most plentiful were two species of the Geel-hout, or Yew, some of which were from twenty to thirty feet in circumference, and sixty to seventy feet in length.

The summit of the Kaka mountain commanded a most extensive view of the Kaffer country, as far as the sea-coast to the south, and beyond the residence of the king to the south-east. The level plains over which the Kat and the Kaapna are seen to serpentize, those plains where once the Ghonaqua nation tended their flocks and herds, now desolate, were laid as it were at the feet of the spectator.

A number of rare and beautiful birds were seen about the forests of the Kakaberg. Among these, one of the most remarkable was the Cuculus Persa, or Touraco. This superb bird, by its gestures, seems as if conscious of its superior beauty. The Upupa, or Hopoe, was very plentiful; the Numida meleagris equally so. A fifth species of bustard was also scen here, with brown and white wings, and neck of a cerulean blue colour; size, that of a pheasant. Along the road were numbers of that beautiful little pigeon, called here the Namaaqua dove, not larger than a sparrow.

On entering one of the narrow vallies, we seemed on a sudden to be overtaken in the midst of a shower of snow, which we thought to be the pappus or down of certain plants. On closer examination, however, it was found to proceed from myriads of white ants, on the wing. The life of the Ephemeris, in its perfect state, is that of a single day; but the flight of the white ant is but a leap into the air for a few moments, from whence they tumble to the ground, never to rise again. The

wings are so very fine, and so slightly attached to their bodies, that they generally fall off, or are broken with the fall. Others immediately roll them off, and afterwards creep into the crevices of the ground to end their existence in quiet. It would seem they had some presentiment of the doom that awaited them, and that they hastened to escape under the cover of the earth to avoid being devoured by their own children, which, in numberless myriads, swarm in the roads and naked places of the ground, particularly after a shower of rain. Heat and moisture, the two great productive powers in nature, or those at least that call the vital principle into action, bring forth the young from the eggs of all the insect tribe that are deposited in the ground. Thus, though a rainy summer may promote vegetation, yet it at the same time calls to life such multitudes of destructive vermin, which otherwise would have remained dormant in the ground, that on the whole a dry season is perhaps the best.

From the Bavian's river into Bruyntjes Hoogté is a day's journey, and through this to the entrance of Camdeboo another, and three from hence to Graaff Reynet, at which village we arrived on the twenty-fourth, on one of the warmest days that we had yet experienced in the whole country. The thermometer, when exposed to the wind in the shade, rose to 108°: whilst in the house it was cool and pleasant at 82°. It was one of those hot winds, such as we had once before experienced on the banks of the Great Fish river. They happen most frequently upon the Karroo plains, where they are sometimes attended with tornadoes that are really dreadful. Waggons are overturned, men and horses thrown down, and the shrubs torn out of the ground. The dust and sand are whirled into the

air in columns of several hundred feet in height, which, at a distance, look like the water-spouts seen sometimes at sea; and with those they are equally, if possible, avoided, all that falls in their way being snatched up in their vortex. Sometimes dust and small pebbles are hurled into the air with the noise and violence of a sky-rocket. Rain and thunder generally succeed those heated winds, and gradually bring about a decrease of temperature to the common standard, which, in the summer season at Graaff Reynet, appears to be about 80° to 84° in the middle of the day. The mornings and evenings are generally cool and pleasant.

CHAP. V.

Sketches on a Journey from Graaff Reynet along the Sea-Coast to the Cape.

THE long continuance of dry weather had, for

more than a month, rendered the passage of the Karroo, or great desert, impracticable, on account of the scarcity both of water and of herbage. All the rivers that intersect it, and the few springs that are found upon it, were said to be completely dried up; and the farmers of Graaff Reynet, who, at this season of the year, just after their harvest, generally make their annual visit to the Cape, were under the necessity of delaying their journey, or of going round through the district of Zwellendam, in all parts of which, and at all seasons of the year, is abundance of water. Three days, however, previous to our departure from Graaff Reynet, there had fallen such heavy and continued rain, both at that place, and to the westward in the mountains of Camdeboo and Sneuwberg, that little doubt was entertained of its having brought upon the Karroo a plentiful supply of water, as far at least as De Beer valley, the delightful meadow of the desert, mentioned in a former chapter.

On the strength of this conjecture, we departed from Graaff Reynet on the ninth of December, and found the two rivers, Sunday and Camdeboo, so much swelled with the rains as barely to be fordable. At the port also of Camdeboo, which opens upon the desert, the small river there was running

with a copious and rapid stream; a circumstance that nearly removed every doubt, and scarcely suffered an idea to exist of the probability even of experiencing any want of water on this side of De Beer valley. We soon however found, by fatal experience, that the extent of the rains had been very limited. In fact they had reached only a few miles beyond the Poort. Still we had hopes that the Hottentot's river, a day's journey farther, would contain some water, or should this even fail, that the Karuka, whose source was in the mountains of Camdeboo, must undoubtedly be full from the late rains that were perceived to fall in those mountains.

On the eleventh, therefore, we left the Poort, and the farther we proceeded upon the desert, the fainter became the traces of the rain that had fallen, till at length they totally disappeared. The face of the country very soon presented only one continued plain of uniform aridity and barrenness. The few saline plants, thinly scattered over a surface of white clay sprinkled with reddish sand, were shrivelled up, crackling under the feet like so many bundles of rotten sticks. The rays of the sun playing upon the naked surface were painful to behold, and their dazzling light highly injurious to the eye.

About the middle of the day a melancholy object presented itself before us, near the side of the road. It was a horse at his last gasp, for want of water. He was known by our Hottentots to have left Graaff Reynet eight days before, with a party of farmers, who had gone from thence, in order to proceed across the Karroo to Zwarteberg. He had probably strayed from them in the night, the time they generally travel, and by that means was left