MARCH.] JOURNEY TO BETHELSDORP. 
85 
I believe, thought they were bound to give him a 
second drubbing. They rushed upon him from all 
directions, but his treating pretty roughly two or three 
of his first assailants, made him respected by the 
other dogs, when they received him back to their 
society as a friend, and he seemed to indicate that he 
was happy at having got over this affair. When this 
business was finished, a curious frolic was exhibited by 
another Hottentot, who appeared somewhat of an 
eccentric character. By sounds and signs he got all 
the dogs to surround him, and appear as if worrying 
him to death. In consequence of the seeming wounds 
he had received from them, he gradually sunk down 
among them, when by the i^i^piber that stood around 
and upon him, he was completely out of sight ; after 
which he rose smihng, when the dogs went away as if 
satisfied they had performed their part well, seeing the 
man had sustained no injury. 
Near the liouse 1 counted twenty-nine aloes in 
flower ; some of the stalks measured thirty-eight feet in 
height, and two feet and a half in circumference at 
the bottom— a wonderful growth in one year 1 What 
a curiosity would these be esteemed in the vicinity of 
London, where it is believed they only come into 
flower once in a hundred 3^ears, at which imposition 
on London credulity the Africans laugh heartily. If 
an aloe produces seed when it sends up a flower, it 
dies that year ; if not, it lives and sends forth a flower 
again. The boor entertained us at dinner by re- 
lating the feats of tygers in the neighbouring hills. 
