I had also fastened on the saddle a letter to my Dutch foreman, bidding him send a native with a spare horse to fetch me by the evening.

Then I started off to look for a chimney.
A boyhood spent on the cliffs at Kirkcaple had made me a bold cragsman, and the porphyry of the Rooirand clearly gave excellent holds.

But I walked many weary miles along the cliff-foot before I found a feasible road.

To begin with, it was no light task to fight one's way through the dense undergrowth of the lower slopes.

Every kind of thorn-bush lay in wait for my skin, creepers tripped me up, high trees shut out the light, and I was in constant fear lest a black mamba might appear out of the tangle.