1812. 
FIRE-SIDE CONVERSATIONS AT MIDNIGHT. 
279 
night to discover if my sentinels did their duty ; and employed 
myself in the meantime, in affixing labels to the botanical specimens 
hitherto collected, and in registering them in my Catalogue. 
At about an hour after midnight, when it was Juli's and Keyser's 
turn to be on guard, I left my waggon, and took my seat by the fire, 
as the air was then exceedingly cold. The rest of the people lay 
fast asleep, some on the ground by the fire, some close under the 
asparagus-bush, and others either beneath, or within, the baggage- 
waggon. Those who lay round the fire, always took off their shoes and 
uncovered their feet, which they placed as near as possible to the 
embers; a reasonable mode of keeping their bodies generally warm, as 
the feet, when sleeping in the open air in cold weather, become chilled 
much sooner than any other part of the body. It seemed almost incre- 
dible that Muchunka could sleep at all ; exposed, nearly naked, to the 
freezing inclemency of the night, and having no other covering or 
clothing, than a short leathern kaross scarcely the length of his body. 
It was, however, a proof that the human frame may, by custom, 
become inured to every inconvenience; as it may by the same means, 
be pampered till at length it can bear none. The dogs were all 
quietly dozing, and the oxen lying at their ease ; circumstances which 
gave us a confidence that neither wild beasts, nor wild men, were 
lurking near us. Juli and his companion being both GraafFreynet 
people, were amusing themselves by talking over the affairs of that 
part of the colony. 
I joined their party without interrupting their conversation, and 
was much surprised, as well as pleased, at finding that Juli had lent 
so little ear to the alarming tales we had heard, or had given so little 
credit to those who told them, that he viewed the spot at which we were 
now stationed, as a place so far from being dangerous to live in, that 
he seriously communicated to me a plan which the pleasant appearance 
of the country had induced him to form, of returning to Kosi Foun- 
tain after the termination of our journey, and of bringing all his cattle, 
which he reckoned at nearly forty in sheep and oxen, and fixing his 
residence here, in preference to living any longer among the Boors. 
As I viewed the poor fellow's plan merely as one of those foolisli 
