CHAP. L] WHALES. 9
uniform rate of 2s. 6d. each ; one good dog was given to Andersson, and by entreating that a sentence of execution, which was passed on a fine-looking Newfoundland, for trespassing in the barracks, might be commuted to transportation for life, I obtained him also. I had a fancy to take a small dog which could be carried in the waggon all day, and would be wakeful at night, so I bought a spaniel, on which I lavished infinite affection, and who rejoiced in the name of Dinah.
Andersson was most busy in packing and arranging my things. I don't know how I should have got through the work myself; the confusion seemed endless. At length, after we had been for three weeks or a month in Cape Town the schooner was brought close into shore; the kicking mules were boated into her; the heaps of wheels, axle-trees, etc., that belonged to the four vehicles of the Missionary and myself disappeared off the quay; all the boxes were on board, and, last of all, a cab-full of lamenting curs were embarked and sent away.
In the second week of August, ra50, we set sail, and on the eve of the 20th the low sandy shore of the land we were bound for came in sight. We rounded Pelican Point (on which pelicans were certainly sitting) and came into a wide bay, the shores of which were dancing with mirage, and presented the appearance of the utmost desolation. The store-house was a wretched affair to have received so grand a name -being a wooden shanty, about the size of a small one-storied cottage -which we could not for a long time see from on board our ship. The name of the bay, " Walfisch," is Dutch, and means whale-fish : the sailors have corrupted it to Walwich, and, lastly, to Woolwich Bay, all which aliases may be found in different maps. There are a great many whales of the sort called "humpbacks" all about this coast; in coming here we passed through a "school" or herd. It was a magnificent sight; for the whole sea around us was ploughed up by them. We went up the bay very cautiously, for it has never been properly surveyed; and different charts give most widely different plans of it. At nightfall we anchored a mile or so off shore. We could see no natives; and not a sign of life anywhere, excepting in the immense flocks of pelicans and of flamingoes and other sea-birds. And this, it appears, is the character of the entire coast between the Orange River and the Portuguese territory-a physical barrier which has saved the natives who live behind it from the infliction of a foreign slave-trade.
The books of sailing directions say that no fresh water can be obtained on the coast for the whole of that distance ; but this is a mistake,
