A few ostriches were the only living objects to be distinguished on the plain: we observed eighteen or twenty at no great distance from our waggon; but on perceiving us they made off with great speed. The weather was pleasant for travelling, the thermometer at noon standing at 59° in the shade. On the 23rd, we found the road so wretched, that we selected, as the best part of it, the bed of a river, where a number of persons had been destroyed about six months before by the bursting of a water-spout, while they were halting on their way to the interior from Cape Town.

Jackals' Fountain was the spot of our evening encampment, from whence we advanced on the ensuing day to the Turtle-Dove River, after having passed over one of the worst roads that imagination can conceive. We left this place about nine in the evening, intending to avail ourselves of the moonlight, by travelling the whole night. We had not proceeded on our route above half an hour, when our conductor drove the waggon into a bank of heavy sand; and the oxen being unable to draw it up the ascent, we were obliged to put our spades to work, and dig a path, by which we succeeded in extricating it after nearly three hours' labour. No sooner was this difficulty overcome, than we fell into another of a similar description, which compelled us to abandon all further attempt to proceed until daylight. Starting again about eight o'clock, we con

tinued our progress without intermission until we reached that romantic spot, the Dweekie or Rhinoceros River. On the 26th we crossed the Gamka or Lion River, and on the 27th arrived at the Beaufort. In consequence of the heavy rains the appearance of the country was much more favourable than it had been for some years past.

We left Beaufort on the 30th; and, amidst violent storms of hail and rain, we crossed the great chain of the Neufeld Mountains, the tops of which were covered with snow, while the thermometer stood at noon at 47°. We were detained by the weather for three or four days at the farm of a Boor named Boonartie, for whose son, a lad of fourteen, I could not help feeling some commiseration, as he was obliged to keep watch at night under a straw-built hovel, during this tempestuous weather, for the purpose of protecting his father's sheep from beasts of prey, which are generally more on the alert in such stormy seasons. On the previous night some jackals had attacked and bitten off the tails of several lambs three had died of cold; and on the preceding day others had been destroyed by the Lamer-vanger, or bearded vulture.

Boonartie and his wife appeared to be hospitable people; but their house was the picture of misery, the thatch of one room having completely disappeared, while the wind and rain penetrated through the shattered and dilapidated roof of the other to such a

degree, that it was with difficulty candles could be kept burning on the table. The family were in great distress. Besides the parents, it consisted of ten children, and an increase was daily expected. The husband related a very pitiable story of having been compelled to abandon a much better farm about two years before, in consequence of the continued depredations of the Bushmen, who had several times attempted to shoot him with their poisoned arrows. On one occasion, returning from the funeral of his father, his attention was attracted by a vast number of vultures hovering round the mountain near his house, and on reaching the spot he beheld eight of his horses lying dead, which had been killed in his absence by the Bushmen. They had succeeded in carrying off his sheep and goats, and had destroyed the horses to prevent pursuit. He found his wife, who had been left at home, labouring under the greatest agitation. While the Bushmen were engaged in their work of plunder upon the premises, she had been in momentary apprehension of their breaking into the house where she lay concealed.

On the 4th of October I left Boonartie's farm, the weather having become more settled, aud passing over the ridge of mountains at a distance of about two hours' journey, I descended to an open plain, in the midst of which I bivouacked for the night. At daybreak observing four ostriches on the top of a hill at a short distance from the waggons, I was in