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136   MEMORIES OP MY LIFE

to traders at Walfish Bay. The Damaras were not only perpetually fighting among themselves, but also provoking retaliation from the Nam aquas, which the latter only too gladly indulged in. Lastly, the Namaquas, who in the first instance welcomed missionaries, were now opposed to them and to every outside influence or criticism, and determined to do just what they liked both to one another and to the Damaras. More especially they had recently determined that no white man should pass through their country to the interior. They were, in short, behaving in a similar, but still more marked spirit of exclusion to that of the Boers.

The attack under Jonker on the Mission Station No. 3 on the map was their latest iniquity. They behaved like demons. Among other things they cut off the feet of the women to get their ankle rings, as related in Chapter III. Unless these misdoings could be stopped, my journey would soon come to an end. The Damaras believed that I and my party were merely Hottentots in disguise, and acting as spies. To make a long story short, I took Hans and two intelligent men and rode on ox-back to Jonker himself, and rated him soundly, in English first, to relieve my mind, and then in Dutch through my interpreters, brandishing my paper with the big seal, and thoroughly frightened him. Arrangements, which I cannot go into now, were made for a meeting between myself and the other Namaqua chiefs, and ultimately a modus vivendi was secured, which lasted all the time I was in the country and for a while afterwards.

These negotiations occupied fully three months, during which every nerve was strained to get the