SOUTH-WEST AFRICA 135 



well. Now the sore was of a chronic kind, very 

 familiar to me when at the Birmingham Hospital. 

 There was an outgrowth of what patients like to 

 call " proud flesh," upon which a slight cautery often 

 acts like a charm. It stimulates the vitality of the 

 part and causes it to act normally. It did so in this 

 case. I rubbed the sore lightly over with nitrate of 

 silver, which hurt at the time, but eventually gave 

 him the first good night's rest he had enjoyed for 

 months. Thenceforward his finger rapidly improved 

 and healed, and he felt and looked himself again. 



I bought all his live stock of fifty oxen and one 

 hundred sheep and goats at a single swoop, by a 

 cheque on Cape Town for ji. Hans himself 

 became a most valuable and efficient servant and 

 friend. In brief, he and Andersson went down to the 

 coast with the new oxen, to break them in and 

 to bring up the wagons, while I remained partly at 

 the Mission Station No. 2, and afterwards at No. 3, 

 where Mr. Hugo Hahn, a very accomplished man, 

 who had married an English wife, was the resident 

 missionary. 



Mr. Hahn possessed all the extant knowledge 

 about the Damaras, and was greatly interested in 

 my proposed expedition. Information about the 

 wretched state of the country was gradually obtained. 

 It came to this, that the four tribes of Namaquas 

 under Jonker, Cornelius, Amiral, and Swartboy 

 respectively, well provided with horses and guns, had 

 made many successive raids upon the Damaras, 

 lifting cattle and selling them. They usually sent 

 the stolen animals overland to the Cape. Some- 

 times when opportunity occurred they sold them 



