partridges, were very plentiful, and none, except the fecond,
difficult to procure. Moft of the antelope tribe may be neareft
approached on the plains, about one or two o’clock, when the
heat o f the fun is greateft, either from their being then in a
ftate o f languor, or from their eyes being dazzled by the ftrong
light, which renders them incapable o f judging o f diftances.
The thermometer flood at 88° in the ffiade, about the middle
o f the day. For eight or ten days paft its greateft height had
been 84°. The weather almoft conftantly calm, with a cloud-
lefs iky.
The following day, after ten hours travelling diredly fouth,
over a level country, brought us to the higheft ridge of mountains
that run acrofs the fouthern angle o f Africa. It might be
confidered as a continuation o f the Compafs-berg before noticed,
though there are feveral interruptions in the interjacent
chain. At this part it had the name o f Zuure-berg, or the
Sour Mountain. The waters that iflue from its fides run in
oppofite diredions. Thofe that take a northerly courfe fall
into the Orange river ; and the united ftreamlets, flowing to
the fouthward, become at length the Great Fiffi river which
divides the colony from the Kaffer country.
Early on the morning o f the feventh, in confequence of
one of the party having afierted that fome years ago he had
met with the drawing of an unicorn in a kloof of the Zuure-
berg, we. fet out upon an excurfion acrofs this mountain.
Paintings we found, in feveral places, of a variety of animals,
but none which bore the leaft refemblance to a quadruped with
a Angle
a Angle horn. Many of the peafantry had frequently affured
me that unicorns were commonly found deflgned among the
reft; but none of them as yet had been able to point out to me
the drawing of fuch an animal, though we had viflted feveral
caverns in the Bosjefmans country for that purpofe. If, however,
we were difappointed in not flnding the objed that had
been the occaflon of the excurfion, we were amply repaid for
the inconvenience and fatigue of eight hours’ expofure to the
fcorching rays of an unclouded fun, by a variety o f other inte-
refting fubjeds that were conftantly occurring. In no part of
the journey had been found fuch an affemblage of rare plants
as grew on the fides of the Zuure-berg. The number and
great variety of the geranium family, efpecially of that genus
which, by a late botanical arrangement, has been named pelargonium,
were truly aftoniffiing. The xeranthemum fulgidum
with its brilliant yellow flowers, and the ftill more fhewy fpe-
ciofijjimum, were equally numerous ; not lefs fo many fpecies
of the everlafting 'gnaphalium. Two fpecies of that very Angular
and beautiful plant the difa, found alfo on Table mountain,
decorated the margins of the fprings upon the Zuure-berg.
At the* feet of the mountain, we procured one of the moft beautiful,
and alfo one of the moft difgnfting quadrupeds that are
perhaps to be found in the whole creation. The flrft, it would
almoft be unnecefiary to add, was the zebra, which we ffiot in
a troop conflfting of Ax ; and the latter was the bofch varke, or
wild hog of Africa, defcribed in the Syftema Nature under the
name of fus Etbioptcus. This creature is not more ugly than
it is vicious and cunning. The long ivory fangs that, like
horns, projed from its mouth, and bend upwards, make it dangerous