COURTEOUS NATIVES 
285 
not be considered the primary cause of the illness. Yet 
there is a reasonable amount of argument in the idea that 
malarial germs will settle on, and even penetrate into, moist 
edibles lying on or near the ground, and the same argument 
may be applied to the udder and teats of a cow, that brush 
constantly against the rank vegetation in which they seek their 
nourishment. Our daily doses of quinine, however, kept us 
perfectly protected against any attacks of fever. 
We rested all the following day, and next morning, September 
27th, Tschukoorroo, who was camped two miles ahead, sent to 
tell us to come on, as it was a cool, cloudy day, very favourable 
for travelling. We found him waiting for us; and, going some 
distance on, we came to a running stream, forty yards wide, 
and four feet deep, which Tschukoorroo wrongly told us, with 
three smaller, similar streams on ahead, that we crossed 
within the next six miles, was all that was left of the Cubango. 
At the last of these streams, he told us that we again had 
a formidable sand-belt to cross, and the next water we should 
see would be Lake Ngape (Ngami). Filling our casks as 
before, we made eleven miles into the sand-belt, along a well- 
beaten wagon track, and also passed a wagon outspanned. Here 
were signs of civilisation indeed, where we expected to be in 
the wilds of Africa: the natives courteous, the better classes 
dressed in European clothing, some mounted on horses, and 
armed with a good pattern of No. 2 musket, breechloading rifles, 
and in possession of wagons above all things ! All this inspired 
us with great curiosity. The country we passed was a succession 
of sand-belts grown over with small mimosa, and clay laagtes 
producing somewhat larger mimosa and many foliage trees. 
There were no huts or villages along this route. 
September the 29 th, Monday. I marched ahead with 
Tschukoorroo’s men, talking to a well-clothed, tall Batowaana, 
who had joined the party the previous evening. He volunteered 
to carry my gun, and led me ahead of the rest, through the open 
wood, leaving a clear track in the sand that the others might 
follow. Without my knowing it, Tschukoorroo and all his people, 
