204 
LION STATION. — HOTTENTOTS ABSENT. 15, 16 May, 
US that, by keeping on in that direction, we should not reach the 
river that night ; an opinion which I had just expressed to my men. 
We were therefore thankful for the information, and turned our steps 
to the west. 
Continuing to travel for above five hours and a half longer, 
during the greater part of which we followed a path made by 
quakkas passing from their grazing ground to the water, we did not 
arrive at the river till the dusk of evening. This spot is distin- 
guished as Lion Station. 
The two Bushmen of Poverty Kraal soon left us ; but it was for 
the purpose of going home to inform their friends of my re- 
turn : and soon after we had unloaded our oxen and made our 
fires, their whole kraal arrived at our station, and remained with us 
till the next day. I now made them all a larger present of tobacco, 
which failed not to gladden their hearts and give them for the 
evening, as much happiness and content as the simplicity of their 
minds renders this race capable of enjoying. 
As for myself, I could not feel so much at ease ; as I became, 
during the night, every hour more anxious for the safety of the six 
Hottentots to whom I had given permission to set out to hunt in 
advance. I expected that they would have fallen in with our track, 
and have thus been guided to our station ; or that, if, which was 
more probable, they had reached the river before us, our fires would 
have been a beacon which might have readily conducted them home: 
or had they shot any game, one of the party would have been sent to 
us for pack-oxen. But the chief cause of my uneasiness arose 
from a supposition that they might, in the dark, have fallen in with 
lions ; animals much more to be dreaded at that hour than by day ; 
and of which it may with equal propriety be said, that, like the owls, 
• they are destined by nature to live and prey only at night. 
Although much in want of food, we were unwilling to kill a 
sheep, until the result of the hunting was known. Thus the time 
passed in waiting ; till we at last lay down supperless to sleep : 
while our Bushman friends, seeing that we ate nothing ourselves, 
were content to fast also. 
