312 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
great thieves. We miss now many things that 
cannot be replaced, amongst others my bullet-ladle, 
the loss of which puts me out a good deal. I have 
converted an old iron spoon into a sort of ladle, and 
it serves for a makeshift. The tumbler of one of my 
guns is also broken, and my large nipple-screw and 
small hand-vice are stolen. I hear the sickness is this 
year very severe ; in fact, at the Lake they think it 
is going to sweep them all off the face of the earth. 
I was in sad tribulation about Gyp and Juno the 
other day. They lost themselves in the thirst-land, 
as they remained by a wildebeest I had shot, but 
they made their way by wonderful instinct back to 
the wagon during the night. 
I have twenty-five or twenty-six mouths to feed 
every day, and the wagons get most perceptibly 
lighter; the stores vanish like wild-fire. I never see my 
imp of a cook but something is 4 cadan ’ (no more); it 
is fearful work, and I get but little out of the ruffians 
to compensate for it. We have so far had more 
than a sufficiency of everything, but, owing to the 
extravagance of the Hottentots, who have no thought 
for the future, I foresee hard times coming, and must 
take my share in the scarcity. Coffee and tea with¬ 
out milk or sugar, meat, mutton and game of all sorts 
without bread or bread-stuff, not even rice, mealies, 
or Kaffir corn, is the fare I have to look forward to, 
and I cannot prevent it; but we shall not starve 
altogether as long as powder and lead hold out, and 
one nag is capable of exertion. I have no thought 
