146 EXPEDITION INTO [Chap. XVII. 



of propert}', and reminded him of our wish to leaAe 

 the following day, I left him to his domestic en- 

 joyments. 



In the evening Truey brought to the waggons a 

 dish of stewed beef from the king. Despite of our 

 assertions to the contrary, he could not help sus- 

 pecting that we still had beads in our possession, and 

 thought that the attractive Griqua maid might find 

 means of inducing us to part with some more before 

 we departed. The poor girl shed tears when she 

 heard spoken the language of her tribe, and begged 

 us to convey to her father, should we see him, the 

 intelligence of her safety and that of her cousin 

 Wilhelm, who had been sent to a distant kraal, the 

 day before our arrival, in charge of a waggon con- 

 taining two Dutch girls, prisoners of war, of whose 

 presence the king was anxious that we should, if 

 possible, be kept in ignorance. She had herself re- 

 sided for some time at the kraal in question with the 

 king, who is in the habit of passing several months 

 of the year there with one hundred of his wives, all 

 of whom are decorated with bead dresses of the na- 

 ture I have described. Every female, married or 

 single, is at his command; his subjects not having 

 it in their power to call even their wives their own. 

 The king alone is rich — his subjects are all equally 

 poor, and can be said to possess nothing in the shape 

 of property beyond the skins with which nature has 

 clothed them, — 



" And that small mudel of the barren earth 

 Which serves as paste and cover to their bones." 



