We were greatly astonished at the frogs which haunted the dry sandy desert, far from any springs or water. They were enormous fellows, as big as a sheep's haggis, and of a bright green; when we stirred them up with a ramrod, they snapped at it like a dog, following it round and round, and showing fight in the fiercest manner.
Chameleons were common, and some of the scenes among the men who stood amazed at their changes were very amusing. The variety and quantity of lizards was something incredible.
Immense green grasshoppers kept rising from the ground on the line of march, fluttering before us with brilliant scarlet wings, and as in the colony, the lights in our tents at night constantly attracted the strange looking 'mantis religiosa' or praying insect. It is an old story that the Hottentots once worshipped them, and our men used occasionally to chaff them on the point, offering them specimens for the purpose, which invariably put the Totties into a furious rage.
In peculiar states of the atmosphere, the mirage once or twice made our thirsty mouths water in the broiling afternoon, by its tantalizing illusion of large lakes looming in the distance.
Late in the day two distant specks, like a couple of little boats out at sea, were observed approaching the column, and soon proved to be Tolcher, the missing officer, and a Boer, who had fallen in with him near Smithfield, the place we had left three days ago! One night he had passed on the open plain, and had been thirty hours without food or water when he fortunately met the Dutchman, who took him to his farm for the night, and brought him on after us the next day. As always happens in such cases, now that he was safe back, everybody who had before deeply deplored his fate, heartily abused him for his stupidity in losing himself.
We had now fairly entered Moshesh's country, and no more firing was allowed, lest he might construe it into an act of hostility. About nine in the morning we halted at the deserted remains of an old Basuto village, consisting of round huts thatched with dry grass, and stone cattle kraals, similar to the sheep pens on our mountains at home. The huts differ in several respects from those of the Kaffirs, being smaller, slightly pointed on the top, and entered by a sort of porch, the door so low as to compel one to enter on hands and knees. Nine miles further, we came to the Lieuw Rivier (Lion's River), and halted on the opposite bank, after wading waist deep through the narrow rushing stream. We found the banks on both sides so steep and awkward that before the waggons could be moved, the whole force of Sappers and Miners, and a fatigue party beside, had to cut the banks away with spades and picks, and even then, with double teams of oxen, and a legion of whips stretched across the river, all going at once, five hours did not bring over more than half the train, the rest remaining for the night, with a strong guard, on the other side.
Now that we could not shoot, the game became tantalizingly plentiful. The plain was scarcely ever without small herds or single animals. Our track was seldom more than the half-obliterated marks of some trader's waggon of the year before.
The supplies of dung for fuel were very materially interfered with by millions of black beetles, called 'dung rollers,' a kind of scarabæus, which swarmed day after day on every part of the plain. A fresh deposit was instantaneously attacked by these untiring scavengers, who were incessantly at work, rolling the dung into large balls, bustling about, and running breech foremost, with their load between their hind legs, as fast as they could go, apparently to nowhere in particular, and fighting most fiercely with each other for pieces of "fuel" twice as big as themselves, the vanquished one going off in a great hurry to get another ball to roll, none seeming to know his own.
During the day we passed several small deserted villages; the evening closed in with one of the thunderstorms of the country, as terrific as any we had witnessed.
On the 13th, after some hours' marching, we descried a column of smoke in the extreme distance, rising from the foot of an isolated table-topped mountain on our right. It was said to be the celebrated Thaba Bassou, or Bossigo, the stronghold of the Basuto Chief, Moshesh, supposed by them to be impregnable. It is accessible only at one or two points; very strong and defensible. The Chief's residence was distinctly seen on its summit. Some miles further on we came to the Wesleyan Missionary station of Platberg, a little cluster of three traders' houses, a chapel, and eight roofless dwellings, formerly occupied by the Bastaards, under Carolus Batjee, who, for having sided with the Government, was driven hence, with his people, by Moshesh, from whom they held the land. The Missionary and two English traders had been suffered to remain. After having accomplished a march of one hundred and one miles in six days, (from the Caledon River,) we encamped on a fine green plain immediately in front of the little station, which stood, with its orchards of peach trees, at the foot of a long flat-topped hill.