CHAP, iir.] EN EOUTE. 63 



had become torn to rags by the thorns, and I intended 

 on the first opportunity to get a caross instead of it. 

 Sheepsldns and carosses are no incumbrance in 

 travelling with pack oxen, for they are carefully placed 

 under the saddle-bags, and their use in keeping the 

 animal's back from being galled is more than compen- 

 sation for their weight. I listened with much interest 

 to Hans' tales and anecdotes. He had been the most 

 successful sportsman in the country, and had lived 

 the last two or three years in sole charge of an 

 immense drove of oxen, once amounting to 700, with 

 only one or two native lads to help him in the care of 

 them. He had shot a great many lions out of the 

 Swakop, six in the preceding year, and made it a much 

 safer place than it used to be, to drive cattle in. From 

 his account, that river bed must have swarmed witli 

 game, when it was first seen by Europeans, but I can 

 easily fancy, from the confined character of the 

 country, how in a short time one or two guns would 

 entirely exterminate them. 



In the morning our remaining sheep could not be 

 driven ; he was too scared, and as time was much more 

 precious than mutton, we killed him, took out his 

 inside, and strapped him across one of the oxen with 

 hai'dly any delay. I was well mounted on an old ox, 

 and really liked his walking pace very much. I tliirdi 

 I can sit more hom's on oxback than on horseback, 

 supposing in both cases the animals to walk. An ox's 

 jog-trot is not very endurable, but anything faster 

 abominable. The peculiarity of the creature is, that 

 he will not go alone, from his disposition being so very 



