“Servants! what do you mean?”

“I mean the Hottentots, of whom I see so many on your farm.”

“Hottentots!” roared the man, “are you come to preach to Hottentots?  Go to the mountains and preach to the baboons; or, if you like, I’ll fetch my dogs, and you may preach to them.”

The missionary said no more but commenced the service.  He had intended to challenge the “neglect of so great salvation,” but with ready wit seizing upon the theme suggested by his rough entertainer, he read the story of the Syrophenician woman, and took for his text the words, “Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”  He had not proceeded far in his discourse when the farmer stopped him, saying, “Will Mynherr sit down and wait a little, he shall have the Hottentots.”

He was as good as his word, the barn was crowded, the sermon was preached, and the astonished Hottentots dispersed.  “Who,” said the farmer, “hardened your hammer to deal my head such a blow?  I’ll never object to the preaching of the Gospel to Hottentots again.”

After a toilsome march, during which Mr. Kitchingman and Moffat took it in turn to drive the cattle, losing some through the hyenas by the way, they reached Bysondermeid, to which station Mr. and Mrs. Kitchingman had been appointed.  There Robert stayed one month, receiving much useful information from Mr. Schmelen, the missionary whom Mr. Kitchingman had come to replace, he having been ordered to Great Namaqualand, where he had laboured before.

At length, his oxen being rested, Robert Moffat bade adieu to Mr. and Mrs. Kitchingman, whose friendship he much valued, and with a guide and drivers for the oxen started onward.  Their way led through a comparatively trackless desert, and they travelled nearly the whole night through deep sand.  Those were not the days of railway trains, and travelling had to be undertaken in cumbrous, springless bullock-waggons, several spare oxen being taken to provide for losses and casualties.  Towards morning the oxen were so exhausted that they began to lie down in the yoke from fatigue, compelling a halt before water had been reached.  The journey was resumed the next day, but still no water could be found.

As it appeared probable that if they continued in the same direction, they would perish through thirst, they altered their course to the northward, but the experiences were as bad as before.  At night they lay down exhausted and suffering extremely from thirst, and the next morning rose at an early hour to find the oxen incapable of moving the waggon a step farther.  Taking them and a spade to a neighbouring mountain, a large hole was dug in the sand, and at last a scanty supply of water was obtained.  This resembled the old bilge-water of a ship for foulness, but both men and oxen drank of it with avidity.

[Illustration:  Waggon travelling in south Africa.]