Having passed the said Great River, the Narrator pursued his journey ever further northward along another river which feeds the oft-mentioned Great River and was by him named the Lion River for the multitude of lions found hereabouts; the Narrator being compelled to hold his course along the aforementioned Lion River for four full days before on the fifth day he emerged upon a flat and lush region, being the beginning of the land of the Great Namaquas, who had previously lived on this side of the Great River but about 20 years ago had migrated thither across the same river.
Arriving thus among the Great Namaquas the Narrator soon remarked that this coming was viewed by them not without suspicion, they appearing in large numbers nothing loth to tell him that his arrival little pleased them and that among them he was not without danger to his Person; but upon giving them to know that he had set out with permission from His Honour the Governor solely to shoot elephants, without having any other intention, and upon making demonstration of his weapons, they disposed themselves more peaceably and allowed him to pursue his expedition further northwards through their land; in which he the Narrator claims it assisted greatly that he was fluent in the language of the Little Namaquas, which is also understood among this Nation, and could himself explain his Object to them.
Having trekked two days further from here, and having made his halting-place on the first day by a warm spring, the Narrator arrived on the second day at a high mountain which being almost entirely composed of black rocks was named by him the Swarteberg. Here a second troop of Namaquas came to him, gentler-natured than the first, telling him that twenty days’ journey north of the aforesaid Swarteberg could be found an eloquent kind of people whom they called Damroquas, of a tawny or yellow appearance with long heads of hair and linen clothes; that the Envoy of the Damroquas had not long ago met a treacherous end at the hands of servants afflicted for lack of pursuits with the Black Melancholy; that these servants had fled to the Namaquas he the narrator had first met and dwelt yet among them; wherefore he should treat warily with the lastmentioned and look always to his Person.
As further concerns the said Great Namaquas, they are in the Narrator’s story uncommonly populous and provided in abundance with cattle and sheep of excellent quality because of the lush grassland and various flowing streams; with respect to their huts, manner of living, food, clothing, and weapons, they differ little from other Hottentots except that in place of sheepskins they are clothed in jackal hides and do not smear the body with fat; for the rest being fond of beads but most of all of copper.
There being furthermore in this land of the Great Namaquas a multitude of lions and rhinoceres to be found, besides an animal as yet quite unknown, being not as heavy as an elephant yet considerably taller, which the Narrator conjectured, as well on this account as for its long neck, humped back, and long legs, to be if not the true Camel then at least a species; these animals being so slow and cumbersome of gait that the Narrator on one occasion having given chase caught up with and shot dead two of them without difficulty, both being females, of which one had a calf which, fed on bran and water, the Narrator kept alive for about 14 days, but it for lack of milk and other good food having died, the Narrator brought the hide back with him; the appearance of the adult animal being however ill conceived from this skin, since the young is flecked and without a hump on the back while the adult is without flecks and is provided with heavy humps; the flesh of these animals, particularly the young, being accounted by the Namaquas an exceptional delicacy.
The Narrator also told of finding in the said land of the Great Namaquas heavy trees, the heart or innermost wood being of an uncommon deep red hue and the branches clothed in large clover-leaves and yellow flowers. He the Narrator having, besides divers as yet unknown copper mountains, encountered about four days’ journey from the Great River a mountain covered all over in a glittering yellow ore, of which small fragments were broken off and brought hither by him.
The Narrator having thus by his estimate travelled a good 54 days’ journey into the interior from his aforementioned farm at the Piquetbergen, and in all this time having shot no more than two elephants, but divers times having seen their tracks, therefore turned back along the same road taken by him on the journey thither, being on his return journey deserted by his servants but not being disturbed by the aforementioned Namaquas or meeting the Little Namaquas who five years ago departed across the Cous River.
Related to the Political Secretarial at the
Castle of Good Hope on the 18th November 1760.
X
This mark was made by the Narrator in my presence.
O. M. Bergh, Councillor & Secretary
As witnesses L. Lund, P. L. Le Seuer
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J. M. Coetzee, Dusklands
(Series: # )
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