ict in his favour,
and told me to "pay up without any more humbug." The horse that I was
riding happened to be a thoroughbred three year old, lent me by a
friend, who had requested me to ride him on the snaffle as he possessed
a very tender mouth--a great rarity in Cape horses. I was trying to
explain that I would leave my name or my whip, or anything as a pledge
for the penny, when the man loudly and angrily repeated his demand for
the money, at the same time chucking the horse's mouth with the sharp
curb. To this the noble animal strongly objected, and turning round
reared straight up. Now had this been my own horse I doubt if I could
have borne it quietly, but as it was the property of a friend, such a
proceeding was unbearable. The ex-butcher was about repeating his jerk,
in the hopes, I have no doubt, of unseating me, when I struck him a blow
on the wrist with the loaded end of my whip, that caused him at once to
let go of the bridle. I gave the young one a squeeze, who, finding his
head free, bounded clear of the attempt to stop him made by the second
party. I was so enraged at the whole proceeding, and at having been
placed in a false position by the absence of my purse, that I went on
for a couple of hundred yards before I recovered my equanimity. I then
found that I was riding away from home, and the only other road, which
was a long way round, had also a turnpike at which I was not known.
Turning my horse into the open furze ground at the side of the road, I
made a sweep round across country, and was quietly making my way home,
when I saw a policeman on a horse coming after me. Knowing that any
attempt to argue the merits of the case would have been useless, I was
even obliged to fly. I gave a shake of the reins, and the thoroughbred
soon strode away from the blue-coated gentleman, and landed me safe in
the castle at Cape Town. The oracular official, however, knew me
perfectly well, and had it not happened that the good ship came on the
very next day, and carried me out of Table Bay, I have no doubt that I
should have seen my name figuring in the Cape Town paper under the head
of "Police," and that the crime would have been designated as, "Brutal
Assault on a Turnpike-keeper, and disgraceful Attempt at Swindling, by a
British Officer."

My other experience was a loss of money only; but still, when one is
leaving a colony, and laying in a stock of provisions for a voyage, that
commodity becomes singu