Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/109

 and, late as it was, felled several mapani-trees, with which to raise the height of the fence.

In spite of the heavy rain, we proceeded as soon as we could upon our journey. The downpour, however, had the effect of making the travelling less toilsome, by binding the sand together; though it was not without much difficulty that the bullocks pulled through the deep sand-drifts at the ford where we crossed the spruit. On the farther side we found a deserted encampment, containing the remnants of a broken-down Boer waggon. We saw comparatively little game—only two gnus, a few zebras, and an occasional guinea-fowl or two, or which I brought down one.

During the after-part of the day we were quite out of the woods, and upon a plain where the mapanis stood only singly or in detached clumps with the mimosas. Though reluctant to do so, we were obliged to unfasten the bullocks and allow them to graze awhile in the evening; but we took every precaution to make them safe, so that there should be no repetition of the lion panic. They had hardly been freed from the yokes, when they were startled by an animal dashing wildly at no great distance across the plain. It was a hyæna, which Pit and Theunissen, with my good Niger’s aid, managed to knock over; but it was far from being a single specimen of its kind, as all night long our sleep was interrupted by the incessant music of a regular hyæna-chorus.

Throughout the next morning the journey was very similar to that of the previous day; but in the afternoon we passed along an extensive glade, surrounded with underwood and full of game. A heavy