brown rock-rabbits, rock-pigeons, and starlings, as well as with innumerable bees. Mr. Joubert related to me some interesting hunting-adventures, and gave graphic descriptions of three very exciting lion-hunts. In former times lions, especially of the maneless breed, seem to have been very numerous on the Molapo. In common with other farmers, Mr. Joubert expressed great dissatisfaction with the Transvaal Republic. He held the post of field-cornet, and tried to induce me to employ any influence I might have in urging the British Government to annex the Molapo valley. The complaints of the way in which justice was administered were very bitter; the farmers murmuring, moreover, that after the Republic had conceded to them the purchase of farms and land, it was impotent to protect them from the Barolongs, to whom the territory by ancient right belonged.
Starting off again on the 30th, I was not long in reaching Rietvley Farms, where several families resided, but I made no stay, leaving again the same afternoon for Poolfontein. This was formerly a farm, but is now a settlement of Barolongs, who migrated from the neighbourhood of Potchefstroom under their chief Matlabe, and are industrious agriculturists. Mr. Hansen was here working very hard on behalf of the Hermannsburg Mission, but the majority of the population were Wesleyans. A spring that I saw in the neighbourhood was issuing from one of the deep cavities in the hard limestone, and at no great distance from this I noticed a small rock-pool, on the surface of which was a little floating island of grass.
Hence to the Harts River, which we crossed about
