I now lived in great part at Mr. Rath’s house, copying his dictionary of Damara words, and hearing the results of his observations on the people. Timboo continued learning the language; and I waited with anxiety for an answer from Jonker. The time passed pleasantly enough. I put my map of the country, so far as I had gone, into order, practised a good deal with my sextant, but made very little progress indeed in the language; I could find no pleasure in associating and trying to chat with these Damaras, they were so filthy and disgusting in every way, and made themselves very troublesome. My mules were watched and taken out to graze by two natives, whom I fed and paid at the rate of a yard of iron wire per month. After a time, no reply having arrived from Jonker, I engaged a Hottentot, who had four or five trained oxen, to take me to Barmen. He was a respectable old gentleman, who spoke Dutch perfectly, and every now and then earned something by doing odd jobs for the missionaries. His honesty was unimpeachable; his family large; the ladies of it were thoroughly Hottentot, and the younger ones were dressed in leather skirts, that showed off their peculiar shapes to great advantage. Half of my things were put on ox-back, half on the mules. Timboo and I rode an ox and a mule between us. John Morta got a mount now and then, but he disliked both animals exceedingly. The mule curved his back and cocked his ears and switched his tail much more than was pleasant among the sharp rocks and abominable hakis thorns. These hakis thorns have overspread the whole country on this side of Tsobis; the tree is seldom more than fifteen feet high, with a short straight stem and a spreading bushy head; the thorns are all curved (hakis is the Dutch for hook), and, consequently, they do not hurt you like other thorns when you tumble into a bush, but only when you try to get _out_ of it. My hands were cruelly torn with these thorns, and as I was still in bad condition, all the scratches festered; it was very painful, I could hardly close my hands for pain. Besides these, there were the “black thorn” and the “white thorn” (I take the names as I heard them); the first produces crisp tasteless gum in great abundance, the other a very sweet gum, that tastes and feels exactly like jujubes, but has a great tendency to ferment. We travelled on very quietly to Barmen, as John Morta was lame, and there was no hurry. We were four days in going there. I like gipsying work excessively, making a temporary home of a pretty spot and then going on without regret at leaving it. A heavy thunder-storm swept by us, the first we had yet seen, and the harbinger of the rainy weather that was to provision me, as far as water was concerned, for my approaching journey. Deluges of rain and peals of thunder passed down the Swakop, such as only tropical countries can show.