the colonial boundary. Here the idea of restraint began to usurp
its place; and at Cape Town they became completely annihilated.
But if society smothered and extinguished them, I became, on the
other hand, like one of society, adopting its mode of thinking, and
enjoying its refinements, and its reasonable pleasures, as a compensation
for those which I had lost.
The picture here given of the remarkable effects of the freshness
of the atmosphere on my feelings, is neither overdrawn nor over-
coloured ; and though not easily accounted foi*, is not, therefore, the
less exact and faithful.
These reviving showers produce a change in the face of the country,
more like the sudden operation of magic, than of the gradual
progress of vegetation. As if touched by a fairy wand, the dreary
surface is transmuted to a verdant flower-garden, and innumerable
little flowers, before invisible, spring up into existence, and hasten to
cover the ground. In less than a fortnight the earth begins to
reanimate, and the complexion of the country assumes so different
an appearance, that it no longer could be imagined to be that same
sterile region which, for so great a part of the year, presents to the
eye of the traveller nought but desolate and unproductive plains.
All now looks fair and smiling, and no longer can they be termed
the arid deserts and frowning wastes of Africa.
19^. Speelman had informed me that our expectation of having
Hendrik Abrams with us, had been counteracted by an order from
the Klaarwater captain, appointing him to the duty of superintendant,
or, as they call it, corporal, of one of the out-posts; and that he had
actually been sent in that capacity to investigate the truth of a report
of the Koras at Wittewater, having in some quarrel killed a Bushman.
Whenever Hendrik came to Klaarwater, he was now afraid to
be seen at my waggons, lest the captain should construe into an act of
opposition to his orders, the idea of deserting his post to accompany
us.
I therefore represented the case to one of the missionaries, and
requested him to send for the captain to his house. Here we had
some explanation, by which it plainly appeared, that both he and the
missionary had a stronger wish to retain the man at Klaarwater, than
to persuade him to go with us. Dam-, however, said, that he had
never positively forbidden his going, but was merely of opinion that
it would be better for him to stay at home to take care of his own
business, and look after the people of his kraal, as he was one of the
few on whose steadiness of conduct he could place any dependence.
At last he promised, but without the cordiality I wished, that he
would not oppose his accompanying me.
On the part of the missionary, not a word was said to back my
request; nothing proposed to forward my plans. His authority and
persuasion, if exerted in my behalf, would, I have reason for believing,
have smoothed away all these difficulties, and have obtained for
me the men I wanted; but from him, and, consequently, from the
others, I received, on the contrary, nothing but the most disheartening
representations ; nor do I recollect their ever once having allowed
an encouraging remark to escape their lips. I own that this coldness
and backwardness to promote the extension of my journey was not
what I had calculated upon; nor did it accord with the civilities
which, in other matters of less importance, I frequently received from
them. There might possibly be some reason why they might not
wish these regions to be known to any but themselves and their
people, at least this was the interpretation which I put upon it at
the time.
That men whose business is solely that of preaching the Gospel,
should view the pursuits of science and every other species of knowledge
in a light very inferior to that of their own calling, I have reason
for believing; but that they should be able to resist those feelings
of sympathy which it seems but natural to entertain in so remote a
region, for a person in my situation, an European and a countryman,
beset by difficulties on every side, can be explained only by the supposition
of a constitutional coldness of nature. I could not but feel
disappointed; for having, when in Cape Town been advised by a
friend to take with me to Klaarwater some official letter specially