v?j6- January. to have obtained the name it now bears from the circum- ftance of J a c o b K o k , my friend at Zeekoe-rivier, who, with feveral others, had intended to make a long journey a great way up the country, having been detained for feveral months by an unufual flooding of the water; which indeed was fo great, that the force of the ftream even prevented them in their attempts to crofs it on a float o f wood. On this, as well as on the preceding night, we had thunder and rain. On the next morning, being the 23d, we fet off from hence, in order to go to another part of the river. This day I for the firft time perceived that my lazy Boihies-men run fafter and hold it out longer, than I ihould other- wife ever have fuppofed. The farmers, who had lately joined our party, and who were better, apprifed of this cir- cumftance than we, as well as of what was to be expefted from thefe gentry, obliged fome of them to carry our arms, and at the fame time follow as faft as we rode; our pace in general being an ordinary trot, which we now and then changed to a gallop, for feveral hours together, over different kinds o f ground. Once or twice, indeed, we made a little flop ; but twice at other times, having taken our arms from them and carried them ourfelves, we went the fafter,. by which means we foon got fomewhat a-head of them, but did not wait long before they came up to us. In .ihort, I found then, as well as afterwards, that even the oldeft of thefe fellows would run about twenty miles in the fpace of three or four hours, without appearing' to be extremely fatigued by it. The farmers moreover affufed me, that they knew of Boihies-men, who;could hold out in in this manner all day lon g ; and had, by this means, ran down, and with their own hands deftroyed, many elks or hart-beefts, efpecially when thefe creatures had been pre- vioufly wounded. • Indeed, moft o f the people belonging to this nation are obliged, for their fupport,to acquire this fwift- nefs of foot; to which, belides their manner of life, and their education from their infancy, cannot but difpofe them. Towards evening, after having loft our way feveral times, we came by a number of by-roads to a pit in the river, which our new guides, the'farmers, knew ufed to be frequented by fea-cows.. For this reafon, all the different ways, by which thefe animals might come up from the river, were befet by-us feparately, our hunting- party confifting in the whole o f feven perfons; viz. live of us Chriftians, together with my Hottentot and another belonging to the farmers. Belides this, the reft of the Hottentots 1776- ■ J anu ary. were ordered to go to the windward and to the more open places, and by fmacking their whips and making other noifes, to frighten and drive the animal towards us, as foon as it ihould make its appearance : in confequence of which mea- fures it appeared to us, that, when at length obliged to go on fhore in queft of its food, it muft neceflarily come to the hiding-place of fome one of the hunters. Every one o f thefe places were juft at the edge of the river, between the reeds which grew on the dry parts of the river, or on thofe fpots which the water had left, and at the fame time clofe to the very narrow paths which the animal had made- for itfelf at each place : in confequence of which difpofttion, it would inevitably ' pals not above fix inches, or a foot at moft, from the mouth of the fportfman’s piece. Confequently our whole dependence was I
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