want of water, on plains and hills roasted like a burnt leaf, under the
scorching rays of a cloudless sun."

The missionaries, after a journey of great difficulty and suffering,
reached the land of the Namaquas, and halted for a time at a place which
they named "Silent Hope," and then at "Happy Deliverance;" finally they
settled at a spot, about one hundred miles westward of Africaner's
kraal, called Warm Bath. Here, for a time, their prospects continued
cheering. They were instant in season and out of season to advance the
temporal and spiritual interests of the natives; though labouring in a
debilitating climate; and in want of the common necessaries of life.
Their congregation was increased by the desperado Jager, afterwards
Christian Africaner, a Hottentot outlaw, who, with part of his people,
occasionally attended to the instructions of the missionaries; and they
visited the kraal of this robber chieftain in return. It was here that
he first heard the Gospel, and, referring afterwards to his condition at
this time, he said that he saw "men as trees walking."

Terrible trials soon came upon these devoted missionaries. Abraham
Albrecht, one of their number died, and Africaner, becoming enraged,
threatened an attack upon the station. The situation of the missionaries
and their wives was most distressing. Among a feeble and timid people,
with scarcely any means of defence, a bare country around, no mountain,
glen, or cave in which they could take refuge, under a burning sun and
on a glowing plain, distant two hundred miles from the abodes of
civilised men, between which and them lay the dreary wilderness and the
Orange River; such was their position, with the human lion in his lair,
ready to rouse himself up to deeds of rapine and blood.

For a whole month they were in constant terror, hourly expecting the