SOUTHERN AFRICA. 421 
ino- eight, occasionally approached the waggons, and always 
with great timidity, they arrived on the 7th at a Kora village, 
on the northern bank of the Orange river, where they found 
these civil creatures, who had been apprized of their return, 
all collected and prepared with their pack oxen to give the 
expedition every assistance m its passage across tiie river^ 
Here they again fell in with the missionary Kicherer, from 
whose opinion, corroborated by that of the Koras, they were 
induced to believe that by making a journey to the north-- 
westward, along the banks of the river, of twelve or fourteen 
days, to the horde of a well-known character of the Bastaard 
race named Kok, they had a fair prospect of collecting a 
very considerable number of cattle. They therefore deter- 
mined to make this deviation from the direct route and, if 
practicable, to return by the Namaaqim country, along the 
western coa&t of Africa. In order, however, to lessen the 
eonsumptioii of provisions, and at the same time to get rid 
of a real incumbrance, they resolved to discharge from the 
« service of the expedition all the Dutch boors which had 
joined them in the Roggeveld, and to depend in future en- 
tirely on the Hottentots. These boors had not been of the 
least service in any respect, from the first day they joined the 
expedition ; but, on the contrary, were the cause of per- 
petual vexations. They were indolent, disobedient, refrac- 
tory, and discontented ; and so cowardly that, in the event 
of meeting with hostile tribes, they never could be looked on 
as any protection. They shewed even an aversion to their 
favourite occupation of shooting game, for no other reasoa 
but because they perceived it would be a gratification to the 
commissioners. As the absence of such people could neither 
