places there were little Inns, always called hotels, and at others we were taken in by farmers or storekeepers. Sometimes the spot on which we were invited to lie down was so uninviting as to require the summoning up of a special courage. Twice I think we were called upon to occupy the same bed,—on which occasions my age preserved me from the hard ground on which my younger companion had to stretch himself. He had stories to tell of nocturnal visitors to which I have ever been inhospital and useless,—the only wild beast that has ever attacked me being the musquito. Of musquitoes in the Transvaal I had no experience, and was told that even in summer they are not violent. We were travelling in September, which is equal in its circumstances to our March at home. So much for our beds. On our route we banqueted at times like princes,—but these were the times in which we camped out in the veld,—the open field side,—and consumed our own provisions. Never was such tea made as we had. And yet the tea in all the houses was bad,—generally so bad as to be undrinkable. We had bought our tea, as other Colonists buy theirs, at Pieter Maritzburg, and I do not think that the grocer had done anything peculiar for us. But we were determined that the water should boil, that the proper number of tea-spoon-fulls should be afforded, and that the tea should have every chance. We certainly succeeded. And surely never was there such bacon fried, or such cold tongues extracted from tin pots. It happened more than once that we were forced by circumstances to breakfast at houses on the road,—but when we did so we always breakfasted again a few miles off by the side of some
