cannot remember after the lapse of nearly half a century.
Oddly enough, it is the things I said which I recall at such a distance
of time rather than the things which I wrote, perhaps because, when once
written, my mind being delivered, troubled itself with them no more. So
in due course the Hottentot departed with my father's letter and my own,
and that was the last direct communication which we had with Henri or
Marie Marais for more than a year.

I think that those long months were on the whole the most wretched I
have ever spent. The time of life which I was passing through is always
trying; that period of emergence from youth into full and responsible
manhood which in Africa generally takes place earlier than it does
here in England, where young men often seem to me to remain boys up
to five-and-twenty. The circumstances which I have detailed made it
particularly so in my own case, for here was I, who should have been but
a cheerful lad, oppressed with the sorrows and anxieties, and fettered
by the affections of maturity.

I could not get Marie out of my mind; her image was with me by day and
by night, especially by night, which caused me to sleep badly. I became
morose, supersensitive, and excitable. I developed a cough, and thought,
as did others, that I was going into a decline. I remember that Hans
even asked me once if I would not come and peg out the exact place where
I should like to be buried, so that I might be sure that there would
be no mistake made when I could no longer speak for myself. On that
occasion I kicked Hans, one of the few upon which I have ever touched
a native. The truth was that I had not the slightest intention of being
buried. I wanted to live and marry Marie, not to die and be put in
a hole by Hans. Only I saw no prospect of marrying Marie, or even of
seeing her again, and that was why I felt low-spirited.

Of course, from time to time news of the trek-Boers reached us, but
it was extremely confused. There were so many parties of them; their
adventures were so difficult to follow, and, I may add, often so
terrible; so few of them could write; trustworthy messengers were
so scanty; distances were so great. At any rate, we heard nothing of
Marais's band except a rumour that they had trekked to a district in
what is now the Transvaal, which is called Rustenberg, and thence on
towards Delagoa Bay into an unknown veld where they had vanished. From
Marie herself no letter came, which show