busy discussing the question of what precisely I should bring out with me, and preparing a detailed list of our various requirements; for a wagon journey to Port Elizabeth was no trifling matter, the distance across the veld and by road being about one hundred and seventy miles, and occupying the best part of nine days each way. By the time that we had finished it was past midnight, and I went to bed and slept soundly, for, to be quite truthful, I had no very profound belief in the threatened rising, despite the ominous departure of the Griquas; such things had happened before—were constantly happening, in fact—and nothing ever came of it, although more or less alarming rumours were continually arising, nobody quite knew how. As a matter of fact I felt quite easy in my mind about it, for I was confident that, even should a rising take place, it would be suppressed very promptly; and in any case I did not believe for a moment that the savages would dare to penetrate so far into the colony as Bella Vista, or even as far as Triannon: while the “scare”, trifling and unfounded as I believed it to be, afforded me an excellent excuse for a trip to Port Elizabeth, which town I had not visited for more than six months, my father having accompanied the wagon on the previous journey; also it justified me in my determination to purchase a new rifle—one of the very newest and most up-to-date weapons that I could possibly procure, the rifle which I had been using for the previous six years being a flintlock affair, and worn out at that. On the following morning we were astir at an even earlier hour than usual, for, the trek oxen not having been worked for some time, I was anxious to make a good start and get well on my way before the heat of the day set in. My mother expressed some surprise at the apparently hurried character of the expedition; but when it was explained that Mr Lestrange had run out of ammunition, while our own stock was running low, she was at once satisfied, for at that time hunting was practically the only amusement open to the farmer, and it was also imperatively necessary that he should be amply provided with means to check the increase of the more predatory animals in the neighbourhood of his farm. Also my mother, being a good housewife, was far more inclined to avail herself of the opportunity afforded by the trip to provide herself with an ample stock of such things as could only be procured at Port Elizabeth than she was to search curiously for another and deeper motive for the trip than the one which my father had given her.

The wagon, with a light load of skins and horns, got away early, in charge of Jan, the Hottentot driver, and then we all sat down to breakfast, as merry and jovial a party, probably, as any in South Africa that day, much of our amusement arising from the fact that my mother and Nell were continually thinking of some fresh commission which I was to be sure to execute for them before leaving Port Elizabeth, the pair of them keeping me so busy jotting down their instructions in my notebook that I could scarcely find time to eat or drink. But at length the merry meal came to an end: we all rose from the table and adjourned to the stoep, before which Piet, my after-rider, was walking the horses to and fro, with Thunder and Juno, the two big hounds that always accompanied me everywhere, trailing at their heels and whining with impatience to be off. Arrived there, another commission or two were remembered and had to be jotted down, upon which my father laughingly exclaimed, as I finally closed my notebook and slipped it into my pocket:

“There, that will do, Ned; now you had better mount and ride, or you will not get away at all to-day. Goodbye, boy; remember me very kindly to Mr Henderson and such other friends as you may see at the Bay, and—don’t forget the new rifle!”

This last sally produced quite an explosion of laughter at my expense, for I had announced my determination to treat myself to the best weapon I could find, and the enthusiasm with which I had dwelt upon the achievements that would be in my power when it came into my possession rendered it the most unlikely thing in the world that I should forget to purchase it. Joining in the laugh, I shook hands with Mr Lestrange, Nesbitt, and my father, kissed Nell and my mother, and ran light-heartedly down the steps, swung myself into the saddle, and, with a final farewell wave of the hand, cantered off down the broad path leading to the gate, with the dogs bounding along ahead and Piet, mounted upon a sturdy grey gelding, bringing up the rear.

It was a glorious morning, such as I think one never finds anywhere but in South Africa; the sky overhead a deep, rich, cloudless blue, shading away on all sides to a soft, warm, delicate, almost colourless grey at the horizon, the air, already warming beneath the ardent rays of the sun, clear and pellucid as crystal and as invigorating as champagne with the fresh, clean smell of the dew-saturated vegetation. Around on every hand stretched a brilliant, sun-kissed picture of rugged mountain slopes, scored deeply by the storms of ages; deep kloofs, precipitous of side, shaggy with their vesture of dense bush, and mysterious with their broad masses of dark shadow; rolling uplands, dotted here and there with clumps of timber and bush or with our grazing flocks of sheep and herds of cattle and horses, sweeping gently down toward the wide-stretching, bush-clad plains, through which wound tiny spruits, like threads of silver, hurrying to lose themselves in the broader waters of the Great Fish River.

Riding at an easy canter, the track across the veld being a very gentle downward slope all the way, I overtook the wagon at a distance of about six miles from the house; when, dismounting, I took my rifle from its slings under the wagon tent, loaded it, slung my powder horn over my shoulder, slipped a few wads and bullets into my pocket, and then, accompanied by the two dogs, walked on ahead of the wagon toward our first outspanning place, my horse Prince following me, as he had been trained to do, with the bridle hanging loose upon his neck. I had of course an ample supply of provisions in the wagon, including the shoulder of a sheep that had been slaughtered that morning; but mutton naturally formed the staple of our fare at Bella Vista when there was no buck meat in the house, and I was very heartily tired of both. I was therefore on the lookout for a pauw or a koraan—the great and small bustards of South Africa—and hoped to get one in time to have it cooked for my luncheon instead of the shoulder of mutton. And presently, when I had got about half a mile ahead of the wagon, I suddenly caught sight of a fine koraan on the ground about three hundred yards to my right front, as it emerged from behind a big clump of melkboem, feeding busily. The bird instantly sighted me and, pausing but the fraction of a second to look straight at me, took to flight, making the air throb with its harsh, discordant cry of alarm as it did so.

It was a long shot for my old rifle, which was only sighted up to one hundred yards; but I had used the piece for six years and knew to a nicety what it would do. Moreover—I am now an old man and may therefore perhaps venture to speak the simple truth without being suspected of boasting—I seem to have been endowed, from my earliest years, with the gift of straight shooting; it was just a knack, I suppose, but I seemed to be able to judge distances accurately by intuition, and to allow the correct elevation and windage under the most diversified conditions, so that I very rarely made use of the sights on my rifle. Nor did I ever need to aim consciously; I just flung the weapon to my shoulder, keeping my eye meanwhile upon my mark, pressed the trigger at precisely the right instant, and—down dropped the quarry: I had in fact by long practice become a dead shot, and could scarcely remember when I had last failed to bring down what I aimed at. Nor did I fail now; as the bird rose it flew straight away from me, and it was still uttering its