were residing, seeing the necessity of replenishing my stock before I
quitted the inhabited part of the colony. They proposed resuming
their journey on the fifth of the next month; and, as nothing more
had been heard respecting the CafFres, they had come to the determination
of proceeding to the Zak river, there to await the result
of further enquiry, before they decided on the course they were
to take.
I was glad to perceive that my men became tired of waiting so
long in this arid spot, and that they were anxious to proceed. The
oxen did not seem to be gaining either flesh or strength; being obliged
to wander every day to a great distance from the house, before they
could find pasture, as the sheep of the place consumed, like locusts,
every blade of grass and leafy twig within a moderate compass.
It was an amusing and interesting sight to behold, every evening,
at sunset, the numerous flocks streaming, like an inundation, over
the ridges and low hills, or moving in a compact body, like an
army invading the country, and driven forwards only by two or
three Hottentots, with a few dogs. At a great distance, the confused
sound of their bleating began to be heard; but, as they approached
nearer and nearer, the noise gradually increased, till the
various cries of the multitude mingled with the whole air, and
deadened every other sound. The shepherds seldom returned
home without bringing under their arms a lamb or two which
had been dropped in the course of the day, and as yet too weak to
follow their dam.
---------------------modo namque gemellos,
Spem gregis, ah ! silice in nuda connixa reliquit.
The faculty which the Hottentots possess, of distinguishing the
features, as it were, and characteristic appearance of each sheep, is
almost incredible, when the immense number of the flock is considered.
They seldom mistake the ewe to which each lambkin
belongs; and if they did,- such a mistake would immediately be
shown by the ewe taking no notice of the lamb offered to her.
From the neighbouring hills, Speelman brought home a short
fleshy plant, well known to the Hottentots by the name of Guaap,
and to botanists by that of Stapelia pilifera. It has an insipid,
yet cool and watery, taste, and is much used by them for the purpose
of quenching thirst; for which purpose, it would seem, nature has
designed it, by placing it only in hot and arid tracts of country. In
passing through the Karro, I expected to have seen in large quantities
a great variety of plants of that genus, but scarcely half a
dozen met my eye. But it appears that no part of the colony is so
rich in them, as the dry sandy regions lying along the western coast,
and extending over several degrees of latitude. On the other hand,
in travelling along the colony to the eastward, they gradually disappear
; nor were any discovered as we advanced deeper into the
interior of the continent, although their associates, Aloe, Mesem-
bryanthemum and Aizoon, were now and then fallen in with, almost
to our farthest range northward.
My notice was attracted by the beautiful skin of a zebra, that
had been formed into a tanning-vat, supported by four stakes on a
frame to which its edges were bound by thongs in such a manner,
that the middle, hanging down, formed a capacious' basin : (as may
be seen by the figure at the end of this chapter.) It was filled with
a liquid, in which lay a quantity of the bark of Karro-thorn, and
together with it a number of sheep-skins, first deprived of the hair,
were placed to steep. The Acacia-bark possesses a large portion of
the tanning principle, and imparts a reddish color to the leather;
but in other districts, several other sorts of barks are applied to the
same purpose. *
The sheep-leather, thus tanned, is made use of in the distant
and more unfrequented parts of the colony, for various parts of
their clothing, by the Hottentots and the poorer class of boors ; but
for the making of trowsers, it is every where in general demand.
Men’s jackets, and even women’s gowns and petticoats are made of
* Of which a kind of Ficus, C. G. 2487. 3. has been found to have powerful
properties: and Mesembryanthemum coHarium, B. a new species allied to M. uncinatum,
has been seen used for this purpose by the Hottentots.