got ready their own five, the whole number which they at this time
possessed.
It was late in the afternoon when we set out; the sun being not
more than two hours high. Our road leading us through the kraal,
we were stopped by the crowd who gathered round us, and who
seemed half-crazy with joy, and the overflow of spirits. The scene
was truly laughable; it was happiness burlesqued. Old women skipping
and dancing about with clots of red ochre hanging from their
hair, and a protuberant bundle of petticoats behind; laughing, and
clapping their hands; all talking to me at the same time, without any
possibility of my understanding a word of what they said; they
themselves seeming not to care for an answer, could they but have
the pleasure of telling me their own joy; these, and some girls with
their faces daubed with streaks of red ochre, and a few old men, continued
thronging round me, till my horse stood still, unable to get
through the crowd. But when Ruiter announced that the rhinoceros
was at a great distance, and remarked to them, that it was already late
in the day, they immediately made way for us, and we trotted off at
full sOpene do.ur road we met Philip, who very prudently had decided on
returning home for the purpose of reinforcing those who were left in
care of the baggage: although I cannot allow myself to think that
the people of the kraal would have taken the most trifling article
belonging to us ; even if every thing had been left under the bush,
without I single person to guard it. And I feel persuaded that no
one oiKaabi’s Kraal would have been base enough to rob m e; whatever
might be the inclination of the inhabitants of other kraals with
whom we had formed no acquaintance, and whose good-will we had
not yet secured by similar acts of friendship.
We proceeded nearly the whole way at a brisk step, sometimes
trotting and at other times galloping; while the three Bushmen who
drove the pack-oxen on before us, hurried them over the rocky ground
at so extraordinary a rate, that even on horseback, I found it not easy
to keep up with them; and often, when the surface was so thickly
covered with stones and large fragments of rock that my horse could
scarcely find where to place his foot, I was obliged to call out to them
to slacken their pace. These men displayed all that beautiful ease of
motion and flexibility of joint, which struck me as so remarkable
when I first became acquainted with this nation ; and which have been
noticed on a former occasion.*
This circumstance afforded a most favorable opportunity of
ascertaining, by my own experience, how rapidly these wild people
could drive a herd of cattle, and how much more rapidly they themselves
can travel; for, the necessity of passing these rocky mountains
before dark, forced them to a display of those powers which, on
no other occasion, probably, would they have exhibited so fully. I
now clearly saw, and subsequent observations confirmed this remark,
that whenever the Bushmen steal cattle out of the Colony, the Boors
can have little hope of recovering them, unless they instantly, and
with fleet horses, commence the pursuit, so as to overtake them
before they can have reached the mountains. In stealing cattle,
Mercury himself could not have been more expert, or more cunning,
than the Bushmen.
During two hours, we travelled on the elevated and mountainous
tract which, extending from the southward of Kaabi’s Kraal, to the
northward and westward of the Obelisk, constitutes what is called the
Hyena Mountains. In our ride this afternoon, the prospect, which
we had from their summits, of the plains extending to the northward,
was, like that of the wide ocean, terminated only by the horizon.
The sun was just setting when we reached the western edge of
the mountain, whence we could distinguish the smoke of the hunters’
fire down in the plain below; but still at a considerable distance.
Great care was required in descending the rugged pathless side of the
mountain; which we fortunately accomplished before the twilight
was withdrawn. In half an hour after this, having ridden at least
fourteen miles since leaving the kraal, we arrived at the spot where
the rhinoceros was lying.
The first salutation from my Hottentots, was the agreeable
information that Speelman had shot another rhinoceros. This he had
left in the middle of a plain situated farther westward,, and .separated
* At page 422, of the first volume.