136 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



to traders at Walfish Bay. The Damaras were not 

 only perpetually fighting among themselves, but also 

 provoking retaliation from the Namaquas, which the 

 latter only too gladly indulged in. Lastly, the 

 Namaquas, who in the first instance welcomed mis- 

 sionaries, were now opposed to them and to every 

 outside influence or criticism, and determined to do 

 just what they liked both to one another and to the 

 Damaras. More especially they had recently deter- 

 mined that no white man should pass through their 

 country to the interior. They were, in short, 

 behaving in a similar, but still more marked spirit 

 of exclusion to that of the Boers. 



The attack under Jonker on the Mission Station 

 No. 3 on the map was their latest iniquity. They 

 behaved like demons. Among other things they cut 

 off the feet of the women to get their ankle rings, as 

 related in Chapter III. Unless these misdoings could 

 be stopped, my journey would soon come to an end. 

 The Damaras believed that I and my party were 

 merely Hottentots in disguise, and acting as spies. 

 To make a long story short, I took Hans and two 

 intelligent men and rode on ox-back to Jonker himself, 

 and rated him soundly, in English first, to relieve my 

 mind, and then in Dutch through my interpreters, 

 brandishing my paper with the big seal, and 

 thoroughly frightened him. Arrangements, which I 

 cannot go into now, were made for a meeting between 

 myself and the other Namaqua chiefs, and ultimately 

 a modus vivendi was secured, which lasted all the time 

 I was in the country and for a while afterwards. 



These negotiations occupied fully three months, 

 during which every nerve was strained to get the 



