e. Had they stuck to the rocky and woody regions they
might have made the war a far longer and more troublesome business than
it proved to be. No stone marks either battle-field.

From a spot between the two rivers we turned off to the south to visit
the prehistoric remains at Dhlodhlo. It was an extremely lonely track,
on which we did not meet a human being for some thirty miles. No house,
not even a Kafir hut, was to be found, so we bivouacked in the veldt, to
the lee of a clump of thorn-bushes. The earlier part of the nights is
delightful at this season (October), but it is apt to get cold between 2
and 4 A.M., and as there is usually a south-east wind blowing, the
shelter of a bush or a tall ant-hill is not unwelcome. Whoever enjoys
travelling at all cannot but enjoy such a night alone under the stars.
One gathers sticks to make the fire, and gets to know which wood burns
best. One considers how the scanty supply of water which the waggon
carries may be most thriftily used for making the soup, boiling the eggs
and brewing the tea. One listens (we listened in vain) for the roar of a
distant lion or the still less melodious voice of the hyena. The
brilliance of the stars is such that only the fatigue of the long
day--for one must always start by or before sunrise to spare the animals
during the sultry noon--and the difficulty of sitting down in a great,
bare, flat land, where there is not a large stone and seldom even a
tree, can drive one into the vehicle to sleep. The meals, consisting of
tinned meat and biscuits, with eggs and sometimes a small, lean, and
desiccated chicken, are very scanty and very monotonous, but the air is
so dry and fresh and bracing that one seems to find meat and drink in
it.

Next day we came, at the foot of the Matoppo Hills, to a solitary farm,
where we found a bright young Englishman, who, with only one white
companion, had established himself in this wilderness and was raising
good crops on fields to which he brought water from a neighbouring
streamlet. Even the devastation wrought by a flight of locusts had not
dispirited him nor diminished his faith in the country. It is not the
least of the pleasures of such a journey that one finds so many cheery,
hearty, sanguine young fellows scattered about this country, some of
them keeping or helping to keep stores, some of them, like our friend
here, showing what the soil may be made to do with skill and
perseverance, and how homes may be rear