_They_ had heard that some Boers reached the banks of the Crocodile moons ago--how many they could not tell.

But that country, they said, was under the rule of a chief who was hostile to them, and killed any of their people who ventured thither.

Therefore they knew nothing for certain.

Still, one of them stated that a woman whom he had bought as a slave, and who had passed through the district in question a few weeks before, told him that someone had told her that these Boers were all dead of sickness.

She added that she had seen their wagon caps from a distance, so, if they were dead, "their wagons were still alive." I asked to see this woman, but the native refused to produce her.