them. While forces were moving up, well provisioned scouts had to be sent many days’ journey into the Maluti to look up the rebels. They found the rebels were not within a week’s march, and this made it evident that they had, as some Natal reports then stated, turned to the right and crossed several branches of the Orange towards Molapo. Meantime all these branches filled, and became impassable. In inquiring for efficient scouts I had heard that one Bushman, named Qing, a couple of years ago escaped from the extermination of their remnant of a tribe in the Malutis, that he was the son of their chief, and was now a hunter in the employ of Nqasha, son of Morosi, on the Orange River. I had sent to obtain his services, without success, and now heard that he was hunting in the mountains beyond the main branch of the Orange, which was full, and that it would be difficult to get him to come, as he had never seen a white man but in fighting, and that it would be difficult to get Nqasha to produce him, as he would fear his hunter would be decoyed from his service. It was so important to secure Qing as a guide, that I rode off myself to Nqasha while the police and other forces were preparing to enter the mountain region. Nqasha consented after my assurances and promises to produce Qing, and sent one messenger after the other for him. I succeeded in impressing Oing’s wives favourably—his own wife and his brother’s widow—whom I found at Nqasha’s kraal, diminutive young creatures, and fair-complexioned. I gave them a liberal supply of tobacco. Nqasha overtook our expedition with Qing when we had almost given him up, and he proved a diligent and useful guide, and became a favourite, he and his clever little mare, with which he dashed and doubled among the stones like a rabbit when his passion for hunting occasionally led him astray. When happy and at ease smoking over camp-fires, I got from him the following stories and explanations of paintings, some of which he showed and I copied on our route. I commenced by asking him what the pictures of men with Rhebok’s heads meant. He said “They were men who had died and now lived in rivers, and were spoilt at the same time as the elands and by the dances of which you have seen paintings.” I asked when were the elands spoilt
