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We called at Possession Island and at last reached Walwich Bay and in rounding Pelican Point went so close that we could throw a biscuit ashore and the vessel touched the ground which rather amused us, and I laughingly said we were sticking fast, but Latham and the Captain said, I did not know the danger we were in and the wind had caught the sails in some way. On landing we found that Frank and party were caught in the Swakop - so we sent off a messenger for the wagon to be sent for us and poor Mr. Schoneberg at once took his gun and walked through the night to Rooibank, which he reached at sunrise next morning to find his wife well with twins. We found Becky well; they had made their werft at Conecandas[116] just near our old house, which was all down, the wood having rotted, but Mr. Stewardson was now also living there, but he was laid up with his wounds. A few days before we came, a lion had paid them a visit and killed a horse, so they had all gone to hunt him a little way from his camp. They brought him to a stand, they all fired but missed him, when he sprang after them and Mr. Borchard got up a tree and Mr. Letto came to a stand quite stupefied and poor Stewardson’s foot caught in a grass root and fell when the lion caught him, but he caught the lion by his beard or jaws and kept trying to keep him from his body and fortunately the dogs also kept worrying and distracting the lion’s attention when Dolm[117] took Letto’s gun which he had not discharged, and ran back and took aim when Stewardson called out to him to aim a little lower, which he did and fortunately killed the lion on the spot. Poor Stewardson jumped up saying, “Well done, Tom”, but he only went a little distance when he fell insensible. One hand and wrist was fearfully gnawed and both his feet and one leg. Dolm,[118]at once, got on the horse and came up to Becky to ask her to go and prepare his wife and to get a stretcher on which they brought him home. He was laid up for weeks, of course, this brought old times vividly to our minds here in the old place. One of the first things I had done was to have my little brothers’[119] grave buildt up, as we did not have it done before we left – only a heap of stones put on it.

In a few weeks the party went to open the mine and we had got a lot of old Damaras about us, they had flocked down, when they heard their old master Frank had returned. Some of them were in a starving condition. One poor woman had no milk to nurse her baby when Becky and I met them in the flats, so Becky took the little thing and put it to her breast, but it was almost too weak and far gone to drink. After a time they succeeded in nursing it back to life. It was rather a novel sight seeing two babies, one black and her own white[120] on her lap at once. In a few days, they of course got milk for it.

Another Damara woman was nearly killed by eating the flesh of a wolf, which had eaten some of the ox which we had poisoned for the lion, which had killed him. However, they succeeded in killing the lion by going out and shooting him, and when his skin came home, I went and examined his tail, for the thorn with which it is said he lashes his prey – there is a small thorny joint like a thorn, but I don’t think it is large enough for the purpose people say. One day Mr. Woleston[121] got up on the top of one of the mountains where the stones were very loose and could not get down again – without help, so a couple of men had to take reims and get him down.

About this time, the river came down very strong and the lion very troublesome. The party went to work the mine and Latham went to the Bay, for a dwelling house for us which father had left at Sandfontein.[122] Becky and I remaining at Canecandas[123] for the present, not getting a letter from Latham at the usual time[124] and as he was not well I became uneasy and Becky and I went to the Bay a few days before arranged, and well we did, for after travelling all night when we reached Sandfontein.[125] In the morning we met a man on horseback coming to call me as Latham was quite laid up with fever. When I reached the Bay he just knew me for a few minutes and was again delirious and the house not being quite finished, he had a very bad attack indeed. He was a long time ill and just about three weeks after we came to the Bay – just as Latham was recovering, Lovdy[126] was born and as we had only one Damara woman with us and the storeman Runci I had rather a trying time with the two sick rooms, but Thank God, both were spared. In a couple of months Becky went to live at the mine[127] leaving Jimmy[128] with us in the Bay, where we soon became tolerably comfortable. What fun we used to have sometimes when there were friends staying with us or when it was time for the snails which used to come in along the beach, when Latham and I would stick them with a rod then Jimmy and I catch them as they threw them on the shore. At the edge of the water where they would sometimes get out of our hands and we in our excitement would get into the water with boots and all, then we had a small boat that Latham and I could manage along and the great sharks and porpoises that used to spear. One day one nearly took Runci[129] off, as the rope got round his leg, oh! how he did shout out before the rope was cut and another day they got a great Kabeljauw and brought it up and put it on the stiloads to see how much it weighed, just hooking it by the gills, Runci put his hand into its mouth, saying “what a whopper he is”, when its jaws snapped to and there was Runci’s hand caught fast between its teeth, how he did bawl with his hand fast. He looked so comical I could not help him, he said he thought I was never going to leave off laughing.

