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The work was, however, interrupted by a furious thunderstorm and a night of heavy rain that brought the waters roaring down from the Drakensberg ravines to flood the Klip River far above the level at which some of its spruits can be crossed without difficulty at other times. English people, as a rule, picture early summer in South Africa as a time of heat and drought.
While Hendricks, not wishing again to enter Zululand, set off to cross the Drakensberg, Mr Maloney proceeded towards Maritzburg, promising, to the great delight of Denis, that having disposed of his goods, he would return to settle in the neighbourhood of Falls Farm.
These emigrants or pioneers inspanned their large ox-waggons, bade farewell to their homes and farms in the Cape Colony and trekked across the Orange River. They traversed the wide plains of the late Orange Free State and proceeded to the Drakensberg Mountains. These mountains they crossed and settled down in Natal.
After getting well past the Amaswazi country, the expedition left the mountains, and traveled through the low, wooded plains that lie between the Drakensberg on the north-west, and the Lebomba hills on the south-east.
There were some indications at this time that a movement had been planned through the passes of the Drakensberg by a small Free State force which should aid Louis Botha's invasion of Natal. The main movement was checked, however, and the demonstration in aid of it came to nothing.
The northern half of Natal also partakes of that character, though there, as well as over the rest of the eastern slopes of the Drakensberg mountains, the country is more broken and hilly than on the western side.
Needless to say, I inquired both from natives and from white men whether anything was known of the fate of Marais's party, but no one seemed even to have heard of them. One thing I did learn, however, that my old friend, Pieter Retief, with a large following, had crossed the Quathlamba Mountains, which we now know as the Drakensberg, and entered the territory of Natal.
The commandant sent a message by these men to the effect that, having fulfilled his part of the compact, he would wait upon Dingaan as soon as possible in order to conclude the treaty about the land. This business finished, Retief took me and a number of the Boers to visit other bodies of the emigrant Dutch who were beyond the Drakensberg, in what is now the Transvaal territory.
Then, about two o'clock in the afternoon, we inspanned the oxen and trekked in a north-easterly direction, with the range of hills cut through by the curious gorge about a quarter of a mile on our left and the Drakensberg range of mountains towering aloft on our right some fifty miles distant.
Basutoland is a mountainous country, difficult of access, but in resources self-sufficing, on the eastern side of the Orange Free State, and separated from Natal and Kaffraria, or the Transkei division of Cape Colony, by the sufficiently formidable Drakensberg range.
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