f those
pioneers who here were massacred by Dingaan within a few weeks of the
time of which I write.

Nice as the land was, for some reason or other it did not quite suit
my fancy, and therefore, in view of my approaching marriage with Marie,
having purchased a horse from one of the trek-Boers, I began to explore
the country round. My object was to find a stretch of fertile veld where
we could settle when we were wedded, and such a spot I discovered after
some trouble. It lay about thirty miles away to the east, in the loop of
a beautiful stream that is now known as the Mooi River.

Enclosed in this loop were some thirty thousand acres of very rich,
low-lying soil, almost treeless and clothed with luxuriant grasses where
game was extraordinarily numerous. At the head of it rose a flat-topped
hill, from the crest of which, oddly enough, flowed a plentiful stream
of water fed by a strong spring. Half-way down this hill, facing to
the east, and irrigable by the stream, was a plateau several acres in
extent, which furnished about the best site for a house that I know in
all South Africa. Here I determined we would build our dwelling-place
and become rich by the breeding up of great herds of cattle. I should
explain that this ground, which once, as the remains of their old kraals
showed, had belonged to a Kaffir tribe killed out by Chaka, the Zulu
king, was to be had for the taking.

Indeed, as there was more land than we could possibly occupy, I
persuaded Henri Marais, the Prinsloos and the Meyers, with whom I had
trekked from Delagoa, to visit it with me. When they had seen it they
agreed to make it their home in the future, but meanwhile elected to
return to the other Boers for safety's sake. So with the help of some
Kaffirs, of whom there were a few in the district, remnants of those
tribes which Chaka had destroyed, I pegged out an estate of about twelve
thousand acres for myself, and, selecting a site, set the natives to
work to build a rough mud house upon it which would serve as a temporary
dwelling. I should add that the Prinsloos and the Meyers also made
arrangements for the building of similar shelters almost alongside of my
own. This done, I returned to Marie and the trek-Boers.

On the morning after my return to the camp Piet Retief appeared there
with his five or six companions. I asked him how he had got on with
Dingaan.

"Well enough, nephew," he answered. "At first the king was somewhat
angry, saying t