The Reawakening: Scientific Exploration "I'iii 



try to get to the north and start in a fortnight; we have got no distance as yet as I 

 had first to buy the oxen and then which is no joke to break them in. Fancy having 

 two heavy wagons on the one hand and fifty wild oxen on the other that toss and kick 

 and roll and are as vicious as young "thorobreds" it took time before we could make 

 them pull kindl}'. 



The plan is to drive the oxen together all in a heap, and then one man, who 

 must understand the work takes a long cord with a loop at one end and this he holds 

 twisted round a stick and two or three otiiers hold the loose end, then he creeps up 

 behind the ox that he wants and as the ox is shuiHing about he slips the noose round 

 his leg, and then such a confusion! The ox pulls frantically, runs at the men who 

 have hold of the rope and they hold on all the same, at last they pull him down 

 and catch tight hold (3 or -t of them) of his tail and turn him on his back and then 

 they tie all four legs together and leave him, so they treat as many as they want, 

 then they yoke them as they lie and let them loose. My horses and most of my 

 mules are dead so we hack oxen; my hunting saddle fits an ox's back excellently, but 

 it is not a sporting beast to put it on. I don't like the horns, an ox is a difficult 

 beast to have a firm seat on as their skin is so loose, they also kick and jump very 

 short so that a rider's seat is severely tried; if you fall the horns are much in the 

 way, especially as they usually butt at you as you fall, and kick afterwards. The 

 countiy here is in the wildest disorder, murdering and cattle robbing are of every day 

 occurrence ; T picked up a poor wretch with his neck cut down behind to the backbone, 

 and did what I could but he died. A set of lawless ruffians many of whose leaders 

 were born in the Cape Colony do all this; they destroyed a missionary station 9 miles 

 from here a few days since. I have been making all use I could of the instructions 

 Sir Harry Smith gave me to stop this, but with no avail. Immediately after I wrote 

 to these men (the Naraaquas) they set out, attacked twenty-five different villages took 

 very many of the women and children as slaves and all the cattle, which last can 

 hardly be reckoned at less than 18 thousand in number. The scoundrels too cut oflf 

 the hands and feet of any of them that they catch in order to get ofl' the iron 

 bracelets that they wear and which otherwise would take them 4 minutes to do. 

 I have seen two wretched women who crawled here for refuge thus mutilated, they 

 told me that they stopped the blood by poking the limb in the sand. All the natives 

 here believe every white face to be their enemy, and very naturall}' too, I shall have to 

 force my way through them in a fortnight as I best can. We should make a fair 

 resistance to a verj' large body of natives and to a good-sized force of Namaquas ; 

 so that if they don't steal our cattle and leave us a wreck on the plain we shall do. 

 14 days journey North will carry us through all this and to a much better country 

 bordering on the Portuguese where the blacks garden and have kings; here the chiefs 

 have no power, there is no union among the people, but each does what he likes. 

 You can kill any man you like (not a chief) if you pay 6 oxen to his heirs and poor 

 men are much cheaper. Is it not horrible % My men I had much trouble with at 

 first, they did not like hard work and a hot sun; they thieved and were almost 

 mutinous. At last two cases occurred that called for strong measures, open theft and 

 an attempt to stab, the men were flogged about as severely as they could be and with 

 the very best eflTect. I think one and all of them would now go with me almost 



P. o. 29 



 



