CHAP. I.] NECESSARY OUTFIT. 9 



assistance on their part, and my friends insisted on the 

 great advantage that I should have, if the first stage of 

 my joui'ney was made in company with persons who 

 had experience of the country and acquaintance with 

 the language. Moreover, a novice had just arrived 

 from Germany, and was waiting for the earliest oppor- 

 tunity of being shipped off to join his future fellow 

 labourers. So far matters seemed promising enough ; 

 but one point was certain, that everything I might 

 want must be taken from Cape Town, as nothing 

 whatever but oxen could be bought where the Mission- 

 aries were. 



Servants, waggons, and things of every kind, I must 

 take with me, for the sliip would land me on the desert 

 sand — four tedious months' journey from Cape Town ; 

 and when she sailed away all communication thence 

 would, for at least a year, be at an end. Now if I 

 had been going to travel in any of the usual ways, as 

 with pack-horses, mules, camels, boats, and so forth, 

 and with people I knew something about, I should not 

 have had the least anxiety ; but oxen were creatures I 

 had no experience vdth, or of Cape half-castes either. 

 Cape Town is proverbially the worst place in the 

 Colony to get waggon drivers and leaders from, and 

 I did not much fancy the undertaking; but still go 

 somewhere I must, and I could think of no other 

 alternative but Walfisch Bay. I therefore consoled 

 myself with the idea that, if the whole affair broke 

 down at the very first, Andersson and I would still find 

 protection from the Missionaries, and that if on the 

 other hand we could push on at all, we could probably 



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