196 DAMARA HELPMATES. [chap. vii. 



thing should he torn, or hags have to he made ; thej- 

 do not, however, travel quite so well as sheep. 



We encamped as usual at night, letting the oxen 

 graze ahout us, not dreaming of any accident, when a 

 Damara, who was going through the trees, luckily 

 came upon a hon, who was crouching at one of my 

 ride-oxen, almost within springing distance. The lion, 

 of course, decamped, as lions always do when they are 

 discovered at their wicked practices ; and w^e had the 

 satisfaction of hearing him roar hungrily throughout 

 the night. The cry of a lion as he walks ahout, when 

 he is baulked of sport, is plaintive, and not unmusical; 

 hut I never hear them utter it in the menageries in 

 England. It was quite a new sound to me when I 

 first listened to it; and I should never then have 

 guessed it had come from a lion unless I had been 

 told so. Another very peculiar cry is that of the 

 zebra ; at a distance it sounds more like the roo-coo- 

 cooing of a dove than anything else. "We cut bushes 

 and kraaled in the oxen during the dark ; and as I had 

 now only a small drove with me, and plenty of 

 Damaras, I came to a resolution to make a kraal every 

 night for the oxen, and so relieve myself of all anxiety 

 about them. I had found it such a luxury both at 

 Schmelen's Hope and Okamabuti,to have kraals to drive 

 the cattle safe into at nightfal, for, dismissing from our 

 minds aU care about them, we could then sleep undis- 

 turbed throughout the night. The men of my party 

 were, besides myself and Andersson, John Allen, John 

 St. Helena, and Timboo. I had five picked Damaras 

 with four wives. The women are very useful, for they 



