378 
SPEELMAN'S HUT BURNT DOWN. 
20—23 Oct. 
20th. Speelman came to-day for his rations ; but his looks 
instantly announced that something was the matter. When, with a 
lengthened piteous visage, he began his narration, his pretensions to 
beauty were certainly less than ever ; and I should perhaps have 
smiled, had I not feared he was going to tell me that all my oxen 
were carried olF by the savages, or that his wife was dead. But the 
case at last proved to be, that in the dead of the night, while he and 
his faithful Hannah soundly slept, their hut caught fire ; and being 
roused from their slumbers only by the noise of the flames, they 
barely escaped the fate of his pair of smallclothes and her leathern 
jacket. He had too good an opinion, he said, of the people of 
the kraal, to think it possible that any of them could have done 
it ; although he seemed to wish it were permitted to make such 
a statement, that he might himself escape some imputation of care- 
lessness. At last, with a half-stifled confession, he took the blame 
to himself ; or, rather, hinted that the whole conflagration was occa- 
sioned by his dear spouse's tobacco-pipe, if even, perchance, she 
smoked not in her sleep. 
He brought with him old Hans Lucas, to make me a proposal, 
that if, on an excursion we were about to make, I would allow the 
little waggon also to be taken, he would provide a team of oxen, 
on condition of having half the use of it, to bring home the game 
he expected to shoot ; engaging also to furnish a herdsman to at- 
tend them. I readily agreed to the plan, and we immediately 
held a consultation respecting its various details. These, being 
affairs of high importance in Hottentot economy, cannot be di- 
vulged, as 1 am sure no one else will think them of such magnitude 
as old Hans considered them to be. 
My excursion had for its object to explore the upper part of the 
course of the Gaiiej), and two or three large branches which were 
said to join it higher up. This circumstance had been mentioned to 
me by Mt\ Jansz ; and on his offering to accompany me, Adam Kok, 
the Klaarwater captain, also proposed joining our party with his 
waggon, for the sake of hunting the Hippopotami, which were said to 
abound in that part of the river. 
