to beauty: chance having guided my steps to the only spot where dt
grew; nor was it ever afterwards, during my travels, met with again.
In the middle of a large plain, covered with low arid bushes,
and surrounded by moderately high mountains, we* found Schiet
Fontein (Skirmish Fountain *), so named from having been formerly
the field of an attack on the Bushmen by the Boors.
As we arrived an hour or two before sunset, I employed the
time in making some sketches of the scenery, and in examining the
nature of this station. There was abundance of good water. The
spring rose in the midst of a thicket of reeds at the head of a ravine,
down which it ran for two or three hundred yards, and then was lost
in the loose earth. A large quantity of a calcareous deposition from
the water, adhered to the base of the reeds. These, which were in
their autumnal season, and of a remarkably pale color, were of a
greater height than hitherto seen; some being nearly twelve feet
long.
The green leaves of a kind of onion, growing here wild, were
plucked by many of the Hottentots, and boiled with their meat. Following
their example, I found them as good tasted as garden-onions;
and made Gert, who acted in capacity of cook, collect a large bundle
for use, as the stock of potatoes, our only vegetable, was already exhausted.
A great number of Sparrows (Fringilla arcuata) frequented
the reeds, and kept up a continual noisy chirping, f
One of the distant hills was very remarkable: its summit had
some resemblance to a cap or h a t; and many others presented nearly
the same outline.
10th. This morning the sky was clouded, and the thirsty earth
was refreshed with a light rain, which, however, ceased before noon.
* Literally,'‘ Shoot Fountain.’
f At Schiet Fontein were gathered specimens of—r
Pteronia P of which the numerous Tritonia
flowers, with their long purple pap- Anthospermum
pus, resembled little brushes. Artemisia Afra
Allium, “ Wild onions.” Colutea (Sutherlandia)
Hesperanthera And a genus allied to Othonna.
This little seemed, however, as the promise of more, and indicated
the approach of the rainy season. The weather remaining cloudy,
prevented my taking any observation for the latitude.
We were visited in a very friendly manner by half a dozen
Bushmen, one of whom was well known to the missionaries and
Hottentots, by the name of Goedhart (Good-heart). His brother,
some years ago, going into the colony to beg tobacco, was wantonly
shot; in consequence of which this man, naturally enough, conceived
a deadly hatred for his brother’s murderers; but, unfortunately,
classed with them, the whole race of boors, and vowed perpetual
vengeance and warfare against them. He was ever on the look-out;
and, in his many predatory excursions, had carried off a great
number of cattle from the- colony. The missionaries and Klaar-
water Hottentots were not considered by him as in any way implicated
with the boors; and it was under this persuasion only, that he
came to us in peace: but, had we been a strange party of colonists,
he would doubtlessly have visited us in a very different manner;
and the first intimation of his approach, would have been a shower
of poisoned arrows poured upon us in the middle of the night.
We gave him, and each of his companions, what was considered,
a large quantity of tobacco, and they departed well satisfied. In the
same mode we dismissed the three who had been engaged at Lion
Fountain to guide us to the river by a new track; for, on maturer
deliberation, we began to be apprehensive that if, from a natural
fickleness, or any other cause, they should desert us by the way, the
least misfortune that could befall us, would be the loss of a great part
of our oxen, through want of water.
Soon after leaving Schiet Fontein, we began to ascend the
barren mountains which form the principal- range of the Karree-
bergen; and for two hours followed a stony road, along a high
level between the mountains. In other countries, mountains excite
surprise and admiration by their rude, fantastic, and irregular forms,
their spiry crags shooting up to the clouds, or their rugged sides
crumbled and moulded by time into every variety of surface; but here,
Q Q