CHAPTER XI.
JOURNEY OVER THE KARRO.
As soon as the oxen were yoked, we immediately began to enter the
Pass. At about midway, we found a party with three waggons at
mitspan, which proved to be the same Frans Van der Merwe, of whom
my two teams of oxen were bought. We halted a minute, to enquire
if we might still expect to find water enough, in the Karro for pur
cattle, and were rejoiced at hearing that this indispensable requisite
was not quite dried up. He had been residing at his cattle-station
in the Karro during the season of the rains, and was now removing,
with all his family, to his dwelling in the Bokkeveld.
The number of Karree-trees growing along the course of the
rivulet, give a more pleasing appearance to the Pass. Though the
road was generally level, this defile occupied us nearly an hour before
we cleared the mountains. The Bokkeveld-Karro then Opened upon
us, and we beheld an immense plain, unbroken by hill or eminence,
stretching before us in every direction, as ‘far as the eye could discern.
(See the above Vignette). Along the northern and eastern
horizon, is seen a range of distant blue mountains, probably those
of the Roggeveld (Rye-land).
Our road was in some parts sandy, and in others stony. We continned
travelling long after it became dark; but the dry atmosphere
of the Karro was so exceedingly clear from vapors, that an infinite
multitude of sparkling stars enabled us easily to see our way, till we
reached the Kleine Doom (Little Thorn) river, where we halted for
the night. Several graziers were at this time stationed here, with
their waggons, cattle, and families.
15th. On the next morning they paid us a visit; and if they
derived any news or information from us, it was more than we did
from them; so very uninformed, or so little communicative, did this
party seem to be. Yet, in these wilds, but little used to converse
with strangers, it is possible that their taciturnity might be the effect
rather of timidity than of natural dullness.
The Doom-rivier takes its name from the trees of Doorn-boom
that grow on its banks: a name equally applicable to every other
river- in the Karro, and, indeed, to the greatest number of the rivers,
not only in the colony, but in the whole of Southern Africa, as far as
I have been. All the rivers crossed in the following part of my
journey, to its farthest extent northward, take a westerly course,
and discharge their waters into the Southern Atlantic Ocean.
In .the afternoon we departed from Little Thom-river, having
warm and exceedingly agreeable weather. The excellence of the
roads, in many parts of these plains, cannot be surpassed: a clayey
soil, washed level and smooth by frequent thunder-showers, and afterwards
hardened and baked by the heat of the sun, forms a strpng floor,
on which the wheels of a waggon leave little or no impression ; and
on which eight oxen are found to be a sufficient team. These African
roads are, however, nothing- more than the space cleared from shrubs
and plants, by the passing and. repassing of waggons. Those of the
Karro are mostly worn a few inches below the general surface of the
plain. In one part of this day’s journey, the soil was a very deep,
loose, yellow sand, in which we were much annoyed by dust
-I now gathered, for the first time, specimens of a very
extraordinary grass.* Its- panicle of flowers formed a bunch of
* Poa spinosa.
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