300 MISFORTUNES NEVER COME SINGLY. 



Schmidt and VoUmer, however, I was once more able to ap- 

 pear decently appareled. 



But I was soon destined to experience a greater calamity. 

 A few stages south of Rehoboth, which we left on the 22d 

 of April, en route to the Cape, and while camped on the 

 banks of the Hountop, I was attacked by intermittent fever, 

 which quickly carried me to the verge of the grave. My 

 sufferings and privations during this period were indeed se- 

 vere. Regularly every morning at eleven o'clock I was seized 

 with a violent shivering fit, which lasted three hours. Then 

 came the fever, of almost as long duration, accompanied by 

 racking headache and profuse perspiration. After this my 

 head was tolerably free from pain, but I was so completely 

 exhausted that to turn in my bed was a laborious effort. 

 The climate, moreover, at this season was very trying ; for, 

 while the days were moderately warm (the thermometer av- 

 eraging 65° at noon), the nights were piercingly cold and 

 frosty. At sunrise the ice was from an eighth part of an 

 inch to one inch thick. I became very sensitive to these 

 changes, inasmuch as during the greater part of the illness I 

 was compelled to sleep in the open air, having previously dis- 

 posed of our wagons to the natives. "What little medicine I 

 once possessed was consumed in the recent conflagration, and 

 the missionaries — owing to the fever having broken out most 

 alarmingly among themselves and the natives — were unable 

 to spare me any. To add to my misfortunes, no suitable food 

 was procurable. INIilk and meat were my only diet. The 

 latter I could not digest, and the former soon became insipid 

 to my taste. The men, it is true, had once the good fortune 

 to surprise an ostrich in its nest, but the eggs were too rich 

 and heavy for my weak stomach. 



Up to this period my busy and roving life had left me but 

 little time for serious reflection. Now, however, that the 

 cares of the world no longer occupied my thoughts, I felt the 

 full force of my lonely situation. During the long and sleep- 



