Meanwhile, the sonorous sentences went on, then came hymns sung with enormous fervour in the extraordinary “click,” prayers and exhortations, whilst the birds fluttered in the bush roof above us, and the sun, now high in the heavens, flung broad blotches of gold through the open spaces on to the motley assembly facing us. And motley it was to a degree: tall, thin, spare yellow men with rudimentary noses, high cheek-bones, oblique eyes, and the Tartar appearance of the true Hottentot, sardonic-looking Bastards with aquiline noses and faces of a pronounced Jewish type, here a blubber-lipped, grinning Christy Minstrel, black as ebony, and all rolling eyeballs and gleaming teeth; there a big nondescript with red hair and a skin all piebald with huge freckles; by his side, and equally devout, the puckered physiognomy, all tattoo marks and wrinkles, of a pigmy Bushman. This extraordinary race-mixture to be found amongst the so-called “Hottentots” of Richtersfeldt is to be accounted for by the fact that the lower reaches of the Orange River bordering their territory was at one time, and to a minor degree is still to-day, a sanctuary for refugees from every tribe in South Africa. Flying from justice or persecution, they sought this remote spot, intermarried with the Hottentots, and have helped produce a tribe, or community, as heterogeneous as it is possible to conceive. The following day Mr. Kling sorted out from among his motley flock the guides who were to take us to the many old prospects among the mountains, and after consideration we decided to send these men with the waggon and our heavy stores to Annisfontein, a spot affording the best starting-place from which to penetrate the tangle of mountains. Meanwhile, with a light cart drawn by six oxen, we proposed to visit the little-known bays on the coast near the mouth of the Orange River, thence working our way up the river-bank till we rejoined the waggon; and as the pace of the latter with its heavy load would be of necessity slow, we hoped by this arrangement to save a lot of time. We started that night. Meanwhile the Hottentot encampment had broken up and the natives had dispersed in all directions, leaving the empty and deserted bush chapel alone marking the spot of their meeting-place.