268 HEAK OF THE KUBABEES HOTTENTOTS, [chap. ix. 



hard up for food ; eacli man came on Hs ride-ox, and 

 carried nothing with him. 



On the 28th we arrived at the furthest place the 

 Namaquas had explored to. We saw about a dozen 

 fresh spoors of elephants, and a few of rhinoceroses. 

 I tried all I could to make the people encamp out of 

 ear-shot of the water but they would not. No elephants 

 came that night, but a rhinoceros, a lion, a hyena, 

 and a gnu were " bagged." The Damaras were only 

 allowed the carrion, as Amiral's suite of forty men all 

 had to be fed : these poor people were in a sad state ; 

 they searched for pieces of old rliinoceros hide, the sldn 

 of animals that had been slaughtered here before, and 

 which had dried in the sun before wild beasts had 

 had time to devour it. This cooked in the fire and 

 beaten with stones to make it soft enough to chew is 

 not at all bad, and I have often eaten it; but there 

 was not enough of it to feed the whole crew of 

 Damaras, neither were there pignuts here for them to 

 crow, and they were, consequently, in great distress. 



Several Bushmen came to us here, of the tribe that 

 lived at 'Tounobis ; the Namaquas can hardly under- 

 stand them ; they laugh excessively at the odd double 

 way in which they pronounce their clicks. One man, 

 the son of the chief whose name means " Buffalo," was 

 much the most intelligible, and I engaged him at once 

 as guide. He told us all about the Kubabees 

 Hottentots, how they came, and where they went, 

 whom they kiUed, and whom they robbed, and gave us 

 every particular. All the Bushmen were well acquainted 

 with the great waters to the north-east (the lake 



