travelling steadily on. My oxen were knocked up, and so were we; and overtaking him now was out of the question, hungry as we were. As soon as the pot was put on the fire, we all fell fast asleep, and forgot our dinner till the midnight chill awoke us. Trotting on ox-back for many hours is very severe work, if the animals as they usually do, require much urging. The creatures had eaten, and were fit to return on the forenoon of the next day; and we returned late in the night to Rehoboth. I there obtained some valuable additions to my stock of oxen. Timmerman, the one I had just ridden, I bought off-hand: he was a tame, sturdy ox; I also got two couple of front oxen, and some hind oxen. These are the important ones of the team; and if good, the rest are easily made to do their work. I also hired a black waggon-driver, Phlebus, who knew nothing of his own language, but had been a trained Hottentot and Dutch interpreter; and Swartboy very kindly gave me his henchman, Onesimus, who, besides being by profession his life-guardsman, was his interpreter to the Damaras. These two were most accurate renderers of whatever they were told to say, as could be easily judged from the answers of the persons addressed. Timboo interpreted loosely from either English or Dutch into Damara, but he knew none of these languages well: he had a patois of his own. People at first find conversation by interpreters a bore; but after a little use it becomes no greater hindrance, as it is no greater delay, than dictating or writing a letter. Savages, who are naturally sententious, fall very readily into the system; and here, where the Hottentots and Damaras are so often brought into contact, every chief is well accustomed to it.