72 DISLIKE TO MISSIONS. [chap. hi. 



always protected their persons and property, and had 

 often stood their friend against the other Hottentots. 

 Even the Damara missionaries were greatly indebted 

 to him for the security they enjoyed; for the beUef was, 

 that any harm done to them would he instantly 

 retahated by the much-dreaded horsemen of the 

 Hottentots. But Jonker liked to have his own way, 

 and soon became heartUy tired of advice and admo- 

 nition ; and more lately his plundering disposition and 

 that of the Hottentots had become so thoroughly 

 roused, that the rebuking presence of the missionaries 

 was felt to be extremely irksome and galling, and he 

 constantly expressed his determination to rid himself 

 of them. Stni they entertained no personal cause for 

 alarm, but the attack on Schmelen's Hope had placed 

 the matter on a different footing, and their position 

 was become avowedly very perilous. 



The Damaras, from their suspicious nature, always 

 believed the missionaries and other white people to be 

 merely a species of Hottentot, and acting as spies to 

 Jonker. They argue thus, — " You come and go 

 without harm, passing through their country; you 

 must therefore be as one of their people ;" and now 

 that the Damaras had been killed all round Mr. Kolbe, 

 and he himself not murdered, tjiey firmly believed that 

 he went there merely as a decoy to bring Kahikene 

 within Jonker's reach. There was nothing revolting 

 in such a line of conduct in the Damara mind, for they 

 seem to have no perceptible notion of right and wrong, 

 but it was considered to be a simple fact, and as such 

 they acted upon it, by entirely guttiag the Schmelen's 



