_26th._—Intensely hot. We passed some Rhinoceros spoors, and had a long chase after him, walking or running many miles, but without success; the chase, fortunately, led us parallel to our course, so that we regained the cart pretty easily. In the middle of the day we met some Ghou Damup, and persuaded four of them join us. I had a great curiosity about these natives. It was so peculiar to see Negroes speaking the language of a light-coloured race, the Hottentots, and that too in a far more northern part of Africa than Hottentots were believed to exist in. All published maps up to the last two or three years, place a dotted line no great distance north of the Orange River, with the remark, that that is the northern limit of the Hottentot race. Now not only were the Hottentots by Walfisch Bay natives in the country, but here were black people, a race living in amity with, but as inferiors to these very Hottentots, and also speaking their language without any other of their own. It seemed that these Ghou Damup have a stronghold of their own, a large table-mountain, inaccessible except by one or two passes, which a white man in the country, by name Hans, of whom I shall have much to say by and by, had visited and gone up; he gave me a very interesting account of it. This mountain I had made Stewartson promise to accompany me to, to buy goats, after I had reached the Missionary station ahead. Now these very Ghou Damup belonged to it, and therefore we engaged them as guides. I found also the advantage of having natives to do the troublesome work, as carrying wood, watching cattle,—which they have an aptitude for, and which similar servants do not like, and cannot be spared to perform. Erongo is the name of the mountain; it was described as two days’ journey, either from hereabouts or from the next Missionary station (Otjimbinguè) that of Mr. Rath’s. We had no difficulty in explaining our wants to the Ghou Damup, although Stewartson’s vocabulary was extremely limited; few interjections, twenty or thirty substantives, and infinite gesticulation, are amply sufficient for a dexterous traveller to convey to an intelligent native his views and wishes on a marvellous variety of subjects. My thermometers had been packed so carefully that I had never hitherto looked at them, but to-day it felt very hot, and I took them out. I could not have conceived the heat—143° in sun at three o’clock, and 95° in the shade. The poor mules cannot get on through the horrible sand. Andersson very nearly had a sun-stroke. I found him very ill, and with a racking headache, under a tree to which he had staggered—it was the only shade near—and a very lucky chance for him that he reached it. In a quarter of an hour he was able to ride on, but was extremely poorly for the evening.