tended branches, promifed a plentiful ftream. It happened,
however, to be perfedtly dry. The experiment of digging
was made in the bed o f the river, and at five feet under the
pebbly and chryftallized fand, the fragments apparently o f de-
compofed granite, was a ftream of clear freih water ; and from
various experiments afterwards made in the fandy beds of the
rivers of the Namaaqua country, I am inclined to think, that
fubterranean ftreams of water pais under moft o f them in this
part of Africa.
Near this river was fituated a Kraal or horde o f Namaaqua
Hottentots. Their flocks of iheep, brought in towards the
evening, might perhaps amount to three thoufand. They pof-
fefied alfo a few cattle, and a herd of fmall handfome goats, that
were fpotted like the leopard. The iheep were totally different
from the breed ufually met with in the colony. Inftead o f the
ihort, broad, and curling tails of thefe, thofe of the Namaaquas
were long and round like the common Engliih iheep. The
rams had fmall ftraight horns. The covering was ihort, ftraight,
ihining hair in general, fpotted bay and white. Thefe, in all
probability, were the indigenous iheep of the country, the broadtailed
ones having been brought into the colony from the northward.
The aflertion of Monfieur Vaillant is without any kind
of foundation, when he fays, that broad-tailed iheep tranfplanted
into the Namaaqua country lofe that part o f their character
and obtain long round tails. There are Dutch peaiants who
have lived in this country thirty years, yet have not a longtailed
iheep in their whole flock. I could have no converfation
with thefe people through the means of my Hottentots, the
la n gu a g e
language fpoken by the one being perfeitly unintelligible to the
other ; nor could they fpeak or underftand a word of Dutch.
Our next encampment was at the houfe or hovel o f a Dutch
peafant, fituated at the entrance o f a narrow defile between
two ranges o f mountains. The figure that prefented itfelf at
the door truly reprefented a being o f a different country from
that which we had left behind. It was a tall old man, with a
thin fallow vifage, and a beard o f dingy black, that extending
to the eyes where it met the ftraggling hair of the forehead,
obfcured the face like a vifor. Never was a finer figure for
the inhabitant o f a black tower or enchanted caftle, in the
page o f a romance» Not accuftomed to receive ftrangers, he
feemed, on our arrival, to be fomewhat agitated. In one corner
of the chimney of his hovel, which confifted of one apartment,
fat an old Hottentot woman, over whofe head had palled at leaft
a century of years. To her natural fallow complexion was
fuperadded no fmall quantity of foot, fo that ihe was at leaft
as black as her bearded mailer. A female Have next made
her appearance, of a piece with the two former. The faggot
prefently crackled on the hearth; a quarter o f a Iheep was laid
on the coals to broil; and the repaft was fpeedily ferved up on
the lid of an old cheft, for want of a table, and covered with
a remnant of the fame piece of cloth worn as a petticoat by
the female flave, which, it feemed not unlikely, had alfo once
been employed in the fame fort of fervice.
It turned out in converfation, that the, old gentleman had
long refided in this fequeftered fpot far removed from all
fociety;