"All right, Macumazahn, live and learn." And without another word he
walked to the foremost waggon, put his bundle into it, and climbed on to
the front seat.

So having bid an affectionate adieu to my white friends, including the
old Scotchman who got drunk in honour of the event, and quoted Burns
till the tears ran down his face, at length I started, and travelled
slowly northwards. For the first three weeks nothing very particular
befell me. Such Kaffirs as we came in contact with were friendly, and
game literally swarmed. Nobody living in those parts of South Africa
nowadays can have the remotest idea of what the veldt was like even
thirty years ago.

Often and often I have crept shivering on to my waggon-box just as the
sun rose and looked out. At first one would see nothing but a vast field
of white mist suffused towards the east by a tremulous golden glow,
through which the tops of stony koppies stood up like gigantic beacons.
From the dense mist would come strange sounds--snorts, gruntings,
bellows, and the thunder of countless hoofs. Presently this great
curtain would grow thinner, then it would melt, as the smoke from a
pipe melts into the air, and for miles on miles the wide rolling country
interspersed with bush opened to the view. But it was not tenantless as
it is now, for as far as the eye could reach it would be literally black
with game. Here to the right might be a herd of vilderbeeste that could
not number less than two thousand. Some were grazing, some gambolled,
whisking their white tails into the air, while all round the old bulls
stood upon hillocks sniffing suspiciously at the breeze. There, in
front, a hundred yards away, though to the unpractised eye they looked
much closer, because of the dazzling clearness of the atmosphere, was