ported it, were encrufted with a coating of clear white falt-petre,
that came off in flakes from a quarter o f an inch to an inch or
more in thicknefs. The frafture refembled that o f refined
fugar: it burned completely away without leaving any refi-
duum; and, i f diffolyed in water, and this evaporated, chry-
ftals o f pure prifmatic nitre were obtained. This fait, in the
fame ftate, is to be met with under the fand-ftone ftrata of
many o f the mountains o f Africa ; but perhaps not in fufficient
quantities to be employed as an article of export. There was
alfo in the fame cave, running down the fides of the rock, a
black fubftance that apparently was bituminous : the peafantry
called it the urine o f the Das. The dung of this gregarious
animal was lying upon the roof of the cavern to the amount of
many waggon-loads. The putrid animal matter, filtering
through the rock, contributed, no doubt, to the formation of
the nitre.
The hepatic wells and the native nitre-rocks were in the di-
vifion of Agter Sneuwberg which joins the Tarka to the fouth-
weft. Part of it refembles the other Sneuwberg ; but the fide
adjoining the Fiih-river is. Karroo ground, and the plains there
are covered with tall bufhes of the falfola. The foap that the
inhabitants make from the aihes of this plant, and the fat of
Jheep s tails, is a confiderable article e f their revenue. Cattle
and Iheep are purchafed by the butchers upon the fpot; but
foap and butter are carried in waggons to the Cape. The” corn
o f this divifion was wholly confumed by the locufts; and the
grafs and the Ihrubs were fo much devoured that the-:cattle
were
were almoft ftarving. The numerous herds of fpringboks
aflifted alfo to bare the ground of its produce. In no part of
Africa had fuch prodigious numbers of thefe animals been feen
together as in this divifion. Our party, who were accuftomed
to judge pretty nearly of the number of iheep in a flock, efti-
mated one troop o f the fpringboks to confift of about five thou-
fand ; but if the accounts of thefe people might be credited,
more than ten times that number have been feen. together at
fuch times as they were about to migrate.
On the fifteenth we made another long excurfion into the
Tarka mountains, near where they unite with the great chain
that runs along the upper part of the Kaffer country. Our
objeCt was to find among the drawings, made by the Bosjef-
mans, the reprefentation o f an unicorn. One o f the party pro-
mifed to bring us diredly to the fpot where he knew fuch a
drawing flood. We fet off at an early hour, and rode through
feveral defiles along the beds of temporary ftreamlets. In one
place was a very large and curious cavern formed by a waterfall,
that from time to time had depofited a vaft mafs of ftalacti-
tical matter ; many of the ramifications were not lefs than
forty or fifty feet in length. Some were twifted and knotted
like the roots of an old tree, and others were cellular and cavernous.
This great mafs, reflected from a flieet of deep water
beneath, clear as chryftal, hemmed in by two fteep faces of
folid rock, and fronted by two old weeping-willows, made as
fine a piece of wild and romantic fcenery as fancy could defign,
A little on one fide o f the cavern, and under a long projecting
ridge