1811. 
MODE OF PACKING. 
163 
ready for my departure, I found little leisure for profiting by the 
various invitations which 1 received from my friends in Cape Town, 
and which multiplied as the day of taking leave of them drew 
nearer. Nor would I allow the thought that I was soon to bid, as 
I then believed, a final farewell to Cape Town, to seduce me to 
remain longer ; although the hospitality and friendship I had ex- 
perienced might well admit of excuses for further delay. 
It was necessary that I should superintend every preparation, 
in order to be well acquainted with whatever concerned my outfit ; 
as the future management of every thing was to depend on myself 
alone. My numerous purchases were not to be completed with that 
facility and despatch with which they might have been made in a 
town of greater resources. 
On the morning of the 14//z, the two teams of oxen, which Magers 
and Jan Kok had been sent to fetch from the Bokkeveld, having 
arrived safe at Salt-river, I fixed with peculiar pleasure the day on 
which we were to commence our journey, and gave orders for the 
waggon to leave Cape Town on the eighteenth. 
The following days were employed chiefly in packing all the 
various articles into the chest. This part of the work I had reserved 
for myself ; because, unless I fixed in my memory the particular 
place of each article, by putting in every thing with my own hands, 
and making at the same time lists of the contents of each chest, it 
would be almost impossible, when on the journey, to find, amidst 
such a multitude and variety of goods, any thing I sought for. 
Those articles which were likely to come often into use, were placed 
uppermost, or where they could readily be got at ; and not an inch of 
space was left unfilled, as well that no room might be lost, as to prevent 
the damage which the rough motion of the waggon would occasion 
to any thing which should get loose. I took with me no books of 
travels whatever; and if on account of this omission, I travelled 
through the country without the advantage of these to guide me in 
my observations, and direct my attention to those objects and facts 
which had been by others thought remarkable ; I had, on the other 
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