STRATAGEM IN HUNTING.

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forefathers kept cattle; intimating, that they were not intended to keep, but to eat, as their progenitors had always done. He recommended the plan to all who happened to come in his but with no better success. It at last ocway, curred to his mind to present some of the principal individuals among them with a few goats a-piece. This he did, promising that, if they took good care of them for a given time, he would add to their number, and make them their own. This proposal, though to them scarcely to be believed, went to their hearts; and the very looks of the men, and the grateful gesticulations of the women, were felt by the missionary as a rich reward. His anticipations were fully realized. They allowed their little flocks to increase, and even took some trouble to make additions by barter; and it was no uncommon thing to see several of these resorting to the house of prayer on sabbath-days, though their homes were many miles distant.

One of the accompanying sketches represents a Bushman and a woman. The man has his bows, quiver, and poisoned arrows; and both he and the female are fair specimens of the general appearance of that people. The other sketch exhibits a stratagem, by which the Bushman approaches to game, in the garb of the ostrich. The method is ingenious, though extremely simple. A kind of flat double cushion is stuffed with straw, and formed something like a saddle. All, except the under part of this, is covered over with feathers, attached to small pegs, and made so as to resemble the bird. The neck and head of an ostrich are stuffed, and a small rod introduced. The Bushman intending to attack game, whitens his legs with any substance he can procure. He places the feathered saddle on his shoulders, takes the bottom part of the neck in his right hand, and his bow and poisoned arrows in his left. Such as the writer has seen were the most perfect mimics of the ostrich, and at a few hundred yards distant it is not possible for the human eye to detect the fraud. This human bird appears to pick away at the verdure, turning the head as if keeping a sharp look-out. shakes his feathers, now walks, and then trots, till he gets within bow-shot; and when the flock runs from one receiving an arrow, he runs too. The male ostriches will on some occasions give chase to the strange bird, when he tries to elude them, in a way to prevent their catching his scent; for when once they do, the spell is broken. Should one happen to get too near in pursuit, he has only to run to windward, or throw off his saddle, to avoid a stroke from a wing, which would lay him prostrate. 5*

CHAPTER V.

GREAT Namaqua-land, as it is usually called, lies north of the Orange River, on the western coast of Africa, between the 23° and 28° of south latitude; bounded on the north by the Damaras, and on the east by an extensive sandy desert. called by Mr. Campbell the Southern Zara, or Zahara.

In the month of January, 1806, the Orange, or Gariep River, was crossed by missionaries of the London Missionary Society, for the purpose of planting the Gospel among the inhabitants of that wild and desolate region. Before entering into a detail of painful and pleasing events, which marked the whole course of the bold, self-denying, and dangerous enterprise of the two Albrechts and their associates, it will be proper briefly to sketch the character of the country, and the circumstances connected with the early efforts of these men of God, to sow the seeds of the everlasting Gospel in a most ungenial soil.

As an inhabited country, it is scarcely possible to conceive of one more destitute and miserable; and it is impossible to traverse its extensive plains, its rugged, undulating surface, and to descend to the beds of its waterless rivers, without viewing it as emphatically "a land of droughts," bearing the heavy curse of

"Man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world, and all our woe."

Meeting with an individual, on my journey thither, who had spent years in that country, I asked what was its character and appearance? "Sir," he replied, "you will find plenty of sand and stones, a thinly scattered population, always suffering from want of water, on plains and bills roasted like a burnt loaf, under the scorching rays of a cloudless sun." Of the truth of this description I soon had ample demonstration. It is intersected by the Fish and 'Oup Rivers, with their numberless tributary streams, if such their dry and often glowing beds may be termed. times, for years together, they are not known to run; when, after the stagnant pools are dried up, the natives congregate to their beds, and dig holes, or wells, in some instances to

Some

TOPOGRAPHY OF NAMAQUA-LAND.

up

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the depth of twenty feet, from which they draw water, generally of a very inferior quality. They place branches of trees in the excavation, and, with great labour, under a hot hand sun, the water in a wooden vessel, and pour it into an artificial trough; to which the panting, lowing herds approach, partially to satiate their thirst. Thunder storms are eagerly anticipated, for by these only rain falls; and frequently these storms will pass over with tremendous violence, striking the inhabitants with awe, while not a single drop of rain descends to cool and fructify the parched waste.

When the heavens do let down their watery treasures, it is generally in a partial strip of country, which the electric cloud has traversed; so that the traveller will frequently pass, almost instantaneously, from ground on which there is not a blade of grass, into tracts of luxuriant green, sprung up after a passing storm. Fountains are indeed few and far between, the best very inconsiderable, frequently very salt, and some of them hot springs; while the soil contiguous is generally so impregnated with saltpetre, as to crackle under the feet, like hoar-frost, and it is with great difficulty that any kind of vegetable can be made to grow. Much of the country is hard and stony, interspersed with plains of deep sand. There is much granite; and quartz is so abundantly scattered, reflecting such a glare of light from the rays of the sun, that the traveller, if exposed at noon-day, can scarcely allow his eyelids to be sufficiently open to enable him to keep the course he wishes to pursue.

The inhabitants are a tribe or tribes of Hottentots, distinguished by all the singular characteristics of that nation, which includes Hottentots, Corannas, Namaquas, and Bushmen. Their peculiar clicking language is so similar, that it is with little difficulty they converse with the two former. In their native state the aborigines, though deeply sunk in ignorance, and disgusting in their manners and mien, were neither very warlike nor bloody in their dispositions. The enervating influence of climate, and scanty sustenance, seem to have deprived them of that bold martial spirit which distinguishes the tribes who live in other parts of the interior, which, in comparison with Namaqua-land, may be said to "flow with milk and honey." With the exception of the solitary traveller, whose objects were entirely of a scientific character, those who ventured into the interior carried on a system of cupidity, and perpetrated deeds, calculated to make the worst impression upon the minds of the natives, and influence them to view white men, and others descended from