ipo TRAVELS IN 
my afternoon, fo that night was approaching 
■when I returned to the caravan, and I found that 
my people had encamped. Though we were 
in a narrow defile between the mountains, and 
of courfe the fituation was very unfavourable 
for an encampment, it was too late to feek 
a better. To render it flill worfe, the place was 
fo confined that we could not furround our- 
felves with fires as ufuai, being able to make 
only two ; and even thefe burnt badly, for want 
of dry wood. No man who travels in the 
deferts of Africa can take too many precau- 
tions : during this night in particular I found 
it by experience, and I ought to have been on 
my guard, fmce fome of my Hottentots pre-^ 
vioufly informed me, that they had heard lions 
in the neighbourhood. But when we are ac- 
cuftomed to danger, v/e become rafh : by living 
among continual alarms and in perpetual peril^ 
we grow familiar w^ith them ; and by the con- 
fidence hence arifing, which is the parent of 
courage, they are in reality diminifhed. 
About ten o*clock, as we were fitting in a 
circle round one of our fires, and drinking tea, 
my oxen, which had gone up the courfe of 
the river in fearch of pafture, on a fudden came^ 
running 
