CHAP, V.] COMMISSARIAT. 79
entered my service. The sort of names these negroes answered to will perhaps convey a better notion of their character and style than a longer description-there was a "Grub," a "Scrub," a "Nicodemus," a "Moonshine," and a " Toby." The Damaras generally retained their own names; they were much the more stylish of the two. My Damara party at starting was something as follows:
NAME,
Kambanya
"Rhinoster"
"Bill"
Kernerootie . ,
Kahoni
Old Kahoni
His Son
Piet from Mozambique .
USE.
Generally useful . . .
A Guide . . . Andersson's henchman { Excellent runner, used t on every emergency Anything
Nothing
Cattle Watcher ,
Conversational . .
WHERE FROM.
"Given" inn by Mr. Hahn. Hired from Otjimbingue. Picked up by chance.
Sent me by Mr. Rath. Picked up by chance.
11 11
u
11 fTimboo's friend, a run.
away slave.
The grown-up ladies were the wives of Kambanya, " Rhinoster," and old Kahoni. There were numbers of occasions on which I should have turned old Kahoni away, if he had not been possessed of a little daughter, the nicest, merriest, and slimmest of Damara girls, about eight or nine years old. She won my heart, and I was obliged to tolerate the rest of the family, that I might retain her. Besides these twelve I have mentioned, there were two or three others, hangers-on, whom I have forgotten, and perhaps never knew, and the women had three babies, so my party may be considered as about ten Europeans and eighteen natives, or twenty-eight in all.
As regards commissariat, my biscuit and every kind of vegetable food was eaten up. I had much too great a weight to carry to be enabled to lade the waggons with provisions also. I had plenty of tea, coffee, and a very little sugar; there were some few trifles besides. The oxen and sheep we drove with us were to be our sustenance, and they alone, excepting now and then a chance head of game. If these oxen strayed by night, and were lost, we should be little better than the crew of a ship in the broad Pacific, who had broached their last cask. The charge of these quadrupeds was now to be my anxiety and care, day and night, for a loose ox in Damaraland is as quickly appropriated as a dropped sovereign in the streets of London.
In estimating cattle as so many days' provision, the calculation I
