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About this time we left on our journey to the Colony. A few days after a ship came into the Bay with Mr. Galton and Anderson[84]. The lion still prowled about Rooibank and killed Mrs. Stewardson’s little dog, Fan, at the end of the stoep. The next day the white people and natives went to hunt him and at last managed to kill our grand enemy. They told us he was a magnificent brute – so he ought to have been considering the loss and annoyance he caused us.

We had chosen the Kusip[85] or sand road. We, none of us, knew it and found it hard work getting the wagons through the heavy sand. We only had a couple of Hottentots with us. Ben had to drive one wagon and James led it. It was slow work but we fortunately met a Mr. Silverboor, a trader, and a bastard who were going to Rooibank, and who on their return gave us some assistance with their people as long as we were in company but it was not for long, only a few days. We never suffered so much in travelling as we did on that road. It certainly is the worst in the country. One evening mother and I were walking; the wagons stuck fast in the sand – Silverboor and party were doing their best to get them out. Mother and I sat down at the side of the road on a sandhill waiting and looking on. At last they got out and we went on and kept a little distance in front till we came to a steep hill, where the wagons again, for quite a long time, stuck. It was a nice clear starlight evening but cold – so I went to the wagon to get mother’s shawl. It was dark in the wagon and the children fast asleep. I felt if they were covered up and missed one of them and found it was Richard. I asked about him but no one could tell me about him. Of course I went back to the other wagon still sticking near the bottom of the hill, he was not there either, but some of the people said they had heard a child’s voice shouting sometimes, but thought they must be mistaken. Just as we got the lantern to go and search for him, the poor child came up and throwing his arms round me, clung to me trembling in every limb, but could not speak for some moments. Then mother came to see what was detaining me and heard the reason. I was so glad the child had come before she learnt of his absence, for my few minutes of anxiety was intense, what would hers have been ? Richard said that when the wagon stuck he got out and sat on the sand as he wanted to see how the young oxen would trek and the wagon sticking so long, he fell asleep. When he woke the wagons were gone – but he must have been still half asleep for he set off running in a wrong direction till he suddenly stopped at the edge of a steep place and then seemed to awake and understand his stiuation. He turned round and ran back and fortunately got on the wagon road but did not know which direction to take – but he felt about till he got a piece of fresh dung, and then he knew he was in the right road and to decide which way to go he looked at the stars and was able to judge the direction. After running some distance he heard the cracking of the whips at the wagons where they stuck and were providentially detained so long. He then began shouting in the hope of making us hear. This was a narrow escape as we were close to the river and lions were in the neighbourhood.

A few days after we were very short of water, not being able to reach any on account of the heavy sands and the oxen knocked up. Silverboor who had gone on and we were obliged to leave one wagon behind and take the oxen on to the nearest water and from there sent them back to fetch it. Becky offered to stay with the wagon till the oxen could be sent back.. A little while after we left, a troop of baboons came near and began screaming and going on so that she got frightened and buttoned the sail close and kept in the wagon. She was greatly pleased when they came with the oxen. At the next place we were obliged to leave the one wagon both for want of people and on account of the oxen. We had often heard of the “Devil’s Punch Bowl” as it was called and now we came to it. It was the only place to get water and we were obliged to go down. I don’t know that I can describe it right. It was a place where the Kusip River[86] comes down between steep high rocks on which you look down from where the wagon stood on a small flat sand surrounded by sand hills. When you stand at the edge and look down you see the water at the bottom like a small pool several hundred yards below. People used to get the water up in a skin bag which is made by having a goat killed and the skin taken off whole as a bag, the neck and feet being sewn up to make it watertight. When Becky and I looked down from the top we laughed and said people had made more of it than it was. It was only a steep sandhill we had to go down – so we started on a run – the man taking the oxen and the bag for the water. When we got about one third of the way down the sand suddenly ended from there the descent was over steep rocks, the rough footpath winding in and out down to the water which we reached at last and having found that the road was much farther and more difficult than it looked from the top. There were lots of bones lying about bleached white by the sun and we learnt on enquiring that they were the bones of oxen brought down to drink and which could not get out again as they could or would not jump up from the steep smooth rocks in one place of the footpath – they had to be left to their fate. There was only a small patch of reeds for them in that hole, not enough for poor knocked up beasts to live on.

