The next day operations were continued. The angle made by the baobab
with the extremities of the base was measured, and the first triangle
solved. Two more stations were chosen to the right and left of the
meridian; one formed by a distinct mound, six miles away; the other,
marked out by a post about seven miles distant.
The triangulation went on uninterruptedly for a month, and by the 15th
of May the observers had advanced northwards 1°, having formed seven
triangles. During this first series of operations, the Colonel and
Strux were rarely together. The division of labour separated them, and
the circumstance of their daily work being several miles apart was a
guarantee against any dispute. Each evening they returned to their
several abodes, and although at intervals discussions arose about the
choice of stations, there was no serious altercation. Hence Zorn and
his friend were in hopes that the survey would proceed without any open
rupture.
After advancing 1° from the south, the observers found themselves in
the same parallel with Lattakoo, from which they were distant 35 miles
to the west.
Here a large kraal had lately been formed, and as it was a marked
halting-place, Sir John Murray proposed that they should stay for
several days. Zorn and Emery could take advantage of the rest, to take
the altitude of the sun; and Palander would employ himself in reducing
the measurements made at different points of sight to the uniform
level of the sea. Sir John himself wanted to be free from scientific
observations, that he might divert himself with his gun among the
fauna of the country. A kraal, as it is termed by the natives of South
Africa, is a kind of moving village, wandering from one pasturage
to another. It is an enclosure composed ordinarily of about thirty
habitations, and containing several hundred inhabitants. The kraal
now reached was formed by a group of more than sixty huts, enclosed
for protection from wild animals by a palisade of prickly aloes, and
situated on the banks of a small affluent of the Kuruman. The huts,
made of water-proof rush mats fastened to wooden beams, were like low
hives. The doorway, protected by a skin, was so small that it could
only be entered on hands and knees, and from this, the only aperture,
issued such dense wreaths of smoke as would make existence in these
abodes problematical to any but a Bochjesman or a Hottentot.
The whole population was roused by the arrival of the caravan. The
dogs, of which there was one for the protection of each cabin, barked
furiously, and about 200 warriors, armed with assagais, knives, and
clubs, and protected by their leathern shields, marched forward.
A few words from Mokoum to one of the chiefs soon dispelled all hostile
feeling, and the caravan obtained permission to encamp on the very
banks of the stream. The Bochjesmen did not even refuse to share the
pastures, which extended for miles away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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