XXXV.

THE TRANSPORT RIDER.


The wagon is one evolved in South Africa--a long, heavily-constructed
affair, with ingenious braces and timbers so arranged as to furnish the
maximum clearance with the greatest facility for substitution in case
the necessity for repairs might arise. The whole vehicle can be
dismounted and reassembled in a few hours; so that unfordable streams or
impossible bits of country can be crossed piecemeal. Its enormous wheels
are set wide apart. The brake is worked by a crank at the rear, like a
reversal of the starting mechanism of a motor car. Bolted to the frame
on either side between the front and rear wheels are capacious
cupboards, and two stout water kegs swing to and fro when the craft is
under way. The net carrying capacity of such a wagon is from three to
four thousand pounds.

This formidable vehicle, in our own case, was drawn by a team of
eighteen oxen. The biggest brutes, the wheelers, were attached to a
tongue, all the others pulled on a long chain. The only harness was the
pronged yoke that fitted just forward of the hump. Over rough country
the wheelers were banged and jerked about savagely by the tongue; they
did not seem to mind it but exhibited a certain amount of intelligence
in manipulation.

To drive these oxen we had one white man named Brown, and two small