CHAP. IX.] EXCESSIVE DROUGHT. '' 253 



en route to the bay, and Andersson, Tiniboo, John 

 Morta, Phlebus, and myself, travelling towards Lake 

 'Ngami. I took only five or six of the most active 

 Damaras with me, and appointed the neiglibourliood 

 of Jonker's werft as a place of rendezvous for both 

 parties at the beginning of November. 



The dryness of the covmtry was now really alarming ; 

 all the watering places that remained were crowded 

 with cattle, and every blade of grass within miles of 

 them was being eaten off. Over a great part of 

 Damara-land rain had not fallen more than ten times 

 during the whole rainy season ; and a mortality from 

 actual starvation had already begun among the cattle, 

 and the year will probably be remembered and named 

 by the Damaras as that of the great drought. 



It was therefore no easy matter for me to travel 

 about; but I had one advantage on my side, which 

 was, that on the road, when far away from watering 

 places and the grazing limits of the cattle by them, 

 I often found grass, and there I outspanned to sleep, 

 and let the oxen feed, then travelling on in the 

 morning I came to the next watering place at the 

 middle of the day, when the cattle of the natives were 

 all sent off to the fields, and the wells were disengaged. 

 I thus ensured an evening's meal to the oxen, and 

 also one in the early morning, if they chose to eat it, 

 and water in the middle of the day, but no more. 



On the road to Jonker we found hardly any grass, 

 and I do not know how I should have been able to 

 keep my cattle at his place, if it were not that a valley 

 was left unoccupied, owing to a superstitious feeling 