We filled the bag and packed it on my ride ox as it was the tamest, but when we got to the steep spot where the animals had to make the jump, with all our driving and cracking of whips, we could not succeed in getting five of the oxen out and were obliged to leave them. When we reached the sand, as was usual, the water bag was tied to the ox’s tail, the hill was too steep for it to be kept on the animal’s back and with the plunges it would make to get up the sand it being heavy and loose, the bag would slip off. We also found it hard work to climb out. It was early morning when we went down and three o’clock in the afternoon when we reached the wagon at the top. Of course we had to leave at once as the next water was very far from there, and it would not do to have to go down there for water again. Becky and I did not laugh at the place or people’s stories about it any more, but thought they had given it a very good name.

After a few hours trekking we came into quite a different sort of country leaving the sand behind, of which we were very glad, and of course getting on proportionately better. Two days brought us to a rather nice place, a large flat surrounded by mountains. Near the banks of a periodical river we outspanned and stayed there to rest ourselves and the oxen, there being good grazing. Then after some days, father, Becky, Ben and I took the advantage of going with Frank Bassingthwaighte’s wagon which had come the day before from Rheboth, where he had settled some time before and was now going to Rooibank to fetch supplies for the Missionary and himself. We went to fetch the wagon which had been left in the sandhills. We left mother and the children at the ox wagon and the cattle in the care of the only faithful Hottentot, we had found, the one who stayed with us in the Swacop and who came with us when we left Rooibank. His name was Kleinsmit. I wonder why he was so different from the majority of the Hottentots. I don’t know what we should have done without him. He was one of the Bay Topnaars, as they are called, and was a very quiet determined man. Very careful of his powder since he had learned to shoot with a musket he had got from father. He deserves to be remembered by us being the only faithful Hottentot servant we found in the country.

When we reached the Devil’s Punch Bowl, an old man who was with Frank said he would get the oxen out which had been left there as he knew another place where they could climb. Accordingly he went down and brought three, the other two having died. We next reached the place where the wagon had been left and Frank went off to Rooibank, first helping us to inspan. We travelled all night and just after sunrise we spanned out in the sandhill near the flat above the Devil’s Punch Bowl and while we were preparing to have some breakfast, the oxen being thirsty strayed off, and Becky went to turn them but could not get ahead of them for sometime, as they were making off in search of water. We wondered what kept her and, of course, went to see but she had just managed to turn them, but not before they had got a couple of miles away. We then decided to leave the wagon there with father, as he was not able to go with us, and take the oxen down to the water in the Devil’s Punch Bowl. It was about twelve o’clock when we got to the top and as it was a broiling hot day we could not stand the heat of the sand going down as it got into our shoes. We rolled handkerchiefs over our shoes and so managed to reach the rocky part of the path. When we had given the oxen water, we thought we would try to find the place where the man had brought the three oxen out and walked a long distance up the bed of the river as there were literally no banks only steep rocks on each side; but we could find no place possible to go out and no sign of a path, so we turned back as it was getting late; it was nearly sun-set when we reached the water and attempted to go up. We had some work and delay when we came to the place where the oxen had to jump up, but after a long time with Ben cracking his whip and shouting we succeeded in getting all up. Only the two sheep we had for slaughter got away but that we did not care about and did not even try to turn them. It was about midnight when we reached the top, a clear starlit night. We stopped to pack the water bag on the ox and after doing so sat down for a few minutes and all three fell asleep, but in a few moments were awake again by a noise which we thought were wild dogs. The cattle being tired had not strayed and some were laying down, we were rather frightened at the thought of the dogs and, of course, lost no time in getting on. When we reached the sandhills we found out what the noise was; it was poor old father shouting; he thought we could not find the wagon and as he could not make any more fire, having pulled all the long grass he could find since sunset to make a fire, to show us where to come to, there being no bushes or wood to be had. He had been shouting till he was quite hoarse, tired and nearly wild with anxiety, at our long absence. We, as well as the oxen, were too tired to proceed till next morning.

We trekked all that day and most of the night without stopping, and the next day reached the wagon and found mother and the rest all well.
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