I was alone! Oh, may the reader never experience the full meaning of that melancholy word!
After upward of two months of no ordinary sufferings, my strong constitution prevailed, and I was convalescent; but several weeks elapsed before I recovered my usual health and vigor.
John Allen was also seriously ill from the same malady, which had the character of an epidemic, for in a very short time it spread like wildfire throughout the length and breadth of Great Namaqua-land, and vast numbers of people succumbed under it. The disease, indeed, was of so destructive a nature that it swept off whole villages. In one kraal in particular, all the inhabitants perished, and the cattle were left to take care of themselves.
Fever (the cause of which is unknown) is not common in these parts, and makes its appearance only occasionally.
We had pitched our tent, as already said, near the Hountop River. The country thereabout was a succession of vleys or gulleys, then filled with excellent clear water, teeming with water-fowl. Quails, birds of the grouse tribe, and wood-pigeons, were also numerous. Of the larger animals we had the zebra, the springbok, the ostrich, and an occasional oryx and hartebeest; but, from their being much persecuted by the natives, combined with nakedness of the country, they were extremely wary and difficult of approach.
Game of many kinds being thus abundant, it may well be supposed that, as soon as my strength permitted me to carry a gun, I at once took the field, as well for amusement as for the purpose of replenishing our larder, which was but very ill supplied.
One day I made a capital shot at an ostrich, which, when running at full speed, I brought down at the long distance of two hundred and thirty paces. On a previous occasion I killed one of these splendid birds when upward of three hundred paces from me.
Another day I had the good fortune to shoot a rhinoceros. He was probably a straggler, for these animals have long since disappeared from the part of the country where we were then encamped, and, indeed, are now very rarely to be met with south of the Kuisip River.
Early one morning one of our herdsmen came running up to us in great fright, and announced that a lion was devouring a lioness! We thought at first that the man must be mistaken; but his story was perfectly true, and only her skull, the larger bones, and the skin were left. On examining the ground more closely, the fresh remains of a young springbok were also discovered. We therefore conjectured that the lion and lioness being very hungry, and the antelope not proving a sufficient meal for both, they had quarreled; and he, after killing his wife, had coolly eaten her also. A most substantial breakfast it must have been!
On only one other occasion have I known lions to prey on each other. This was when on my way to Lake Ngami. On a certain night we had badly wounded a lion. He retreated growlingly into the bush, and immediately afterward a whole troop of lions rushed upon their disabled brother and tore him to pieces.