f,   NECESSARY OUTFIT.   [CUAP 1.

their labours beyond it. I was very kindly assured of every assistance on their part, and my friends insisted on the great advantage that I should have if the first stage of my journey was made in company with persons who had experience of the country and acquaintance with the language. Moreover, a novice had just arrived from Germany, and was

,a'tiog for the earliest opportunity of being shipped off to join his future fellow-lahourers. So far matters seemed promising enough ; but one point was certain, that everything I might want must be taken from Cape Town, as nothing whatever but oxen could be bought where the Missionaries were.

Servants, waggons, and things of every kind I must take with me, for the ship would land me on the desert sand-four tedious months' journey from Cape Town; and when she sailed away all communication thence would, for at least a year, be at an end. Now if I had been going to travel in any of the usual ways, as with pack-horses, mules, camels, boats, and so forth, and with people I knew something about, I should not have had the least anxiety; but oxen were creatures I had no experience with, or of Cape half-castes either. Cape Town is proverbially the worst place in the Colony to get waggon-drivers and leaders from, and I did not much fancy the undertaking, but still go somewhere I must, and I could think of no other alternative but Walfisch flay. I therefore consoled myself with the idea that, if the whole affair broke down at the very first, Andersson and I would still find protection from the Missionaries, and that if, on the other hand, we could push on at all, we could probably get a great way. So I began resolutely to make my preparations.

I will try to put in a few words the whole of the information that I could get, and upon which I had to act. Walfiseh Bay was perfectly desert, though traders had lived there. The nearest water was three miles off, and that in very small quantities. The nearest place where cattle could thrive was between twenty and thirty miles from the coast. This was the frst Missionary station,-it was called Scheppmansdorf. Thence a journey of ten or twelve days inland over wretched country led to two other stations; they were the furthest; and all beyond them northwards was unknown. These last were in Damaraland; the Namaqua Hottentots lived between their and the Cape. A small pen and ink map was also shown me, but it was blotted and not very intelligible. No oxen could be bought until I arrived at the furthest stations. If I bought them from the Damaras they were untaught; if