And if we came to honestly examine our own feelings on the subject we should find that it was not so much the blackguard who was in question as our own morbid sensibility. We--that is the ones who live on the labour of others,--the small minority who, feasting on the deck of the ship of western civilisation which is being steered straight for the abyss--have sunk into what Schiller called "_der weichlichen Schoss der Verfeinerung_" our hyperaesthesia has grown so morbid that every stripe we see administered raises a weal on ourselves. This is a condition perilously near that in which the contemplation of suffering becomes the sole channel of pleasure, for morbid sensibility and cruelty have usually hobnobbed at the same inn. It is the healthy man who does not shrink from either enduring or inflicting necessary pain. The Raad was dissolved--dismissed with my blessing which, however, I felt constrained to express in more or less guarded terms. I regarded that body with deep and sincere admiration. It might be of incalculable benefit to the British Empire if the speakers of the respective parliaments of the self-governing Colonies, led by the speaker of the House of Commons, were to visit the Richtersveld and sit on that arid hillside listening to the Raad's deliberations. I should be prepared personally to conduct the tour. With the Vicar's kind assistance I proceeded with the necessary preparations for my gold-seeking adventure. He lent me some carpenter's tools, and I soon altered a small gin-case I had brought into a very fair imitation of a gold-digger's cradle. The next step was to hire two pack-oxen and secure the services of a few labourers. On the following morning we would start for the supposed El Dorado. In the meantime I again called on my interesting friend the Vicar, drank some more of his excellent coffee, and, after contributing according to my means towards the building fund of the unfinished church, bade my host a cordial farewell.