Upon Moffat asking him why he had put him to sleep there, the man
replied, "Oh, the lion would not have the audacity to jump over on you."

Sometimes it happened that after travelling all day, hoping to reach a
village at night, the travellers would find when they got to the place
that all the people had gone. Then hungry and thirsty they had to pass
the night. In the morning after searching for water, and partaking of a
draught if they were successful in finding it, they would start off
again with their hunger unsatisfied, and deem themselves fortunate if
they overtook the migrating party that evening.

Of his ordinary manner of living at this time, he says, "My food was
milk and meat, living for weeks together on one, and then for a while on
the other, and again on both together. All was well so long as I had
either, but sometimes they both failed, and there were no shops in the
country where I could have purchased, and, had there been any, I must
have bought on credit, for money I had none."

His wardrobe bore the same impress of poverty as his larder. The clothes
received when in London soon went to pieces, and the knowledge of sewing
and knitting, unwillingly learnt from his mother, often now stood him in
good stead. She once showed him how a shirt might be smoothed by folding
it properly and hammering it with a piece of wood. Resolving one day to
have a nice one for the Sabbath, Moffat tried this plan. He folded the
shirt carefully, laid it on a smooth block of stone--not a hearth-stone,
but a block of fine granite--and hammered away. "What are you doing?"
said Africaner. "Smoothing my shirt," replied his white friend. "That is
one way," said he, and so it was, for on holding the shirt up to the
light it was seen to be riddled with holes. "When I left the country,"
said Moffat, "I had not half-a-dozen shirts with two sleeves apiece."