218 RETURN OF THE HORSES. — VISIT FROM KAABI. 22, 23 May, 
people, and I was therefore the more struck with this proof of the 
man's superior degree of civihzation, and felt the more gratified by his 
consideration of the fatigues and privations which he knew I must have 
suffered. But as the passing but a single night in a warm house 
might occasion me afterwards to take cold, I preferred sleeping in 
the open air, to which I was now more accustomed. When he found 
this to be my determination, he sent a jug of milk, as the most 
acceptable present which it was in his power to offer. How superior, 
in the common feelings of human nature, must this man have been, 
to the inhabitants of the first farm-house at which we arrived, on 
our entrance into the Colony. 
Fortuyn informed me that Captain Berends and a large party 
with several waggons, had departed but the day before, on a journey 
farther into the Interior, for the purpose of hunting elephants : and, 
that the horses from the Roggeveld, which, as mentioned in the 
former volume, had been sent there to avoid the paardeziekte, had 
returned in the preceding week ; and by this opportunity, the mis- 
sionaries had received several packets of letters from the Cape. The 
latter part of this intelligence, it may be supposed, was most inte- 
resting to me, as I hoped that among these letters there might be 
some for myself. 
At another piece of information I was much more surprised : 
that Kaabi and the old Bushman Gryskop, had been to Klaarwater to 
fetch the two pack-oxen, supposing that we had already arrived 
there. They, however, did not think it worth their while to wait 
for our coming ; but on finding us not there, they immediately re- 
turned home. Although this report was found to be correct, I could 
not at first believe them to have been the same Bushmen, because 
Kaabi was seen by three of my men, at his own kraal on the 16th ; 
and this account having reached the Kloof yesterday and having been 
two days coming from Klaarwater, three days only were left for them 
to perform the journey, including the crossing of the river ; which 
proves them to have travelled at the rate of at least forty miles each 
day. 
A serious calamity, according to Hottentot estimation, had be- 
