equipage on to Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State, which is about 80 miles from Kimberley; but my travelling companion was summoned back to Capetown, and I would not make the journey, or undertake the nuisance of the sale alone. We were of course told that, as things were at present, horses were a mere drug at the Diamond Fields, and that a Cape cart in Kimberley was a thing of no value at all. In my ignorance I would have taken £10 for my share, and therefore when I heard what the auctioneer had done for us I almost felt that my fortune had been made for ever. I certainly think that if the purchaser had seen the team coming into Kimberley he would have hesitated before he made his last bid.
I have endeavoured to give the reader the results so far of my experience of South African travel. As regards money and time no doubt both are to some extent sacrificed by the buying and selling of a private carriage or cart. We had our horses on the road a month.
They coat us about 7s. 6d. a day each for their keep, or £45
The expenses of the Cape boy who drove us amounted to about 15
The cart and horses and harness, as above shown, cost 143
Total £203
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which, as we were two, must be divided, making our expense £101 10s. each for about 700 miles. There are public conveyances over the whole road which would carry a passenger with his luggage for about £40. We travelled when on the road 30 miles a day on an average, whereas the, public carts make an average of 90. This seems to be all in
