Of course twelve oxen were not enough to draw two wagons, or even one.
Therefore, hearing that there were natives on the mainland who possessed
plenty of cattle, I at once gave out that I was ready to buy, and pay
well in blankets, cloth, beads and so forth. The result was that within
two days I had forty or fifty to choose from, small animals of the Zulu
character and, I should add, unbroken. Still they were sturdy and used
to that veld and its diseases. Here it was that my twelve trained
beasts came in. By putting six of them to each wagon, two as fore- and
two as after-oxen, and two in the middle, Hans and I were able to get
the other ten necessary to make up a team of sixteen under some sort of
control.

Heavens! how we worked during the week or so which went by before it was
possible for me to leave Lorenzo Marquez. What with mending up and
loading the wagons, buying and breaking in the wild oxen, purchasing
provisions, hiring native servants--of whom I was lucky enough to secure
eight who belonged to one of the Zulu tribes and desired to get back to
their own country, whence they had wandered with some Boers, I do not
think that we slept more than two or three hours out of the twenty-four.

But, it may be asked, what was my aim, whither went I, what inquiries
had I made? To answer the last question first, I had made every
possible inquiry, but with little or no result. Marie's letter had said
that they were encamped on the bank of the Crocodile River, about fifty
miles from Delagoa Bay. I asked everyone I met among the
Portuguese--who, after all, were not many--if they had heard of such an
encampment of emigrant Boers. But these Portuguese appeared to have
heard nothing, except my host, Don Jose, who had a vague recollection of
something--he could not remember what.