HONEY BEER. 105 



copper-mines near Jonker's place, — where they knew there was abundance 

 of food, and a prospect of trade with the Hottentots. Accordingly, I packed 

 up my things and started, on December 6th, for Otjimbengue ; a thousand 

 Damaras met me on the road, and their moro ! moro ! (good morning) was 

 always accompanied with tutu lako (give me tobacco). 



' ' The country eastward was green and flourishing, the valley of the Kaan 

 teeming with guinea-fowl, of which I shot a great number. I reached Rim- 

 hoogte on the evening of the 8th, and, with some delays consequent on the 

 necessity of waiting for my cattle to come up, arrived a few days later at my 

 destination. I found the houses at the mines in a terribly tumble-down con- 

 dition. But as Mr. Andersson, who had a claim to the buildings, had given 

 me permission to occupy any of them if I felt disposed to run the risk of 

 doing so, I set to work at renovating the best of them, and made a garden 

 while waiting the arrival of Jan Jonker, to whom I had notified my presence 

 there On the 17th, I received a visit from the chief, who was accompanied 

 by his uncle, old Jan Jonker, with an interpreter and one or two attendants. 

 Jan Jonker himself looked very much improved since I had last seen him : 

 he was smartly dressed, had grown stouter and more manly in figure, and 

 exhibited, in the questions he put to me, a degree of shrewdness and general 

 intelligence which I little expected to find in the debauched youth of bygone 

 years He evidently sought to extract from me all the information at my 

 disposal ; and I could not but admire the assumed air of indifference with 

 which he asked the most important questions. We had much conversation on the 

 disturbed state of the country, and the disputed points between the Damara 

 and Hottentot nations. He denied the alleged grievances of the former people, 

 and resented warmly the interference of English traders in native affairs. 



" Jan Jonker and his party left me next morning, the chief promising 

 that he would send to warn the Topnaars not to molest my property, intima- 

 ting at the same time that they were not his subjects, but a perfectly inde- 

 pendent people, over whom he had no direct control. I wished to give him a 

 letter, to be forwarded to Amraal's to meet my brother, who is expected from 

 the lake ; but he declines taking charge of it, there being at present no com- 

 munication with that tribe, owing to the small-pox, which, he says, is making 

 dreadful ravages. 



" Having now made all the arrangements I thought necessary to ensure 

 the safety of my people , whom I left in charge of my servant, James Har- 

 rison, I left, on the 19th, for the Bay, in order to meet my wife, who was 

 determined in future to be my travelling companion. Passing a day at 

 Mr. Bessingthwaite's house (where a pot of honey-beer, or methlegen, the 

 favourite beverage of the Hottentots, was hospitably brewed in my honour) 

 on the way, and descending by Rimhoogte into the valley of the Kann river, 

 I reached Otjimbengue in time to spend the Christmas there. 

 P 



