1812. 
A MESSENGER FROM THE FIELDCORNET. 
127 
Zeekoe river, are no longer, unless accidentally, to be found there; but 
have all retreated to the Black River or Nugariep, where they may, 
for the present at least, live more undisturbed. 
Van der Merwe had learnt from the observations of many years, 
that at this place, a southeasterly wind, such as we had at this time, 
almost always brings with it rain. In the winter, long icicles hang 
from the thatch of his cottage, and the water is covered with a thick 
ice. At that season the cattle, he asserted, would perish with cold, 
if they were not all removed to a warmer farm, or leg-plaats. 
22nd. The air was exceedingly cold, and a misty rain continued 
to fall during the whole of the day. I became every hour more 
anxious to reach GraafFreynet, and therefore, as there was little 
prospect of gaining better weatlier by waiting till the afternoon, I 
determined to depart ; not more, for the purpose of getting forward 
on our journey, than of descending from this cold region, into some 
warmer tract. 
Just as I was on the point of mounting my horse, a man arrived 
from a neighbouring veldcornet who had received intelligence of a 
party of strange armed men having entered the Colony. This man 
had orders to discover, who we were, and what were our intentions. 
I briefly informed him, that we had none but peaceable intentions, 
and that I was on my way to the landdrost. This messenger, who by 
his manners and tone of voice, seemed to think that he was now 
employed on a very serious affair, preferred the information of Van der 
Merwe on the subject, to the suspicious stranger's own account of 
himself After a few minutes' questioning, he rode off, well satisfied 
that the business turned out no worse : for it appeared that some 
alarm had been excited by the fact of people having come into 
the Colony, in a quarter where no arrival of the kind had ever been 
known before. 
At taking leave. Van der Merwe gave us a warm invitation to 
make his house a resting-place on our way back. A near prospect of 
the termination of our present journey, put all my Hottentots in good 
spirits, and enabled them to set out without feeling disheartened at 
the weather which they saw we should have to encounter. 
