and make their huts, and cook for them, leaving the men unhampered and disengaged, ready to run and drive the oxen, and do anything that might be wanted. Damara women have not much to complain of: they are valuable helpmates; and divorce themselves as often as they like. The consequence is that the marital rule depends not upon violence nor upon interest, but upon affection. A wife costs a Damara nothing, for she “crows” her own pig-nuts, and she is of positive use, because she builds and plasters his hut, cooks his victuals, and carries his things when he moves from place to place. A Damara seldom beats his wife much; if he does, she decamps. This deference of husband to wife was a great difficulty in the way of discipline; for I often wanted to punish the ladies of my party, and yet I could not make their husbands whip them for me, and of course I was far too gallant to have it done by any other hands. They bored me to death with their everlasting talking; but I must own that there were many good points in their character. They were extremely patient, though not feminine, according to our ideas: they had no strong affections either for spouse or children; in fact, the spouse was changed almost weekly, and I seldom knew, without inquiry, who the _pro tempore_ husband of each lady was at any particular time. One great use of women in my party was to find out any plan or secret that the natives I was encamped amongst were desirous of hiding. Experience tells us of two facts: first, that women delight in communicating everybody else’s secrets to each other; secondly, that husbands and wives mutually tell one another all they know. Hence the married women of my party, whenever I staid near a werft, had very soon made out all the secrets of the inhabitants, which they retailed directly to their husbands, and they to me. It was a system of espionage which proved most effectual. A difficulty arising from women’s gossipings had occurred at Okamabuti, in which Chik behaved very well. My man Kambanya told his wife, who told other wives, who told their husbands, that the Ovampo intended to rob and murder me as soon as I arrived in their country. The story, by passing through so many hands, had acquired several circumstantial details, quite enough to make it worth inquiring into; so I, not knowing the origin of the tale, had Chik up in judgment before me, and taxed him with what I had heard. He protested his innocence; and then I said that to clear himself he must investigate the report, which he did in a most masterly manner; and traced the whole affair down to the unhappy Kambanya, who had fabricated the story to dissuade me from going, and from taking him to Ovampo-land, so Kambanya was whipped, and my friendship with Chik cemented all the stronger.