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Updated: August 21, 2024
The friends therefore, after taking careful note of the spot where the immense animals were feeding, returned to the wagon and, having provided themselves with an abundant supply of ammunition, changed their saddles from the horses that they had hitherto been riding to the two which had been presented to them by King Lobelalatutu, and cantered off, after giving Mafuta whom they left in charge of the wagon and stock strict injunctions to make for a certain indicated spot, and there outspan and await them.
This would at once arrest the attention of Jan, the Hottentot driver, upon his arrival at the spot; and seeing it, he would outspan, even if we chanced to be elsewhere when he arrived. Then, mounting again, we resumed our journey down the valley, in search of something wherewith to replenish our empty larder.
Even if there were wood to be had on an outspan place, there was always a race to procure the best poles. Of course, when there was abundance of wood, the pulling up of poles was strictly prohibited.
I came to it at a distance of about half a mile from the broken-down gate at the garden entrance, and ordered the others to outspan where they were, water the oxen, and turn them loose to graze.
As for Dick and Grosvenor, they travelled on horseback, changing their steeds at every outspan, in order to accustom the animals to them, and gradually to get them into good, hard condition by working them to a certain extent every day.
This was about half a mile from my place of outspan, for as soon as I was sufficiently recovered I had begun to sleep in my wagon, leaving the big hut to the "Worn-out-Old-Cow." There was no particular reason why I should be irritated, since time in those days was of no great account in Zululand, and it did not much matter to me whether I trekked in the morning or the afternoon.
"Ian, I feel it on my own heart, and I want it lifted away. Your letter has only one word in it really. That word is Finis. I say, it must not, shall not, be Finis. Look at the escapes you have had in this war. Is not that enough to prove that you have a long way to go yet, and that you have to 'make good' the veld as you trek. To outspan now would be a crime.
We outspanned that night at a distance of twelve good miles north-east of Gwanda, in a most beautiful valley full of lush grass, and beside the stream, now much diminished in volume, which we had been following ever since our passage of the Limpopo; and, I having shot an elephant about an hour before our arrival at the outspan, we all feasted royally that night, the impi building an enormous watch fire and squatting round it, stuffing themselves with elephant meat until they could eat no more.
After the death of that evil-doer, Masapo, he grew very urgent, and the King, also the Inkosazana Nandie, pressed it on me, and so I yielded. Also, to be honest, Saduko was a good match, or seemed to be so." By now we were walking side by side, for the train of wagons had gone ahead to the old outspan. So I stopped and looked her in the face. "'Seemed to be," I repeated.
We arrived there towards afternoon, rested a few hours, and continued our journey with fresh courage. As the waggons moved too slowly for our liking, we rode on ahead; but the consequence was that, when it got dark and we off-saddled, we had no bedding, for nearly all the waggons were obliged to outspan when darkness set in, as there was no road.
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