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Then, notwithstanding that it was by this time late in the afternoon, we inspanned and trekked a good ten miles up the valley; for there is nothing that a South African savage fears much more than a grave, and I knew that nothing would have induced my "boys" to pass the night within half a dozen miles of poor Siluce's last resting place.

Headquarters rested all day on the 28th at Riet, left it at 8 p.m., trekked by moonlight along the Swakop River for three hours, outspanned till an hour before dawn, and made Salem at 6.45 a.m. on March 29.

We were up and away before dawn, we trekked anything from twenty-five to thirty-five miles a day, and when we had attended to the needs of the animals and had something to eat and drink ourselves, we were too tired to do anything but roll into the blankets and sleep until a disgruntled picket roused us for another day.

He was vastly proud of "his girl," of her good looks, her social power, her clever talk. And the old lady was forced to agree they must give Milly her chance. So that autumn the Ridges trekked again from West Laurence Avenue to the snug little house on Acacia Street, "just around the corner from the Drive."

To add to our confusion a draft arrived from our second line to bring us up to War Establishment, and they had to be fitted out with horses, etc. But our destination was only the Lincolnshire coast Grimsby. Fortunately thirty-six hours terminated our stay there, and we trekked off south, eventually halting at Hogsthorpe, a village about three miles from the coast.

I know those causes, for Jan and Ralph and I were of the number of the voortrekkers; still, had it not been for the loss of Suzanne, I do not think that we should have trekked, for we loved the home we had made upon the face of the wild veldt. But now that she was gone it was no home for us; every room of the house, every tree in the garden, every ox and horse and sheep reminded us of her.

King's Lynn was found to be unsatisfactory as a billeting area, so we trekked on to Fakenham which proved to be our final resting place in England. By now our training had so far advanced that we were not kept at it quite so hard, and we had more time for sports. We had polo, cricket, and all kinds of games, and on 3rd June mounted sports which were most successful.

Before striking the enemy in this action the Free State Brigade, and their accompanying batteries from the 2nd South African Mounted Riflemen, had trekked forty-two miles in sixteen hours without halt for any kind of a rest.

"I had trekked from dawn till eleven o'clock a long trek but I wanted to get on, and had turned the oxen out to graze, sending the voorlooper to look after them, my intention being to inspan again about six o'clock, and trek with the moon till ten.

The wagon in which they trekked was good and comfortable, and although it was still the rainy season, fortune favoured them in the matter of weather, so that when they came to the formidable river, they were actually able to trek across it with the help of some oxen borrowed from a missionary in that neighbourhood, without having recourse to the dreaded rope-slung basket, or even to the punt.