1776. fierce animal, was yet fo timid with refpeft to the fair fex, F^ 3 ' that he had long been deeply in love with a fine girl in his neighbourhood, without daring to let either her or any one elfe know i t ; till one day when we were riding cheek by jowl over the defert plains, he divulged his paffion to me, (no doubt beeaufe I was a phyfician) and at the fame time afked my advice. I, on my part, prefcribed to him to difclofe his fentiments to the objeft of his affections in writing. Though this way of wooing was, in all probability, entirely unknown to F l i p , as well, as, perhaps, to the greater part of the colony, yet he placed an implicit faith in the remedy, and the phyfician was invefted with the office of dictating the terms of the billet-doux. The epiftle was accordingly written on the round lid of my box ; and, as may naturally be fuppofed, in a pretty amorous ftyle, though in a curious kind of broken Dutch, which favoured very ftrongly-of the foreign dialed! of the inditer; but as the girl, in all probability, would lay a greater ftrefs on the looks of her lover, who was a fmart well-made young fellow, than upon his letter, I was in hopes that, notwithftanding thefe difadvan- tages, my epiftle would prepare, the way to ,his good fortune, than which nothing could give me greater pleafure. O n the 6th, with Mr. I m m e l m a n and my nine Hottentots, I fet out again on our road home to the Gape, and in the afternoon arrived at the well of § uammedacka, de- fcribed at page 81 of this volume. Here I firft began to have an earned: longing to revifit :he Cape, having, almoft as well as could be expedted, accpmpliihed the purpofes for which I undertook the expedition into thefe parts; and having hitherto, partly by means of the remarkable objedts which I which adtually prefented themfelves to my notice, and Ee‘b?r^_ partly in confequence.of being in continual expedtation of meeting with them, been able to pafs the time w ith fome degree of pleafure, under more fatigues and difficulties'than can ealily be imagined. Befides, I was now obliged to haften back to the Capej that I might not be overtaken by the winter feafon, and mifs the opportunity of returning, or at leaft writing to Europe, by one of the Eaft-India homeward bound fliips. In the evening I rode along with a Hottentot to the fpot- where we had ffiot the two rhinocerofes on the 1 9th of December, and found the greater part of thefe animals already eaten up or deftroyed; but the fkulls were ftill in good prefervation. . Having taken the leaft of thefe with us-, and being about to return to our waggon, in our way we found a female rhinoceros with her calf. Thefe animals had probably been drawn out from the place o f their retirement by the cool of the evening, and were juft them coming out to graze for the night. The calf had already attained the fwe of a: fmall ox, though its horns were, of a very trifling fize, in companion with thofe of the mother; and upon the whole, it followed and was guided entirely by every motion of her’s. I would gladly have waited with the greateft patience, in order to explore this; animal’s manner of eating and digging up roots, See. but the night was approaching, and it would have been too dangerous an undertaking for us two, to pafs the night on thefe plains, r which abound with lions and rhinocerofes, without the apparatus neceffary for making a fire-., Befides, the clattering noife made, by the caparifons of aur fteeds,. had already betrayed i
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