Mr. Bam told me I should have great trouble in first going up the country, unless I had a person to guide me, and that there was not a Hottentot with him who could go. I had no interpreter for them, and they were frightened at the Damaras. Stewartson said that he was going in about two months, and would then be very happy to show me the way. It appeared, on further conversation, that the business which detained him from going at once was, that he had to make a fence round his garden to keep it from Mr. Bam’s pigs. So I arranged with two of my men that they should go and help him to get through the work quickly, while my others were employed with me. After a week everything was returned to Sand Fountain. Andersson and myself had employed ourselves in walking about, superintending the work. The Hottentots of course crowded round us every day, but they did not at all trouble us: only one or two of them were impudent, and, as I did not know how much thrashing they would stand, I let them alone. I took some pains to exhibit and explain to them the mechanism of a spring rat-trap, and when they sufficiently comprehended its object, I gave them to understand that my boxes were all guarded by rat-traps, so that if they put their hands into them to steal, they would infallibly be caught. The black and white crows almost attacked our larder for food. They live on the dead fish that lie about the beach, which indeed is almost the only food hereabouts for them. The natives brought us milk every morning to barter for tobacco, and also some goats. Mr. Bam very kindly sent me a slaughter ox. It seemed to me the most princely of presents. Meat keeps wonderfully well here in this season (August and September), and even dries instead of tainting; but I subsequently found it otherwise in December. I had taken plenty of salt meat with me from Cape Town, and rice and biscuits—quite two months’ provisions—for I knew it must be a long time before we could fall into the ways of the country, and find our own commissariat there.