One of the boldest and most successful of these adventurous traders was a Mr. Hutton, a respectable English colonist, who had accumulated a small fortune by his excursions among the Namaquas and the Dammaras, and was talking of retiring from the business. I had heard of him not only as a lucky dealer and a daring hunter, but also as being one of the most intelligent explorers of South Africa; and having been able on one occasion to render him a slight service, I obtained from him in return a good deal of information concerning those parts of the interior with which he was familiar. Some of his own adventures which he occasionally related, in illustration of the facts thus communicated, seemed to me to be curious and interesting enough to be worth preserving. One of them I will endeavor to repeat as nearly as possible in the words in which he told it. It may be as well, before proceeding with the narrative, to mention briefly the circumstances which drew from Mr. Hutton the account of this singular adventure. The service which I had rendered to him consisted merely in obtaining from the authorities, by proper representations, the liberation of a Namaqua servant, whom he had brought to town with him from the country beyond the Orange River. This dusky youth was in appearance and in character a genuine Hottentot. He had the small stature, the tawny complexion, the deep-set eyes, the diminutive nose, the wide and prominent cheek-bones, and the curiously tufted hair, which distinguish that peculiar race. He was usually silent, grave, and somewhat sullen in mood, except when he was excited by strong liquor, of which, like most of his compatriots, he was immoderately fond. In this state Apollo (as he was preposterously named) became not only lively and boisterous, but excessively pugnacious. The latter quality brought him frequently into collision with some of the saucy and knowing blacks of Cape Town, who found the same malicious pleasure in teasing the poor Namaqua that town-bred youngsters in a London school evince in annoying any rustic new-comer. It was in consequence of an affair of this sort, that poor half-muddled Apollo, after a desperate combat with a gigantic Mozambique “apprentice,” had one day been bundled off by the police to the lock-up house; and his master, who was hardly more familiar than Apollo himself with the ways of the town, came to me to ask my advice and assistance toward getting the unlucky Namaqua released. There was little difficulty in accomplishing this, when the circumstances were properly explained to the presiding functionary; and Apollo, after a few hours’ detention in the “tronk,” (or city jail,) was restored to his master in a sober and very penitent condition.