130 COMMISSARIAT. [chap. v. 



The grown-up ladies were the wives of Kambanya, 

 " Rhinoster," and okl Kahoni. There were numbers 

 of occasions on wliich I should have turned old 

 Kahoni away, if he had not been possessed of a little 

 daughter, the nicest, merriest, and slimmest of 

 Damara girls, about eight or nine years old. She 

 won my heart, and I was obKged to tolerate the rest 

 of the family that I might retain her. Besides these 

 twelve I have mentioned, there were two or three 

 others, hangers-on, whom I have forgotten, and per- 

 haps never knew, and the women had three babies, so 

 my party may be considered as about ten Europeans 

 and eighteen natives, or twenty-eight in all. 



As regards commissariat, my biscuit and every 

 kind of vegetable food was eaten up. I had much too 

 great a weight to carry to be enabled to lade the 

 waggons with provisions also. I had plenty of tea, 

 coflfee, and a very little sugar ; there were some few 

 trifles besides. The oxen and sheep we drove with us 

 were to be our sustenance, and they alone, excepting 

 now and then a chance head of game. If these oxen 

 strayed by night, and were lost, we should be little 

 better than the crew of a ship in the broad Pacific, 

 who had broached their last cask. The charge of 

 these quadrupeds was now to be my anxiety and care, 

 day and night, for a loose ox in Damara land is as 

 quickly appropriated as a dropped sovereign in the 

 streets of London. 



In estimating cattle as so many days' provision, the 

 calculation I acted on was as follows. A sheep gives 

 twenty meals, no bread or other vegetables being 