There were many strange things there in those days, some merry, many sad.

One day, a whale was washed upon Pelican Point and when we went over to see it, I climbed upon its back by the tail. Some of the party said I was dancing an Irish jig up there, but when I wanted to get down it was so slippery, I could not without assistance, and for a time no one would help me, saying I should have to stay in my novel position, but one of them good-naturedly assisted me to alight.

We had many visitors at times, but it was very dull and lonely at other times, and we had to amuse ourselves as best we could. Amongst other visitors were Chapman and Edwards[130] from the Lake Ngami, and we occasionally went up country to the mine, and Otjamba[131] which was now the principal station and to Usakos where one of the cattle stations was, for the copper wagons to get relays of treck oxen. Tinkas was usually called the nursing place of the lions, there being plenty of zebras and other game about. We were seldom there, that we did not hear them at night.

On one accasion old Piet, a Cape wagon driver, who was sleeping in one of the huts woke in the night and saw something sitting in the door which looked like a big dog, but when he looked closely he saw it was a lion, he took up his gun, which was fortunatley loaded, and shot him on the spot. The other people, waking through the report of the shot, helped to drag the carcass from the door. We got the skin and one of our friends made a mat of it.

One afternoon, Johannes Cloete, Mr. Bam’s interpreter from Rooibank, came on horseback with a letter from Mrs. Bam asking Latham to come at once as her husband was very ill. Of course he went, and told me to follow with the cart, which I did; Mr. Chapman[132] and Jimmy[133] accompanying me. We got to Rooibank about midnight and found Mr. Bam very ill. I think it was inflamation of the lungs. His poor wife was, so to say, knocked-up attending him and the children who had also been ill. The next morning our poor friend died rather suddenly we thought. There were only Chapman and myself in the room at the time. Latham being in the other room mixing some medicine and Mrs. Bam gone to the kitchen to get something for him. I had been supporting him in sitting up a little and had just laid his head on the pillow, when he said something I could not understand, looked up and was gone, so gently, we thought he had fainted. I ran to call his wife, when we came back to the room Latham had him in his arms at the open window, he also thinking that he had fainted, but we soon saw our mistake. This valued friend[134] and true and devoted missionary had ceased from his labours and gone to rest.

There was a wagon, belonging to the Enterprise Mining Company outspanned at a little distance, and Latham got the two men, I forget their names, that were with it, to come and make the coffin and we buried him under some large trees a little distance from the house. Next day we took the poor widow and three children with us to the Bay. In a few weeks time a vessel came in and Latham took a passage for them to Cape Town, Jimmy and I accompanying them, as Latham did not like them to go alone and I wished to visit my parents at Kamesberg,[135] as it was now three years since I left them. We touched at some of the Islands, the Captain kindly took me on shore at Halafax,[136] as Latham had requested him, so that I might see that natural curiosity, it being as it were on pillars, the sea washing through under it.

One day the sailors killed a big black fish or specimen of whale which they fastened to the side of the ship. We put into Possession Island where there were boilers to fire out the oil. Not far from Possession is still to be seen, on the mainland, the cross the Portuguese discovered, placed there.
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