and it was a good thing, if only that it kept
him out of mischief.

Jan Boom, the Xosa, was the only one who would hint at any reason for
the falling off of our trade, but, as it happened, I was rather
prejudiced against him by reason of his affectation of a certain air of
superiority over those of his own colour, on the strength of his
knowledge of English. In fact I rather disliked him, and therefore of
course distrusted him. Subsequently I had reason to alter my opinion
with regard to him: but that will keep. Out of Mfutela I could get
nothing on the subject. Either he knew nothing or was too "close" to
say: and when a native is "close" why it is rather less difficult to
make an oyster open by whispering soft nothings to it than to get him to
unfold.

One day Falkner and I started off to have a hunt among the krantzes
beyond those which walled in the hollow. We took Jan Boom with us, and
a couple of young Zulus to show us the short cut. It was a grey and
lowering day, gloomy in the extreme, and every now and then a spot of
rain showed what we were likely to expect, but Falkner was keen on
sport, and I was getting hipped, besides, in those days I cared little
enough for weather. We scrambled about all the morning among the rocks,
with absolutely no luck whatever, and then I got sick of it, wherefore
after we had lunched upon what we had brought with us I proposed to find
my way back to the waggons. Falkner of course wanted to keep on, but I
pointed out that my defection need cause no drawback to him, for I would
leave him the boys and make my way back alone. So we separated and
before we had long done so a distant report, some way above, showed that
at any rate he was beginning to find sport.

I struck downward, rapidly making use of half obliterated cattle tracks,
for the Abaqulusi were largely a mountain tribe, and there were outlying
kraals among the heights as well as in the hollows. Following one of
these paths I came suddenly upon a steep gorge, falling abruptly to the
next slope some distance below.

This gully was in places almost chasm-like in its formation, and was
indescribably wild and gloomy in the utter solitude of the grey
afternoon. I had just crossed it where the path dipped, when, looking
up, there stood a klipspringer gazing at me.

He was an easy hundred yard shot. Slipping from the saddle on the
further side from him, I thought to myself that Falkner would not
altogether have the