They moved on together for another hundred and fifty yards, and then Poeskop went ahead, and keeping about a hundred yards in front neared the village. The commotion became yet louder, shrill female voices were heard, and men appeared, armed with bows and arrows and assegais; the aspect of affairs looked by no means peaceful. Still advancing, and without betraying an atom of fear or suspicion, the Bushman moved confidently forward till he was within earshot. Then, raising his voice, he addressed the natives. As he had supposed, they were Berg Damaras, a wild, miserable, down-trodden people, who are infamously treated by other tribes, and shelter themselves in the remotest places they are able to find among the wide and unpeopled deserts of this part of Africa. Poeskop soon calmed their apprehensions and established friendly relations with them. They had a curious tale to tell. They had been in this place no more than a few months, having been driven from their previous locality by the assaults of lions, which had destroyed a good many of their clan and created a terror among them. The lions had either followed them to this valley, or they had stumbled upon a fresh band of man-eaters, and their lives were rendered a burden to them by the night attacks of these dangerous Carnivora. They had at last resorted to the expedient of building huts among the trees, where they passed their nights, and, as lions cannot climb, managed to escape annihilation. Poeskop having opened up amicable relations with these unfortunates, Mr. Blakeney and the boys came up and were introduced. The Berg Damaras seemed miserably poor. They numbered not more than seventy or eighty souls, men, women, and children, and evidently lived a harassed, shuddering kind of existence. Occasionally stronger tribes, such as the Ovampo and Ganguellas, raided them, murdered such of them as they caught, and carried off their women and children as slaves. The lions seemed to have completed their dejection, and they had little spirit left in them. These people speak a pure Hottentot tongue, and have many ancient Hottentot manners and customs. Yet, unlike the yellow-skinned Hottentots, their skins are black. They are supposed to have been a feeble, aboriginal negroid race, who became enslaved by the Namaqua Hottentots, and, acquiring the tongue of their conquerors, lost their own language. Having given the headman of these miserable people some tobacco and beads, and gained his confidence, Mr. Blakeney and the boys strolled round the kraal. They were especially interested in the sleeping huts, placed among the foliage of some tallish trees. These had been very ingeniously devised, platforms of stout poles serving for floors. The walls were composed of ant-hill clay and branches, the whole being covered by deep thatches of reeds and grass.