WE PAY OUR BOYS 
313 
supplied from Stremboom’s store, which seemed to cheer her 
up wonderfully. 
The wife of a Boer hunter named Jacobs, who had remained 
behind with her husband when the great Boer trek passed 
the lake on its way to the north of Damaraland, was living 
with her two children under the protection of the tribe at 
the lake while her husband was temporarily absent hunting 
towards the Chobe river. She also was suffering from fever and 
came under treatment. She informed us that they had lost 
their little all in crossing the ‘ thirst land,’ and gave a har- • 
rowing description of the difficulties they had met with in the 
desert. 
It was now time that we bethought ourselves of our boys, 
who were no longer any use to us, and consumed the beef we 
liberally supplied them with at such an alarming rate that even 
my ‘ extensive practice ’ hardly sufficed to provide for their 
wants. Of course, when an ox was killed, the whole neigh¬ 
bourhood came in for a share, to which, by the way, the good 
people were heartily welcome, for a more admirable set of 
natives we had not met with anywhere on our travels. By 
permission of the king the boys were given a free pass and 
guides to their own country direct to Mameele’s drift, the 
nearest point on the Chobe, from whence they could easily 
find their way vid Panda Matenga to their home at Swangie’s. 
The payment in guns that we had promised them was the 
only difficulty to be got over. Stremboom informed us that 
there were many muzzle percussion guns of the old musket 
stamp amongst the natives who, now that they were provided 
with breechloaders, would probably be glad to get rid of their 
duplicate inferior weapons. This seemed a happy solution 
to the difficulty, as otherwise we should have been obliged 
to drag these faithful fellows all the way to Shoshong 
with us, that being the only place where we could otherwise 
hope to supply them with the promised guns. 
Information was consequently given to the Baros—the 
other name of the Batowaana—to the effect that we would 
