," as being the nearest approach in English to their
Sisutu names, were the greatest possible source of amusement to us,
with their curious ways.[*] I never saw such fellows to sleep; it is
a