522 
DERANGEMENTS. 
25—30 Jan. 
depredations of wild beasts, which, otherwise, would scratch it out 
of the earth during the night. The hole was then filled up, and 
afterwards many large stones of the same kind were placed over 
the grave. 
These precautions are noticed on account of their being an 
ancient Hottentot custom, which still continues to be followed. This 
race of people, here, as well as in every other part of the country, 
use no coffins, but commit their dead to the earth, wrapped up 
merely in their clothes or karosses. 
We had now witnessed, most probably, the first burial of a white 
woman which had ever taken place beyond the Gariep, and a know- 
ledge of this fact rendered the ceremonies and transactions of the 
day doubly impressive and mournful. The Hottentots themselves 
were not insensible to that impression, and many of them noticed 
the circumstance. 
2Qth. The following day being Sunday, I attended, according 
to my custom, the usual service in the church. After it was over 
I generally paid a visit to each of the missionaries ; but this was a 
mournful Sunday, and the reflection of having just laid one of our 
party in the grave cast a gloom over all, and threw the affairs of the 
mission into a very unsettled state. Each beheld his prospects, on 
one side or the other, deranged by the occurrence : the widower had, 
in consequence, already resolved on a journey back to the Cape, to 
dissipate his melancholy ; and he, whose turn it would now have 
been to take the recreation of a visit to the colony, shortly after this 
reversed his former arrangements, and agreed to remain till some 
future opportunity ; while the third, viewed it as a circumstance par- 
ticularly affecting his wife, whose residence at Klaarwater, without 
one white person as a female companion, in the country, was now 
rendered lonely and friendless. For my own part, I had no stronger 
wish than that of leaving Klaarwater as soon as possible ; as I was 
now become impatient to pursue my journey, having been delayed 
at this spot so much longer than had been originally intended: 
besides which, I could not feel myself altogether at ease in a place 
