at which every man must stop, and having done his utmost, he can do no more. Several of my draught oxen had died, and many of those that remained were in a sickly condition; I had travelled 197 hours from the Keiskamma, and I had to return to it; I therefore rode back to my waggons.

From the place where my waggons had halted I proceeded twelve hours on horseback, and at night joined them at the river Bogasie, in which we found some oysters, and caught some delicious fish. On the evening of the fourth day my sentinels gave the alarm of being watched by the natives, and to shew their bravery they fired their pieces in the air. That same day more than two hundred of the natives had been with us, bartering gold and silver for beads and copper; and I should have laughed at the fears of my brave defenders, if I had not been exasperated at their firing.

On the ninth day we re-passed the Great and Little Mogasie rivers, and came to the village of the three white women. I repeated my offer of taking them and their families with me to the Cape. They appeared extremely desirous to live among Christians, but unwilling to abandon their growing crops; they therefore begged me to wait till after the harvest, when they, with their descendants, to the amount of four hundred, would be ready to attend me. It was not convenient for me to wait the ripening and gathering in of the grain; so I left the three old women to prepare for another harvest, and their descendants to become, in time, Hambonas.

On the eleventh day, my people caught a young

elephant, and tied it to one of the waggons; but they were soon obliged to give the animal its liberty; as its cries brought about us such a number of elephants, that we were afraid of being trodden to death. A very large herd passed by us in the night.

Hitherto we had shot elephants, and my Hottentots had fed upon them, with impunity. On the fourteenth day of our return, a large male elephant came up to the waggons. He was instantly pursued and attacked, and after he had received several shots, and had twice fallen, he crept into a very thick underwood. Thinking he was past resistance, three of my hunters followed him on horseback to the edge of the thicket; when he rushed out furiously, and seizing one of them with his trunk, he dragged him from his horse, trampled him to death, and driving one of his tusks through the body, threw it into the air, to the distance of thirty feet. The other two men, perceiving it was in vain to fly, dismounted, and hid themselves in the thicket.

The elephant having nothing now in view but the horse whose rider he had killed, followed him for some time; but coming to the spot where the dead body lay, he stopped and looked at it. At that instant we all renewed the attack, and after the animal had received several more shots, he again took refuge in the thicket.

We began to dig a grave for the unfortunate hunter, when the elephant again rushed out, drove us all, and placing himself near the object of his victory, claimed it as his own. We now made a third attack upon him; and having received several more bullets, he staggered, fell, and

my Hottentots dispatched him as he lay upon the ground. The rage of this animal is indescribable. Those among my people who were accustomed to elephant hunting declared, that it was the fleetest and most furious they had ever beheld.

On the seventeenth day we arrived, not without great difficulty, at the river Bosjie; the oxen being so reduced in numbers and strength, that I was obliged to harness my horses to the waggons. We passed this river in a boat that had been carried in one of the waggons.

My oxen were now continually failing and dying; I therefore dispatched a messenger to Joobie, the Tambookie chief, to endeavour to purchase a supply. The following day the man returned with three, which, though totally unaccustomed to the yoke, we were obliged to harness immediately. From hence we proceeded by a different road from that we had travelled before. It was about nine miles farther from the sea, shorter, much more even, and in every respect better; and after a journey of eight hours, we crossed the river Nabagana.

On the twenty-fifth day we proceeded only three hours, though we had thrown away a great part of our baggage; and finding my oxen still incapable of drawing the waggons, I dispatched two Hottentots on horseback, with orders to make all possible. speed to the Bosjesmans' river, and procure a number of fresh ones from the Dutch farmers. We remained here two days, shooting and eating eelands and hippopotami; and on the third we proceeded slowly on our journey, and passed the Kamsitkay, or White river.

On one of the days of halting, I sent out three

of my best hunters before dawn, and they did not return till evening. A Hottentot never delivers the whole of his information at once. If any thing remarkable have happened, he will avoid mentioning it for some days; when he does speak of it, it is indirectly, and often so late that the only effect it can produce is vexation that it has not been told in time. I asked my hunters several times if they had shot any thing. At length they answered, "To be sure game is very scarce in this country." By pursuing my enquiries, I learned by degrees, that they had shot two rhinoceroses, and that they had each been killed with a single shot. The hide of these animals was about half an inch thick.

One of my Hottentots, who had been ordered to join me the next morning at the body of a rhinoceros, chose rather to stay by that of an eeland, and he arrived a few hours too late. For this act of disobedience he might have expected reproof; yet he made his appearance quite unconcerned, holding some pieces of honey-comb in his hand. "The honing wyzer" (honey-guide), said he, "enticed me quite away from the place where the rhinoceros lay, to the place where the honey lay; but I have brought you a great deal of honey to besmear your mouth with." I must own that the honey sweetened not only my mouth, but the words that proceeded from it.

On the thirty-third day we crossed the Caffer mountain, and entered the country of Sambee. Here I had the satisfaction of meeting my Hottentots, with a sufficient number of draught-oxen; and the next day we re-passed the Keiskamma.

In going from the Keiskamma I passed forty

VOL. II.

two days in travelling, and six in repose; in returning, I passed twenty-five days in travelling, and ten in repose. The time spent in actual travelling in going, was 197 hours; that in returning was 174. The medium of this is 186, and perhaps, if the difficulty of the way be considered, not more than two miles can be allowed for the hour, which would make the distance from the Keiskamma 372 miles, and from the Cape about 1050.

CHAPTER VII.

HOTTENTOTS.

SOON after I had passed the Great Fish river on my return to the Cape, I received a visit that induces me to go back to the Hottentots. And here I cannot help noticing the pains taken by one traveller to invalidate the testimony of another. It is my opinion that travellers speak only truth, either as it really is, or as it appears to them; but as man is liable to misinformation and misconception, his falling into error is unavoidable.'

One circumstance I think has not been sufficiently attended to in the case of the Hottentots, who are rapidly sinking under the yoke of a set of tyrants; I mean the variations produced by time. Thus it has been said that the Hottentots wore the intestines of animals, and that when they became putrid they ate them. This was afterwards contradicted by a traveller, who affirmed that the Hottentots only wore rings of leather, and that