is the confideration of the end it was meant to anfwer. The
poor wretches were peaceably fleeping under their humble
covering of mats, and in the heart of their own country, far
removed from the boundary of the colony. The inroads of
thefe favages would much more effectually be checked by
charging them boldly, whenever they ihould be known to have
pafied the limits, but not to purfue them into their own country.
This, however, would not anfwer the objeCt o f the farmer,
which is that o f procuring children. To attend his
numerous flocks and herds, he muft have many people ; and
Hottentots are now fo fcarce that a fufficient number is not to
be had. Thefe, too, muft be paid wages ; but the poor Bosjef-
man has nothing except his fheep-ikin and his meat. The
fatigues, however, that the peafantry undergo in their long
expeditions againft them are fometimes very great.. They are
frequently, for many days together, without a drop of water,
enduring hunger, want of reft, and the vicifEtudes of heat and
cold. Many fuffer from the wounds o f poifoned arrows*
which, if not mortal, frequently, by injudicious treatment,
bring on lingering complaints of which they never recover.
Some of them are prudent enough to carry with them cupping
veffels to draw out the poifon, and fweet oil to wafh the
wounds, and a quantity o f vinegar to drink; but the greateft
part depend entirely on the application of the fnake-ftone,
.which has been noticed before to be only a piece o f burnt
bone. The Hottentots generally wafh their poifoned wounds
•with a mixture of urine .and gunpowder; and it is obferved
that thefe people feldom die except wounded very feverely.
On
On the evening of the thirtieth we joined the waggons that
had proceeded along the bank of the Sea-Cow river to that
part where it paffed through an opening in a clufter o f hills,
which opening was called the fir jl poort. Here the late Colonel
Gordon, who had proceeded beyond the Governor, met
with an accident which alfo put an end to his journey : his
horfe fell with him into one of the deep, holes made by the
Bosjefmans for taking fea-cows, and was ftaked. From the
north fide of the Snowy mountains to thefe hills, there was
fcarcely an inequality in the furface of the country. Here it
began to be broken; and blue mountains appeared in the horizon
to the northward. The following day we reached the
fecond poort or pafs, through which alfo the Sea-Cow river
bent its courfe. The hills now began to increafe very confi-
derably in height, and their fummits were capped with a ftra-
tum of fand-ftone. They were alfo lengthened out into a continued
chain, fo as to prevent the poffibility of waggons paffing
to the northward.
Though none o f the party had ever been beyond the
entrance of the fecond poort, yet they willingly accepted the
propofal of making, a day’s journey within it, following the
courfe of the river as far as it might be practicable or advifeable
to proceed. The kloof we found to be in general fo very narrow,
and the river ferpentized fo much from fide to fide, paffing
clofe under the fteep rocky points, that we were obliged to pafs
it a hundred times, and had almoft abandoned the hope of making
much progrefs, when we fell into a large beaten track made
by the hippopotami or fea-cows. This carried us, without
further