Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/226

 assistance I could not procure the bearers which, after crossing the river, I should require to convey the articles that I had collected in Sesheke, and the ivory which I had received from Blockley as payment for my bullocks.

The passage across the river gave me no small amount of anxiety, as independently of my uncertainty about getting bearers, I was much concerned at finding a leak in the ferry-boat as large as my fist, which threatened to do material injury to a good deal of my property. Fortunately, however, on reaching the Leshumo valley I again met Captains M‘Leod and Fairly, the English officers, who most considerately, during the time of their visit to Sepopo, allowed me the use of their waggon to take me to Panda ma Tenka. I waited a little while until the team could be fetched, and started off on the night of the 3rd of September. As I went along I noticed that the burning of the grass in the district had caused a diminution in the number of tsetse fly, although the herbage was already beginning to sprout afresh.

When on the following day we reached the Gashuma Flat, we found plenty of game still lurking in places where the grass had not been burned. With the waggon were two horses that the English officers had left in charge of a servant, who seemed to me unpardonably careless. Notwithstanding my warnings, he would persist in riding on considerably ahead. Approaching the baobab I told Pit and the driver to keep a sharp look-out; I had a kind of presentiment that the horses might invite an attack from the lion that was notoriously haunting the spot. We had gone but a very short distance farther, when