t's worth, and then I've done all I intend
to. I started from Walfisch Bay with two wagons, loaded up with
trading-gear, just eighteen months ago. I intended to hunt a bit, and I
had five good ponies with me. I had also in my outfit three very good
native `boys'--one especially, `April,' a most useful chap; he was a
'Mangwato, a capital fellow at languages, and understood Zulu and Dutch,
and one or two Zambesi dialects. He was a good driver, cook, and
hunter--one of the best all-round natives I ever came across.

"Well, I trekked through Damaraland and Ovampoland up to the Cunene
River. I hadn't much trouble with the Ovampo, as I knew their chiefs
and headmen. But they're a rum lot, and you've got to watch it in their
country. I did pretty well, and sent down a decent troop of cattle
taken in barter to a place I've got in Damaraland.

"After several months, I left the Cunene, and worked up for a new bit of
country hitherto unexplored. I crossed the Okavango somewhere up
towards its sources, and then found myself in the wild country of the
Mukassakwere Bushmen. Here there was plenty of game, and I had some
grand sport. The Bushmen were mad for meat and tobacco, and were only
too eager--once they had found out my killing powers--to show me game.
I had a glorious time among elephant rhinoceros, `camel' (giraffe), and
all the big antelopes. Elands were running in big troops, almost as
tame as Alderney cows, and we lived like fighting cocks. I got a fine
lot of ivory in this country; and then, taking some of the best of the
Bushmen with me, pushed still farther north by east.

"One afternoon, after a long, troublesome trek through some heavy
bush-country, in which we had been all hard at work cutting a path for
the wagons, we emerged pretty thankfully into clear country again.
Before us lay spread a vast open grassy plain, dotted here and there
with troops of game. Beyond the plain, some thirty miles distant, there
stood in purple splendour against the clear horizon a majestic mountain
chain, its peaks just now tinted a tender rose by the setting sun. We
all stood for a while gazing, open-mouthed, at the glorious scene before
us, and then camped for the night. Round my servants' camp-fire I
noticed a good deal of animated conversation going on. Two Bushmen in
particular were full of chatter and gesticulation. Their curious
clicking speech came fast and thick, and they pointed often in the
direction of the