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420 NAMACQUA LAND. [1813. 
We found it would be no easy matter to get away 
from Pella before the rainy season in January, as a 
wide desert lies between it and the colony. The 
missionaries were acquainted with three ways. In 
the east way, there is no water for three long days 
journey — in the middle way, no water for three days 
journey, and at that season even the fountain or pool 
would be dry — the west way is down the Great River 
for several days journey, most of the road being stony 
and rocky, and much exposed to wild Bushmen ; after 
leaving the river there are two long days journey 
across the desert to Kamis Mountain without water. 
The missionaries advised we should remain lillJanuary 
when the rains are expected. The middle road 
being impassable, and the river road being double the 
distance, and so rocky as to endanger our waggons, we 
were resolved to try the east one. 
1 6th. Thermometer at noon, 84. A very destructive 
disease lately got among the sheep in the Namacqua 
country, which has reduced several persons from a 
state of affluence to poverty. In the night time when 
the sheep are asleep in the kraal, all at once they will 
start up as in a fright, in consequence of which many 
of them are found with broken legs in the morning. 
One man lately lost three hundred sheep in this way. 
When a family kill a sheep, they can only obtain a 
share of it, as the neighbours who all know what has 
been done, repair to the house, and the whole is eaten 
up before they leave it. This seems, from custom, 
