Shortly after our return, arrived a Mr. White, from Virginia, with his wife, two sons of twelve and fourteen years of age, and two younger daughters. He applied to Lasar and myself to show him a good bit of land on which he could settle. The people pleased us, they were friendly and honest, lived on good terms together, as we noticed on our frequent visits to their camp on the Leone, and were the right sort to defy such a mode of life. Lasar and I resolved to take them under our wing, and induced them to settle at our old camping place on Turkey Creek, for which purpose we set out early one morning with them, Lasar ordering twenty negroes to come with us and prepare an abode for the new-comers. We built for them there in a few days a neat double blockhouse, that is to say, two houses about twenty yards apart, over which and the space between one long roof was thrown. Then we surrounded the house with a palisade, in which they could lock their cattle at night, and fitted for them a lot of wood, with which they could fence in a garden. Lasar gave them a handsome cow, and I gave them a breeding sow, some fowls, and maize to eat and to sow for the coming spring. White was one of those resolute, unswerving men, who, after struggling for a long time with misfortune in the civilized world, turn their attention to the western deserts, where they try to extort from fate what has been refused to them elsewhere. With his peculiar energy and restless execution of everything he had once undertaken, he set to work in his new home, in order, as soon as possible, to lay the foundation of his own and his family's future prosperity; but unfortunately he was only able to see the foundation, for the garden was hardly fenced in and the maize field taken in hand, ere he fell ill, and a violent fever carried him off in a few days. His eldest son, Charles, rode over to me to bring me the melancholy news, and tell me that his mother wished to speak to me. I rode across the next morning with Königstein and a negro. The widow was sitting inconsolably by the side of her dead husband, without any plan for the future; and on my entrance pointed--with sobs, and unable to utter a word--to the dead body. I at once ordered the negro to dig a grave, and buried the poor fellow; after which I sat down by the widow's side, and tried to give her some consolation by offering her my assistance. I proposed to her to settle near me till her sons were old enough to look after their present farm. But she was of opinion that they were able to do so already, although not strong enough to do the heavy field work, such as clearing the land from bushes and trees as well as felling and clearing the wood itself. If this could be done for her, she would not leave the spot, as her lads could plough and use the pick, while both fired a rifle as well as any frontierman; and she, too, if it came to the point, knew how to use her husband's fowling-piece. I