to trek in separate groups a few days apart, complete disorder prevailed when the first trekkers left Letloche on the morning of 7 May 1877 and the rest of the trek party followed them as one group. In the total absence of leadership there were no order and discipline and the stage was set for the disaster that followed. During the next seven to ten days water spots such as Tlhabala, Inkowane and Lethlakane were the setting for shocking scenes: From the third day on these banks the terrified bellows of the cows and screams of other animals were indescribable. In their distress, some of the oxen stormed ahead and trampled a few watering holes to mush. Thereafter they completely lost control and ran off. Most were never found again or eventually died of thirst. The suffering of the trekkers was no less heart-breaking. At times water had to be rationed between them in spoons. Some were so desperate to take in any form of fluid to assuage their thirst that they slit the throats of sheep, goats or even dogs and drank their blood or intestinal fluids. Amazingly enough, none of the trekkers died of thirst, however malaria still caused deaths. In these dismal circumstances the leader of the trek, Commandant Louw du Plessis, took the blame for the disastrous trek and resigned. Third Trek After the Transvaal was annexed by Great Britain on 12 April 1877, a third group of trekkers, consisting of eight families of 40 people in addition to the “mak volk”, left that very same month, departing from the district of Rustenburg. When the trekkers of the first two groups reached the Meers River, they remained there for two and a half months to recover from their disastrous journey and to take back the abandoned wagons to the Meers River. Since they only had 326 oxen left (about 20 teams) to pull roughly a hundred wagons, their progress was laborious. Ever so slowly they trekked further along the Meers River. At Sebetwane’s Drift they established that 37 people had already died at that stage of the trek. But the worst was yet to come. Regulations for the trek were drawn up and a new leadership body was elected, with Jan Greyling as commandant. Meanwhile, help had arrived at Rietfontein in the form of some 184 draught oxen from the first trekker party and this speeded