old home. If those letters reached you, you will have learned
of the terrible things we went through on our journey; the attacks by
the Kaffirs in the Zoutpansberg region, who destroyed one of our parties
altogether, and so forth. If not, all that story must wait, for it is
too long to tell now, and, indeed, I have but little paper, and not
much pencil. It will be enough to say, therefore, that to the number
of thirty-five white people, men, women and children, we trekked at the
beginning of the summer season, when the grass was commencing to grow,
from the Lydenburg district--an awful journey over mountains and through
flooded rivers. After many delays, some of them months long, we reached
this place, about eight weeks ago, for I write to you at the beginning
of June, if we have kept correct account of the time, of which I am not
certain.

"It is a beautiful place to look at, a flat country of rich veld, with
big trees growing on it, and about two miles from the great river that
is called the Crocodile. Here, finding good water, my father and Hernan
Pereira, who now rules him in all things, determined to settle, although
some of the others wished to push on nearer to Delagoa Bay. There was a
great quarrel about it, but in the end my father, or rather Hernan, had
his will, as the oxen were worn out and many had already died from the
bites of a poisonous fly which is called the tsetse. So we lotted out
the land, of which there is enough for hundreds, and began to build rude
houses.

"Then trouble came upon us. The Kaffirs stole most of our horses,
although they have not dared to attack us, and except two belonging to
Hernan, the rest died of the sickness, the last of them but yesterday.
The oxen, too, have all died of the tsetse bites or other illnesses. But
the worst is that although this country looks so healthy, it is poisoned
with fever, which comes up, I think, in the mists from the river.
Already out of the thirty-five of us, ten are dead, two men, three
women, and five children, while more are sick. As yet my father and
I and my cousin Pereira have, by God's mercy, kept quite well; but
although we are all very strong, how long this will continue I cannot
tell. Fortunately we have plenty of ammunition and the place is thick
with game, so that those of the men who remain strong can kill all the
food we want, even shooting on foot, and we women have made a great
quantity of biltong by salting flesh and drying it in