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Updated: September 6, 2025
Two days later, trekking northward along the course of the last-mentioned river, we arrived at its junction with the Limpopo, on the farther side of which lay my goal, Mashonaland; and here we again outspanned, while Piet and I went on a prospecting tour in search of a drift by means of which the wagon might be safely taken across.
Hospitality was one of the cardinal South African virtues in those days. It has been truly said that even a quarter of a century ago a man might ride from Cape Town to the Limpopo without a shilling in his pocket, and be well entertained all the way. Things have, however, much changed in this respect.
The evening of the sixth day after we had crossed the Limpopo found us outspanned upon the left bank of the stream which we had been closely following from the moment of our passage of the river, with a lofty, flat-topped mountain range, some fifty miles long, on our left hand, springing from the plain close to the opposite margin of the stream, and on our right two enormous mountains, some twenty miles apart from peak to peak, and remarkable for their exceptional height which I estimated at fully fourteen thousand feet as well as from the fact that they were identical not only in shape, but also apparently in size and altitude.
Old Coetzee saved me the trouble of answering, for he broke in with Skellum! Skellum! I asked him his objection to the storekeeper, but he would say nothing beyond that he was too thick with the natives. I fancy at some time Mr Japp had sold him a bad plough. We spoke of hunting, and I heard long tales of exploits away on the Limpopo, in Mashonaland, on the Sabi and in the Lebombo.
Macora could hold out but little hopes of their meeting giraffes anywhere on that part of the Limpopo. He had heard of one or two having been occasionally seen; but it was not a giraffe country, and they were stray animals. "Ask him if he knows where there is such a country," demanded Willem, who seemed more interested in learning something about giraffes than either of his companions.
* This singular encounter, in the words of an eye-witness, happened as follows: "My South African Journal is now before me, and I have got hold of the account of the lion and buffalo affair; here it is: '15th September, 1846. Oswell and I were riding this afternoon along the banks of the Limpopo, when a waterbuck started in front of us.
"I suppose you can't get three millions all to yourself with your own hands without missing a good deal and getting a good deal you could do without," she said to herself, as he wonderingly interjected the exclamation: "Now, what do you know of the Limpopo? I'll venture there isn't another woman in England who even knows the name."
At this spot was much cover, and heaps of dry reeds and trees deposited by the Limpopo in some great flood. The lion had left the footpath and entered this secluded spot. I at once felt convinced that we were upon him, and ordered the natives to make loose the dogs.
Had it gone the other way, a new and possibly formidable flag would have been added to the maritime nations. The emigrants who had settled in the huge tract of country between the Orange River in the south and the Limpopo in the north had been recruited by new-comers from the Cape Colony until they numbered some fifteen thousand souls.
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