312 WHALES, SHARKS, AND OSTRICHES. [chap. x. 



a bit tired, but highly excited. The vessels were 

 whalers ; all the Scheppmansdorf party were on the 

 beach, and seeing and talking to so many j^eople 

 seemed quite another world to me, after my long 

 and almost solitary ramble. These whalers were the 

 very first vessels, excepting one, which had touched 

 at the Bay since my arrival in the country. I 

 now put the store -house into habitable order, and 

 settled down, awaiting the arrival of the ship I 

 expected, which was to bring me all my letters, my 

 clothes, and everything that I had left behind me at 

 Cape Town. 



Days passed, the cold was bitter, and I passed most 

 of the daytime rolled up in my caross. The wind 

 whistled through every cranny, and though the sun 

 was vertical at noon, yet its rays never seemed to 

 touch us. I employed myself fishing with a seine- 

 net, doing a little whale fishery in the bay, and in 

 trying to harpoon small sharks out of my mackintosh 

 IDontoon ; one gave me a capsize. I shot and captured 

 one, and slew but lost tlu-ee others ; at least, though 

 habitues of the place, they never reajjpeared. I rode 

 one day with Andersson to Scheppmansdorf, when 

 we saw a brood of young ostriches, each about a foot 

 high, with their parents, and gave chase. The 

 creatures could run very nearly as fast as we, and had 

 quite as good a wind, so, having a long start, they 

 gave us a severe chase before we came up to them, 

 when we slew six. Returning from Scheppmansdorf 

 I drove the three miles in a cart that Mr. Bam had 

 made himself, and as we were cantering over the plain 



J 



