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After a long passage of twenty-one days we reached Table Bay. I remained in Cape Town some days and then went on board the Eloline[137] to Hondeklip Bay. When we reached there it was very rough weather and no boat could cross the bar, but next morning Captain Sinclair said he would venture with the whale boat as he had business, but did not want to take me as he said it was dangerous, but I begged to go, I was so tired of the vessel and wanted to get home, so he said if I would sit very quietly at the bottom of the boat I might go, which of course I promised, thus Jimmy and I got on shore without further delay. We had a very nice reception from Mr. And Mrs. De Pass and he at once got a messenger to send to the Kloof with a letter to father to know I was there. It was just a week before father got to the Bay[138] with a wagon to fetch us, which was not considered long in those days. I found all well and, of course, I was delighted to be amongst them all again and I spent three months there very pleasantly. At the end of the time mother took me to the Bay[139], where Captain Sinclair again called in a few days and took me on board again, and we had a pleasant and quick passage to Walvich Bay. I found my husband[140] and all well and pleased to see us home again. Mr. F. Green[141] was also there, it was the first time I saw him, but he and Latham had been in Kaffirland together in the war. This was the beginning of a kindly intercourse for many years with the brave man.

Anderson again returned to the country; he had been to England to publish Lake Ngami[142]. Mr. & Mrs. Krapohle also came from Germany to take the late Mr. Bam’s place at Rooibank or Shepmansdorp as it was then called. Coming direct from Europe, of course everything was strange to them. I was often immensely amused at their remarks and blunders and how the Hottentots did take advantage of them. But they soon got to manage them better than we old settlers. Some time back Mr. & Mrs. Hahn[143] and daughter also came back to the country, they had been to Europe for some years. They went back to their old station and Mr. and Mrs. Rath,[144] our old friends, went to Cape Town to put their two daughters to school. How I teased the dear little woman the day they went on board, pretending to keep her baby after she was in the boat, little thinking it would be the last pleasantry I would ever have with her again. Some time after they left, I went to visit Becky at Otjimbingue. I stayed seventeen days but becoming, without reason, fidgety to get home; I started one morning on my return with only the wagon driver and his wife. We had not come to the first outspan place, Platklap, when we saw a Damara coming with a letter, as usual tied to a stick over his shoulder. The vessel must be in, “old Klaas”, I said, “here comes the postman”. But when he came he had only one letter for me from Latham, telling me to come home at once as the Flora was wrecked and the house full of sick people and Mrs. Rath and her four children were drowned. Of course I sent the messenger on to Otjimbingue, also writing at the back of the letter with a piece of charcoal as I in my haste forgot to take writing material, “send me a horse”. Telling the Damara to take and hasten with it to my brother-in-law and I pushed on. About dusk Mr. Vero overtook us. Frank and Mr. Hilder had asked him and he had kindly consented as they could not come to accompany me to the Bay. Getting relay oxen along the road and he and old Klaas, taking it in turns to drive and travelling night and day, we reached the Bay in a little more than three days. It was considered a good five or six days journey which we did in that short time and of course we got the name of being the quickest travellers in the country. It only showed what could be done even with oxen. The account I got of the wreck was, that one morning early some of the men saw a man walking on the opposite side of the Bay and thought it very strange for any one to be there. Latham sent men in a boat to see what it meant. It returned bringing Mr. Rath and a Damara girl. Latham exclaimed, “Mr. Rath is it you? Where are Mrs. Rath and the children?” “Gone, all gone”, he said and then told him that the vessel was wrecked on the outside beach, the night before, they mistook the place for the Point in the dark, some said. Latham at once taking a boat went to the assistance of the wrecked people, but mistaking the place described by Mr. Rath, he and the men walked some miles in the wrong direction, and had to retrace their steps, which made it late in the afternoon when they reached the place of the wreck. Captain van Reenen and some others were rather badly hurt, and as it was too late to have them removed to the house, it being about two miles across the sandhills and then five miles across the Bay, he had a shelter made for them with some casks and some planks till next morning, but the child, Adda, whom he found asleep on the beach, he sent with the men to the house which she reached about nine, wet through and through, and as only Runci was at home he took her to my room and told her to put on some of my clothes and go to bed giving her some hot tea. When Latham got home sometime during the night he found her asleep and also poor old Mr. Rath sleeping the sleep of exhaustion. Mr. Rath and others were of the opinion that the vessel was intentionally wrecked, and after many years he is confirmed in this opinion, but does not blame the captain as he knew nothing about it, but the first mate and others caused it. Mr. Rath left for Shepmansdorp and from there to Otjimbingue. Of course the wrecked people had to stay with us till a vessel came for them from Cape Town which was in a few weeks time.
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