The happy Hottentot still lived in the Stone Age, and these first European traders were a veritable godsend to a people obliged to hunt with stone arrows. The expedition did not fail to discover this, and for a few knives and a few simple iron objects they received all the cows and sheep they wanted. And, to our great joy, we get our first glimpse of that most amusing and clownish of all living creatures, the penguin. The penguin has risen in the social scale of wild birds since he has become one of the chief attractions of the moving-pictures. In the year 1595 he was every bit as silly and absurd an animal as he is now, when he wanders forth to make friends with the sailors of our South Polar expeditions. Van der Does hardly knew what to make of this strange creature which has wings, yet cannot fly, and whose feathers look like the smooth skin of a seal. Strangest of all, this wild animal was found to be so tame that the sailors had to box their ears before they could force a narrow path through the dense crowds of excited birds. On the eleventh of August the ships left the safe harbor. Their original plan had been to cross the Indian Ocean from this point and to make directly for the Indian islands, but there had been so much illness among the crew that the plan had to be given up. They decided to call at Madagascar first of all. There they hoped to find an abundance of fresh fruit and to spend some weeks in which to allow the sick people to recover completely before they ventured, into the actual domains of the Portuguese. Unfortunately, the navigating methods of that day were still very primitive. A profound trust in the Lord made up for a lack of knowledge of the compass. The good Lord in his infinite mercy usually guided the ship until it reached some shore or other. Then the navigator set to work and wormed his way either upward or downward until at last he struck the spot which he had been trying to reach all the time and thanked divine Providence for his luck. The particular bay renowned for its fresh water and vegetables, that the expedition hoped to reach was situated on the east coast of Madagascar, but a small gale blew the ships to the westward. They could not reach the southern cape, and they were forced to take whatever the western coast could provide. That was little enough. There was an abundance of wild natives. Upon one occasion the natives caught a landing party and stripped them of all their arms and clothes before they allowed them to return to their ships. But there were no wild fruit-trees, and upon these now depended the lives of the members of the expedition. [Illustration]